[Torg] Reality Storms

Sat Mar 14 17:59:49 EDT 2009

> "The problem is..."? Why is that a problem? Since what we want is a reason
> to discourage excessive reality storming and the occasional opportunity to
> peg back a storm knight who goes overboard with this, a lack of information
> on the part of the players in this regard is a good thing. It makes reality
> storming for Possibilities akin to digging for buried treasure in a
> minefield.
> 

Because it was suggested as a deterrent. But if the PCs don't know the fact the GM wants them to know that might deter them, it doesn't... well, deter them. :)

> you). Also, no matter what the player chooses, the NPC will still be losing
> at least one Possibility every round, because the last thing the NPC wants
> is for the PC to suck a hundred Possibilities out of the maelstrom and
> *then* strip the PC of all his Possibilities. The NPC is better off losing
> early, because while he'll have lost all his Possibilities, at least he
> won't then be facing a PC with a hundred Possibilities. So, the NPC should
> be spending a Possibility every round to boost his reality attack. Better
> that than to give the PC free rein and eventually have the Possibilities
> stripped away when the PC gets around to it.
> 

That's good. Once the losing NPC (or PC) is down to 0 possibilities (and some folks noted it can happen quite quickly: does it happen quickly or slowly?), the battle can still be maintained indefinitely. All the winning side has to do is keep adding possibilities to himself.

The wining side can simply spend to negate. Granted, since PCs have cards, this gives them a bit of an edge.

> And then there's the option that the rules don't talk about - one that
> applies not only here, but other times that somebody desires to lose a
> confrontation. Since the NPC is better off losing quickly than losing slowly
> (when he can't reasonably win) the smartest move he can make is to encourage
> his own transformation. What happens when the opponent in a reality storm
> stops resisting? The rules don't directly cover it, but I'd say that however
> you'd handle a character who wants to lose in other situations should apply
> here too. What happens when a PC throws a punch at an NPC, and the NPC wants
> to cop it real good so he can bring down a lawsuit later? How much can he
> lower his defense? The same applies. So the NPC suddenly stops resisting,
> and the PC gets a transform (much sooner than he otherwise would) and the
> storm is over.
> 

That's a possibility (so to speak :) ), although it seems to attribute a bit too much meta-textual consideration to the NPC.

> Now, if you still think your players are going to take too much advantage of
> this situation, a small change that is still pretty much in keeping with the
> setting material concerning reality storms would be to simply eliminate the
> rule that says that instant transform results are not possible once a
> maelstrom starts. This would speed the ending of maelstroms which are a
> foregone conclusion, as the NPC would not have to use up all his
> Possibilities first. The first time the PC achieves a transform result, the
> maelstrom ends.
> 

Also a possibility. I'm not sure why instant transformations aren't allowed once a maelstrom occurs.

> > (Although two interesting questions: approved actions don't 
> > matter in a reality storm, but do the action modifiers, the 
> > Ups and Flurries and so on, kick in? Also, by definition 
> > should any IRS be "dramatic," so you should always use the 
> > dramatic line resolution?)
> 
> It's a conflict just like any other. All the standard rules apply, unless
> altered by the rules specific to the situation. Prior to R&E, I'd have said
> that means that approved actions are allowed, but most approved actions
> would never apply. "Any" would, and so would "Attack" (except possibly while
> in a maelstrom and absorbing Possibilities rather than draining them from
> your opponent), but none of the others. R&E added a rule stating that
> approved actions don't apply to participants in a storm (though Jim may have
> found that rule in an earlier source that I just don't know about). R&E also
> added the possibility of active defense against reality storming (which is
> why the "Defend" action would never have applied).
> 

Yeah, I thought that too, that Attack, Defend and Any would net the PCs cards during a reality storm. The potential problem is it somewhat limits using P-rated opponent in standard scenes since the Conflict Line activities favor the PC.

