OH, I thought there was only a chance of generating Threat when rolling more dice. Here, you're saying that Threat builds automatically.
That's even worse.
You're saying, "You can be heroic and daring and push your luck, but if you do, obstacles will be harder and more numerous for you."
So up until now, you've been basing your loathing of this mechanic upon flawed information?
Hardly a good-faith argument, then. If you're unwilling to try and understand the rules before you criticise them, why should anyone actually debate anything with you. You've clearly already made up your mind that this is bad, regardless of any of the facts or details.
That's where I got the "chance of Threat" idea.
This 2d20 System has a lot of meta-game aspects to it. It's more akin to a board game or a computer game than it is a role playing game. Meta-game aspects, by definition, do not lend themselves well to immersive roleplaying.
Typically, meta-gaming is something that players and GMs want to keep minimized in a roleplaying game. Players should play their characters (and GMs should play the NPCs) from the perspective of those characters--not use the players knowledge, which can be something the characters don't know or realize.
"By definition"? By your definition, perhaps, but I refute and decry your assertion that metagaming is always bad, particularly given that the concept of "character knowledge" doesn't originate with original D&D (player knowledge is an assumed and expected element).
Board games are more popular than ever before. Computer games, many of which draw elements from RPG design, are a multi-billion-dollar industry. RPGs already derive heavily from their wargaming roots, to which most people seem blithely unaware. Gaming is bigger than ever. It would be utterly foolish not to take inspiration from other sources, just out of a sense of snobbery as to the definition of so ill-defined and fluid a medium as role-playing games.
We get it: you don't like the rules. But you not liking them does not make them bad, just as me not liking GURPS does not mean that system is bad.
Your arguments come across more as fervent one-true-wayism than as anything else. You've already formed your opinion, and now you're going to proselytise to anyone in your path.
Chris said that Threat can be used to add more enemies when the players are blowing through an encounter too easily. That's meta-gaming. That's the GM saying, "Hmm....this is too easy. Let's add in some more enemies."
Or, if the GM looks at the Threat Pool, sees that it is high, and decides to spend some of that threat by putting poisoned needle on a trapped trunk, where there was no poison needle there before.
These are true. Or the GM could just use them to mirror PC activities - make that warrior dodge, buy extra dice for that attack, etc.
If the player characters choose not to generate Threat, then the GM has less to use. The GM has the option to use - or not - the scene editing elements that you demonstrably loathe as he sees fit. The mechanic scales to suit the group in play.
With reinforcements, the GM could easily silo them behind some choice, action, or declaration - one of the enemies flees to get help, and returns a round or two later with help, or a foe sounds an alarm to call in more warriors, or even a simple word to the players "the sound of fighting here could draw more enemies". At that point, Threat is being used to model an existing peril, with the total size of the Threat pool representing problems and challenges that haven't yet manifested.
I do not believe, nor have I believed for many years, that an absolute ban on metagame concepts is conducive to all games, and the rise of systems like Fate, and the various Cortex Plus games, seems to support my belief. Not everyone will enjoy every game, but that applies just as much in the 'Traditional gaming' style you're arguing for as it does to games that embrace narrative elements.
I get it. An aspect of Threat is that it is a pool that any NPC can draw from, rather than each NPC have his own individual abilities.
Not quite. NPCs have their own individual abilities, but some abilities require some expenditure to use. This is little different to the idea of having 1/encounter or 1/day abilities, only more fluid.
And, yes, I know the 2d20 based Mutant Chronicles just won an Ennie for best rules.
To make things utterly clear: actually, no it didn't. The Ennie was for Mutant: Year Zero, an distinct game (related only in publication history, rather than mechanics or setting).
Time will tell who is correct.
I know I don't like it.
We all know you don't like it.
Thing is, I don't actually care "who is correct", because I'm not in this to be right. I'm in this to make games and take satisfaction in people enjoying them. Proving someone wrong on the internet ranks much lower on my list of priorities.
I'm trying to set the record straight, to cut through your loud assertions and provide information that they wouldn't get if you were the only voice here. If people are interested, that's their business, and they're entitled to get clear information, rather than your bombastic opinions.
And, I explained it to one of my Conan players last Saturday, and he said (because I am the GM), "If you switch to that game, I'm quitting."
Given that we've established that you've been ranting against a system you don't have an accurate understanding of, I can't imagine that your explanation was particularly illuminating.
EXAMPLE OF WHY THREAT STINKS....
