Herman Moskowitz, Epic Accountant

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by Kromm

This depends on how the GM runs Allies, really. Plenty of GMs do let Allies work functionally a lot like Serendipity. In game terms, when trouble brews, you get a "fortuitous appearance of your Allies" roll. I've run Allies that way myself, and suspect that it's a common interpretation.* In that picture, the GM secretly rolls to see whether Ivan the Guard steps out of the elevator just as Johnson is about to strike. This makes characters who spend lots on Allies a fairer match for other characters of their point value and lower.

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* Why? Because the alternative is rolling at the start of the adventure and having the player say, "No, it says, 'for the duration'!" when the roll succeeds and you try to set up a situation without the Allies, or complain, "Why did I bother spending points on Allies if they never show up when I need them?" when the roll fails at the start of the adventure and they need their Allies 10 game sessions into the adventure. Many GMs find there's less whining and fewer cases of Allies hanging around inappropriately if Allies work like they do in movies, showing up, helping out, and vanishing several times during the story.

This is what summonable allies are for. You don't have to prep in advance for them if you can summon them from whereever. If they just show up anyway, the question above becomes "Why did I bother paying points on summonable?"

The player who takes Allies should have some plan in mind for using them, and that includes aranging ways to contact them and coordinate with them. This can be as simple as taking Serendipity or Luck to have the ally or allies show up when you can't call them.

[Kromm]

Summonable means you can conjure your Allies even if you're locked up, and in fact no matter where you are. However, even regular Allies ought to show up in the nick of time on occasion, through purely conventional means, if you happen to be in the same neck of the woods. I'd say that your business associates showing up in the city where you live, especially when you're an important executive, isn't especially supernatural or odd.

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Summonable means you can conjure your Allies even if you're locked up, and in fact no matter where you are. However, even regular Allies ought to show up in the nick of time on occasion, through purely conventional means, if you happen to be in the same neck of the woods. I'd say that your business associates showing up in the city where you live, especially when you're an important executive, isn't especially supernatural or odd.

I think some communication of some sort is needed to get ahold of your allies if you can't summon them. Serendipty, Luck, the Standard Operating Procedure Perk, out and out roleplay making arrangments... The rent a cop who 'just happens' to wander in at the credibility defying right moment and who then instinctively knows what the character wants done defies credibility past the breaking point.

If the character has a way to contact him, fine. A security guard who's been warned by alarm or intercomm or telepathy knows the situation and can act and act appropriately. If not, he's going to have to seriously spot the 100 pt fighter, THEN we'll see if the unexpected presence of the fighter surprises him.

"Telepathy with the GM" is bad enough "Telepathy with the NPCs" grates on my teeth right down to the toenails.

[Kromm]

I'm not talking about telepathy; I'm talking about chance. Allies have a built-in, 100% canonical mechanism for determining randomly whether they'll show up and be useful. That's just how Allies work. I'm saying that it's easier on GM-player relations if the roll is made when the Allies would be useful and sensibly available: the GM doesn't have to worry about the Allies trucking around and getting in the way the whole time, while the player has some assurance that on a long adventure, a bad roll 10-20 game sessions ago won't render his advantage useless. If a PC must add Summonable or buy Serendipity for his Allies to happen to stop by at a useful juncture, rather than having the GM just say that appearance rolls are made at such junctures . . . well, I think that makes Allies a whole lot less worthwhile for many gamers.

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

Originally Posted by MIB 1473

. . . My parakeet came in under -200 points. But if you give it a suit of power armor and a reason to kill, and I'd be dead. Put it at the controls of the Death Star and it could annihilate an entire planet.

"Rawwk! Polly want to crack her!"

[Okay, it's a parrot, not a parakeet. Send John Cleese after me.]