Many characters in Bringing Down the Pain

[shadowcourt]

Lord knows this is an old subject, but after reading through some of the threads, I haven't found an answer which entirely clarifies it for me, so I thought I'd discuss. It's come up recently (oh, say, last night) in a game I'm running. It's TSOY's system, but not the world of Near (believe it or not, we're using TSOY for urban fantasy gaming), but that's beside the point. We have six players, which can make things a little bewildering in and of itself, and though I largely regard last night's session as a success, I wanted to get people's opinions on how to clarify some of the BDTP system for dealing with groups this size.

Let's keep it moderately simple, for now: Say we have 3 players, Aaron, Betty, and Charlie. And the GM runs them up against a group of zombies. Thanks to failed checks, all of our played characters announce that they want to Bring Down the Pain, as they're none too keen on the zombies preventing them from achieving their goals (in this case, let's say, saving a group of schoolchildren from being zombie food).

The zombies are certainly going to roll as a single group, adding some bonus dice for their sheer numbers (outnumbering both the player characters and the schoolchildren, even). If Aaron, Betty, and Charlie all agree to work together, it'd seem fairly straightforward to have them roll over dice to each other to make the best check possible, and resolve things just as if they were in a standard BDTP and going one-on-one.

But what if they don't? What if Aaron, Betty, and Charlie's intentions are wildly different. What if Charlie announces that his intention is to hide from the zombies in a car, while Aaron's is to bash zombies with a cricket bat and Betty's is to douse them with gasoline and set them on fire? It might seem like Aaron and Betty can toss their dice in to a single pool and help each other out, but how do you resolve Charlie against the zombies. If only one check of the three or four being made can "win" a round of BDTP, it seems like Aaron and Betty's success might actually *prevent* Charlie from hiding successfully. Should the GM push those characters to describe what will happen to other people if their intentions go through, so that Aaron and Betty have an "if we win, this happens to Charlie" condition? That's the easy way around, but what about when Charlie has to do the same? Say he has the highest check result? It seems like he could narrate making it to the car, and dealing damage to the intentions of the zombies, but what about Aaron and Betty's intention at that point?

In some respects, it seems like player characters thwart each other if they can't find a way to work together. The zombies can certainly deal damage en masse to all three of the PC's. Can two different PC groups damage the zombies in different ways? Or is the situation we're describing here two seperate BDTP's running at once? This particularly becomes important when people are trying to fulfill their intentions by activating Secrets which would force a different resolution.

Any advice would be helpful. Sometimes this seems clearer by the light of morning, but within the confines of a game, it can become a little dizzying. We're also working with a group where many of the players are trying TSOY for the first time, and the GM (me) is running it for the first time. Suggestions, anyone?

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Shadowcourt,

Good topic! (And, hey, do you have a name we can call you?)

Ok, from your example, I see where you're coming from, but it should work out. If Charlie's just hiding from the zombies, and he really needs to be in a Bringing Down the Pain situation, especially one where others are fighting zombies, his rolls will probably just be defensive. You'd think that Stealth would be used for hiding, but seriously, he's in a car, zombies are outside slavering for flesh and people are throwing around gasoline and gunfire and what not! This is a perfect place to call for React or Resist rolls to not flip out or yell or something and give away your location.

Being defensive, no, Charlie can't win. However, he can change intentions at any time with no penalty (since he's already taking the penalty by being defensive) and do something, like start the car or attack the zombies or whatever.

So, taking rolls into account, here's what you see:

Aaron and Betty want to kill zombies.
Zombies want to kill everything.
Charlie wants to hide.

If zombies decide to attack Aaron and Betty, it's a perpendicular roll between the zombies and Aaron and Betty (as a group). Charlie doesn't even need to roll, but I'd make him anyway and do something awesome if he fails, like...

If zombies decide to find Charlie, it's a perpendicular roll between the zombies and Charlie's Resist or React (depends on the description). Since he's defensive, he does no harm. Aaron and Betty, do, though, and they're parallel - they do damage no matter what the zombies roll.

Make sense?

[shadowcourt]

Yes, that does make sense, thanks. And calling me Josh is totally fine, as that's my name. Sorry, I should've said, earlier.

I think part of the trouble last night was my relative newness to the system. Let's extend the situation, though, if you're willing, to a couple of the issues I ran into last night.

