Rules "gray areas"

P

Polare

Count
Good afternoon,

For my own curiosity, I'd like to ask what our players feel are the most often hit "gray areas" of the Alliance rules where things are not spelled out as clearly as they should be*. This is especially true where you've seen or heard of an interpretation in a different chapter which does not match how you have seen it ruled or played in Seattle or Oregon. I'm hoping that this will lead to better focus on what we need to be paying attention to, at a minimum on the local level.

I'm going to put some requirements on these subjects. First and foremost it must be a situation you've seen come up in game, preferably more than once. I am really not interested in pure hypotheticals here, or things that could be a problem if a specific sequence of events happened, or something that happened a single time but is outlandishly unlikely to ever happen again. I am really looking for common things - things like "Hey, I hear that in such-and-such a chapter you can parry Massive but Seattle and Oregon don't allow that" or "I've seen it ruled multiple different ways by different Seattle and Oregon marshals what happens if the end of your sword is within the 5' radius of a trap".

What I *don't* want to see is "What if I'm affected by a CSS, and my bottle is stuck in another chapter and I'm underwater and affected by a Prison and I have a High Magic Dispel and a Spirit Recall and an Item Recall on my bottle and I'm Engulfed by a shark, since Engulf acts as a Killing Blow but I'm prisoned but I can Dispel myself out of it but my bottle is somewhere else can I blah blah blah...". Sorry guys, those questions really aren't helpful for what I'm looking for here.

Kindly keep conversation on topic in this thread - if it's off topic I reserve the right to move it to another forum or wholesale delete it. You've been warned.

Thanks!
-Bryan

*Please note that this does not guarantee that there will be any activity on these subjects. But if we don't know about the areas of greatest concern, we can't focus on them first.
 
How about Charm? ARC Said they were going to put out an addendum on it in like march and last I checked nothing had been released.
 
Also with Paranoia are people suppose too attack the closest person/thing to them because i seen sum people either run away from everyone or people who just backed away from everyone and did nuthing. So im wondering if you could clear it up for me. Or i could just be seeing things lol.
 
Assume that everything on the ARC boards - even old stuff - has been worked on and can't be posted yet for some reason :)
 
How about armor and garb judgment. There doesn't seem to be clear enough guidelines as myself and others have had their armor rated wildly different, depending on the marshal. James and Andy have had this come up a lot. I have had it come up a few times.
 
sencara said:
Also with Paranoia are people suppose too attack the closest person/thing to them because i seen sum people either run away from everyone or people who just backed away from everyone and did nuthing. So im wondering if you could clear it up for me. Or i could just be seeing things lol.
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Paranoia doesn't force anything, actually. It's a completely roleplay effect. So people can choose to RP it however they like. That said if they just continue as normal they will probably get a Marshal pulling them aside later on and talking to them about good RP.

People are expected to roleplay extreme paranoia of everyone around them, friend and foe. Some characters might attack because of that, others might just run away. Still others might just curl up in a ball and look around with wide eyes and refuse to communicate.
 
evi1r0n said:
How about armor and garb judgment. There doesn't seem to be clear enough guidelines as myself and others have had their armor rated wildly different, depending on the marshal. James and Andy have had this come up a lot. I have had it come up a few times.
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That's a good one. In general, the base amounts for the armor are rated the same, but the 4 points and 2 points for 'in genre' and 'master crafted' are where subjectivity comes in, and we as Marshals could definitely do a bit better on consistency. The book gives guidelines for how to give those out but they really are up to the individual marshals.

In general we tend to be pretty wildly nice about these bonus points to newer players, but we expect players to "up their game" with their costuming as they become veterans (at least that's my impression of how we generally rate it in OR and Seattle). If there's no anachronisms showing at all (besides those explicitly allowed by the rulebook, such as safety lenses), I generally give all of the 'in genre'. If there's a couple zippers, they're wearing cargo pants, their pouches are clearly canvas mil-surplus instead of period-looking stuff, they'll start losing 'in genre' points. If their armor clearly had care put into it and looks 'professionally made' I'll give them the master-crafted points. These points are also often used to compensate for people going above and beyond the minimum. For instance, if someone does the absolute bare minimum for plate armor (gauge- and metal-wise), with no ornamentation, I'm less inclined to give the master crafted points than if someone is substantially heavier metal than the minimum, or has ornamentation/fluting, or has additional pieces that aren't technically required (say, rondels, for instance). This obviously goes for chainmail and leather too - if you space your studs out so they're the minimum required distance from each other, you probably won't get master-crafted. If you stud the crap out of your leather so it looks like it actually would stop a weapon blow better, you're more likely to get master-crafted.

Or to sum it up... If you do the bare minimum you won't get as many points as if you go above and beyond.

Hopefully that helps give some idea of how I do armor evaluations, at least. It's definitely something I can pull the marshals together and talk about at the next event.

-Bryan
 
Thanks Bryan. That makes sense. My biggest problems are always pants but Barb is making me some so I should be good to go in the next few events.
 
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