[Magicians of England] Balancing Rewards

[tonyd]

Thanks to everyone who helped out on my other thread. I was able to come up with some good adjustments to Magicians of England.

Magicians is a gamemasterless narrative game about scholars in Victorian England dealing with the resurgence of faerie magic.

In Magcians, players must typically balance potential narrative control (symbolized by poker chips) with actual narrative control. When players add complications to the plot, they receive poker chips as a reward, but have limited control over narration. When they resolve complications, they have more control, but they must spend chips to do it.

However, an additional mechanic, centered on using magic, has the potential to unbalance this. Several playtesters have said that this mechanic is the most interesting part of the game to them, but it currently doesn't integrate well with the core system of balancing narrative control.

In Magicians, player characters are trying to actualize their theories about Magic. Initially, no one can work magic. A player works magic by creating a theory and then using it to work Magic. Theories, however, have risks associated. Here are some examples:

- Theory: Magicians can read minds. Risk: Others might also be able to read their mind when they do it.
- Theory: Magicns can fly through the air. Risk: This spell has a potent faerie curse associated with it.

I've looked at two solutions:

1) In order to use a theory, the player has to spend poker chips to narrate how they avoid the risk. My concern is that a player can then simply immediately pay the chips and then start doing Magic. There's no reason for the player to enter the balancing cycle of narrating the story.

2) Using magic gives you free poker chips to spend, but then the risk is inflicted upon you. The problem is giving the risk some mechanical impact that will make players consider carefully before they accept the risk.

Naturally, I'm looking for a way of doing this where using magic isn't annoying (i.e. there aren't too many hoops to jump through) but is still non-trivial.

Any ideas?

[mutex]

I suppose one potential crux for this is the question, "Are the player characters allies or rivals?"

I can imagine a stately Victorian gentleman's club of magician's, like the Royal Scientific Society or some folderol.  Poised gentlemen all smiling and sharing brandy's, but at heart, bitter rivals.

These gentlemen don't make trips to the North Pole (save for when their supply of pickled Borealis runs low), or muck about with that Physicks or Evolution claptrap.  Instead, they toil and race to create Magickal Wonders for the Honour of Queene and Country, innit?

If they are rivals, then I would suppose the rival players would be the ones managing and inflicting risks.

If they are allies, then I got nothin' :D

[Roger]

The system I've seen most often among the Forge games would tend to work something like:

1.  The player gets to posit some magical theory.  For example, as you say, "With Magick, one may perceive the very thoughts of others as they resonate through the luminiferous aether" (or whatever.)

2.  Who decides the risk?  The other players.

Of course, shaking out exactly how number 2 works is the devil in the details.  I might let every other player write down the risk they think would be most amusing on a sheet of paper.  One could just randomly pick one, but that doesn't sound like much fun.

What I would be inclined to do is wait until the player tries out his magical theory.  At that point, the other players can start bidding chips as to whose risk becomes actualized.  I'd let the theorizing player bid here, too, for whomever he wanted -- he may well have a hunch that he really doesn't want the player with the evil gleam in his eye to win this one.

I'm not entirely sure if that fits in with the rest of your system, but it might be something to consider.


Cheers,
Roger

[tonyd]

Mutex, you nailed it exactly. There's no "rule" that player characters must be rivals, but that's how the game tends to pan out. I also like Roger's idea of having players posit the theory and then having the other players determine the risks. I think I may do it something like this:

A player may draw upon an open resource of chips when they use magic. They narrate what happens. The extra chips give them additional control over narration. However, the other players then narrate how the risks pan out. So the player gets control over the story, but give up some control over what happens tot heir character.