[SS/TWoN] Questions: success in conflict, npc and characters, keys, death

[Paolo D.]

Ok, again a couple of questions after some play: (P.S. : well... More than a couple :-) )


1) SUCCESS IN CONFLICT

In a simple conflict (or in Opposed action in extended conflict), if the first character rolls a 2 and the second a 3, is the winning result a 1 or a 3, for the purposes of narration and (eventually) Effects?


2) NPCS AND CHARACTERS

Two questions about aiding npcs:

A - in Extended Conflict, if an npc (guided by the SG) is an ally of a playing character (by his side), does the SG plays him normally? And what if the Extended conflict is " pc+npc VS npc"?

B - these days, I'm playing as the SG in a SS conversion of our good old D&D campaign (I'll tell more about it another time). One of the characters is a cleric of Obad-hai, able to rebuke and command vegetal creatures. He as a sort of companion, something like a "vine panther". We agree that this companion is more a "tool" of the cleric than a real character, so we "crunched" it as an Equipment (with Ratings).

So, the cleric is sending his companion to scout the surrounding, miles away at east. And we are calling an Ability check for this.
But... Which Ability?
The companion has Ratings, not Abilities. Simply enough, this time we decided that the cleric rolls "Survival (I)" and than we applied Ratings if needed... But that sounds something strange to us, because the companion was doing all the scouting work, not the cleric.
Maybe instead we should use the Ability for the rebuke/command power... "Devotion (I)" in our crunch landscape (that stands for the strenght of the link between the faithful character and his deity), similarly to how a leading character command his warband in TWoN.

Have you got any suggestion about this issue?


3) HITTING KEYS

When hitting Keys, can a single "interesting event" hit more voices of a given Key? Even if these voices are very similar (like "Flirt with the romantic interest" and "Interact positively with the person" in the Key of Romance)?


4) DEATH

A named character die if he should check the "seventh Harm" in his sheet, right (and if the enemy decide to kill him, of course)?
Can this happen even out of Extended Conflict? (with Harm as part of a Stake, for example; because you can pile enough Harm to go "over" Mortal even in this case, right?)


Ok, thats all - thanks a lot! :-)

[Eero Tuovinen]

1) SUCCESS IN CONFLICT

In a simple conflict (or in Opposed action in extended conflict), if the first character rolls a 2 and the second a 3, is the winning result a 1 or a 3, for the purposes of narration and (eventually) Effects?

The value of the success is always the value of your own check, not the difference between the check results. However, this can be changed by crunch, which might well instruct you to consider the differential instead of the full value. Also, as you mention, opposed actions in extended conflict already work on the differentials.

A - in Extended Conflict, if an npc (guided by the SG) is an ally of a playing character (by his side), does the SG plays him normally? And what if the Extended conflict is " pc+npc VS npc"?

SG plays the NPC, but he doesn't need to make a big deal of it as long as the motivations of the PC and NPC are in harmony. Note that only named NPCs with distinct motivations should be considered as either resistance or aid in conflict.

It's also a good SGing principle to play friendly NPCs as relatively passive and lethargic creatures that leave the real struggles and risks to the player characters. Therefore you would typically just give the PC some bonus dice for having a NPC on his side, unless the NPC was motivated to do something flashy (and possibly controversial) by himself. A support action, in other words. You might even obviate the dicing and just have the NPC pass his Ability value in dice to the PC to speed things up in situations where you have lots of NPCs to track.

B - these days, I'm playing as the SG in a SS conversion of our good old D&D campaign (I'll tell more about it another time). One of the characters is a cleric of Obad-hai, able to rebuke and command vegetal creatures. He as a sort of companion, something like a "vine panther". We agree that this companion is more a "tool" of the cleric than a real character, so we "crunched" it as an Equipment (with Ratings).

So, the cleric is sending his companion to scout the surrounding, miles away at east. And we are calling an Ability check for this.
But... Which Ability?
The companion has Ratings, not Abilities. Simply enough, this time we decided that the cleric rolls "Survival (I)" and than we applied Ratings if needed... But that sounds something strange to us, because the companion was doing all the scouting work, not the cleric.
Maybe instead we should use the Ability for the rebuke/command power... "Devotion (I)" in our crunch landscape (that stands for the strenght of the link between the faithful character and his deity), similarly to how a leading character command his warband in TWoN.

It seems to me that a D&D animal (plant, whatever) companion is probably best statted as a NPC sidekick. That is, have the character take the Secret of Sidekick (or whatever it's called, I forget) and stat up the plant monster as a NPC character (as per Solar System NPC techniques is what I'd do - too much trouble tracking several Pools and such). Give the monster a NPC Ability one step lower than the cleric's.

The idea of a piece of equipment that acts independently is explored further in the World of Near - one basic way of implementing it is to use the equipment rating as an Ability rating, simply enough.

3) HITTING KEYS

When hitting Keys, can a single "interesting event" hit more voices of a given Key? Even if these voices are very similar (like "Flirt with the romantic interest" and "Interact positively with the person" in the Key of Romance)?

Nope. Just the highest option in a single Key is activated by a single event. However, it's not uncommon to have the same scene develop in a way that hits the Key several times at different levels - this is kosher as long as there is uncertainty as to whether the further development will happen. For instance, it's common to take one point for having something appear in a scene and then take two more for making choices that ping the same Key at a higher level. However, if that higher level develops automatically from the lower, then I wouldn't give both rewards - each reward has to come as the result of a distinct event.

4) DEATH

A named character die if he should check the "seventh Harm" in his sheet, right (and if the enemy decide to kill him, of course)?
Can this happen even out of Extended Conflict? (with Harm as part of a Stake, for example; because you can pile enough Harm to go "over" Mortal even in this case, right?)

A good question. I have the character that goes over Mortal become helpless and indisposed until the end of the scene regardless of whether that happens in extended conflict or not. If somebody is present to finish him off, or the situation indicates death due to having no feasible way of being saved, then he'll die.