[Bronze] magic and 'magic items'

[TonyLB]

Yeah, so this reason not to proceed using the way that makes sense must be pretty good.

I think it's pretty good, yeah.  It lets you actually deal with what the players want, rather than getting all tangled talking about stuff that's only a means to an end.  Check out this quote from Vincent's examples:

I say, "let's figure out how powerful the wind is -"

And you say, "dude that isn't the point."

What's happening right there is that two people are skipping the completely trivial stuff (how hard the wind blows) and getting straight to the stuff that the player actually cares about (whether the queen submits).

Now you're thinking of this in terms of skipping steps, because the player goal is something that (coincidentally) could be accomplished by a task roll (in this case an intimidation check).  But let's say, for instance, that you (the player) want the queen's marriage to your characters son to produce an heir.  That's not even something that your guy has a hand in (God, I hope).  But it's what you as a player want to have happen.

If the only way things you (the player) can ever roll for are the things your character does then you will never, ever, have any direct ability to achieve that goal.  Instead, you're going to go through some ridiculous rigamorale, like using your Alchemy skill to brew a potion to improve the potency of the prince, only to find that the problem isn't his potency but the fact that the queen views him as a mere boy and doesn't respond to him sexually, so then you've got to... agggh!  My mind revolts at the sheer boredom of even thinking about it.  The whole thing is just silly, overwrought, bedroom farce.

You're playing a great and powerful barbarian king (or whatever).  Why on earth shouldn't you, as the player, simply get to say "I will apply my influence with the Lord of the Dead to assure the birth of a strong, masculine, son within the year.  Thus my bloodline will be assured!"

And then the GM can deal with what's important to her, rather than the trivial details of sperm count and sexual positions.  She can say "Fine, but the Lord of Death will only work this boon through you.  He offers you, however, an illusion that will convince the young bride that you are her intended groom, so that you may bed her."  "Works for me," you reply as a player, and the deal is done.

This technique is about more than skipping steps in a chain of causation.  It's about giving you a direct line to the players, rather than fumbling around, trying to influence the players by effecting their characters.  That exchange is all about what the people at the table want.  Isn't that more fun than the stuff that nobody wants to deal with, but that they incorrectly assume they need to do in order to have any chance of ever getting to the stuff they actually do want?

[stefoid]

Yeah, so this reason not to proceed using the way that makes sense must be pretty good.

I think it's pretty good, yeah.  It lets you actually deal with what the players want, rather than getting all tangled talking about stuff that's only a means to an end.  Check out this quote from Vincent's examples:

I say, "let's figure out how powerful the wind is -"

And you say, "dude that isn't the point."

What's happening right there is that two people are skipping the completely trivial stuff (how hard the wind blows) and getting straight to the stuff that the player actually cares about (whether the queen submits).

well thats your assumption I suppose.  what if the whole scene is really cool and the player gets off on his character doing awesome stuff?

Now you're thinking of this in terms of skipping steps, because the player goal is something that (coincidentally) could be accomplished by a task roll (in this case an intimidation check).  But let's say, for instance, that you (the player) want the queen's marriage to your characters son to produce an heir.  That's not even something that your guy has a hand in (God, I hope).  But it's what you as a player want to have happen.

If the only way things you (the player) can ever roll for are the things your character does then you will never, ever, have any direct ability to achieve that goal.  Instead, you're going to go through some ridiculous rigamorale, like using your Alchemy skill to brew a potion to improve the potency of the prince, only to find that the problem isn't his potency but the fact that the queen views him as a mere boy and doesn't respond to him sexually, so then you've got to... agggh!  My mind revolts at the sheer boredom of even thinking about it.  The whole thing is just silly, overwrought, bedroom farce
You're playing a great and powerful barbarian king (or whatever).  Why on earth shouldn't you, as the player, simply get to say "I will apply my influence with the Lord of the Dead to assure the birth of a strong, masculine, son within the year.  Thus my bloodline will be assured!".
 
And then the GM can deal with what's important to her, rather than the trivial details of sperm count and sexual positions.  She can say "Fine, but the Lord of Death will only work this boon through you.  He offers you, however, an illusion that will convince the young bride that you are her intended groom, so that you may bed her."  "Works for me," you reply as a player, and the deal is done.

