True Story

[Valamir]

I have this non gamer girlfriend.  For the last nine years she's been amazingly indulgent of my mistress...er...hobby, and while she occassionaly will join us for a board game or two, she's never played any RPGs.

So I gave her a copy of Universalis to see what a non gamer might think of it.

Being the insightful person that she is (and basically believing that most people are inherently dickheads...shhhh...don't tell her otherwise, its how I get away with it) her first commentary was:

Her "I don't like this Refreshment mechanic.  You're basically rewarding people for spending Coins quickly." (yes, she actually got the concept of "reward" immediately)

Me: "Well, yeah, you need to spend Coins to power the game, so that rule encourages people to do so, and ensures they aren't overly penalized for spending when no one else will".

Her:  "Thats all fine and good, but if I want to be a ass hole, and Challenge everybody and everything all the time and spend a ton of Coins on Complications nobody enjoys, then I'm being rewarded for that too.  Spend all your Coins on good stuff, get rewarded.  Spend all your Coins on dickhead stuff, get rewarded.

"What you need is some way to ensure they only get Refreshed if they're spending Coins on things the other players find entertaining.  What you need is some kind of voting mechanic".


At this I almost choked, because she had basically run down the exact same logic after 1 read of the rules that Mike and I had battled around for months.  This was exactly why the principal way of earning new Coins was the Complication Bonus Pot, and that Bonus Pot was distributed based on player vote.

The vote has since been taken out for Version 6 after many many experienced gamers criticised it as taking them out of roleplaying mode and being pretty much unnecessary.  Now I have an inexperienced person reading the rules, and the first thing she hits on was how easily abused they could be.

This brings up fears of future players moaning "This game is broken"


Questions:

1) Does the Refreshment mechanic reward good play and dick head play equally?
2) Can the Challenge and Fine mechanic curb dick head players sufficiently (so we don't care if #1 is 'yes') without becoming onerous and an obstacle to good play?
3) Should there be some value based distribution of Refreshment Coins instead of the automatic system in place now?

I'm thinking maybe of adding some sort of voting option as an Add-on as an alternative way of distributing the Refreshment Coins to cover groups where this might be an issue.

Is this something I should be concerned about?

[Mike Holmes]

Well, as devil's advocate, there is the fact that the player first out has to wait for the second player. In effect, though, this means holding on to one Coin, and waiting for someone else to go out. But if eveyone does that, then the mechanic works, essentially.

Did you mention the effect of that to you GF?

We could just have all players get the same number of Coins back. That way a player never "loses" any Coins. Unless the pool runs out, and players are reimbursed from smallest to largest. In which case it gives players just enough incentive to spend so that they are not missing out on thecoins from refreshment. That provides some pacing. There is no incentive to be out first, as you don't get more. Just an incentive to not have the most Coins at refreshment.

How's that  sound?

Mike

[hardcoremoose]

Mike, Ralph...

I distinctly remember being one of the dickheads calling to get rid of the vote, way back when.  To be honest, I haven't had time to dig into the most recent version, but I still think ditching the vote is a step in the right direction.  

Without being in full-blown Universalis mode, it's difficult for me to say whether one thing would work better than another.  On a general gaming-theory front though, I can say that most people's fears about "asshole" gamers - the ones who are going to create stupid complications just for the helluva of it - are largely unfounded.  In my experience, catering to that someone who is going to try to "break" your game is an unnecessary diversion of your creative talents.  There aren't really that many of those people out there, certainly not enough to comprise the majority of your target audience, and therefore they deserve very little of your attention.

Anyway, peole aren't really that dickheaded, regardless of what your girlfriend actually believes.  I mean heck, if you're playing Universalis and you're going to waste the breath to describe a complication, are you intentionally going to make it a dumb one?  Maybe everyone else will think it sucks, but at some level it's important to you - you spent real energy and emotion on it.  Reward that.

As far as what Mike says...it sounds right, but again, my Universalis fluency is piss poor right now, so what do I know.  I guess it's time to wade back into the game.

- Moose

[Valamir]

Mike, Ralph...
I distinctly remember being one of the dickheads calling to get rid of the vote,

That was a joke right?  You didn't read my post as calling those people (of whom you were one) dickheads, I hope.

I had kind of come to the conclusion that you outline...that the cure may be worse than the disease, which is why those rules were removed, but then the first person other than Mike to offer feedback on the new version targeted that right away.

my Universalis fluency is piss poor right now, so what do I know.  I guess it's time to wade back into the game.
- Moose

Now thats good to hear.

[Ayrizale]

If you want to put some kind of voting back in, then you could have a quick vote after each scene.  Each player chooses their top three other players for that scene.

For each number one vote a player gets, he gets 2 Coins

For each number two vote a player gets, he gets 1 Coin

For every two number 3 votes a player gets, he gets 1 Coin.

