Goal-In, Goal-Out house rule

[Vaxalon]

[*]Can a Goal establish a Fact and simultaneously undo another?

One has to be careful when setting up goals.

If your aim, for example, is to put Doctor Chaos in jail, then you should maneuver towards being in a position to strongly play the goal, "Doctor Chaos is in jail."   Don't play the goal, "Doctor Chaos is in the custody of Captain Liberty" unless Captain Liberty wants to be dragging Doctor Chaos around everywhere he goes, at least for a while.

Once the Fact is in play, "Doctor Chaos is in jail", when it comes time that someone wants to use Doctor Chaos for something, he can play the goal, "Doctor Chaos breaks out of jail" and if he wins that, eliminate the Fact that's preventing him from playing elsewhere.

[Vaxalon]

I've revised the house rule.  Here's the latest version:

Some goals or events don't say anything permanent about the game world; some do. When a conflict is resolved, if the player wants it to say something lasting about the game world, he is adding a Fact to that goal. The fact must be clearly stated. For example:

"Goal: Capture Doctor Evil." is used to establish "Fact: Doctor Evil is in Prison."

Establishing the fact costs one inspiration. The value of the inspiration used to establish the fact retained when the fact is recorded.

If narration contradicts an established fact, a player must object to it before the next die roll. If the objection is not made, then the player has no recourse later.

When an objection is made, the narrating player may choose to either retract the narration, or create a goal to challenge the fact. If he chooses to create a goal, he may either pay a story token to play it, or if it is currently his turn, use the turn to play the goal. The die representing the defense of the fact is given the initial value of the inspiration that was used to create it, rather than 1.

Example: A player is tired of playing other characters, and wants to bring his favorite character back in. At the beginning of a new scene, he narrates Doctor Evil into the scene. Captain Liberty's player objects. "Doctor Evil is in Prison!" he says, "It's a Fact." So Doctor Evil's player uses his turn to play the goal: "Doctor Evil escapes from prison." If he wins that conflict, the "Doctor Evil is in Prison" Fact is removed.

If an attempt to remove a conflict fails, then the fact can be retained, but it costs another inspiration to do so. This may cause the fact to change value.

A conflict can establish more than one fact, if the winner has won more than one inspiration from the conflict, and is willing to spend them.

[Vaxalon]

Oh, by the way...

This was Alexander Cherry's idea

[TonyLB]

Are there any limitations on what Fact a given Conflict can establish?

[Vaxalon]

Alexander suggested (and I concur) the following:

A fact cannot (a) gainsay other existing facts unless as a result of a challenge to break them, (b) dictate the result of an existing conflict, or (c) break the comics code

[TonyLB]

Sure, that's in keeping with the way Resolution is handled already (assuming that Facts are roughly equivalent to long-term applications of the Not Yet rule).  I was more wondering if I can win a 1 point Inspiration on (say) "Get a mother's day card" and use that to introduce "Fact: Doctor Evil is in Prison".

[Vaxalon]

Well, in the spirit of making the least possible change to accomplish the desired goal, yes... anything that won't make your group pelt you with dice.

I would RECOMMEND that the fact be strongly related to the goal, but what that means would probably vary from group to group.

[C. Edwards]

I'm not sure I see the point of having these Facts if they don't have to be related to the conflicts that spawn them.

Spend 1 Inspiration from "Get a Mother's Day card."

Introduce the Fact "The Earth is destroyed."

Sounds like you're back to square one. Might as well just play the game straight without the Goal In/Goal Out rule.

Yeah, you might get pelted with dice, but that's no different than without the rule. You're setting up a situation where the best way to create meaningful facts is to win unimportant conflicts.

It's early, and I'm probably missing something, but it seems that not linking the Facts to the conflicts that spawn them is just pushing all the work back on the SC again.

Maybe if I can put up Inspiration of my own to challenge a Fact...

-Chris

[Vaxalon]

Then you start running into the problem of who decides what's related and what's not.

In the original version, I had the person who writes the goal defining what the fact would be, but that was before I linked in inspirations.

[Valamir]

I don't think that will work Fred.  As Chris points out the only thing you'll have done is push the potential for undesired outcomes from the free narration to the facts.  

I think your best bet is not to have a seperate Fact structure at all...the Goal as defined IS the Fact.  If the Fact is going to be Capture Dr. Evil, than the Fact is Dr. Evil has been Captured.  If you want the fact to be that Dr. Evil is in prison than the Goal should be "Lock Dr. Evil behind bars" or the like.

That seems to me to be a perfect opportunity for a follow up conflict.  The first Conflict is to Capture Dr. Evil.  Ok...so no he's been captured, he's wrapped up in Wonder Womans Lariat, or the Hulk has bent some girders around him or Spidey's got him snared in a web or whatever.

THAT'S your fact.  No one can simply narrate Dr. Evil getting up and walking away...He's captured and will remain captured until another conflict releases him.  BUT if you actually want to get him into prison, that requires a new goal "Dr. Evil convicted and locked away in Attica for 20 years".  If that goal is lost...then Dr. Evil never makes it to prison...he's not convicted...whatever.

But I wouldn't get cute trying to figure out then whether losing the "Convict Dr. Evil" goal automatically cancels out the "Capture Dr. Evil" goa that was won (you could come up with some rules to spend Inspriation to link Conflicts together or something but that seems unnecessarily convoluted to me).