1.) As far as I can tell, even if the Player Characters are all allies, only one person is really going to "win" a round of BDTP. That means, if I understand things correctly, I should be doing everything in my power to encourage that group of PC's, if their intentions have a fair amount of overlap, to pool their dice together, right? If Aaron and Betty don't pool their dice, they're both sort of competing against each other, as well as the zombies, to win a round of BDTP, even though only the zombies will explicitly take "damage" in this round if one or the other wins.

So, if Aaron makes a check and gets a total of 16, and Betty gets a total of 14, and the zombies score a measly 7, only Aaron's intention goes through, right? Betty, despite doing well, and even exceeding the zombies' check, doesn't really deal any damage to them, or force a Stay Up check, or anything. Is that correct? Or am I misreading the rules somehow. It's these "many-on-one" scenarios that can be the hairiest, I find.

The group is new to the system, as I said, and I think some of them found this more dizzying than others. In other games, nickel-and-diming people as individuals plays out differently. It's fine with me, personally; I like some of these elements of TSOY, but it's true that I need to take steps to encourage more working together, if this is the case.

2. The group is really huge. Six players. As I'm sure you can imagine, things can get wild and wooly. Particularly as people are still learning about changing intention (and spending a round defending, as a result), and other mechanics of the game. Someone suggested limiting the amount of Gift Dice around the table (everyone got 7, keep in mind), but in the end, I'm glad I didn't. As I suspected, a larger group = more rolls, so it all balanced out.

3. I think my other mistake was in setting the zombies intentions as too high (there was no way for the players to back out easily once they were in... "general bitey carnage" would have been better than "explicitly overcome these PC's" and probably more in line with how a zombie thinks anyhow, which isn't likely to hold a grudge in this situation, and just wants to fill its undead belly), because it would've allowed other PC's to "bow out" and let the zombies' intentions go through, so that they could try other tricks instead (some of them had Secrets, such as sorcery options or other magical tricks which could have drastically altered the nature of the fight).

4. Ties also are still tripping me up sometimes. We had a number of situations where two intentions directly opposed to each other resulted in a tie, and no one could spend any more dice to resolve the scenario. Adjudicating those had me thrown at points; I guess neither party wins that round, unless they invoke Bringing Down the Pain. In most cases, I guess it's best to find a way to describe a stalemate, or how one person's partial success thwarts the other one, etc etc.

I'm still a little new at all this, so staking out intentions and encouraging players to collaborate more actively is taking a little time, especially with a group of this size.

Thanks for your help, Clinton. There were certainly a lot of laughs last night; the game has a light-hearted tone to it... the actual scenario we played through last night was slightly similar to what's described above, save that the zombies were all corporate zombies, wearing suits and ties, checking their wristwatches, tapping their cellphones and moaning into them more loudly, and alternately shaking each others' hands when they weren't gnawing on the living. Also, a bunch of the players really got into it, and were trying impressive feats, leaping on to the tops of subway trains, hurling CD's at people or distracting them with television programs (there's a media-savvy steampunk automaton in the group who keeps cracking people up), and I largely feel like we're on our way.

Cheers,
-Josh

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Josh,

Good to meet you, and welcome to the Forge!

So, if Aaron makes a check and gets a total of 16, and Betty gets a total of 14, and the zombies score a measly 7, only Aaron's intention goes through, right? Betty, despite doing well, and even exceeding the zombies' check, doesn't really deal any damage to them, or force a Stay Up check, or anything. Is that correct? Or am I misreading the rules somehow. It's these "many-on-one" scenarios that can be the hairiest, I find.

Crud. I didn't realize until right here that you're using the 1st edition. No matter - we can totally still deal with this.

1.) As far as I can tell, even if the Player Characters are all allies, only one person is really going to "win" a round of BDTP. That means, if I understand things correctly, I should be doing everything in my power to encourage that group of PC's, if their intentions have a fair amount of overlap, to pool their dice together, right? If Aaron and Betty don't pool their dice, they're both sort of competing against each other, as well as the zombies, to win a round of BDTP, even though only the zombies will explicitly take "damage" in this round if one or the other wins.

Nope - the zombies take damage twice - once for each roll higher than theirs.

