[UA] Avatar: The Gamer Help

[Mike Lake]

David Lowe wrote:
>
> I'm curious what people think of this and any help.
>
> *Symbols: *Dice, gaming books, video game controllers, guitar hero, 
> miniatures, chess, and go are all symbols of The Gamer. Cheetos, 
> Mountian Dew, and Pizza are preferred foods.

Don't forget the sandwich and how it was named.  For that matter, don't 
forget cards.

> *71 - 90% *At this level, The Gamer has seen it all....in virtual 
> form. If he fails a stress check he may roll on his Avatar: The Gamer 
> to ignore the stress. If successful he gains no harden or failed notch.

I agree this may be too powerful.  If nothing else, I'd recommend 
limiting the effect to certain kinds of stress check.  A video gamer 
sees lots of violence; an RPG gamer sees lots of weirdness.

Helplessnes, not so much.  Real helplessness is antithetical to games, 
where an artificial reality is created with a solution included.  No-win 
situations are rarely fun.  That solution may not always be obvious, but 
the gamer knows it's there, and usually he enjoys some broad hints on 
how to proceed.  Gamers may undergo different *kinds* of self checks 
from the rest of humanity ("I'm actually a program in a hyper-advanced 
computer?  Cool."), but everyone has a self image ("Of course I can jump 
this safely; I saw how to do it in Skate XTreme").  Those who know 
they're living in their parents' basement may still react badly when 
circumstances prevent them from pushing it to the backs of their minds.

Thinking off the cuff, how about something on the lines of "Minimaxing": 
with a sucessful avatar roll, the player gets a detailed plan of action 
from the GM on how best to use the resources at hand to get what he 
wants, what the GM would do in his shoes.  Such a plan doesn't guarantee 
success; the avatar still has to talk people necessary to the plan into 
cooperating, and still has to make his own skill rolls on the way.  The 
plan won't include elements the character doesn't know about, which 
could be dangerous: if the kung fu killer won't talk to anyone but the 
waitress at the diner he visits daily, and the avatar doesn't know about 
the waitress, then the "best" course of action to get the killer to talk 
is to overpower him and dope him up.  Good luck!  Getting a plan also 
won't tell the avatar *why* that's the best plan at hand, either.  And, 
of course, it's limited by the GM's cleverness.

That needs considerable refining.  It's still got a lot of potential to 
run roughshod over the GM's cleverly conceived plots.  I think something 
like it would work well in the 90%+ tier, though.  Something to chew on.
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