Story Tokens

[Keiko]

Do players have any Story Tokens when a game first begins? (the first session of a new game).

[Stefan / 1of3]

No, they don't.

[JohnUghrin]

Do players have any Story Tokens when a game first begins? (the first session of a new game).

Only (and this is up to the group) if you are carrying over story tokens from a previous session with the same story line. Even then, you probably want to have them expire or reset occasionally. Otherwise, they can build up to unwieldy levels.

[Eric Sedlacek]

Only (and this is up to the group) if you are carrying over story tokens from a previous session with the same story line. Even then, you probably want to have them expire or reset occasionally. Otherwise, they can build up to unwieldy levels.

I'd like to note that I've seen huge stacks of story tokens whittled down to nothing in a single scene.  The thing is, having a huge stack is only a powerful position if no one else has one.  If two people each have big stacks, the first time they passionately disagree about a conflict, they both burn their respective stacks down to the nubs.

If your whole group is building up large stacks and never using them, then you should think about why you aren't reaching for your tokens more.

(Incidentally, Tony himself rarely builds up tokens much at all.  He pops them like candy.)

[Andrew Cooper]

I'll confirm what Eric said.  In every game I've played Story Tokens have never built up because we use them fairly often if we have them.  I might save up 3 or 4 but pretty soon a conflict comes up that I *really* care about and I burn them up to guarantee a win for my side.  If you are building up huge stacks of Story Tokens, my question is, why?  They're useless unless you actually spend them.  They have no game value at all except to be used.

[Eric Sedlacek]

I'll confirm what Eric said.  In every game I've played Story Tokens have never built up because we use them fairly often if we have them.  I might save up 3 or 4 but pretty soon a conflict comes up that I *really* care about and I burn them up to guarantee a win for my side.  If you are building up huge stacks of Story Tokens, my question is, why?  They're useless unless you actually spend them.  They have no game value at all except to be used.

Building up a stack does have tactical value to a point.  If you have the biggest stack, people know you have an advantage in the next conflict you really want to win, so it has a certain intimidation factor.  Of course, if someone else has a better pool of inspirations, more debt to stake, or even just better luck, you can still get pwned. 

So, yeah, hoarding is really not productive as a long-term strategy...

[TonyLB]

(Incidentally, Tony himself rarely builds up tokens much at all.  He pops them like candy.)

There's always more where they came from.

Building up a stack does have tactical value to a point.  If you have the biggest stack, people know you have an advantage in the next conflict you really want to win, so it has a certain intimidation factor.  Of course, if someone else has a better pool of inspirations, more debt to stake, or even just better luck, you can still get pwned.

In my eyes, a person who builds up a large stack of story tokens becomes a target.  After all, they can't really make best possible use of those story tokens without staking debt, right?  I mean, how often do they want to reroll a single die?  And if they stake debt and beat me, yay me!

I particularly like people who have a large stack of story tokens, but no debt yet.  If you get those people steamed, they'll waste story tokens (rerolling fours and fives) just to get debt and THEN stake the debt and burn yet more story tokens in order to power that debt ... at the end they've burned through a lot of their story tokens in order to give me story tokens.