The Gaming Den

Please bear with me on this one.

I'm a writer. On the character sheet of my soul, that's what it says. I may also be an electrical engineer or an electronic musician or whatnot, but when I go home and hang up my cap I write.

I'm not the best writer. Just because you do something doesn't mean you're the best there is at it - in fact, you may be worse than someone else in an unrelated field. That doesn't matter to me. I don't care if I'm not as good as Mark Twain. Because what I want to do is write. It fulfills my nature.

I was thinking about that, and it reminded me of the World of Darkness Nature/Demeanor mechanic, where characters that follow their nature get their Willpower refreshed. Now, that's a terrible mechanic in many ways, but it is more or less accurate. A better example might be Unknown Armies, where following through with your bizarre magical paradigm gives you charges.

I think this might be an important bit for a lot of RPGs - to differentiate a character's nature from their skills and abilities. A fighter might dedicate themselves to fighting, but they're not the only ones that can fight and sometimes not even the best at fighting - run down by the barbarian, out-maneuvered by the monk, etc. - but for the fighter, it's what they do. If a character has "fighter" stamped on their soul, they'll fight even if their character class is Expert.

I'm still not clear on a good mechanic to represent this - I kinda like the "refresh" thing. In SR2 we'd refresh the relevant pool (Magic, Combat, Hacking); in D&D3.+ maybe it would refresh action points or fate points or whatever - and it would always be subjective to Mister Cavern about what counts as to following your nature - but maybe there's something to that.

This is actually cool, and in a D&D game, I think something like Action Points would be an appropriate reward when people followed "their nature" in game. Of course, "following a fighter nature" cannot reward something so simple as "make an attack roll", ideally you want to reward some effort that goes beyond the simple optimized game and is memorable.

Of course, it's a bit harder to come with categories even vaguely balanced, maybe something zodiac based could serve as inspiration:
[mrow color=grey]Role[mcol]Gets AP when you memorably act to... [row]Leader[col]...lead or inspire. [row]Nurturer[col]...defend, heal or protect. [row]Trickster[col]...mislead or bluff [row]Warrior[col]...pursue violent solutions [row]Diplomat[col]...pursue peaceful or romantic solutions [row]Sage[col]...seek or acquire knowledge [row]Judge[col]...arbitrate conflicts

Bonuses for doing something in character encourage the player to act more. Penalties for doing something out of character encourage the player to act less. D&D's power stripping and atonement system incentivized players to interact with the plot as little as possible. White Wolf's nature and demeanor system incentivized players to interact with the plot as much as possible.

The White Wolf system (at least as pertains to "alignment") was clearly better. Of course, they then crapped in it immediately by having a "morality" system on top of that which literally and specifically hosed you the more accurately you described what your character was doing in between plot points.

-Username17

Personally, I'm not crazy about games where whoever talks the most and the loudest (in character, of course) tend to get extra rewards.

Now I realise that's NOT what you're suggesting, but in my experience it's an order of magnitude harder for a quiet, introverted guy to convince the GM he's roleplaying his PC in the approved fashion compared to a manic drama school graduate.

I played in a heavily modified 3.5E game where the Clerics had been very fundementally changed. Clerics did not have spell slots, or spells per day. Instead, what they had was a pool of effectively power points. Everytime they cast a spell, it had a point cost, and it took from the power pool. The pool never automatically refreshed. Instead everytime they did something related to being Clergy for their God they regained power points. They could just store them. One of the effects, was that The Old Patriarch at the Capital was scary, in that, he had a vast source of unspent divine magic just waiting to be unleashed if things went seriously awry. Adventuring Clerics were actively rewarded for 'Propheletizing" while adventuring. What ever the main goals of their God was.

hogarth wrote:Personally, I'm not crazy about games where whoever talks the most and the loudest (in character, of course) tend to get extra rewards.

Now I realise that's NOT what you're suggesting, but in my experience it's an order of magnitude harder for a quiet, introverted guy to convince the GM he's roleplaying his PC in the approved fashion compared to a manic drama school graduate.

I don't expect that people talk in character all the time, or even any time. It's cool when this happens, but I'm happy when a player can produce just a third person narration: "Elothar steps boldly to block the corridor and dares the gnolls to approach." or even "Elothar asks the rescued prisoners if they saw or heard anybody other than gnolls here." To some people, this is pretty much all they can comfortably provide.

nockermensch wrote:I don't expect that people talk in character all the time, or even any time.

That's not quite what I meant. I just meant some people talk loud and long while roleplaying (as opposed to discussing the rules or something unrelated to the particular PC) and that gets the DM's attention.

I'll actually go even further, and say that I'm not crazy about rule mechanics where the GM gives good stuff to some people and not to others based on subjective criteria (like deciding what is "memorable"). I assume that makes me a communist or something.

