Flips and you (or not you, depending)

[LeperColony]

Out of curiosity, I was wondering if anyone could speak as to why it was so important to the developers to eliminate contested flipping.  This seems somewhat odd, given the system's derivation from Malifaux, where almost all duels are contested by flips from both sides.  In TtB they've gone to great, and sometimes awkward lengths (Fated contesting Fated, for instance) to eliminate opposing flips.  Clearly this was an important goal to the TtB writers.  But why?

In all likelihood I'll be disposing of those rules and instead using contested Flips were appropriate, and probably during combat have a Fatemaster deck for flips, in a fashion more similar to Malifaux (without using the TtB translate to Malifaux rules), so the issue isn't terribly important from a gameplay standpoint to me.  After all, I can just run the game how I want.

But I was curious why it seems so very important to the TtB writers to make duels one-sided flips.

[Shadowopal]

Because players get a card every time the Fatemaster touches the deck,  it speeds play, less shuffling, less decks needed. Not so many red and black Jokers flying around.   Just off the top of my head. 

[Tawg]

15 minutes ago, Shadowopal said:

Because players get a card every time the Fatemaster touches the deck,  it speeds play, less shuffling, less decks needed. Not so many red and black Jokers flying around.   Just off the top of my head. 

Most of this.

Plus, with the mechanic of a singular "Fate" deck and each player having their own "Twist" hands to alter "Fate" it puts more impact into flavor of the mechanics?  Like, the story is driven by a single (Shuffled, but non-repeating) series of outcomes which are applied to actions as they come up.  So the story becomes driven by this entity, the Fate Deck.  That helps the focus be on the story, rather than worrying about constantly trying to manage resources, or more complex mechanics between Fate Master and Fated.  And it makes the player's choice of Twist deck be more suited to them individually (Setting the lowest suit +value to their most often required suit for Talents or such).

Plus there are plenty of things from Malifaux that are lacking in TtB, such as Soulstones to effect outcomes (As a set resource each player starts a match with, they may exist in game but are probably more rare or important to story than simple "game resource"), there is no definitive back and fourth interaction, since stories can play out in any number of ways so the balance of when cards are used, or shuffled, is drastically different.  And there are far less events that simply give card draw or cycling, like Rush of Magic or Ronin sacrificing themselves for cards.  And for that matter, since there is no definitive back and fourth, or turn structure, and no balance based on the expending of cards (Discard effects or multiple models requiring suits to force choices to be made), the idea of a Control Hand becomes rather alien to TtB, and that is the most accessible "control" factor players in Malifaux have.  In TtB it's what the Twist deck replaces in general, offering the players their slight edge to impact events in a more controlled way.

 

I mean, play how you want to play, no one is going to stop you.  But there are plenty of compelling reasons, flavor wise as well as mechanical, that lead me to believe the game is better suited the way it was written.

So while you may look at the rules for Fated vs Fated and see it as convoluted or out of the way to achieve something relatively mundane, perhaps it is merely a casualty of needing to suit the structure of the game overall.  I doubt they set out to make rules more complicated for no reason, so I assume they viewed the benefits as much greater than any alternatives.

[LeperColony]

1 hour ago, Tawg said:

Most of this.

Plus, with the mechanic of a singular "Fate" deck and each player having their own "Twist" hands to alter "Fate" it puts more impact into flavor of the mechanics?  Like, the story is driven by a single (Shuffled, but non-repeating) series of outcomes which are applied to actions as they come up.  So the story becomes driven by this entity, the Fate Deck.  That helps the focus be on the story, rather than worrying about constantly trying to manage resources, or more complex mechanics between Fate Master and Fated.  And it makes the player's choice of Twist deck be more suited to them individually (Setting the lowest suit +value to their most often required suit for Talents or such).

 

I don't really see how whether the Fate Master uses a separate deck for opposing duels totals (rather than a static TN) alters the importance of the Twist hand in any way.  Cheating Fate still has the same central part in the system as it ever did.  It also wouldn't impact how often the Fate Deck is shuffled, since the FM was never drawing from it anyway.

I am, to a certain extent, sympathetic with the speed argument.  It's almost certainly true that a static TN system and orienting everything from the Fated's point of view makes things go faster.  There's less math, after all, and the numbers are known quantities.  But in exchange, I personally feel we lose more than we gain.

