[IaWA] Chapter 3 Question
Valamir:
So, we're about to embark on Chapter 3 and my character tops the We Owe List. I have a question about the new Chapter 3 rule on Significance.
Here's the text in question, from page 26:
Quote
New characters (not recurring characters) can begin play with particular strengths having significance 2.
Does this mean: a) that a new character makes up a brand spankin new particular strength and immediately gets Significance 2 for it? or b) that a new character is eligible to select an existing particular strength that's already at Sig 2.
a) seems to be the most obvious interpretation...but that seems to play funny with the rules for reoccuring characters.
If you have a reoccuring character and you spend your "level up" (for lack of a better word) on rearranging your stats, then you don't get to also increase your PS's Significance. That means all of the OTHER characters are tougher / better / higher level / whatever than you. While this can help get you on the We Owe list again, its seems kind of odd to me that the player who fought and won to earn the right to have their character come back gets the "weakest" character at the table as a result...kind of works against having your character come back be a reward.
What am I missing?
agony:
I believe, and I don't have the book in front of me, that it is referring to the fact that you may increase a particular strength to two when a character re-occurs.
So for instance, your character is up to re-appear and you have the options to keep his same stats or roll new. If you do not roll up a new character (to effectively "heal" your character) I believe you may increase his particular strength to significance 2.
The rule, then, would seem to state that you may not choose to increase a particular strength until the 3rd chapter.
Moreno R.:
Charles:
No, the text talk about "new characters", no recurring ones. It say that you can create a new character and give her/him a significant strength with significance 2
Ralph:
I am not able to find the link now, but I remember Vincent saying somewhere that the particular strength can't "break the game", because they self-balance with the owe list: if you get to build a monster-PS double potent, wide, far-reaching and consequential, that give you another d12 in every conflict you play, then you will never go to the owe list and that character (and that particular strength) disappear. Or, if you get to play it again using the name of your other characters, you will fight against the advantage die that the other people get from the Owe list listing that they got when you fought them with that particular strength...
So I think that that is only a "nice gift" to people who create new character instead of toughing up the old ones. It would be coherent with the game habit of going against the "usual D&D strategies": not only you are "punished" if you play always in the most strategic way, but you are even "punished" if you play always the same character every "adventure".
Valamir:
Yeah, I'm not concerned about the "Balance"...most of my time is spent trying to find ways to justify being weaker than I could be.
It just doesn't feel right to me. If getting on the owe list is the reward...its not much of a reward if everybody else who didn't get on the owe list gets the same reward. I don't know, I'm probably over thinking it...but it struck me as being really odd and I like understanding the hows and whys of things.
Moreno R.:
Quote from: Valamir on June 19, 2008, 05:27:14 AM
It just doesn't feel right to me. If getting on the owe list is the reward...its not much of a reward if everybody else who didn't get on the owe list gets the same reward. I don't know, I'm probably over thinking it...but it struck me as being really odd and I like understanding the hows and whys of things.
Well, Vincent is the only one who can really answer about the "whys" (and I am curious about hearing more from him about his choices for this design, too), but about the "hows"... it seem to me that being on the owe list is both a reward and a responsibility. The game not only say "to be able to return, this character must do this", but says "THIS character that did so, MUST return", too.
(and we had an example of this just now with our weekly game: one of the players, still not fully at ease with the rules, did not trade the name of a character he doesn't want to play again from the owe list, even after I alerted him that if he did not do so last time he would not be able to do it next week, because it will be his turn to be the GM. So, being now the second on the list, and being the GM next week, that character WILL return two weeks from now, even if the player would have chosen another character instead. This was an error from his part, it's easy to avoid playing a character again if you don't want, but it shows that the game push with a certain force to the return of certain character and not others. It's not only a reward)
It's like the system is applying his underlying criteria about the character that "he" want to showcase during the game. First with the oracles, then with the owe list culling/spotlight. And after the first two stories, the system says "no more weak player character! Now we are playing for keeps!"
(this mean, thinking about it, that now is more difficult to get to the Owe list fighting NPCs: you have to try a little more to use lower dice, and not use your significant strength, or you have to target other PCs)
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page