Goals-based rewards--actual play.

[Mike Holmes]

I meant that contests that address goals would yield "hash marks" or "potentials" or whatever.  Players could convert those into HPs, DSPs or Advanced Experience -- to be spent at phase break.

Just to be clear: They have to choose what they are when they get them? Is that it? So that they can't wait and convert later? But they don't get the benefit of the Advanced Experience until Phase Break?

That could work.

Maybe players would have to spend them down to below the cost of the cheapest of these (HPs?) each session, but I hadn't thought of that until writing this.  

Again, clarifiying: they have to spend until they can't afford anything else, right? So if HP were cheapest at 2 of these, then they'd have to spend down to 0 ro 1. Correct? In this case, I'd probably just make HP cost 1, and say that you have to spend them all.

The problem with this is that, if, say, a level of Advanced Experience cost 5 HP, then unless you got that many as a result of play, you wouldn't ever be able to purchase one. In fact, even if players were getting like 8 per session, I think spending 5 on an AE level would be rare, because it would mean that they'd be getting very little in the way of HPs to spend on both bumps and current ability increases.

If you put the total up to, say, 12 HP per session, then people would buy them, but a player disintrested in long-term advancement might just buy 12 HP. Which, again, is just too much.

If you increase the cost of HP proportional to AE, then, again, I think you run into the choice balance problem, and people will buy up a lot of AE. Even at 3 to one, AE are really powerful. The delay might make people think twice, but...

I was thinking on this matter while out running errands today.  Considering Egani, I could any of five Keywords: Shay, Sel-Kai, Tinker, Physician, or A'Kesh.  Shay seems like it'd be useless.

In point of fact, you can't buy up a species keyword - there's no keyword rating, just a package of abilities at varying levels. You can't get better at being physically human. All sim aside, it's just not a dramatic thing to do, either, in terms of character development.

Sel-Kai seems like kind of a dud, but not totally so.

I think that you're overlooking one here. I think most players will pass, too, but in the PBEM, one character took all his AE on his homeland, and it's been very, very useful to him.

Of the other three, I could get 14 or 15 or 15 HPs worth (if I've counted Grimoire advancement right).  And while I know there are other abilities yet to be explicated for those keywords, I don't think that (with the possible exception of the magic keyword) they're worth ~15 HPs of more directed advancement.  So, my 4:1 might have been low, but I think 10:1 is too high.

I was talking direct conversion. Which would be what you'd have to do in the case of being able to take either one or the other simultaneously - as opposed to having to wait for phase end. I mean, by your count it's 15:1 without considering potential new abilities.

In any case, I'd agree that the limited set of abilities, and the delay should make it cheaper. But, again, I even see problems starting at a 5:1 ratio. Much less something like a 7:1. Basically to make these a viable option, you have to give enough points that, if it's not selected despite these extra points, then you have way too many HP potentially.

Basically this seems to be going a long way just to justify giving out higher numbers of rewards. Is that where you're going with this? Why not just lower the number of HP (as I've been doing)? You seem to dislike that option for some reason. Note that at, say, about 4HP an IRC session, this is still more than what the book suggests giving out. The book says about 6 HP per adventure. Looked at one way, the whole phase could be one adventure. From that POV, the PCs are earning about 10 times the suggested rate, conservatively.

Mike

[Christopher Weeks]

Just to be clear: They have to choose what they are when they get them?

Again, clarifiying: they have to spend until they can't afford anything else, right?

You got both of those right.  Though your point about leaving nothing left to buy at the end is well taken.  I think tuning these issues would be easier if we had at least roughly proportional values to play with.  If, for instance, We say that HPs cost two Goal Pursuit Points and AE cost ten and DSPs cost (what?) fifteen then I agree, we'd have to set a higher maximum roll-over than one.  But it's just a matter of tuning.

If you put the total up to, say, 12 HP per session, then people would buy them, but a player disintrested in long-term advancement might just buy 12 HP. Which, again, is just too much.

But you don't mind uneven advancement.  If the issue is keeping too many as a safety net of bumps, just rule that only two can be saved from time to time.  Or award two real HPs for each session and use the system above, but replace the HPs with the same kind of skill points that new characters start with.  That seems like an elegant solution.

Basically this seems to be going a long way just to justify giving out higher numbers of rewards. Is that where you're going with this?

Not at all.  Less is absolutely fine!

You seem to dislike that option for some reason.

I never meant to imply that.

[Mike Holmes]

But you don't mind uneven advancement.  If the issue is keeping too many as a safety net of bumps, just rule that only two can be saved from time to time.  Or award two real HPs for each session and use the system above, but replace the HPs with the same kind of skill points that new characters start with.  That seems like an elegant solution.

Nooooo.

You're proposing a "fix" that I've railed against a lot before. The HP system in play is largely as good as it is, because each expenditure of a HP to bump should be seen as an ability not purchased.

This is the key balance to maintain - you have to have few enough of these things that you're always worried about whether or not to spend them on the current conflict, or save them for development. If you've played my game long enough, and not felt that tension, that's proof positive that I've had too many HP in play.

So can you see my problem more clearly now?

Mike

[NickHollingsworth]

Nooooo.

I agree with Mike. The dual use of HP and the resulting reluctance of players to bump except when it matters to them is a good thing.

If you want to ramp up progress I feel it might be better to give out (say) half the HP but allow them to buy (say) twice as much.

[Mike Holmes]

I agree with Mike. The dual use of HP and the resulting reluctance of players to bump except when it matters to them is a good thing.

Well, it's more than that. If all you could do with them was bump, and you had few enough then you'd still know when it "matters" because players wouldn't bump on every contest to save them for the ones where it did "matter." It really to me has to do with the sense of sacrificing the character. You're not just giving up an opportunity to bump at another time - you're taking away a point that would theoretically otherwise go to advancement. That's the other reason to keep the points tight, so that the player demand for advancement never lags behind HP supply. So that every point spent this way is, in fact, a point that was otherwise destined to go towards buying something for the character.

That makes letting them go really a tough choice under any circumstances, making the player (in theory) really consider whether or not bumping in a particular case is merited.

There's an interesting distinct phenomenon that I've seen happen. Some players claim "I'll never use a HP to bump" or, sometimes, "I'll never use a HP to buy something for my character." These statements are always made at the beginning of the game, and they're always broken. Sometimes grudgingly like, "Well, I'll make an exception just this once." The more people play, the more they sense the pulls both ways, and the more the choice becomes fateful.

Again, I think that with too many HP, these choices become too easy.

If you want to ramp up progress I feel it might be better to give out (say) half the HP but allow them to buy (say) twice as much.

I don't think that this is anyone's goal. I think the goal with more points was to, well, have more rewards given out. Or, rather, after asking Chris what his goals were for trying to maintain the higher rate, we no longer can see any goal.

What we're left with at this point are some interesting additional sorts of rewards. Which I'm intrigued by, but which are tangential to the basic needs of the game that I was trying to support. Basically, my goals are to discover a more mechanical and less arbitrary method of distributing HP than the current "session attendance" method that I'm using, and to perhaps leverage that to find ways to both give goals mechanical relevance, and to inform players that they should be proactive in seeking out their character's destiny whether that means success or failure in the short term.

Right now, I'm still not sure that the goals method that I have above is entirely a good idea - lots of players have philosophical problems with this sort of thing it seems. Which says to me that I should reconsider.

Mike