For one thing, rolling dice is fun, and in TtB, that means flipping.  Maybe not everyone feels that way, but I do, and I think lively dynamism the random element adds to enemies over a static, robotic TN is worth the extra second or two of card turning and math.  In a way, I feel as though the mechanic reduces the system to a kind of rote mechanism, similar to some of the old-style "solo RPG" modules companies used to make way back when. 

Second, adding random and unseen values to duels allows the FM to manipulate the results in ways that can be beneficial for story and pacing.  Sometimes you want things to take a little longer than they should, or go a little faster.  You can moderate someone's bad luck by having the results not match the flips, and you can increase the danger at individual moments where necessary.  Sure, you can just declare the way things go by fiat TN increases or what have you, but the immersion lost by such blunt manipulations can be counter-productive.  This is especially true in one-offs and convention events, which I run quite a bit of in other systems, and will be trying in TtB for the first time in February.

Third, having duels reduced merely to one-sided TN races is one of the most troubling aspects of the current magic system, as we see in the thread about Fire Immuto (http://themostexcellentandawesomeforumever-wyrd.com/topic/111656-magic-am-i-doing-it-wrong-a-minmaxr-or-just-really-dangerous/).  Any time your casting TN is less than your targets resist, you should always just pile on whatever you can, for free.  All the values are known, the only variable is what you flip.  There are solutions, sure, but like the Fated v Fated mechanic, they are awkward.

Ultimately, I'm sure our opinions on the merits or flaws of the current system are inevitably, and probably irreconcilably incongruent.  I didn't start this thread to argue for a change or to get people to adopt whatever system I may end up using.  I was just curious as to what particular motivations inspired the writers to structure the TtB resolution system in the way that they did.

If it's efficiency, I concede there's something to it, but I think what it loses is more than what it gains.    

 

[solkan]

3 hours ago, LeperColony said:

For one thing, rolling dice is fun, and in TtB, that means flipping.  Maybe not everyone feels that way, but I do, and I think lively dynamism the random element adds to enemies over a static, robotic TN is worth the extra second or two of card turning and math.  In a way, I feel as though the mechanic reduces the system to a kind of rote mechanism, similar to some of the old-style "solo RPG" modules companies used to make way back when.

From the horse's mouth (Fatemaster's Almanac, page 5):

The Fatemaster does not walk in the realms of success and failure. He simply does.

However, the Fatemaster does not randomly determine the actions of the non-Fated characters (or Fatemaster Characters).

It's a free country, and you're welcome to disagree with that fundamental principle.  But your preference for chocolate over vanilla, or for rolling dice (or flipping cards) instead of determining fate, isn't going to change the fact that the basic principle.

If you want to hear Mr. Martin say the same words, that might still be accessible in one of the videos that were made during the Through the Breach kickstarter.  I think the beta test forum got turned off, otherwise I'd point you there as well.

Edit:  The Breach Side chats:  http://www.ustream.tv/channel/through-the-breach

[LeperColony]

That simply states what is.  Nobody disputes what is.  The entire thread is predicated on the notion that what is, is.

I criticize nobody for preferring what is to what might be.  I'm just simply wondering why it is that what is is, a point sadly that your quote does nothing to illuminate.

Perhaps there is no illumination to be had, in which case it must join numerous other mysteries of life.  But as it seemed at least possible that one of the developers may roam these threads and offer an explanation, or someone having known or conjectured offer an opinion, I made the thread.

Was their reason mechanical?  Were they seduced by the elegance of a single flip mechanic, like a card version of a One Roll Engine?

Was it philosophical?  Do they believe that the Fated should be the only ones to ever flip fate on their own behalf?

Or perhaps something else motivated them. 

It might be all of these, or none of them, hence why I asked.

[Omenbringer]

As some one that has been a fairly vocal opponent of the static resolution system for TtB, I feel the frustration. During play testing the answer that was given for it was simplicity and speed. Though it may have achieved both of those goals, for me it is entirely to "gameable" at the moderate to low end of the resolution scale (without even really trying) and nearly impossible at the other (even with kitted out Fated).

Truthfully TtB is very much what the lead developer's own RPG experiences and bias wanted from the game, rather than what the community or play testers were stating. You can read some of his thoughts here, it definitely explains why the game is designed to end just about the time the Fated are becoming interesting and important characters in the setting.

I enjoy a lot of the story telling aspects of the game, but abhor the mechanics. Would much rather have had at least a bit of randomness built into the system for non-fated actions. As is I feel it tends to encourage a strongly adversarial relationship between fate Master and Fated, that can get out of hand quickly.

