[While We Were Fighting] GM Dice Pool

[Peter Nordstrand]

While We Were Fighting is a game about powerful people intriguing in a fictional Italian renaissance city. It is a decidedly narrativist game, drawing inspiration from such perennial favourites as Sorcerer, HeroQuest, Universalis, and others.

My Problerm
I would appreciate some help deciding how to determine the GMs dice pool in conflict resolution.

Conflict Resolution: A Brief Summary
All players have a trait known as Leverage. In a conflict of interest, players roll a number of dice equal to their Leverage score, hoping to collect as many successes as possible. The participant with the highest number of successes in the end is the winner. However, players can make Sacrifices, effectively trading ratings in various handicaps for successes.

Naturally, there are other complications. The dice pool, for example, is modified by other traits (such as relationships, modus operandi, and wealth). Also, if you manage to enlist the aid of a group, you are more likely to succeed.

Leverage, is also used as an in-game currency. It may be freely exchanged between players, without any in-game justification. Furthermore, Leverage can be spent to influence certain scene framing issues. Finally, players can trade points in Leverage to increase their ratings in individual traits.

A player's Leverage increases by +1 every time she wins a conflict of interest.

The GM's Dice Pool

I'm not quite sure how to determine the GM's dice pool. Should the GM have a Leverage score just like any other player? I would like suggestions, and options. Feel free to point me to other games and established solutions that I may or may not be aware of.

A Note on Sacrifices
Sacrifices are inspired by Keys in The Shadow of Yesterday, and Concessions in Vincent's ancient game that I can't rememeber the name of. More specifically, I got the idea from from John Harper.

[Anders]

Hi Peter,

As I remember it, the strength of Crises dice pools are determined by the sum of Story Dice in play at the moment the crisis hit, right? How about you utilize the Story Dice to decide the GM's Leverage as well?

I haven't thought this through, and I'm no math head, but say for example that the GM has a core pool of three dice, and that on the first round Story Dice are thrown, that sum are added to the GM pool for the remainder of scenes until a crisis comes in play. Either that or until everybody have framed a scene and refresh their Story Dice. The GM can then use this pool to add to the core three at will.

Too few/many dice to the GM? Too random?

The other thing I'm thinking about is a Primetime Adventures-like budget that determines this at the beginning of play.

[Peter Nordstrand]

Hi Anders,

Thank you for replying. You remember correctly about Story Dice determining the Strength of a Crisis, and I do think that particular mechanic worked fine. (Read about Story Dice and Crises here.)

I haven't thought this through, and I'm no math head, but say for example that the GM has a core pool of three dice, and that on the first round Story Dice are thrown, that sum are added to the GM pool for the remainder of scenes until a crisis comes in play. Either that or until everybody have framed a scene and refresh their Story Dice. The GM can then use this pool to add to the core three at will.

Interesting. Let me se if I understand what you mean. The GM starts with a permanent pool of 3 dice that she can use in all conflicts. In addition, she has a budget of sorts that can be spent to temporarily increase the dice pool in any given conflict. When the budget is spent, it is gone.

Example:

Three players plus one GM.

Everybody rolls their very first Story Dice. They come up 5, 5, 3, 2. This gives the GM a budget of 15 to spend conflicts of intrerest.

The first conflict of interest comes up. The GM spends 2 points from her budget, giving her a total pool of 5 (3+2) dice for this particular conflict. This leaves her with a remaining budget of 13. 

Is this what you meant? Yeah, that's kind of cool.

There is one big difference between the players and the GM in conflict resolution. The players will always control only one character each, but the GM may very well control several characters, with different goals. I'm sure this circumstance needs to be addressed somehow.

Cheers,

[Marshall Burns]

I was going to suggest giving the GM a fixed (never depleted, never increased) pool of moderate size relative to a player's pool, but the above sounds more interesting.

-Marshall

[Anders]

Good example Peter, that's exactly how I meant.

Do you expect a lot of three way conflicts including one PC and two NPC's (or more)? When we playtested it that didn't really happen (which doesn't mean it won't). Could'nt  you just use the core dice, three for each NPC, and split the "Story Dice" pool accordingly?

That way the GM will have to choose carefully when to attack on several fronts. The downside is that NPC's may become a little underpowered.