Gray/White and low exponent

[Marune]

Hi,

I have some trouble with the idea of a low exponent stat/skill with a gray/white greyscale.

Is there something about it that I missed ?

(I'm working on a D&D -> BW "monsters/stock" conversion guide)

[zabieru]

Mechanically, look at the way injury and armor work, those are the only non-obvious differences. Otherwise it's just more reliable.

In terms of what they represent? Just what they say they do. A low grey is a young hero, a low black is just someone who's not very good at what they do. Paul Atreides has a G4 Knife. Stilgar has B8. Who's a better knife-fighter? Stilgar is. He knows more, can teach more, demonstrates better technique. Paul, though, has heroic potential. This comes out mechanically in two ways. First, when Paul advances, he gets more out of it than Stilgar, and there's more room at the top (it takes him the same number of tests to get a grey die as it does Stilgar to get a black, but a grey die is better, and also Stilgar's going to need some collossal Obs to advance, and can only get to B10, while Paul doesn't need anything titanic for a little while yet and can get to G10). Second, Paul is MUCH more likely to roll close to his exponent and succeed at a Difficult test. Us regular folks, we need to fail a lot (or throw Artha on the fire like it's Deutschmarks in 1923) to get better. Heroes can learn while going from success to success.

In this case, it's not just a power scale of B1-B10, then G1-G10. You need to think about the quality of the ability in question. A monster with a G1 weapon skill is unquestionably less scary than one with a B10. But in long-term play, it has the potential to be much more dangerous. Also, grey or white stats can confer those shades to other abilities, and a monster with grey reflexes or mortal wound is terrifying. G3 reflexes is roughly an even match for B6 (I'd need to test it a bit to figure out whether the do-two-things-per-action is better, worse, or equivalent to two-actions-per-volley, and it also depends on what you're facing).

[TimP]

woah. Nice analysis of shades, Zabieru.

[Marune]

Thanks zabieru, that confirms and add much more to my idea about it. It also goes very well with the Rice's vampires example given in the MonBu.

They don't give a larger scale, but they can be added to some skills/stats like some kind of special trait.

So, I could say that : All Gods avatars have all white, all Dragons have some specifics Greys, etc.

[luke]

Zab,

I'm sure you can see the hearts floating up from my head and popping from where you are.
:D

[zabieru]

Trait with a lower-case T, yes. Not like a Trait in the BW sense, though, that's a different deal (though some Traits do shade-shift things), but I don't think that's what you meant.

Reflexes and PTGS shades are increased range, though. The grey wounds start above the black, and the white above the grey, and a grey wound will kill a character with a black MW value. So be aware that there's a big difference between a critter with a B14 MW and one with a G8: The latter is much, much tougher to kill, even though its stats are lower. (It's not hard to knock out, though, since it must have low stats)

Another way to say it is that exponent is magnitude, shade is quality. The selection process is to ask yourself "Is this ability mortal, heroic, or divine" and then separately "How good is this critter at that ability." Those are independent considerations.

Your examples sound basically good, but I don't know the exact context of divine avatars in the FR, so I can't critique that. From what I remember, they're probably all white, but maybe somebody who knows FR stuff better could chime in on some of that.

Another thing to remember as you do this is that you can also give traits that add to rolls, if you need someone to be more badass but don't want to shade-shift them. For instance, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are, canonically, the greatest swordsmen in not only Nehwon, but any world, anywhere (The Mouser also has a G8 Pimping skill, by the way. Homie makes ratskin look fly). But to me, they're not white shade. Still, I need them to be able to beat a white-shade Exalted Invincible Sword Princess (at least in a pure contest of bladesmanship. She probably can fly and spray golden daggers from her ears). So I give them several Call-Ons for things like Sword and Positioning tests, and I give them the "Greatest Swordsman in Any World" trait, which makes all their Sword rolls open-ended*. Now all they need to do is trick ISP into fighting them without using the Glorious Solar Ears of Dagger-Vomiting Majesty, and they've got it made.

PS: Thanks Luke!


*I don't have my MonBu accessible, so don't take those as verbatim from the "Swords Against Lifepaths" setting, but you get the idea.