|
Post by savagedaddy on Jan 11, 2013 2:12:15 GMT -8
Here is an interesting debate for you Savages! Are Game Master Bennies a negative influence on player enjoyment at the table?
As a Savage Worlds GM I personally feel that GM bennies can steal the players' thunder and unnecessarily extend combat. GM Bennies can act as a necessary buffer against the player's exploding dice and the anti-climatic or premature death of an adventure. Should NPC Wild Cards have the same advantages as the PC Wild Cards? Or is this an unfair advantage in the hands of game's omnipotent arbiter?
I roll in the open and refuse to fudge die rolls (not a judgement, just a personal choice). Anytime I have used a GM Benny in a game I've noticed it creates an adversarial GM-vs-players dynamic at the table. My players' gut reactions give off a palpitate... "What? I hit you... that's cheating" vibe.
Your thoughts?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2013 6:45:07 GMT -8
I actually tend to agree with you, savagedaddy. We're getting towards the end of a Necessary Evil campaign—which we'll finish soon, assuming our GM recovers from a sudden cross-country move. We've all seen that GM bennies slow the game down dramatically.
Part of the problem is that NPC Wild Cards don't need to save their bennies for anything, so they've effectively got a larger bennie pool than any individual player character has. That means the GM seems to constantly negate what would otherwise be dramatic hits that should put something down quickly (NE has comparatively large dice pools.) That leaves players frustrated, and you're right—frustration can quickly turn to anger at the GM. I don't think they're a "necessary buffer" at all—I think they're a crutch for GMs who haven't thought past one encounter and don't know what to do when it ends 'early'.
I'm okay with the GM declaring that a really nasty NPC (in Necessary Evil, for example, a mastermind supervillain) has bennies. That makes that particular Wild Card extra-special and really drives home to the players that the NPC is both important and dangerous. But other Wild Cards generally shouldn't. I do think that the expenditure of GM bennies (and maybe player bennies too, for the fun of it) should be narrated. For example, instead of "He spends a bennie ... <roll> ... yeah, no damage, sorry", a bennie-spend for our theoretical mastermind should look end up as something like "He laughs triumphantly as your laser blast is neutralized by a previously-invisible forcefield—you can see it crackle as your beam disappears just a foot or so in front of his throne. But you wonder how many blasts that forcefield can really stop..."
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2013 7:18:23 GMT -8
My players give me bennies for doing utterly awesome things so that's never been a problem at the table. But then we also came to Savage Worlds after playing FATE where FATE points are passed around regularly between players and GM and I run a narrative heavy game where combat only comes up perhaps every third session or so.
That being said Savage Worlds is a system where the players as wild cards have an innate advantage over the most enemies that you don’t see in other games. Between the Wild Die and the Bennies they have alot of power on their side. Now it is still a deadly system, and a lot of luck is involved, but Savage Worlds is a system where a novice character with a dagger and a lucky string of explosions could kill a god in a single strike. Taking away the GMs bennies just lowers the challenge level and makes it an easier game for the players. Some of that can be overcome by changing how you set up encounters, but at the same time I personally use my GM bennies for more than just combat same as the players. My encounters are more often skill based affairs then they are fights. For instance in one session the party was involved in a chase through the streets of Victorian era Paris in horse drawn carts where the police were after them. Both I and the players spent bennies over the course of the encounter to improve skill rolls and it was an epic start to the session. My players managed to pull in every movie chase trope in the book from a fruit cart, workmen crossing the street with a mirror, and even a jump from a large dirt ramp over road work. I also had a player leap upon a horse pulling the cart to rescue another who had managed to fall and barely catch the rigging. That only happened because I had bennies. I was rolling poorly so had I not had the ability to reroll for the cops the party would have escaped them with ease, as it was I kept the cops on their tails and forced them to get creative and we played out an epic chase scene.
|
|
|
Post by ericfromnj on Jan 11, 2013 7:36:27 GMT -8
GM bennies always ave worked for me but that's because I keep forgetting to give myself more every time I have a wild card (unless I only have 1 wild card like Zombie Apocalypse 1610).
|
|
|
Post by jazzisblues on Jan 11, 2013 7:50:30 GMT -8
I like gm bennies for a couple of reasons.
1. My players love it when I have to spend bennies to keep a bad guy from getting a case of the deads. They all cheer when that happens.
2. It gives me a way without gm fiat to keep a bad guy from getting a case of the deads. That said, if they kill him they kill him, that's just the way it goes.
Cheers,
JiB
|
|
|
Post by hoseirrob on Jan 11, 2013 16:22:27 GMT -8
Do you allow players to give up one of their bennies to cancel the GM bennie?
|
|
|
Post by jazzisblues on Jan 11, 2013 17:26:51 GMT -8
Do you allow players to give up one of their bennies to cancel the GM bennie? I've never allowed or even considered the prospect of spending a bennies to cancel out another player's or gms bennies. JiB Sent from my MB860 using proboards
|
|
|
Post by malifer on Jan 13, 2013 14:40:42 GMT -8
My first experience with Savage Worlds gave me a good moment during the game due to GM Bennies.
I was teaching everyone the basics with Pre-gens. So I was stretched pretty thin that session. The players loved the bennies.
The players were cruising through the game until the end when they came face to face with the Big Bad Evil Guy the first Wild Card NPC they had come across.