Imagine these situations:

- Zombies pick a target, Aaron. Zombies roll 15, Aaron rolls 14, Betty rolls 13. Aaron takes damage.
- Zombies pick a target, Aaron. Zombies roll 15, Aaron rolls 16, Betty rolls 13. Zombies take damage from Aaron.
- Zombies pick a target, Aaron. Zombies roll 15, Aaron rolls 14, Betty rolls 16. Zombies take damage from Betty. Aaron takes damage from zombies.
- Zombies pick a target, Aaron. Zombies roll 15, Aaron rolls 16, Betty rolls 16. Zombies take damage from Betty and Aaron.

3. I think my other mistake was in setting the zombies intentions as too high (there was no way for the players to back out easily once they were in... "general bitey carnage" would have been better than "explicitly overcome these PC's" and probably more in line with how a zombie thinks anyhow, which isn't likely to hold a grudge in this situation, and just wants to fill its undead belly), because it would've allowed other PC's to "bow out" and let the zombies' intentions go through, so that they could try other tricks instead (some of them had Secrets, such as sorcery options or other magical tricks which could have drastically altered the nature of the fight).

Yes! This is made a lot more explicit these days. Set low intentions, and also, bow out. If they're kicking zombie ass, zombies should split.

4. Ties also are still tripping me up sometimes. We had a number of situations where two intentions directly opposed to each other resulted in a tie, and no one could spend any more dice to resolve the scenario. Adjudicating those had me thrown at points; I guess neither party wins that round, unless they invoke Bringing Down the Pain. In most cases, I guess it's best to find a way to describe a stalemate, or how one person's partial success thwarts the other one, etc etc.

I'm the first to admit ties can be thorny in 1st edition - the failure rate is set too high. When I have ties, I try to either force success for both sides or failure for both sides, depending on the description of actions - I find this more interesting than just a stalemate.

It sounds like you're having fun with this, Josh. Keep it up, and let us know how it goes!

Best,
Clinton

[shadowcourt]

Yeah, sorry about that, re: the first edition. Keep in mind I'm the one who started that "is the hardcopy of 1st edition still available?" thread, even. I'm still working from the Creative Commons text, believe it or not, so even the hardcopy of 1st will be an upgrade, but I'm also quickly angling to get my hands on 2nd ed from Lulu, so never fear.

Still, Clinton, you are a huge game-saver, and I thank you. Your multiple "Aaron and Betty vs. the Zombies" scenarios made things very clear, and I really appreciate it. My players will, too; I suspect they'll feel quite a bit more enfranchised this session, particularly because I'm probably going to partially introduce at least one of the "zeitgeist" systems-- if players have the same basic intention, and pool their dice together/chain abilities to get better results, I'll let them split damage if they fail between them. In the scenarios you described above, if the zombies win against both Aaron and Betty and achieve, say, SL 3, they'd both be done 3 points of damage. But, if they pool their die results (aiding each other, which is a good thing to encourage among players in this instance, as they share the success, work together, and see direct benefits from doing so) and still lose a round, they can split those 3 points of damage between them as they see fit (basically just a zeitgeist rule). With 6 players and a GM around the table, that can speed things up a bit, certainly.

Though this beggars another question, actually, as the scenarios you described above assume the zombies, as a named group, are only attacking one or the other of the named PC's as part of their intention. I had assumed that, as a great big group, it'd be believable that they could target both player characters. Is that true, in your estimation? So, in the first scenario (zombies: 15, Betty: 14, Aaron: 13), both PC's take the damage the zombies inflict. Maybe I'm over-extending how you're supposed to be able to pick an intention in BDTP; I certainly wouldn't let a single NPC villain accomplish that (well, not in a conventional scenario, though I can certainly conceive of situations where he "brings the house down" on a whole group of characters), but with a big group of pogues it seems to make some sense to me.

Anyhow, thanks for all your help, as I'm still a novice at running TSOY, but I'll keep everyone posted on exciting developments as they occur.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Though this beggars another question, actually, as the scenarios you described above assume the zombies, as a named group, are only attacking one or the other of the named PC's as part of their intention. I had assumed that, as a great big group, it'd be believable that they could target both player characters. Is that true, in your estimation? So, in the first scenario (zombies: 15, Betty: 14, Aaron: 13), both PC's take the damage the zombies inflict. Maybe I'm over-extending how you're supposed to be able to pick an intention in BDTP; I certainly wouldn't let a single NPC villain accomplish that (well, not in a conventional scenario, though I can certainly conceive of situations where he "brings the house down" on a whole group of characters), but with a big group of pogues it seems to make some sense to me.

What you say makes sense, actually. You could play this out several ways, but I think having both Aaron and Betty take damage works out fine.