I have been starting to implement the II rules into my games, when I realized one big weird oddity in the game: the Stroke mechanics for some reason create a new stat (Stroke), but leave it permanently tied to Audience.
Which means it IS your Audience stat…
But it has another name….
Wouldn’t it be less confusing to just tie the Stroke mechanics to the Audience stat entirely, and reference the Audience stat rather than Stroke as a new value? It seems to add a new mechanical term to the game where it is unnecessary.
Just a thought I had while reading through it some more this morning.
I don’t have it right in front of me, but I recall Stroke being expendable. So while it is tied to Audience it can decrease without Audience being effected.
It being separate also leads to utilization with custom moves where affecting Audience may not be appropriate.
I didn’t get the impression that Stroke was expended when trying to get something done. It was one of my pet peeves with the idea of Stroke, something I otherwise liked, that the costs were too low since you could get practically everything done if your Audience hit +4. If it is meant to be expended then that changes it a lot for the better.
The reason for the different name is primarily rhetorical – it’s easier to explain the rule, particularly how you can spend momentum for the temporary boost, if it has its own name.
It’s not expended, but you can spend momentum to boost it (so if you have a pvp Stroke situation, yeah, you gotta have something extra to bring to get what you want over Hulk Hogan, you know?) Also, it’s use always should have consequences in terms of Heat and priming hard moves for Creative.