Group bonus determination for situations

[Callan S.]

I was thinking of a system where it isn't left to GM fiat to decide if a bonus is given. On top of that the system wouldn't be crunchy, so really you don't get much in terms of bonus's from tactics there. But were trying to facilitate a basic gamist structure. Where do you get your bonuses from then?

Basically what happens is that, say were in combat, the player declares the details of their move. Everyone is listening of course and can evaluate what was stated by their own criteria.

Now, all the other users (by users I mean all other players and GM) can each declare their going to spend a point to increase the players bonus for that move. The more people who spend a point/like your move, the higher your bonus gets (each person can only give one point at a time though). This happens fluidly...you don't freeze the game waiting for this vote. The move gets stated and at that time the other users can either give a point or not. Of course, you can't vote for yourself.

Again I'll just note that the GM (whatever that role otherwise involves) is still just another voter. Your final bonus amount is going to be representative of the groups preference, not just one persons.

Now, apart from discussing that I want some help with a problem here. It's pretty clear that with unlimmited points to spend, people may keep voting for each other as that means others will then vote for them, or something like this. Prefered taste will dampen this sometimes, but I think that needs assistance somehow. It's a bit of a tight rope...I want the crowds preference to show up here, but some restraint shown there.

One idea might be: Limited points...this doesn't seem that great as people will hold off rewarding anything until they get nearer the big baddy. This wont be a reflection of crowd preference, it'll be a tactic.

Another idea might be: "Aww, come on Callan, why don't you trust 'em to just judge it right?". I really think there needs to be some friction in place here, to both aid creative focus (in terms of what is rewarding) and avoid that "I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine" problem.

The basic idea is that the group determines what tactics are rewarding to do in the game world rather than just one person (ie, the GM). But while they're doing this role I don't want their gamist role to influence it. I understand many people are responsible enough to seperate the two roles, but giving them something to help with that rather than leaving them on their own to do so seems preferable. I'd prefer it, for example, rather than being left to enjoy a game where I have to maintain firm personal discipline to maintain certain parts of it.

[Andrew Martin]

How about this game system? It's like a variant of The Questing Beast (The Pool) (TQB). Each player (I'll include the GM as a player) has X D6 each. When a player finishes announces an action, every other player (going clockwise around the table) has the option to either reward or punish the player. The reward is one or more D6, the punishment is one or more D6. The reward goes into the player's pool; the punishment is removed from the player's pool into the punisher's pool. If the player runs out of D6 to pay for punishments, their action fails and the player gets to state what happens (much like a Monologue of Defeat). Otherwise, the player rolls any number of D6 from their pool, any "1" results giving a Monologue of Victory, any "6" results giving a Monologue of Defeat, any other result, the GM gets to state what happens. Any adversely affected characters divide the spent D6 equally between. Otherwise, the GM gets any remaining dice.

Note that no dice are spent on Motifs!

[Doug Ruff]

Are the players competing against the GM, or against each other? This makes a big difference to their reward strategies!

[Callan S.]

Hi Andrew,

every other player (going clockwise around the table) has the option to either reward or punish the player. The reward is one or more D6, the punishment is one or more D6. The reward goes into the player's pool; the punishment is removed from the player's pool into the punisher's pool.

The other players who are giving these rewards or punishments...what resource are they drawing from to do this?


Hi Doug,

I prefer the word 'sparing' to competing...not much difference, but just noting what word I use. Anyway, I'm not aiming for players to spar significantly against each other. On a side note: If it was designed so they did spar between them (and challenges at the same time), it shouldn't make too much of a difference. Now, you can get a situation where no player ever grants other players a bonus...here, the strength of GM challenges are designed to whittle down and eventually kill a team without even basic bonuses/strategies. So even if players spar, they have to reward to some degree or they will face their PC's death.

Really I guess it does make a difference if they spar against each other, since you could give them unlimmited points but they'd only ever use enough to stop the party going into a death spiral. Still, that's a tactic again rather than an evaluation.

I suppose I want something to help avoid to some degree these points being used in a tactical way (just like other resources like HP) and instead from a non biased (or small biased) position of evaulation (not that that evaluation can't be biased to cool moves or minute detail or grungy descriptions...or whatever the player likes). The more it can be a tactic, the more the players can spoil the challenge because these clearly outrank any other resource. That is, unless they concentrate on being self disciplined to avoid it. I think most gamists want to concentrate on strategy and tactics, not this type of self discipline.

