Patron and its problems

[Icelander]

I'm sorry, why does the economic and military difference between Argentina and the USA matter to the cliens?

30 character points of the Patron Advantage buys the same amount of assistance for a PC regardless of whether his Patron is Argentina or the US. It's irrelevant whether it's technically a slightly smaller fraction of the resources of one nation state than the other, the utility to the PC is the same.

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I'm sorry, why does the economic and military difference between Argentina and the USA matter to the cliens?

30 character points of the Patron Advantage buys the same amount of assistance for a PC regardless of whether his Patron is Argentina or the US. It's irrelevant whether it's technically a slightly smaller fraction of the resources of one nation state than the other, the utility to the PC is the same.

Thats impossible, how is it supposed to be the same when Argentina hasnt got remotely the same assets than the USA? I mean, maybe in the ruling just as written it is, but not in the real world.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Thats impossible, how is it supposed to be the same when Argentina hasnt got remotely the same assets than the USA? I mean, maybe in the ruling just as written it is, but not in the real world.

It's because 30 points of Patron doesn't buy even a measurable fraction of the total assets of either nation state.

It means that you can ask for assistance from the Patron, but if you check the rules (e.g. 'Pulling Rank'), the help you get won't be in the form of huge sums of money. Basically, both Argentina and the US can easily afford whatever assistance even a critical success will yield, so it doesn't really matter what their total assets are.

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Thats impossible, how is it supposed to be the same when Argentina hasnt got remotely the same assets than the USA? I mean, maybe in the ruling just as written it is, but not in the real world.

Because the amount of assistance that the government is willing to provide doesn't scale with the amount of wealth it has. A spy in the employ of the USA can't requisition 30 times the gear and other wealth that a spy in the employ of Argentina can.

(It's a bit like taking ten times the lethal dose of a poison vs. taking 100 times the lethal dose; at some level, maybe it matters, but it's academic for the victim.)

Or, if you prefer, it's an abstraction designed to keep the game from bogging down in tedious consultation of dueling almanacs and websites to determine precise multipliers. You're welcome to decide you're happy to do that work, but it's simply incorrect to assert that the rules as written are wrong for hand-waving it away.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard

Or, if you prefer, it's an abstraction designed to keep the game from bogging down in tedious consultation of dueling almanacs and websites to determine precise multipliers. You're welcome to decide you're happy to do that work, but it's simply incorrect to assert that the rules as written are wrong for hand-waving it away.

Yes, exactly. It's like having a true god as a Patron (the other 30-point option). This might be Yahweh or Allah, who are omnipotent; or Zeus or Odin, who are kings of pantheons; or Coyote, who is a powerful trickster spirit; or, say, one of the Muses. But they're all still way more powerful than any mortal, even though Allah is literally i nfinitely more powerful than Zeus.

[Anthony]

There's an argument that patron (and status, and rank) should just be a limitation on Wealth (or allies, or whatever), but that adds annoying levels of complexity to character writeups.

[Kromm]

As others have said: When you have a nation as a Patron, you don't have all its hard and soft power at your fingertips. You essentially have the amount of resources that any nation-state would put at the disposal of any one trusted ambassador, secret agent, or whatever. That's fairly uniform regardless of the specific country involved. A polity like the United States of America would doubtless be able to support more ambassadors, secret agents, etc. than one like Argentina, but that doesn't matter to the character with the Patron advantage.

Put another way, Patron (National government) means that you, personally, might benefit from aid that could be very, very loosely equated to $x. If one country has $y to spend on people to whom it's a Patron and another has $100y, all that means is that the first helps out y/x people while the second helps out 100y/x people. But in either case, it's a fixed $x worth of assistance that each individual enjoys.

An analogy might be editors of roleplaying games. Guess what? We're mostly in the same general ballpark for salary! But huge publishers like Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, has more editors. Those editors really don't have any more "power" than I do, despite the fact that their "Patron" is bigger.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

I dont expect the Argentina government to do it either, which leaves the subject in the same spot... unless we dont care about a factor of 30 (which I do, considering that every previous step added +5 CP to cost per every factor of 10)

I would hardly expect any nation to do such a thing. However what kind of favors can be gotten from Argentina or the US depends on such things as the ideology of the regime in power at the time. As well as the the general policy of the respective nations and etc, and etc. You would have to know something about a given government to know what kind of favors can be gotten out of it.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I'm sorry, why does the economic and military difference between Argentina and the USA matter to the cliens?

30 character points of the Patron Advantage buys the same amount of assistance for a PC regardless of whether his Patron is Argentina or the US. It's irrelevant whether it's technically a slightly smaller fraction of the resources of one nation state than the other, the utility to the PC is the same.

It does not matter insofar as what can be provided to the client which is effectively infinite. It does matter as to what the Patron himself has an interest in.

Does a partisan in the Balkans in 1943 have any interest to Argentina, except insofar as it gets the favor of the United States which does in fact have such interest? Doubtful. Is Argentina likely to help said partisan's representatives because the United States looks to win the present war? Sure. Is it likely to have any interest of it's own in doing so? Probably not.

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by Anthony

There's an argument that patron (and status, and rank) should just be a limitation on Wealth (or allies, or whatever), but that adds annoying levels of complexity to character writeups.

Please, tell me more about this.