Hocus Followers/Surplus questions

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Hocus Followers/Surplus questions
« on: October 09, 2011, 05:29:10 AM »
Okay so you can get a 'personal share' of barter from your follower's surplus.  Is this persistent, like you get 2 barter which stays until you spend it or is it like the hardholder and you have 2 barter available for the duration of that session.

Some of our sessions lately have been only about a single day or two following hard on each other.  It feels unnatural to roll fortunes for such a short span of time.  Do you put it off until it seems to fit?

Re: Hocus Followers/Surplus questions
« Reply #1 on: October 09, 2011, 09:58:12 AM »
Hi.  We haven't been playing long, but I play a Hocus and for what its worth, here are my answers. :)

1) "Personal share" of barter

I have not discussed this with my MC, but I treat my Hocus's barter as persistent.  I wouldn't see why it would not be, and there isn't any indication in the rule that it is not.

2) Fortune roll: beginning of each session, or only when it fits?

Regarding the fortune roll for followers, I'm curious as to why it feels unnatural to you to roll at the beginning of each session?

I'm playing a Hocus currently and (so far) we roll every session. Our sessions have been about a day or so in length, and have followed directly on from one another, so that sounds very similar to what you are describing. And it seems to work from my point of view. When we roll we just spend a little time working out how it fits the fiction and thats it.

Personally I'd be a little annoyed if the fortune roll was changed from "every session" to "whenever it seems to fit" as the fortune thing is a large part of the Hocus character, and one of the reasons I chose that playbook.  Changing that to something which might only happen occasionally (subject to the whim of the MC likely) would be a big change to the way my character worked, and not in a way I would like.

There are other moves which are written as being triggered when the fiction fits.  But this (and others such as the Hardholders wealth move) are triggered by meta-game timings such as session start/end.  I don't really see a reason to switch the Hocus move from one type to the other.

But, these answers are just our game, and I would think that there are plenty of other ways this is dealt with out there :)

Re: Hocus Followers/Surplus questions
« Reply #2 on: October 09, 2011, 10:19:41 PM »
We've had some sessions recently where the session itself has only covered a few hours of time and it looks like the next session will pick up immediatey in the timeline and it seems kind of weird for the followers to be in want then suddenly in surplus when the causes of want in the fiction have yet to be addressed.

Like I said, it just felt funny and a little hard to justify fictionally. But, you know, if that's the way it is then that's cool.

Re: Hocus Followers/Surplus questions
« Reply #3 on: October 10, 2011, 03:46:53 AM »
IMO as read sitch can't be used more then one time before sitch changes, same is with this, more or less. Situation needs to change somehow(though in which way it needs to change depends on what are wants and surplus)

Re: Hocus Followers/Surplus questions
« Reply #4 on: October 10, 2011, 11:05:24 AM »
@trevis: I guess there could be situations when it would be weird.  That hasn't yet been an issue for us, but we haven't been playing long.  I guess the answer is probably to just work it out each session.  If it feels wrong to everyone, then I would probably skip it, but I would expect that to be an exception to the norm personally, otherwise you risk getting into a situation where you might roll fortunes only infrequently.

Interestingly, we will be playing tonight, and will (probably) pick up immediately where we left off last session (more immediately than ever before!) so now I'm curious as to how we will fit the fortunes roll into the fiction :)