[Shadows & Light] Preventing follow-up conflicts?

[Andrew Morris]

For a LARP system I'm working on, I want to promote fast conflict resolution (discussed here). One of the points raised was how to handle follow-up conflicts.

For example, if Character A beats up Character B and steals his stuff, what's to stop Character B from immediately starting up a new conflict to beat up Character A and take back the stuff? Well, as written, there's nothing mechanically to stop it. This could be a problem, because it kills the fast conflict resolution that was my primary design goal.

Does anyone have any thoughts on whether preventing follow-up conflicts mechanically is the way to go, or if there are other (perhaps better) ways to go about it? Alternately, are there good reasons for allowing these kind of follow-up conflicts?

[xenopulse]

There are a couple of ways:

- arbitrary time restrictions ("Gotta wait 5 minutes after being beaten before...")

- defeat brings penalty ("After being beaten, disadvantaged against opponents until you get a new weapon by doing x (or be healed by doing x), where x takes some time and maybe cooperation from other players")

I think there was a LARP system on the boards recently (the Firefly one?) where players would get shamed or bruised or lose their gun when they were defeated, and had to do various things to recover. I think involving other players in the recovery is a good way of promoting positive interactions.

But I don't know much about LARPs, so... :)

[Bill Masek]

Andrew,

I see your problem.  There is nothing to stop someone from accumulating massive resources by letting herself loose, then turning around and using those resources against the person who gave them to her.  (Spending less resources then before, winning and making a profit!)  This dominance strategy would undermine the goals of your game.  I see two possible solutions.

1.  You slap a bandade over it.  Make up some mechanic to deal with this problem specificly while keeping the game the same.  This would be the easiest rout to take.  Here are some sample bandade solutions:
A.  Loosers of a conflict can not use the skill they used until some event occures (they do something, some peroid of time happens, etc.)
B.  Loosers of a conflict can not initate conflicts the the person they lost against until some event occures.
C.  Loosers of a conflict can not initate conflicts at all until some event occures

2.  You could also change the rules themselves so that the problem you are having is no longer is an issue.  This will be more difficult but tends to lead to better games in the long run.  Here are some ways you could impliment this:
A.  Keep points recived through loss seperate for each individual.  Once you deafeat them, give them the total of your bid plus all points you recieved from them but have not spent.
B.  Once resources are spent they simply vanish.  No one gets them.  You would then have to build a way to gain resources.  Unfortunatly, for this rule to be effective you would need to remove the spending cap and changing the way you work skills.

Best,
       Bill

[Andrew Morris]

Hmm...here's what I'm thinking:

Christian, imposing arbitrary time limits is a very easy fix, and that's where I've been leaning so far. Perhaps combinging your two suggestions is the way to go: for a specific time limit, the victor of the conflict has "phantom" tokens equal to their final bid. They get these automatically in a conflict with the defeated character (again, only within a certain time limit -- say five minutes or so). I'll have to think about that, especially whether losing one type of conflict would hinder you in a different type of conflict (e.g. If you lose a fistfight, does that mean you'll be hindered in a magical attack on the character who defeated you?).

I believe the LARP you're thinking of is Active Karma. There are many similarities between the two games mechanically, so I'll go back and review those threads again to see if they spark any new ideas.

Bill, the whole "lose a lot, then go back later and win" strategy is actually not at all a problem in my mind. It would be a perfectly valid strategy that would fit in with the minor theme of "you can only be pushed so far before you must fight" that's established in the setting (which I really haven't posted much on, since my current focus is mechanics). So, I'm not worried about that in and of itself. What concerns me is really the time factor involved. Specifically, while I'd have no problem with this if the events were separated in time by, say, an hour or more, the same strategy compressed to take place in the course of minutes or seconds will bog things down to a level I find unacceptable. "I take my licks, then plan for revenge" is cool. "I get beaten, so I keep engaging in conflicts until I win" is not cool.

Your suggestions 1B and 1C are right on target. Again, I'll think this over and see if I can work these ideas in somehow. I'm almost violently opposed to special rules and exceptions, however, so I'll need to see if everything can fit together elegantly and seamlessly.

As to removing the idea that the loser gets the tokens spent to beat them, I don't really want do anything along those lines, because the see-saw, back-and-forth distribution of power is one of my favorite concepts.

Does anyone have a reason why I should allow follow-up conflicts, or do most people think that for this game, follow-up conflicts are a bad thing?

[Bill Masek]

I'd have no problem with this if the events were separated in time by, say, an hour or more, the same strategy compressed to take place in the course of minutes or seconds will bog things down to a level I find unacceptable. "I take my licks, then plan for revenge" is cool. "I get beaten, so I keep engaging in conflicts until I win" is not cool.

Andrew,

I think I was unclear in my last post.  I was only referring to situations where a conflict could be initiated before any new strategic decisions could be made.  By forcing the looser to wait for a certain amount of time the winner will have a chance to enjoy whatever resources she acquired from that conflict.  (Like, say, spending all of player A's money after stealing his wallet.)  If for whatever reason those resources remain unused during that time (and player A can get his wallet back) then that's just a valid strategic decision with valid consequences.  Thus we no longer have the very slow paced dominance strategy which undermines the point of your game.

My above post was made with this idea behind it.  Sorry it was unclear.

What type of condition are you planning of requiring the looser to fulfill before she can declare a new action?  Simply making them wait seems a bit arbitrary.  It would be cool if each Stat/Skill had its own means for rejuvenation.  (Lost a social conflict.  Time to hit the bar and spill my guts.)

Best,
Bill

[Andrew Morris]

Okay, Bill, I get you now, and you're dead on.

I agree that the rejuvenation idea is pretty cool, but I think it might be crossing the line into outright stealing mechanics from Active Karma. The game is already uncomfortably close (resource-based, bidding mechanics, character death is hard to pull off, etc.) in mechanical terms.

[Bill Masek]

Andrew,

You are right, your game is looking a bit similar to Active Karma.  However, I do not believe Dev owns the copy rights on conditional repops.  (Like WoTC owns the copy right on rotating cards 90 degrees.)  So your only issue is making your game distinct from Active Karma while still keeping all the elements which they share.  Namely, conditional repops.

Your question is this:  What kind of conditions can you make for your game that are new, unique and innovative.  Active Kara works with finite conditions that a player can usually achieve alone or with a single NPC.  While this is cool, it leaves a lot of room to explore.  Perhaps you could link the repop system to a goal system.  Perhaps it could require cooperation with another PC.  Tie it into your game in some cool way that helps define your game and make it its own thing.

Best,
Bill

[Andrew Morris]

I wasn't thinking of a legal concern, just that Dev created a neat system and I don't want to rip it off. I'm leaning toward the "phantom" tokens idea at the moment anyway.