GMing a Game
Balancing Combat Encounters
Players and GMs who are not new to ttRPGs will have noticed the low scale of health points, and may be surprised at the apparent fragility of actors. This is an intentional part of the game design of ’Verses. That an actor may be killed or incapacitated by a very small number of weapon strikes is both realistic, and provides for truly fast and cinematic action.
Combined with the role that active defensive actions play in Fast Action, this creates a situation where balancing an encounter to ensure fun for your players works differently from other ttRPG systems. A balanced encounter relies less on the overall power or challenge of particular enemies and more on the dynamic, turn-by-turn actions of the enemy and the players’ characters.
As the GM, by adjusting the way you play enemies and NPCs you can create for players a sense of power and superiority as they fight their way through waves of minions, or of danger and challenge as they face off against the Big Bad. Both are effective ways to engage players in the action. A good GM should be able to balance these tensions and make each session fun and exciting for the players.
When you’re trying to make your players feel powerful and capable, playing enemies more passively, with few parries and dodges and no survival rolls, will allow players to dispatch enemies quickly and with great aplomb.
When you want to ramp up the danger and give them a challenge, playing enemies with more active defensive moves will stretch out the encounter, as players will be forced to coordinate and make their actions count.
It is important for GMs to be sensitive to the mood of the players and to be ready to shift the tone of an encounter to maximize everyone’s fun. This is the primary challenge of GMing a combat encounter—You can make your players feel like heroes when they need to.
This does not mean that characters can’t be put in mortal danger. The tensions of real stakes in an encounter is a powerful counterbalance to those heroic feelings, and like the narratives of your favorite action movies, the contrast between these two feelings is what drives the story forward.
Remember that your role as GM is not to play against the players, but to create situations that make them feel like the heroes of their own story. That feeling requires that sometimes they are indomitable, and sometimes they’re pushed to the limits of their abilities.
Society as an Object
It can be useful in certain cases to think of a society itself as an Object in the game. By modeling a society in terms of the following core attributes, a GM can apply attribute tests to rapidly improvise NPC responses to unexpected character actions in cases where characters interact with the society at large.
Society Core Attributes
| Attribute | Abrv | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Justice | JST | The degree to which societal systems function for the benefit of all vs. a select few. |
| Social Mobility | MOB | How easily members of the society can traverse class & social status boundaries. |
| Technology Level | TEC | The maximum level of technology available. |
| Tolerance | TOL | Level of social acceptance of individual variance from social conventions. |
Other Attributes
While the above core attributes measure various properties of the society at large, there are some traits of subgroupings within societies that are relevant.
Currency
Currencies will be specific to a given society, and sometimes to a given subgroup. These might be gold pieces, dollars, or credits. Or all three. All prices for items and services within these rules are given in terms of a generic, unitless “base” currency for ease of use with any relevant currency of the specific society.
Population
Population is a measure of specific geographical areas within the society. There will generally be many population areas within a society. Population Size (POP) measures the scale of the area, with 1 representing a small hamlet or village and 5 a sprawling metropolis.
The GM may choose to adjust a character’s Connectedness test based on the size of the population, how often the characters have visited, and the nature and ease of travel within the game world. Such an adjustment might look like this:
CN + POP + # of Recent Visits → (10 - SOC)S
Social Responses
GMs may use a society’s attributes along with subjective ratings of a character’s behaviors to help determine the type of response a character receives from representatives of that society in various situations.
Each of the following situations produces a contest between factors in the character’s favor and factors acting against the character. If the contest resolves with more successes in the character’s favor, the societal response is more positive for the character. If there are more successes against the character, then the response is more negative.
Tables with suggested scales for ranking non-attribute factors follow this section.
First Impressions
The likelihood that a character makes a positive first impression on a given member of a society can be approximated with the character’s SOC, a subjective estimate of the character’s apparent wealth, and the society’s TOL and MOB acting in the character’s favor, and the society member’s wealth, social rank, and a subjective estimate of the degree to which the character deviates from the society’s established social norms acting against them.
Behavioral Aberrations
If a character behaves in a manner that violates the norms of a society, the severity of the society’s response (up to and including legal sanctions) may be approximated by a contest between the character’s SOC and society’s TOL on one side, and a subjective estimate of the degree to which the character deviates from the society’s established social norms plus one on the other.
Legal Violations
If a character behaves in a manner that violates the legal standards of a society, the severity of the society’s response (up to and including legal sanctions) may be approximated by a contest between the character’s CN and society’s TOL and JST on one side, and a subjective representation of the degree of violation, and a subjective estimate of the degree to which the character deviates from the society’s established social norms on the other.
Factor Ratings
The following tables are a guide to determining subjective ratings for the social factors described. Where possible, these descriptions are provided in as culturally neutral language as possible. Where this is not feasible (especially in examples), the language used is from the author’s cultural frame of reference.
Apparent Wealth Ratings
| Rating | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | Impoverished; Tattered clothing, no or severely worn shoes, no items of any worth visible |
| 1 | Poor; Clothed and fed, but barely. No items of luxury visible, and clothing may be second hand or hard-used |
| 2 | Proletariat; Clothed and well fed. Items have seen use, but are well maintained |
| 3 | Prosperous; Clothing and items are of high quality, and one or more luxury items visible |
| 4 | Wealthy; Clothing and items are highest quality and look new |
| 5 | Opulent; Ostentatious & conspicuous displays of wealth and luxury |
Actual Wealth Ratings
| Rating | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | Impoverished; No money available, minimal items of any value, unhoused |
| 1 | Poor; Meager money available, few items of value, precariously housed |
| 2 | Proletariat; Some money available, few items of quality or luxury, stably housed |
| 3 | Prosperous; Money is available as needed, most items of quality or luxury, securely housed |
| 4 | Wealthy; Items of quality & luxury obtained without concern for cost, multiple homes |
| 5 | Opulent; Wealth is effectively unlimited |
Social Rank Ratings
| Rating | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | None; Fully excluded from society |
| 1 | Low; |
| 2 | Typical; |
| 3 | High; |
| 4 | Elite; |
| 5 | Ruling; Dominant social rank |
Social Norms Deviation
| Rating | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | None | |
| 1 | Quirky | Wearing clashing colors or anachronistic clothing |
| 2 | Moderately Deviant | Explicit swearing in public, unusually raucous behavior |
| 3 | Minorly Offensive | |
| 4 | Highly Offensive | |
| 5 | Heinously Offensive |
Legal Violation Ratings
| Rating | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | None | |
| 1 | Minor violation | Jaywalking |
| 2 | Major violation | Shoplifting |
| 3 | Minor crime | Burglary |
| 4 | Major crime | Murder |
| 5 | Heinous crime | Mass murder |