In my solo campaifn so far my player is struggling a bit with the difficulty of reaching an 8 plus on Overcome actions to gain a total success. Is this something I should be worried about? am I doing something wrong as the GM? I understand the twist system is a very important part of the game, but should he not succeed completley more often?
His abilities are the usual spread of dice.
Nah, twists happen all the time. If they're too frequent for you to come up with interesting effects, there's always "take your lowest die as damage" sorts of consequences.
That said, from what I've seen of game plays, major twists are the only ones that should really give the players pause, and even then, only when the stakes are really high. Succeeding at a challenge with no consequence is really awesome because it doesn't always happen; if it did happen every time, there wouldn't be a whole lot of challenge to actually overcome. If you ask me.
Twists happening often is intentional. Unlike most games, unless you are hindered in some way, you can succeed. The question is not "Will I succeed?", but "Success, at what cost?"
I also think something that I am going to try and lean into more as I GM is to make twists personal when I can. Especially if someone is having a ton of twists, this allows the story to have an effect on the game without stopping momentum at the moment.
Yes, maybe as I am only using the starter set, I as a GM am not good with coming up with them so far. My player has already said he is struffling with it as it is bringing him out of the game each time as he feels pressure to come up with another twist.
To stop him feeling like that I have reversed it round saying I will come up with one first, unless he really has a good idea for one that particular time.
do the full rules give more examples for twists?
It's true that lots of minor twists are expected, but players are expected to be using their Principles on the majority of Overcome tests. If they're using mostly d10's for Overcomes, they should be getting those 8+'s pretty often.
For a bit of math on that topic, here's some numbers!
Dice Pools that can achieve an 8+ on their Max die, with a net mod of +0 and no rerolling abilities, 50% of the time or better (with the percentage included)
- 6/10/10 => 51% chance of an 8+ on the Max die
- 6/10/12 => 59.166% chance of an 8+ on the Max die
- 6/12/12 => 65.9722% chance of an 8+ on the Max die
- 8/8/12 => 55.3385% chance of an 8+ on the Max die
- 8/10/10 => 57.125% chance of an 8+ on the Max die
- 8/10/12 => 64.270% chance of an 8+ on the Max die
- 8/12/12 => 70.2256% chance of an 8+ on the Max die
- 10/10/10 => 65.7% chance of an 8+ on the Max die
- 10/10/12 => 71.4166% chance of an 8+ on the Max die
- 10/12/12 => 76.18055% chance of an 8+ on the Max die
- 12/12/12 => 80.1504% chance of an 8+ on the Max die
To back up MindWanderers point, the only dice pool in the above list that involves fewer than two dice of d10 or better is d8/d8/d12. Minor Twists, even using Principles, are an intended part of the game if you don't use any bonuses to help out.
So if Tek, with Principle of the Gearhead, Technology d12, and status die of d8, can mange to use her Robotics d10 or one of her d8 Powers... she's going to have roughly a 1/2 to 2/3 chance of getting 8+... and thus succeeding without a minor twist.
That seems... a bit steep. Technology is her major thing, and she can't even count on much more than a 50/50 shot.
Correct. However, and this is something people seem to miss, twists can often serve the story. It's honestly a bit boring if the heroes in a story just succeed at everything they do, with no consequences. Twists serve as those consequences, the risks inherent in being a hero beyond just getting decked across the face by an angry robot spider with a chunk of concrete.
To me, it just encourages players to avoid rolling as much as possible, to always put a ton of effort into setting up solutions such that they don't need to roll.
Experienced the same thing with a game that had a random chance of a chaotic narrative complication with any successful roll... players avoiding rolling.
That's where the scene tracker comes in. Heroes don't always have the time to prepare and ensure that they can do the job perfectly, sometimes they just have to do it and hope for the best. And if the players are that ardent to avoid any personal consequences for their character's actions, then maybe there should be a discussion outside of the game to clear that up before it becomes an issue.
In my experience as a GM, I find that players will roll Overcomes and take twists, because they get to answer the twists questions and help guide the story that way. The GM isn't the players enemy.
Remember Twists can also be RP/Story problems instead of action scenes mechanics
“I saved the day but i missed my date, and you don’t get a second chance with Edna Krabappel”
being a bad soap opera/after school special is very standard comic book faire
Different focuses, I guess… the groups I’ve gamed with aren’t interested in “director stance”, or deliberately crafted stories, they’re just interested in playing the character, solving the problem at hand, etc.
One handy minor twist is always the ominous "List for Later". The GM notes down that a hero has - again! - made himself look bad in front of a news camera or whatever it is you want to use as your running gag (missed her driver's test, broke grandpa's pocketwatch, etc, for the x-th time). For sure, that list of collected unresolved minor twists will at some point, later, become a huge thing and maybe warrant a full plot when it boomerangs back.
But for now, it is just that damocles' sword, ever dangling a little more...
Another thought, which the rulebook misses to warn you about: It seems generally wise to avoid introducing new challenges through minor twists.
Otherwise, you quickly enter a downwards spiral of overcomes generating more overcomes generating even more overcomes... Unless, of course, that is what you had specifically in mind, and the Heroes' main task were to escape that vicious circle.
If you overcame a challenge but incurred a twist and thereby introduced a new challenge, I consider that to fall under the rule that says, "a twist can't negate the success."
I totally concur, just wanted to point it out because the cascading effect of twists inducing challenges can easily be missed by inexperienced players.
And finding out the hard way might ruin a scene (or worse, the group's mood) when people realize too late...
A story without any plot twists is a very bland story.
I find a lot of stories amount to plot-twist-pileup, like a 100-car pileup of plot twists, to the point where it's obvious the writer or director doesn't know what they're doing but read that twists are good.
Plot twists are a means, not the end.
I completely agree, KJ_Max. But, I think we can both agree that a balanced, moderate amount of plot twists is the best solution. Too few twists, and it's a bland story. Nothing but twists, and it's not really even a story at all. Just the right amount of twists keep things interesting, but still leaves room for meaningful story.