The Rest of Synthesis

[Paul Czege]

Hey Mike, JB,

Here's the remainder of my comments and reactions to Synthesis, all crammed into one big post. Text in red is from the game document. Bold text subheads are intended to break comments up into conceptually coherent, manageable chunks. Red excerpts appear under relevant subheads, not necessarily globally sequenced in this posting the way they appear in the game document.


belief

I like the belief table a lot. I think the idea of defining a character in part by strongly held beliefs has a lot of functional potential. But I also think its implementation here problematizes the idea that a low Self represents a lack of self-assuredness or self-knowledge. You have to think about the character as a whole. In gameplay, how is a character with a lot of strong Belief Traits going to play out? The answer is that regardless of the value of the Self Trait, the character is going to come across as self-assured, decisive, and self-aware.


relationships

I love that the Relationships table is based on intensity. The implication is that an enemy Relationship could be a high value Trait. My recommendation is to modify the table to reflect the notion:

0  No relationship or purely aquaintances

1  Friendly aquaintance / occasional nuisance

2  Friend / chronic annoyance

3  Close / someone you avoid

4  Very Close / someone you go out of the way to avoid

5  Intense / active enemy

etc...


culture/social

Very Story Engine. I like it. I think you should consider breaking education off from social class in the table. I think people will disagree with you that the upper class are universally well educated.


sub-conflicts

I like how you use sub-conflicts to deliver granularity to conflict resolution. I've been thinking a lot lately about ways of selectively switching on granularity for key conflicts in the resolution system of one of my own half-formed game designs. I was impressed when I saw the Trollbabe mechanics for scaling the granularity of conflicts. Here you have the Story Engine variant.


mixed traits

Traits do not have to fall directly into one of the categories...they can be a mix of different categories...[and] should also be a bit limited in scope in other ways. It shouldn't be as flexibly useful as a pure Resource would be, nor as impressive as if the character had a pure Trait.

What's the rationale for this? Is it to avoid the comic? You don't want my character, Larry Avalon (Frankie's cousin), to get too much utility from his Fantastic Hair 3? This seems like it might be a proto-genre element that crept in via unconscious biases.


indefinite traits

I think you need a terminology change here. I know you were contrasting with "Defining" Traits, but "indefinite" means something lasts forever. It's confusing when it doesn't need to be. Otherwise, I love them. I love how they get acquired. I love how they achieve permanence.


the beginning conflict

I think you don't need this mechanic at all. It feels like it's here because you're scared players won't do anything without Kickers, but actually I think you've accounted for propelling the characters forward with other mechanics. Characters start with a bunch of soon-to-be-gone "indefinite" Traits that they have to use or lose, and a personal struggle. Fuck the "beginning conflict." The GM should frame each character's initial scene at the junction point between the use-em-or-lose-em Traits and the personal struggle.


situation and suitability

Do you really need two loose categories of "GM assigns bonuses"? You can achieve the appearance of impartiality by breaking modifiers out this way, but in practice I think it will be a vehicle for railroading. The White Wolf mechanics where the GM determines the size of the opposing die pool, the target number, and the number of successes needed, are a similar vehicle for obfuscated railroading. The GM can pretty much get whatever outcome he wants with such loose resolution system mechanics. With Situation and Suitability, I'd prefer a single die bonus/penalty for each, rather than an arbitrarily sized bonus/penalty. This is a conflict resolution system. You achieve granularity very nicely with sub-conflicts. Why not just estimate who has the upper hand and give that side a die? How much sliding scale granularity do you really need from Situation and Suitability at each level of conflict/sub-conflict?

Unimpressed 6

The penalty seems arbitrary and deprotagonizing. Why not just disallow the action, rather than pretend to allow it and then cripple it with penalties? Even if the player is successful, the quality will be so low, what's the point? A game about maintaining the integrity of self shouldn't be compromised by burlesque.


initiation

Note that the usual turn-taking is not necessary here. Players are allowed to help each other come up with appropriate Traits, and can change their minds until they're definitely happy with how they've decided to handle the Conflict. The GM is free to warn players if their choice of Trait seems likely to be heavily penalized during the Suitability stage, as well. The idea is not so much to strategize and come up with the best way of winning as much as it is to set up an interesting and rewarding Conflict outcome, whichever way the dice fall.

