categorizing mechanics

[Mike Holmes]

Still, does the player/GM have any responsibility to the designer, or to the game text as written?

No.

Hell, you've already done the designer a favor by buying the game, or at least by playing it. If you're having fun warping the game all out of shape, you're only real responsibility has been taken care of. That being to enjoy yourself.

OTOH, if a game is well designed, the participants may be doing themselves a disservice by not trying to use the game as it was designed to be used. They should at least go through some critical process to determine if it will be fun as written or not before discarding it out of hand.

Mike

[Valamir]

Still, does the player/GM have any responsibility to the designer, or to the game text as written?

Currently, not really.  Indirectly they may have responsibility to other players in their group who expect them to adhere to text as written.

But eventually, when RPG games are not sold but licensed like computer software and DVDs, then we'll be able to sue those house rule monkeys for violating the terms of the End User Agreement...

[Mike Holmes]

Can't sue for that. Not unless they make copies or something.

No, what'll happen is that at that point you can stop delivering support as they'll have voided their service contract.

"What's that? You've been playing D&D without using Classes? Some sort of Single Class system you say. Well, I'm sorry to inform you that in doing so you've vioded the terms of your service contract, and we here at Hasbro Game Software International will no longer be able to help you with your service problems. If you'd like to purchase a new license, I'd be happy to transfer you to a Sales Representative, however..."

Mike

[Tim C Koppang]

OTOH, if a game is well designed, the participants may be doing themselves a disservice by not trying to use the game as it was designed to be used.

Sold.  That'll do it for me.

[M. J. Young]

If I'm understanding "encouraging" versus "enforcing" mechanics aright, the D&D experience point system is an encouraging mechanic. During play, if you kill the monster and take the treasure, you get experience points; but there's nothing that says you have to fight at all. You can play D&D all year and never fight a thing. I knew a guy who took asked if he could play a local blacksmith (as a second character), and put everything into working in the blacksmith shop and selling his goods and services. He never killed anything, and he never "took" anything other than fair payment for goods and goods/supplies for fair payment.

On the other hand, I'm having trouble thinking of an enforcing mechanic in a role playing game that would make the player engage in combat. Having played Shukenja (who are not permitted to kill), I am quite aware that you can always avoid a fight if you so choose. The only think I can find is that there are some gamist CRPGs I've seen played in which once you've entered the encounter area you cannot avoid the fight--you must attack even if you wish to retreat, and you may be attacked before you do so. In this sense, combat is forced upon you. I can't think of a way to do that in RPG play, at least at the moment.

Someone mentioned a hit point system in which you are reduced to zero points and then die (was that this thread?); that's clearly an enforcing mechanism. In contrast, Legends of Alyria lets the player decide when his character will die. (I have not yet seen this in action, shame on me.) If you've got a mechanic that rewards the player if on his decision the character dies, that would be an encouraging mechanic for character death.

However, it is inherent in the concept of the "encouraging mechanic" that the player may choose not to do that now. Thus not having done it is not breaking the rules. If the rules force you to fight, or determine that you die at zero hit points, and you ignore them, you've broken the rules; but those are enforcing mechanics. If he rules encourage you to fight or to die and you ignore them, that's not breaking the rules--it might not even be violating the spirit of the rules, depending on the circumstances. However, in the main encouraging rules mean that there are benefits to the desired action which will be foregone by avoidance, thus play will be rewarded more clearly by doing what the rules encourage.

Is that what you mean?

--M. J. Young

[Tim C Koppang]

On the other hand, I'm having trouble thinking of an enforcing mechanic in a role playing game that would make the player engage in combat.

I can make up an extreme example no problem.  Just phrase it in the form of an if/then statement.  If any character encounters a castle guardsman with a blue ensignia on his shoulder, then that character must engage in combat with said guard.  You see, if the player doesn't fight the guard, then he's in direct violation of the rules.  The rule enforces combat with blue ensignia guards.

If the rules force you to fight, or determine that you die at zero hit points, and you ignore them, you've broken the rules; but those are enforcing mechanics. If he rules encourage you to fight or to die and you ignore them, that's not breaking the rules--it might not even be violating the spirit of the rules, depending on the circumstances.

Yes.

However, in the main encouraging rules mean that there are benefits to the desired action which will be foregone by avoidance, thus play will be rewarded more clearly by doing what the rules encourage.

For the most part I think this is right.  However, I don't think that all encouraging rules necessarily have to be reward mechanics.  Take the InSpectres confessional rules for example: A player may request a confessional, but is never required to do so.  The confesional mechanic encourages the players to take directorial power.  What they gain from taking confesionals can be either benificial to them or not--depending on how self-loathing the particular player if feeling.  (Sidebar:  I suppose you could say that the directorial power is the benifit of taking a confesional, but that's splitting hairs.  The point is that confessionals are not a reward mechanic.)  And it gets even more complicated; because in InSpectres, directorial power of this sort encourages non-competative Nar play.  So I suppose you could say that encouraging mechanics can have multiple levels.

Now I would venture to say that all reward mechanics (at least the ones I can think of) are encouraging mechanics.

[Mike Holmes]

On the subject of a RPG that Enforces fighting, one could imagine a game in which the choice to fight was not a given part of the player's purview. So, in Pitfighter, the RPG (hypothetical), you end up going from combat to combat (it's an RPG because you get extra points for boasting well in play) killing other fighters and gaining glory.

The rules would state stuff like. Each charactr chooses a door through which to enter the arena. Then the first round begins with each player choosing an offensive and devensive tactic.

You get the picture. In such a game failing to fight would be breaking the rules (pretty much failing to play the game).

Mike

[efindel]

I was recently involved in a thread on rec.games.frp.gurps which I think hinges on the difference between enforcing and encouraging.

GURPS has mechanics for some of its mental disadvantages which are enforcing mechanics -- for example, the "Lecherousness" disadvantage states that when the character is in contact with a person of the opposite sex who is attractive, the character has to make a Will roll in order to keep from making a pass at him/her, with penalties depending on just how good-looking the person is.

To me, that's enforcing -- the player makes the roll, and the roll can require that a certain thing be done.

A system I'm currently using for a pbem has an encouraging personality mechanic -- players have Story Points.  You can gain Story Points by accepting "complications".  This can be used as a personality mechanic -- e.g., if a character has the "lecherous" trait, you could create a complication involving that character trying to get a date with someone.  On the other hand, though, there's nothing that requires you to do that -- there's simply a reward system for players who do choose to do that.

Some systems go a bit farther by requiring characters to pay a penalty to get out of having a personality trait used against them -- e.g., Theatrix, where one can pay a Plot Point to avoid having to do something based on a  personality trait.

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG has an interesting middle ground -- it has mechanically enforced personality traits, ala GURPS... but a player could spend a Drama Point to do a Heroic Feat to try to resist, which will almost certainly let them resist it, unless there's a very large penalty involved.  Thus, it has enforcement, but with the potential to "buy out".

IMHO, personality mechanics are a very good place to use "encouraging" rather than "enforcing" mechanics -- see the recent thread on "character ownership".

Another example of enforcement vs. encouragement could be a pair of Universalis gimmicks.  Some groups like to use a gimmick which states that at least half of the coins gained from a conflict must be spent on things related to that conflict.  This is an enforcement mechanic.  

An encouragement way of doing a similar thing might be to state that any coins gained from a conflict which are not spent on that conflict are halved.  This encourages spending coins through the conflict from which they were gained, so you can get more "bang for your buck".

--Travis