Conflicts against inanimate objects

[boredoom]

I just got the rules, and I love them. I think I'll have to GM this, which would be the first time I GM in 15 years or so.

But I have a question: How do I handle conflicts between players and inanimate objects? A rules example mentions a player committing an action token to force a door, and another conflict triggered by the side effect of the jeweled loupe, but I could only find character-character conflict rules.

It's not a very important question - the GM could just assign a difficulty to the obstacle and then add power tokens to it at if that suits the story, but if you have a mechanic or I missed it in the rules, that would be interesting to hear.

[Brennan Taylor]

Hi, boredoom,

The example of someone trying to force a door is a bad example, and is left over from an earlier version of the rules. I originally had conflicts against inanimate objects in the rules, but to be honest, there needs to be a really good reason for such a conflict to even take place.

I find it better to have characters testing themselves against some active antagonist, even if the antagonist is the person who built the object the character is trying to affect. If the conflict only involves some inanimate object, why are the characters even involved in the conflict? As a GM, if the characters are trying to force a door, you should determine what is important in this situation. If it's important for them to find another way around, say so, otherwise, let them force the door. If they are chasing after someone and the door is in the way, the conflict is really with the fleeing character, not the door, and the door character's Force action is opposing the fleeing character's Grace action (can he force the door before the other character runs away?).

Is this clear? My advice is to focus on the actual goals of the action, rather than the mechanical details of the action.

By the way, I think it is awesome that Mortal Coil is tempting you to GM. Please post about any game you do run, I'd love to hear about it.

[boredoom]

Ok, that makes sense. I guess in the case of the jeweled loupe, the conflict triggered would be perceiver vs. perceived, with the stakes being: does the perceiver see the true nature of the perceived, or does his mind snap a bit?

Yeah, I definitely want to GM this, possibly for GGG5 if I find my GMing abilities up to snuff.

[Nathan P.]

I haven't GMed Mortal Coil (yet....), but my experience with playing it and with GMing related games (like Prime Time Adventures) makes me pretty confident that you shouldn't worry about it. I don't know what other games you're familier with, but the primary duty of the GM in this game, as I see it, is to push directly on the Passions of the characters. Remember, as soon as the theme document is done, you have your villains already, and you probably have a situation that the characters are in. Take a short break to stat up the villains (with Passions that directly hit on the Passions of the characters), and you're ready to roll.

Which is the long way of saying, if its calling to you, run a game or two!