|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So, looking it over, as written, it is impossible for the PCs to win any of these contests for the First Long Night.
For a PC to win, a single PC must accrue 4 victory points per activity. (Let the leaves fall, page 16). 6 VP for an overwhelming victory.
A critical success only grants 2 VP, a success only one. (GM core and game mastery guide)
And each PC can only attempt each activity once (let the leaves fall, page 15, bottom of the page.)
So. . . Am I missing something? How are players supposed to achieve 4, let alone 6 victory points?
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Each of the contests during the First Long Night are resolved by the PC playing the contest attempting 4 skill checks, not one.
The "may take part once" at the bottom of page 15 means that each PC can try to play one of the contests, not all three.
First of all: Thank you for responding to my post, I really appreciate it.
But . . . and I KNOW you are the creative director, are you sure? Maybe I'm blind, but I don't see the 'can take place in one event up to 4 times' anywhere in the book.
Page 15 states clearly 'During this time, the PCs can take part once in the three traditional contests," not "Can try a maximum of one contest up to four times." Additionally, the festival lasts six hours (page 15), and each of the three contests takes a different amount of time. The lantern contest takes 2 hours, so, theoretically, a player could only attempt it 3 times, whereas the cloud-gazing poetry game takes only 1 hour. And the bundle cutting game takes even less time. (This is all explained in the First Long Night section starting on page 61)
I don't mean to be rude sir, I have immense respect for you, but I know that I get my wires crossed all the time just when going through my day to day life. I just want to make sure that what you said was the intent of Joan Hong, the writer of the book, or maybe something got lost in communication? I mean, I can run it as you said, no problem, and if that is eratta, that's fine . . . it's just not what the books says. Just wondering if something got lost in the shuffle.
Creative Director
|
Hmm... I think maybe the wires are getting crossed becasue of an assumption that these contests run non-stop during the festival? That's not the case. Each of the three contests takes place ONCE during the festival. The festival is 6 hours long, during which there's one Admiring the Moon contest (this contest takes 1 hour of the festival), one bundle-cutting contest (this contest is fast and furious and is over in a few minutes), and one lantern making contest (this one takes two hours). These contests don't happen simultaneously; they happen at different parts of the night, and in between them, other festival activities (eating and shopping and so on) are taking place.
So during the festival, there are three contests happening. One is an Admiring the Moon contest, one is a Bundle-Cutting contest, and one is a Lantern Making contest. You can't do one of these more than once because they only happen once. When a PC does take part, they get four skill checks to earn Victory Points during that contest to find out if they win.
You can, of course, add more contests to your First Night Festival, or even have one of these contests be on the schedule more than once, but as written, the festival only does each of these three once.
|
Creative Director
|
Having read over this, I also find that there is no mention of having 4 skills checks as part of each contest. Great to have clarification here though.
That's covered in the second sentence after "Traditional Contests" on page 62:
"Each of these games are resolved via four skill checks attempted over the course of a set amount of time to accumulate Victory Points..."
Hope that clears it all up! :-)