Rewarded for winning---backwards?

[timfire]

Over in Indie Design I posted my ideas for a new project. One of my main ideas for the game is this---When you win a conflict, you win the stakes, but you generate a longterm/large-scale negative consequence (what I'm calling "Fallout"). When you lose, you lose the stakes but generate a long-term/large-scale positive consequence ("Hope").

One of the reasons for this mechanism is theorectical. We all like adversity, G N or S, right? And if we want a nice satisfying game-/story-arc, we need a build-up of adversity, right? Isn't that a big reason we play? For the chance to overcome adversity?

So let's look at DnD. You win the big boss battle, and get rewarded with a new +3 longsword. So now, battles are easier... so you end up facing less adversity... Isn't that backwards? I know that after you get the sword and go up a level, the monsters also become harder. But in the end, it's all a wash, so the amount of adversity doesn't change. But that still isn't ideal, is it?

What does everyone think of this assumption, that people want increasing adversity? And what about my conclusion, that the mechanics of a game should ideally support increasing adversity?

[matthijs]

You're asking about opinions on what people in general want, so this will be a bit vague. That being said, most people want mastery - they want to get better at stuff so they can handle greater challenges than before. It's assumed that the challenges are out there all the time, but you can't take them all on just yet; you have to get better, and better, and better, until you're finally good enough to get a great job/kill the evil king and rule the empire/be world famous.

If this is true, a game could give people what they want by exposing many levels of adversity right from the start, and letting the players meet them in increasing order of nastiness. An obvious example: Right from the start, you know there's ancient red dragons in the world, but you're not going to seek them out until you're level 18. And you know the GM won't make them come after you before that, either.

[Filip Luszczyk]

If there's no reward for winning, there's really no point in winning. Losing would be just more profitable, all the time. If winning comes with a reward, but also with some possible counter-balancing backlash, that's another thing.

In DnD you really want to get this +3 longsword, because it will enable you to win tougher monsters and take their +5 longswords and level up, so that you could defeat tougher monsters, get +6 longsword and level up etc. etc. etc. It's mainly because of the ladder of power in DnD and most of computer CRPG - you need to get tougher, so that you could get even more tougher. It's DM's thing to gradually bring forth tougher challenges for tougher characters. And it's always possible, because there's no upper limit to character's and monstes' power - you can advance forever (or until you just get bored and want to start from scratch).

It's illusory of course, since no sane DM throws way too tough monsters on the party, and there is no point in giving them too pitiful adversaries. So eventually it turns out that you always fight with monsters balanced for your character level. Or, if DM has more simulationistic aproach, after some amount of level ups there's just no real challenge that could organically arise in the setting (only a dozen or so epic characters present in the world pose interesting challenge).

And if you are bored and really need more challenge, you can just ask your GM to increase the adversity. System which automatically increase adversity according to players performance could work for some players. But there are always some players who are just content of the more or less stable challenge level and don't need gradually increasing adversities.

In most other systems, where this ladder of power isn't as present in D&D - say in Exalted or BESM, you are on a certain power level from the begining and most of the time, you stay that powerfull, or you advance in power only slightly above starting level. It doesn't mean that sessions must start getting boring after some time. There's usually more or less stable level of advercity constantly present for the whole series. It doesn't get much easier, but it also doesn't get too hard (GMs usually avoid throwing unbeatable challenges at their players - or they do, and campaign ends in meningless total party kill). Actually, it's just like in DnD, but without the illusion of getting up the ladder.

In these systems reward usually comes in some other way than immediate increase in personal power. But some reward for winnig is always present, even if it only means that you advance the story in a way more favourable for your character. Without this reward, there's just no motivation in winning. And if there's reward in losing most of the players will be motivated to lose as often as possible.

So it's not only the matte of carrot and stick, but also of widening range of possible benefits for winning and losing and balancing it. If winning brings a reward in one aspect, but possibly also puts you back in another aspect, and same for losing, you have to weight your options for every single case. Sometimes winning brings you enough benefits to accept the price, sometimes losing is more profitable, no matter the consequences.

I must admit that I'm writing this from my gamist perspective. If losing means you step on up, and there's no possible step on up in winning, losing effectively means winning, and winnig means losing.

[Marco]

What does everyone think of this assumption, that people want increasing adversity? And what about my conclusion, that the mechanics of a game should ideally support increasing adversity?

I don't think it's universally true. I've run games I'm told the players found immensely satsifying where they were capable of overcoming all the adversity pretty easily but had difficulty figuring out what to do with victory (you can call this a different kind of adversity but it wasn't a sort that gets easier or harder--just a basic element of challenge).

Secondly, I know that, for me, I'm usually *fine* with being empowered to easily win the "final battle" if I feel I've earned it (and this is a very simple way of saying a complex thing--but essentially I'm usually not big on improving my characters much during play or gaining items and I don't demand the adversity go up either).

-Marco

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

So let's look at DnD. You win the big boss battle, and get rewarded with a new +3 longsword. So now, battles are easier... so you end up facing less adversity... Isn't that backwards? I know that after you get the sword and go up a level, the monsters also become harder. But in the end, it's all a wash, so the amount of adversity doesn't change. But that still isn't ideal, is it?

