A skill to cultivate: Setting Stakes

[TonyLB]

I don't think that mechanics can evaluate good stakes.

"Good" is a whole big subjective ball of wax ... impossible to define and therefore meaningless as a design goal.  You can't make mechanics that evaluate "good" Stakes for everyone, because what is good varies from person to person, so if the mechanics reward X in a given situation then it will disappoint the people who wanted not-X.  

On the other hand, mechanics very much can evaluate whether a given set of Stakes achieves a specific function.  They can reinforce X, and then people who want X will have a better time when they play the game, and will learn better how to achieve X (whatever "X" is).

If you want people to define Stakes that entice players to oppose each other intensely then you give the players limited resources with which to oppose each other (so you can measure "intensely") and you reward the person who proposed the Stakes in proportion to how much other players spend of those resources. 

If you want people to define Stakes that confuse other players and provoke serious thought in them then you give the players limited resources with which to defer a conflict, buy more time, and think about it (so you can measure "serious thought") and you reward the person who proposed the Stakes in proportion to how much other players spend of those resources.

If you want people to define Stakes that are well-suited to their character abilities and tactics then you give them opposition that will defeat them in a fair fight, then reward the person who proposed an unfair fight in proportion to how difficult the challenge is that they defeated.

So, basically, I think the naysaying is premature.  There is plenty that mechanics can do to reward and evaluate Stakes.  It's not particularly hard to design games that do this, it's just unexplored territory.  Realize that it can be done is the first, and hardest, step toward doing it.

[Josh Roby]

Also: you can easily design mechanics that provide a framework through which players can evaluate stakes and reward eachother for proposing the good ones.

[Vaxalon]

Joshua, but if the players don't already know what good stakes are, that mechanic won't work.

What Tony proposes is the closest you can come; the designer decides what the best type of stakes for the game is, and rewards that; if it doesn't mesh with what the players really want then it won't work.

[Brand_Robins]

So, basically, I think the naysaying is premature.  There is plenty that mechanics can do to reward and evaluate Stakes.  It's not particularly hard to design games that do this, it's just unexplored territory.  Realize that it can be done is the first, and hardest, step toward doing it.

Um, Tony, you do realize I wasn't naysaying right? That I was saying you simply can't design for "good stakes" that you have to design to enable the people around the table to focus their energy into the right area?

Just curious, because you seemed to miss the actual point of my post, which is more or less in line with yours. I'm less focused on specific game function and more upon the interactions of the people at the table, but other than that we're actually in agreement.

[TonyLB]

Also: you can easily design mechanics that provide a framework through which players can evaluate stakes and reward eachother for proposing the good ones.

It's the old saw "I don't know art, but I know what I like."  Lots of people have trouble thinking up good stakes, but have no trouble recognizing them.  Give them the ability to reward them and, bam!, you have a rough and ready training tool.

[TonyLB]

Um, Tony, you do realize I wasn't naysaying right?

Ah... no, I didn't.  Fair enough!  I see where you're coming from more clearly now.  Thanks!

[Vaxalon]

Does reward has to come after the conflict is over, because beforehand novice players wouldn't necessarily recognize them?

[Judd]

Clinton put good stakes really succinctly at one point.

He said, "The stakes were never *if* we could do something but what happened *when* we did."

Does that make sense and sound solid and if so, can it be systemized?

Mostly, I think it is simply getting out of the task-related mind-set of, "Do I get the safe open?" and moving towards, "I get the safe open and get the top secret documents concerning my brainwashing," or "I get the safe open but not before armed guards break down the door."

[Vaxalon]

Hm.

Player: "I'm opening the safe."  << Action

GM: "Time is short.  This area's patrolled.  We should roll this out."  << Complication; proposal for a conflict.

Player: "If I'm fast, I'll get it open and get out before they find me.  If not, they'll find me in flagrante delicto."  << Stakes that neither invalidate the action nor invalidate the complication

GM: Agreed << Buy-in

There should also be branches in this script for refusal of the stakes by the GM, refusal of the complication by the player, and refusal of the action by the GM.

[Jason Newquist]

This is, in part, a training issue.  So let's take a page from professional training organizations and consider how else we might train besides our two existing methods: (1)  widely-available but difficult-to-grasp game text, and (2) participation of the few at conventions in highly instructive face-to-face interactions.

Designers have tried to make their texts more accessible by providing transcribed dialogues of actual play in their books.  These are very cool, and I can remember enjoying them when I was young and reading the AD&D books.  However, you can do better.  You can take advantage of the age we live in by providing example play recordings -- either audio or video -- on your web sites.

I'm thinking of some combination of:

• Examples of play where someone walks the listener through an illustrative example.  Examples might include: why my game kicks ass, setting good stakes, scene framing, how PTA Fan Mail works, Dogs' accomplishments, how Moons work in Polaris.
• Complete sessions of play.
• Designer's notes.  Why the game is designed the way it is.

Think of how much easier it would be to for a D&D group to pick up one of your games if they could, with a few minutes' time, get hooked.

For a real world comparison from web development -- consider how useful the "Ruby on Rails" videos have been in evangelizing to their prospective users/customers. 

If you can hear or see how good players set good stakes (especially if they're "showing their work" and explaining a little bit as they go), you begin to naturally pick up a whole bunch of things that you wouldn't necessarilly pick up from a book.

[Storn]

Yeah, that's what I'm basically saying.  Mechanics CAN'T create good stakes. It's a skill that has to be developed by the players and the play group.

I agree with cannot create.  but it can facilitate, make easier and do some prompting.  I think Burning Wheel does this quite nicely.

[Josh Roby]

ter.  You can take advantage of the age we live in by providing example play recordings -- either audio or video -- on your web sites.

I've got an Actual Play section on kallistipress.com, but I hadn't considered audio recordings.  Hm.  The difficulty is getting something that's quality and not junk, but that's an interesting thought.

[Jason Newquist]

I think rpgmp3.com hosts some D&D and Call of Cthulhu sessions, but nothing really Forgey, as far as I can tell.  Paul Tevis's recording made available through his podcast of that one session of Polaris is the only thing I've seen, and it was so fun to listen to -- even though you could tell they were all figuring this stuff out for the first time -- that I can't imagine that we can't really expand on the idea and improve upon it if you're intentionally using the medium as an educational tool.

To reiterate -- I'm not only talking about full sessions of actual play.  I think what you also need in order to capture the casually interested, prospective customer are shorter bits of "let me show you how to play this game."  The mental exercise I think that's most useful is to pretend you're talking to a D20 player.

The full sessions of actual play would probably be more useful for the customer who has bought the book, is  digging the game, and wants to see how it all adds up so that he can run it for his group.

[Josh Roby]

Jason, this is a really intriguing idea, but it's straying off-topic.  Can you start a new thread in Publishing and we can riff?

[Jason Newquist]

You're right, Joshua.  Split thread is here.