Mercenary Tickets Question

[kaijupanda]

I've been reading said chapter in Mercenary and find myself a bit confused in Step Four - Pre-Ticket Support (pg 51). The text says the merc administrator can spend tickets to add pre-ticket support, and rolls once for each on the support type table. So, if the administrator had three tickets to spend, and did so, he could basically roll on each of the support types (since you can't have duplicate support types), correct?

It also says the administrator could throw Broker 9+ instead and add a single result from the support type table without spending the ticket adjustment. If he/she makes this throw, does that mean the result is the administrator's choice? And is this roll only done once?

 

[saundby]

I'm looking at the SRD, which matches the wording you give.

The way I read it, yes, you can spend three Ticket Adjustments if you have them to spend, and get one roll for each of the types. But, if you're working with a player, I'd still play it out one at a time, rolling to see what order they come up in--it may affect their decisions. Basically play out one Ticket Adjustment at a time, per the rules.

My read on the broker is that you can use Broker 9+ to replace any or all of the Ticket Adjustments. If the player an get three good rolls in a row, they spend no TAs, but get each type of pre-ticket support.

 

[kaijupanda]

Oh, of course I'd deal with the player's ticket uses one at time. I think there could be some great roleplaying moments through the entire thing, especially with some of my players. I wanted to be sure I was understanding what I was reading. Sometimes I confuse myself.

Thanks for the help.

 

[saundby]

Sounds great!

Glad to help.

One of the joys of reffing is getting players all worked up about a mass of apparent "freebies" in the rules, only to start playing it out and see the look on their faces when they realize thaat it's not going to work the way they thought it would. :devil:

 

[kaijupanda]

Oh, yes, yes, yes! I make my players work! Because some of my players have metagaming issues, I'll sometimes throw for them when failure wouldn't be an obvious outcome and when it's more of a passive thing.

There was a time they took a bounty and tracked down their target to a resort on a high tech garden world. Most of the party started getting themselves sorted and figuring out how they can track down the guy. The last player, however, had never been to a garden world before, nor a resort, and was busy checking out all the food vendors. It was there he unknowingly met the target and had a nice long conversation about life and good food. Later on, when the entire group encountered him again, that player was like "Hey! It's Max! Heeeey Maaaax! How's it going?" There was much laughter in the group and confusion with the characters.

On another note, I think it would be neat to implement the ticket system as some sort of form that can be filled out as it's being created/negotiated. It could make for a nifty little game aid. I can't help but envision myself taking the negotiating character aside to draft it all up, handing it back to the player when all is complete (after shaking his/her hand, of course).

I wonder what fine print would be on those things.

 

[saundby]

The U.S. Postal Service is one of my sources for fine print. Boiled down, it comes to something like "we'll say anything, but promise nothing. We'll try our best, whatever you happen to get is our best. If anything goes wrong, it's not our fault. In fact, it's probably your fault. We may decide to press charges on anything we don't like, or just refuse to serve if you're lucky. We recommend you buy insurance, if you make a claim we might pay up (dream on.)"

You get the idea.

 

[kaijupanda]

Ooooh. I like that. Very inspiring. :devil: