[Mountain Witch] The Witch + Anti-Trust?

[timfire]

[**You can find the playtest version of MW here.**]

Lately I've been doing a little thinking about how I might be able to give the Witch in MW a little mechanical pizzazz. I'm hestitate to mess with the graceful simplicity the game has right now, but I thought it would be worth it to explore possibilities.

An idea I came up with today, actually, was to maybe give the Witch Anti-Trust, points that the Witch can use to counteract the Trust points the PC's have. This leads to 2 questions:

What would Anti-Trust do?
The simplest thing would be that the Witch (aka the GM) could spend his  points to neutralize Trust-oriented actions proprosed by the players. For example, if a player declares they want to aid another character, the GM can go "Nope!" and neutralize the extra die.

Another way it might work is that the Anti-Trust would basically work like Trust, except the GM could spend it on himself (the Witch). The GM could 'aid' himself and roll extra dice, or maybe he could buy narration rights from one of the players.

Of course, maybe they could work both ways... hmm...

What determines how many points the Witch gets?
The simplest way would be to give the Witch a fixed amount. I don't like this idea, since the amount of Trust PC's will have will vary alot from game to game.

Another way may be to base it off the total levels of Trust among all the PC's. Like maybe 1/2 the total levels of Trust. Doing it this way would give the Witch a somewhat consistent 'difficulty' between games (in theory).

Another method I think I like, but would require a bit of bookkeeping, would be to give the Witch a certain amount of points minus the number of Trust points the players used to screw with each other. Any Trust points spent to mess with another character would count, whether it was to narrate a 'bad' conflict resolution, or whether it was to outright betray another character. I like the idea that if the characters spend alot of time screwing each other over, then the Witch becomes easy, but if they stick together the entire time he becomes hard... though I do need to do a little thinking to make sure that would be the thematic statement I want to make.

I could make the formula [ Anti-Trust = (Total Trust among all the PC's) - (Number of Trust points spent to screw someone)].
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What do y'all think about the Anti-Trust Idea?
Any suggestions for how it might work?
Any other suggestions for how to give the Witch a little more pizzazz? (BTW, I considered simply making him tougher to kill, but I don't really like that idea.)

[LordSmerf]

Having recently read the MW rules, but not having played it yet i find myself wondering: What exactly do you mean by give the Witch more pizzazz?  Are you trying to make things more interesting for the GM?  Are you trying to up the level of challenge?  Both?  Neither?

Thomas

[timfire]

What I'm looking for is a way to make the encounter with the Witch feel different. Currently, on the mechanical level, there's nothing seperating the encounter with the Witch from any other encounter in the game.

Am I trying to up the level of challenge?... hmmm... not per se, but it would be nice if I could ensure that the final encounter with the Witch was... interesting. I mean, as was demonstrated in my playtest last Saturday, 4 PC's all aiding each other on a single roll will stomp any challenge. I'm not trying to make him difficult, per se, it would just be nice if I could ensure that the encounter took a couple of rolls to defeat him.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Tim,

I have to say that I'm not sure I'm grooving on these anti-trust ideas. Players have been carefully establishing Trust relationships through play. Allowing the Witch to have points for just snuffing player Trust points seems, well, not like much fun. I'd recommend instead that the Witch warps the social fabric somehow. Maybe allies/enemies work differently. Or maybe it's as simple as inverting the point costs for Influence, so that making a character take an action they disagree with costs the least. Rather than just a difficult tactical challenge, perhaps the fight with the Witch might be characterized by a "no one emerges from this unscarred by their actions" dynamic.

Paul

[timfire]

Good points Paul, thanks. The suggestions you made definitely go along with the spirit I wanted, but maybe my anti-Trust was just a clumsy attempt to capture that spirit.

Right now I'm leaning towards the idea that something should be different about the final confrontation, but I'm not sure what. If I'm going to change anything, I think the Witch has to have some way to counter Trust. I don't want to turn the final confrontaion into some tactical challenge, but aiding has such mechanical power. I also don't want to downplay Trust - if anything I want Trust to be even more important for the final fight.

Here's another idea, maybe the Witch automatically gets 2d6 instead of 1d6? That would make aiding pretty much a neccessity in the final fight, and its not too intrusive towards the design as it is now.  Hmmm...

I'll do some more thinking, and some more playtesting.

[ErrathofKosh]

Note: On character sheet under Boar, the description reads Dog.

Cheers
Jonathan

[timfire]

Thanks Jonathon, I appreciate it. I've actually started a rewrite, though I don't expect to finish the rewrite until late in the year.