[Trollbabe] Question about Conflicts regarding Goals and Scale
Christian:
Hello,
I’ve been a long time lurker here, and here is my first post!
I’ve played lots of RPGs in the days and very few in the last years. I must say that I’m very impressed by what I discovered here!
So, I bought a few games… I first tried InSpectres, that was a great success. Now I’m focused on Trollbabe and In a Wicked Age.
I hope to play Trollbabe soon. I’ve read and reread the book, searched and read lots of AP reports and Q/A, and I think I got an honest grasp on it, that is until I bring it on the table!
I will :
- use the lowest-of-the-2 Social score rule
- not use modifiers, use agreement/narration instead
- not use multi action type conflicts
- not use action type changing in a series
- promote pace 1 conflicts
There is something I just can’t seem to wrap my head around though, I’ll try to express it clearly through an example (yes it’s hypothetical, but I don’t find the solution, please!)
The Scene : the Trollbabe enters the council room. The king is here, surrounded by 20 warriors. The trollbabe asks for a conflict:
Action Type : Fight
Pace : 1
Goal : to kill the king
Fair and clear : she’s aware that all the warriors will try to stop her
Roll the die… Success, first roll.
Now what bugs me here is this: it seems to me the Goal is off scale (the 20 warriors try to stop her), but on the other hand she tries to kill one person only… Honesty drives me to narrate how she kills the king, and then possibly ask for another conflict with the warriors. But in the end it’s almost as if the king was alone. The thing is: I don’t have a problem with the Trollbabe killing the king, but with a Goal and Conflict that ignore the warriors.
What did I miss, how should I rule the conflict? Should we change the Goal? Should we agree first for a “bypass the warriors” conflict (which, incidentally is off scale if I understand the rules correctly). I don’t feel I can get through with narration alone, as she’s not even incommoded and I cannot introduce new actions or conflicts in narration (rule).
Thank you!
Ron Edwards:
Hi Christian, and welcome!
Part of the game concept is that she can, indeed, try to kill the king - and do it. Warriors be damned. No single person is safe from a trollbabe from the outset of play.
Do remember that you narrate her success. Your job in this circumstance is (a) to maintain her as a protagonist and (b) to stay plausible. It's up to you to say how she gets there and does the deed. Now, working backwards, that shouldn't be so hard because the player has already contributed during fair-and-clear (or should have), and he too was using (a) and (b) as guides. So you have something to work with.
It's fair for you to follow up with another conflict against the warriors, if you want. In that case, given her Scale, she cannot simply defeat and/or kill them all - she can only consequentially defeat one of them. She might escape, though.
Does that help?
Best, Ron
Christian:
Hello Ron,
Thank you for your response and reactivity.
Yes it does help !
The Trollbabe is a force to be reckoned, and that force is internal and dramatic.
(Off topic, but anyway) great music for Trollbabe games : Hagalaz Runedance (listen to Frigga's Web).
Thanx !
James_Nostack:
Christian, one wrinkle in your hypothetical is that a King by necessity wields a lot of social and political influence. So killing the dude might mean that he dies off--but any larger socio-political problems will be maintained by his successor until the Trollbabe is capable of taking on conflicts on a kingdom-wide scale.
Christian:
Hi Christian,
Quote
... just to be sure, would it be fair to ask for another conflict first, to bypass the warriors ? Because I'd like to know if it matters wether the warriors are here or not (regarding mechanics).
Not after the player announces the first conflict. An announced conflict becomes the operative one, by definition. If you want her to fight the warriors first, then shout it out first.
Quote
Then there is the "How to play out the consequences of the action ?" to which you answered (to be fair I didn't think of this aspect in the first place). So, correct me if I'm wrong : if the king was killed in an attempt to stop a war, that wouldn't work, but if he was killed to save someone, that could work, right ?
Almost right. To save the person, then the goal has to be save the person. The player might begin the action (and call the conflict) as "I kill him!" regarding the king, but in those moments of clarifying the conflict, the player must specify saving the person as the goal with killing the king as a means. I have some extensive text in the new rules about how this is done.
The point is that it is OK to call a conflict by stating an action ("I kill him" or "I hit him" being the leading favorites), but we don't go into fair-and-clear until everyone knows what the Goal really is. Sometimes the Goal is absolutely inherent in the action, and other times it needs a bit of specification.
Action Type helps a lot. Let me give you a hypothetical version of your scene in the king's hall, keeping in mind that the same thing might arise through a very different set of statements as well.
You: The warriors gather in front of the king, who shouts, "Take yourself out of my land, you horned bitch! I rule here, none other"
Me: I kill him. Conflict!!
The rule is now that before we go any further, Action Type and Goal must be specified, both by me as the conflict-caller.
Me: The Action Type is Social, to save Emhilde.
See? That solves everything. Killing the king is now understood to be the means. We move into Pace and Fair-and-clear without any trouble. Keep in mind that you narrate successes! So say she wins on the first roll. Nothing stops you from saying, "You kill him, and now the warriors seize you." That is 100% by the rules. She's killed the king and saved Emhilde, but your warriors are not irrelevant.
Oh, there are so many other things to talk about ... For one, the player may have specified a one-roll conflict, but you have the option to bump the Pace to a longer sequence. Given your posts so far, I'm guessing you'd do that - and by definition, that means you can impose the "need to get past the warriors" as the first Exchange in the steps. So that solves the whole "meaningless warriors" problem right there. If she gets past them, well, at least she had to do it, and if she doesn't, then that's how she fails - they take her down (at whatever degree of damage the player arrives at through re-rolls).
Best, Ron
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