Money and Power - The next step to Directoral Enlightenment

[damion]

First off:Yeah, deciding if a giving source is mammon or animus is probably not that

Guess I didn't make my point. What I was trying to say was that there can be a fair amount of overlap of functionality between animus and mammon, and for a characther with alot of sources of one, it may be hard to find a situation where they can't be used and the other is required.
If the GM calls for one or the other it is arbitrary and more importantly, the players know this and know the GM is intentionally screwing them.  I can see this causing arguments. Frex: "Instead of grabbing the edge, I'll just use my Wings of Flying."
    Esp since in many cases, a player will have a choice and choose the stronger side.

My suggestion to fix this is to increase the recharge rate of spent sources. I'd suggest they recharge every 'scene'. A scene should be relativly often, probably every few tests. (Say getting past the henchmen is one scene and fighting the villian is the next one.)
I think a faster recharge rate would encourge people to drain sources more often, and hence narrate them, and more narration is good, right?

    I say this because draining sources is pretty useless. It doesn't really increase your chances all that much, and has a
fairly good chance of preventing a characther from doing anything the rest of the session.

Just some thoughts.

[Paganini]

What I was trying to say was that there can be a fair amount of overlap of functionality between animus and mammon, and for a characther with alot of sources of one, it may be hard to find a situation where they can't be used and the other is required.

I guess I'm not seeing a problem. If there's ambiguity between which to use the GM makes the choice.

I say this because draining sources is pretty useless. It doesn't really increase your chances all that much, and has a
fairly good chance of preventing a characther from doing anything the rest of the session.

Well... 10% is pretty significant. :) However, I see what you mean about Sources not being able to be used often enough. Hmm.

[Mike Holmes]

I'm starting to think that there's no other way to do things.

I have to disagree. In either a very Realistic or a very Narrativistic game, this mechanic would be useless. In the first, it would destroy realism. In the second.. well, who cares avout equipment anyway, in an extremely Narrativist game?

Going to have to disagree here. I think you're wrong on both accounts. According to Mike, the idea was pioneered in a realistic game! Champions is a "realistic" game, in the sense that much effort is given to accurate depiction.

In the second place, Hero Wars, Synthesis, and this game (I'm calling it the Origo system now) are all extremely and overtly Narrativist.

There will be some styles for which the fading equipment mechanic does not work. I'll agree with Victor that far. But I think they're few. You are right that it's not realistic. OTOH, I think that few RPGs are really concerned with true realism. As Nathan points out, Champions is very Simulationist, and tries for a lot of internal consistency, and yet that consistency does not include accumulating equipment, or tracking cash flow. They just don't belong in superhero games.

As far as Narrativism, I think you couldn't be more wrong. In such a game, whether that sword is just one you picked up, or the one weided by your father at the battle of Angrohard is often crucial. Equipment is an very important part of stories. What would LotR be without that Ring. Note how the ring is like a character. D&D tried to emulate this with intelligent weapons. That's fine as far as it goes, but, as in my original example, objects can just be objects and still be very important to the story. In Hero Wars, that sword that your father wielded may get you some big bonuses in combat, even if it's not technically magical. IOW, equipment is often more important in Narrativist games than it is in others.

In any case, I wasn't suggesting that people can't make successful games without the mechanic. Just that with all the advantages, I personally find it too attractive to pass up.

As this is a bit off topic, I'm going to start a new thread about this called Equipment and Balance over in the Theory forum.

Mike

[damion]

I guess I'm not seeing a problem. If there's ambiguity between which to use the GM makes the choice.

I guess I'm just not explaining well, or maybe I'm seeing a phantom problem.
What I'm trying to say is that is deprotaganizing if the GM selects a choice and may look like they are picking on the player, however having the player select always is unbalanced.

Take Grenaldis.
He can block the long arm of the law, or he can dodge. Given he has M6,A3. He'd rather block. If the GM calls for an Animus roll, it looks like he's being picked on.

I'd suggest randomizing it in case of conflict.
Maybe roll a D10 with a 6+ is a Mammon roll, 1-5 Animus. Then have a GM supplied modifier of -2 to +2. This way conflicts can be resolved without it looking like the GM is deliberatly selecting a more difficult roll. Also, these can be interesting to narrate.
"I tried to get my sword up in time, but tripped on a stray cat. Genaldis falls to one knee, but manages to roll backwards out of the shierfs way. He looks around, to see if there are any more of them dang cats." If he say drained a mammon source he could narrate dropping his sword also.

Another way to do source draining would be to make it a +2 or +3(I like 3). Before you have to drain a fair number of sources to get a usefull plus to a roll. (If I'm losing these for the rest of the session, I should at least make this roll...)

Just some thoughs

[Mike Holmes]

This is a good point, Damion. The less a GM is required to make subjective decisions on mechanics, the better in general terms. A lot of designs lately have been popping up with a lot of "and then the GM decides something important". Personally I think staying away from that as much as possible mechanically is best. The GM will still have tons of influence elsewhere, so that's not a worry. Many of these mechanics are tantamount to saying "if the rule doesn't work chuck it". Which is also bad design. The rule should work, and not depend on the GM to produce effects.

Mike

[Bob McNamee]

One thing that popped into my head...
What about characters teaming up? Each rolls separate ... narration order based on best result (most under target?)...

that might offset players always putting narration die High....

Bob McNamee