I have been corresponding with someone about the Alyria rules, and he has asked a couple of interesting questions about Trait activation. I'm chewing on the issues, but I thought that I would post the suggestions and gather some feedback from all of you.

As you know, during a conflict, each player may activate one Trait, either belonging to his character or to his opponent's. The activating player may then assign the phase of that Trait to his own target phase or to his opponent's target phase.

The obligatory example: Uriel and Victor are arguing vigorously. Both choose to use Force to resolve the conflict. Victor's Force is Gibbous. Uriel's Force is Half. Victor has a Trait: Cowardice at New Moon. If Victor activates it, he can replace Uriel's Half Moon or his own Gibbous with a New Moon.

Under the current rules, if both players activate a Trait, their effects cancel, leaving them with their base moon phases from their Attributes.

Victor activates his Cowardice, drawing on his fear of being discovered as the father of Uriel to fuel his rage. He therefore gives the New Moon to Uriel. Uriel responds in kind, activating his Despise of Victor (also New Moon). The two activations cancel, leaving Uriel with a Half Moon and Victor with a Gibbous. Therefore, Victor needs to roll a Half Moon or better, and Uriel needs to roll a Gibbous or better.

Now that we're all on the same page, here are the two issues that were raised.


Activation of Two Traits

My correspondent noted that the activation of two Traits does not require a cancellation of effects. Rather, he was suggesting that a Trait can be activated to cancel the effect of a previous Trait on a given target phase. If the second Trait activation affects the target phase that was not altered by the first activation, both changes stand.

I know that I'm not being clear, which is why I'm relying on our example. :-)

If this were implemented, both Uriel and Victor would be rolling against New Moon in the previous example, since both Trait activations applied to different target phases.

The advantage to this approach is that it makes Traits more effective. Frequently Trait activation is a wash, since you are only allowed to activate one Trait per conflict. Using this rules tweak would open the possibilities to Traits having a greater effect.

The problem that it introduces (as I see it) is that it introduces timing issues. Who gets to activate a Trait first? That could have a big effect on resolution.


Double Activation of Traits

The related question has to do with double-activation. What if both players want to activate the same Trait? In our example, what if both Uriel and Victor want to make use of Victor's Cowardice Trait? My correspondent was suggesting that Trait activation need not be exclusive. Therefore, if the situation is appropriate, Uriel and Victor can draw on Victor's Cowardice.

The advantage to this is that it solves a number of timing issues, both in regards to the rules as they currently stand and in regards to the rules tweak suggested above. The downside is that I could see double activation being abused by a lazy player. "Yeah, your Cowardice gives you strength because you're afraid of the villagers, but it also means that you're scared of me!" This could be perceived as a feature, not a bug. However, it is my intent that all Traits be potentially double-edged swords, which would make double activation an easy cop-out.

If I do not adopt this, how do I resolve the timing issue? Should I say that the player of the character with the Trait gets priority? Is there another way to deal with this issue?

I'll be thinking about this, but I'm looking forward to any thoughts that any of you might have on the matter.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

The problem that it introduces (as I see it) is that it introduces timing issues. Who gets to activate a Trait first? That could have a big effect on resolution.

Therefore, if the situation is appropriate, Uriel and Victor can draw on Victor's Cowardice.

The advantage to this is that it solves a number of timing issues, both in regards to the rules as they currently stand and in regards to the rules tweak suggested above. The downside is that I could see double activation being abused by a lazy player. "Yeah, your Cowardice gives you strength because you're afraid of the villagers, but it also means that you're scared of me!" This could be perceived as a feature, not a bug. However, it is my intent that all Traits be potentially double-edged swords, which would make double activation an easy cop-out.

If I do not adopt this, how do I resolve the timing issue? Should I say that the player of the character with the Trait gets priority? Is there another way to deal with this issue?

Hey Seth, I know this would be a slightly different spin on the basic Lunacy mechanic...but what if you handled the activation of traits like Hero Wars handles augmenting.

In HW you have a base score (call it 1-20 to avoid confusing things with Mastery-talk) you need to roll below on 1d20. Say your base score is a 14.

You can then activate other related traits which are also rated 1-20 and roll against them. Success on the related trait roll lets you add +2 to the main roll (yeah there's more tweaks to it than that).

Sooo, for Alyria, instead of replaceing a Trait with another Trait you activate related traits and make a Lunacy die roll. If the related trait roll is successful you can either bump your own base trait by 1 phase or bump your opponent's down by 1 phase (depending on the nature of the activation).

Takes a little of the uniqueness out of the system...but I think it would solve alot of the quirky mechanic situation.