The conflict lines during a Dramatic encounter tend to at least give the NPCs something akin to the PCs' card advantage. And you'd think an IRS by its nature would be... well, Dramatic. :)

> You seem to be focussed on a need to prevent every reality storm. Having an
> occassional storm isn't a problem. Many storms will never result in a
> maelstrom at all.
> 

I'll concede, the IRS rules seem so at odds with the rest of the game (bringing the focus down to one PC , discouraging teamwork, stripping out all the cool "toys" that the rest of the game seems to focus on), that they tend to stick out. Even without XP grabbing, IRSs seem rather boring. No approved actions, just two characters, no toys, they make the same skill check every round. The other players certainly find them boring to watch. Even more boring on the times when someone has their opponent down to 0 possibilities but still has a few reality adds, and the maelstrom XP-grabbing begins.

But barring preventing IRSs, limiting the ability for someone to sit there and grab in essence XP in large amounts from a storm, yes. As I noted in another response, the problem is just as much the person it happens to by accident, as much as the "realitymonger." It only has to happen once, to a significant degree, to throw a game out of balance as far as PC XP is concerned.

In fact, if one PC accidentally stumbles into a situation where they end up with 10/20/30+ more XP and the other players notice, that tends to encourage them to deliberately emulate the accidental. It's akin to a wars race.

> > All I can say is that it seems to happen with some 
> > regularity. Keep in mind that a PC can go into an IRS armed 
> > with the cards they need by trading beforehand. You'd be 
> > surprised what a well-placed Presence card will do to get to 
> > to a Maelstrom result.
> 
> This makes it sound like your players have worked out effective tactics to
> game the situation, and are deliberately using them. You need to get your
> own tactics in order. If they've been doing this a lot, it's time for you to
> play to win. Just the once will probably do it. Put them up against a
> strongly Reality-rated opponent, preferably with a home-ground advantage. If
> they are inclined to play for the critical moment in order to get cards into
> play quickly to win the storm, you could even have a decoy stormer, who will
> persuade a storm knight to do precisely that, and after that storm is over,
> bam! Hit him with the real antagonist. Strip the Reality-weenie of all his
> Possibilities and his Reality skill, and see how everyone else reacts.
> 

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I'd say more it's one or two "lucky" results (which seem to occur relatively often enough that they're not really "lucky" or statistically improbable).

As a GM, I'm not interested in "winning." But as you say, it's not a matter of being neutral. I'd rather avoid a boring situation (for everyone except the person who accidentally or deliberately ends up with lots o'XP) that doesn't seem to fit with the game, rather than engage in an escalating series of maneuvers to deal with the repercussions of the rule.

I've never had anyone play for the moment yet. Normal card play seems sufficient.

I'd say it's a player-level rather than character-level problem, but really it seems to be more a game-mechanic problem. Really the problem is that when it happens occasionally by "luck," it's hard to tell other players "Well, okay, it happened by accident so please don't deliberately do it." After all, the "lucky" player already grabbed their XP.

So part of the problem is the rule allows XP-grabbing. Another part of the problem is the other PCs seeing it happen and thinking they need to do it to maintain XP balance, as it were.

> The game mechanic is, in this case, an accurate modelling of a fact of the
> game setting. If you don't like the way it works, you have to change the
> setting, not just a random game mechanic.
> 

Well, presumably it's not a random mechanic. However, the rule stands in large part in isolation from the game setting. Some of the changes you propose, and that I'm looking for, don't seem to require a change to the setting. If as you note the rule is changed so that instant Transformations are still permitted in a Maelstrom, no change in the setting is necessary. It doesn't even seem to contradict anything established in the setting.

> > Taking a larger look, it seems that having a skill that in 
> > some part lets you gain experience would inevitably cause 
> > problems. It didn't seem to be addressed in the R&E, which I 
> > found a little odd.
> 
> Maybe that should be taken as an indication that it does not inevitably
> cause problems.
> 

Or maybe not. I don't know if it inevitably causes problems. Or really care. :) I just know that I keep seeing it come up, in campaigns separated over decades and with wildly varying groups of PCs.

---

Steve Crow

"Logic merely enables one to be wrong with authority."

Check out my website at:  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/4991/

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