Trollbabe rules questions

[Tim Alexander]

Hey All,

So, I finally pulled the trigger on getting a copy of Trollbabe and I'm quite happy I did. Lot's of great stuff in there and as usual with Ron's work there's a lot of stuff that's translatable elsewhere. In fact, I'm pretty sure I want to have some of my Dust Devils players read the conflict section to give them a better feel on how I see the deal going down in DD. That aside, I'm left with a couple of questions lingering that I'm hoping people can help me out with.

Conflict resolution with multiple PCs:
Assuming each participant roll in a conflict involving multiple Trollbabes, and all the characters want essentially the same goal, a single success from either will win the conflict, correct? Assuming one succeeds, and one fails, the failed one still is discommoded in some way? Can one choose to stop there and the other reroll if both fail? Also, the person who sets the conflict always determines the Action Type, correct? This means that for example if Tha and Rhetta were both in a conflict and Rhetta called for Fighting, Tha would be rolling against her considerably weaker fighting value correct? What if Magic is added, are the two dice each rolled against the Fighting value as well?

Recovering damage:
Does an incapacitated character get a 'free' level of healing when they arise from incapacitation, or are they at incapacitation until the given amount of time/next session? Does damage done in a conflict drop by a 'free' level after any conflict? So, discommoded disappears, injury becomes discommoded, etc? If the characters aren't healing, doesn't this quickly start to limit the amount of rerolling that can actually occur? What am I missing?

Scenario prep:
On pg. 36 it says:

The GM may also use relationships to prep scenarios, not only in terms of people involved, but also in terms of troll/human issues. He or she might consider the proportion of human/troll relationships. Whichever side is underrepresented by the relationships of the trollbabe involved, the other side should be placed into the more sympathetic position. This idea is not required, but it?s a nice baseline to keep the ?in-betweener" context of being a trollbabe in focus.

So, if the character has more troll relationships, the trolls should be sympathetic? This seems counter-intuitive to me in highlighting the "in-betweener." Any clarification?

That covers the main ones I can think of, I'm eager to give it a whirl.

Thanks,

-Tim

[Tim Alexander]

Hey Again,

Well, I jumped the gun on both of my first two categories, they were both essentially answered in a couple of other threads. I am still curious on this one:

"Also, the person who sets the conflict always determines the Action Type, correct? This means that for example if Tha and Rhetta were both in a conflict and Rhetta called for Fighting, Tha would be rolling against her considerably weaker fighting value correct? What if Magic is added, are the two dice each rolled against the Fighting value as well?"

In addition, just because Tha's rolling against her fighting value doesn't mean she can't be narratively using magic right? I'm also still unclear on the prep question, so any clarification there would be great.

-Tim

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Tim,

So, a Fight conflict has been announced, regarding Retta. And Tha's player wants to join in. I'll answer several possible questions about this situation, not just yours.

The easiest way is for Tha to join in and roll for Fighting just like Retta does. It's even conceivable for her to have a different goal than Retta; that shouldn't affect the mechanics, just potential outcomes.

However, can the player just call a new conflict, and define it as Magic, and then the two conflicts can be run concurrently?

No. Tha must join the Fighting conflict as it is stated. Now, let's say the player wangles some Magic in there ... can it be a Fighting + Magic conflict for Tha?

a) If it is, then it's Fighting + Magic for Retta too.

b) But it's unlikely, and most of the time I think the GM would disallow that particular request (GM has veto over added conflict types) because Magic conflicts as defined in Trollbabe are rather lengthy, ritualistic-type actions. (snap-shot spells do exist, but typically as re-roll actions)

Typically, it's more likely that Fighting or Social gets added as a second conflict-type, especially Social.

So, what do you roll against if you are rolling two (or horrors, three) dice? You do assign each die to a given value, individually.

Oh yeah, so here we have Tha, stuck with her Fighting conflict. And let's say that neither Magic nor Social gets added as a second conflict type. Can she, narratively, be using magic? Ummm ... well, Trollbabe isn't octaNe; narration isn't totally free and clear from the mechanics. Tha is presumed to be fighting physically.

Does that help?

Best,
Ron

P.S. Retta's name has no "h" in it.

[Tim Alexander]

Hey Ron,

Yep, that pretty much clears it up for me, though I'm still curious on that one prep question above, about the relationships? Also, just a logistics note, when you have multiple dice flying do you just seperate them physically, or do you just have a physical die, social die, and magic die?

-Tim

Oh, yeah, sorry about the Retta mixup. Now that you've corrected me I think I remember you correcting someone else, which may well be where I got mixed up in the first place. When research goes awry. :)