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Hermes Serpent wrote:@Rich H, the load on the LM is already much higher than that on any single player. They only have to remember their own Rewards and Virtues while the LM has the whole of the menagerie of creatures to deal with. I've noticed that players often have a tendency to forget their bonuses and advantages until you remind them but there is no such help for the LM

The asymmetrical approach to heroes and adversaries used by TOR helps a lot in relieving the LM of some of the arduous parts of running a game and leaves them to concentrate on the story which is how it should be.

RPGs need more technology tools to support LMs/DMs/GMs/Narrators/etc.
roll20 is a great tool in a lot of ways, but it actually increases the burden on the person running the game, especially for games that rely more heavily on maps/grids. Maybe someday if its API is open to external integration.

If the game master's role were easier (not just running the games, but preparing for them) there would be more people willing to run games, and RPGs would be more popular.

Rocmistro wrote:I kind of think it supports the idea that it's really a simplified way of tracking Endurance for NPCs' that doesn't involve having to manage the wearied condition, but where the overall endurance total is meant to be on par with Heroes. If that's the case, the ruling that suspends weariness for NPC's is really meant to favor the players. They have their own goodies (such as the adding of attribute level to all favored skills).

I've often thought that's the case, so I'm in agreement, and it's a good point. For the purposes of this thread though, and to add further consideration, if that was the only design driver for it then it hasn't been wholly successful as it still creates different rules for PCs vs. NPCs which can cause confusion for many players/LMs.

For instance, PCs are wearied when their fatigue plus encumbrance levels outstrip their endurance and NPCs don't track fatigue and encumbrance. So, logically NPCs don't get wearied? Nope, they still do; it's when they lose all their Hate/Hope. Huh? ... That's removing something but adding the [wearied] condition to something else, and something that doesn't produce the same result if the same thing happened to a PC. No wonder we get lots of threads started asking for these kind of things to be clarified - it isn't just removing a rule, it's also adding/altering it elsewhere.

I can see why people have a tough time understanding it.

Rocmistro wrote:I'm not saying having a different ruleset for governing NPCs is better or worse, I'm just saying that's what appears to be the designers intent. (equally powerful but less fidgety)

I'm not sure that's necessarily the correct, or only, conclusion. It could just as easily be the design intent to have lower Endurance amounts for NPCs/adversaries to simply improve the PCs' chance of survival. RPGs without any equivalent wearied condition often have NPCs etc with lower health levels than PCs based on the fact that PCs are involved in every combat within the game whereas other characters general just see one combat and that's their lot. Any increase in the difficulty of the combat rules reduces the survival rate of the PCs. I'm not saying you're wrong in this respect just that there are other dynamics to designing a game which may well be at play.

On a tangent, I would say that GMing TOR was by far one of my easiest experiences as a GM, part of the reason being the asymmetrical combat rules for pc's/adversaries. With the exception of the use of some of their special abilities, the adverseraries practically run themselves (no need to pick stances for them, triggered called shots). As soon as you have gotten used to how things work differently for adveraries, it makes things so much simpler!

Jakob wrote:On a tangent, I would say that GMing TOR was by far one of my easiest experiences as a GM, part of the reason being the asymmetrical combat rules for pc's/adversaries. With the exception of the use of some of their special abilities, the adverseraries practically run themselves (no need to pick stances for them, triggered called shots). As soon as you have gotten used to how things work differently for adveraries, it makes things so much simpler!

I agree, but it is difficult for a lot of people to wrap their heads around it - the OP's query and the fact we get so many similar questions in other threads illustrate that.

EDIT: Some kind of comparative sheet showing the difference between PCs and NPCs/Adversaries may be useful for people that struggle with these asymmetric concepts. A list of in-game mechanics each with two entries; one for PCs and one for NPCs/Adversaries. Different elements could be things like...

Rule....................................................PC..........................................................NPC/Adversary

Can Choose Combat Stances.......................Yes...............................................No
Wearied......................................................When End <= Enc + Fatigue...........When Hate/Hope = 0
Uses Encumbrance Rules............................Yes...............................................No
Use Hope/Hate to Add Attribute to Skill.........Yes..............................................No - auto added to Favoured Skills

... etc.

Rich H wrote:
I agree, but it is difficult for a lot of people to wrap their heads around it - the OP's query and the fact we get so many similar questions in other threads illustrate that.

Yes, it can take a while ... But right at this moment, I'm coming from an experience with another rpg that, in principle, is not much more complex than TOR, but turned out to be a real drag to GM, because the adversaries could do all the same things that the PCs could do, using exactly the same rules, getting the same penalties for being wounded ... While I had to learn less rules, I had to remember much more stuff at the gaming table. (Actually, that's the reason why I startet looking into TOR again, because I feel that its rules are wonderfully functional - they certainly can't do everything, but what they do, they do extremely well ...)

