the balance of power - brainstorming

[Matt Wilson]

Hey.

So if you've ever played Primetime Adventures, you know about Budget, which is my response to what I always considered a daunting task as GM, which is providing the right amount of adversity for the player characters. There are very few games that don't leave the amount of toughness totally up to the GM, and I'm thinking that for most games, in all three GNS categories, the wrong amount of adversity can really mess things up. Unfortunately, all you get from most games is some advice that says "this should be about right."

And that seems always to lead to threads about 'oh, damn, I made the villain too powerful and had to fudge a roll."

Of course, as Ron pointed out in an actual play thread, a big part of the trick to combatting tough GM choices in PTA is that there's no consequences on the character sheet. The player sees no reduction in the ability to participate. Vincent did something similar with Dogs. You can be shot to bits and dying, but the effect on your sheet is totally up to you. I think MLwM is kind of like that too.

Okay, but let's say, then, that game conflicts do in fact impose penalties on the sheet in front of you, and no buts about it. Now we're back to "if I misjudge, your ability to shape the story is unfairly impaired."

So after that long setup, here's what this thread's all about: various ways to complete the sentence, "it's functional in play for the GM to assign adversity levels in a game where conflict loss affects character ability if..."

I'll kick it off with this idea that's been rolling around in my head: Character impairment is offset by new temporary abilities for the player. Suppose you lose a conflict like in TSOY and you're down to a -3 penalty. That gives you 3 more gift dice, or it gives you three 'fact tokens' or something.

Any ideas out there?

[xenopulse]

For completeness sake, I proposed a system in this thread that does the exact same opposite of giving players penalties: it always gives players currency when they let their characters become hurt, persuaded, or seduced. That goes along with what you said about being rewarded for losing a conflict.

As to your question, we could say:
- if the player already has other, equally viable means to shape the story (e.g., player characters are only one way yo play; players can also (use some currency to) negotiate story elements or take control of NPCs, or maybe they play a troupe and can switch characters)
- if what doesn't kill you makes you stronger (reward XP for losing - this is like a Gamist way of auto-adjusting difficulty levels)
- if there are different ways of addressing conflicts through the character and not all of them are affected by the penalty.

[matthijs]

What Christian said. Plus:

- If the players have equal power in deciding character effectiveness. If the GM can set any adversity level, but the players can say "yeah, and due to my magic spaceship pilot ninja expertise, I can actually go FTL" and match that level. Easiest done with limited resources on both sides - both GM and players have some sort of Budget, in effect.

[timfire]

-- when the penalty is thematically or genre-wise appropriate.

-- When the penalty plays into some larger design goal.

I'm thinking of The Mountain Witch here. In tMW, the effect of the mechanical penalty incurred by damage has on play is that it decreases the character's already fragile independance. Wounded characters become more and more dependant on other characters helping them out. This dependcy increases the trust-related tension between characters.

Speaking generally, I think its also significant that tMW has mechanics (Trust) that can be used to negate the mechanical penalty inposed by damage.

[Bankuei]

Hi Matt,

First, I'd also like to note that on the flip side- uncontrolled "bonuses" also can cause disruption- though many more games are fearful/wary of that than of uncontrolled penalties.  Note how many games warn against handing out magical devices or powers, but have no problem handing out penalties.  HeroQuest's "damage" for failing contests without an equivalent for earning bonuses is a pretty clear example.

That said- Penalties work when:

They increase the tension

Trollbabe's injuries reduce the number of rerolls you can apply to a contest, but they also increase the stakes of losing.  L5R's & the Solar System's Wound tracks also increase tension- because each wound level has more than one hit- the tension is increased when you are close to falling into a worse penality (such as being 1 box, or wound away).  Compared to normal hitpoints, where there is no penalties along the way, this works better as a tension device.  And compared to normal wound tracks, it doesn't instantly equate to a death spiral.  Overall, tension is increased whenever the stakes go up (like gambling double or nothing), or when the chance of taking a penalty increases.

They force alternate tactics

When one ability is crippled, having other abilities that can be applied allow folks to start being creative in play.  Both HeroQuest and Dogs are good at this- because you have to get creative to bring in other bonuses (or even "bad traits") in order to maintain effectiveness.

They force game specific goals

As Tim noted, penalties can force actions to make up for it, or you can force actions to heal.  For example, in D&D, the "8 hour rest" becomes necessary as spellcasters use up their resources, mostly as a "just because" mechanic, compared to TSOY's "social kickin' it" way of refreshing pools.  For one game idea I had, I wanted the only means of healing to be through relationships- which is a way of forcing certain kinds of interactions in play.

All that said, the key things that need to be well understood in terms of penalties (or bonuses, currency in general)
- Duration (just once, a pool, for X amount of rolls/time, until remedied, forever)
- Range & Accuracy (makes things harder/easier, makes things impossible/automatic)
- Ease of Negation (make one successful/failed roll, player controlled conditions, GM fiat, no negation possible)
- Options (Decreases/Increases player options?)
- Handling (how hard is it to remember to apply?  How hard is it to calculate? To keep track of?)

Chris

[Matt Wilson]

I'm thinking of The Mountain Witch here. In tMW, the effect of the mechanical penalty incurred by damage has on play is that it decreases the character's already fragile independance. Wounded characters become more and more dependant on other characters helping them out. This dependcy increases the trust-related tension between characters.

Speaking generally, I think its also significant that tMW has mechanics (Trust) that can be used to negate the mechanical penalty inposed by damage.

Hey Tim:

I like the reasons for applying penalties. I'm all for that. In fact, I want that in my next game. But how do you moderate the GM's ability to inflict those penalties? That's really what I'm after here, control over the level of adversity. What in TMW, for example, keeps the GM from just asking for roll after roll after roll until the player fails? Can the GM assign a difficulty level? If so, what keeps him or her from abusing that, either intentionally or not?

