[Torg] Reality Storms

[Dominick Riesland]

2009/3/13 Steve Crow <crow_steve at hotmail.com>:
> Also, keep in mind that although it was a story device, the longest ongoing
> maelstrom known is the Gaunt Man-vs-Eternity Shard battle. That lasted how
> many months? Neither one of them seemed in a rush to end the battle. :)

That one did last a while, but if you read it right, you can see why.
Apparently the two were of similar strength, and the Gaunt Man
automatically triggered Maelstrom as a weakness or something. If you
notice the description of the interaction of the storm, you see that
the Gaunt Man (being the more noticeable of the two) is constantly
being dissolved and reformed within the storm. The dissolution occurs
when the Heart of Coyote is trying to drain from the Gaunt Man, and
the reformation occurs when the Gaunt Man tries to recapture them.
With the two so close in skill and the starting totals of each (the
Heart was listed as "many hundreds"), it's not surprising that this
took a while.

> Maybe the seeming flaw in the rules is the nature of a Maelstrom result? I
> really don't like the idea of being able to drain off possibilities from the
> local environment. How many possibilities would the Gaunt Man have
> potentially stolen from Orrosh itself to power himself up with XP?

None. That is the job of Heketon, which it was able to perform quite
well in the Gaunt Man's absence, thankyouverymuch. The Gaunt Man is
able to draw from Heketon for his needs (except while in the
maelstrom). The Possibilities are taken from the storm itself, which
is in the environment but not part of the overall environment in the
sense of its Possibility Energy potential from which stelae drain. But
given the general stalemate, it's clear that had the Gaunt Man gone
for such a large total, the Heart of Coyote was either stripping them
off at an equal rate, or trying to build up an equally large total so
as to stay intact.

> Even ignoring that, it seems like the ability to drain potentially massive
> numbers of possibilities from the environment has some world/concept-bending
> repercussions.

Let's look at what it takes to try to pull such a feat off. First, the
character has to get between a +9 and +12 result on the check to get
things into maelstrom. Second, the 5 to 8 Possibilities that are lost
by the victim as part of this can't cause a loss right then. Third,
the character has to have good enough control of the situation to
insure that the opponent's attempt to drain him won't overcome his own
attempts to gain.

If you get all three of these together, without first causing the
storm to grow so large you affect your teammates' ability to perform,
you can achieve the bonus result. But anyone who is trying this has to
be blatant about it, in the sense that they are becoming a
realitymonger. There are ways to deal with a realitymonger, such as
having a powerful Ord (like a 5th-planting gospog) surrounded by
low-level Possibility-rated flunkies (like generic ninja). Watch the
realitymonger confidently stride up to the "boss" and invoke a
non-storm. Or, put him up against someone with similar skills and
"home cosm advantage" and when the next three hours of game time are
spent resolving the maelstrom, the remaining players will step in and
pound some sense into realitymonger's skull. Or arrange to have the
next six months of gameplay occur against villains from the same
reality as realitymonger, so as to deprive him of targets.

> Hrrmm. Seems like  Maelstrom should lock the radius/strength. But not allow
> opponents the option to drain possibilities from the environment. Maybe each
> post-Maelstrom result should drain/add from an opponent, rather than either
> drain from an opponent or add/such from the environment. Once the opponent
> has no possibilities (and reality adds) to give, you simply can't add any
> more to yourself.

When one side has been drained, the storm ends. That's in the rules
already. And there is no need to worry about results if the two
contestants are relatively even in skill; they will tend to stay
around the same number of Possibilities. If both are trying to grow
their own totals, they will grow at about the same rate. Likewise, if
they are both trying to deplete their opponent, the totals will fall
at about the same rate. The abuse only occurs if you have one side at
much higher skill against someone with a fair number of Possibilities
to begin with, and a clever GM can control for that...

> Seems like an Everlaw would dictate some kind of limit as well.
> Just a few thoughts...

As one member of my gaming groups likes to say, "Who needs game
balance when I have my thumping stick?" If something has the potential
for abuse, a clever GM can make a character's life miserable in
response to such abuse.

Dominick Riesland, aka Rabbitball
Creator of the Cosmversal Grimoire
"There are always possibilities, my sergeant told me. But he never had
his possibilities torn away like wings from a fly."