- At present:
- we have two practically identical calls: Negate and Taken. There are a few situations where it is legitimate to use one but not the other, but only a few, and they don't usually matter much.
- I suggest:
- That "negate" be made "I am overcoming your effect, almost certainly using up limited resources", while "taken" being "I am immune to that sort of thing, it just washes off me".
- That it be made explicit that the difference between the two is immediately obvious to any observer.
- That all spells/miracles/potions/flange of "counter N effects of type X" be kept worded as "call Negate to" - reskinning them slightly if people feel necessary.
- That all SMPFs of "you are immune to effects of type X for a given time" be worded as "you can ignore these; you may call "Taken" if necessary; do not call "negate"".
- That refs follow the same procedure when statting monsters - if an immunity is limited-use the monster should be briefed to call "negate"; if unlimited then the monster should be briefed to call "taken", if it calls anything at all.
- What are the disadvantages that I can see?
- Adding a further wrinkle of complication to the system.
- I think it's only a small wrinkle, though.
- I think it very slightly limits the range of possible design space for effects that counter things targetted on other people.
- I think that such effects are usually nightmarishly complicated, and limiting them slightly is no bad thing.
- Why am I suggesting this?
- Because it increases the range of possible design space for "fight encounters that are not just a straight fight", and indeed adds an extra option to ones that are.
- At present, when statting a monster, I know that if I give it "ignore two status effects", that's pretty close to "ignore all status effects", because after the PCs have seen the first two bounce off they're very unlikely to risk a third; conversely, on those rare occasions when they do, they're just as likely to be pumping power into something permanently immune to it, which I at least find OOC annoying. Using "Negate" to signify "if you keep trying this, it will work" and "taken" to signify "if you keep trying this, it won't" will significantly widen the range of flange-beasties that refs can come up with and expect PCs to overcome.
- Also, having two near-identical but not quite totally identical calls offends my sense of neatness!
--Jacob
- Right now, Negate is actually used by Shield of Negation, and Taken is used by everything else that PCs can get by the standard rules (correct as of a ref call last year). There is one important difference: Negate abolishes MASS (etc) calls, whereas Taken doesn't. I actually proposed a RESIST / IMMUNE response in a system I was writing to allow the same 'that cost me something' versus 'that cost me nothing' response granularity. Honestly, when it comes to TT, I think people would just make the wrong call by accident frequently enough to destroy the information-value of this proposal. --I
- I think people would be OK remembering to shout 'immune' if they were playing a monster immune to something. But otherwise, yes, I think they'd just use one of the current calls at random. I further think that if you polled the current players you'd get a fairly random series of answers to the question 'in what circumstances do you call negate and in what do you call taken' - for example, I personally think of negate as being what you call if you are actively making the attack go away IC (eg: cancelling a spell with a dispel) and taken is more of an utterly-entirely-OC 'don't worry, I didn't just not take that backstab, I did feel it, just game mechanically it didnt do anything' reassurance to stave off accusations of OC cheating/crap roleplay. --Zebbie
- We also have "no effect", which currently does what you suggest that Taken should do, but is usually only called in response to damage that a particular monster is immune to. And some people call "resist" or "immune" in response to some calls because they're used to another system. We absolutely need a call for "that didn't work and will never work, stop trying it" or people get frustrated (I suggest "no effect", or "immune" if we really want to change the terminology). We don't actually need a call for "that had some effect but it wasn't obvious", although people might like to respond as a courtesy. I would like to remove entirely the ability to stop calls directed at other people, because this never works properly, and then we don't need a NEGATE call. In short: I agree with you, but I'd use "Immune" or "no effect" rather than "Taken" because it's easier to remember, and I'd make responding to a partially-resisted effect strictly optional. --Valtiel