A Delicate Watcher Reaction Situation...

[Spatula]

Hmm, I guess I read that wrong. So you start with how many PP you had at the end, unless you had less than 1 +XP spent (max 5)?

[basspunk66]

The player controlling Beast hadn't been present the week before, so he missed the Sentinel fight. During the Sentinel fight, Beast had been played by a guest player and entered last night's session with 1 or 2 PP (one of which was used by the returning player to create a Tech Resource from a harvested Sentinel grappling line launcher).

Just a note: PP reset back to 1 at the start of each session unless you spend XP (OM13 & OM109).

Personally, I think the player is being a bit childish about this. But given that, you're not going to convince him with logic because his reaction is purely emotional. IMO you're better off telling him that you understand that it sucks that he had to sit out the whole session and apologize for it, whether you think you did something wrong or not. Everything clicked as far as the story and the rules went, but at the end of the day it wasn't fun for him. And he's there to have fun, presumably.

The rest of the group could have tried to help him get back in the fight, too, and it sounds like they didn't.

I'm going to have to disagree with the "player being childish" bit, and you're going to help me. He was there to have fun, presumably. Being made into Juggernaut's prison girlfriend is not usually considered fun, ESPECIALLY on turn numero uno. To me, that's the whole point.

[RQShades]

To clarify, my friends and I came into this system looking at it as "the system where Black Widow can go toe to toe with Thor and win." So none of us were expecting it when we encountered a situation that was the equivalent of "the system where Black Widow can go toe to toe with Thor and win, as long as Thor doesn't make use of his opportunities to defeat Black Widow."

What I'm starting to understand is that apparently a big part of my job as Watcher is to finesse the story in such a way that the characters don't realize that I'm passing up opportunities to defeat them.

I AM NOT OPPOSED TO THIS.

I simply didn't understand that it was going to be an important element of the game going into things. Hence, my repeated attempts to specify that we've been doing a test run of the mechanics to see how it all works in practice.

I'm going to definitely make a strong effort to avoid KOing heroes as we go. Sobran, your suggestion of using the effect die to destroy the grappling line Resource was fantastic. It occurred to me, in fact... Unfortunately not until about an hour or so ago.

Prior to this point, I was operating under the assumption that A) villains passing on opportunities that heroes would take would be obvious and detract from the fun, and B) the system was designed for anyone to be able to stand up to anyone else. Now, I'm seeing that the reality of it is much more grey than that, and that I've got a challenge ahead of me in learning how to storytell in a way that those deliberately missed opportunities aren't so deliberate.

It's funny, just today as I was browsing the forums here looking for advice, I stumbled across a post from Doc Hydrogen that sums up the mentality that both my players and myself (and I would dare say most other gamers) have about RPGs.

Yes, the heroes are supposed to win, but it's a pointless and boring victory if there's no challenge involved. Without a sense of tension, or wondering if the villains will win, there's no point to a given action scene. Making the players feel cool is great, but there's no reason to waste time with dice if you're just narrating a foregone conclusion for the sake of pumping up the players sense of their own power.

There's definitely a gamist mentality to several members of our group. It's not that they don't appreciate story as well, it's just that if they feel like I'm letting them win, the game will become less enjoyable for them. So, I certainly have a challenge ahead of me, but at least I know what that challenge is.

Thank you for all of the feedback, and hopefully I'll be able to use it to good effect next week.

[siebharinn]

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

[kirezemog]

I know I'm a bit late to the conversation, but I'd like to chime in.

He basically felt as though it was an overreaction on my part to use up so many resources all at once on the reaction, particularly considering that he was "only trying to put a d8 complication on Juggernaut."

While I see that everyone is jumping on the "He was knocked out to early in the combat" part, but hearing that he said this, I think this is where you need to focus.

It sounds like, to me at least, that he was testing the waters. He got to create this cool little gadget that wasn't all that powerful, yet made him feel cool that he was able to do it, and as soon as he tries to use it, you used it against him and just decimated him. You pretty much punished him for doing something cool nobody else thought to do.

