[Afraid] Clarification needed on Afraid group NPC Answers in Conflicts

[zornwil]

Hi, I'm not quite grokking one thing (er, at least one thing, but I THINK only one thing!) in Afraid group conflict resolution.  I searched the boards and didn't find a clear answer.

I think I get the Raise (Challenge) part, seems simple enough - put forward 2 dice, each member of the NPC group basically narrates a Challenge against a PC using those 2 dice (only).

But on the See (Answer), the rules for Afraid mention that the See of 2 dice can be used as long as there are members of the NPC group.  Okay, so 5 group members, up to 5 Sees, got it.  The rules also say "The GM must add dice to her standing answer if necessary to match subsequent challenges' dice, taking it; or she may set dice temporarily aside from her standing answer if possible, to block or dodge or reverse.:"  The "set dice temporarily aside" part is not quite clear to me.  I saw a post on the boards where someone gave an example of something like a See of 5+2.  So that stands.  Then a Challenge comes against that of 9.  7 isn't enough, so the GM pulls out a 4 to replace the 2, making the Amswer 9, to block or dodge.  The original post asked if the 2 then can just be pulled back if needed for an 11 (of course that would be Taking the Blow), and I would suppose also this would mean presumably that the 4 as well could be set aside and if the GM had a 6 he could put that in instead, with the 4 and 2 now "temporarily" out.  Vincent said he couldn't recall exactly how he had originally intended that and to try it out.  But this was a long time ago.

So is my thought correct on Answers?  And if so, I assume ALL the dice (the ones "temporarily" put aside and the new ones introduced since the first Answer) get wiped away as soon as the number of Sees since the Answer was first put out equals the number of NPCs in the group has been reached - even if the last dice put in to "temporarily" relieve a die came into it on that very last turn of usage?

Aside from having to carefully track how many Answers you've engaged, it seems reasonably elegant for group conflicts.  But not sure I understand it correctly.

[zornwil]

One more thing on this, too, another question that occurred to me - it seems unfair if the NPCs are a horde that the number of Sees the dice are used for equals the number of members.  That could be hundreds!  I realize eventually the NPCs run out of dice for Raises, but only after a LONG while. 

So maybe "members" meant members of the PC group?  That's how I am strongly inclined to play it, anyway. 

[Filip Luszczyk]

I think "members" means exactly what it sounds like, i.e. members of the NPC group. My initial reaction to the rule was the same.

So, you could throw a thousand individual Raises at the whole PC group, but in practice you won't do it as there won't be as many NPCs in the conflict. That's assuming that only those who have interest in the stakes enter the conflict, and not everyone present.

I don't like this rule, anyway - although I haven't played Afraid yet, so I might just as well change my opinion after I test it. However, due to our misinterpretation for a long time we've been treating NPCs in DitV as individual participants with their own pools of dice and separate Raises and Sees. There were always some issues with adversity level consequently, as in practice the GM could get as many Raises as he saw fit in a given situation (it was only restricted by the number of "named" NPCs introduced to the fiction). The default way of handling group conflicts in DitV is much better.

[zornwil]

I like the rule a lot except for #s of NPCs in a group - for me, that gets fuzzy as you can have a mob with a dozen or so, I've run that and it works fine, except I think this might break with that a bit.  It's my feeling I will run it with "members" being instead the number of PC members.  Of course, I'm open to hearing what Vincent meant and why it should be done differently if he happens to pop in.  The reason I think this is good is that it does streamline NPC conflict compared to the normal process, and allows you to be more flexible in the Raises instead of always coming up with why the NPCs do something to the entire group - just my opinion, of course.  Thanks Filip, for confirming my thoughts on the rule, and, as always, for your comments.  Oh, by the way, as to NPCs in DitV, I've always done it as the NPCs who share a purpose are in a group, those who do not (or any other NPC groups that do) sit as their own participants.  This seems to me to be right, considering that all are clamoring for Stakes controls, so an unruly mob versus the Old Attorney versus the PCs versus the Young Vixen, for example, seems right to me (although if the unruly mob is on the Old Attorney's side, would lump them together).