[HoE] [HOPLER] Question-Generating Session

["Steve Crow" <crow_steve@hotmail.com>]

Well, our group visited a maelstrom for the first time last night, and an 
interesting number of questions came up.

A) Do you draw a card for each individual passing through a section of a 
maelstrom, even if they are _all_ passing through the storm on _all_ the 
same round?  The rulebook stuff is a little vague, but Geiger Vision for 
Doomsayers seems to imply that you look at a section of the storm and it has 
a single "damage" value.

B) When you pull the card, it is not very clear what exactly is the 
"result."  It says it is "spiritual damage" but doesn't elucidate further.  
Is the attribute generated simply used as a Spirit roll against the 
target(s)', or do you read the result as "spiritual damage" literally.  
i.e....

1) I pull a 8 of diamonds, which is a 2d6.  I have the storm roll its new, 
temporary "Spirit" attribute of 2d6 and each PC makes an opposed Spirit 
roll, and takes the difference as damage (to the gut, as stated in the 
rulebook).

2) I pull a 8 of diamonds, which is a 2d6.  I roll the 2d6 as damage (i.e., 
adding the results together and Acing as necessary, and each PC makes an 
opposed Spirit roll, and takes the difference as damage.

2) is obviously a bit more lethal, which seems appropriate.  But it also 
means pulling a black joker and rollling 5d12 _of damage_ can be downright 
fatal (and who needs to worry about whether their mutated...when they're 
probably dead :) ).

C) For the purposes of anti-radiation mutations, Edges, Templar gifts, stuff 
like that, what is the nature of the storm damage considered to be?  It 
doesn't seem to be radiation (which usually requires Vigor checks).  It 
doesn't quite seem to be magical.  It seems to be...well, 'spiritual'.  But 
a case could be made that it is either of the other two, I suppose.

D) On a mildly unrelated note, what is the TN for making Rad checks within 
five miles of ground zero in Boise?  The people there are _living_ in a 
maelstrom, right?  And not just the Templars, but the surrounding community. 
  The book states TN 9, but are all the non-templars in Boise really making 
Rad checks (5, 9, whatever) every hour, 24/7??

Yes, I know the Templars' efforts have (presumably) made the Boise Maelstrom 
weaker.  But that kinda touches on C above.  The maelstrom is spiritual/evil 
type damage, and the Templars' efforts towards good are reducing that.  Fair 
enough, makes sense to me.  But...the actual ghost rock radiation from the 
bomb dropping isn't going down simply because they're doing good, does it?  
You can't reduce radiation simply by doing good/reducing the Fear Level, can 
you?

But even if the TN within the Boise maelstrom is 5...wouldn't NPCs be in a 
near-constant state of one degree or another of radiation poisoning/wind 
loss?  Nothing in the Templar SB seems to suggest anything like that.  And 
in fact, the place actually seems to be drawing more non-Templars to it.

Has this been answered before somewhere?  It really doesn't seem to make 
much sense.  We noticed something similar with Sybaris (from the Doomsayer 
SB) and how it was only 10-20 miles from a ground zero.  The rather facile 
answer was that wind patterns and stuff can reduce the radius.  But here's 
the same problem (even worse) again.  Putting communities in or near 
maelstroms seems like a really good way to kill off survivors, yet two major 
communities in the source material follow this pattern.

---

Steve Crow

"Worm Can Opener Extraordinare"

Check out my website at:  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/4991/

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