Conan ventures into Thulsa Doom's mountain alone. He fights the guards at the mouth of the cave, and buys some Threat. But, his heroics pay off, and he enters the cavern complex.
Inside, Conan runs into a squad of more guards. Again, Conan pushes his luck, buys some more threat, and takes 'em all out.
Now, Conan players sees the Threat Pool. It's too high for the player's taste. All of a sudden, bold, risky Conan is now backing off from those heroics, becoming more conservative.
He's done nothing but demolish every foe that has stood in front of him. But the player now knows that the GM has a good amount of Threat to play with.
So Conan becomes....cautious.
For no other reason than the meta-game mechanic of the Threat Pool has gotten high!
Because this GM is clearly out to prove the system is wrong?
It takes almost no effort to frame the growth of Threat. The deeper into Doom's mountain Conan goes, the more formidable and numerous his foes become. As Conan cuts down guards, the ones who remain fight all the harder to stop the onrushing Barbarian. Either or both of those sentences serves as ample justification for things getting tougher as the adventure progresses.
Beyond all that, your example assumes that the GM isn't spending Threat during those previous scenes, which is a flawed assumption.
There's an alternative approach here. Conan, seeing the mountain is guarded, sneaks around, using stealth and guile to bypass the guards. His entrance draws less attention, and so the Threat pool doesn't grow as swiftly... and thus Doom's forces aren't as ready to fight back.
So, the GM sees the total, spends the Threat Points on bringing out Thorgrim and Rexor, Doom's right hand men, who proceed to capture Conan.
If Conan hadn't been so heroic earlier, the GM would not have the points to activate these two, strong NPCs together. But, because Conan was risky and heroic, he pays for that heroism now by having to face two of the strongest NPCs in this scenario, shay of Thulsa Doom himself.
Time passes, and Valeria and Subotai are worried. They go after Conan, even though they said that they'd stay behind.
There is NO THREAT left in the pool. The GM spent it on activating Thorgrim and Rexor above, who captured Conan (which probably would not have happened without the GM using the Threat Pool).
So, as Valeria and Subotai approach the mouth of the cave in search of their missing comrade--when they should be concerned about the situation at their utmost--the players are actually pretty calm and lackadaisical about their entrance into Thulsa Doom's fortress--the place that swallowed up their friend.
Why?
BECAUSE THERE'S NO DOGGONE POINTS IN THE THREAT POOL.
Of course there isn't, in your example that assumes an all-or-nothing use. Actual play results may vary from your assertions.
Threat isn't a good roleplaying mechanic. It's something for use on a board game or a card game.
It's a meta-game tool.
So you keep saying. But when your examples consist of theorycrafting, without the theory, your arguments are less than persuasive.
And, now, you've got a player upset with you, which is never good for the game.
"Why do I have a bruised knee that halves my movement rate? You didn't use the Threat Points to do this to anybody else! You're picking on me! Singling me out. That's not fair!
If your players can't take their characters not being perfect paragons of pulchritude who never suffer from any hardship, then that's their problem.
RPG systems shouldn't be required to 'solve' the behaviours of players, and it almost never works out well if they try.
And, I've run very exciting, very "Conan" games not using a meta-gaming tool. Meta-gaming is not a requirement, by any stretch, to run a pulpy game.
The Threat Mechanic is a meta-game tool.
Nobody ever claimed it was a requirement. You're the one claiming that metagaming is anathema to gaming.
Whenever a player uses meta-game information to guide his character in most rpg's today, it is usually looked at as bad form.
"Jerry's character wouldn't take the gold offered him because Jerry knows, for a fact, that the gold is covered with contact poison. But, there was no reason in the world that his character would have known that--and who would turn down gold?"
See...bad form.
Using a deliberately poor example to support your position? Bad form.
In Fate - by way of example - the GM would be perfectly within his rights to compel the aspect "Shiny, Shiny Gold", offering the player a Fate Point to convince him to accept the poisoned gold in spite of his knowledge. The player would still have the option of refusing that compel, typically with a justification for why his character is suspicious.
The kind of blanket ban on metagaming you describe tends to - in my experience - just lead to players coming up with creative ways around that, using whatever justifications they can stretch to fit the circumstances.
Me, I'm more likely to err on the side of awesome, and see what kind of drama we can milk out of a character being suspicious of the offered gold.
) There's always options better or worse, its all a fact of choosing what YOU think is the best or the most interesting part.
