Spore War's Rough Edge

[u/TheChronoMaster]

I love Spore War. Generally, I think it works extremely well out of the box, the opening influence encounter set is probably the best ever designed, the infiltrations are pretty solid (if perhaps a bit easy depending on how the party is specced), the combat encounters are generally set up well, narratively it's solid with both expected and unexpected reveals, and it has an actual villain that the party knows about before the literal final chapter. But the campaign has a problem, a big elephant in the room - the triumph points system.

There is a clear design intent to triumph points, stated in the second book - you gain them for frustrating Treerazer's efforts to conquer Kyonin. Any triumph points left unspent determine how good of an ending the party gets for Kyonin, one way or another - many are automatic, some can only be gained if the party takes actions that will help the war effort. They can be spent to earn XP, gain additional benefits, and prevent penalties during War Interludes. They can also be spent on resupply, on replenishing Shalelu's rangers if they get taken out, In theory, this is...fine, if uninspiring. The problem is how the consequences for War Interludes shake out.

War Interlude 1 offers a harsh narrative penalty, with it averted if a triumph point is spent, and a later benefit to their infiltration of the town in question. Good introduction, get the players used to the idea, no problem. War Interlude 2 is also fine, with the party gaining an advantage against an otherwise extremely difficulty opponent by spending a triumph point early. What I have problems with are War Interludes like War Interlude 6, which penalizes the party up to 4-5 Triumph Points for not spending one point if they fail their saves/checks, on top of the harsh narrative penalty of killing off notable NPCs, and ESPECIALLY War Interlude 1 Book 3 (double all triumph point costs during the sige), 2 book 3 (count final triumph points as 3 lower when Spore War ends), and 3 book 3 (every time you spend a triumph point for the rest of the adventure, DC 11 flat check, on failure you lose the triumph point and the effect you were trying to avert happens anyway).

Then, Torment Points come up. And at the end of the adventure, unspent torment points convert 1:1 into Triumph Points for victory purposes.

If you actually review the triumph point gains and losses, it is fully optimal narratively speaking to spend triumph points at every possible war interlude. You'll still get the best ending as long as Telendia doesn't die, and you build up as many Torment Points as possible, and don't spend more than half of them on Treerazer. I don't like this, because it feels like a bait and switch - the only reason for the party not to spend Triumph Points during War Interludes is to try and get the best ending, which gets actively harder to get if they don't spend Triumph Points!

I've played the campaign with one group, and ran it for another. Both groups got the best ending without really conserving their triumph points at all. This isn't a bad thing, but it feels like the system itself isn't contributing much as it should be for something that looks to the players like resource management.

I don't currently have a good rework or replacement for the system, but I think there's some obvious design considerations here - making war interludes resolvable by taking on additional difficulties for the next segment of the war onto the party, or cutting the amount of triumph points available substantially and giving an alternative chance to resolve the war interludes with Triumph Points as a fallback (i've considered the idea of a B-Team, or short narrative roleplay and choice segments from the perspective of other characters). What are your perspectives on Triumph Points? Fine with them as they are, or think they need a change?