I rolled. My targeted player Justin smiled at the 2 and 3 that had come face up. Then I remembered the stack of Bennies I had given myself when I had doled them out at the beginning of the session. I grabbed a bennie threw it into the draw pile.
And Justin said "Oh SHIT! They get bennies too!"
I believe the second roll missed too but it was funny. Suddenly the little "tension relief" given by the bennie, had swung the other way.
Like anything in the game, the GM is trusted to not abuse any of the rules. If you have to worry about your GM's bennies you might want to start asking to see his NPC builds before the game too!
|
|
|
Post by malifer on Jan 13, 2013 14:48:49 GMT -8
I actually tend to agree with you, savagedaddy. We're getting towards the end of a Necessary Evil campaign—which we'll finish soon, assuming our GM recovers from a sudden cross-country move. We've all seen that GM bennies slow the game down dramatically. Part of the problem is that NPC Wild Cards don't need to save their bennies for anything, so they've effectively got a larger bennie pool than any individual player character has. That means the GM seems to constantly negate what would otherwise be dramatic hits that should put something down quickly (NE has comparatively large dice pools.) That leaves players frustrated, and you're right—frustration can quickly turn to anger at the GM. I don't think they're a "necessary buffer" at all—I think they're a crutch for GMs who haven't thought past one encounter and don't know what to do when it ends 'early'. I'm okay with the GM declaring that a really nasty NPC (in Necessary Evil, for example, a mastermind supervillain) has bennies. That makes that particular Wild Card extra-special and really drives home to the players that the NPC is both important and dangerous. But other Wild Cards generally shouldn't. I do think that the expenditure of GM bennies (and maybe player bennies too, for the fun of it) should be narrated. For example, instead of "He spends a bennie ... <roll> ... yeah, no damage, sorry", a bennie-spend for our theoretical mastermind should look end up as something like "He laughs triumphantly as your laser blast is neutralized by a previously-invisible forcefield—you can see it crackle as your beam disappears just a foot or so in front of his throne. But you wonder how many blasts that forcefield can really stop..." I'm not sure I agree that Wild Card NPCs have a larger bennie pool. The GM gets 1 for each player and the Wild Card NPC gets 2. There is no mechanic I am aware of that allows the GM to gain additional Bennies, whereas the players potentially have an unlimited supply. I agree that the NPCs typically don't have a reason to save them however this is mostly due to the players beating Mr. NPC to death with a medium-sized otter and if the roles were reversed I guarantee that player bennies would start flying across the table quicker than you can say Antidisestablishmentarianism. I agree that Bennies should be narrated.
|
|
|
Post by jazzisblues on Jan 14, 2013 6:36:26 GMT -8
To a degree it is setting specific.
In Deadlands, there are three kinds of bennies.
white = standard bennie red = add 1d6 to the previous roll, but the gm gets to draw a bennie from the pool blue = add 1d6 to the previous roll, gm does not get to draw
At the beginning of the game 20 white, 10 red and 5 blue bennies are put into the pool and everyone draws blindly both at the beginning of the game for their bennies and when they are awarded bennies. The gm can only use white bennies so if he draws a red or blue they go back into the pool and he draws again.
Note that for the gm starting bennies I don't draw them from the cup I just count mine out separately leaving more bennies for the players in the cup.
I also give each player 2 green bennies which can be awarded to other players for whatever they want.
Cheers,
JiB
|
|
jpk
Apprentice Douchebag
Posts: 58
|
Post by jpk on Jan 16, 2013 23:24:17 GMT -8
We've actually found that using GM bennies to soak wounds now and again gives the feel of progress for those folks that kind of miss hit points. "At least I shot one of his bennies off" is how it's usually phrased.
|
|
|
Post by rickno7 on Jan 17, 2013 0:12:52 GMT -8
Bennies have always been sort of a legalized way to fudge dice outcomes(or at least give re-rolls). In the recent podcast, I was singled out because I said I would fudge boss character statistics if I thought the players walked over them way too easy.
GM Bennies are a game sanctioned way for me to make sure Boss characters feel epic. If I end up not using them, I can just say I was saving them. If I start using them, the players are going to dislike the character even more, which is the point of most antagonistim.
|
|
|
Post by jazzisblues on Jan 17, 2013 6:23:21 GMT -8
Bennies have always been sort of a legalized way to fudge dice outcomes(or at least give re-rolls). In the recent podcast, I was singled out because I said I would fudge boss character statistics if I thought the players walked over them way too easy. GM Bennies are a game sanctioned way for me to make sure Boss characters feel epic. If I end up not using them, I can just say I was saving them. If I start using them, the players are going to dislike the character even more, which is the point of most antagonistim. My apologies if you felt like we were attacking you, that was not our (or at least my) intent. For my part I was trying to be funny which as we all know is a mistake. I think from a making a point standpoint we were trying to ask was it any different philosophically to change an npc's stats than to change the results of the die roll. The net result of both being that the gm is altering the difficulty of the encounter on the fly. JiB
|
|
|
Post by rickno7 on Jan 18, 2013 1:33:30 GMT -8
I did not mean to come across as angry or anything. I know not to take stuff too seriously on the podcast. Just could not think of another way to say "singled out" because "called out" sounds even worse ha.
|
|
|
Post by jazzisblues on Jan 18, 2013 6:29:56 GMT -8
I did not mean to come across as angry or anything. I know not to take stuff too seriously on the podcast. Just could not think of another way to say "singled out" because "called out" sounds even worse ha. Fair enough. Cheers, JiB
|
|