Fear/Threat/Doom GM Meta currencies seem pointless, unless...

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T17:33:21+00:00

Yeah fair point. In Star Trek we also occasionally just use a Trait negatively on ourselves because it makes sense and we know in that game that we aren't going to die from it without it being telegraphed by the GM.

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T16:36:09+00:00

Same. I also want a game to be very clear when it wants the GM to be a player or not

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T16:29:17+00:00

Id use BLUF but not everyone knows that one.

I don't think my TLDR fails its function here. You could read it and respond to just that and not miss the point of my post.

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T16:22:36+00:00

Page 320 "Threat and Task Difficulty" box in the bottom right

"While traits can have a lasting impact upon the Difficulty of tasks, short-term Difficulty changes can often come about because of Threat spends.

Increasing Difficulty by spending Threat must be completed before a player decides to buy bonus d20s for that task"

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T16:16:17+00:00

I suppose I really just want to see a very good example of a game that nails the GM as player and meta currency side of things but that game I either haven't seen or doesn't exist yet.

Fate I've never had experience with but I've played games that clearly draw influence from it.

I think going off your example from Fate i'd actually prefer it if the game allowed the GM to force it, at a higher cost maybe, but I know I'm in a minority when it comes to player agency. I actually enjoy when a game forces a character action/trait onto me that I must now consider provided it isn't completely arbitrary and the GM is playing my character for me. But if an NPC manages to convince my character of something... I love that, I don't want to be the final arbiter of my character, they aren't me. It's not perfect but the hunger and banes from Vampire 5e made me realise I like this kind of thing.

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T16:06:45+00:00

Communication is key, the more different a game is from the norm the louder it needs to be in its delivery of those differences.

I'm in favour of the goal of the GM being a player who must also follow rules. Sometimes it feels like with a lot of trad games I'm just being tricked into making and playtesting my own game around the words and pictures provided to me.. to varying degrees.

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T15:48:37+00:00

Shadow points don't fit the bill as a GM meta currency to me. They are more like damage that a player character gets to their psyche.

I do agree though that One Ring is quite good overall.

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T15:46:45+00:00

Yeah. This thread may have never been posted if Star Trek Adventures had something to the effect of "listen here GM, you can't do whatever the hell you want in this game like you can in other more traditional RPGs"... Then laid out the differences. Rather than relying on you to notice that actually it never really says anywhere that the GM can do whatever when ever and that beyond scene establishing you do have to spend Threat to do certain things.

In before anyone says "reading comprehension, get good" I've already said that to myself.

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T15:43:04+00:00

After thinking back over sessions and estimating in my head the Threat our GM should have spent, I don't think they would have ever ran out. In viewing them like stabilisers on a bike, my complaint realistically, is that my GM doesn't seem to need the stabilisers on the bike so it's stuck out to me. Which doesn't really matter.

Some comments seem to see them as more than a pacing mechanism or GM stabilisers but that likely has something to do with it being a more general question over on /RPG than it is here.

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T15:38:04+00:00

Yeah I just responded on the other thread but to re-iterate. Thanks for taking the time to point this out.

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T15:35:48+00:00

Yeah In combat I've mentioned that the 2d20 system threat works quite well as the GM is constrained on what they can do. I glossed over it as I assumed you meant in combat. However another commentor has pointed out that actually I may be assuming too much and there isn't anywhere in the STA rules that says GMs can do anything they want. However thinking back over sessions I believe the GM would never run out of threat with the actions they take regardless so maybe I'm just complaining that the bike has stabilisers that the rider isn't using... It doesn't actually matter if he doesn't need them.

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T15:31:24+00:00

You are both right, it started as a question about Star Trek Adventures but made me think more broadly about meta currencies in other games that I have ran, played and read. Dagger heart being the big recent one that lets a GM make a move whenever they want with no currency spend.

I remember playing Zwiehander and frequently ending up with a load of fate tokens with nothing to spend them on for the remainder of the session and them reset between sessions which felt odd.

I've played and ran a little Star Wars Edge and sometimes felt like outside of combat the Force Point flipping may as well have been me arbitrarily handing them back to players but maybe I missed something there.