[LeperColony]

Thanks for that, Omen.  I'm not surprised that speed was a concern, but for some reason I get the sense, as you indicated, that the developer had a very strong philosophical reason for structuring things the way he did.

I agree that the system resolution seems highly subject to manipulation.  Players are not stupid, and you can't expect the setting to "protect" the game from more mechanically minded people (protect being a very poor word).  I remember back in the days of Vampire: The Masquerade, when the game started getting wider interest.  Since it was intentionally mechanically very thin, the game had issues when players beyond it's originally intended audience got involved.  Balance and playability became increasingly problematic, and the response that "you just shouldn't be playing that way" was unhelpful, especially when it was all those new players who made the game so profitable (I mean, ultimately the WoD lines had hundreds of books).

TtB and Malifaux have great settings.  What's more, Malifaux's resolution system is fast and elegant.  With that in their pocket, I guess I'm surprised they didn't just port the card duel system over wholesale.  But as they didn't, they clearly had a very significant (at least to them) reason why.

[Shadowfane]

1 hour ago, Omenbringer said:

 

I enjoy a lot of the story telling aspects of the game, but abhor the mechanics. Would much rather have had at least a bit of randomness built into the system for non-fated actions. As is I feel it tends to encourage a strongly adversarial relationship between fate Master and Fated, that can get out of hand quickly.

I don't particularly want to get involved in this argument, but this point I disagree with totally.

 

Having a regular roleplaying group who lately has become more and more into TTB, I can catagorically say that it involves the LEAST adversarial relationship in the group I have ever seen.  Quite aside from anything else, the lack of rolling dice/flipping cards for the Fatemaster means that you have none of the "rolling in secret" stuff that sometimes caused people to think "Did they REALLY roll that, or are they fudging things?".  It turns it into more of a collaboration between the player and the fatemaster.

To be honest, I think the alternative would be worse.   Giving the players and the fatemaster their own fate decks/control cards would encourage an adversarial relationship.  You're bringing Malifaux the game into TTB, and Malifaux IS a competitive game (at its heart, its poker with models, basically).  The whole nature of Malifaux is that it is a game with two opponents, whereras TTB should be about creating the story that the players want to tell through the medium of the story the fatemaster brings.

 

Also, changing it to involve separate decks and control hands would require more re-writing than you might think...

[Tawg]

1 hour ago, Shadowfane said:

The whole nature of Malifaux is that it is a game with two opponents, whereras TTB should be about creating the story that the players want to tell through the medium of the story the fatemaster brings.

That's the biggest thing I get out of it, personally.

The single Fate deck represents a series of unknown outcomes, but when the players declare actions and the Fate Master presents situations that cause those cards to be flipped, or shuffled (Or drawn from the Twists deck), it all builds to feel like the group building a story around the actions and their "outcomes".

I mean, dueling Fate decks would have a similar effect, because a static TN and slightly randomized values are, in the end, a solvable outcome that one can use math to understand to enough certainty to know what they are doing.  It just removes extra work.

And I do think that Twist decks, as per the current rules, and having a full Fate deck would not go well together, because then you'd have people potentially mixing up the cards in decks and more things to track.. it just seems more cumbersome.  More than simply being an issue of quicker play, it all together adds more complication to things.  Not that it's horribly complicated, but it is different.

 

Although I get the notion of "wanting to roll" or what ever, because games like Shadowrun are, for me personally, favorable in respect to rolling handfuls of d6.  Or like the game Anima which offers much larger numbers than typical d10 or d20 systems, and I love seeing my rolls crest into the 200-300 ranges with a bit of good luck.  So I can certainly see that, but at the end of the day, numbers and how the games are implemented can really all be boiled down to fairly simple statistics and if you simply want to alter the statistics or how the mechanics play out those statistics, then what evz.

 

I will note also, that due to the nature of the randomization with decks as in Malifaux or TtB, the elimination of cards from the Fate Masters personal deck when combating multiple Fated, in the event of giving each player their own deck, would mean that certain outcomes would become more or less probable for the "home team" vs the "players" who are not eliminating all of their possibilities at the same rate.

Which means that if a Monster can only defend against one Fated on a 12-13 (Regardless of the Fated's flip), and the other player can only hit if the Monster flips a 6 or less, then players could just as easily manipulate the outcomes by holding actions or otherwise trying to "drain" the Fate Master's deck of a certain suit, or card value, or what ever.  I mean, it's really irrelevant, no matter what every system not based on complete random outcomes is going to be able to be "gamed" to an extent so it's a fairly moot point.

