thread: 2009-04-10 : A Moment of Judgment
On 2009-04-14, valamir wrote:
Ben, I can easily see how draft 8 worked better then the previous drafts. In the previous drafts you had a standard "the dominant outcome of the scene". It also sounds like you had established an expectation of an impartial, dare I say, objective judgment on what that was.
In my mind, not surprising that that didn't work as well as desired. IMO I've found the expectation of objective impartiality to be rather treacherous. Not because we can't trust that individual to be impartial, but because two reasonable people both striving towards objective impartiality can come to completely different conclusions. This is why most arbitrations (and IIRC most European courts)have a panel of judges.
What you've done in draft 8 is remove the illusion that someone is rendering an objective impartial judgment on what was the "dominant" outcome. People are MUCH more willing to accept a subjective judgment that they know and expect to be subjective than they are an objective judgment that they disagree with. The judge doesn't have to defend "I chose this outcome to reward because I thought it was the most dominant and here are my reasons". The judge simply says "I chose this outcome to reward...because I felt like it" for whatever reason. There's much less room to argue there.
That's what spending allowing the person who spends the Fate Point to get there way does, as well as spending Coins in a Challenge in Universalis. I may be able to argue with your judgment, but I can't argue with the fact that you just spent a point. Just as in draft 8 I can't argue that that outcome was in the scene...even if its not the one I wanted you to focus on.