Perfect.


marginal victory

No limit on how many Indefinite Traits the GM may add? The victor is limited by the Quality of the roll on how many Trait levels he can disburse to himself and opponents, but the GM is not limited?

I will say that picking "complications that add interest" is an amazingly hard thing to do on the fly during conflict resolution. The best for me was when I kissed another man's wife during our game of WYRD, and assigned her the trait of "wants more" with the heroic stones I drew, and the GM rejoindered by using the tragic stones from the draw to assign "wants her" to my character. But, in general, you get things like "twisted knee". You're expecting GM's to do some substantial rewiring of their brains with this mechanic, just so you know.


overkill

Fantastic! Love it!


death

Dead 3

Doesn't this fly in the face of your proscription against Invulnerable 1? How dead can you be? What can a character do when he has an Indefinite Trait of Dead at any level?


duration of traits

Combat in Synthesis is not automatically lethal (unless the group has agreed that it is), so it's acceptable to impose a Trait such as Out of Action, which may or may not be lethal.

The duration of traits is going to be a big play issue. If I assign Out of Action to a PC, as a GM, they're going to be pissed if it doesn't depart quickly. But they'll be pissed if their infatuation doesn't stick around long enough that they have a chance to turn it into a relationship.

One solution might be to determine Indefinite Trait expiration by Character Conflict. If Self wins, rather than not being able to use the Indefinite Trait until Self or the Trait changes, the Trait is simply gone, never usable. If the Trait wins, it's still sticking around, and could presumably be converted.


hates argvunt

The example is somewhat confusing when it's revealed that Hates Argvunt 4 applies to Argvunt's roll. I didn't get it at all at first. If I "hate Argvunt," it's going to spur my wits on to creative cruelty in humiliating her. It doesn't seem negative at all. Ultimately I figured out what you were driving at. Perhaps change the Trait to Incoherent Hatred of Argvunt 4.

GM: OK, John, Slugnar doesn't lose it, but he's seething with rage--since your Hates Argvunt is stronger than your Philosophical, Betty gets one more die.
(Here the GM sticks it to John since the result was inconclusive. The GM rules this way because it adds interest to the Conflict, not simply to favor one player over another.)

I'd recommend changing the GM's "but he's seething with rage" to something like "but he's incoherent from rage." The first smacks too much of dictating the character's feelings. Maybe other people wouldn't have a problem with it, but it's always been a hot button issue for me.

What specific mechanic allows the GM to add that die on Betty's side? Whatever it is, "because it adds interest to the Conflict" is a spongy rationale that I'd recommend avoiding. Read the Drama Like Your Cold Feet Under My Covers thread for in-depth on why I think this, but basically, a collaboratively motivated Narrativist will grow to hate a "Drama bonus" mechanic because it's so difficult for him to be objective, and a GM less concerned with self-restraint will just use it for railroading.


improving traits

A point of Self can be spent to make a level of an Indefinite Trait into a Level of Defining Trait....
A swordsman who has been receiving instruction from a master may spend a point of Self to change his Learning Edge 1 into an increase in his Sword Skill 2 making it a Sword Skill 3.

That example directly contradicts this, just a couple of paragraphs below it:

To improve an existing Defining Trait, the player should work to make Conflicts to add a suitable Indefinite Trait to their PC. This can be something like Studying under the Master or just Learning More about Diplomacy . Once the player is satisfied with the level of this Indefinite Trait (noting the while that the Trait will disappear over time if it isn't used), they make a Conflict between the Indefinite Trait and the Definite Trait to be improved. If the Quality favors the Indefinite Trait, the player may then spend Self up to the Quality to increase the Defining Trait. If the Defining Trait wins the Conflict, the player must try again later. In either case, the Indefinite Trait is used up and removed.


So, how's that for quid pro quo?

Paul

[Syphon]

improving traits

A point of Self can be spent to make a level of an Indefinite Trait into a Level of Defining Trait....
A swordsman who has been receiving instruction from a master may spend a point of Self to change his Learning Edge 1 into an increase in his Sword Skill 2 making it a Sword Skill 3.

That example directly contradicts this, just a couple of paragraphs below it:

To improve an existing Defining Trait, the player should work to make Conflicts to add a suitable Indefinite Trait to their PC. This can be something like Studying under the Master or just Learning More about Diplomacy . Once the player is satisfied with the level of this Indefinite Trait (noting the while that the Trait will disappear over time if it isn't used), they make a Conflict between the Indefinite Trait and the Definite Trait to be improved. If the Quality favors the Indefinite Trait, the player may then spend Self up to the Quality to increase the Defining Trait. If the Defining Trait wins the Conflict, the player must try again later. In either case, the Indefinite Trait is used up and removed.

