Problems with Poisn'd
Matt Snyder:
I'm totally confused, Vincent. I can't even figure out where or how to ask my questions right now. I'm pretty sure Poison'd is not the game for me, but that's no big deal.
I do want to know why the heck I won't just chose to "lose" and leave the fight every time I lose the first fight roll. I also want to know why the heck the winner, can't ever escalate, and thus actually kill some character/ship I want to kill unless the other player makes what seems to me a stupid choice.
Also, Ralph did a SUPERB job fairly recording the events and issues of our session.
Ben Lehman:
Quote from: Matt Snyder on February 27, 2008, 11:12:22 AM
I do want to know why the heck I won't just chose to "lose" and leave the fight every time I lose the first fight roll. I also want to know why the heck the winner, can't ever escalate, and thus actually kill some character/ship I want to kill unless the other player makes what seems to me a stupid choice.
Hey, Matt: I can talk a bit about this from my own experience playing the game. We didn't have as rough a time as you guys, although there were certainly hiccups. I think largely we did not go into the game with the assumption that the mechanics would carry us (basically the whole hand-off thing that Vincent talked about above) and that we were playing out our characters primarily: with that in mind, we could invent around the missing chunks in the rules.
The strategy of fighting in Poison'd is complex.
If you don't want to be in the fight, you should give on your first round if you lose the roll. This has the effect of totally blasting away all of your lovely stored-up Xs, but ultimately that's not a huge cost, particularly if you have a wide variance in your attributes so success rolls are pretty easy.
However, if you want to be in the fight (as in: you want to kill or injure someone else, you want to take that ship, etc), losing on the first roll is a pretty good position to be in. The important thing to remember is that ground position (the dice on the table) is different from over all position (the dice on the table + the Xs you have stored up.)
So, let's say you and I are having a knife-fight, and I want to fuck you up real good. You have, to start with, 6 dice, I have 5. I have 7 Xs, you have 4.
You roll: 3 successes, 3 failures.
I roll: No successes, 5 failures.
Oh, man, I suck! Okay, so I've got to deal with this.
The first thing I do is spend Xs, one at a time, rolling new dice in until I'm just shy of success. Let's say we get a roughly normal distribution on that, so I spend four Xs. Now the status is:
Your roll: 3 success, 3 failures. 4 stored Xs
My roll: 2 success, 7 failures. 3 stored Xs
Now I escalate. I pick up my 7 failures and reroll them. Let's say we get about an even split again. Now the table, at escalation level two, is:
Your roll: 3 success, 3 failures. 4 stored Xs.
My roll: 6 success, 3 failures. 3 stored Xs
Now, even if you spent all your Xs, chances are you couldn't catch up with me. You'll have to take the level two knife fight consequences (mutilitation, I think? I don't have a copy of the rules handy) or escalate. And I have a pretty good shot even if you blow all your Xs and escalate on me.
yrs--
--Ben
Valamir:
Quote from: lumpley on February 27, 2008, 10:14:13 AM
So strange!
You make your Brutality vs Soul roll because your character's attacking someone helpless or unsuspecting. The GM doesn't call for it. The GM can remind you to make it and oversee you making it, of course - part of the GM's responsibility is to remember what triggers the game's mechanics and watch for those things, since she's the one with the objectivity and remove to do so. But you make the roll because of what your character does, not because the GM calls for it.
Ok, I wish I could find my copy because the way I'm remembering the text it sounded like the only thing a player could do was describe what they were doing and then the GM told them what to roll. I don't recall anything indicating the player could actually make a roll just because they choose to.
So you're saying any of the following is perfectly kosher?
1) Player: "I sneak up behind Dirty Pete and stab him."
GM: "Make a Brutality vs. Soul Roll"
2) Player: "I sneak up behind Dirty Pete and stab him. I'm going to make a Brutality vs. Soul Roll"
GM: "Sure"
3) Player: "I sneak up behind Dirty Pete and stab him. I'm going to make a Brutality vs. Soul Roll".
GM: "No, let's call that an "Act Carefully" Roll instead.
With respect to #3, is choosing which type of roll 100% GM authority? If so, is the GM supposed to use this authority solely and only to match the type of roll as closely as possible to the fiction? Or is the GM supposed to use this authority to influence the fiction by playing to the players' strengths or playing against their weaknesses?
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Immediately after the roll, I have no idea what happens, whether you go to a fight or what. Everybody should probably turn to look at Dirty Pete's player, since it's kind of in her court - does Dirty Pete fall down and start to cry? Does Dirty Pete fight back? Does Dirty Pete do something other than fight back, first, like endure duress? Does Dirty Pete's player want a flashback before the fight? Also, what if Slaughterin' Steve is watching in the shadows, and now he jumps out and attacks you? All those things are legit.
