[TSoY] parallel action priority, task difficulty and other confusing things

[Corvus69]

hello this is my first post here. I actually registered just to ask these questions.

I study TSoY and I really like it. But there are things that really confuse me.

1.

It is highly important to distinguish whether actions are perpendicular or parallel ahead of time and be very clear about it. The first time you use Bringing Down the Pain, it could be confusing. You see, with a normal ability check, you really can resist someone attacking your character by talking them out of it. That's because the entire conflict is at stake. In Bringing Down the Pain, the only things that can resist someone attacking your character are attacking them back or blocking their blow. That's because that roll's stakes are that one task.

I understand that if try to strike opponent with sword he cannot try to talk me out or take other nondefensive actions . BUT:

If the two sides of a conflict cannot decide on actions - if one keeps changing theirs depending on the other - it is up to the Story Guide to resolve this. Hopefully, it can be resolved through player negotiation. If not, the side who wants a perpendicular action must take a defensive action.

I consider sword attacking a perpedicular action and talking out or singing a parallel action.. but according to rules, if I want to take perpedicular action and opponent wants parallel, I have to take defensive action... so it means that if he keeps making parallel actions, I simply cannot attack him. Do I understand it correctly?
My logic tells me that perpendicular action should have priority. That if I want to attack him, he HAS TO defend and not try to alk me out or sing or whatever...


2.

A Marginal success is all that is needed to succeed at any task in the game.

In the first edition some tasks needed better than marginal success to succeed. but now it doesnt matter if i roll to climb small tree or mt. everest. I still need to roll 1. and if I'm well equiped and its sunny day according to rules Story Guide cannot assign penalty dice.

One penalty die may be assigned if circumstances render a task especially difficult or if the character is ill-equipped.

I just dont understand why was this decision about all tasks having same difficulty made. there should be reason, but I just dont see it.


3. this is only minor but in BDTP example:

Up until this point, the action has been taken care of by a simple ability check. According to the check, Emily wins, and Tela will sneak up on Gael, giving Emily three bonus dice to perform an action that uses that advantage.

why did Emily got three bonus dice?



thank you for answers.

[oliof]

If the two sides of a conflict cannot decide on actions - if one keeps changing theirs depending on the other - it is up to the Story Guide to resolve this. Hopefully, it can be resolved through player negotiation. If not, the side who wants a perpendicular action must take a defensive action.

I consider sword attacking a perpedicular action and talking out or singing a parallel action.. but according to rules, if I want to take perpedicular action and opponent wants parallel, I have to take defensive action... so it means that if he keeps making parallel actions, I simply cannot attack him. Do I understand it correctly?
My logic tells me that perpendicular action should have priority. That if I want to attack him, he HAS TO defend and not try to alk me out or sing or whatever...

I think this is a matter of a counter attack: So, you swing your dagger at my belly, trying to slice it open so I spill my guts. I gladly see you coming, because I'd like to cut you into ribbons with my long sword, relying on the weapon's superior reach. I don't have to defend against your attack at all, if I think I can take you out faster than you can slice me up.

IMHO, prioritising parallel actions is well within the design goals of the game. Ultimately, parallel actions are more risky than parallel ones, which is just the right thing for an adventure-themed fantasy game. If perpendicular actions were prioritized, I could easily block any of my opponent's actions.

Also, it's easier to ,,downgrade" defensive actions to perpendicular ones than parallel actions: Defensive actions are a specialized case of perpendicular actions, so they are more in line with each other effect wise than parallel actions and defensive actions (you only lose the edge of causing harm when you roll better than your opponent. otherwise it's same-same). This means you have less need to muck around with in-game events to account for the change of events.

In the first edition some tasks needed better than marginal success to succeed. but now it doesnt matter if i roll to climb small tree or mt. everest. I still need to roll 1. and if I'm well equiped and its sunny day according to rules Story Guide cannot assign penalty dice.

One penalty die may be assigned if circumstances render a task especially difficult or if the character is ill-equipped.

I just dont understand why was this decision about all tasks having same difficulty made. there should be reason, but I just dont see it.

I can see a few reasons:

1a) You'll have variable success levels needed as soon as there is someone actively working against you reaching your goal. Say you need to reach the top of Mount Everest before your rival does – the race between the two of you is what's important, the highest mountain of the world just adds perspective...

1b) The Shadow of Yesterday is more suited to games about people – namely love and friendship against selfishness and envy. With this kind of topic at hand, many difficult tasks are attainable by someone who tries them – even unskilled people may manage to climb Mount Everest two out of five times – but why should they do that if it's not to save their loved one in time (who needs to make endure checks to avoid freezing to death, which definitely will have penalty dice, regardless of the sunshine) or to beat someone else in a race (see above)?

(NB: I'd give out penalty dice for people trying an everest-like mountain in Near any time. Also, I'd feel free to mandate some things are  impossible to achieve short of transcendence, like crossing the Roof of the World –  this is in line with humans not being able to fly no matter how good they roll on Athletics. But this is a question of group aesthetics, not rules.)

2) Static goals are boring if they're not difficult enough to warrant penalty dice. Also, climbing Mount Everest even on the best weather conditions available should be hard enough to include a penalty die or two.

On top of that, you can avoid static tests with a little tweak that has been successfully employed by others already:

You can write up complex challenges with abilities, pools and secrets like you'd give other game master characters. I vaguely remember someone doing this with a dungeon. This way, most ability checks will be opposed, and you give the players an easy way to 'force' their way by entering BDtP against a hidden trap, a stuck door, etc; all the while having some pool points to bolster up the opposition where you see fit.

Up until this point, the action has been taken care of by a simple ability check. According to the check, Emily wins, and Tela will sneak up on Gael, giving Emily three bonus dice to perform an action that uses that advantage.

why did Emily got three bonus dice?

See http://www.zork.net/~nick/loyhargil/tsoy2/book1--rulebook.html#surprise:

"Surprise is not part of the Bringing Down the Pain system. Instead, it takes place before-hand. If a character acts against another, and the latter has no clue what's going on, the player will not be able to make an ability check to resist. This still counts as a resisted ability check, and the player can announce that he'd like to Bring Down the Pain.

As stated before, the winner at the check that initiated Bringing Down the Pain gets bonus dice to her first action equal to the difference between her and her opponent's success levels. This is an indicator of her opening advantage."

Emily had a level 3 success on her simple ability check to sneak up on her character's opponent, thus she gets 3 bonus dice for the first round of BDtP.

[Frank Tarcikowski]

Hello, and welcome! One further comment on that question about parallel/perpedicular:

Note that the norm is you can of course have all sorts of actions, if you get "what everybody does" right. That's the "free and clear stage". So you'd have to go really far to find an example where we can't even agree on what everybody's up to. I frankly fail to come up with one. Remember the only situation where the rules cited above applies is when even after changing around declared actions you get to a point where each time you change your action the other one changes his so you change yours so he changes his and so forth. I daresay that's purely hypothetical.

- Frank

[Corvus69]

yeah thanks

just one another confusing thing

from gestalt method of group BDTP

Whenever a character is broken, her player falls out of the group Pain-Bringing.

shouldnt be this sentence like this : Whenever a character is *past* broken, her player falls out of the group Pain-Bringing.  ? because broken characters can go on if they have enough pool points.

[Eero Tuovinen]

That's right.