Retrofitting of Narrativist reward systems

[Seth L. Blumberg]

I'm a stickler on this point. A coherent reward system has two prongs:

[*]What conduct is rewarded.
[*]How the reward is used.
[/list:u]If you give XP for addressing premise which makes you better able to kill monsters, then you are still promoting gamist play--you're just making tackling questions part of the challenge.

I'm the GM for a group playing Exalted. For those who aren't familiar with the game, it's a High Concept Simulationist game of pulp fantasy with a strong wuxia influence. The rules are the usual incoherent G/S mish-mash, though unlike most games in its category it has some design features that can be used to promote Narrativist play (most notably an interesting behavior/personality mechanic which attempts to replicate the kind of "tragic flaw" found in many epic heroes in literature). Since this isn't the Actual Play forum, I won't mention further details of the game; it really could be anything--the situation is what matters.

When I started this game, I thought we all had a Narrativist agenda. Turns out that three of the players are approaching it from a Gamist direction. Well, the system supports that pretty well, but it's not what I want to do. I'd already subverted the system's default Gamist/Simulationist character-improvement mechanism by turning it into a reward for attendance, intending to create a predictable arc of character power increase around which story could be planned, but the Gamist players are just treating the in-game accumulation of political power and magic items by their characters as the primary reward instead.

I want to bolt on a reward system which will push them in the direction of addressing Premise. One of the Gamist players is not adverse to Narrativism; he just prefers Gamism and will take it when he can get it. I'm praying that, with his help, I can sell the other two on Narrativism. (The only other alternative I can think of is to cancel the game.) An appropriate reward system seems like a necessary tool in this endeavor.

So, I need a reward system which (1) rewards the addressing of Premise, (2) improves the players' ability to address Premise, and (3) fits into an existing game. Oh, and the moon on a silver platter, too, while you're at it.

Anyone have any ideas?

[Bankuei]

Hi Seth,

First, reward for attendance has always been a poor idea in my view.  It's rather like paying a baseball player "just to show up" and never actually play.  If a person doesn't show up, and doesn't receive reward, then you already have that action in play, without having to add a rule for it.

Second, I'd highly recommend taking a look at the Riddle of Steel's SA's as a simple and easy way to institute a Nar reward system.  By making premise based ideas the point of reward, you instantly shift over.  Whether you decide to also have them result in extra dice like TROS is another story.

Third, as Mike Holmes has pointed out, shifting CA's during a game is usually a bad idea.  I don't think it will work out well for your players, because it requires that everyone understand what is going on, that it's effectively communicated, and that everyone makes the cognitive jump to the new CA.  Usually its easier to start fresh and SHOW people what's going on instead of explaining it.

Chris

[Shreyas Sampat]

I'll echo what Chris said - switching CAs is dangerous.

Also, Exalted's Virtue system is too weak to support strong Narrativist goal, in my opinion.

Nevertheless I'll give you my thoughts on the matter:

The accumulation of magical objects and political power is obviously getting in the way of your goal; you will want this accumulation to tie into actual address of Premise. (I'm not sure if you can 'simulate' Narr by linking Gamist reward to Premise, but it's worth trying.)

You might consider strengthening Virtues - instead of limiting channelling to once per dot per story, allow Virtue channelling whenever the players want, but do require good justification for it. (An alternative that I've used is that your "channelling points" refresh when you Limit Break, which has the consequence that characters who Limit Break often are mechanically more effective, having more Willpower and dice at their disposal.

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Chris: As I said earlier, the idea of making XP a constant attendance-based award wasn't to encourage attendance--that's not a problem with this group--it was to create a predictable rate of character advancement around which stories could be planned. As is the case in most fantasy games, Exalted characters have dramatically changing effectiveness over their lifetimes.

Shreyas: The trick, I think, is clearly identifying what triggers a reward. How can one write a rule which activates when Premise is addressed without determining which Ephemera constitute the addressing of Premise?

[Shreyas Sampat]

Considering this, I think that the most effective thing to tie to reward is the Virtue mechanic itself, using its built-in engine. If you tell the players something like, "You can kill people and take their stuff, and you can manpulate people and take their resources and power, but I'm going to assume that if you don't buy that stuff with XP in a session or two, that you have dissipated it away on women and drink..." then you've effectively eliminated both XP (a constantly flowing resource) and dead people as rewards.

I think what I'm saying is that in the absence of a clear Narr reward system (is there such a thing?) the best way to encourage Narr play is to have no reward system at all, and mechanics that facilitate Narr the best you can make them. Does that make sense?

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Shreyas: yeah, that makes sense.

I'm leaning toward just killing the game, though. I'll sit my players down for a serious talk at our next session (tomorrow night), and we'll see what comes out of that.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Seth,

I'm not sure if you've seen these threads:
Bumpy Exalted game
Exalted: searching for my face

They seem at least partly related to your concern, which seems to be an ongoing issue for many Exalted games in practice.

One thing to consider about reward system is that it is the key feature of System per se, and System is the "motor" that metamorphoses an imagined Situation into the events of the Shared Imagined Space. It is also the "bow" which "shoots" the arrow of Creative Agenda.

Which would mean that a reward system must express, satisfy, and generally represent the aesthetic priorities we call Creative Agenda. If it doesn't, then it's not a reward system at all.

That's why character improvement in Sorcerer and The Riddle of Steel, to pick two examples of strong Narrativist-ish systems which also are highly committed to certain mechanical constraints on events, is subordinated to Premise-addressing. The improvement isn't itself the reward, but rather an expression of the reward: in the one case, for resolving a Kicker, and in the other, for gaining points in Spiritual Attributes.

So if you're looking for a Narrativist-facilitating reward system, think in terms of Premise and how a character needs to "become a new guy" in order to move on to addressing new Premises or new versions of the basic one(s). But make improvement of the character, especially those concerning Effectiveness values, an outcome or detail of that basic chassis.

Best,
Ron

[xiombarg]

I'm not sure how XP works in Exalted, but this might be some help:

http://ivanhoeunbound.com/stsa.html

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Wow. Yes, that looks very interesting, though I'm not sure how the other players will feel about it. Thanks for the link!

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Okay, last night I hacked up a slightly revised version of the rules to which xiombarg directed me (revised mainly to tie it to the existing Virtue and Limit systems in Exalted), and showed it to my players. It went over well with most of them. After we've played with it for a while, I'll post to Actual Play.

[xiombarg]

Okay, last night I hacked up a slightly revised version of the rules to which xiombarg directed me (revised mainly to tie it to the existing Virtue and Limit systems in Exalted), and showed it to my players. It went over well with most of them. After we've played with it for a while, I'll post to Actual Play.

Hey, can you put up the fiddled Exalted version you came up with somewhere? Or send it to me and I'll put it up on my website? I'm quite interested.

I'll be using the "vanilla" version in a Changeling game very soon now.

[Seth L. Blumberg]

The rules I came up with (as amended through discussion with the other players) are temporarily available at http://conch.msen.com/~sethb/Exalted/SAs.pdf. Can't say how long I'll leave them there.

Kirt, if you want to put a copy on your website, I have no problem with that, but please credit me appropriately (by name, not by email address).