The Ballot System

[Matt Gwinn]

I just had a new idea for a game mechanic and I was wondering what you all thought of it.
I was thinking that a player could announce what he wants to do and each of the other players and Game Master could vote on whether they feel the actions should succeed based on the situation and the particular character's involved.  The level of the action's success would be based on how many people voted for it.  I think this would eliminate the total randomness of dice.  Let's face it, we've all had those nights when the die rolls were just not going our way.

,Matt

[james_west]

I forget the term Edwards uses, but the main disadvantage I see is a lot of processing time for task resolution.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey there,

Interesting suggestion, definitely.

PART ONE
Quick note to James.

Handling time = finding out what mechanic or pre-determination modifiers are necessary

Search time = once the in-game action is determined, actually getting its impact on the game-world established

PART TWO
I have a problem with the voting mechanic, or really, any voting mechanic in role-playing. (I've seen several in RPGs, such as deciding who gets an extra bag o'experience, or actually voting on the GM's performance, and others.)

The problem is theoretical. It's based on the very PURPOSE of voting, under any circumstances - it is an excellent method for deciding upon group policy when there exists a clear, otherwise-unresolvable conflict of interest among the members.

Since the proposed action of the hero is NOT an expression of group policy, and since conflict-of-interest among players ABOUT that action seems like a very sticky issue to me (bringing in all sorts of things like popularity), I kind of blink and twitch at the idea of introducing voting into RPG mechanics.

But hey! I said it was a THEORETICAL objection. Theories are often hammerlocked by brutal facts. What the hell, someone should try it, or a variant of it, and see what happens.

Best,
Ron