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Sagiro's Story Hour: The FINAL Adventures of Abernathy's Company (FINISHED 7/3/14)
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<blockquote data-quote="Cerebral Paladin" data-source="post: 5396988" data-attributes="member: 3448"><p>It's hard to put yourself in the mindset of a situation that you've only read about through a different presentation, but I think I would have been in the same boat as Kibi's player. After all, XP is a permanent, highly personal resource--spending XP to cast a wish and then having that wish nerfed would feel really sucky, and it does contribute to that "why do we even try to come up with good solutions to the parts that aren't fights--we'll still have to fight them in the end" feel.</p><p></p><p>That said, I think the behind the scenes response is a hugely awesome bit of damage control. It explains why, and it shows resources being spent. Knowing that the NPCs would have dropped a miracle during the fight if it hadn't been spent on undoing the wish would make me feel a lot better. It's still rough... but it stops feeling like waving the GM Fiat wand.</p><p></p><p>As to the question of how to get the balance right... to me, the key is sometimes allowing the sorta anti-climactic victories. "Hmm... they might try to, but then... but if they... no, that won't work... ... Okay, the ritual goes off without a hitch. Congrats." The players need to know that the effort that they're spending on being clever sometimes works, even though it doesn't always. In this case, it's hard to see how the bad guys could get around it... which comes back to why the damage control is so great. It does two things: one, it establishes a plausible, reasonable way that the Black Circle could find them anyway; and two, it explicitly tells them that their effort wasn't worthless--stripping out a miracle from the enemy caster ain't nothing, especially assuming that's the only miracle he had prepared. The combination of the two goes a long way to restoring the trust. (I also think that it's key that sometimes the Company's plans really do work solidly--that makes this not just another clever plan hand-waved away, but an exceptional example of taking on well equipped and brilliant enemies. Also, the fact that the Black Circle has a strong divination focus makes the behind-the-scenes easier to swallow. Sure, the PCs used enormously powerful magic to conceal what they were doing--but they were also taking on the Black Circle in one of its core competencies.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cerebral Paladin, post: 5396988, member: 3448"] It's hard to put yourself in the mindset of a situation that you've only read about through a different presentation, but I think I would have been in the same boat as Kibi's player. After all, XP is a permanent, highly personal resource--spending XP to cast a wish and then having that wish nerfed would feel really sucky, and it does contribute to that "why do we even try to come up with good solutions to the parts that aren't fights--we'll still have to fight them in the end" feel. That said, I think the behind the scenes response is a hugely awesome bit of damage control. It explains why, and it shows resources being spent. Knowing that the NPCs would have dropped a miracle during the fight if it hadn't been spent on undoing the wish would make me feel a lot better. It's still rough... but it stops feeling like waving the GM Fiat wand. As to the question of how to get the balance right... to me, the key is sometimes allowing the sorta anti-climactic victories. "Hmm... they might try to, but then... but if they... no, that won't work... ... Okay, the ritual goes off without a hitch. Congrats." The players need to know that the effort that they're spending on being clever sometimes works, even though it doesn't always. In this case, it's hard to see how the bad guys could get around it... which comes back to why the damage control is so great. It does two things: one, it establishes a plausible, reasonable way that the Black Circle could find them anyway; and two, it explicitly tells them that their effort wasn't worthless--stripping out a miracle from the enemy caster ain't nothing, especially assuming that's the only miracle he had prepared. The combination of the two goes a long way to restoring the trust. (I also think that it's key that sometimes the Company's plans really do work solidly--that makes this not just another clever plan hand-waved away, but an exceptional example of taking on well equipped and brilliant enemies. Also, the fact that the Black Circle has a strong divination focus makes the behind-the-scenes easier to swallow. Sure, the PCs used enormously powerful magic to conceal what they were doing--but they were also taking on the Black Circle in one of its core competencies.) [/QUOTE]
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