Now, I don't know you guys beyond what you have said, but it just feels to me like he may not have been so upset if he had gotten laid out during a slug fest with Juggernaut. Instead, he planned ahead, created a resource, and when his moment to shine, he was instead taken out. A lot of build up means a bigger let down.

Finally, I feel that he isn't upset with the system. Sure, the system allowed this to happen, but he seems more upset that you actually did it, rather than the system allows it. And all your arguments about how it's harder to spend PP and harder to build it up and you can't do it often and all that, that makes it worse because then it's not the system that allows you to do it all the time, it is you who chose to do it to him.

If it were my friend who had this gripe, I'd talk with them, and not point out all the things that make it hard for me to do and that he was the unlucky guy on the receiving end, but apologize for going overboard. Then, on the next session, I'd point out to the team the recovery rules so they know how to help a teammate who has been stressed out, and point out to them that when the doom pool is down to just a single die, they should try and exploit it. Take actions against the doom pool for all they are worth because they are pretty much guaranteed to succeed, and pull out some much cooler story moments than attack dodge attack dodge attack dodge, you know what I mean. A little creative thinking and the fact that they will almost certainly get an extraordinary success vs the doom pool, and boost up their effect dice by one or two levels is huge and should not be understated. If one of the players had thought to do so, and had incorporated his resource, only now boosted to stress out level because the Watcher could not help but just give away the extreme bonus due to an extreme attack on you. Then he feels like he helped win the day because it was his equipment and the attack on you that left the enemies so vulnerable.

Sorry, a little wordy, but that's my feel on the subject.

[KnightErrantJR]

It's honestly a little hard to comment without seeing the full context of the game session, and hearing a bit more from the player's perspective.

Last night I definitely slammed my players around a bit when they ran into Graviton. Basically, Graviton is a villain that has taken on the whole squad of Avengers before, so I wanted to make sure that, as far are the story of the game went, he didn't look like some random villain that the heroes worked over on their way to the next challenge.

Juggernaut is similar to Graviton in that he is the kind of bad guy that has taken on whole teams by himself, so it's reasonable that Juggernaut should be using some Doom Pool resources to keep himself in the fight long enough to look like he's a bad, bad man.

On the other hand, I can see where a player could get frustrated, especially if the bad guy didn't just knock them around and pose a threat, but actually took them out. I guess the best thing I can say about the whole situation is that you, as a Watcher, need to be able to read the frustration level of the players, and figure out when they are "fun frustrated" or when they are "upset frustrated."

I know, it's not particularly helpful, but I don't think its as simple as "don't ever work them over" or "let the dice fall where they may." Part of it honestly is knowing how you want the character to behave in the story.

[siebharinn]

Last night I definitely slammed my players around a bit when they ran into Graviton.

And you had the doom pool to put any of us into the dirt, if that was the direction you wanted to go.

The encounter is available online, if anyone is interested. Graviton starts around the 45 minute mark. I think it shows great pacing and tension.

[Spatula]

What I'm starting to understand is that apparently a big part of my job as Watcher is to finesse the story in such a way that the characters don't realize that I'm passing up opportunities to defeat them.

I AM NOT OPPOSED TO THIS.

I simply didn't understand that it was going to be an important element of the game going into things.

Well, I don't think it is an important element to the game. I think it's an important element to being an exceptionally good GM.

To clarify what I'm getting at, and to kind of back up what KnightErrantJR was saying, I don't think that this is a system issue. It's a group issue. If I was the Beast's player, I would have been fine with what happened because it totally made sense and I don't mind taking setbacks (assuming I'm not feeling personally targeted by the GM or anything). But your player did have an issue with it. That's who he is, or who he was at that moment anyway. Someone else could have just as easily been able to see the situation from your perspective.

One of the trickiest aspects of GMing, IMO, is managing the different play expectations of the people in the group.

[RQShades]

Well, I don't think it is an important element to the game. I think it's an important element to being an exceptionally good GM.