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I like the reasons for applying penalties. I'm all for that. In fact, I want that in my next game. But how do you moderate the GM's ability to inflict those penalties? That's really what I'm after here, control over the level of adversity. What in TMW, for example, keeps the GM from just asking for roll after roll after roll until the player fails? Can the GM assign a difficulty level? If so, what keeps him or her from abusing that, either intentionally or not?

Hold on, Wilson.

What prevents the banker in Monopoly from sliding money to himself and his friends?

If you try and write rules to prevent abuse, you will fail. I promise. Just write clear guidelines. Look at how I specifiy how the GM sets difficulty in TSOY:

http://www.anvilwerks.com/src/tsoy/book1--rulebook.html#types-of-ability-checks-and-how-they-work

You could abuse that, but if you did... well, I doubt playing any game would be fun with you. See my point? You can't stop a-holes from being a-holes. Don't try to write your a-holes into the corner.

[Nathan P.]

"it's functional in play for the GM to assign adversity levels in a game where conflict loss affects character ability if..."

...there's a floor to how low character ability can go, and that floor preserves some amount of effectiveness.

I think the classic (for Indie games, at least) floor is "you can't kill a character without that players permission." A more traditional one might be that you always get to roll one dice for somethign you have a skill in, or whatever. But I'm sure you could insert a floor, probably in combination with other things mentioned in this thread to serve your design goals - like, spaceship pilots can never lose the ability to fly a spaceship, or something, if thats what yours games about. Or you can't have a lower blowing-up-heads rating than your love-your-mother rating. Or whatever.

[Sydney Freedberg]

I think the key concept here is that the loser of a conflict doesn't lose opportunities to shape play thereafter. The two general ways that come to mind are

1) compensation, which folks have talked about already: when defeated, if you lose some of X, you gain some of Y (e.g. XPs, or story tokens for the loser in Capes)
2) mutation, which I don't think we've addressed particularly: when defeated, you don't lose any X, but X is changed into a form you might not have chosen had you won. (Dogs does this much of the time, though not always). For example, you could go into a battle with the Trait "I am the leader of a mighty army +13" and come out of it with the mechanically equally powerful, but thematically rather different "I am seeking absolution and revenge for the mighty army I led to its annihilation +13." Or "I trust my wife +4" to "I think I'm going to have a serious discussion with the milkman +4."

[Sydney Freedberg]

Which gives me a tiny nubbin of an idea for a "damage system," actually. If you lose a conflict, then you can choose (1) reduce a trait you previously created for your character, which means your character will be less effective - or - (2) let the winner assign your character a trait, which will increase your character's effectiveness but not necessarily in ways you're going to like. (This latter is basically Tony Lower-Basch's Misery Bubblegum design).

[timfire]

I like the reasons for applying penalties. I'm all for that. In fact, I want that in my next game. But how do you moderate the GM's ability to inflict those penalties? That's really what I'm after here, control over the level of adversity. What in TMW, for example, keeps the GM from just asking for roll after roll after roll until the player fails? Can the GM assign a difficulty level? If so, what keeps him or her from abusing that, either intentionally or not?

You know what, I think I see what you're trying to get at.

The reason the penalty works in tMW is because the players REAL mechanisms for afffecting play---Trust points and character Fates--aren't hindered by the negative penalty. I guess its similar to what xenopulse said:

- if there are different ways of addressing conflicts through the character and not all of them are affected by the penalty.

Is that what you were going for?

[Bill Cook]

I like systems where the GM can take things too far, and the players have some system-supported way of "cheating."

• Sorcerer - self-mastery.
  
• DitV - set limited Stakes; assign benign or story-enhancing Fallout.
  
• BW - spend Artha to tweak results.
  
• TSOY - Gift of Dice; BDTP; spend Pools for bonus dice.
  
• Universalis - spend Importance worth of tokens to strike Facts from the play log.
  

You want to see 'em tremble, but not bawl.

[matthijs]

"it's functional in play for the GM to assign adversity levels in a game where conflict loss affects character ability if..."

...when ability reaches a specified lower limit, the game state changes.

For example: A zombie game where the GM tries to damage the protagonists, so they can't effectively fight the zombies. However, if he goes too far (due to an overly successful roll, for example), protagonists die and become Intelligent Master Zombies, now with the ability to control other zombies and help the protagonists.

For example: When the GM kills one of the characters, that character's player becomes the GM, and the GM enters play with a low-effectiveness character.

[Eric Provost]

I tackled this directly as I was working on FH8.  Matthijs said something close to what I did, what with "limited resources on both sides."

So, my response is;

... when the GM has to earn the authority to impose penalties.

In FH8 every NPC, every mob of NPCs, every opposition that the PCs might face always starts with the same exact statistics.  If the GM wants to bump up the power of the opposition he has to spend a resource.  To earn more of that resource he has to provide the players with the opposition that they've asked for. 

While FH8 dosen't have a system that calls for the GM to impose direct penalties on the PCs, I think the idea is the same.  If the GM cannot impose a -X penalty on your roll unless he expends a point of resource for every point that goes into X, AND the GM has to earn those resources by way of giving the players what they want, then you've got functional play.

-Eric

[Matt Wilson]

The reason the penalty works in tMW is because the players REAL mechanisms for afffecting play---Trust points and character Fates--aren't hindered by the negative penalty. I guess its similar to what xenopulse said:

- if there are different ways of addressing conflicts through the character and not all of them are affected by the penalty.

Is that what you were going for?

Yes! Although I still want to know: can you as GM in TMW choose how hard to make a conflict? Are there such things as "Easy/medium/hard" conflicts? Or is it more like Trollbabe? If you do have that ability, how much control over the game can it give you?