So how can players reward each other mostly at will/preference without having to practice any self discipline (because they want to concentrate on tactics)?

[inky]

It seems like it is impossible to expect the system to distinguish between "Sue thinks Bob is describing some totally awesome moves" and "Sue is trying to help Bob be more effective".

That said, possibly you could ease the situation by going to a more drama-die-like model, and letting players award coolness points, but they can't be used until the next encounter, instead of having them help with the cool move itself. This would at least prevent giving an immediate tactical benefit. I don't know what would happen with coolness points from the last encounter of the game -- possibly they'd hold over until the next adventure, or possibly they'd just go away.

I guess yet another approach might be to say that once somebody gets a bonus for an action, the NPCs can also get the same bonus for doing it; so if, I dunno, the players reward backflipping into combat, they run the risk of being ambushed by backflipping kobolds.

[M. J. Young]

It seems to me that rather than a limited number of points you want an inherent limiter in the use of points.

One thought I had was that each player starts with a number of points equal to the total number of players, and whenever a point is given away it is lost from the player who had it and given to the player who gets it. This would be easy to track with something like chips. A player who didn't do cool moves himself would soon be out of chips, and so couldn't reward the moves of others.

That might not have the effect you want, though, as it becomes clear that the players would all benefit from passing chips around.

The other idea is this: ratio the points given to the players, total, against a fixed number, such that every time the players give that number of points, the referee gains a bonus point for use by the villains. If the ratio is one to one, of course, there's no advantage to the players--they bonus the villains as much as themselves. But if it were two to one, they know that they're building up points for the enemy to use against them every time they give points to each other, yet their benefit is greater. I'm inclined to think that either two to one or total players to one is going to prove the best ratio, but I'd experiment with it.

The point is to create a detriment for the bonus.

I hope that helps.

--M. J. Young

[Callan S.]

*snip*
The other idea is this: ratio the points given to the players, total, against a fixed number, such that every time the players give that number of points, the referee gains a bonus point for use by the villains. If the ratio is one to one, of course, there's no advantage to the players--they bonus the villains as much as themselves. But if it were two to one, they know that they're building up points for the enemy to use against them every time they give points to each other, yet their benefit is greater. I'm inclined to think that either two to one or total players to one is going to prove the best ratio, but I'd experiment with it.

The point is to create a detriment for the bonus.

I hope that helps.

--M. J. Young

Thanks M J!

Nice! Perhaps much like that, every time a player gives someone else a point, the player who gave it rolls percentile or such with a small chance of collecting a bad guy bonus against him only. I think people might get caught in analysis paralysis if the point can be used against anyone on the team. But if only they can suffer, they don't have to worry about anyone else getting a hard time because of the points they handed out. With it being random, they may never collect a point too...but it will still be a statistical concern. And I think it'd be good if it's only a small chance, I think that in combination that players would mostly only reward smart moves it only takes a small risk like this to get away from the 'I'll scratch your back' problem.

Further additions to smooth things out: to aid bookkeeping and speed of play they player who gives the point can just note it down...when they get five or something then they roll (with the percentile adjusted to take this into account). This sort of gives a limmited points effect (they feel they can spend four points freely), but with an open ended system based on risk.

Nifty! :)


Does anyone have any concerns on the idea in general of group descisions on what tactics should be rewarded?

[Doug Ruff]

Noon,

I also like MJ's 'two for one' idea. It strikes a nice balance between player benefit and the risk of frivolous awarding of bonuses.

However, there is still no enforced correlation between the award and the actual 'coolness' of the move itself. The players could still rack up chips deliberately at the 2:1 ratio, and use the spare chips to counter any beneft form the GM's own expenditure.

Ultimately, I think you are going to have to trust the players to be honest about this - I don't think that a voting system will by itself counter the 'gamist role' you mentioned at the beginning of this thread.

However, if they keep voting for particularly 'soft' maneuvers, just to get the bonuses - I think the best way to handle this is to have the NPC's start using the same maneuvers too!

If the players realise that they are voting for the effectiveness of a maneuver that anyone can use, this may prompt them to think more carefully about what they are giving bonuses for.

