[Misery Bubblegum] How do you win at high school?

[Sydney Freedberg]

Beautifully evil.

The dynamic ends up something like this:

"Here, you hold this grenade by the body, and I'll hold it by the pin! What do you mean you want to go that way? I want to go this way!"

BOOM

Over and over and over again.

[TonyLB]

And... y'know... there's no reason to assume that the trait will always be used against the person who generated it through refusing the bribe.

If Shane offers Ada the bribe "Moral Flexibility," and she refuses it, then he can use that against her in any situation where Moral Flexibility would have been really helpful.  But he could also (I assume) use it for her in situations where being rigidly honorable is helpful to them both.  So there's a game-mechanic representation of the grudging acceptance that someone really is different than what you wanted them to be, and maybe that's for the best.

[Andrew Morris]

Two basic questions:  (1)  Am I the only one who would enjoy playing inside such a structure? and (2) Is it possible, mechanically?

I'm just catching this now, so I'll skip all the interesting mechanics that have been discussed, and go back to the original questions.

1) I'm sure there's people out there that would dig this kind of play. I'm not one of them, though. It sounds boring as hell to me, and it doesn't remind me at all of my high school days. If I want to play a nostalgic teen-drama, it would have to be about getting laid, drinking, doing drugs, getting in fights, blowing stuff up, cutting class, throwing awesome parties, and being so damn "cool" that you're completely insufferable.

2) Sure, and what's been discussed so far seems like it's heading in the right direction. My comments from 1 aside, I'm eager to see where this goes. I didn't think I'd like Capes, either, and I was dead wrong there. I'd like to be wrong again.

[TonyLB]

Okay... so how is the teen drama you'd like to play not about trying to become a person who knows what he wants?  In this case, you seem (to my admittedly biased eye) to be talking about a character who wants to be happy as a rebel.  

Are we talking about different types of adversity here?  To my mind the question an adversary-player would ask in this situation is not "How do I stop him from rebelling?", it's "How do I help him to rebel, in fact make him the ultimate rebel, and then stop him from finding any easy contentment in that?"

[Sydney Freedberg]

Mechanics clarification time.

Tony, in a conflict, you can roll as many dice as you have in your appropriate pool for that type of conflict, and Traits allow you to re-roll your dice or your opponent's, correct?

So what, mechanically, can a Goal do that's different, and which has room for a "diminishing returns" or "hollow victory" effect?

One (fairly idle) thought that occurs to me is that a Goal sets conditions under which you permanently earn more dice, representing character growth, with an exponentially increasing cost per die so that pools don't get hopelessly large. I'm thinking somewhat along the lines of "keys" from Clinton's The Shadow of Yesterday, except they'd be like

Key of the Slacker: Gain 1 die when you blow off something hugely important for no good reason
Key of the Heather: Gain 1 die when you make someone utterly miserable

[Andrew Morris]

In this case, you seem (to my admittedly biased eye) to be talking about a character who wants to be happy as a rebel.

Interesting, but inaccurate, at least in my own case. All that stuff was pretty much par for the course at my high school. Well...maybe not blowing stuff up, but I liked fireworks. Anyway, that's all irrelevant, because my point is that I never had any worries about who I would become, or what kind of person I'd grow up to be, or long-term goals, or anything like that. I knew what I liked doing, so I went out and did it. Honestly, I thought the whole angsty "who am I?" drama only happened on television. So the concept rings hollow for me, when compared to my own high school experience. Maybe that means the game just isn't for me, but I at least wanted to voice a countering viewpoint.

[TonyLB]

Sydney:  Correct, the current formulation is "Roll up to the number of dice in your current appropriate pool, then Traits allow rerolls."  I'm thinking that a Trait of N should allow you to reroll dice whose total value is no more than N.  So if you rolled 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and had a Trait of 5, you could reroll the 1+2, 1+3, 2+3, 1+4 or the 5 alone.  If you rolled 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5 then you could reroll all five 1s.

All Traits should come from other players (though they may have been increased or decreased by you).  To use a Trait you Offer (as per the visual aid) a die to that player, which they can then (or later) use in conflicts, or which they can use to Bribe you with new Traits.

