From: Jim Ogle (Ks. Jim) <jogle@aoc.nrao.edu>
Subject: Re: Negating Possibilities
X-Gated-By: The Black Marble Wombat@morticia.cnns.unt.edu
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Organization: University of North Texas
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Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 00:24:47 GMT

Colin writes:

> > NEGATING POSSIBILITIES: According to whoever answers the letters,
> > *anyone* who is aware of what is going on in a given situation can
> > cancel a Possibility that has been spent, not just the person who is
> > being acted upon (which is how I and most people seem to have
> > interpreted that rule).  The example they give is six Storm Knights
> > against one P-rated villain; if the villain spends a Possibility on a
> > die roll, any of those six (who are conscious) may negate the P-Point.
> 
> To put it simply (IMHgm'ingO) ... NOT!!!  This response would imply such
> things as: Priest 'blesses' himself, fails, and spends a p-point -- enemy
> counters, even though the bless has nothing to do with enemy.  With a
> precedent like this, I can see no reason to deny a player who says, "I
> *know* he's burning a p-point to reduce damage -- I want to counter!". 
> Either you can only counter those p-points that are threatening to you, or
> you can counter anything, anytime, anywhere.

Weeell, to be technical, the exact quote in the letters page says that
a "Possibility spent" can be negated - it doesn't say the P-Point had
to be spent against anyone.  However, I'm pretty sure that they don't
mean any P-Point can be negated, since they have said in earlier
letters pages that you cannot negate a P-Point used to negate damage.
(But then again, they have contradicted themselves in a couple of
cases before....)

I will ask on GEnie for a better clarification (and as to the status
of December's issue.)

> As far as 'awareness' goes, I seem to recall a discussion on this list in
> July or August '92, about the nature of p-ratedness, and whether or not it
> represented a conscious metacontrol over one's environment.  If I'm not
> mistaken, the consensus was that no, it was not necessarily a conscious

As I recall, there was no real consensus, just two groups of people
supporting the two sides ("yes" and "no") of the discussion....

I will also ask WEG for their answer on this as well, though based on
their answer to the letter above, I will be willing to guess that they
will say you cannot counter a Possibility that is spent against you if
you are unaware of the action it is being spent on.

> BTW, for those of you who do require awareness for countering, how do you
> play said sniper?  Obviously you can't counter a p-point spent to increase
> the shot (since, if the sniper knows his job, the SK isn't aware), but can
> the Knight reduce damage once the shot is fired?

It all really depends on how the GM runs the situation.  Technically,
a check for surprise should be made to see if the target is aware of
what is happening; if the target is aware of the sniper then we don't
have to worry about the question as he can now cancel Possibilities
and do all that good stuff.

But if the target is surprised, then what?  As near as I can tell from
the rules (skimpy as they are concerning surprise) the only penalty is
that PCs cannot put cards into their pools for one or two rounds
(depending on the level of surprise).  It doesn't say anything about
Possibilities or even not getting to act while surprised, and what
happens if the surprised person gets initiative?  In some cases I can
deal with that (the target is surprised by someone jumping out of a
dark alley in front of him; he's surprised but he can still react in
some way) but what about the cases where there is no opportunity to
react (you aren't aware of the sniper ten stories above you on a
rooftop who has your head in his crosshairs, so what can you do?)

One solution for the initiative problem would be to say that the
sniper gets one free action and then action switches to rounds and
initiative, with the surprise penalties in action once the cards start
flipping.  But that still leaves unanswered the question of negating
damage or not from that surprise attack.

I think it will all come down to what kind of game you are running; if
you are running a truly heroic game there is no problem in negating
damage even if you aren't aware of the source ("Good thing I happened
to turn just as the sniper shot at me, or I would be dead now!").  If
you're running a bit grittier (dare I say 'more realistic') kind of
game, sudden death may be the fate of people who don't pay enough
attention to their surroundings (or aren't paranoid enough) and you
can't buy off damage from attacks you are surprised by ("He never saw
it coming, the poor bastich.")

Kansas Jim (jogle@aoc.nrao.edu)
Newsgroups: alt.games.torg