My TROS games

[nsruf]

AFAIK they clarified that dropping 2 SAs to 0 for the change just means spending the points on improvement. But the 10 extra points you have to pay for also changing the type of SA (e.g. passion to luck) would still be a price for the change, no?

[Lance D. Allen]

I believe it's 10 total, not 10 more. You drop the SA you want to change down to zero, plus one more. If both of those SAs were maxed at 5, you're done. Also, the requirement of 10 points is only when changing the type of an SA, for instance from Passion to Drive. If you only want to change the focus, (Passion: Love of fiancée to Passion: Hatred of fiancée's killer) you only have to drop the two SAs.

Many people play a little bit looser with these rules. I certainly do. I would allow you to zero 3 attributes to change 2 of them (the requirement is only that the changed attribute, and one other, has to be zeroed, after all) I also don't play with the additional requirement to change type. I think I totally missed it in my initial read, and it wasn't until a player pointed it out that I became aware.

[Dain]

nsruf,
That makes sense to me, and seems to match what I'm reading...but I'm a newbie, so that doesn't mean much. Think I've opened a can of worms here.

added edit:
I see good sir Wolfen snuck in on me before I hit post. Man my typing speed must suck. Thanks for the insight Wolfen.

[nsruf]

...but I'm a newbie, so that doesn't mean much.

Me too;) That's why I'm asking...

But rereading the passage, Wolfen makes sense, it doesn't talk about spending an *additional* 10 points.

Thanks!

[Dain]

Ok, assuming Wolfen is on the money (always has been so far as I've seen thus far) and it's 10, not 10 additional, that still means switching only 2 at most before having to play a while to generate more points (25 max, change 2 means spend 10 twice, for a reduction of 20, leaving only 5). Not quite so easy to change SA's as a lot of the above debate would tend to imply.

[Ian.Plumb]

Hi,

Counter-point: This is an illusion. The referee has ample opportunity to mould the SAs that the players will take.

I have a hard time seeing how the GM can restrict player SA choices - he can suggest, but they are the player's choice.  Can you give me an example that doesn't involve pre-gens?

The player chooses SAs based on the information provided by the referee. There is ample opportunity for the referee to mould the choices that the player will make. In the end every PC is subject to referee approval.

The SAs, because they are linked to the reward mechanism, ensure that the players will stick to the plot in order to ensure that their characters will develop as quickly as possible.

What stops a player from just spending four SAs to zero and announcing he's changing two of them?  Within moments, he can radically change the direction of the character.

The referee. The other players. A desire to see the game played. The referee not providing opportunities to use these new SAs. All of these would put an end to such anti-game behaviour.

Cheers,

[Dain]

Concerning the zeroing out 4 SA's thing, remember that's only altering 2 SA's, not 4....out of a total of 5. I think it's a bit of an overstatement to say that a 2 out of 5 change on a single character is going to "radically change" the direction of a character. Significant, yes. Radical,...well, that's stretching a bit.

added edit:
before I get myself in trouble here, just offering an opinion...not discounting the person who said it...I'm a major newbie here and probably am all wet on all kinds of things.

[kenjib]

Ok, assuming Wolfen is on the money (always has been so far as I've seen thus far) and it's 10, not 10 additional, that still means switching only 2 at most before having to play a while to generate more points (25 max, change 2 means spend 10 twice, for a reduction of 20, leaving only 5). Not quite so easy to change SA's as a lot of the above debate would tend to imply.

This minimum of 10 is only when you change the category - i.e. a passion becomes conscience, or luck becomes faith, etc.  It would be pretty easy to keep a drive around for constant short term use.  Whenever you want to change the target of the drive, just zero it out, plus any other SA, and make it "drive:  something else."  At that point you already have two SA's at zero, so if you don't like that you can change it at will to "drive:  yet something else" and "drive:  I like this better" at no cost at all.

The biggest drawback I can see with this is that you are only allowed to have one drive at a time, so this means you couldn't have a long term drive as well as this type of short term, flexible, drive.  I don't see what the benefit of limiting to one drive is though, so I say ignore that limitation and let a character have "drive:  long term ambition" and "drive:  rotating flavor of the month" at the same time.

[Ian.Plumb]

Hi,

Playing TROS is a two way street between players and the GM. The players get to influence the campaign all day long - but the GM should also get to enjoy things and I (and my past group) felt he should have a little say in the PC's SA's so as to make life a little easier.

Absolutely. The players influence the direction of the game but don't direct it (this is true of any RPG; TRoS is different in that it has a mechanism for aiding this process). The SAs are there to provide a rationale for unity and cohesion amongst the PCs, a link to the gaming environment, and thematic influence over the direction of the campaign. They're not there to test the referee's capacity to link disparate themes.

The referee has the most time consuming task. Anything that makes their life easier is a good thing and more likely to keep the playing group together and gaming.

Cheers,

[Dain]

Thanks kenjib,

Haven't found that option yet...off to the books for me...need to read a while to find that option.

added edit:
dummy me...same page (66), same paragraph, just at start.