To clarify what I'm getting at, and to kind of back up what KnightErrantJR was saying, I don't think that this is a system issue. It's a group issue. If I was the Beast's player, I would have been fine with what happened because it totally made sense and I don't mind taking setbacks (assuming I'm not feeling personally targeted by the GM or anything). But your player did have an issue with it. That's who he is, or who he was at that moment anyway. Someone else could have just as easily been able to see the situation from your perspective.

One of the trickiest aspects of GMing, IMO, is managing the different play expectations of the people in the group.

Ok, so I've talked to the player and the group a little more. I apologized, explained that I didn't mean to decrease his fun by keeping him from being able to contribute to the narrative, and explained that what I probably should have done was smash the grappler Resource.

His response shocked me, compared to the advice everyone's given so far.

"No! Don't feel bad about it! I don't want you to leash your characters. If the roles were reversed I wouldn't pull that punch. I am just curious about what I could have done differently, or, how I can pull off similar stunts. Which is why we are doing danger room exercises."

So, quite literally, his concern at this point seems to be mechanical. That sentiment was expressed initially, but it got kind of lost in the emotional/social aspect of it. I told you guys there was a gamist element to this group.

He's worried that the system is too swingy, with the ability to spend resources to react with such potency. From a purely mechanical standpoint, he's right - you can do some crazy stuff on reactions.

However, after all this discussion, I don't see running the game on it's mechanics at full tilt as a reasonable solution. Unfortunately, despite the fact that my player was upset in the first place, I'm going to have to ignore his concern about "leashing" the Watcher characters. I'll just need to do it in a way that makes it seem as though I'm not leashing them.

Geez, this is tough. In some ways, it almost seems like what my player is saying flies in the face of most of the feedback I've gotten so far. But after really thinking it through, I've got to agree with you guys.

I just wish the Basic Game book went into any kind of detail about this. My group pretty much interpreted the fact that there were no guidelines for action scene design to mean that the system was designed to give the heroes a decent shot no matter the odds. We didn't realize it was the Watcher who had to give them the shot.

Heck, even in the New Avengers storyline that Breakout is based on, Spidey lands on the Raft, gets shoved into the midst of a mob of angry villains, and immediately gets his butt brutally handed to him and his arm broken. So, yeah, the book could probably benefit from a section that mentions the careful hand of the Watcher reining his characters and threats in a way that keeps the tension and drama high without KOing a hero when the opportunity is staring the game table in the face. Particularly since that sort of thing not only happens in comics, but happens first thing in the comic that the intro Event is based on.

Oh well, I guess that's neither here nor there. I know what I need to do, and I'm gonna give it my best shot.

Thanks again, gang.

[Uziel]

This topic looks like it's been beat to death, but I have to put my two cents in anyway. Before I start, I'm not being critical of you or your players. I've been Marvel weekly since the game came out, and here's what I've learned:

When you're a Watcher, try to have the battles flow like they do in comics. If you read comics (and if you're playing Marvel, you probably do), think about the last time a villain took out a hero in the first panel. It doesn't usually happen, and if it does, it's for a very specific reason. In game terms, if you've built up doom pool, save some of those doom pool dice, and use them as the fight progresses. Remember, in the comics, villains tend to get more ruthless as things progress, so maybe you could use that in your narrative. Juggernaut could have simply swatted the grapple away in that first panel. Later on, as things progress, an injured or complication riddled Juggernaut could get angry with Beast, and lay him out. By then the players feels more like they've accomplished something, and won't mind as much (hopefully).

One thing I've tried to do is build up the doom pool so that I have an extra 2d12 to use to stop the fight when it gets out of hand. I've used that rule to have the villain escape, and I've used it to have the heroes win a fight that was just going on for too long. Then when I use the 2d12, all of the players get 2 xp, and have some consolation for my ending the fight. Keep in mind, as a Watcher, you have to come up with some good narration in ending a fight, but that helps keep the comic book feel.

Hope some of this helps...