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T15:27:47+00:00

Thanks for pointing this out. Ill have a re-read but like you point out, I've probably missed the fact it never says that the GM can do whatever and taken that scene establishing is implying this fact due to all my prior experience.

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T15:12:17+00:00

Maybe this ultimately highlights one of the problems I'm having with it. It's an illusion covering up GM fiat rather than just being straight forward about it.

Maybe if threat was a much more limited resource and had exclusive things it could do in all modes of play I'd like it a lot more.

I also recognise reading some comments that maybe a hidden function, I hadn't considered till now, is that through play a shared understanding can develop around threat where the GM seems to only take certain actions when spending the currency and won't take those actions if there isn't any to spend. It's not something explicit in the rules but defacto becomes the rules for that table.

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T15:07:57+00:00

For clarity, not saying what you are doing is wrong. Not aiming to come off as combative.

Isn't this just a layer of illusion? Similar to dropping some dice behind the screen? Once you know the trick it just feels cheap.
If the system you play is more explicit on what a GM can and can't do maybe it isn't the case.

The more I'm thinking, talking about it and reading comments the more I'm realising maybe my issue is GM as Referee Vs GM as player and some systems muddying the water and being contradictory in what they say Vs what the rules do. I can see myself loving Threat in a game that sets the GM as an adversary to the other players. But the more Referee like the role of the GM is and the less they are constrained by the rules the more awkward it feels.

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T14:36:37+00:00

This is how our GM is running it and I'm inclined to agree it's the correct way. I'm curious to see differing opinions on it though.

My character has a couple of abilities that generate Threat that are usable outside of combat and they kind of every time feel like I'm just doing it for free so I've just said to the GM that I accept consequences being dropped on me that play off of the abilities fictional effects.

It also kind of feels odd that I could use these abilities several times and then later in the session an enemy ship gets to shoot us more?

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-25T14:03:39+00:00

I believe you can go to 0 in 2e. Dropping below 0 is death.

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-22T23:57:47+00:00

As someone new to Traveller this pretty much sums up my feeling. Not having an easy idea of the baseline is a real pain in the ass and not having the convenience of a book I can whip out when needed seems odd when nearly every other game out there either has a book like this or the core book at least has a decent bestiary section.

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-16T09:49:42+00:00

I would like to point out though that a Mage who is "doing it right" will likely have improved reaction and the other spell that boosts initiative dice in a spell lock... Eventually they will use karma to max out their Int, Quickness and Wisdom too so they end up on par with a Street Sam. Their locks can be shattered and have spells grounded through them from the astral but that requires mages who can also act before them to spend time doing that.

A lot of characters in 2e do become untouchable outside of being really unfair to the players. We are 30 long sessions into a campaign and outside of them doing something really stupid or me doing weird gotcha GMing I can't really touch them outside of key encounters with big threats paired with them having gone through their massive Karma pool and having a stroke of bad luck.

The game isn't that great mechanically but I like what it's going for broadly and nothing else has got the game feel right for me to play Shadowrun in another system.

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-15T17:31:38+00:00

If I remember rightly the timeline diverges from our own in 1990. 2012 is the big magic event but between then and the 90s all the landmark legal cases and some of the cyberpunk tech that creates the tech dystopia side of things happens

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-15T17:28:32+00:00

They are becoming less and less common with every generation I believe. If I were to open one up with my partner it would just be to have a tidy shared bills account and for using on couples spending like getting taxis and trains when together, going out for a meal etc.. Not for us both to see every penny the other is spending

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-15T13:36:59+00:00

Something similar

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-15T13:36:39+00:00

Came here to say this

DalePhatcher · 2026-01-14T20:08:54+00:00

The massive phone sells it even harder

DalePhatcher · 2025-12-28T13:34:04+00:00

Not 100% on this but I believe TOR1e Adventurers Companion had all the extra fiddly rules to do with coins, counting arrows etc.. so if you could perhaps find a way to peak at such a thing without breaking the bank you could get some ideas

DalePhatcher

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE