Trollbabe barrage of questions: help!
Moreno R.:
Thanks!
I never thought about Scale limiting the range of a spell. I always assumed that it limited only the area of effect (the target). But it make sense. I don't think that the range is exactly the same as the scale, however, because in that case the trollbabe's magic at range 1 would work only on herself and people she can touch. What is the limit of range you use with every step of the scale?
Do you limit the duration of magic, too?
Meanwhile, another question popped up in the forum:
This happened during an adventure where the thing at stake was a woman, with a jealous husband. During a scene, the husband strangled the woman, with the trollbabe present, but totally indifferent to the crime.
- First question: the GM should have called a conflict? The trollbabe stated that she was doing nothing, so it was a conflict between two npc only.
After the murderer left the scene, the trollbabe went near to the corpse... and made a spell to resurrect the woman!
- Second question: it was a valid objective? How would have you played it as the GM?
Ron Edwards:
Wait one moment - I think you may have mis-read my reply a little bit. As a Trollbabe GM, I do not use range and duration as Scale-driven considerations for Magic conflicts. Please do not take that part of my reply as canonical instruction!
I included it strictly to serve a GM who might not like a wide-open interpretation of such issues for Trollbabe magic. The rules make it possible to interpret "I swim across the ocean" as a conflict because the ocean is very big, and some people might be more comfortable using the same logic for magic. Whether this is mediated strictly in Scale terms is probably a matter for interpretation, although I wouldn't think so.
Again, this concept is a side point for a possible case and should not be blown out of proportion. My standards for GMing Trollbabe magic are precisely and only those explained in the book, which is true because I wrote those standards as a direct description of how I use the rules.
Regarding your questions,
Quote
This happened during an adventure where the thing at stake was a woman, with a jealous husband. During a scene, the husband strangled the woman, with the trollbabe present, but totally indifferent to the crime.
- First question: the GM should have called a conflict? The trollbabe stated that she was doing nothing, so it was a conflict between two npc only.
The GM should not call a conflict in situations like this. In fact, by definition, he or she cannot do so. In rules terms, it is not a conflict at all, merely narration of events as depicte in the "cycle" diagram that only has conflicts as a subroutine, which in this case would not be used.
Quote
After the murderer left the scene, the trollbabe went near to the corpse... and made a spell to resurrect the woman!
- Second question: it was a valid objective? How would have you played it as the GM?
This is not only valid Goal for a Magic act and conflict, it is beautiful, wonderful, and exciting. I want to hug and kiss the player - well, I might look first - but I bet I would!
For one thing, the possibilities for narrating the outcomes are endless, success or failure. I'd almost look forward to a severe failure in order to see what the player came up with, e.g. creating a terrible undead avenger, or a possessor ghost who enters the trollbabe. And with success, the GM has a fascinating new character concept handed to him or her on a silver platter. But even this is only a facet of a bigger, more important point.
You see, the real topic is not "what is a conflict" or "is this a valid conflict," which are easy, but the Stakes of the adventure. If the trollbabe had not tried to resurrect the woman and simply left her dead, then the adventure would be past its final Pivot point. All the GM does now is describe some characters' reactions and some consequences of the murder, and the story is over. But given the attempt, and the nigh-certain fact that something will certainly come of it, the story is now thrown into a fascinating, wide-open, practically newly-created form with miles to go before that Pivot. That's what a trollbabe does best - makes the potential story in a given place into a wholly new story.
Best, Ron
Moreno R.:
Hi Ron!
New questions!
1) A trollbabe evoked, by way of a magic conflict, the (not named) guardian tiger of an enemy of her. After she won that conflict (with the tiger near her) she took the tiger as a relationship.
The Tiger at that time was hostile to the trollbabe, to the GM called a conflict (after the request of the relationship) to see if the trollbabe could tame the beast. Failing that roll, the trollbabe still got the tiger as a relationship, but as an enemy, not as an ally as the player wanted.
When this actual play was posted, it provoked some discussions about what the GM did. After the trollbabe player asked the "ally" relationship (with the tiger still very much hostile) the GM should have given her free rein to dictate what her new relationship (the tiger) would do, letting the trollbabe tame her without rolling? The relationship is given to the trollbabe at the exact moment she request it, or only when it occur in the fiction?
2) Tied to the situation described above: the trollbabe player can ask for a "relationship" with a not named character, and then the exact kind of relationship is decided during the scene, or the player have to say "I want her/him as an ally/lover/friend/enemy/whatever" at the start?
3) Another game, another player: reading the game manual, and seeing on page 92 this text...
The second bit is a matter of simple
announcement. If a scene has begun,
and you want your trollbabe there, and if
there’s no overwhelming logistic reason
for her not to get there as she pleases,
then she’s there
...asked if his trollbabe could simply "hop" between two active adventures, simply appearing in the other trollbabe's scenes and then returning (by magic, I suppose) to her own, playing two adventures at the same time.
Ron Edwards:
Hi Moreno,
1. The GM broke the rules by calling a conflict with the tiger. The correct sequence is:
i) Conduct a conflict with an NPC or with him or her implicated somehow.
ii) Say "I'm forming a Relationship" and what kind.
iii) Role-play some interaction illustrating that Relationship.
(iii) is entirely subordinated to (ii). If the GM didn't want the tiger to become a Relationship, then he or she should have given the tiger a name.
2. The text the player was reading was intended to apply within a single adventure. There are ways for trollbabes to cross adventures, as we've discussed before, but this particular interpretation is not one of them.
Best, Ron
Moreno R.:
Hi Ron!
Quote from: Ron Edwards on December 14, 2010, 10:36:19 PM
(iii) is entirely subordinated to (ii). If the GM didn't want the tiger to become a Relationship, then he or she should have given the tiger a name.
The GM can give a name to a NPC created during the course of the adventure, or he is limited to the ones that had a name from the start?
For example, let's say that the Tiger was created by the GM narrating the defeat of the trollbabe (incapacitated and losing the last roll). In the following scenes, the tiger get characterized as a trustworthy ally of his master. The GM can give her a name, but it's a "Name" like the ones decided at the creation of the adventure, avoiding having her taken as an ally by the trollbabe, or not?
And what if the trollbabe want to get the tiger as a relationship before the name is used in the game? (between the time the GM decided to give the tiger a name and any occasion where that name could be used)
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