Oh also, I'm not a fan of level 3 traits. I much prefer adding a die to my test, even at only 1–2 uses, which improves my odds of succeeding, than bumping tied or successful rolls by 1 success, which is only going to do that in a versus test.
I get your position (truly). But consider Wizard-Sight in Spiritual Conflicts or any conflict where you use a spell to
sub Arcanist for x (eg Fight) where MoS is everything.
Also consider spells where you get +
Effect based on MoS.
And we’ve already discussed Tie-breaking (we’ve had 4 consequential tie-breaks in the last few sessions).
We were able to accomplish a lot with a few Good Ideas, but it seemed like we ran into a wall where the only way for the weather to change was to advance The Grind. That felt a bit awkward — like the careful balance of mechanics was a bit off and not working right.
Hmmmm…let me break out my thoughts on that sequence:
* Turns aren’t a static amount of time. They could be a moment, an hour, or even days of trekking. The consequential thing about Turns is that they are chunky moments of effort/resolution where a matrix/layered decision-points intersect to move play forward. In order for play to have perpetual teeth, this needs to be well GMed and well played.
* We have an opportunity (a cache) you guys want to explore in a wilderness environment prone to terrible weather. The effort to resolve this opportunity is, on its face, cumbersome in terms of effort and time (sawing through a thick sheet of ice in a frozen environment at great altitude and exposure).
Most courses of action include significant time so need to have a weather roll like Journey to determine if we have complicating factors/consequence space. However, there would be a few that aren’t time-intensive you might think of (eg deploying a bomb) that wouldn’t constitute a complicating weather roll but would constitute (a) a higher Ob by default and (b) a particular type of consequence-space on a “failure.”
* You guys decide to go with the safer, more likely to yield success move, but it brings in the volatility of the weather.
That volatility went “gong” in a big way (bringing increased factor and brutal consequence-space).
You can still make your test in the Thundersnow Storm, but you have to deal with the +1 Factor and worsened consequence-space. You would be assuming this risk in exchange for not having to spend a Turn to hunker down (and not make a test in a fictional positioning that warranted one; eg one where “cave in granite face” wasn’t established).
Ok, take the above.
Now imagine that the game didn’t require either/or/both (a) a Survivalist move + Turn to find a place to hunker down and wait out the storm to proceed with your plan or (b) hunkering down in the nearby already-established cave (no Survivalist test) but + Turn + dealing with whatever is in the cave.
If you don’t have the above, you entirely lose the teeth/consequential components of you guys’ collective OODA Loop and resolution (your weather roll). Skilled Play becomes irrelevant because the factors that are by default baked into your situation and the factors you brought in via your final decision-point (bringing in the volatility of the weather - with attendant prospects for factors and consequence-space - in exchange for a more efficacious move + less potent consequence-space) are rendered irrelevant (color).
Does that make sense?
