[Solar System] Armor as Effect
dindenver:
Also,
This does seems to be a powerful "Effect." Maybe this should be relegated to a secret or have some other cost to allow Crafting to do more than create a bonus pool like another Ability?
Eero Tuovinen:
Good points, Paul. Let me comment on them:
Your first point is correct - a character working against an Effect might not have a chance against it. This is, however, surmountable in many different ways, and usually the Effect is only narrowly applicable. To wit:
The situation needs to be such that the character cannot go around the Effect or desist from attacking it directly.The Effect needs to be able to resist the method of attack the character is using against it.If these both hold true and the character insists on attacking a high-powered Effect (anything above level 3), then he is, indeed, potentially attacking a force he could not surmount. This is essentially the same as trying to have a conflict without sufficient Leverage - your character can try to walk through a wall all day long, but as long as he doesn't choose to break down the wall with a big hammer or otherwise change the situation, he's not going to succeed. Likewise, the guy with Strength (V) at Mediocre (0) is not going to punch through a "Plate Mail 4/V", however long he tries. He's going to need to try something else.
Although this situation practically means that there are places where the weak character can't hope to win, I find this acceptable, because the opposition in these situations is always lifeless. It's not another character you're fighting with, it's a force of nature, and sometimes you simply don't have the leverage to beat those. If the Story Guide is telling you that the wall you're climbing is an Effect (the legendary White Bulwark of the Ancients, whatever) and one with such a high level that you can't hope to win it - that's the same as refusing to run the conflict because the character lacks Leverage.
(Philosophically, check what the booklet says about Transcendent Effects - those are just like setting facts in all ways, including being immune to overcoming them in conflict. You can't beat gravity with a sword.)
We have to understand, though, that all of this is strictly a matter of setting and campaign style. The Solar System booklet provides many tools, of which some may not be what you'd want to use for certain sorts of campaigns. TSoY makes a point of all things being surmountable, but that might not work for a grittier sort of campaign where you want to have some real limitations in place. I'll discuss these stylistic issues in the TSoY book when I get around to writing it.
As for your second point, let me clarify: unless I misremember, when I said that you can't prevent others from hurting each other, we were discussing a situation where both sides are trying to hurt each other, and you're trying to prevent them from having a fight at all. It's this "having a fight at all" that is the key here - if you're trying to stop other characters from acting in a certain way in the fiction, you'll need to force them it via the conflict mechanics. On the other hand, if you just want to protect another character from some Harm, I find it quite permissible to bring that up in the negotiation phase: character A is going to stab character B, you interject that your character is going to jump in and prevent it to protect B. According to the multiple-participant stuff in the extended conflict chapter the description of the action will determine who is going to take Harm if A succeeds in his stab - might be you, might be B, might be you both.
"Interpose themselves" means, quite simply, that you say that your character is going to interpose himself in between you and your target, and the SG agrees that this is not unreasonable in the fictional situation. Some things you can't protect others from - if your opponent attacked your friend B verbally, there's not much you could do to protect him, is there? Or perhaps you could, in which case you'd tell the other players what it is that you say or do to counter the insidious attack, allowing you to make an opposed check against the attacker.
So perhaps our earlier discussion was a bit confused if you were left with the impression that characters can't absolutely ever take the Harm intended for another. I'd have to reread that discussion to see what sort of gibberish I was offering there, but my suspicion is that I was addressing another point - you can't make another character do anything without mechanically Harming them was my point in that discussion, I think. So if you're trying to stop two characters from fighting, you have to, paradoxically, do it by filling their Harm tracks and forcing them out of the conflict, at which point you can just narrate how they act. In summation:
Forcing somebody to do something: as long as they disagree, continue pounding their Harm track. Need not be violent in the fiction, might be just sharp words or whatever. Sooner or later the other player gives or takes level 7 Harm, forcing them to bend to your will.Protecting somebody: Describe actions that put you in between the attacker and victim. Take Harm intended for others for yourself. Grab a Secret or two that specifically allow you to do this even in contrived situations. Die, most likely, protecting your charge.Make sense?
--
Dave: The armor does not have an Ability at Grandmaster (4); rather, its check result is level 4 already, and it doesn't roll the dice. This is exactly the same as if the armor-smith who made the armor were then and there rolling dice against you. The major difference is that the Effect is reusable... I haven't had problems with this, but you know, I could see using a variant rule wherein the value of the Effect dropped by one each time it's used this way against an Ability check, successful or not. I wouldn't use that in all situations, but in some cases it'd be pretty appropriate.
