Push Yourself for Effect

7 thoughts on “Push Yourself for Effect”

1. The rules are somewhat open about this. See some of the discussion here: plus.google.com – Pushing for +1 effect after the roll The example of play Showdown at the dock…

2. In the various sessions on Youtube, it’s always happened before, if I recall correctly 🙂 same for devil’s bargain.

3. My thinking is that you should probably ask if they want to push themselves before the roll, and if they say no the answer is no, but if everyone forgot, then it’s fine to do it afterwards.

4. I would say once the roll is rolled you should let it ride, especially once the players are familiar with how pushing themselves and Effect work.

   When you roll at a lower effect level, you’ve accepted that rolling moderately/poorly will seriously limit your ability to perform this action. To then expend the stress means that you considered the outcome of this roll to be important enough to have expended that stress to make the preferred effect occur, and held off doing so even though it was fictionally appropriate. This choice is part of what makes this particular resource management aspect of the game interesting.

   That said, I think it’s intentionally phrased in a vague way to make it a matter of GM’s call at the moment. Context can effect a lot, and change whether you ought to have spent that stress, and as the biggest fan of the characters at the table, the GM can make the call about what will make the more interesting set up for your character to be excellently cinematic.

5. My instinct is to allow it after the roll, as that encourages players to spend more Stress, which encourages them to indulge their Vice more often.

6. Ultimately, though, I don’t think that it will result in them spending it more often. Rather they’ll only spend it when they get a result other than what they wanted. But it’s truly interesting to know that you’ve spent a stress, then roll, get a 6 and think maybe you didn’t really need to spend that stress at all. It forces the player to make interesting choices. I would even say it encourages them to make strategically masterful choices over the course of a game.

   Obviously this is a choice that every table makes for itself based on the game the group and the gm want to play

7. I don’t know why people want this option. It duplicates and undermines the resistance mechanic, plus it actually doesn’t add any goodness for what it does. I used that option for about two games, and had to stop on general principle as soon I saw the array of sneaky detrimental effects it had on play. This is sabotage – don’t do it!

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