But I still think the "feel" of a single "Fate deck" that is determining all the outcomes is the most pleasant marriage of mechanics and theme.  If I want games that ask me to roll or interact in a more active way, I'd rather pick a system designed around that concept than try to staple it on to an existing system.

[LeperColony]

Whether or not the relationship between the Fate Master and the Fated is going to be adversarial (as opposed to antagonistic, which is probably just bad) or cooperative is likely a function of group dynamics, and not RPG mechanics.  You can have collaborative, free flowing Dungeons and Dragons games, and you can have crunchy, mechanical and adversarial Dogs in the Vineyard.  I don't really see this as a function of the system so much as how an RPG group decides to play the game.

Additionally, I don't expect to change anyone's minds.  Some people prefer the system as written.  Others, like me, don't.  There's nothing wrong with either position, but they are almost certainly irreconcilable and I'm not sure any good can come of debating the alternatives.

That's why I didn't make this about the merits of single-flip.  Rather, I was interested in the reasons behind the developer's choices.

[Omenbringer]

6 hours ago, Shadowfane said:

Having a regular roleplaying group who lately has become more and more into TTB, I can catagorically say that it involves the LEAST adversarial relationship in the group I have ever seen.  Quite aside from anything else, the lack of rolling dice/flipping cards for the Fatemaster means that you have none of the "rolling in secret" stuff that sometimes caused people to think "Did they REALLY roll that, or are they fudging things?".  It turns it into more of a collaboration between the player and the fatemaster.

Dont have an issue with disagreement, the discussion has the potential to strengthens the game (many of those faq entries strated off as discussions like this).

Just to clarify though, what I meant by adversarial is that the Fate Master has to structure his combats very differently than other games that have non-static resolution. The Fated can and often do wade through combats with Enforcers and below with little fear of suffering significant wounds (this has been expressed to be purposeful design, intended to make the Fated into action heroes). Players dont even have to try to really do this either (they dont have to try and munchkin the system), when I was play testing this each of my players "accidentally" (none of them knew anything about the system other than it was called TtB and based in Malifaux) ended up with very high staring values in their preferred combat method and defenses. Because of this the Fate Master is encouraged to elevate encounters to offer more of a challenge to the Fated (who can often resort to combat rather than other options) and/ or stack the field against them. This is where the issue with the static resolution really begins to show. Once you get to the Henchman and above ranks the static resolution works the other way, making the players unlikely to do anything significant against the non-fated that is always essentially always flipping 9 or higher. There are only so many high cards in the communal fate deck and/ or personal twist decks for players to draw on their attacks or defenses against these non-fated. Sure the Fate Master can always try to impose harsh penalties for his groups rushing to combat (such as Guild Scrutiny) however, that really just illustrates the point about the system encouraging adversarial interactions (and if the players were already likely to be subject to Guild Scrutiny anyway it might even encourage more bad behavior).

We will have to just agree to disagree that the Fate Master not having to roll or flip for NPC's is a better system. When bad things happen in TtB it is precisely because the Fate Master said it did, and not because a Bayou Gremlin got lucky with a Boomstick attack triggering Dumb Luck.

Additionally, your group illustrates exactly what I view as the strength of the game. When players favor the story, understanding the deficiencies in the mechanics (agreeing not to exploit them), the game can work well. All it takes though is one player gaming the system and it will break down quickly (more so than other systems with stronger mechanics). As an earlier poster mentioned, TtB is very similar to the World of Darkness games, in both these regards. TtB is a good story telling game but there are some large issues with the mechanics, especially when considering combat or magic. Given that TtB is drawn from the Malifaux TTG there is a bit of an expectation that both of these will be present. A forum search will show that the magic system (pre-faq or Into the Steam) has caused many of its own issues for Fate Masters.

If the question is, "is it playable?" Then the answer is yes it is. If the question is, "how are the mechanics?" Then the answer is a bit lacking in several key areas. The myself and many others (this subject or one very similar to it, seems to pop up every few months after all) find them lacking and wish to discuss how they could be improved. As for the OP's question of what inspired the non-contested, single deck design, well that is one that I likely can't go into as fully as I would like due to non-disclosure agreement.

[Tawg]

2 hours ago, LeperColony said:

Additionally, I don't expect to change anyone's minds.  Some people prefer the system as written.  Others, like me, don't.  There's nothing wrong with either position, but they are almost certainly irreconcilable and I'm not sure any good can come of debating the alternatives.

That's why I didn't make this about the merits of single-flip.  Rather, I was interested in the reasons behind the developer's choices.

