Talk:Nephon Sector One-Shot

Old Talk

--Matts 11:58, 27 February 2007 (MST)I'm cleaning this up, since the discussion spilled out to Dogs in the Vineyard in spectacular fashion.

I want to bring up discussion about 'stakes', which is one key piece I want to preserve from DitV.

I also want to notify you guys of some changes I want to make to the Sector setting.

Explicit Stakes

I think it's safe to say that DitV is a bust. That's fine. I'm leaning towards cyberpunk or white wolf systems for the game now, probably closer to White Wolf.

I propose one key shift in how we play, taken from DitV, but with the excess confusion of the system excised: that is, I say that before any roll is called for, somebody (the GM or the player, or a negotation between them) determines the stakes, ie, the outcome of that roll.

As it stands, we say, "I'm going to climb that wall", I (the GM) say "OK," and you roll. If you fail, the consequences are assigned by me: "You didn't climb the wall", "You fell and took damage", "Your gear broke and now you're going to starve to death way to go slick willy", etc. (It's not quite this way, but bear with me.) The stakes (ie the consequences of the roll) were implicit, unknown, and entirely up to me.

What I'm proposing (and we do this a bit already) is that we negotiate the stakes before the dice are rolled. You, the player, say, "I'm going to climb that wall." I say, "That wall is dangerous, crumbly, and probably full of tetanus-inducing nails. The stakes are, do you climb the wall without suffering 4 dice damage?" Now, you may say, "man, that sounds pretty crazy", and decide not to do it; you may decide to do it anyway, damn the torpedoes. But either way, what that roll means is clear as day, and hopefully the suspense of those dice plunking down on the table is palpable.

Benefits for Players

This lets you, the players, break the mold as much or as little as you like in more rigid situations like combat. Instead of shooting someone, you can say, "I shoot the chandelier above his head," and then I respond, "OK, what's at stake is, do you hit the chandelier, bring it down on him, and render him stunned for the next round?", then assign appropriate difficulty penalties, then we roll.

Benefits for the GM

This lets me, the GM, have concrete consequences for failure that I can stick to. If I say the stakes, and players don't like them, we negotiate; if the players don't like my bottom line, they don't have to do the action, but at least it gets the argument out of the way. Once the roll has happened, the consequences are enacted, and it's as fair as it can get.

I personally think I as a GM have a hard time universally enforcing failure, and I bring this up mostly because I think I'd be a better GM with this sort of policy.

Pre-Discussion

Before we all rip into this or shower it in hosannas, a few points:

• We already do this to a certain extent; I'm just saying that I intend to do this for *every* roll. Some rolls will be easier to determine the stakes of, some rolls will be harder.
• negotiation over stakes should be welcome; as the GM, though, I aim to limit discussion so the game can still move forward. I'm still the bottom line.

Discussion

Fire away, gentlemen!

Setting Changes

This is still a nascent idea, but I'm thinking I'm going to change the Sector to a System, stealing from Ben's Gemini ideas. It'll be similar, though, just a little more compact.