FrankTrollman wrote:White Wolf's nature and demeanor system incentivized players to interact with the plot as much as possible. The White Wolf system (at least as pertains to "alignment") was clearly better.

I'm not familiar with this system. Can someone explain to me how it worked?

echo

Nature was who you were in your core.
Demeanor was who you pretended to be.

Nature: Predator
Demeanor: Pacifist

So when ever you behaved in public in a way that promoted your demeanor, you got a willpower point back.

When ever you acted in a way that promoted your nature, you got a willpower back.
They could be contradictory, or complimentary or orthogonal. There was no rule requiring the natuer and demeanor to make sense together.

echoVanguard wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:White Wolf's nature and demeanor system incentivized players to interact with the plot as much as possible. The White Wolf system (at least as pertains to "alignment") was clearly better.

I'm not familiar with this system. Can someone explain to me how it worked?

echo

You have a limited resource that lets you buy bonuses on rolls and power abilities and shit. It's like Action Points or Edge, and it's called "Willpower". You also have a defining character trait. Your defining character trait gives you a condition by which you can refresh your expended willpower.

So for example: you're a Hater. That means you gotta Hate. But unlike in D&D, the only thing that happens to you for not Hating on things is that you don't get the bonus you get for Hating. And the bonus you get for Hating is inherently limited - in that you can't refresh willpower you haven't used yet and there are limits to how often it can go off in any case.

So it partially answers hogarth's objection as well: since there are limits to how much you can get for chewing the scenery, there are also limits to how far ahead the Drama Llama can get versus Miss Mouse. And if Miss Mouse speaks up to get her RP bonuses at all, the gap between her and the Drama Llama narrows.

-Username17

hogarth wrote:

nockermensch wrote:I don't expect that people talk in character all the time, or even any time.

That's not quite what I meant. I just meant some people talk loud and long while roleplaying (as opposed to discussing the rules or something unrelated to the particular PC) and that gets the DM's attention.

I'll actually go even further, and say that I'm not crazy about rule mechanics where the GM gives good stuff to some people and not to others based on subjective criteria (like deciding what is "memorable"). I assume that makes me a communist or something.

Oh man, and I'm just a dirty socialist, you're even more to the left than me.

More seriously now, while I don't agree with the things Lago wants to implement in his games, what he said about games being built to reward some playing styles is true, after all. D&D system supports out of the box a kind of behavior that's completely reckless at low levels (while you have nothing to lose) and very paranoid at high levels (where you have a lot to lose), so I'm always interested on additions that steer D&D play towards a more "heroic" gameplay where people do reckless but awesome things at all levels.

FrankTrollman wrote:And if Miss Mouse speaks up to get her RP bonuses at all, the gap between her and the Drama Llama narrows.

...assuming the GM allows her to get those RP bonuses, because it's still a case of "Mother May I".

(Basically, I'm just arguing "Waah, waah, everything's a popularity contest", which makes me a big sucky baby. I admit it )

hogarth wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:And if Miss Mouse speaks up to get her RP bonuses at all, the gap between her and the Drama Llama narrows.

...assuming the GM allows her to get those RP bonuses, because it's still a case of "Mother May I".

(Basically, I'm just arguing "Waah, waah, everything's a popularity contest", which makes me a big sucky baby. I admit it )

I'm calling this the Inverse Oberoni from now on: A rule isn't wrong because a bad DM can misuse it.

Everything is Mother May I because what if the DM ignores the rules and spontaneously creates new ones and it all becomes a game of reading the DM's mind and foreseeing whether or not he'll screw your character?

John Magnum wrote:Everything is Mother May I because what if the DM ignores the rules and spontaneously creates new ones and it all becomes a game of reading the DM's mind and foreseeing whether or not he'll screw your character?

Which is a particularly real possibility in White Wolf games, of course.

What do you expect? One of the things we rail against here is DM's that have no interest in player participation and just want to tell you the awesome story they thought up whilst you shut up and do what the plot demands.

And what does White Wolf call their DM? The Story-Teller. The one who tells you a story.

I rest my case.

I hate the term Storyteller for precisely that reason.

John Magnum wrote:Everything is Mother May I because what if the DM ignores the rules and spontaneously creates new ones and it all becomes a game of reading the DM's mind and foreseeing whether or not he'll screw your character?

Reminds me of the DM who's table I flipped after one dick move too many while running both 3.5e and Pathfinder. I left, and everyone else did as well.

hogarth wrote:...assuming the GM allows her to get those RP bonuses, because it's still a case of "Mother May I".

Meh. Everything in the game is "Mother, May I?". It's an inherent flaw that comes with naming one of your circle of friends the arbiter in your little game of Cowboys and Indians. In most groups, this is balanced out by the creativity and flexibility that comes with naming one of your circle of friends as arbiter.

In Burning Wheel players write down three "beliefs" on their character sheet. These are basically a short sentence that (ideally) includes both character, plot, and an actionable goal. For example: "Blood is thicker than water, I will bring the Orb of Uz to my father, not Duke Redpants."