I agree with Sydney that the reward structure should involve letting the characters earn more permanent dice.  I also think that requiring them to earn an amount of success proportional to the number of dice they currently have on hand is a good way to do it.  I like one strategy that implies:  Give away many of your dice into the keeping of other players (who will use them either to Bribe you (for character development) or roll them to aid or oppose you), and then increase your own pool at a lower cost because your "dice on hand" is so much lower.

I don't particulary want a game that has an inevitable end-game.  I respect (for instance) My Life with Master, but this isn't built like that.  Therefore, when I think "We should reward people by giving them more permanent dice" I immediately also wonder "What will they spend dice on permanently, and why is that worth more than the dice themselves?"  Otherwise the ecology of dice runs amok, people end up with massive pools and can't earn any further (because their dice-on-hand is so high).

I'm not really sure, yet, what your own dice would be spent for.  Perhaps to establish and maintain facts about the world, which give you unquestioned authority (while you control them) in some limited area of the SIS?

[Sydney Freedberg]

requiring them to earn an amount of success proportional to the number of dice they currently have on hand is a good way to do it.

Or there could be an escalating requirement for the same reward, i.e.

Key of the Slacker: For no good reason, blow off something more important than you ever have before
Key of the Heather: Hurt an innocent person worse than you ever have before
Key of the Black Beret: Win a part in the school play that's bigger than any you ever had before
Key of the Grind: Win an academic prize more prestigious than you ever have before

Which of course is the path to madness in adulthood: "If only I buy an even bigger car, I'll finally be happy!" "If only I have a more attractive partner..." "... a bigger salary..." etc.

I'm not really sure, yet, what your own dice would be spent for.

Wild random thought:

1 die permanently spent = 1 fact about who you grow up to be. Spend one die to buy a flash-forward scene set at your 20th high school reunion.

[TonyLB]

I repeat:  I don't want a game that is focussed on end-game.  This isn't about your twentieth reunion any more than Sorceror is about your soul writhing in the brimstone lakes of hell.  It's about the choices you make in the present, knowing the consequences.

And I don't know about forcing the goals to become impossible to pursue long term.  Saying "You get points if you do something that obviously can't make you happy in the end" is answering a question, rather than asking it.  The question,  to my mind is "Here's a goal that you can pursue and achieve.  Does it make you happy?"  And then, following DitV, the follow up is "It makes you happy?  Okay, how about now?  How about in this situation?"  

That's a subtle change in emphasis, but I think it's an important one.  It disqualifies the Slacker key immediately, for instance.  The goal for a Slacker (my intuition, anyway) is "Foil other people's ambitions for me."

In fact, I think all of the Goals look better (to me, personally) if they are phrased as something that has to be judged and rewarded by another player in reference to the relationship between two characters.  Maybe that's the right way to structure the rewards, mechanically?  That they're offered as part of the stakes of a conflict by some other player?

Slacker:  "I'm confronting Joey about his skate-boarding... I think if he took it seriously he could really be a competitor.  I'm Bribing you on the Trait "Serious about Skateboarding," which you'll get if you lose.  If you successfully blow me off you get a reward for foiling my ambitions for you, but I'll get the anti-Trait that you're not serious about skateboarding."

Heather:  "I'm confronting Heather about the way she treated Becky.  I want to tell her off once and for all.  If I win then I get to increase my fledgling "Independent" trait.  If you successfully stifle me and force me back into subservience you can wipe out my trait, and you get a reward because everybody else's needs are important only when they do not conflict with your whims."

Black Beret:  "I'm confronting Violet about whether she's good enough to have the lead in the school play, or whether she's just getting it because she's a blatant manipulator.  If you win the argument you get a reward for having your genius recognized."

Grind:  "Larry's going to work through the night to finish up the science project.  He wants Wade to help him, rather than go to the party.  If you lose you can up your 'total geek' Trait, and you get a reward for working harder than anyone."

I think that this would mean that you can (long-term) be happy with a Goal only if the other players at the table find it entertaining and valid for you to be happy with that goal.  Which probably creates the slow fade of satisfaction in nine out of ten cases, simply because people cease to find the same goal interesting in its tenth and twentieth iterations.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Aha. Yes to all that, I think.

[TonyLB]

Okay, so how does pursuing your Goal make you more a person who is capable of pursuing that Goal?

One way of doing it would be to say that the winner of the conflict (and only the winner of the conflict) can spend points from the dice they spent (i.e. the amount they won with) to increase any Trait that they used.

