My players absolutely detest the PTM. I was just told last night it's like a parenting device. So, I'm going to try to rework it so that there's a benefit to cooperation or completion of goals instead of an arbitrary punishment device.

What kind of feedback are you guys getting?

jh

We don't really have a problem with it. When our characters are bickering, if the GM ups the meter, we don't stop. We've also moved the meter up ourselves when it was appropriate.

When do you move the meter down? It could be that since the meter moves up a lot and never down, it doesn't seem very fair to the players.

Do you also throw fatigue and stress at the players when it fits what's going on? Maybe get a stress when hassled by the Agitator in the street, trying to force a pamphlet in your face, only to lose that stress when you sit down and have a drink at the bar.

When these things become more common and more tied to story-based actions (than to just action cards/combat/etc.) then they don't seem so punitive. The player starts to feel that there are things that they can do to fix the situation.

... or you could just have a group of whiney players, who are too busy trying to win than to be bothered roleplaying. I suspect it's the former, though.

I've never had a problem with my players. I don't tend to move the meter very much, but occasionally I do. Occasionally players will voluntarily increase it.

Emirikol said:

Since the beginning of WFRP3 you consider it as a punishment tool for kids and i do think you really misunderstand the point of the Tension Meter. You may considers these 2 point of view we use in our game :

1) The characters are joined in a Party and the Tension, in that way, represents their commitment, their loyalty to the party members. When story makes their characters have a dispute, it's normal to consider the party as a team is shaken... like a sort of family crisis... It may go down when things will calm down. Sometimes one will retreat where others want to continue their way for example.I truely never use it to "punish" a player who's not really into the game...

2) The Tension Meter may also represents a kind of Stress counter for everybody around. In a game with vampire hidden in the forest, traveling in the forest will increase the tension meter... so we use it to feel chillings, thrills... That's a very good way to do so. It may goes down when the menace would disappear. I use it that way also when time in counted, like in the TV show 24, the lesser the time left the higher the tension... For example in the last hours before midnight on the Winds Of Change adventure where the GM show the public place's clock going on.

Hope this will help you to use the Tension Meter a way that help the story and the game, as we do in our games where people love the party sheet (same for shared talents : I demand a roleplay element to justify you may share one of your talents ; same for fortune points : players can't share the full pool without being together)

Good Game

I've had it raised in the game where I'm a player a couple of times when a character attempts something that involves the other characters and fails at it. For example, we were trying to figure out a way to get past an NPC and my character tells the others to distract the NPC while I sneak past. They distract her and I fail. We get thrown out. Tension meter goes up.

So far it hasn't really been used all that much in our games, but it seems important to generally think of it as a storytelling tool, not a punishment/reward system.

Ralzar said:

Yes. This. A thousand times, this.

I think the way the GM's guide suggests you use it is not very helpful.

In saying that you move the tension meter up when players argue it does sound like a punishment. While I wouldn't rule out doing that, I think it's better to use it as others here have been describing - to create atmosphere and signal to the players that things are not going well. You shouldn't be using it to 'punish' players for debating what to do in game, unless the players enjoy playing characters that argue with each other and get really angry with each other. In which case, they'll likely be moving the tension meter on themselves.

My main problem with the tension meter is that it breaks one of the design insights of the game. Progress trackers generally don't go backwards and forwards. Eg, an argument doesn't swing one way and then the other; you use the tracker to track progress throughout the argument and (for example), whoever's marker gets to the end first wins.

The party tension meter though doesn't give you any way to 'decrease' tension, other than to get so tense that the gang of thugs explode (for example) and the tension resets at the beginning. It feels like however, that you should be able to move the tension meter back up the scale if the party have a relaxing time or a bit of a meeting to sort out their problems, but there's a mechanical problem if you do this - the tracker can keep going backwards and forwards (repeatedly triggering the middle step) without ever reaching the end.

Angelic Despot said:

They give you as many ways to decrease the meter as they do to increase it. (you can read that as "none," or "every way that you can imagine" depending on your point of view.)

Works well for us and pretty much echoing all the opinions so far. I'll move it up if the players start to get bogged down in a who goes first initiative battle. I'll move it up if their carefully laid plans mess up because of dice rolls. I generally try and use it to reflect the players stress into mechanical stress. Likewise when things go well I lower it, when lucky rolls turn a bad situation well it gets lowered. When a well laid plan pays of it gets drastically lowered etc....

My players try and get it to loop round as much as possible. I think its inclusion had made them act more silly than usual.

After our first session the GM took the party sheet out of the game.

At that point I was quite happy about it. I couldn't think in labels. You are the "so and so" group. That didn't give me much.

