[Sorcerer] A few mechanical questioms
Mackie:
Well, it may be my oddities! But ill try to explain.
The way you describe it, there are some things that grate slightly - for me anyway. They are more loosely "simulationist" and "gamist" concerns, if you will. My personal view is that if it dont "cost" anything in terms of narration then attend to these.
Anyways;
Firstly, it seems that the more powerful the demon you banish, the less likely to are to gain humanity (as long as its power is greater than your humanity). THis feels very peculiar to me; the more powerful the demon, the more you are doing the universe a favour so to speak.
Secondly, a character with 5 humanity is going to have more chance of gaining humanity than one with 1. Again, this feels a little odd to me, both conceptually and for the purposes of gaming. But there may be a reason for this I'm not getting.
THirdly, if you take the broad concept of "risk vs reward"; and I appreciate you may not wish to, it looks weird. The more chance you have of actually banishing a demon, the more likely you are to gain humanity. Feels odd.
Lastly, if you look at the probability curbve of gining that reward it looks weird. YOu have NO chance up until your humanity is less than the demons power, then you suddenly jump to the MAXIMUM chance of a gain, and it starts decreasing again.
I appreciate my arguments are hardly going to unravel the game, and I always stand by the maxim that story comes first. But the rule for this just feels a little itchy for me. There may be a very good reason for how it is, but I cant quite grasp it.
Thanks again,
PS: If you ever feel like enlightening me how the "Protection" power works that woiuld also be great! does it protect against all "sorcerouys" attacks? or do you have to specify a particular form.
greyorm:
Ron, I wish I could help untangle the question to help it make sense for you--it's pretty apparent to me what's being asked and why--but is your trip up occurring in the success percentages of Mackie's question? That is, Mackie's noted that, statistically, low Humanity sorcerers will have vastly less success in gaining Humanity from banishing big demons, while high Humanity sorcerers will be vastly more successful in gaining Humanity from banishing even big, badass demons.
Or with numbers:
Mackie has a Humanity of 2. He banishes a demon of Power 8. 2 dice against 8 to gain a point of Humanity is pretty low odds.
Ron has a Humanity of 6. He banishes a demon of Power 8. 6 dice against 8 to gain a point of Humanity is good odds.
And the issue is, thematically, why the drugged-out, baby-killing, transgressive wretch with low Humanity who manages to banish a huge demon (making a pretty big thematic statement) is the one whose Humanity gain is least likely to occur? When in comparison, the high Humanity sorcerer who achieves the same feat has the better chance to gain more Humanity for doing something not nearly as thematically punchy.
From the angle he's approaching it, I can see his point about it seeming a bit strange.
Noclue:
That makes sense to me. It's easier to be human the more human you've been.
greyorm:
Quote from: Noclue on September 26, 2009, 10:03:37 PM
That makes sense to me. It's easier to be human the more human you've been.
That's rather the way I was looking at it, too--via a sort of comparative transgressiveness--but, like I said, I can understand the confusion depending on how one is viewing it.
Mackie:
I can see the arument "its easier to be human the more humanity you have", but it dosent quite fit with me for a few reasons...
Firstly, it doesen't make sense (at least, in isolation) with the rule (which I totally understand is needed) that you dont gain humanity if the demon is less powerful than your humanity.
Secondly, its isnt actually "its easier to be human the more humanity you have" - its "its easier to gain humanity the more humanity you have". Being human (as an action chpoce), as far as I understand it, has nothing to do with your actual humanity score. Even if it did, we are talking about efficacy in being human, not chance of clawing back some humanity back for yourself. Humanity gains for good actions are, fundamentally, equally "easy" to "win" whatever your humanity is.
Thirdly, there may be a metagame consideration here. The rule "you dont gain a humanity if the humanity score is more than the demons power" is, I presume, to stop banishing-abuse. High humanity characters swanning around easily banishing demons and building up ridiculous (?game breaking) levels of humanity. I would have thought the rule as you describe it feeds into this "banish-abuse" mechanic, whereas the reverse position would be entirely coherent with the metagame consideration of avoiding it.
Lastly, it still dosent answer the niggle in my brain as to why you are more likely to gain a point of humanity for lesser power demons (at least, presuming their power is still higher than your humanity)
Regards
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page