[Misery Bubblegum] Where do the dice all go?

[TonyLB]

So, having thought hard on all the good stuff said in the most recent Misery Bubblegum thread, I sat myself down and put together an actual draft ruleset.

Man, this is a wierd feeling... putting a new ruleset out there, and knowing that it's broken, as it stands.  Don't let anyone tell you the first one is the hardest.  For the first rules you don't have any standards.

Anyway, there are things I love about the system as it stands:

[*]A quick set of rolls determine who succeeds (task resolution) and who decides what it means (conflict resolution).  They're often not the same person.  This can leave you with important choices to make halfway through about which of the two (task or conflict) you value more.
[*]It has a mechanic that would actually lead people to have this exchange, as a rules discussion:  "If you hurt her, I will come for you."  "Is that a threat?"  "It's a promise."
[*]The most powerful mechanic for helping your own character is also the most powerful mechanic for hurting your own character:  and you're putting the choice of how it gets used entirely and irredeemably in the hands of another player.[/list:u]And then there are the problems, which I would love some help with:

[*]The reward mechanic gives you more dice to add to your pools, but there is no effective mechanism in place to reduce the overall number of dice in the game.
[*]I'd like that mechanic (whatever it might be) to be voluntary:  that the players spend those dice on something important to them.  But I'm not seeing what would be more valuable to them than having the dice, if only to stave off the crippling effects of Misery.
[*]It may be too complicated for the human mind to actually grasp and use, but I'm no longer a good judge of that.[/list:u]If anyone can help, particularly with the question of where all the dice go, I'd really appreciate it.  Thanks in advance!

[TonyLB]

Hrm... here's a thought.  What if, by default, the GM frames all scenes.  But you can shift one of your dice from one of your piles into the Spare in order to call for a specific scene to be framed.  And the pile you spend it off of determines something about what the scene means to your character.  So if you spend it off of Passion then it's a scene where your characters emotions and passions are engaged, and so on.  

And, of course, the great temptation is to spend it off of Misery, since those are dice that you wouldn't be able to roll on anything (until you applied the Misery to some Trait).  But then what you're telling the GM is "Frame this scene for me, but make sure that it's in the way most likely to cause my character further sadness."  Which is a pretty cool storytelling option to be encouraging people to through the rules.

Do you think people would go for that?  I can see two ways of thinking about it:  On the positive side, people feel deserving of anything that they can spend valuable resources to buy, so maybe they'll feel more free to frame scenes if they have to pay for it.  On the negative side, folks do hoard resources, and the idea that the GM frames all the scenes is a natural one that they might not work hard to buck.

[Eric Provost]

But then what you're telling the GM is "Frame this scene for me, but make sure that it's in the way most likely to cause my character further sadness." Which is a pretty cool storytelling option to be encouraging people to through the rules.

Damn straight it is.

That's it.  Nothing really constructive.  Just some positive reinforcement.  I've been following the MB threads but got lost enough so I'm just kinda waiting to see some product to read & be inspired by.

-Eric

[TonyLB]

By "product" do you mean like the first draft rules, or like a bound, playtested, final copy being sold for a reasonable sum?

[Eric Provost]

Um....  First draft rules I guess.  *L*

-Eric

[hix]

Okely-dokely, I want to start off here nice and easy. (Tony, feel free to split this off to another thread - I have a feeling it diverges from the topics you want to discuss) ...

Let's say I want to make up a character for Misery Bubblegum (and I do!).

All characters have, at all times, three pools of dice: Passion, Confidence and Insight. Each of the pool-types has a number permanently associated with it (usually between 1 and 6).

How do I assign numbers to those pools? How many ... um, dice, I guess ... do I have available to allocate? Do I allocate them from "the pool of at least 20 dice" you talk about?

[TonyLB]

Hey, I really appreciate the interest, but I'm going to hold off on responding:  Last night I did a first play-test with Shawn de Arment (yay DC Area Forgite gathering!  Both of us!), and my conclusion is that the rules as written are horrifically broken.  The gap you've noticed is just one of many.

On the good side, using the rules showed me a lot of how the parts can interact, which parts are not yet doing anything (quite a few of them) and which parts are doing really powerful stuff without adequate controls.  A very successful playtest.

