[A New Pie] High Roller - The NEW Hawtness

[Morgenstern]

The whole point of RPGs is to create a scenario for the players to win.

Aw, hell no. That's what masturbation is for, and as GM I'm not there to be the hand that does it. My scenarios may have tracks, but players have to actually put in some effort to get the cart to not sail off into the abyss on the curves .

The big problem is that players tend to indulge in that special brand of brinksmanship where they only way they lose is if their characters die - and GMs are reluctant to kill them. That never surrender shit gets mind bogglingly tedious after a few decades . I'll get to writing out the Big Damn heroes stuff because the whole point of a social contract that says "As GM I'm not going to kill you" is not to protect player's (alter-)egos, its to make it clear that not only can you fail, some days you WILL fail and you'll have to live with the consequences.

[Gatac]

If I may weigh in, I think a big part of GMing is making the losses and failures feel as important as victories. Communicate! It's easy to get into brinksmanship where your players and you try to screw each other over mechanically, and to me killing an NPC - or a PC - that has had much effort put into building his stats and character out of that spiteful spirit is like kicking over a sandcastle. Communicate! Talk to your player about what this failure or defeat could mean for the character. Make it so that failure makes the PC's plan more interesting instead of completely screwing it up. Do not nullify the player's achievements - and make sure you're on the same page as the players on what that means. Communicate! The best damn rules in the world will not save you if you and your players are antagonists. Competitive spirit is fine, but at the end of the day you're all cooperating in telling a story. Communicate!

Communicate.
Communicate.
And then communicate some more.

(That said, I am incredibly liberal with action die refreshes because in my experience it discourages hoarding behavior, and any character options that give extra dice are easier to parse as just giving an edge in sustained engagements where action dice fly left and right. I haven't had a player heavily invested in Chance Feats so far, though.)

[Gentry]

It's conceivable that being liberal in the awarding of dice *would* curb Chance-monkey builds. Part of the Chance-monkey is a hedge against action die drought. If there's plenty flowing around, feats like Fortunate get less immediately attractive, I should think.

[Blankbeard]

It's conceivable that being liberal in the awarding of dice *would* curb Chance-monkey builds. Part of the Chance-monkey is a hedge against action die drought. If there's plenty flowing around, feats like Fortunate get less immediately attractive, I should think.

I think it's more than just conceivable.  Have 5 dice when everyone else is out is a huge advantage.  Having 10 dice when everyone else has 5 is still better but it's much harder to leverage into game dominance. 

[Gentry]

I wonder if we've hit on a reason why the designers didn't think Fortunate was so bad:  "There should be plenty of dice moving around the table, so somebody having a few extra shouldn't be that big a deal."

[Morgenstern]

I've posted up a few interconnected ideas that I would hope have the net effect of making the GM feel more comfortable about handing out dice and about the plot-control impact of dedicated chance-monkey builds.

http://www.crafty-games.com/forum/index.php?topic=6753.0

[Morgenstern]

K, I'm feeling pretty good that the damage changes in the New Pie take care of the single worst imbalance between GMs and Players, so I'm (much) less concerened about the High Roller's bonus feats. The Fortunate feat is still under scrutiny, but I'z ready to press forward.

[Morgenstern]

Adjusted the skill points/morale balance and replaced the core ability with something that ties into action dice mechanics in a more conventional way.