[Trollbabe] Switching the Social Range?

[rafial]

The way I understood Sean's original reference to the extra options for narrative input magic gives you, that was referring to the fact that you "can make stuff up" with magic, which is a bit harder to do with fighting and social. You responded by saying that one gets to "make stuff up" when failing, to which I responded that this isn't necessaarily related to failing. At least that is my understanding of the discussion so far.
I don't quite understand how the comment quoted above speaks to that issue, so I'd ask you to help me along there. FWIW I agree with the quoted stuff, though I would phrase it in less confrontational terms. ;)

Sorry about being confrontational.  I think your summary is fairly accurate, except for the fact that I was not responding to the notion that magic lets you make more stuff up, but rather the whole concern over Trollbabes "failing too much" with the new Social rule.

As for my response which  you quote, I was attempting to further the case for my argument that failure in Trollbabe grants the player significantly more authorial and directorial power than success does.  Clearly I wasn't being clear about it.

One aspect of failure that especially contributes control are rerolls.

But if I tell the story of her being a bad ass all along and future dice rolls don't reflect that, then ... well, maybe she wasn't such bad ass all along.

Perhaps.  On the other hand, my Trollbabe, Kleewick, who has always had her number skewed toward fighting, has developed a repuation for always coming out on the bad end of every fight, but managing to pull out the right bit of magic when needed.  In Trollbabe, when you roll only once per scene, cumulative probably doesn't wield as much influence as it might otherwise..  This is what I mean by focusing actual rather than expected outcomesl.

Good then that no-one was. ;) I was talking about long term overall effectiveness in certain areas and saying that a lower chance of success (relative to other areas) and attributing resulting failures to circumstances often both make it hard – at least for me – to maintain the overall belief in the Trollbabes competence in that area. Your response in terms of individual outcomes and emphasis on an interpretation purely in terms of competence makes me think we're talking past each other.

Very likely so.  I was originally just trying to address the concern that the new social rule would lead to "too much failure", by pointing out that in my experience of Trollbabe play the problem has always been "too little failure".  As for the issue Ron brings up of multiple action types in a conflict, I must admit I don't have as much experience with that, as it tended not to happen in the games I have run/played in.

P.S. Bob, thanks for posting those excellent examples

[montag]

Sorry about being confrontational.

Sorry for the one-line quote but I wanted to get this out of the way: I was only referring to you portrayal of the GM-player interaction, which to me seemed to imply some sort of struggle/confrontation between them. Your tone certainly wasn't confrontational, apologies for being unclear on this.

I think your summary is fairly accurate, except for the fact that I was not responding to the notion that magic lets you make more stuff up, but rather the whole concern over Trollbabes "failing too much" with the new Social rule.

Good point. Seeing it as a trade-off between success and narrative input makes sense. It seems to me the benefit of the added narrative input on (what for want of a better term one might call) the degree of shared vision between GM and player. If both are on the same line on the same page concerning the Trollbabe and the overall story the "has final say" aspect becomes less a concern and things proceed according to mutual agreement on the best idea. At least in my limited experience, that is.

In Trollbabe, when you roll only once per scene, cumulative probably doesn't wield as much influence as it might otherwise..  This is what I mean by focusing on actual rather than expected outcomes.

Um, well, yes, .. up to a point ;) I guess my beef with that is, that this perspective makes it hard to debate any rules changes. The actual outcome may always be different, with sufficient luck anyone can kill a dragon if you know what I mean ;). OTOH you're right about the lesser impact of cumulative probability, so I'd suggest agreeing that we disagree about where to put emphasis.

I was originally just trying to address the concern that the new social rule would lead to "too much failure", by pointing out that in my experience of Trollbabe play the problem has always been "too little failure".

Which gives me an idea: why not have the player select all three stats as they like? As has been pointed out, Trollbabes are supposed to be competent in all areas, the stat can easily be seen as merely reflecting choice of options, failure provides the opportunity for player control of narration, and failures can be narrated in a fashion that doesn't imply poor competence. Some are even complaining that there is not enough failure.
Why not explain all this to the player, and if someone wants to start with all stats at maximum, for whatever reason, well just let them. Cumulative probability (yeah, I can't let go ;) will make this have an impact on the overall tone of the story, ranging from super-babe comes along and solves all problems easily to stories of Trollbabes fighting against numerous set-backs, unexpected complications, lots of plot twists and so on. Anything wrong with that idea?

[Bob McNamee]

Hmmm my Fair and Clear post from my indie-netgaming log stripped off the tags for me, and Nathan, while leaving Chris's in... strange...and makes it a confusing post.

sorry

[rafial]

I was only referring to you portrayal of the GM-player interaction, which to me seemed to imply some sort of struggle/confrontation between them.

Ah, it's (free and) clear now :)

On the other hand, I think I stand by my original phrasings.  I wouldn't call the GM/player relationship in Trollbabe confrontational, but there is an element of challenge, as each side hucks narrative curve balls and sliders at each other.  

If both are on the same line on the same page concerning the Trollbabe and the overall story the "has final say" aspect becomes less a concern and things proceed according to mutual agreement on the best idea. At least in my limited experience, that is.

Yes, that's much of it, puncuated by occasional moments of "What the heck did you just say?" as a particularly fast plot twist whizzes across the plate, and the other player scrambles to keep up.  That's where the spice in the game comes from.

I guess my beef with that is, that this perspective makes it hard to debate any rules changes.

Good point, well taken.

On the other hand, I should clarify that I'm totally down with the idea that players are taking most likely outcomes into account in making their decisions on what and when to roll, but asserting that those probabilities don't necessarily have any standing in the world of the Trollbabes themselves.  Or another way of looking at that: player goals and character goals may be two different things.

Which gives me an idea: why not have the player select all three stats as they like? ... Anything wrong with that idea?

It'd probably work just fine apart from distrupting the beautiful purity of the "one number system" :P