Should character control hurt?

[coxcomb]

I broke this off from Zak's Survey, as I don't want to inject my own query into his thread.

Here are some highlights to get us started:

Something that I find interesting is that the first places I ran across them (Marvel Super Heroes and DC Heroes), they were the same currency used for improvement. So in order to use them to exert control (in these cases limited to just fixing a missed roll) you had to give up experience.

I assume this started as some sort of "balancing" effort. The trade-off for exerting choice in resolution was that your character didn't get better as quickly. Probably well-meaning, but it doesn't exactly encourage players to exert control on the story, does it?

However, all the examples in the book suggest that players might only want to use this to ensure or heighten the survival/success of their character. You pay one point of Inspiration less if you include some complication, but the idea that player might want use Inspiration to shape plot, e.g. by adding dramatic tension is not really considered. So, while the rules let you do more than save your characters bacon, the text IMHO clearly suggests that there is no other purpose for Inspiration.

So what's the deal here? We clearly have over 20 years of player control of resolution as a mechanic. But the notion that it should cost the character something seems pretty consistent.

Is this just designers maintaining "balance" in the system and/or keeping the players out of director stance? Or is there something more?

Any thoughts?

[Jasper]

It's funy you raise this issue, because it's been on my mind recently with some mechanics I'm working on for Principium Novum. I just introduced a resource which can be spent to give narrative control, more or less.  Now, my intention behind the mechanic really had nothing to with limiting or controlling narrative control.  Rather it had to do with introducing a reward mechanism!  Maybe this is unusual, and backwards from how things typically go, but I needed to limit something (narrative power) so that getting it would be a reward for other behavior.  Only later did it dawn on me that of course I was limiting narrative control.  If I didn't need the reward, I wouldn't need points or costs for it at all.

As I said, this may be unusual, but maybe you're asking the wrong question in supposing that designers have typically focused on the limitation without considering its consequences: they may have been focused on the consequences without considering the limitation. Just a thought.

[coxcomb]

It's funy you raise this issue, because it's been on my mind recently with some mechanics I'm working on for Principium Novum. I just introduced a resource which can be spent to give narrative control, more or less. Now, my intention behind the mechanic really had nothing to with limiting or controlling narrative control. Rather it had to do with introducing a reward mechanism! Maybe this is unusual, and backwards from how things typically go, but I needed to limit something (narrative power) so that getting it would be a reward for other behavior. Only later did it dawn on me that of course I was limiting narrative control. If I didn't need the reward, I wouldn't need points or costs for it at all.

But does your resource for narrative control also double as something else? That is, by using that resource to get narrative control, does the player give up some other thing for the character (improvement of effectiveness or whatever)?

That was what I was trying to explore: the choice that many games have you, the player, make between narrative control (or in some cases actual director stance) and character efficacy in the long run.

It basically comes down to sharing the resource between the character (in the form of experience) and the player (in the form of empowered stance, or other metagame control).

[Alan]

Most mainstream designs of the past have persisted in the idea that there has to be some trade off in using this kind of "hero point" mechanic.

However, I can give examples of games that do not.  

In James Bond you earned hero points just for rolling a critical - and the points weren't used for anything else.  

Theatrix uses plot points for both advancement and directorial powers for players - however, even if you spend a point on directorial power, you still get to use it for advancement.

More recently, the actual die rolling mechanic of Trollbabe awards the player directorial power when they fail, without any relationship to advancement.

On the other hand, in The Pool, if you want to gain a die (advancement point) you have to surrender directorial input.

So this mechanic has been played with quite a bit - it just hasn't made it into the top marketed rpgs until recently.

[coxcomb]

Sure, I'm aware that there are plenty of mechanics that have player control built in without a trade-off with something else.

What I want to get opinions about is this: are there compelling reasons why a trade-off system is good? Or is the trend just a hold-over from times past?

[Eric Provost]

Well, it seems to me that player control of the plot and the improvement of the characters does not have to be tied together.  Of course not.  

On the other hand, if you're designing a game where the players get control of the plot as a rewards and the improvement of the character is part of the reward system, then you're left with either having two reward systems, or having to sacrifice character improvement for plot control (or vice-versa).

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.  My gamers, as an example, were not used to taking part in creating the plot.  In our group, shaping the plot is the responsibility of the GM.  However, when I introduced a house rule into the game allowing the players to use the 'experience points' of the system for minor versions of plot point control, they greatly enjoyed it.  When I suggested the idea that we might modify the rules further, so as to allow them to come out with plot points without XP spending I was met with sour looks.  My players (and even myself as a player) have come to expect a certain feel of balance in our games.  Any form of control in the game must be met with some payment.  To the players of my group, having access to plot points without some form of payment would feel like cheating.  

In addition, I've never quite gelled with the idea of the -character- being rewarded at all.  When my D&D character finds himself a nifty Axe of Rapid Whacks I never imagine him as feeling 'rewarded'.  When I jot down my nightly XP haul for the same character I don't imagine him feeling rewarded then either.   Heck, I don't even imagine him feeling any smarter, stronger, or anything else that may be tied to the points I scored.  Nope, I always feel that it's me, the player, who's recieved the reward.  It's my XP, it's my axe.  Therefore, I don't feel that my character is loosing anything if I use my rewards for anything other than character advancement.  In other words, if my GM hands me a Green M&M as a reward, then tells me that I can spend the Green M&M on either advancing my character or to take hold of the reigns of the plot for a few.  My character has nothing to loose by my metagame decision.  He will either become more powerful (which he, as a character, may not even notice anyway), or he may suddenly find himself in a plot written by a different gamer.