Paul,

I'm currently running a playtest for Synthesis in a Fantasy setting and I asked the exact same question of Mike earlier this week - this is the response he sent me, I hope it helps.

Later,

Anthony

Not surprising. This needs to be rewritten, and in fact is fairly different in the 2.0 version. Here's the concept: You must always roll to get an increase, rolling against the Trait being raised. This drives Conflicts, and means that high Traits are more difficult to increase. The idea in the first example is that at some point you had to roll to get that Learning Edge 1 trait against Sword (this should have been implied). Then you can spend it. Thus, if you find Cash 2, you can't just trade it for 2 levels of sword explaining that you spent it on lessons. You can roll the cash against the Trait. The resulting Quality can be used to buy the traits that are then traded in. Note that quite often you don't state what the Indefinite traits are that you are trading. You just say, Quality 2, OK, I raise Sword by 2 and lower Self by 2.

Note how improtant this makes Self rolls. You should allow such rolls whenever it makes sense, and hopefully the players will call for them frequently as well. You can veto silly requests for rolls, but be fairly lenient. Self gained from acting appropriate to the character's nature is the fuel that propels the game engine. Its the kind of rule that's easy to forget.

[Syphon]

[Multiple Post]

[J B Bell]

Paul,

Just a quick hearty "thank you!" for your detailed commentary.  I'm laboring on 2.0 as we speak and will incorporate some of these suggestions, as well as others from other threads you started.

--JB

[Mike Holmes]

Paul,
This is going to get long. Cool.

belief

I like the belief table a lot. I think the idea of defining a character in part by strongly held beliefs has a lot of functional potential. But I also think its implementation here problematizes the idea that a low Self represents a lack of self-assuredness or self-knowledge. You have to think about the character as a whole. In gameplay, how is a character with a lot of strong Belief Traits going to play out? The answer is that regardless of the value of the Self Trait, the character is going to come across as self-assured, decisive, and self-aware.

Mmmm. Maybe. But it will be a false appearance of Self-Assuredness. What the character will really have is a devotion to somehting outside himself. He will not particularly think of himself as being part of the belief. So, for example, if my character has a Belief in Odin 4, and a Self of 1, the character probably believes that Odin is great and all powerful, and may gain great confidence from that, but he probably also believes that he is not worthy of Odin, and beneath Odin's notice. He will be an Odin Fanboy, if you will. A character with a Self of 4 and Belief in Odin 4, will think of himself as an important cog in Odin's plans, or at least understand that he may have a role to play.

It's the I'm OK, You're OK thing. Low belief and low self gives an I'm not OK, you're not OK perspective. Low belief and low self give the I'm OK, you're not OK perspective. High belief, low Self (the case in question) leads to I'm not OK, you're OK. And, lastly, high belief, low self gives an I'm OK, you're OK sort of Perspective. The "you" in this case can actually be anything. One thing that JB has been saying and I think we should have put in the text is that any traits that are higher than your Self Trait are sorta out of balance. Not to get too out there, but "Koyaanisqatsi" if you will. You believe in things more than you believe in yourself. Which means to an extent that you are a slave to them. Yes, this is a subtle philosophical statement we are making about the general public (I'll readily admit that my devotion to gaming is quite out of balance).

These are just a few of the themes that you can look at using Synthesis.  

relationships

I love that the Relationships table is based on intensity. The implication is that an enemy Relationship could be a high value Trait. My recommendation is to modify the table to reflect the notion:

0  No relationship or purely aquaintances

1  Friendly aquaintance / occasional nuisance

2  Friend / chronic annoyance

3  Close / someone you avoid

4  Very Close / someone you go out of the way to avoid

5  Intense / active enemy

etc...

Excellent suggestion. I'll bet that's one of the things that JB is putting inj as I write this. In general, I think we should have given more examples of negative traits.

culture/social

Very Story Engine. I like it. I think you should consider breaking education off from social class in the table. I think people will disagree with you that the upper class are universally well educated.