Oh, I also think it's worth considering the difference between 'tactical advantage' (which gives a bonus now) and 'cool maneuver' (which could be rewarded with tokens that could be spent later.)

Hope this helps,

Doug

[Andrew Martin]

Hi Andrew,

every other player (going clockwise around the table) has the option to either reward or punish the player. The reward is one or more D6, the punishment is one or more D6. The reward goes into the player's pool; the punishment is removed from the player's pool into the punisher's pool.

The other players who are giving these rewards or punishments...what resource are they drawing from to do this?

The other players are using dice from their own pools for rewards.

Example:
Alex, Betty, Charles, Danielle, Edward, and Frances are playing. They've got, say 20D6 each. It's Alex's turn. Alex describes a cool move that's really great and fits well. Betty decides to reward Alex with 1D6, leaving 19D6 in her pool and 21D6 in Alex's pool. Charles thinks it's really great, and rewards Alex with 5D6, leaving 15D6 in Charles' pool, and 26D6 in Alex's pool. Danielle thinks the move stinks, so she takes 11D6 from Alex's pool, leaving Alex with 15D6, and Danielle with 31D6. Edward also thinks the move is terrible, and takes 4D6, leaving Alex with 11D6 and Edward with 24D6. Frances is undecided, and takes no dice.

Alex decides to roll all his dice of 11D6, leaving Alex with 0D6 in his pool. Alex gets a "1" on one of the D6, and declares a MoV. Alex's character actions adversely affect Betty and Danielle's characters, so their players get to split up the 11D6. They take 5D6 each, leaving 1D6 (the remainder of 11 divided by 2) to be taken by the GM, which happens to be Charles.

[Doctor Xero]

The more people who spend a point/like your move, the higher your bonus gets (each person can only give one point at a time though). This happens fluidly...you don't freeze the game waiting for this vote. The move gets stated and at that time the other users can either give a point or not. Of course, you can't vote for yourself.

Again I'll just note that the GM (whatever that role otherwise involves) is still just another voter. Your final bonus amount is going to be representative of the groups preference, not just one persons.

This seems to do nothing more than replace game master authority with a popularity contest---and a fertile field for clandestine alliances.

In every gamist group I have read about or witnessed, the majority of players would determine their praise/punish votes based on their relationship with the player and not on the cleverness or coolness of his/her move.  Favoritism, jockeying to sidestep actual in-game competition, and covert (or overt!) alliances would become the controlling forces.

If a single individual (the game master) displays favoritism or unfairness, he or she is held accountable by the entire group.  It is relatively easy to stop one individual from misusing authority, particularly if that individual is constantly under the spotlight and group scrutiny for his/her use of his/her authority.  Furthermore, since a game master is barred from competition (usually), he or she has no embedded interest in the outcomes beyond the game master's obligation to enable a fine game.

However, it is far harder for each individual to hold every other individual accountable.  Now instead of having one person watched by five players, we have six people each watching each other, each of them with their own embedded interests in every outcome, a task which is far more difficult and far more prone to error.  Similarly, players now have to keep eyes out looking for alliances, suspicious patterns in voting, etc.

Of course, if these mechanics are used for a game based on Paranoia or Diplomacy or Steve Jackson's Illuminati in which out-of-game competition and doubledealing pretty much replaces in-game competition, I think this mechanic is excellent.

Doctor Xero

[Callan S.]

Hi Doug,

Noon,

I also like MJ's 'two for one' idea. It strikes a nice balance between player benefit and the risk of frivolous awarding of bonuses.

As I said above, I prefer a one for a 50% (or whatever percentage) chance of one. Same sort of principle though. :)

However, there is still no enforced correlation between the award and the actual 'coolness' of the move itself. The players could still rack up chips deliberately at the 2:1 ratio, and use the spare chips to counter any beneft form the GM's own expenditure.

Ultimately, I think you are going to have to trust the players to be honest about this - I don't think that a voting system will by itself counter the 'gamist role' you mentioned at the beginning of this thread.

Oh, I think the same thing. That's what I mean here: 'I think that in combination that players would mostly only reward smart moves it only takes a small risk like this to get away from the 'I'll scratch your back' problem.'
(curse my awkward sentences though!)

Honesty will cover most of it, but it just needs a little consequence to help that process along.