Then do away with standard refreshement.  This would mean that anyone that does stuff just to do stuff and gets on everyone elses nerves will then be left with no Coins and no way to get more.  After a session where they burn through their coins on stupid stuff and then sit there and watch for the rest of the session, maybe they will get the hint?

The problem with this idea is that the players with the strongest personalities might end up winning more Coins simply be virtue of their presence.  But I believe that this issue is already addressed in the new version of the rules, under Pacing, so that might not be too much of a problem.

Lael

[joe_llama]

Having (or not having) a voting mecahnic will change nothing of the players' behavior. The voting mechanic cannot save you from players with bad intentions. "Bad" players will always find a way to ruin the game. Here's one way: two players form an alliance before the game begins and they vote in favor of the other no matter how stupid or destructive their actions are. The game will crash. And if there is no vote then the game will crash for other reasons.

Now comes the point where I disagree with Moose: All players are potentially bad gamers (or dickheads). There are days that I wake up with a particularly destructive mood and no game in the world will be able to stop me. Other days I'm sweet as an angel and preach other players to drop their bad attitude. Oh yes, and I know many others like me. We humans have changing moods and desires.
 
I think the issue here should be: Does the voting mechanic serves the game better? What do you hope to achieve with the voting mechanic aside from protecting the game from bad players (which you can't really succeed with, anyway)?

I like the voting mechanic because it allows the players to show how much they enjoy a certain action or tale. It rewards collective satisfaction and does this in a fair way. I dislike it because it makes the game clumsier.

Now I have to consider: Do I like this mechanic? Would cutting it off would be a good solution? I will have to choose between the two options. And if I can't choose, I will have to look for a third solution, maybe a modification of the voting rule or a new rule altogether.

This is what I think you two should do: Sit down and think what the purpose of the voting mechanic is. If it's just a protection spell then forget it. Bad players will always find holes and loops in your system (although you should always discover breakpoints and try to fix them to some extent). If there's more to it and it's still bothering you, you should weigh the advantages vs disadvantages then choose whether to keep it or not. If you still can't decide, maybe you just think the voting is your solution when in fact it's something else you didn't think of yet.      

With respect,

Joe Llama

[Mike Holmes]

You make good points Moose, Nadev, Lael.

I think that we're looking at it from the wrong perspective, the voting mechanic is not to prevent dickheads. As pointed out, they can't be stopped. I make an analogy of the voting mechanic to a jury. Having a jury doesn't prevent criminals from perpetrating crimes. It has two other effects. One, possibly less important, is the jury allows one to extract justice for bad behavior by penalizing people. Two, it informs people about what the community thinks is good, and (more often) what is bad.

The hope is that, knowing that people can and will penalize you for behaving outside of the accepted norm, that players will stick to it more. And since the reward for good complicaions is presenmted as a reward, it's more of a positive reinforcement than a negative one.

All this being said, all of these effects are already delivered by the unspoken Social Contract implicit in any human interaction, "Thou shall not be a dickhead." And one would think that Mooses supposition is correct that why indeed bother playing if you aren't going to play well? The game hopefully does not provide any incentive to play in a Gamist fashion, so we don't have to worry about that conflict either, I hope.

Further, the challenge mechanic still exists. Players do have an authority of last resort to rely on in case of Dickheadedness.

And, the vote does cause it's own damage of sorts, so having them be mandatory is to be avoided if possible. The problem is that, since it was the source of currency recirculation, removing it has meant that we now had to institute the refreshment thing. Which introduces it's own complexities.

So, I think I like something like Lael's idea. It only interferes at the end of a scene which will mean less of a jar, and it's pretty simple. It also judges all play, not just the play in complications. I'd make it easier, tho, and include an important modification:

During the scene, all Coins spent go to the a Scene Pot (or a Structural Phase pot if no scene has yet been framed). At the end of the scene each player votes for one other player (cannot self-vote). The one with the most votes gets Half the pot, round up. The next highest gets half of the remaining pot (or one quarter) rounded up, as does the third. In the case of a tie for first, each gets half the pot, round up (adding a Coin to the pot from outside the game if necessary). This is easy to remember, should go fast, eliminates the bank, and keps a constant number of coins in the game at all times. It also means that spending a lot of Coins is a gamble that will make you want to do it well, so you get them back. Dickheads will rapidly find themselves with few coins.

This would bring up a question about what happens if you run out of Coins? Perhaps you have to be employed as an audience member for a scene after which you get paid ten coins. This means that players don't have to worry too much about running out, but may want to think about it. The influx of new currency means that things can build towards the end of the story.

The problem is the one that Lael mentions. Once a player starts to build up a big pile, he may be able to dominate play, and thus repeatedly get the top vote, making it a self perpetuating cycle.

