Risk and Consequences
Posted by Apostate on 07/17/19
So as more players start to run PRPs, and PRPs can result in significant consequences whether negative or positive for a character, it will become increasingly important to have a very clear feeling for what is appropriate, and when player characters are justified in placing consequences on other PCs based on outcomes. As a game that's not fully consent, there will always be some cases of disagreement on whether consequences are appropriate or justified, whether that's very small or story ending. It will be impossible to fully define every possible consequence for every outcome, because there's just too much that can happen in an open ended game, but I should be able to provide some very rough guidelines, and these will be extremely important for GMs whether staff or players as they run plots.
I'll be making some extensive helpfiles about this, but as a very short, short examples of what I'll probably be writing as examples for a list of types of risks and potential consequences:
Trival risk: A noble giving their highlord a dubious look, raising their eyebrow at them at a party. A slightly crass white journal. Nonlethal combat for sanctioned contests. Public events.
Trivial consequence: Fame adjustments of 10k or less. Small resource or silver gains. Tiny vox adjust.
Minor risk: Being confrontational to another PC. Associating with a powerful NPC. A petty crime against an NPC. A social PRP with NPC nobility that could reflect on them. Public events with NPCs present.
Minor consequences: Significant fame adjustments, 500k or less. Minor legend 5k or less. Minor item gains or losses. GM references to secrets, visions. Propriety mods gained or lost.
Moderate Risk: PRPs with the possibility of combat only if things go poorly, and weighted in PCs favor. Liege/vassal social conflict over an issue. Performing a minor task for a story NPC. Actions based around exploring a character secret. Codedly sharing character secrets. Membership in secret organizations, performing actions on their behalf against NPCs. Significant crimes against NPCs. Petty crimes against PCs.
Moderate consequences: Any possible fame or legend adjust, favor, propriety mods. Significant changes to domains. Significant changes to orgs, like mods. Loss or gain of minor titles. Honorifics. Any range of nonmagical items, silver, resources. Minor magic. Loss or gain of retainers. Temp stat changes, or short duration impairments.
Major risk: High crimes against NPCs, excommunicatable offenses. Oathbreaking. Player initiated coded combat outside the training center. Combat PRPs without it weighted in players' favor. Significant but non-capital crimes against PCs. War against NPC houses or equivalent or greater power. Actions that are implicitly working against major metaplot forces.
Major consequences: Permanent sheet changes for characters, such as stat changes. Loss of fealty or house membership. Loss of all possessions. Loss or gain of significant story arcs. Gain or loss of title. Excommunication. Major magical changes. Massive changes to domains or orgs. Character arrest, any temporary imprisonment. Loss of core secrets.
Extreme risks: Actively confronting major world powers. Pursuing things warned by staff as very dangerous. Combat plots tilted against players. Doing a thing after being threatened off it by a core metaplot antagonist. Pursuing capital crimes against other PCs. Trying to remove any other PC from play, including if it would happen incidentally. Trying to defeat another PC house in war. Attempting to remove someone from org leadership, overthrow a PC leader.
Consequences: Any. Character loss. Character exile. Destruction or creation of orgs. Destruction of domains. Global consequences.
Moderate consequences should be run by staff, and major and extreme consequences should be run by me.
Now the important thing is some orgs have the power to effectively do this to PCs- removing a character from their house, denobling them, exiling them from fealty, excommunication, arrest. Any of those, particularly if someone wasn't directly involved in the plot it originated from, should be checked with me in specifics if they are negative consequences. If a player receiving them is comfortable with them, it's not really necessary except as a heads up it is happening (ie, if someone wants to let their OC die for dramatic effect on a friend's PRP, that's almost certainly fine).
I'll be making extensive help files and guidelines on these specifically for people that will be running stories, so that'll be coming up soon, likely after I finish the crisis resolutions.
I'll be making some extensive helpfiles about this, but as a very short, short examples of what I'll probably be writing as examples for a list of types of risks and potential consequences:
Trival risk: A noble giving their highlord a dubious look, raising their eyebrow at them at a party. A slightly crass white journal. Nonlethal combat for sanctioned contests. Public events.
Trivial consequence: Fame adjustments of 10k or less. Small resource or silver gains. Tiny vox adjust.
Minor risk: Being confrontational to another PC. Associating with a powerful NPC. A petty crime against an NPC. A social PRP with NPC nobility that could reflect on them. Public events with NPCs present.
Minor consequences: Significant fame adjustments, 500k or less. Minor legend 5k or less. Minor item gains or losses. GM references to secrets, visions. Propriety mods gained or lost.
Moderate Risk: PRPs with the possibility of combat only if things go poorly, and weighted in PCs favor. Liege/vassal social conflict over an issue. Performing a minor task for a story NPC. Actions based around exploring a character secret. Codedly sharing character secrets. Membership in secret organizations, performing actions on their behalf against NPCs. Significant crimes against NPCs. Petty crimes against PCs.
Moderate consequences: Any possible fame or legend adjust, favor, propriety mods. Significant changes to domains. Significant changes to orgs, like mods. Loss or gain of minor titles. Honorifics. Any range of nonmagical items, silver, resources. Minor magic. Loss or gain of retainers. Temp stat changes, or short duration impairments.
Major risk: High crimes against NPCs, excommunicatable offenses. Oathbreaking. Player initiated coded combat outside the training center. Combat PRPs without it weighted in players' favor. Significant but non-capital crimes against PCs. War against NPC houses or equivalent or greater power. Actions that are implicitly working against major metaplot forces.
Major consequences: Permanent sheet changes for characters, such as stat changes. Loss of fealty or house membership. Loss of all possessions. Loss or gain of significant story arcs. Gain or loss of title. Excommunication. Major magical changes. Massive changes to domains or orgs. Character arrest, any temporary imprisonment. Loss of core secrets.
Extreme risks: Actively confronting major world powers. Pursuing things warned by staff as very dangerous. Combat plots tilted against players. Doing a thing after being threatened off it by a core metaplot antagonist. Pursuing capital crimes against other PCs. Trying to remove any other PC from play, including if it would happen incidentally. Trying to defeat another PC house in war. Attempting to remove someone from org leadership, overthrow a PC leader.
Consequences: Any. Character loss. Character exile. Destruction or creation of orgs. Destruction of domains. Global consequences.
Moderate consequences should be run by staff, and major and extreme consequences should be run by me.
Now the important thing is some orgs have the power to effectively do this to PCs- removing a character from their house, denobling them, exiling them from fealty, excommunication, arrest. Any of those, particularly if someone wasn't directly involved in the plot it originated from, should be checked with me in specifics if they are negative consequences. If a player receiving them is comfortable with them, it's not really necessary except as a heads up it is happening (ie, if someone wants to let their OC die for dramatic effect on a friend's PRP, that's almost certainly fine).
I'll be making extensive help files and guidelines on these specifically for people that will be running stories, so that'll be coming up soon, likely after I finish the crisis resolutions.