Rich H wrote: For instance, PCs are wearied when their fatigue plus encumbrance levels outstrip their endurance and NPCs don't track fatigue and encumbrance. So, logically NPCs don't get wearied? Nope, they still do; it's when they lose all their Hate/Hope. Huh? ... That's removing something but adding the [wearied] condition to something else, and something that doesn't produce the same result if the same thing happened to a PC. No wonder we get lots of threads started asking for these kind of things to be clarified - it isn't just removing a rule, it's also adding/altering it elsewhere.

I can see why people have a tough time understanding it.

Rocmistro wrote:I'm not saying having a different ruleset for governing NPCs is better or worse, I'm just saying that's what appears to be the designers intent. (equally powerful but less fidgety)

I'm not sure that's necessarily the correct, or only, conclusion. It could just as easily be the design intent to have lower Endurance amounts for NPCs/adversaries to simply improve the PCs' chance of survival. RPGs without any equivalent wearied condition often have NPCs etc with lower health levels than PCs based on the fact that PCs are involved in every combat within the game whereas other characters general just see one combat and that's their lot. Any increase in the difficulty of the combat rules reduces the survival rate of the PCs. I'm not saying you're wrong in this respect just that there are other dynamics to designing a game which may well be at play.

Rich, an interesting point, but I still think it was primarily their intent for NPC's to be "equal but less fidgety". Here's the difference in weariness between Endurance loss and hate loss: The LM has more control over when the adversaries lose hate. Endurance loss will be largely dictated by PC's: they will attack and do damage. The LM must monitor that and always be checking for weariness. Hate, on the other hand, the LM has (almost) total control over. He can spend down to 1 hate and then keep that last one in reserve so that his NPCs don't become weary, or save it al for a big finish and go out in a big bang (where death will happen for the NPC probably in the same round that he would otherwise become weary). It's only when the PC's intimidate foes that the LM loses total control over the hate reserve, and thus the wearied condition. And a clever LM can still somewhat mitigate this; notice 2 of the 3 monsters that have only 1 hate point are craven, and some commander type NPC's restore hate points. So an LM can adapt to players who choose to Intimidate Foes and has a large degree of control over when his NPC's are weary and when they aren't. In this, the game does a good job of allowing the LM to gloss over NPC weariness if he finds he doesn't want to track it, thus somewhat lightening his burden.

Speaking as a somewhat experienced LM, however, managing weariness for my NPC's, just as any other "condition" (I'm looking at 3.5 with all it's various sickened, frightened, staggered, checked, blind, etc. ad nauseum) is no big deal.

Regarding your second point, Rich, about player survivability. Yes, I agree that's also part of the reason. I would add to that list that a big part of it is just player fun. Players enjoy the thrill of taking down multiple bad guys, even if the actual odds/threat/danger was no different if it's 10 bad guys at 5 endurance vs. 5 bad guys at 10 endurance (it's still 50 points of damage that must be done). Everyone wants to feel like they are doing well!

Hands up all who'd like Rich H to produce a nice table or chart with all the differences between Heroes and NPS/Adversaries listed.

Aye!

Passed,

Thank you Rich H for volunteering to provide another useful community supporting piece of material

I reckon a new thread to gather these items together would be very useful and if someone could produce a nice pdf that would be great. I'll volunteer for that once everything is down in black and white.

Jakob wrote:Yes, it can take a while ... But right at this moment, I'm coming from an experience with another rpg that, in principle, is not much more complex than TOR, but turned out to be a real drag to GM, because the adversaries could do all the same things that the PCs could do, using exactly the same rules, getting the same penalties for being wounded ... While I had to learn less rules, I had to remember much more stuff at the gaming table. (Actually, that's the reason why I startet looking into TOR again, because I feel that its rules are wonderfully functional - they certainly can't do everything, but what they do, they do extremely well ...)

PCs and NPCs working the same way in a game aren't too much of a drag for me. What really gets me down is when NPCs are generated in the same way as PCs. The worse game for this was Exalted; I loved that game but as written you needed to stat up NPCs in the same way as PCs along with all the different Charms. I quit GMing it when I needed to put together a circle of Exalts as opponents to the PCs.

Hermes Serpent wrote:Hands up all who'd like Rich H to produce a nice table or chart with all the differences between Heroes and NPS/Adversaries listed.

Aye!

Passed,

Thank you Rich H for volunteering to provide another useful community supporting piece of material

Ha, nice try! I'm not promising anything - bit busy at the moment preparing for my campaign!

Hermes Serpent wrote:I reckon a new thread to gather these items together would be very useful

... That's a good idea. The challenge being that some of us will have to remember what is RAW and what we've added through house rules!

Add to that list:
................................PC................NPC
Common Skill Usage:.......Individually.........Per Skill Group
Attributes:..................3 distinct..........1 value indicating all
Called Shots:................declared............retro-fitted based on dice