[Bliss Stage] Rising Hero's special

[Filip Luszczyk]

It says to add one Trust to all relationships with other pilots. Do we still subtract one Trust, as normal? Or does the special supercede the default rule, resulting in a one point gain over the default?

I noticed that other than the default 3 with "Everyone else", Rising Hero is rather low on Trust compared to other templates. Unless another pilot takes a strong relationship with him, he's pretty much screwed up until he manages to build up some decent relationships. That was the case in our previous campaign - were, worse yet, it took some time before we figured out the player could pretty much spam "Everyone else" as relatively safe "one-off missiles". Till that point he was accumulating Bliss like crazy, always balancing on the verge of breaking multiple relationships.

[Ben Lehman]

It says to add one Trust to all relationships with other pilots. Do we still subtract one Trust, as normal? Or does the special supercede the default rule, resulting in a one point gain over the default?

I noticed that other than the default 3 with "Everyone else", Rising Hero is rather low on Trust compared to other templates. Unless another pilot takes a strong relationship with him, he's pretty much screwed up until he manages to build up some decent relationships. That was the case in our previous campaign - were, worse yet, it took some time before we figured out the player could pretty much spam "Everyone else" as relatively safe "one-off missiles". Till that point he was accumulating Bliss like crazy, always balancing on the verge of breaking multiple relationships.

Filip:

It counteracts the normal loss of trust between pilots. It would have been better to say "does not lose trust with other pilots."

And yes, that's the Rising Hero's starting dynamic. Those that know her don't trust her. And those that trust her don't know her. Compare to Carefree Hedonist, who is very similar.

With two trust building actions, you can have a excellent (1/5) stress sink relationship, though.

yrs--
--Ben

[Filip Luszczyk]

Thanks. So we didn't read the rule wrong after all.

I haven't seen any Carefree Hedonists in play so far, but both Rising Heroes turned out rather difficult to handle for people on their first playthrough. I'm not so sure about the actual usability of 1/5 relationships, though. Last time we came to the conclusion that they start being useful at 3/3 (unless you're shooting for more Bliss, at least). The problem starts when you's too busy clearing 1-2 Stress from half your relationships just to have anything decent to roll on your next mission, never mind Trust building. Wouldn't 1/5, despite giving some time to farm Intimacy, produce a whole lot new problems elsewhere until it starts generating those pluses more reliably?

[Ben Lehman]

The strength of a five trust relationship is that it can eat a stress every single roll for nearly two missions before needing stress relief. That's huge. Even if it only gives one die, it can support a number of 4/1 and 5/1 relationships by being their "stress sink."

yrs--
--Ben

[Filip Luszczyk]

Hmm, I'll have to explain it to my players this time. I haven't seen a lot of such relationship comboing so far - on the contrary, there was a tendency to either activate as few as possible, or to go all-out. Though somehow relationship breaking wasn't all that terribly common, despite chaotic tactics - I generally see more panic than actual harm done.

[Ben Lehman]

"more panic than actual harm done" is pretty common. Mostly, if relationships are going to bust, they bust because of Trust breaking in interludes, not missions.

That said, you do have to be cautious about how you approach missions. It's because of that caution that lasting harm doesn't occur.

yrs--
--Ben