Resource Ownership and Turn Order Expenditure

[jburneko]

Hello Again,

Do I have these right?

1) Players own Story Tokens
2) Characters own Inspiration.

Examples:

In scene A I play character X and earn 3 story tokens and 2 points of Inspiration.  In scene B when another player is playing character X that player can spend those 2 points of Inspiration but has no right to my 3 story tokens.

Similarly, if I play character X in scene A and earn 3 story tokens and 2 points of Inspiration and then I play character Y in scene B, I can spend the story tokens but not the 2 points of Inspiration to affect character Y's conflicts.

1) One Action per Character.
2) One Re-Action per Player.

Example:

If I'm playing multiple characters in a scene on my turn I can take one action for each of them.  But when another player takes an Action I can only Re-act with one of them.

1) Spending Story Tokens for more characters or actions does not disrupt the turn order.

Examples:

It's the top of a scene.  Player A picks a character then player B and C.  THEN, and only then, may Player A spend a Story Token for a second character.   B and C may then spend story tokens (in that order) for a second character.  THEN, and only then, may player A spend a Story Token for a third character, and so on.

Is the same true for Actions?

Jesse

[TonyLB]

1) Players own Story Tokens

Exactly right.

2) Characters own Inspiration.

Not quite.  Players also own Inspirations, but the Inspiration should be some causal outcome from the Conflict in which it was won, which often means that it is effectively linked to the character.  

Say Monkey Master defeats evil villain Shrapnel, with a 5 Inspiration.  Later MM's player decides to play sidekick Lemur Lad, and faces Shrapnel again.  If the player wants to use MM's Inspiration, he could easily justify it ("Oh, so you can't take on Big M, and you figure you'll try me on for size?  What kind of a coward ARE you?")

1) One Action per Character.
2) One Re-Action per Player.

Exactly right.

1) Spending Story Tokens for more characters or actions does not disrupt the turn order.

Exactly right.

[jburneko]

Okay, my only confusion is still over Inspiration.  Let's say Alice is playing Dr. X in scene A and earns some Inspiration.  Now, in scene B, Bob is playing Dr. X.  Can Bob spend the Inspiration Alice earned in scene A?

Given your example things get even more complicated.Say

Alice, in Scene A, is playing Monkey Master  who defeats Shrapnel, with a 5 Inspiration.  Later, Bob is playing sidekick Lemur Lemur lad in scene B and faces Shrapnel.  Can Bob use the inspiration points Alice earned in exactly the same maner as you described.  What if Monkey Master is/isn't in the scene.  What if MM is played by Alice?  What if he's played by Chris?

Jesse

[TonyLB]

Okay, my only confusion is still over Inspiration.  Let's say Alice is playing Dr. X in scene A and earns some Inspiration.  Now, in scene B, Bob is playing Dr. X.  Can Bob spend the Inspiration Alice earned in scene A?

No.  Alice may choose to throw them in (and since Dr. X is in the scene it's obviously easy to see the causation).  But Bob has no access to them.  They follow the player.

Alice, in Scene A, is playing Monkey Master  who defeats Shrapnel, with a 5 Inspiration.  Later, Bob is playing sidekick Lemur Lemur lad in scene B and faces Shrapnel.  Can Bob use the inspiration points Alice earned in exactly the same maner as you described.  What if Monkey Master is/isn't in the scene.  What if MM is played by Alice?  What if he's played by Chris?

No on all counts.  Bob can never spend Alice's Inspirations, no matter what the arrangement of characters in the scene.

Great questions!  They're really helping me to clearly articulate this thorny issue.

[jburneko]

Okay.  Most of this is good news.  I thought that Inspiration traveled around with the character, no matter what player was currently in control.  This seemed like a bit of record keeping nightmare as each character and object in the game wracks up a stack of Inspiration points that need to be tracked seperately.  Obviously, you only need to track one stack for each player.  MUCH simpler.

This also leads to some interesting possibilities.

Consder this.

In Scene A Alice is playing Monkey Master and defeats Shrapnel, being played by Bob, earing the 5 Inspiration points.  Then sometime later in Scene B, the roles are reversed, Alice is playing Shrapnel and Bob is playing Monkey Master.  ALICE can then play her Inspiration got in Scene A, in Shrapnel's favor, "Hahahaha, Monkey Master, you defeated me before, but not THIS time!!!!"

Jesse

[TonyLB]

Hey, that's cool!  I'm going to totally use that tactic in the game I play in.

I've got a spotlight character, Vanessa Faust, who everyone loves to hate.  It's getting increasingly hard to get Inspirations that will easily help her.  I think folks are saying "No matter how innocuous this is, if Vanessa's doing it then it's going to come back to bite us in the ass later".  I can't imagine how they formed that impression... heh.

So I think what I need to do is to play an over-the-top rival who's trying to slam and slander Vanessa left, right and center... to accumulate lots of Inspirations.  Then I'll play Vanessa and show how she turns all such slanders to her advantage ("Now obviously you're too clever to have believed that... which is why you're going to help me now....")

Thanks!  That's a terrific insight!

[Larry L.]

Not quite.  Players also own Inspirations, but the Inspiration should be some causal outcome from the Conflict in which it was won, which often means that it is effectively linked to the character.

Whoa. That's so not how we have been doing it. Yes, it was becoming a record keeping nightmare. I kept wondering, "Why is threre no place for this on the character sheet?"

[TonyLB]

Oh, okay.  So it's a common misreading.  Can someone point me at the passages where I was unclear, so I can get a good entry into the eratta?

[jburneko]

On p. 30 there's much verbiage that confounds the distinction between Player and Character but ultimately there are distinct phrases that clearly state that Story Tokens are awarded to Players and Inspiration is awarded to Characters.

"The Resolver chooses which character on the opposing side
receives the Inspiration."

There's also the distinct functionality of the two resources.  Story Tokens buy Characters and Actions which are all player centric things.  But Inspiration is based on past character achievements, without specific instruction otherwise, it felt like a very natural concept to have those attached to, and travel with the character.

Jesse

[TonyLB]

Ah.... right you are.

I think you guys are accurately picking up on how confused I was on this very issue myself, several months ago.  I know how to handle it now, but I didn't then, and so the writing there is pretty crummy.

But I can eratta it now, and get the corrections in for the next printing.  Thanks!