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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8168426">One feature of a wuxia campaign is you won't always know what power level someone is when you confront them. That shouldn't be 100% transparent. Same with organizations (if a player is running a sect, he should have to rely on his information network and other tidbits, when it comes to assessing whether it would be wise to attack their headquarters). I have to say this isn't a big concern. It is something I pay attention to, and I carefully answer questions players ask. But we understand they, just like their characters, could misunderstand a threat. Generally though I try to give them whatever information their character would reasonably have. And if things went extremely off the rails, like I forgot to mention a crucial detail, the player proceeds with something like a plan to attack a QI rank 8 character when he is only Qi rank 2, and that detail would have altered his choice to attack I have no problem we can undo that last action if this piece of information would have made a difference to you. I think that has happened a couple of times. But generally it hasn't been a big issue. The players know I am just there to fairly run things, they get that is a balance one needs to strike (I am definitely not playing it as a fan of the players or as their enemy). So they tend to be very even handed in their reactions to rulings (especially when I am willing to undo them if they are bonkers). And the same applies to descriptions. Now in terms of faction rank, that really depends on what the character knows. A character might have access to that info, but if they don't they wouldn't' know it. And not all organizations are ranked in extreme granularity. For instance most sects tend to have junior disciples, senior disciples, sub chiefs and a head chief. There may be one or two additional ranks mixed in (for example there might be a right vanguard and left vanguard, or a third disciple tier), but mostly that is the pattern. Some are organized in more specialized ways though. The 87 killers is literally made up of 87 ranked members, plus associates (think of it a little like the mafia with made members who are ranked). The closer you are to rank 87, generally speaking, the more powerful and important you are. And in my Lady Eighty Seven campaign, because the players were part of that organization, they either knew that going in, or learned it at the time they were inducted (there are a finite number of ranks so you have to wait for people to die to enter them). If we started the game with them as ranked members, they would just have that info. If they started as associates, then they could learn that through a knowledge skill or someone in the organization would tell them (probably close to or at the time of their induction like I said). Definitely, failure of the GM to convey information is a possibility in this style campaign. I think it isn't the enormous risk though you paint it to be, and I think it is manageable. It really hasn't been that much of an issue at all for us. My players will freely complain about things that bother them in a game and this is one area I just don't get any negative reaction on (like I said before I am much more likely to get in trouble with my players for forgetting a crucial action they started ages ago----i.e. whatever happened to that spy I sent to the Golden Dragons?). For me in play, pretty much most of the things you are talking about haven't been a problem. Doesn't mean they can't be. But they haven't been in my play experience. That said there are definitely areas where problems can arise (failing to take good notes in this kind of campaign, especially if you have my memory, is huge). Another area is failing to provide players mechanics that they are entitled to. For example in this system they can invent their own martial arts if they put in the time. I've found that is a place where you really need to get clear information from the player exactly what kind of martial art technique they want, even down to potential mechanics, and you need to work hard to both make a technique that fits what they are going for, reflects the rolls they got developing it, etc. That is one of the more thorny parts of my wuxia campaigns, because it allows for power disparities between techniques. Finding ways to decide if a player can exceed the power bubble with a particular technique (and in what ways it might do that) is not an easy ruling to make. There are definitely places where making rulings are hard. But the goal with that is enabling the players to really live in a fictional setting in ways characters from books do. Obviously a more player facing approach can work. But this approach works too if the GM is serious about the art of rulings (at least in my experience).</blockquote>

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