I have some reflections on the game after my session last night.
One is, this idea is super-fun and I’m glad I got it to the table at last.
https://plus.google.com/115462175177465088519/posts/GaBxckA8M3S
Let’s talk rules for a minute.
Any doubts I had are gone, on how great it is merging the action and effect roll. It’s smooth, intuitive, and good stuff altogether.
I’m not sure if this is right, but I ruled that when one person takes a point of stress to grant another person +1d, then the helping character doesn’t need to make a roll to be a part of a group action.
For example, if a whisper is using Attune to get through a spooky environment while damping the signature of life force that attracts ghosts, someone could spend 1 stress and contribute +1d to the ghost and not have to roll to see if the whisper takes stress for leading the action or not.
Is that right? I welcome other thoughts. It was a really nice way for non-skilled people to help out and not make the leader more vulnerable to failure; automatic stress, yes, but helping the whole group.
Previously I had been sort of willfully ignorant in using fine quality items, letting them grant +1 on the action roll rather than +1 effect. The main reason for this was because there is only an effect if there is a clock to fill, otherwise the action roll does it all. So your fine equipment does not help at all for a simple roll, and that’s awful.
I think it might be cool to let the player choose whether they grant +1d on the roll or +1 effect. With multiple items that could apply, perhaps one of each. (Like a whisper with a spirit mask, and a signet ring of the ghost in question.)
I miss rolling for heat. I miss rolling for the development.
I was skeptical of entanglement at the beginning of the mission, but it was fun for the mission where they snuck in; the nobleman got home two days early, and they had to scramble. =)
I like getting two actions for downtime instead of free actions and an optional action.
For my games, I am inverting the vice/trauma. You clear stress with 4 dice with 0 trauma, -1d per point of trauma. It really helped us get stress cleared so we could do two heists in one session, and it creates a penalty for gaining trauma instead of a bonus.
I hope this feedback is helpful.
Is inverting the Vice track going give characters an naturally long live span?
Ben Jarvis I don’t see how it would. The only time it comes up is during down time cycles, with how fast stress clears. If a character gets trauma during a heist, then it is more difficult to clear the stress during down time.
Clearing stress is separated from gaining trauma. The change affects clearing stress, but the process to gain trauma (shortening the character’s life span) is unaffected.
In fact, when you hit 4 Trauma, you don’t have any dice left to clear stress, so you roll 2 and keep the lower.
You could keep playing like that, but it’s a pretty good sign it’s time to retire. And if you get another point of Trauma, you’re dead or otherwise neutralized for good, no chance to go out on your own terms. So when you hit 4 Trauma, you should quit on your own. (But if you’re stubborn, the mechanics allow you to keep going until you’re put down.)
In that sense, there’s a mechanic that could allow you 1 more point of Trauma. However, you can see why retirement makes sense. Instead of hitting an arbitrary wall where you quit when you’re at the top of your game for getting rid of stress.
Quitting at 4 Trauma is no longer arbitrary, it makes sense.
Which version of Vice are you using this scenario? Because in new hotness, being able to consistently clear 5/9 stress at time in a characters arc where the need to gamble against it the most? That’s strong.
Ben Jarvis I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
I could be reading it wrong but Vice is a fixed effect. I’m fairly sure you don’t need to roll.
Holy cow, you’re right. No more roll for clearing vice. I just glossed right over that, I didn’t think it would change.
Man,a tough mission kind of requires multiple down times, trauma, or overindulgence now. I guess I have to think about this change.
Okay, I thought about it. I’d still reverse the trauma/vice relationship, but I like the no-rolling part. It makes recovery a sure thing, which is not so good for the desperate rascal feel of the game, but it doesn’t suck up much attention and it’s reliable, so that’s good for getting your heist on and getting out of down time.
To begin with, I’d give 1+4 per vice indulgence during down time, reduced by 1 per Trauma endured. Early on, one action would clear off a lot of stress, but later on it might take 2. Towards the end, as trauma weighs you down and the road takes its toll, you end up needing multiple down time sessions to clear the stress.
Actually you could just grant 4 stress relief per vice session (-1 per trauma.) When the character hits level 4 trauma, if the player doesn’t retire the character or the character doesn’t die, it costs coin and/or overindulgence to relieve stress at all.
The 1 stress, pass 1 die already feels like a fair penalty. Especially since you take the stress BEFORE you pass the die.
Adam Goldberg That’s what I figured. Still, it’s good to check; I’ve been wrong about many things in running the game, and this community is helpful in increasing my understanding of how things are supposed to work.
I still really don’t like the introduction of a death spiral in Vice and vastly prefer the reverse death spiral where hardened criminals who’ve seen real trauma are better able to shrug off the little stresses.
Daniel Helman That’s cool. I’m going to change how I do it in my games.
You call it a death spiral, but really, it only affects down time. I believe more seasoned characters are better positioned to take multiple down times than novice characters. I also believe tougher characters will not be compelled to take as much stress as characters with low dice pools.
In any case it doesn’t affect how much stress it takes before you take trauma. It just affects how fast you bounce back.
I’ve stated my case as to why I think it’s backwards. I haven’t yet heard anything that I found compelling enough to change my perspective (though I may yet.)
Still, that’s MY perspective and how I’m going to run things at my table. That need not affect anyone else’s game.
Basically I want three mechanical things from the vice/trauma inversion.
1. Fast turnaround for starting players. Most characters won’t be played long enough to get to high trauma levels, and I want my turnaround between heists to be fast when the heists are the focus. In the later game I imagine downtime will have more going on (with more established crews), so we can do more clearing stress then.
2. Mechanical penalty for adding trauma. Trauma is bad, it damages the organism, and it’s the “death” in a heist. You only get a few. They should not make you stronger, but instead they should weaken your vitality. You can continue getting experience and improving without taking trauma; trauma should be bad, not good. Representing this without adding decision-making or a sub-system is good. As for the fiction, you can make the fiction represent ANYTHING. Figure out how to tell the story so trauma weakens a character over time. That should not be hard. Old wounds and addiction are no picnic in real life either.
3. Mechanical reason to stop playing a character at 4 trauma. Inverting the scale means that at the 4th trauma, clearing stress is very difficult without spending coin or overindulging. You can still play until the 5th trauma, but you’re fragile, and retirement is a good option. If trauma just makes you better and better at clearing stress, why stop?
Just a summary of my mechanical reasons. =)
In my mind, trauma is what happens when you fill on stress, but “Grizzled” would be a better descriptor of what happens to you. As you become more grizzled you’re able to sink more deeply into your vices and recover from stress. Because hey, you’ve seen it all before.
Your way works too, of course. Just different approaches. I’m pondering trying to put together something like Polaris’s Zeal/Weariness decrescendo-crescendo, but I’m not sure exactly how to do it.