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<blockquote data-quote="oneshot" data-source="post: 7715101" data-attributes="member: 61634"><p>If there were a rule that required you to spend all threat accumulated or if there was no threat mechanic and instead something bad automatically just happened, without any ability for the GM to mitigate, I would agree with you that it is bad game design. But neither of those cases reflects STA, at least not in the versions we've seen in every iteration of the playtest. I certainly trust that Nathan won't add such a rule in the final version, either.</p><p></p><p>Sure, I sometimes end sessions with unspent threat. But the players also often end sessions with unspent momentum and determination. In fact, it's statistically far more likely that more momentum will be generated than complications, even before you start factoring in talents. So we often finish sessions with unspent metacurrency. So what? Fate sessions usually end with several players having unused Fate points, sometimes a lot of them. Is Fate broken? You were praising Cortex earlier, well, I've played Cortex games where there was unspent metacurrency at the end. Is Cortex broken? Heck, in D&D, we've agreed to rest for the night (or even ended adventures) even though we still had hit points and spells left. Is D&D broken?</p><p></p><p>Using GM discretion not to pile on the players is not a bug of tabletop RPGs; it's a feature. I once had a D&D adventure where the players were trying to smuggle a prisoner out of a stronghold. The characters were low level and had had a rough time of it thus far (I had rolled a lot of crits that day, and they had rolled badly on one particular trap). They were pretty beat up and had used up most of their spells. As they were close to getting back out of the building, one of the characters failed a move silently check and was noticed by a guard who happened to be standing next to an alarm bell. Now, he could have rung the bell and summoned the group of guards two rooms away, but that would likely have resulted in character deaths and potentially a TPK. So, I used my discretion and had the guard charge the group and attack instead of ringing the bell. Had my group preferred a harder, more dangerous play style, I might not have done that. But my choice not to do that in order to maximize the fun for my players (who didn't want to die) isn't a sign that D&D is somehow broken because, despite following the encounter guidelines, I could have killed them since the dice weren't falling their way that day. By the same token, if the players are rolling really badly in a session and I've bought off some complications as well as a few other sources of threat and now have a bunch, I can choose not to use that threat for the same reason I chose that the guard panicked, forgot he was standing next to an alarm bell, and ran into a battle where he was badly outnumbered: my group has more fun when I'm not kicking them when they're down.</p><p></p><p>It's one thing to say the game doesn't match your play style and you don't care for it. That's all fine and dandy, and I wouldn't disagree with you simply for having that opinion. Instead, though, you're criticizing that, in certain statistically improbable cases, the dice could really screw over the players unless the GM applies some common sense and doesn't use the rules to completely sink the players. But just as with my D&D example, any game can potentially screw over the players if the system uses dice as a randomizer, so that's not a valid criticism of STA in particular instead of dice-based games generally. The main objection I have to your argument is that you seem to be implying that (a) this is somehow a flaw in the game design of STA, and (b) this sort of thing would be a common occurrence instead of a rare statistical fluke. Neither of those statements is a fair assessment of the game.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="oneshot, post: 7715101, member: 61634"] If there were a rule that required you to spend all threat accumulated or if there was no threat mechanic and instead something bad automatically just happened, without any ability for the GM to mitigate, I would agree with you that it is bad game design. But neither of those cases reflects STA, at least not in the versions we've seen in every iteration of the playtest. I certainly trust that Nathan won't add such a rule in the final version, either. Sure, I sometimes end sessions with unspent threat. But the players also often end sessions with unspent momentum and determination. In fact, it's statistically far more likely that more momentum will be generated than complications, even before you start factoring in talents. So we often finish sessions with unspent metacurrency. So what? Fate sessions usually end with several players having unused Fate points, sometimes a lot of them. Is Fate broken? You were praising Cortex earlier, well, I've played Cortex games where there was unspent metacurrency at the end. Is Cortex broken? Heck, in D&D, we've agreed to rest for the night (or even ended adventures) even though we still had hit points and spells left. Is D&D broken? Using GM discretion not to pile on the players is not a bug of tabletop RPGs; it's a feature. I once had a D&D adventure where the players were trying to smuggle a prisoner out of a stronghold. The characters were low level and had had a rough time of it thus far (I had rolled a lot of crits that day, and they had rolled badly on one particular trap). They were pretty beat up and had used up most of their spells. As they were close to getting back out of the building, one of the characters failed a move silently check and was noticed by a guard who happened to be standing next to an alarm bell. Now, he could have rung the bell and summoned the group of guards two rooms away, but that would likely have resulted in character deaths and potentially a TPK. So, I used my discretion and had the guard charge the group and attack instead of ringing the bell. Had my group preferred a harder, more dangerous play style, I might not have done that. But my choice not to do that in order to maximize the fun for my players (who didn't want to die) isn't a sign that D&D is somehow broken because, despite following the encounter guidelines, I could have killed them since the dice weren't falling their way that day. By the same token, if the players are rolling really badly in a session and I've bought off some complications as well as a few other sources of threat and now have a bunch, I can choose not to use that threat for the same reason I chose that the guard panicked, forgot he was standing next to an alarm bell, and ran into a battle where he was badly outnumbered: my group has more fun when I'm not kicking them when they're down. It's one thing to say the game doesn't match your play style and you don't care for it. That's all fine and dandy, and I wouldn't disagree with you simply for having that opinion. Instead, though, you're criticizing that, in certain statistically improbable cases, the dice could really screw over the players unless the GM applies some common sense and doesn't use the rules to completely sink the players. But just as with my D&D example, any game can potentially screw over the players if the system uses dice as a randomizer, so that's not a valid criticism of STA in particular instead of dice-based games generally. The main objection I have to your argument is that you seem to be implying that (a) this is somehow a flaw in the game design of STA, and (b) this sort of thing would be a common occurrence instead of a rare statistical fluke. Neither of those statements is a fair assessment of the game. [/QUOTE]
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