Perhaps a reset to starting levels at the beginning of each session?

This does make the game rathe competitive in nature. Now you have to not only do well, but outdo others. OTOH, there are still strategies that can be played. Players will probably not interfere with a scene that already has three or more contributers already becuse they will be unlikely to get their coins back. OTOH, if they feel that they can add something big to a scene they can gamble that their small contribution will net them big.

The more I think about it, the more I like it.

Comments?

Mike

[Ayrizale]

During the scene, all Coins spent go to the a Scene Pot (or a Structural Phase pot if no scene has yet been framed). At the end of the scene each player votes for one other player (cannot self-vote). The one with the most votes gets Half the pot, round up. The next highest gets half of the remaining pot (or one quarter) rounded up, as does the third. In the case of a tie for first, each gets half the pot, round up (adding a Coin to the pot from outside the game if necessary). This is easy to remember, should go fast, eliminates the bank, and keps a constant number of coins in the game at all times. It also means that spending a lot of Coins is a gamble that will make you want to do it well, so you get them back. Dickheads will rapidly find themselves with few coins.

Just on a first read through, the only comment that I would have would be on the situation of Ties.  Since it is possible or there to be more than a two way tie (say every player votes for the player on their left), you might want to either say that the pot is split evenly among the players that tie (rounding up to add a little more currency into the pot) or that each tied player receives half of the pot even if that means introducing New Money into the situation.

I'll re-read the post again and post more,

Lael

[Ayrizale]

During the scene, all Coins spent go to the a Scene Pot (or a Structural Phase pot if no scene has yet been framed).

Ok, so the Coins spent during the Structural Phase would then go into a large pot and build up until the end of the Phase and then the vote would be taken?  Or would those coins go into the pot and the first vote would be at the end of the first scene?

This would bring up a question about what happens if you run out of Coins? Perhaps you have to be employed as an audience member for a scene after which you get paid ten coins. This means that players don't have to worry too much about running out, but may want to think about it. The influx of new currency means that things can build towards the end of the story.

Another option, in the case that someone spent their Coins on legitimate play but still lost to a better idea, would be to allow players to "hire" other players.  For example, if the case of wanting to play out a scene between two characters, just hire another player to play one of the characters.  Might be a means of redistributing the wealth from time to time.

The problem is the one that Lael mentions. Once a player starts to build up a big pile, he may be able to dominate play, and thus repeatedly get the top vote, making it a self perpetuating cycle.

Perhaps a reset to starting levels at the beginning of each session?

Given what you said earlier "The influx of new currency means that things can build towards the end of the story."  Would you suggest that the New Money be divided evenly between the players at the beginning of the new session?  The only reason that I ask is because if the story takes more than one session to play out, then reseting the Wealth to the agreed upon starting money would void, to some degree, the possiblity of building towards the end of the story.

Lael

[Valamir]

While these are all great ideas, let me encourage that we begin with playing V6 as written first.  There may wind up not being a need to make changes.  This idea in particular is appealing in some ways but would require some pretty significant changes (not the least of which is having to figure out an alternative to the Pacing Mechanic Add-on).

I guess my initial post on the subject, was something of a fearful reaction to the first feedback I'd recieved on V6 and should be reinterrpreted as being more of a "please keep your eyes out for this during play to see whether or not it is an actual issue" as opposed to a call for action.

[Bankuei]

Alas, I'm away from my work email this week, so I haven't gotten my copy of 6.0 yet(geez, I haven't played 5 yet, slow it down guys :P), but here's my take on the voting thing, especially since I am also against it.

Here's my big thing against the voting mechanic as I last understood it.  I don't want to even try to figure out what the percentage of 5/6 of 71 coins is in the middle of a game.  Call me lazy, mathmatically lost, what have you, but that's just too much.

What I do like is the ability for the group as a whole to give approval or disapproval to action in game.  My quick fix rule:  Whatever you spent, is exactly the amount of coins you can choose to reward the originator with or not.  If you've spent 20 coins and I spent 4, you obviously felt it was way more important than I did, and so should have a say if you feel this person earned your 20 or wasted your time.

What does this encourage?  Well, as an originator, I'm going to want everyone to spend a lot of coins, and have a lot of fun to give them to me.  This will give me more coins to affect the story more, and hopefully give me a chance to entertain everyone some more.

That's my quick 2 on the vote mechanic.  I'll letcha know more when I get 6 in my hands and in a game :)

Chris

[Mike Holmes]

Would the "half-pool" mechanic I suggested be easy enough, Chris? That's one of the reasons I suggested it as I did.

I imagine that in play with large piles what you would do is have Peter cut the pot in two pile quickly estimating by eye, and have Paul select which pool to take.

Heck, that could be official if we went with such a mechanic. Quick. Never have to worry about rounding. Neat.

Mike