Having an irreconcilable view point seems, to me, to be more of a choice than a point of fact.  Nothing I have said points towards the opposite being incomparably wrong, with the most conflicting point being of the function and execution of Twist decks.  In the end it doesn't really matter which way you choose to execute the mechanics, because opposed flips and single-deck-flips-for-all vs TN accomplish the same goal, resolution of actions.

But I don't see how discussing the matter is going to upset anything.  None of us are likely to fully know the developers' intention, though a few people have posted links to interesting insights.  But we're all in the same boat of merely poking at the beast to understand what is going on, and I don't see how sharing differing views on a subject can be a bad thing.  Even as friendly as a company as Wyrd is, I doubt that any of their designers is going to swoop in to explain everything.

 

44 minutes ago, Omenbringer said:

If the question is, "is it playable?" Then the answer is yes it is. If the question is, "how are the mechanics?" Then the answer is a bit lacking in several key areas. The original poster, myself and many others (this subject or one very similar to it, seems to pop up every few months after all) find them lacking and wish to discuss how they could be improved.

At least it isn't as unwieldy, and ultimately rather unplayable, as Exalted.  That charm system is such a shame, and the setting so direly awesome.

[Omenbringer]

16 hours ago, Tawg said:

At least it isn't as unwieldy, and ultimately rather unplayable, as Exalted.  That charm system is such a shame, and the setting so direly awesome.

Truthfully there aren't many RPG's that dont require at least some tinkering by the DM/ Story Teller/ Fate Master/ etc to patch holes in the mechanics. Some though are better than others, personally I prefer the way Savage Worlds chose to do it.

[LeperColony]

17 hours ago, Omenbringer said:

 A forum search will show that the magic system (pre-faq or Into the Steam) has caused many of its own issues for Fate Masters.

 

I don't yet have Into the Steam.  Does it improve the magic mechanics substantially?

[Omenbringer]

I would say it makes some positive strides.

[Lucidicide]

13 minutes ago, Omenbringer said:

I would say it makes some positive strides.

I spent a lot of time reading threads like these to do what I can. Glad it made an impression!

[Omenbringer]

I am hopeful that the trend will continue as more books are released. Did what we could prior to publication.

[LeperColony]

To flip the issue around, what are the difficulties I can look forward to if I substitute a Fate Master Deck flip for static TNs (aside from converting the system where necessary)?  Pretty much just the added steps of comparing maths?  Or is there more? 

[zeeblee]

Low-rank stuff will get harder, and high-rank stuff will get easier. I plan on writing more for this topic eventually, but can't at the moment.

[solkan]

41 minutes ago, LeperColony said:

To flip the issue around, what are the difficulties I can look forward to if I substitute a Fate Master Deck flip for static TNs (aside from converting the system where necessary)?  Pretty much just the added steps of comparing maths?  Or is there more? 

If you flip a card and add it to a previously fixed value, you increase that previously fixed value by between 0 and 14 (on average 7).

To modify the example from the book:

Mr. Sterling wishes to shoot his Gatling Derringer at a Gremlin. The Gremlin has a Rank of 5 (Minion) and a Defense value of 5. The TN for Mr. Sterling to hit the Gremlin is therefore 10. When the Gremlin shoots at Mr. Sterling using its Boomstick, it has an Acting Value of 4, which creates a TN of 9 (AV 4 + Rank 5) for Mr. Sterling to avoid being shot.

becomes

The Gremlin has a Defense value of 5.  The gremlin flips a card and adds it to its Defense value, generating a number between 5 and 19, the target number which Mr. Sterling must meet to hit the Gremlin.  When the Gremlin shoots at Mr. Sterling with its Boomstick, it has an acting value of 4 (Long Arms plus attribute) and when it flips a card it generates a total between 4 and 18 for Mr. Sterling to avoid being shot.  (Or 5 and 19 if you're planning on switching to the wargame's attacker-wins-ties scheme).

Writing your own difficulty/handicap mechanism so that Peons and Master level opponents aren't exactly the same is an exercise for you.  That's assuming that you're not planning on just adding the card flip to the total currently described in the rules, effectively increasing everything by a random number that averages 7.

 

[LeperColony]

It seems like having an Acting Value of 4 at what you want to be good at is mostly an affectation though.

Unless I'm missing something, you can always have a 6 in what you care about.  Now, Mr. Sterling may not care about guns, to be sure.  But if he did, the only reason he wouldn't have a 6 is that his player specifically wanted to avoid it.

