My Life With Master Rules Question

[jburneko]

Hello,

Okay, so I bought My Life With Master and I LOVE it!  But something struck me a bit odd.

It seems that stats only ever go up.  I don't see any places where they ever go down.  Let's see if I have this straight.

Fear - Can only go up if an Innocent is harmed.

Reason - Doesn't change under any circumstances.

Self-Loathing - Goes up when failing an attempt to make overtures to a Connection and when succeeding at Violence or Villainy.

Weariness - Goes up when failing at Violence and when failing during the Endgame while killing the master which is really just an extention of the Violence rule.

Love - Goes up when making overtures to a Connection regardless of success or failure.  Goes down if a Connection is killed.

From this, it seems that the only stat that can go down is Love.  While Self-Loathing and Weariness are ever increasing.  Given most of the formulas the only way to counter act this is to gain more Love.  Which I understand is kind of the whole point and I'm very cool with that but there are two formulas that kind of make me scratch my head.

Making Ovetures to Connections is: (Reason - Self-Loationg) vs (Fear - Reason)

Since Reason and Fear are near constants the right side of the vs is going to remain constant while the left side is going to go rapidly to zero (or 1 die) as the rules state and remain there.  In other words there is no way for a minion to get better at making Overtures to Connections.  He only ever gets worse.

Then we have the rules for being captured which is stated as: Weariness becomes greater than Reason.  Again because Reason is a constant and Weariness is ever increasing once Weariness surpasses reason this condition will ALWAYS be true.  I see two ways in interpreting this:

1) Being Captured only ever happens once for a minion; the first time his Weariness surpasses Reason he is captured and then is no longer in danger of being captured.

2) Once a minion's Weariness surpasses Reason EVERYTIME a minion's Weariness increases he is captured.

So, what's going on here.  Is the life of a minion really THIS bad?

Jesse

[Mike Holmes]

Yes, it's that bad. But consider the thematic implications. If you're losing effectiveness, what's your only recourse?

Mike

[jburneko]

I also note that outside of Ovetures to Connections there's no non-violent, non-villainous conflict resolution.

If the Master says get me the Magistrate's Wig there's no way to attempt to barter or bargain peacefully for it.  If you're captured there's no way to bluff or negotiate your way out of it.  In other words there's no way to try and soften the the Master's blows through your own actions.  I find that very interesting.

Jesse

[Paul Czege]

Hey Jesse,

Regarding captures, interpret the text on page 35 to mean that Weariness must have been lower than Reason prior to the die roll:

"When ever a conflict resolution results in a minion’s Weariness increasing to a value greater than Reason, the minion is captured by the Townspeople or Outsiders."

So, in general, it's a one-time event. But it could happen again if Reason were higher in a subsequent scene due to the presence of Innocents, and it could be entirely prevented if a Innocent were present in a scene where Weariness increased for a minion to greater than the unmodified value of Reason (from being equivalent to that value), and then not present for subsequent scenes where Weariness increased.

Regarding the life of minions being bad...yeah, I agree. They need to get out from under that damn Master.

Paul

[Jeffrey Straszheim]

Regarding the life of minions being bad...yeah, I agree.

So what do you do if the character does try to bargain peacefully for the magistrate's wig?

[Paul Czege]

Hey Jeffrey,

So what do you do if the character does try to bargain peacefully for the magistrate's wig?

It isn't a task-based resolution system. The minion is in a situation where he must prosecute one die roll in service to the command issued to him by the Master, and the choices are Violence and Villainy. Perhaps they are best distinguished from each other by asking yourself whether there's a chance of physical harm coming to the minion. If so, then use the formula for Violence. If the minion is interacting with NPCs in any way, you should almost certainly use Violence.

So, to continue the example, there's been a bit of bartering, maybe an Intimacy, Desperation, or Sincerity die is introduced, and then the dice are thrown. And then both the GM and the player are constrained to roleplaying an outcome that accords with the result: either something horrible happens to the Magistrate (or the serving wench, or some other character) as a result of the minion's actions, or some harm comes to the minion.

Paul

[jburneko]

Okay, so the point is that violence and villainy come from serving the Master no matter how hard your try to minimize the damage.  Okay, I'm cool with that.

Now, I'm curious about how Minions relate to Outsiders?  Are they treated just like Townspeople?  Can a Minion form Connections to an Outsider?  Can a minion interact with an Outsider in anyway at all?

Jesse

[Mike Holmes]

I think Townsfolk and Outsiders are only different in terms of what the Master wants from them. OTOH, that's just the impression I get.

Mike

[jburneko]

That's the impression I get as well, I just wanted to be sure.

Jesse