[Shadeling]

How possible is it that there are more than the 4 PCs who have the same ideas? Therefore why is it that these four just happend to find each other, find out about their common ideals, and decide to adventure? That I think is what really starts to bug him.

How does changing the system to D&D resolve this?

It doesn't. This is a problem with any game genre. The idea here is that with TROS it seems so much more important for everyone to have common ideals, common SAs. In D&D yeah it is necessary to have people with the same types of likes, you don't want the character bent on destroying the world with the character who wants to help the needy. But there are no SAs that need to mesh so that the characters will keep on adventuring together.

Shadeling likes coming up with spur of the moment plots and twists and stories but I think he feels like he can't because of the SAs. If the SAs are supposed to be incorporated enough in each game session to award like what 3-5 points, than the whole game has to be about the SAs.

The shoe's on the other foot.  There will still be spur of the moment twists; they'll just come from the players.  The Seneschal's job becomes providing opportunities rich with twisting potential.

But see thats not the point. Shadeling doesn't necessarily want only the players to do such things. He likes to do it himself. If the characters twist a plot or do something unexpected that's good but also normal for one of our sessions. It still revolves completley around their SAs. There can't be deviation if the players want experience.
Whereas other games, you do whatever and get experience. In TROS it is more rigid and therefore not as open to different things.

[Ian.Plumb]

Hi,

But see thats not the point. Shadeling doesn't necessarily want only the players to do such things. He likes to do it himself. If the characters twist a plot or do something unexpected that's good but also normal for one of our sessions. It still revolves completley around their SAs. There can't be deviation if the players want experience.
Whereas other games, you do whatever and get experience. In TROS it is more rigid and therefore not as open to different things.

While the talking about yourself in the third-person thing is kinda spooky I agree with the point being made here. It is the connection between SA usage and non-skill development that reduces the referees options for the game. It also stunts the personality of the character, IMO.

Cheers,

[Amy1419]

While the talking about yourself in the third-person thing is kinda spooky...

OOhmigosh! Whoops! That was me posting not Shadeling.
He was signed in and I didn't check before I posted.
So sorry about that!!

Amy

[kenjib]

Hi Ian, one house rules I've seen here several times that might help address your problem (but certainly not entirely) is that if a character has two SA's and is in a situation such that he must choose between them, instead of the standard rules where he might gain a point in one SA only to lose a point in another, the character instead gains two points in one SA only to lose a point in another - still a net gain of one point.  This makes it easier for a player to set up contradictory SA's for their character and for a Seneschal to reward interesting internal conflicts.

Let me go back to your original description of the problem (and please correct me if I am misunderstanding you):

I can't agree with this. TRoS defines SAs as being at the core of the character (hence the massive bonuses that apply when they're firing). As such failure to attain or follow these core concepts is as interesting to the plot (and is more important to character development, IMO) as attaining or following these core concepts.

However, while the reward mechanism is tied only to the positive (that is, the player that follows the goal is rewarded whether successful or unsuccessful in the specific instance), player-driven stories won't head down the negative path -- characters that do this will develop slowly and will be seen as having a negative impact on the plot.

I see two situations that you describe here.  The first is a character who fails to attain a goal he is trying to attain.  In this case, there is nothing to stop a Seneschal from rewarding a character for a valiant effort to attain a goal, even if he fails.  Do you issue rewards for a player's hard considered choices or for random numbers on the dice that result.  The character has thus learned through failure.  Try and try again, school of hard knocks, and all that.

The second situation is the inability to reward a player's character for not really trying to follow his SA's.  It is a failure in effort and I agree that it has dramatic potential.  However, I don't see that this is not supported once we except the subcase of conflicting SA's that the house rule above solves.  If a character no longer wants to attempt to follow an SA, then why not change it to something else?  This is a dramatic moment - when you have realized that something that was centrally important to you is no longer so.  It is rewarded by allowing you to shift your interest to something else and advance in that endeavor instead - ostensibly based on some aspect of the character or environment that you, as a player want to explore.  Should you regain conviction in your old, abandoned, SA, you can always change it back later for yet another dramatic change of heart.  The system even supports redemption...

[Ben Lehman]

I have a hard time seeing how the GM can restrict player SA choices - he can suggest, but they are the player's choice.  Can you give me an example that doesn't involve pre-gens?

The player chooses SAs based on the information provided by the referee. There is ample opportunity for the referee to mould the choices that the player will make. In the end every PC is subject to referee approval.

BL>  Note that, at the level of gameplay you're discussing, the player has an equal veto on the GM's game -- "I'm not playing."  Or the less polite version "This game sucks."

Consider that TRoS puts SAs in the hands of the players *for a reason*

You may not like the sort of play that the design goal produces, but can you understand what it is, and how it differs from your own gaming, and thus respect it from a distance?  Can you stop arguing that SAs "actually" serve a function wildly different from the function that they were written to serve (and do serve well) and perhaps explore ways to modify the advancement / I do not die now system to be more to your liking?  (Off the Cuff suggestion: Get three "advancement points" per character per session, plus +1 dice on all player rolls, +2 on split pools like combat and sorcery, plus a 5 die luck pool?)

Just throwing it out there.

yrs--
--Ben