Also, I fully support fiddling with the rules by altering the crunch landscape. For example, I could imagine a Secret along these lines:
Secret of Armor Use
The character is trained in the use of heavy medieval armor. Whenever attacked with appropriate melee weapons, the player may opt to act in parallel himself and let his armor take the blow according to the rules on conflicting with Effects. In simple conflict the character does not need to make a check himself at all if he's willing to trust in his Effect. Cost: 1 Vigor per use
(Remember that having something like this on the table implies that others can't do this stuff - in this case, obviously others can't use armor Effects to block in this way in this campaign, even if it's described in the rules booklet as a general option.)
Populate your crunch landscape with this sort of stuff if your group ends up over-using the Effect system - pricing the Secret in a balanced manner is also helpful if the SG is feeling pressure from players who insist on making the Effect rulings a big deal. If the cost is balanced correctly, the players will themselves choose to use their Effects as bonus dice or independent actors according to what makes sense in the fiction. I haven't had trouble with this myself, but different groups have different concerns, so I can easily imagine players who'd bitch and make the SG's life difficult if they felt that their Effects were not given enough room to shine.
(I'm sorry if my answers to these questions seem vague or non-authoritative; I'm just describing how I myself played this last spring and summer, not laying the law on how the game should be played.)
dindenver:
Eero,
That clears up a lot, thanks.
I guess what I meant by this secret was that it "seems" like the secret would be for the guy who made the armor, not for the user. I mean, most Abilities give you a pool of bonus dice. But, for some reason, we are saying this one ability can make bypass this restriction and make a standing Ability check result. I am not suggesting this is a game breaker, just wondering why one Ability uses different rules from others?
Seems like it devalues Secret of Imbuement a little.
Eero Tuovinen:
Well, it's not that only this Ability can do this stuff; rather, it's just that this is the example we've bandied about here. You could use any Effect as a standing Ability check - the origin for Effects is in the Ammeni poison rules of TSoY, which basically posit something like an Effect already: when you create these poisons you make an Ability check and write the result down as the strength of the poison, which is then later compared to the resistance of the victim when the poison is used. It's up to the group to decide when it makes sense for Effects to work as delayed support checks for bonus dice and when they should be more like Ammeni poisons.
Apart from armor and poisons, other things you might create as Effects and end up using directly, as opposed to bonus dice:
Use Oratory (I), raise a mob and send it to capture your foe for you. The foe will have to overcome the strength of the mob to scatter it.Set a trap for your enemies, anybody stepping into it will have to oppose it with React (I) to avoid the consequences.Build a robot or several to do your bidding while you're off in Arcturus. They need not be characters if they're simple and inflexible.Make a work of art that tries to transmit the idea of gender equality to the viewers. Have others resist it to stay oblivious to your truth.As can be seen, it's not just armor that can do this stuff. Of course, it could be - I can see limiting this sort of thing to just being done through Secrets. But when I've played, this rule has been used whenever characters have acted indirectly, so that they are not necessarily present in the scene themselves when the Effect strikes. Whichever Abilities they end up using indirectly, those are the ones they can use this rule with.
This of course brings the question of why I'm using "Plate Mail 4/V" as my example Effect for this sort of thing when I'm much more likely to use this rule in some more indirect situation. I must be stupid or something. (Not that I wouldn't use this with plate mail - I like the image of the nigh invulnerable knight clad in expensive craftsmanship. It just might not be so obvious to others why I'd use this rule with them.)
dindenver:
Eero,
Um, I don't think you are stupid (in fact, I am pretty sure I am the one that is being stupid here, lol).
I guess with Ammeni Alchemy this rule makes sense because you only get one chance to poison someone. Where as the armor example seems to take us into a realm that vastly favors defense.
In my mind, using this rule for a one-off Effect (like poison or traps) makes perfect sense. For lasting artifacts, it seems like doing this should require a secret (Secret of the Forge to make this armor or something). This is just a opposed basic ability check, its just that the players don't roll at the same time.
Of course, I might be over thinking all this. Let me know what your play looks like, or what the weapon ratings are like in campaigns that use this rule.
Sorry, I am a slow learner, so I am still trying to work this out is all. The good news is, once I learn something through my slower process, it sticks (we won't have to go over this again).
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