I’m working on my own FitD game and I’ve stumbled over a minor problem. I created lots of abilities for my own seven character types; many of these abilities grant you +1 effect level. This is because I really like the effect level mechanic and it’s easy to understand for players. So I don’t want to change this. But it has just occurred to me: what if the players simply trade their improved effect level for a better position? That’s not my intention. I don’t want the PCs to improve their position regularly. Also, this can result in some PCs having a better position than others on a regular basis, something that makes the game more complicated to run.
I came up with a fix: If you trade Effect for Position, you must also expend 1 stress to do so; you don’t have to expend stress when trading Position for Effect.
What do you guys think?
Do you think trading effect for position could really become a problem?
Can you think of a better fix? (I think it’s not really elegant.)
If low Position is a problem for your system, it might make sense to just rebase your Position system. I use Risky/Desperate/Deathwish(eqv level 4 Harm) for my game to ensure that players are always taking at least some significant consequence.
If the player would be in Controlled Position, instead of letting them roll, they just take the Controlled consequence (usually spending some time or letting an enemy react) and succeed.
Another option would be to put some baseline cost on rolling at all. Such as if the players usually need to Push for Effect or taking a consequence from a master NPC. That way, players will want to get as much Effect as they can on each roll, so they don’t get bled out of resources by trying to resolve things with lots of Controlled/Limited rolls.
Trading effect for position is contextual and follows from the fiction. A player can’t just say “I’m giving up a level of effect to get controlled position”, they need to explain how they are taking a cautious approach which minimises risk but achieves less.
My feeling is if they are able to do this in the fiction they should be allowed to do it without extraneous mechanics intervening. If a player announces they are hiding behind cover and taking shots at the enemy without exposing themselves (a classic example of controlled position/limited effect) should they need to spend one stress because they are ‘trading position for effect’?