So, I suppose, as I ponder this issue, my question to you, Coxcomb, is this:

Does the idea of the character giving up advancement in order for the player to have narrative control get under your skin?  If so, then why?  And what do you propose as an alternative?

-Eric

[coxcomb]

So, I suppose, as I ponder this issue, my question to you, Coxcomb, is this:

Does the idea of the character giving up advancement in order for the player to have narrative control get under your skin?  If so, then why?  And what do you propose as an alternative?

Not really under my skin. I'm not that huge a fan of advancement anyway, in the traditional get more beefy way. I'm just curious to hear what folks have to say on the subject.

Thanks for your insight, it helps.

[Bankuei]

Hi Jay,

Traditionally the assumption has been that the only "in" for player input is through their character.  Therefore, character effectiveness has been the expected way of rewarding the players.  Second, you've had a massive fear of players taking power and abusing it.  Tie these two together, and I've found most of the XP/plot point systems to be the result.

Notice that players are always given limited resources for control, while
GMs usually are given free reign for input(Universalis and Rune being notable exceptions).

Chris

[Alan]

What I want to get opinions about is this: are there compelling reasons why a trade-off system is good? Or is the trend just a hold-over from times past?

I do think trade-offs are the acepted wisdom, but "that's the way it's always been done" is not a good argument by itself.  I think that the decision on whether to have such trade-offs depends completely on what experience you want players to have in your game. Do you want them to manage "hero points" as a resource that can be used in more than one way, or would that interfere, or just not contribute anything useful.

An interesting topic would be "What would trade-offs contribute to a design?  When should they be used and when not?"

When my D&D character finds himself a nifty Axe of Rapid Whacks I never imagine him as feeling 'rewarded'.  

Erik,

Aren't rewards actually for the player?

[Jasper]

No, Jay, I kept the authorial power and the effectiveness resources/rewards completely separate -- I didn't quite see what you were getting at there.

I think balance has indeed probably been the main reason for such a split historically, or at least it has resulted in it.  Those players who don't, for whatever reason, want more efficacy through their character can get it some other way.  I don't think this is a bad thing.  As often as the idea of "balance" is overstressed, it usually is referring to characters -- I think balance between player, in terms of efficacy (that is, having some impact on the game) is quite good.  

I guess I'm also suggesting that it's hard to really draw a line between narrative control and efficacy, or to split character and player, especially when you start considering games with uneven player/character ratios and so on.  But I guess you were asking specifically about more familiar forms, where such a distinction can be made?

Can't really think of any further reasons to have such a trade-off, other than simplicity as Technocrat points out.

[John Kim]

Does the idea of the character giving up advancement in order for the player to have narrative control get under your skin?  If so, then why?  And what do you propose as an alternative?    

Well, it annoys me.  I'm not sure exactly why -- for some reason, I'm not comfortable with the dynamics of a momentary gain meaning permanent loss.  It also may be the trade-off between two completely unrelated things, in different spheres, really.  Suppose your ideal is a certain amount of player narrative control and a certain amount of PC advancement.  By having these both come from the same pool, you can have (1) the player who constantly takes narrative control but never advances, and (2) the player who doesn't take narrative control and whose character becomes a powerhouse compared to the others.  

The alternative is to have them be separate systems.  XP doesn't give you narrative control, and Fortune Points can't be spent to permanently improve your character.  James Bond 007 is such a system, for example.

Actually, I think my favorite narrative control mechanic is a metered one.  You have a limited pool of Fortune Points, but you get them at the start of each adventure.  If you don't spend those by the end, then they are simply lost.  Star Wars Force Points work this way, for example, as do Ars Magica's Whimsy Cards.  This removes all benefit from hoarding, which encourages use of narrative control.  Allowing hoarding encourages a "save up for a rainy day" mentality.  But my impression has been that games work best when narrative control is more evenly spread over sessions.

[coxcomb]

No, Jay, I kept the authorial power and the effectiveness resources/rewards completely separate -- I didn't quite see what you were getting at there.

I was just asking to focus the discussion, and I was curious. I didn't mean to negate your design input at all.

[pete_darby]

To mangle Marx "There is a spectre haunting narrative authority rules: the spectre of gamism."

I think the trade off mechanisms have arisen through fear of gamists "breaking" the game through narrative authority... which is a pretty unfounded fear in actual play amongst a funcitonal group. But I can see many GM's having conniptions over handing over narrative authority in any way beyond the actions of characters.

Another reason is the idea that more powerful characters (developed through experience) impose narrative control diagetically, through their actions in the SiS, so the choice is one-off non-diagetic narrative control now, or long-term diagetic narrative control later.

But in order for this to work as a character balancing mechanism, you have to assume that more powerful characters really do exert more narrative control, and still implicit is the assumption that narrative control will be used primarily for character advantage.

[Ian Charvill]

I think the problem with hero points = character advancement and plot influence is the sheer difficulty of producing mechanics that balance the two options.  A single reroll in a fight is worth how many points of combat skill?

I think it's just much cleaner from a design perspective not to get into that kind of exchange rate conundrum.

[HMT]

...  By having these both come from the same pool, you can have (1) the player who constantly takes narrative control but never advances, and (2) the player who doesn't take narrative control and whose character becomes a powerhouse compared to the others ...

More generally, if narrative control and character effectiveness come from the same pool, this might be an interesting way to model the difference between (1) Batman and (2) Superman. It might not be such a bad thing.