Ok, now you're losing me again. Why are we looking to Dirty Pete for those decisions and not me?
Lets back up. I say "I'm stabbing Pete". I roll. I get 3 Xs. Is my knife right now at this very moment in the fiction plunged to the hilt in Dirty Pete's kidney? Does winning the success roll actually mean that what I said happens?
If so, I assume that just because I said I stabbed Pete, and just because my knife is now in his kidney that Pete isn't actually suffering any ill effects from this at this time. The only mechanical effect is my 3 Xs which I'll be using in the subsequent fight to actually inflict the damage.
So if all that's true...why are we looking to Pete? Why isn't the GM looking to me and saying "Ralph, do you want to take this to a fight?" What in the rules tells us that before I can force a fight, Pete gets a chance to do a flash back or to endure duress?
See there's something absolutely fundamentally critical missing here. And that is the actual absolute trigger for a fight. There has to be one or there is no way to answer any of these questions. What good does it do me to sneak up on Pete and stab him in the back, catching him completely unawares...if he can turn around and make a dozen success rolls to earn way more Xs than I got? If that's what Pete's player does, then what prevents me from making a dozen more success rolls so I can get the advantage again. This could continue forever ad naseum if there's no rule that says unequivicably...stop pissing around...take it to the fight rules already.
What does that?
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She's not allowed to say what Dirty Pete does, that's his player's job, so she can't bring THAT fight. However, she's allowed to pass to Dirty Pete's player: "so you hear him behind you and the knife and whoops! you dodge, so what do you do?" (Significantly, she's just cut you out of making further success rolls, but maybe Dirty Pete gets some.)
Woah...completely lost me there. That's not in the rules at all.
Again, same question as above...why is it Pete's player who gets the authority to call for the fight? How does this "pass to Dirty Pete's player" work? I don't understand what's being passed. How am I cut off from making future success rolls? If the GM doesn't end the success roll sequence by calling a fight, there's nothing in the rules preventing me from just narrating something else and making more rolls...how did the GM get that authority?
First let me ask you this...are you describing how you're going to write it up for the final product, so I shouldn't worry about none of this being in the Ashcan at this point...or are you describing how it actually is written up in the Ashcan that I just completely missed.
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"Any time there's a fight in the fiction, the players of the fighting characters must do the fight mechanics."
Ummm, this is me looking at you all squinty...this sounds awful dang circular to me. Who decides what's a fight and what's a success roll? I just totally stabbed Pete in the freaking Kidney...how is that NOT a fight in the fiction? And yet, we didn't use the fight mechanics...we used the success mechanics to handle it. So now I'm standing there, with a bloody knife, totally wanting to finish Pete off...how is that NOT a fight in the fiction? And yet, we aren't going to fight mechanics yet...we're allowing Pete to roll duress and flashbacks.
So point blank...when the hell do we get to the fight mechanics? There've been 2 opportunities in this example so far that meet your above statement, and neither of them have triggered it...so clearly, there has to be something else. "you'll know it when you see it" I don't think is going to cut it as an effective rule here. How are you defining "there's a fight" so that every one is clear what one is?
The buck has to stop somewhere. Who in this example has the authority to say "no more stinking success rolls, now we go to the fight mechanics", and when do they get to say it?
How do I force a fight on Pete?
How does Pete force a fight on me?
How does the GM say "enough, this BS has gone on long enough, time to fight and get it over with already"?
I'm really struggling with this, because I know you understand IIEE as well as anybody...and yet...this seems like a huge IIEE disaster waiting to happen (actually, in our case, it did happen). So what am I missing?
lumpley:
Dirty Pete has to fight back, of course! If he doesn't fight back, it's not a fight! It's just a stabbing!
-Vincent
Valamir:
Why would Dirty Pete do that?
If I were Dirty Pete's player, I'd be all like: "Ok, fine...I'm bleeding...I have no loss of effectiveness, I have taken no "damage"...and absolutely nothing has happened to me whats-so-ever except fictional color...Ok, whatever, I go back to making my preparations for the fight against the Resolute and Ralph can continue to stab me until his little heart is content because it doesn't actually mean anything in the game, and I'm totally not interested in going there. This is me, bleeding all over the deck, and walking away."
Meanwhile what can I do? I REALLY REALLY want Dirty Pete dead. Dirty Pete's player is totally not interested in giving me the satisfaction and won't engage me in a fight. Now what. Here I am, bloody knife, fury in my eyes, spouting amazing piratey soliliquies...and what...Pete can just walk away and leave me hanging?
Really?
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