Good point and this needs to be mentioned. But I woudn't separate it out necessarily. What I need to do is more clearly indicate that you can take Traits that will do what you say. So, a player could have a character with Dilletant 6, to indicate rich and cultured, but not particularly well educated or professional. Or one could take Struggling Academic indicating that they came from a lower class and had to work hard for their education.

But to the extent that the upper classes define what it is to be "cultured" and "well educated" in a society, I stand by the general linkage. The idea is that the traits all shpould speak to how well socialized the character is. In Anthony's playtest, a player took City-State 2, and Street culture 2 (used more local terms, but that's what they were essentially). This is perfect. It represents how the street culture has replaced his local "legitamate" culture to an extent. Note that he has the advantage of being bi-cultural, but the disadvantage of neither being particularly effective. This was the intent of the scaled cost system, and the diminishing returns of sub-conflicts.

Speaking of which...

sub-conflicts

I like how you use sub-conflicts to deliver granularity to conflict resolution. I've been thinking a lot lately about ways of selectively switching on granularity for key conflicts in the resolution system of one of my own half-formed game designs. I was impressed when I saw the Trollbabe mechanics for scaling the granularity of conflicts. Here you have the Story Engine variant.

Essentially, yes. But again, the diminishing returs means that the central Trait of the Conflict is highlighted, and not lost in the sea of Traits, as happens in SE. And helping people is inefficient, but can result in higher total results. Simultaneoiusly incentivizing and disincentivizing their use. We though that this was particularly nifty.

mixed traits

Traits do not have to fall directly into one of the categories...they can be a mix of different categories...[and] should also be a bit limited in scope in other ways. It shouldn't be as flexibly useful as a pure Resource would be, nor as impressive as if the character had a pure Trait.

What's the rationale for this? Is it to avoid the comic? You don't want my character, Larry Avalon (Frankie's cousin), to get too much utility from his Fantastic Hair 3? This seems like it might be a proto-genre element that crept in via unconscious biases.

That's it sorta. It's to prevent the Everything 10 Trait. Or abuse of the Hair Trait or any other (though I like the Hair Trait, and am going to use it in a playtest). The idea is that all Traits have a reasonable scope that approximates what is laid out in any one category. If a Trait reasonably encompasses two or more areas, it needs to be limited in some way. I didn't want to disallow any particular Traits, yet I want the idea of their scope to remain (hopefully) intuitive.

That said, it might be easier to disallow them altogether formally. They will , no doubt, sneak in informally which may, in the end, be more socially limiting. Hmmm.... It's definitely a thinker.

indefinite traits

I think you need a terminology change here.

Well, I can see the use of Indefinite, here. But I agree in principle. See JB. What does everyone think of Temporary and Permenant. The only problem with those is that Permenant are only "sorta" permenant. Ephemeral and Lasting? Hmmm...

the beginning conflict

I think you don't need this mechanic at all. It feels like it's here because you're scared players won't do anything without Kickers, but actually I think you've accounted for propelling the characters forward with other mechanics. Characters start with a bunch of soon-to-be-gone "indefinite" Traits that they have to use or lose, and a personal struggle. Fuck the "beginning conflict." The GM should frame each character's initial scene at the junction point between the use-em-or-lose-em Traits and the personal struggle.

Well, I could put it in the hands of the GM. I just wanted to turn it on its head. Having the player do it gets them into the mindframe of addressing their character's premise, and the mindframe of declaring Conflicts in general. That's a subtle thing in the rules, potentially, but the point is that it's a player power that they can call for Conflicts as much or more than the GM can.

This is really juiced up in ver 2.0. In any case, I just thought it was kind of a neat mechanic. It makes the GMs life easier, and gets the players involved. What's the downside of doing it that way? If there's a downside, then I'd consider removing it.

situation and suitability

Do you really need two loose categories of "GM assigns bonuses"?

I'll cut this one short. No, you don't need two categories. You have rightly pointed out a problem and we are changing the rules on that.

Unimpressed 6

The penalty seems arbitrary and deprotagonizing. Why not just disallow the action, rather than pretend to allow it and then cripple it with penalties? Even if the player is successful, the quality will be so low, what's the point? A game about maintaining the integrity of self shouldn't be compromised by burlesque.

In the example given, either the player will fail acting in character, which will protagonize the character a lot, or he will succeed against the odds, which will protagonize him more. A feature of the resolution system is that all results are automatically protagonizing. Even ties. The suitability in this case just highlights the absurdity of the character trying something so odd. Adding further protagonism to the scene.

marginal victory

No limit on how many Indefinite Traits the GM may add? The victor is limited by the Quality of the roll on how many Trait levels he can disburse to himself and opponents, but the GM is not limited?