I am hoping to get a new and much improved version out by this evening.  So I hope you'll be patient until then, and I will be sure to address your concerns therein.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Hurrah for horrific brokenness! Damned sorry I couldn't make the DC gathering --  was working/not sleeping all weekend. I actually had a chance to read over the rules, though, and was wondering: What is the mechanical incentive to put any effort into succeeding at a specific task, as opposed to defining-meaning (i.e. conflict)?

[TonyLB]

In the old, broken, version that incentive was buried in Desires and Promises (i.e. a penalty if you didn't succeed by enough when those were active).  Broken.

In the new and improved version, the Misery cost of a conflict as a whole is calculated, and then the person who succeeds gets to determine who (of the combatants) gets smacked with that Misery.  I hope that will make the tasks themselves more hotly contested, particularly on big, Misery-laden rolls.

[Eric Sedlacek]

Sorry I couldn't make it either.  I do eventually want to see MB in play, but I procrastinated myself into a weekend with a whole lot of work to get done.

[TonyLB]

Okay, no more old, broken version.  New (presumably also broken) version!

Gone:

[*]Activating resources
[*]Deactivating resources
[*]Unmotivated traits
[*]The vaguely worded "Promises"
[*]Cripplingly high levels of sudden, unavoidable Misery[/list:u]Added:

[*]Constant little dribs and drabs of misery, like CHINESE WATER TORTURE!  AGGGH!
[*]Ways for other players to take advantage of your Misery, but also to relieve it
[*]Victory means making others Miserable rather than yourself... or maybe the other way around, if you're selfless... sucker!
[*]Using other people's Traits against them
[*]The much improved "Roles" replaces "Promises"[/list:u]And, hopefully, it's about a hundred times more readable.  Sometime tonight I am hoping to get a substantial Example of Play on-line.  If nothing else, the solo playtesting should help me to know more clearly whether I've got any gaping omissions in the text of the game.

[TonyLB]

Oh, and I forgot the big question:  How should Desires, Threats and Roles be reduced?  I've got rules for how they're increased, but it's not clear to me how they should be reduced.

It's clear, however, that there should be a way of doing so.  If you fall in love with someone, and they spurn you, then you are faced with a choice to keep pining (even if you also move on to other things) or to stop wanting their love.  That's not a choice if you don't have a mechanical way to reduce the "Desire:  X's Love" value.

[Allan]

Would it make sense to convert the thwarted Desire into Misery?  You stop wanting their love, but are left miserable.  The Misery can then be dealt with, and you're back where you started.  This probably doesn't work as well for other examples, though.  

Sorry, my head is spinning.  The rules are so different from any game I've ever seen.  I never imagined Nar could have so much delicious crunchy strategy!  Looks very playable and fun.

Okay, (speaking of my limited, traditional, sim background) here's another idea.  Traits are reduced by Experience.  Call it Certainty, Confidence, Self, whatever.  Award it for whatever reasons you want (as an arbitrary roleplaying bonus, or to the player with the most Influence over the other characters, etc.).  GM awards Experience, which can only be spent to reduce the value of Traits, eventually getting over them.  The Experienced (Confident) character is sure of themselves, and not ruled by their Desires, Threats and Roles.

Of course this means you control your own character's Trait reduction, which seems antithetical to your theme.  Should Traits only be reduced by the other players actions?  Maybe instead of Confidence, characters gain Trust (or Love), which they can spend to reduce each other's Traits, by seeing past the Traits and allowing the other characters to be themselves.

[TonyLB]

Oh.... goodness.  You're right.  I hadn't even considered the question of who gets authority to reduce a character's Traits.

I like the player to have some control... I like, for instance, that a player has the option to raise their own traits once those traits have been established.  That's a stock-market sort of way to reward people who really hit the jackpot on recommending a trait that the player loves... it gets increased to a high level, gets used more often, and they get more Influence.

But yes, I see the appeal of needing another character in order to reduce a trait.  Apart from anything else, it perfectly explains rebound relationships!  You need someone who is interested in helping you get over the relationship, and they (presumably) are doing it because they hope for something from you in turn, which you may or may not choose to provide for them.

[TonyLB]

And I finally have the fictional (but fun!) Example of Play online.  I modified one of the rules (specifically, Threats increase Misery by being around, rather than reducing it) because the play balance was whacked as written.  But other than that, and some fiddling around the vague edges, it's pretty much the rules as written.