Announcement of unusual LCO Plot Effects

Polare

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Clarification: Announcement of unusual LCO Plot Effects

Many chapters utilize unusual effects or qualifiers as Local Chapter Only (LCO) diversions from the National ruleset. Since a major advantage of the Alliance system is adherence to that National ruleset, these LCO diversions are often short-term and (while allowed for local plot flavor) unexpected by players.

To ensure that players can understand how to react to any rules situation which the National ruleset does not clearly cover, ARC advises that any non-standard rules in play for an encounter, module, event, or season be clearly announced ahead of time to players attending that chapter's events. Without such an announcement, players will not necessarily know how to respond to some non-standard effects.

Some examples:

"Spell Laugh" is perfectly acceptable and requires no pre-announcement. The Spell qualifier and the Laugh effect are clearly described in the rulebook.

"Elemental Pin" is similarly acceptable and requires no pre-announcement. The Elemental qualifier and the Pin effect are clearly described in the rulebook.

"Vengeance Sleep" should have an announcement made ahead of time so players understand how to respond to the effect if it comes up in game. The only examples of Vengeance as a qualifier are in two separate ritual scrolls and are always combined with damage; Vengeance cannot be normally combined with an effect. Without a pre-announcement of how to handle such a call, players will not know if they can use a Resist Sleep (it's still a Sleep, after all) or not (it's a Vengeance, after all). (Note that ARC strongly recommends against using Vengeance outside of the two specific Ritual scrolls in which it is described)

"10 Arcane Flame" requires no pre-announcement. Arcane is clearly spelled out in the main rulebook as a qualifier and Flame is appropriately placed in the Effect Groups section.

"I call upon the power of the Dragon to wrack you with Pain!" would require a pre-announcement since "wrack you with Pain" is a non-standard effect and players wouldn't know what to do with it. However, if a Plot team did a standard effect and had the NPC throw it as the "Spell" qualifier there would be no pre-announcement needed; for example, "I call upon the power of the Dragon to Obliterate you! Spell Obliterate!" would need no announcement; the "Spell Obliterate" verbal is what the players will actually need to worry about defenses against.

Thank you,
ARC

edit: Updated for 2.0 verbiage.
 
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