Instead what do you have.  You have a situation where the heroes had captured Dr. Evil but now the courts have failed to convict.  Seems like a perfect opportunity for a follow up conflict.  If the Conflcit is to undo an existing goal that should be made clear by how the goal is worded:  "Dr Evil escapes and is no longer captured".  "The court orders the Hero to release Dr. Evil from Captivity".  Or even "After losing the case the Heros release Dr. Evil".  Meaning yes, for consistancy with the very sharply defined game mechanics, even if the heroes who captured Dr. Evil WANT to let him go, they'd need to make that a goal and fight over it.  In other words...no voluntarily terminating an existing goal.  

What this would mean is that the hero would actually support the "releasing Dr Evil" side.  Most often the player of Dr. Evil would also support that side and the Conflict would get claimed and resolved with no fuss or muss (and probably no debt or story tokens) but doing it this way would keep the rules clean.  It also allows the opportunity for fun alternatives.  Maybe a newly created league of normal human vigilantes take up the opposition to Dr Evil's release.  Maybe Dr. Evil himself opposes his own release in order to paint the superheroes as law defying vigilantes.

Either way Dr. Evil remains captured until a goal to "uncapture" him is won, just as was captured but not imprisoned until a goal of "imprison" him is won.  



I would go one step further and allow Conflicts to be created in reaction to other players narration instead of only on the players turn (perhaps charging an inspiration to do that).  That would allow players the ability to turn narrated events into a conflict immediately rather than having to suffer the effect of the narrated event and then create the conflict after (as with the earlier example of lizard men slaughtering humans).  

That way when the players who've captured Dr. Evil narrate transporting him to a holding cell underneath the Hall of Justice, the player of Dr. Evil can immediately say "I'm making that a Conflict...Goal:  Transport Dr. Evil to the Hall of Justice".  If the Dr. wins the opposing side to that, he doesn't win his freedom.  But he does make it impossible for anyone to narrate taking him to the Hall of Justice without first doing another Conflict to undo that one.

Those items would pretty much turn the game into something I'd immediately recognize as fun to play...whether they are necessary or not I'm not 100% certain of since it may be that I'd also consider the current rules fun to play I just don't recognize them as such yet.

[Vaxalon]

The easy creation of conflicts is probably a good fix there.  

"Hey!  I don't want you to do that.  Make it  a goal." is the essence, I think, of what's needed...

Generally speaking, the creation of conflicts (since it's a turn) costs a story token rather than an inspiration.  Given that according to Tony's description of long-term play, story tokens are never really in short supply after a while, that's probably reasonable.  It isn't a free veto, and it isn't a veto that can't be overridden, but it means that the conflict that comes out will be of immediate interest to everyone involved.

I think that does what Tony intended for the game; that any disagreement between the players becomes a conflict that they can play out.  Since as it stands conflicts can only be played during one's own turn, they can't be used that way; by making them an 'interrupt'

I DO want to see a way of making final outcomes of conflicts semi-permanent, though, so that if the heroes accomplish something, it stays accomplished, at least for a while.  Going back to the goal IS the fact may be an improvement.

Maybe call conflicts that establish something "Accomplishments", their own third type.

"Accomplishment: Put Doctor Evil behind bars."  If the conflict is won, then it's true, if it's lost, then it's not necessarily true.

[Valamir]

I think that does what Tony intended for the game; that any disagreement between the players becomes a conflict that they can play out.  Since as it stands conflicts can only be played during one's own turn, they can't be used that way; by making them an 'interrupt'

Yeah, I've made that suggestion a few times but I think it got lost in the various threads.  You're right Story Token would be the better choice for that...not Inspiration.

I DO want to see a way of making final outcomes of conflicts semi-permanent, though, so that if the heroes accomplish something, it stays accomplished, at least for a while.  Going back to the goal IS the fact may be an improvement.

I was suggesting both, but just using the Goal as the accomplishment rather than creating another layer.  Do you not think that would work?

"Accomplishment: Put Doctor Evil behind bars."  If the conflict is won, then it's true, if it's lost, then it's not necessarily true.

What's wrong with just the normal "Goal:  Put Doctor Evil behind bars"  Every goal by definition is an accomplishment.  And if the conflict is lost then what's true is that Dr. Evil is NOT behind bars, and...on the Goal in Goal out framework...CANNOT be put there without a new Conflict.

That seems eminently workable to me...am I missing something?

[Vaxalon]

Well, some goals accomplish something so inherently transient or ephemeral that it makes no sense to create anything lasting out of it.

"Humiliate Doctor Evil" for example.  Sure, he's humiliated... he doesn't STAY humiliated long.

"Ratman is kissed"

[C. Edwards]

"Humiliate Doctor Evil" for example. Sure, he's humiliated... he doesn't STAY humiliated long.

Why not? Until Doctor Evil takes some action to cause him to not feel humiliated, he's likely to stay that way. Seething with the lust for revenge the whole time. Perfect for creating a string of conflicts, as well as mechanically enforcing a precedent for further actions.

-Chris

[Vaxalon]

Hm; perhaps you're right; anything that's too ephemeral might not deserve to be a goal in the first place.