When a player has his character work towards one of his beliefs he gets a fate point (spent to reroll sixes), when he completes a belief he gets a persona point (adds dice, prevents death). Once you have good beliefs they really help the game sing but, based on looking at the games' forums, writing good beliefs is not explained well enough in the book.

nockermensch wrote: I'm calling this the Inverse Oberoni from now on: A rule isn't wrong because a bad DM can misuse it.

Fuck it, I'm making a new fallacy too.

The ModelCitizen Fallacy: "Only Bad DMs can make bad rulings."

Proponents of player disempowerment like to pretend that there are exactly two types of DMs. Gallant the Good DM makes unerringly consistent, fair, and fun rulings; Goofus the Bad DM earfucks the players at every possible opportunity. Out in the wild the perfect Good DM doesn't exist. Every DM ever has made mistakes, ruled inconsistently, and at least occasionally played favorites or railroaded out of frustration. I know I have. You can't write off every avenue for a DM powertrip as something that would only be abused by a DM no one wants to play with anyway, because that's just not how it works in the real world.

There, the ModelCitizen Fallacy. I called it, that's its name now. Please begin using the term ModelCitizen Fallacy in your arguments at your earliest convenience.

The Chamomile Fallacy: "If I put my name in front of a fallacy, it will make me super internet-famous."

All the cool kids are making fallacies. I thought I'd hop on the bandwagon.

Honestly, though, I GM a lot, I make occasional mistakes when GMing. I've had railroady sessions and inconsistent rulings and one entire campaign that I'd prefer to pretend never really happened. But the fact is, TTRPGs rely on moderately competent GMs. If you have a bad GM, even if he isn't outright dickish but just not very good at his job, you will have a bad game. Rules should be there to make the GM's job easier and to give the players fixed expectations of what the game will be like (i.e. the CR system helps the GM to figure out what monsters will be appropriate for their party and helps the players find out how strong their characters should be). The Vampire nature/demeanour thing makes the GM's job easier by encouraging players to roleplay without his having to explicitly craft each encounter to be laced with RP hooks, and it gives the players fixed expectations of what the game will be like by informing them in advance that optimal play means expressing some characterization. It does its job. Probably it's not the best way of accomplishing those things, and it combos spectacularly poorly with the objective and immutable Humanity system, but the mechanic on its own is functional.

The Youlo... fuck it:

I find that one of the best things a character can get are the Background skills (like that aWoD game). New players always stall on them, but it really helps to get people in the mood for their character at chargen.

Background skills are a good idea, but they should also come with a long list of examples. It helps a new player avoid stalling on them and gives the GM a good idea of what he should be accepting.

Ancient History wrote:I'm still not clear on a good mechanic to represent this - I kinda like the "refresh" thing. In SR2 we'd refresh the relevant pool (Magic, Combat, Hacking); in D&D3.+ maybe it would refresh action points or fate points or whatever - and it would always be subjective to Mister Cavern about what counts as to following your nature - but maybe there's something to that.

when you sit down to write, do you expect a reward for doing what you enjoy, or is doing what you enjoy your reward for doing it?

i get the positive reinforcement for contributing to the game, but it always set funny with me as a XP reward for D&D when it existed. made it like a competition to get more XP or AP or whatever. not all the contributions were worthwhile either.

the reverse of negative reinforcement wont really get player to play more.

in ANY edition, things rewarded are for the team in essence. not an individual. so you really cant reward inside the game, unless you wish to turn it into a competition, wherein you try to compete with Clemmons with your writing.

you would really need a game with a competitive element for this to work. it would need to be less team oriented and less co-op.

One game where a player was getting into the game very much but few others were trying, i did something drastic. negative reinforcement for the participating player. she wasnt hogging the game, jsut the only one willing to dare to try something. well i turned her into a cat with a necklace she put on and was cursed. she could speak then with the single person she was touching and the could understand each other, so the other players had to contribute and play. she questioned why i did it, and i told her she wasnt abusing anything, but everyone else needed a shock to get involved, and it worked. she did lose the curse after a while when it was broken, and the game went better after, because the other players learned they could speak up as well.

now i think she was an enchantress, so diplomacy and such may have been her nature as a character, but the rest joined in more things outside of what was on their character sheet at that time.

so either someone sinks into a role and swims with it, or they drown in a role. you jsut ahve to get people to either find the right role in the group, or remove the "roles" enough that people play and have fun.

the biggest problem with reqwarding someone is that the one speaking may never give the others a chance to speak at all, if ever they would.

try giving a reward to the team, but the player who earned it must pick someone in the party to give it to. like a GM PASS. where a pass grants a question answered at any time about something game related. thoguh it cant be like precog or something like that, more like the phone a friend option from that dumb TV show. then the player using the pass is the only one getting the answer and msut use the info or pass it on to the group.