As a hole we couldn't get quite anything out of the tension meter. What made us wonder was, what happens when the meter reaches the final mark? (sure you get the game penalty) But will the group get mad at each other? With it you get a quite fixed ruling on your roleplay. Some kind of group "punishment". I don't like that very much.

Your opinions made me reconsider our decicion. I still don't like it very much. Because in the end it tries to rule roleplay. But if you look at it as a guideline with the GM considering the "result" it seems quite interesting.

Feqz said:

If you don't like it / it doesn't do anything for your group, you shouldn't use it, but having said that; try to see it not as a way to force players to behave or dictate how they roleplay, but as a visual reminder of the things that are preoccupying their characters, and let them respond to it. Players respond to beastmen attacks by fighting back (or running away - it's their choice).

Likewise, how they respond to stress is their choice. They can quit the road, find a nice quiet pub and chill out, or they can plow straight on. One option gives them less stress, the other more - but probably a more interesting story! Players accept 'wounds' as the physical price of adventuring and fighting chaos etc. They should get used to accepting stress as another one of the prices.

The different party types are indications as to how your characters are likely to react to stress. Rememver - they choose the party type to reflect how they see their characters, so it shouldn't be forcing them to play out of character.

A gang of thugs will argue, punches will get thrown until someone shouts loud enough to get everyone to back off and see the funny side of things - at which point party tension resets. If your players don't like this idea, then perhaps they shouldn't be a 'gang of thugs' and one of the other party sheets will suit them better. If they like to talk things out like reasonable adults, then one of the more typically 'heroic' party sheets might suit them better.

Doc, the Weasel said:

I don't mean that there's no way to move the party tension meter backwards - obviously taking time to rest and relax will do just that. The problem is that mechanically, the party tension meter works like a progress tracker. And any other time you use a progress tracker the book stresses that you track from one side to the other - no doubling back. You may never reach the end of the track (you fail in your task, or time runs out), an opponent's marker may get to the end of the track before yours does (you lose the argument in court).

What you don't do is progress along the track when you do something well, and move backwards when something goes wrong. The reason is simple - you never reach resolution.

That's what I was referring to when I said that the party tension meter doesn't give you a way to decrease tension. I mean mechanically, it's not designed to incorporate you moving the tracker backwards towards the start. eg. If the party meter gets about half way along, and triggers the first affect, and you argue and move on one space, then go to the pub and move back one space, should you immediately all suffer the penalties of hitting the mid point again? What about if you then have a good night's sleep, move backwards another space, but then get woken really early in the morning and move down a space, hitting the middle point again. This could go on and on with the party constantly triggering the initial effect and never reaching the end of the track and the 're-set'.

I'm not sure what the answer is. Possibly awarding fate points instead of backtracking, or possibly just allowing players to recover stress as individuals.

My players like the party tension meter. They sometimes increase the PTM volunterily according to the roleplaying situation. But I can see your point of view, but tension doesn't have to increase everytime someone in the party is having an argument, some people thrive on quarels.

My problem with the PTM however, is the rollercoaster paradox. meaning that having a decrease in PTM are actually a penalty, as it will take you right below the threshold (like 5). one more point will than give you the same penalties as the 5 previous increases combined.

To this paradox I have found no rule solutions. any suggestions?

Good gaming

Angelic Despot said:

I don't mean to be contrary, but I don't think this is universally true. I believe there is more than one example from the published books where tokens do move backwards on a track, though I can't think of many offhand. One that I can think of (as I just read it today) is from the Noble Favour & Agendas box in The Edge of Night. It notes that a groups token on a family's Noble Favour track can move backwards resulting in the party losing their noble patronage. It also talks about the Adgenda track to used during the masquerade ball. Each family's token starts on the second space of the track and can move backwards depending on the events of the encounter. I can't quote any specifics without digging through the books, but I believe I remember similar set ups mentioned in either the Tome of Adventure or the GM's Toolkit, with the token starting a few spaces in and possibly moving backwards.

There's also an example from the Beastman group sheet pictured in todays news announcement for the Creature Vault. The text is a bit blurred but I beleive it says the beastman Fury! token moves backwards if there are no engaged beastmen at the end of a turn. I also think the tracks on the nemesis sheets are meant to go backwards and forwards, though I could be wrong about that.

The tension meter is only a punishment if addressed that way.

I will fully admit, when I run demos for new players and when I first ran the game for my long standing group, there is a perceived penalty to the track. However, after out of game discussions, we largely talked about the narrative - mechanical relationship of the game and how the tool can be used to enhance play.