Then you get a real work-out on your "Cold-hearted Bitch" skill while pursuing the "Other people think about my needs first" Goal... which would mean that you'll use "Bitch" more often in other situations.

So the person who originally gave you the Bitch Trait would be well advised to also give you opportunities to pursue the "My Needs First" Goal, as an investment in making the trait they assigned you return lots of your dice (to them) in order to let them manipulate you further.  Yes?

[Allan]

Wow.  I will play this game.  I'm fascinated by High School social interactions, and this sounds like a really fun, interesting and accurate mechanic for teen psychology.  

I don't want to divert from your discussion of what are solid-sounding, innovative, system-defining mechanics.  But I wanted to share with you the psychological growth mechanics that work well in my own High School soap opera game.  Maybe something will spark off for you.

First of all, Sweet Dreams sounds very different than Misery Bubblegum.  It's designed explicitly to simulate "Buffy", "Nightmare on Elm Street", "Ninja High School", stuff like that.  So while social interaction was important, most of the system is devoted to combat and supernatural actions (much more traditional than what you're doing here).  

Characters have a Caste (Athlete, Goth, Princess, etc), and choose one Psychological Subplot appropriate to their Caste (Bully, Morbid, Snob, etc).  They also have one weak Passion (Romantic trait) for a PC or NPC assigned by the Guide.  

Characters have a Confidence Trait, which takes damage just like hit points.  Attacking someone's Confidence can give them new Subplots (Affraid of X, in Love with X, etc).  If your Confidence is low, you are easy to manipulate, bully, or seduce.  

Characters regain Confidence by behaving according to their Caste, and receiving the approval of their peers.  But, all the Castes promote some kind of self-destructive or cruel behaviour.  Characters who go along with the system will be the most Confident, while those who fight it lose Confidence and become depressed (unless they develop a support group of real friends which can help them regain Confidence outside the Caste).

Characters' Subplots are there to get them in trouble.  When a character gets in trouble by roleplaying a Subplot (like Snob, or In Love), they earn experience.  That's the only source of experience, so characters grow by making mistakes and getting in trouble.  They spend that experience on increasing abilities (superpowers, etc), which help them get out of trouble, stay alive, and accomplish plot goals.  

Through social combat, characters can give each other Subplots, but each character can only have 10 Subplots, +1 more per year of High School.  (max 13 in Senior year).  When a Subplot is resolved through roleplaying, the character gets double xp for it, and the Subplot is gone.  The character now has another slot for gaining new Subplots.  

Characters are torn between conforming to the unhealthy Caste paradigm (which increases their Confidence), and getting in trouble according to their individual Subplots (which earns them xp, and increases their abilities).   Characters become more screwed up and individual as the story goes on.  The Subplots get resolved when the players are bored with them, and the ones everyone likes never get resolved.  

Hope there was an idea in there for you.  If not, sorry to interrupt.  Capes looks great, and I'll definitely be following Misery Bubblegum.

[Callan S.]

In terms of goals...(edit: this probably doesn't contribute to current development too much)

Looking back at school, the social structure is much like a prison. Lots of relationships you should just get away from, but you can not do that.

The next step in the teen mind is in thinking that you supposed to be part of these relationships because 'this is the world'. Of course it is not, it's just a fragment of the world (that you can leave). But you don't know that yet.

The next step is not to discover yourself, so much as to try and break yourself to fit in. Because without a choice to leave, you don't have a choice to be yourself.

I wonder if an 'anti premise' style game would make a good sim game of that. Have something like spiritual attributes chosen by the player, but although they give big bonuses, make the rewards for doing things other than them, even bigger. And then further into the game, make reducing those SA's profitable, in that they would otherwise reduce even bigger profits you can get from doing those other things.

Basically, rather than the proud nar games where you show your inner self to all, a simulationist game of watching your PC's inner spirit die.

[TonyLB]

Callan, your post meshes sufficiently with my own recent thoughts on the subject that I'm taking it to a new thread so that it can get more detailed examination.

[Shim]

Just a thought:

What about rebirth?

What if the kid grows up with all of his goals (some of them realized, some of them not) goes to college, gets married has kids of his(or her) own.

The kid goes off to high school and repeats the cycle again, like some kind of endless high school wheel of life.

Another Thought:

Getting a job.
Students can get jobs and buy clothing that would boost whatever goals they are in (or buy drugs, alcohol).

Does this detract from the game at all?