[InSpectres] 1st Time Role-Players -- Kids!! (long-ish)

[LandonSuffered]

b]InSpectres<Cast of Characters:<One note:<Thank you InSpectres!   And thanks to my wonderful players!
InSpectrCast of Characters:<One note:<Thank you InSpectres!   And thanks to my wonderful players!

[skatay]

I don't have much more to add than that this helped inspire my purchase of Inspectres. I'd previously heard lots about it, but actual play writeups are really what get me excited about the game.

[matthijs]

Heh heh. Yeah, I'm downloading the Startup Edition now, to see how it works out.

[Darren Hill]

That was a great report. The bank robber is the CFO, heh.

[TonyLB]

Rock ON!

I'm so so curious about how you managed Stress rolls so that they didn't result in lots of Cool.  That was my serious issue the last time I ran, and you clearly had it under control.  Do you have a sense of the breakdown of how many 1s, how many 2s, how many 3s (relative to each other) you were demanding?

[Darren Hill]

My experience: I've only run it the once. In that single three PC game, only one player got a single cool point, and I gave them a lot of Stress checks. (Not too many though, since they did end with a profit of 2-3 dice after the adventure was over and they'd bought back their stats).
I think just over half the checks I asked for were 2's, and most of the rest 1's - I only used 3's right at the very end. Most of the 1's came early on, so that if any players did get Cool, they'd get it then.

From the probabilities, I wouldn't have thought two many Cool points would occur. Has this happened often, Tony, or was it an isolated incident?

I would have liked a better guide in the rulebook to when to use Stress, though - something like Agon or PTA's budget for how many stress you can inflict.

[TonyLB]

From the probabilities, I wouldn't have thought two many Cool points would occur. Has this happened often, Tony, or was it an isolated incident?

Well, I had an isolated incident, but then I backed it up with fairly robust statistical analysis.  I'm a bit of a math geek.

I'm pretty sure that there's something funky in the mathematics (with one point of cool being way more powerful than just "take one less stress die before you roll") but as I'm the only one who's encountered it in practice, I basically figure I must have done somethin' wrong.

You asked for a lot of ones early on, but no cool resulted?  Maybe I just got unlucky then.  I did the same thing, and everybody loaded up on cool after just a few die-rolls.

[Ron Edwards]

You're not the only one, Tony. I run into the same issue and as GM, try to compensate by simply piling on oodles of Stress, all the time.

Best, Ron

[LandonSuffered]

Tony -- sorry to take so long getting back to you, but I haven't been checking the Forge recently (been working on a couple RPG projects) and thought this thread had died!

With regard to the number of stress dice rolled...well, it's been more than two months since the game session, and we haven't seen the kids since (though we are seeing them tomorrow; perhaps we'll be on for another game of InSpectres!).  But if memory serves the ration of 1-2-3 dice stress rolls was about 20%-45%-35%.  We'd warm up with a couple 1 dice rolls just to start the chills, then move into 2-dicers as kind of "standard," then hit 3-dicers when they really upped the ante on their scary narration. 

Thing is, the kids rolled pretty lousy on their stress rolls. I mean, we called for rolls when they were already stressed out/scared. Then knowing that blowing the roll would cost 'em...well, it was like negative psychic reinforcement or something.  They'd just blow the rolls and get on bad streaks.  Oddly enough, when "rolling to succeed" in some task, they had much handier time...thus leading them to narrate more often in the game.

I've often found kids anticipation of events to be a powerful influence in determining event outcomes. I still remember putting a quarter in a gumball machine for an 7 year old girl and asking, "what color do you want?" She said, "Blue, please." I said okay, turned the crank...and out came a blue gumball.  My wife thought that was pretty crazy, but I find this kind of thing par for the course.

Anyway...that's just my experience.  If we played more, I'm sure they'd eventually earn some Cool dice.

[Meguey]

This makes me want to try it for my 10 and 7 year old, plus maybe a few of their friends. Awesome post, Landon.

[Mr. Sluagh]

I'm pretty sure that there's something funky in the mathematics (with one point of cool being way more powerful than just "take one less stress die before you roll") but as I'm the only one who's encountered it in practice, I basically figure I must have done somethin' wrong.

There is. I have my book right here, and the rule is that for each Cool point you have, you can ignore one Stress die after you roll.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey folks,

This thread began back in April. Although every contribution has been a good post, it's also time to let the thread reside in its proper time-frame. So, no more posting to it, please.

Best, Ron