However, if they keep voting for particularly 'soft' maneuvers, just to get the bonuses - I think the best way to handle this is to have the NPC's start using the same maneuvers too!

If the players realise that they are voting for the effectiveness of a maneuver that anyone can use, this may prompt them to think more carefully about what they are giving bonuses for.

I thought about that, but keeping track of the maneuvers would be kind of painful. However, with my one PC point for 50% chance of an enemy point, you can see that lady luck could end up giving the GM bonus points to enemies in much the same way, but with less book work.

Oh, I also think it's worth considering the difference between 'tactical advantage' (which gives a bonus now) and 'cool maneuver' (which could be rewarded with tokens that could be spent later.)

Hope this helps,

Doug

Oh, that's a bit of a different kettle of fish though. If they can be awarded a point that can be spent latter, how is it determined what it can be spent on?

I was thinking there was already some 'do actions now for latter payoff', in this system. Eg, through a few turns a player goes through some actions and then on a final turn does a move that ties it all together. Everyone can look at the past moves and not just the current ones when they judge.


Hi Andrew,

Ah, thanks for the extended explanation. But I'm not quite sure the economy of dice gives the effect I want (also, this isn't really about narrating outcomes but getting hard bonuses in numbers). But then again, I'm not sure I see the relations between player dice economies clearly and the reward matrix there?

[Callan S.]

This seems to do nothing more than replace game master authority with a popularity contest---and a fertile field for clandestine alliances.

Alliances hidden from whom, though? The rest of players at the table? What's the motive here? Is it 'Hey, let's gives lots of bonuses to ourselves while pretending to be giving them out just like those other two guys?'

Honestly, that's the motivation of a pair (or more) of players who want to dupe everyone else. These are the people who would cheat and break social contract (covertly) to get what they want. People so out of sync not even social barriers can control them, let alone the rules. So their not a concern in design for anyone, I imagine, since zero can be done about it.

Mostly the problem will be is that a pair of people will try to get everyone else on board the 'you scratch my back' boat.

In every gamist group I have read about or witnessed, the majority of players would determine their praise/punish votes based on their relationship with the player and not on the cleverness or coolness of his/her move.  Favoritism, jockeying to sidestep actual in-game competition, and covert (or overt!) alliances would become the controlling forces.

In a recent actual play thread ( http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=12693 ), there's an account of Universalis play that didn't go well because of two players. Latter in the thread, one player, Will (Mulciber) wrote 'I think our best when playing Universalis is to think as if we were GMing.'

Ie, when they take on responsiblity. In a standard RPG, no one thinks 'Hey, I can cheat with the dice...it's up to someone else to stop me...everyone else has to watch me to make sure I don't cheat...I don't have to control myself' (Well, some thankfully rare individuals think this)

It's the same here. If someone decides its up to everyone else to watch them so they don't start dodgey alliances and dodgey voting, its screwy.

The gamist play your thinking of is where the players have (IMO, erroniously) placed all the responsiblity for monitoruing play onto the GM.

*snip*
However, it is far harder for each individual to hold every other individual accountable.  Now instead of having one person watched by five players, we have six people each watching each other, each of them with their own embedded interests in every outcome, a task which is far more difficult and far more prone to error.  Similarly, players now have to keep eyes out looking for alliances, suspicious patterns in voting, etc.

Exactly. It's really tough to do. Just like everyone making sure everyone else isn't cheating on their dice rolls by adding an extra bonus here or there (or making up the roll entirely).

So, like not cheating, it's a matter of player responsiblity to avoid the bad habit. It might be traditional for the GM to hold this responsiblity...that doesn't mean the players are incapable of doing so.

Of course, if these mechanics are used for a game based on Paranoia or Diplomacy or Steve Jackson's Illuminati in which out-of-game competition and doubledealing pretty much replaces in-game competition, I think this mechanic is excellent.

Doctor Xero

No, not for anything like that. The main problem is that instead of a pair of players being covert, they'll realise that's dirty play like cheating is...so they'll try to get everyone in on the scam. This isn't wrong like cheating, but it'll dampen the sparing involved in play.

When people decline and can say its becauuse it could be dangerous for them in play, it removes or mostly removes this problem.

Really I'm certain that personal responsiblity covers this like it does for cheating with dice. But I wanted to outline this for general reading anyway.