How have people handled the spider’s mastermind ability when used to protect?
The ability lets the spider check off special armor to protect someone, even if the mastermind is not in the scene, representing some preparation or planning, which is thematically awesome. However, the rules of protect are that the person taking the action to protect is now the target of the consequence (and can resist it, etc) and that can be really hard to make sense of if the consequences are immediate and the spider is elsewhere.
I’m curious if people have any good rules of thumb for it. The most obvious is some equivalent consequence, but even that feels kind of awkward, so I’d love a cleaner fix.
(Asking this one as a player – I conceptually love the move, but the mechanics of it make me leery to use it)
.
I didn’t read it as the Teamwork version of protection, but as the special armour version
Benjamin Davis That was my first thought, but I went and checked the book and it’s bolded-protect, much to my consternation. The armor version makes more sense to me too, but I’m not going to argue for it because that’s a bit self serving on my part. 🙂
It is bolded, but I suspect that’s a mistake. Partly because that seems really weak, but also because it then says “If you protect a teammate, this ability negates or reduces the severity of a consequence or harm that your teammate is facing”, which just sounds like how the other special armour abilities work.
(Plus, for what it’s worth, it’s not bolded on the playbook).
/sub
I’m with Benjamin Davis here. I would rule that rather than “protecting” the crew member, the ability ‘applies armour to a teammate’s current consequence’
That is of course unless the spider has a very devious plot that not just logically protects the character but also pulls the consequence to the spider.
“Flint desperately scrambles over the strewn about museum pieces, searching for cover. He finds it, a fairly large podium holding some old fashioned spark-craft device, and dives for cover, but too late. The guards round the corner, one of their arms snapping up and firing a shot at flint. It finds its home beneath one of his shoulder blades, soaking the carpet in blood.”
“I activate mastermind and a flash back”
“Alright, let’s see where this is going”
“I sit down with a tray of sawtooth’s latest creation, blood packs. “Greetings mister herring, it’s quite an honor to be meeting with one so ‘prestigious’. A museum guard of high standing, and your wife works with the sparkwrights too. Would be quite a shame were her employers to find that she of all people has been stealing from their coffers, now wouldn’t it…”
Here’s a thought that wouldn’t detract from it being a protect action as written: the Spider has to Resist the consequence, and that’s the cost of the flashback to negate the harm.
Eh, but you’re already expending special Armor…
This bears some thought.
..
Page 83 of the book: “If you protect a teammate, this ability negates or reduces the severity of a consequence or harm that your teammate is facing. You don’t have to be present to use this ability — say how you prepared for this situation in the past.” Seems pretty cut and dry to me — it effectively boils down to the “you apply armor to the teammate” result. That also makes the most sense in-fiction to me, personally.