I'll go into some points here. There is no written rule that any tracker can only go "one way." As a matter of a fact, the GM toolkit highlights tug of war trackers and trackers deflating. If you only look at trackers in a singular progression you are missing out on a great deal of a tracker can do. Hell, I now use a primary tracker with a number of sub trackers at times. For instance, a tug of war tracker to track successes/victories of the scene, and based on the number of steps gained or lost, tokens move on the primary tracker. Direct events that effect the primary tracker move the token there, where-as the secondary plot arcs are being tracked independently. Once events are reached on the secondary plot of a scene, it triggers events on the primary tracker. Some of my players have created trackers of their own to track relationships between NPC's and their characters and various other mechanics. You may call us "tracker happy" for this, but I feel we just understand how absolutely awesome they can be to add dimensions to the game.

One thing I would have liked to see in Signs of Faith is how to track when Omens, etc. can occur or priestly deeds tracked to create divine favor. It says explicitly that when a player acts in accordance, have some divine force aid them. A tracker at times, in major dramatic moments, could wonderfully track devotion of the character in a particular scene and when they reach it, it's time for God smiting. For instance, a very devout Sigmarite surrounded by Cultists and Demons is trying to convince everyone to hold together. He believes through Sigmar and devotion to him, the God will intervene. Well, instead of letting it be passive, throw out that tracker to track it's rise and let great events happen when they act on that devotion and even more when they convince others to act on that devotion! It would bring religion so much more into play through the mechanics already in place. Then go one step further and give event spaces for minor bursts of faith leading to divine intervention (such as invigorate conditions to the whole party) and finally lead it up to a culmination of that devotion.

Why I bring this is up is because one, as a GM you need to use trackers in a way that do create suspense and fear, but you must also create trackers that show the players the good that can come from them. This way they don't instantly "fear" every tracker on the table. Instead they are tools to generate narrative interest, focus and curiosity by the players on, "what's that one for?" At times you can play those cards open handed, such as, this tracker represents the morale of the goblins or this is how long before you convince so and so of whatever.

With all that being said, how this relates to the party-tension meter is by showing players the good of trackers, it will eliminate some of the apprehension of punishment from the Party Tension tracker.

Secondly, how a tracker is ultimately controlled is up to the players and the GM. A party tension tracker MUST go up just as much as it MUST go down. So yes, when players argue, raise it up a step. If it continues, raise it another. In contrast, if someone makes a joke and breaks that tension or comes up with a solution everyone agrees to, lower it down a step or two. If it rewards as much as it "punishes" then it is not a tool of punishment, it is a meter (as it is called). It is also another way to add tone or atmosphere to an otherwise flat scene. So you describe a place as scary, but Bob wasn't paying attention because he was on his DROID and Andy was chomping away at chips and thinking about another beer, so they don't exactly feel what you believe. The tracker rising helps reestablish the mood. It gives direct narrative impact to the mood. So a party, lost in a Skaven infested tunnel, the tension would rise and this gives the game a way to communicate that story more clearly to the players. This is not cozy, get out of those nasty tunnels, the tension track helps play that up.

Also it is important to remind players that the tension meter is a balancing factor for all the great benefits of their party card. If they aren't taking advantage of those, they really should.

In addition, tension meters, trackers, cards, dice, chits and do-dads should never act independently of role-play. A greatly described action gets bonus white dice to the check. Well, a great argument between players may rise tension, but it also adds those narrative elements. Furthermore, when party tension rises, so to should the player's tension. If it goes up a step or two, it's not time to make a joke to avoid the penalty. It is time to either refocus and earn a decrease in tension and to role-play that rising tension. If moved appropriately and not abused or mishandled by the GM, the player should actually be tense when the tracker rises. Again, it shouldn't subtract, it should add.

Lastly, it is very important to allow players to adjust it up and to ask for an adjustment down. If one player threatens or is flat out mean to another character, the player has every right to advance the tension on his own accord. If they don't like a decision, they should be able to advance it. This way it is not a punishment tool. It is a tool they have just as much interaction with as the GM. After all, it is their party, so they understand it far more at times than the GM can. If everyone contributes, then nobody can really say, well, Mr. GM you are punishing us for no reason. Instead, we are portraying mechanically our in game tension.

AS TO REACTIVATING THE BLUE SPACE:

As a final note on this, if you advance past the blue triangle, then descend because of tension relief, I think it is insane to reactivate the event. I doubt Jay Little or Dan Clark would disagree with that. The event is there for when tension rises, not decreases. Don't ping pong off of it, otherwise, it is a penalty to decrease tension rather than rise it to its fullest. I believe the wording even on some of the cards support this, "when the party tension meter reaches x point or when party tension advances past x point, x effect happens." I don't remember where, but it might even be in the rulebook or on the cards, so the wording can provide us with guidance (though, to some degree, it is guess work). I just wish the RAW was more clear on this point, so I didn't have to bother typing it, lol!

Happy Gaming,

Commoner