I will say that picking "complications that add interest" is an amazingly hard thing to do on the fly during conflict resolution.

Again, agreed. And again, ver 2.0 is addressing this.

overkill

Fantastic! Love it!

Becomes unneccessary in 2.0. Unfortunately, Because I kinda like it too.

death

Dead 3

Doesn't this fly in the face of your proscription against Invulnerable 1? How dead can you be? What can a character do when he has an Indefinite Trait of Dead at any level?[/qupte]I should have just said at the top that much of what you have is being fixed in 2.0. This is yet another. I think you'll like the results. Thank goodness for excellent playtesters.

duration of traits

Combat in Synthesis is not automatically lethal (unless the group has agreed that it is), so it's acceptable to impose a Trait such as Out of Action, which may or may not be lethal.

The duration of traits is going to be a big play issue. If I assign Out of Action to a PC, as a GM, they're going to be pissed if it doesn't depart quickly. But they'll be pissed if their infatuation doesn't stick around long enough that they have a chance to turn it into a relationship.

One solution might be to determine Indefinite Trait expiration by Character Conflict. If Self wins, rather than not being able to use the Indefinite Trait until Self or the Trait changes, the Trait is simply gone, never usable. If the Trait wins, it's still sticking around, and could presumably be converted.

Yes, the new solution is somthing more like that. I've been trying to take GM subjectivity out of the equation as much as is humanly possible.

hates argvunt

The example is somewhat confusing when it's revealed that Hates Argvunt 4 applies to Argvunt's roll. I didn't get it at all at first. If I "hate Argvunt," it's going to spur my wits on to creative cruelty in humiliating her. It doesn't seem negative at all. Ultimately I figured out what you were driving at. Perhaps change the Trait to Incoherent Hatred of Argvunt 4.

Traits are only "negative" or "positive" insomuch as they are used that way. Any Trait can be used by any side of a conflict as long as there is sufficient rationale. I can see Hate being used by both sides. In this case, it makes the perfect subject of a subconflict to see which side it ends up aiding. JB sees subconflicts mostly in this light, while I see them as mostly about aiding. They work perfectly well for each, however, leading to an large number of possible combinations regarding how you can address a particular conflict.

Just designing the roll is often a delight. To me at least.

I'd recommend changing the GM's "but he's seething with rage" to something like "but he's incoherent from rage." The first smacks too much of dictating the character's feelings. Maybe other people wouldn't have a problem with it, but it's always been a hot button issue for me.

The GM assigns a Trait. The player plays the Trait as he sees fit. The player in this case would have every right to restate the effect. However, the Trait assigned remains. The rationale is that the GM is responsible for the character's protagonism from the external POV, while the player is responsible for it internally. So, a Seething trait is possible for a GM to give. This represents the protagonism of the other character as yours is made to look a fool. The GM should only assign this Trait if he knows that it makes sense situationally, and that it does not "deprotagonize" the loser.

This is tough, and subjective, but it can be done as we all know. Under the right circumstances being made to look the fool is exactly the right thing to do. I know the circumstances that you are refering to Paul, but the GM in this case has been informed that his roll is to protagonize. If he fails, there's not a lot I can do that wouldn't destroy the entire mechanic.

What specific mechanic allows the GM to add that die on Betty's side? Whatever it is, "because it adds interest to the Conflict" is a spongy rationale that I'd recommend avoiding. Read the Drama Like Your Cold Feet Under My Covers thread for in-depth on why I think this, but basically, a collaboratively motivated Narrativist will grow to hate a "Drama bonus" mechanic because it's so difficult for him to be objective, and a GM less concerned with self-restraint will just use it for railroading.

Well, one could simply allow all rolls to occur unmodified. But that doesn't sit well either, does it. What I avoided was the situation where the same participant in te game is responsible for both up and down. Again, the GM is responsible for the external, and the player for the internal. Between that division, I think that the drama reamains.

Can it be abused? Yes. Do I think it's likely? No.

improving traits

Note that the solution that I gave to Anthony was to fix the perception problem as it pertained to 1.8. I think that the methodology in 2.0 will make it even more clear.

So, how's that for quid pro quo?

You da man. I think I owe you now.

Mike