WYRD questions

[Paul Czege]

Hey Scott,

I've been reading the WYRD ashcan, and I have a few questions related to a paragraph on page 16, in the "Contested Runecastings" section. It says:

"When multiple Heroes are fighting the same Contestant (typically and Adversary, but potentially another Hero), each Hero with a Guiding Passion greater than the opponent gets to make a runecasting. The embattled constestant still gets the opportunity to develop Events against each of his opponents (using only the Tragic stones they drew against them)."

1) If the opponent is an Adversary, what must the Guiding passion be greater than? The Adversary's Total Value?

2) Does that mean if the Ring Giver has said my Guiding Passion is my Valor(3), then I never get to draw against Grendel, whose Total Value is 9, if there are multiple heroes fighting? And because the Ring Giver will interpret the Tragic Stones, I'm basically on the sidelines for the fight?

3) What if none of the Heroes has a Guiding Passion higher than the Adversary, then no one gets to make a runecasting?

Paul

[hardcoremoose]

Heh.  You may have sussed out an important ommission in the ashcan that will need to be corrected in the full version.  It's really just an issue of poor clarity.

Adversaries are Trappings, and Trappings do not get to draw stones...ever.  They are part of the Heroes' stories, and it's the Heroes' draws that empower the Adversaries (this is why the opposition gets to narrate Tragic stones - it's the only influence they have over the content of an opposed resolution).  Think of it this way: When fighting Grendel, you draw a number of stones equal to your Guiding Passion; you narrate the Heroic stones, the GM narrates the Tragic stones (on Grendel's behalf).  When it's two PCs, only one (the one with the higher Passion) draws stones, and the Stanza is narrated by both accordingly.

The statistics listed in the Adversaries section seem a little confusing.  Trappings, and thus Adversaries, have Qualities, which are "special effects" - they modify and alter the way Stanzas including that Trapping can be narrated.  To stick with the Grendel example, Grendel has a Quality which grants him 6 extra damage per Stanza, in addition to any damage that might result from expenditures of Tragic stones.  The Total Cost attribute is simply a guideline: it tells you how much Grendel would cost to introduce into the game (if a skald wants to bring Grendel into the story), and it shows you how much it will cost to get rid of him (this is how combat works in WYRD - you essentially "buy off" your enemies with Heroic stones).  Grendel, for example, has a Total Cost of 9 - it costs nine Tragic stones to bring him into play*, and nine Heroic stones to "kill" him.

Man, I hope that makes sense.  Once we write up all the examples of play for the full book everything should be much clearer.

Any other questions?  I know the mechanics for combat, damage, and "buying off" Trappings are kind of tricky.

- Scott

* This part is a bit misleading.  There's a rule in WYRD - The Rule of Minimum Adversity - which states that any skald can introduce any Tragic Event or Trapping into the game at any time.  Bringing bad stuff into the game is free, if you're masochistic enough to want to deal with it.  And, of course, the RG can bring anything anything into play, at any time.

[ This Message was edited by: hardcoremoose on 2001-12-31 02:14 ]

[Paul Czege]

Hey Scott,

When it's two PCs, only one (the one with the higher Passion) draws stones, and the Stanza is narrated by both accordingly.

What if it's three PC's vs. one Adversary? Still just the one with the highest Passion draws?

Thanks,

Paul

[hardcoremoose]

That's muddied water at best.  Looking back at the text, I realize now just how contradictory it seems.

WYRD doesn't really support group tactics, per se.  Although the source material is rife with examples of group support - Beowulf and his retainers encountering Grendel for the first time - my take on that is to treat those secondary characters as Trappings rather than player characters.  

But there are times when a secondary character seems to hold almost as much importance as the protagonist - Wiglaf coming to Beowulf's aid in his fateful battle against the wyrm, for instance.  In these cases, the secondary character (who is behaving more like a Hero than a Trapping) has clearly stepped up to meet his fate, and his wyrd becomes a component in how the events unfold.

My take on that is to treat everything as individual combats, even when there is clearly "teaming up" going on.  That is, when you and a friend are fighting Grendel, you resolve your Stanza with the monster, and then your buddy does the same.  The RG, on Grendel's behalf, gets to narrate Tragic stones in both instances, with the only advantage to the Heroes being that whatever "damage" is done to the foe by the first carries over for the second.

Things are much easier when it's one Hero beset by several Adversaries.  In such cases, the Hero simply splits up his Heroic stones among the various foes (along with any extra damage he may have available to him from Trappings), while the RG narrates Tragic stones on behalf of the whole group of bad guys (although each Adversary has his full complement of Qualities available to him to modify the events of the Stanza, which could become quite nasty).

Hopefully that makes sense.  Much of the confusion present in the text is the result of my trying to explain how player characters could combat each other, while keeping it consistent with how they fight normal Adversaries.  My line of thinking has changed considerably in the past year, in that I'm not so sure I want to encourage inter-group conflict.  I'll be thinking on that some more.

- Scott