[Omenbringer]

3 hours ago, LeperColony said:

To flip the issue around, what are the difficulties I can look forward to if I substitute a Fate Master Deck flip for static TNs (aside from converting the system where necessary)?  Pretty much just the added steps of comparing maths?  Or is there more? 

You may have to modify the Fated's twist deck draws as well.

2 hours ago, LeperColony said:

It seems like having an Acting Value of 4 at what you want to be good at is mostly an affectation though.

Unless I'm missing something, you can always have a 6 in what you care about.  Now, Mr. Sterling may not care about guns, to be sure.  But if he did, the only reason he wouldn't have a 6 is that his player specifically wanted to avoid it.

For the most part I would tend to agree, the system was sort of designed to produce high initial acting values for the fated (at least that has been stated previously on the forum). The high initial values for the fated coupled with (as Solkan points out above) an average random generated value of 7, contribute significantly to the issues with the static resolution system at both the high and low end of the Non-fated ranks. It could be argued that significantly higher than average acting values (7+) in Malifaux can do a similar thing, however it is much less noticeable when both sides (in an opposed duel) are generating random values to add to their acting/resisting values. The simple duel in Malifaux is much closer to showcasing the issue with the TtB resolution system (what would you think about the often lamented Rotten Belle Lure in Malifaux if you knew that you were always resisting against a 13-14 unless the Fate Master chose to change their rank).

[LeperColony]

Part of my concern was that in real play situations, a lot of duels become almost trivial, and then it makes you wonder why bother with the duel at all.  The RAW seem to assume that players will make characters that broadly resemble real people, with a wide range of middling values and maybe a spike or two in the 4-5 AV range.  But all my experience gaming tells me that players will identify what it is they like, and then start as proficient as they may in those things. 

If you have an AV of 6, TNs of 10 or so (like the Gremlin example) have a 77% success rate, without counting Twist Decks, Talents or anything else that might improve the Fated's chances.  Outside dramatic time, you can just take 10, which makes anything below a 17 automatic.  And I understand 17 to be a reasonably high TN in terms of game play, especially for starting characters. 

Someone with a lower AV, say a 2, is far from useless against low TNs.  They'd have around a 46% chance of hitting TN 10.  Against low TNs, low AVs seem to compare a little unfairly with higher AVs, given what it takes to get higher values.  AV 6 is three times the value of AV 2, but it doesn't have three times the success rate. 

But at the higher TNs, low AVs have very little value, if not being virtually worthless.  Against the same TN 16 that is automatic for the AV 6 when taking 10, and 31% when flipping, an AV 2 has a 1.8% chance (that Red Joker).  So 1/3rd the value (AV 2 vs AV 6) has around 1/16th the chance of succeeding.  Does that seem to scale well?  Then there's the fact that anything beyond 16 is impossible, which renders the AV useless.  Is a system that makes values worthless desirable?  Personally, I don't think so.

[Swiglitz]

Something to keep in mind for this discussion is that most fight oriented NPC's are quite singular in their skill sets and have quite high acting values, Defence 5-6 seems to be the average with most attack actions coming in at between 4 and 6. This is off set somewhat by the fixed card flip governed by their rank. If you start integrating a random flip for NPC actions you're going to make some encounters far more deadly than they have cause to be. This will have the knock on effect of blurring the lines between what makes a character like a Gupp different from a Spawn Mother.

 

This is workable by going in and altering the core stats of most NPC's in the game to keep a balance between relative power levels, but the granulation of AV's is actually quite small. If you look at the tabletop there's plenty of minions with AV's of 5 or 6, a level similar to most enforcers, henchmen, and some masters, that's fine for a game where both players should be on a equal footing but is that what an TTB, or any RPG for that matter, is?

 

Have you played the game with static TN's yet? Like every other GM in the known world I tinker with rules-sets and hardly ever play a game 'out of the box' and I had my doubts about the system until I played it. It actually works very, very well and ended up being one of the things that makes TTb stand out.

 

Also, don't most games have fixed TN's for player actions anyway? Outsisde of dodge actions and the like when you're rolling to hit someone, they don't roll against you. TTB is a player facing game in both fluff and mechanics and think the two gel very well in the fixed TN system.

 

I'm not sure about your line about being able to take 10 outside of Dramatic time. I don't have my books with me but I don't remember reading that anywhere. I was under the impression that if an action would be rote for a fated you don't flip, you just assume success unless failing would have consequences in which case you flip as normal. I might be wrong on this though. It's been a while since I needed to read the rules section of the Almanac.