PN: divided, rotating GM powers

[Jasper]

Principium Novum is progressing nicely.  What I've been working on recently is the potential for dividing the typical GM powers between the players.  I still want to retain a central GM though.  A central figure still may have a better hand in organizing things, but more importantly he'll embody the "rest of the world" which is a significant force in PN: the PCs are the local defenders of civilization, while it collapses around them elsewhere.   The central GM would have the following jobs:

1. Introducing challenges (in the larger sense) to the other players, many of which will be drawn from his imaginings of the larger world's goings on.  Other players will also introduce challenges, but the GM will be doing more of it, and will always have some ideas at the ready for "backup" in case everyone else's mind is dry one evening.

2. Scene framing, and a lot of the descriptions of the world.

3. Controlling the bulk of characters not associated with the main group (i.e. not regular PCs) and divying up these characters for players to control, from scene to scene.

Thus the GM is mostly a general organizer and a facilitator, to get everyone else going, and a manager of the outside forces of the world.  So what does everyone else get?  Well, first, here's what all other players do, all the time:

1. Control a main character.  Whenever the main character is played, it'll be by one particular player.  Control one to three secondary characters, associated with the main characters.  These guys will come up form time to time, but aren't principal protagonists.  They can be played at the same time as a main character.

2. Control other characters as the GM divies them out.  Some times these will be villains, sometimes not.  A player who's main character isn't present in a scene will get priority for being assigned a character to play (And note, this assignment isn't strictly optional for the GM: while there are a few characters that he may really want to control himself, every other character should be assigned to any free player ASAP, with the GM describing to the other player what that character's goals/motivations are, and any other relevant info.).

3. Introducing challenges, probably only occasionally (once a session maybe).  I image that these would mostly have to do with the player's civitas, their semi-isolated community, whatever form it might take.

Is that it?  Nope, not at all.  In addition, I'm planning on having two colored stones or somesuch that will be passed around.  Each stone gives a particular job:

Red stone: Task Definition.  This player will need to establish the basic proprties of a task (that is, conflict resolution).  In PN, a lot of these attributes are codified in the rules.  These include "stakes," QCC (quantity, quality, timeliness) and scale.  This player also sets the difficulty of the task.  Yep -- not the GM.  For all of this, he's not to be a dictator, but more of a moderator at a meeting, who recognizes what everyone else thinks is best, and who has a deciding vote.  Oh, this player also manages order of acting and that sort of thing as well (IIEE).

Blue stone: Narrating the results of a task (conflict resolution).  The dice will of course indicate basic results, in terms of victory or defeat -- and how severe that victory or defeat was -- but that doesn't say much about what actually happens in the game world.  So this player describes it.  Of course, he's helped a lot by the player with the red stone, in that the stakes of the task have alreayd been defined.  Stakes are what's important about it, and what will result, basically, from failure.  So the blue stone player just needs to elaborate on this, and maybe describe some more ultimate consequences.  Other players can of course make suggestions, but the ball is really in the blue player's court.

If either player with a red or blue stone has a character that's directly involved in the present task, then the player to his right takes over that job temporarily.

I'm not sure exactly when to have the stones rotated.  Every scene?  Every task?  This may be answered along with a second question I have though....

I'm also thinking of implementing a kind of reward system, involving a meta-resource, for performing player jobs well.  This includes the normal jobs of controlling characters, and suggesting things to the GM and stone-holding players, as well as the blue and red jobs themselves.  It's pretty up in the air at the moment.  The first question is how should the reward be doled out?  By the GM maybe?  With player input encouraged ("Hey, that was good, Joe.  Why don't you give Joe a point?"), or perhaps the players would directly give out the reward, and would either have a certain ammount to work with per scene/session/whatever.  I'd kind of like to involve the other players in the process, so everyone gets group encouragement and feels the need to try hard at his job.

The second question is what exactly will these points do, such that they will actually be a reward?  I mean, just getting a point might be good in and of itself, purely in terms of the social reinforcement ("I give that a 9.8, Bob."), but would it really be successful, and would trying to mandate that in the rules even work?  What I'm thinking of at the moment is for these points to be used to:

a. momentarily take over a regular GM-type job, like scene framing.

b. switch around the stones.

The problem with (a) is that I want to encourage players to suggest scene frames, and the GM to more or less hand the power off freely.  Should the better role-players be doing more scene framing than everyone else?

(b) could work, but I somehow fear shy players using the power to avoid the stones.  I guess there's nothing I can do about players not wanting to have (nontraditional) power though -- if they don't like it, they shouldn't play PN.  But having played with some very nice and ultimately talented, yet shy players, I'm thinking a little imposition of unwanted power might be good.  I guess I could only allow the points to acqurie the stones, and not to move them in any other way.  Maybe some kind of bidding mechanic could be used, but I don't want the meta-game stuff to take too long so that it detracts from the in-game-world activities.

One other thing to potentially do with the points, and relating back to my very first question is:

c. Give a point to someone else to reward them, but in the process get a new one for yourself as well.  

This encourages rewarding fellow players, but I don't want to encourage the giving of rewards just to get more points for one's self.  Maybe there's a variant on this that could avoid the problem.

So, as you see, I have a basic idea of what I want, but need to nail down some specifics -- at least one or two options so I can playtest them and see how they work "on the ground."  I would be especially interested in other systems that have done similar things.  I don't have Universalis, but from my understanding of it, people may be pointing me towards it -- don't know if I have the impetus to buy it at the moment, but I'll try to check it out at the local shop.

[Mike Holmes]

Universalis is only notable here in that it assigns all jobs to whomever sorta "pays" to have the job at the moment. Basically anyone who cares to spend has the specific authority at the time (up to and including changing the rules).

Check out the work that Rob has put into COTEC, however: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=4303

This may be more what you're interested in.

Mike

[Jasper]

Thanks, Mike, that was helpful.  I'm also slowly reviewing some other older threads about rewards.  I particularly liked a suggestion you made in one of them (don't remember which) to give spotlight time out as a reward.  I'm thinking of achieving this with scene framing, so that a player can spend a point and propose a scene that may feature his character as the principal actor.  If the other players' characters aren't present, they assume control of NPCs.  

This relates a bit to the thread over in theory, Should Character Control Hurt?.  Would it be worthwhile to positively identify a principal character in a given scene, and then differentiate player powers based on this?  For instance, maybe whoever's playing the main character can increase his effectiveness by spending some Animus, while the other players can't (or need to spend more maybe) but can a lot more influene on the scene.

I'll have to think through the implications of that, and the difficulties in implementing it, as well as reconsidering the break-down of power involved with the stones.  As soon as I have some free time....

[Mike Holmes]

Thanks, Mike, that was helpful.  I'm also slowly reviewing some other older threads about rewards.  I particularly liked a suggestion you made in one of them (don't remember which) to give spotlight time out as a reward.  I'm thinking of achieving this with scene framing, so that a player can spend a point and propose a scene that may feature his character as the principal actor.  If the other players' characters aren't present, they assume control of NPCs.

Don't even remember that. I'll caveat my apparent statement now (in case I didn't before) that this might lead to a viscous circle where the person with the spotlight continues to get rewarded, and therefore continues to get scenes, etc.

Would it be worthwhile to positively identify a principal character in a given scene, and then differentiate player powers based on this?  For instance, maybe whoever's playing the main character can increase his effectiveness by spending some Animus, while the other players can't (or need to spend more maybe) but can a lot more influene on the scene.

I think it's potentially valid. Will depend on the implementation.

Mike