For some it is.  For some it isn't.  It works for DnD because that's the kind of game it is.  For your game, it might not work the same.  I think this is a matter of oppinion.  However, what seems backwards to me, at least, is the concept of losing to earn rewards and winning to get penalized.  That seems strange, BUT for your game it might work.  /shrugg

Peace,

-Troy

[TonyLB]

You're talking negative feedback here, which makes for nicely self-correcting systems.  It's an underused design technique.  The trick, as people have correctly pointed out, is to make sure that you're not creating a perverse reward system.

I'll recommend that the easiest way to get a system where people are both driven to win and happy to lose is to provide two different kinds of rewards, which work well in synergy.  I could yammer about theoretical examples, but I'm just going to point you to Inspirations (for winning) and Story Tokens + Debt (for losing) in Capes, because it is, humility aside, the best example of the form that I know.

[Callan S.]

If you think about it, getting a +3 sword IS a loosing mechanic. Because now your going to face monsters of higher power. That's the fallout of owning a +3 sword.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

This post isn't developing the discussion much, but a look at Pace is always illuminating about the win-to-lose, lose-to-win model of game design.

Best,
Ron

[Halzebier]

Another game to check out is The Anti-Pool, a variant of James V. West's The Pool. In a nutshell, a player gambles dice from a pool to have his character succeed (or to win narration rights). If he does indeed succeed, the dice are gone. If he fails, he keeps the gambled dice and gets an extra die. So there's two different kinds of rewards and a very cool balancing mechanic.

Regards

Hal

[John Harper]

I second Pace and the Anti-Pool as excellent examples. I've played quite a lot of Anti-Pool and I can tell you from experience that it works exactly as advertised. It's elegant, easy to learn, and easy to use.

[timfire]

You're talking negative feedback here.

Tony (& others),

I'm NOT talking about negative negative feedback or lose-to-win/ win-to-lose systems. I've made an assumption that people like adversity, as well as rising adversity. Is that assumption true? If true, I think the natural conclusion is that systems that make things easier for players as they advance might be backwards.

I'm trying to think about my response, I'll post more later.

[Shreyas Sampat]

Hm.

I think that, rather than liking increasing adversity, players like increasing significance, and increased (apparent) adversity is associated closely with increased significance.

I'm pretty sure that I would not at all enjoy (for instance) a game where it kept getting more harmful for my character, but all other variables remained constant; with that increased adversity I fully expect some other privilege to increase in exchange for my loss of satefy.

[contracycle]

Over in Indie Design I posted my ideas for a new project. One of my main ideas for the game is this---When you win a conflict, you win the stakes, but you generate a longterm/large-scale negative consequence (what I'm calling "Fallout"). When you lose, you lose the stakes but generate a long-term/large-scale positive consequence ("Hope").

I think its viable.  One of my latent ideas, to do with a structure form of plot development posted some time ago, had as a mechanism that you would move through a sequence of conflicts, and in each you could decide whether you desired Might or Right.  So, you could suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in order to be the underdog ands thus accrue Right.  Or, you could be a real bastard and known as such, but in exchange you acquire Might.  This was an attemnpt to treplicate some of the features commonly found in stories in which the hero suffers various travails and is thus justified in their final triumph.

[Bankuei]

Hi Tim,

"Adversity" can mean a couple of things- it could mean bigger challenges, or it could mean more emotionally loaded, and in either case, people do enjoy the escalation of either.

In D&D, the monsters don't just get more hp & do more damage, they get way more special abilities that become significantly more dangerous by incapacitating characters.  Strategically, the opposition becomes more complicated, and the strategies applied do as well.

In Trollbabe, conflicts become more & more crucial as the Stakes raise, AND the characters also become more at risk when you use them for rerolls in general.  Overall, these two elements require players to become more invested in the characters, but after that happens, suddenly the mechanics become real tense moments, as players debate if they want to stop the Black Scourge Beast which will destroy the town or risk characters they've grown to love...  Similar things happen in HeroQuest when relationships are invoked in extended contests.

The reward to win cycle, actually causes folks to hit that "thing" in play quite regularly.  For D&D,  you fight to level up to fight...  but adversity still rises.  In TB, your relationships make you more effective, but as you get emotionally attached to them, the intensity of risking them rises.  In both cases, players are being rewarded to win, but also the personal kick they're getting out of it increases as well.

This isn't knocking your idea either- just showing a couple of examples of where it does work and work well.

Chris

[Josh Roby]

I think you're looking at it the wrong way, timfire.  Or rather -- there are more illuminating ways to look at the situation.

The mechanic that you have sketched out marries your resolution mechanic with plot pacing.  Plot pacing may in turn be connected to adversity, but that's a secondary connection.  But the concept that "You succeed here, the plot progresses in this way; you lose here, the plot progresses in this other way" is a good foundation to work from.  Among other things, it might resolve that whole task resolution / conflict resolution nightmare by giving the playgroup actual tools with which to judge progress towards the endgame.

As for increasing adversity, I'd say that it's mostly a genre convention.  Sure, it appears in DnD, but it's not like DnD invented the concept.  The pulp fantasy serials that undergird a lot of DnD's original design had escalating adversity due to the nature of their format -- the square-jawed hero had to overcome something bigger and grander for the next book to sell.  Similarily, television serials and movie sequels delve into the same meme for the same reasons.  And needless to say, the videogames that your roleplaying game seeks to emulate also include a great deal of adversity escalation.  Just look at the numbers of hit points, mana, and damage dealt by all the baddies!  And of course, the game ends with some badguy that's powerful enough to destroy the world.  As a genre convention, I think escalating adversity should be almost fundamental to your design.