This technique is about more than skipping steps in a chain of causation.  It's about giving you a direct line to the players, rather than fumbling around, trying to influence the players by effecting their characters.  That exchange is all about what the people at the table want.  Isn't that more fun than the stuff that nobody wants to deal with, but that they incorrectly assume they need to do in order to have any chance of ever getting to the stuff they actually do want?

Im really not trying to be tedious, but isnt your lord of death  connection "something my guy has a hand in ".  you said he had no way of influencing the err, outcome, but then clearly he does after all. 

[TonyLB]

Im really not trying to be tedious, but isnt your lord of death  connection "something my guy has a hand in ".  you said he had no way of influencing the err, outcome, but then clearly he does after all. 

Yeah, I let my mythopoeic sensibilities get the best of me.  Same thing applies if the Lord of Death wants his high priest (your character's arch-nemesis) to act as his avatar though, right?

[Tommi Brander]

Too powerful to start with. But gaining access to them later is fine. Having a powerful item grants bonuses to what the item is good at. What does having a powerful contact give?

This is nonsense, Tommi. Arthur started precisely with Excalibur (according to one telling, at least). Culchullain's Gae Bolga was his signature weapon throughout his story.

There's no reason to have to earn the fun stuff with a currency of unfun.

I was responding to Steve. He said or implied that he would not let characters start with that sort of stuff. So I assumed that characters wouldn't start off with that kind of stuff. Not that I particularly like it, but that is the way I understood it.

[contracycle]

well thats your assumption I suppose.  what if the whole scene is really cool and the player gets off on his character doing awesome stuff?

Well then that can be a valid player goal.  This tells us something about what the player rather than the character wants.  So now we can propose, perhaps, that this should be a fairly long scene, rather than something that can be reduced to remarking "I do the ritual".  So probably we don't want this to be resolved by a single roll, as that would be over very quickly.  Again, conflict resolution is better than task resolution for this purpose.

Also if the interest is the act of magic and all the cool colour, then again we can probably ignore things like the strength of the wind, and instead deal with something like the amount of effort the wind god can be bothered to put into the appeal, or the kind of bargain the character can strike.  So maybe you say, the PC goes to a windy hilltop and invokes the pesence of the wind god, with a bunch of special effects.  Because what we are interested in is the Coolness, it would be a good idea to make the invocation and the special effects automatic, rather than a task to be rolled for, a property of the PC, part of what makes them a PC.  And it would not be Cool if it just didn't work.  But to stop them doing it all the time, they have to be ritually purified or something etc. 

OK, so then the basic act of magic is to purify yourself, go to your hill, invoke the god, whereon the GM gives it some special effects, wind spirits and so forth.  The resolution then resolves around some kind of bargain or negotiation process, and that is what you then need to build, and which we can discuss.  Starting from the player desire for the actual act of magic to be Cool, we have determined something about how the act of play might go, and from there, what the mechanics have to serve.  Some sort of bargaining system, for which a randomised roll would be appropriate.  Or perhaps, the characters trade acts of worship and dedications for such services, and the resolution determines the cost they have to pay, either from credit or required in the future.  Anyway, this whole process would take up a fair bit of spotlight time, and so should probably definitional to the character, or a major resource, something to be considered for character creation.

But of course there are other ways for the use of magic to be cool, such as having winds in knots or bottles.  To make that a real event in play, perhaps you require a control task to be conducted to see if you can get the unleashed spirit to do your task, as opposed going about its business.  To give it an edge, you make this risky, so the act of magic acquires something of the quality of bomb disposal - amateurs beware and civilians stand back.  Then your mechanic is there to determine the odds of control, what happens if control succeeds or fails, and some process for capturing spirits in the first place.

So there are a couple of approaches just proceeding from the idea that you want the act itself to be interesting in play, rather than originating in the worlds logic.  Even the second scenario, in which the question of whether you have a trapped spirit powerful enough to do the job might arise, it need not be resolved by rolling for it - it could be determined by the value of the captured spirit as a character asset. 

So this is what is meant by insert rolls where you want them.  If what matters in the game is whether the queen is influenced, you design the system to answer that question - you don't need to start and end with physical determinism and causality.  If  what matters in the game is the character's relationship to a god, then you design the system to answer that question, and again physical determinism is unnecessary.  If what matters is the economy of the characters stock of assets, you answer that question. 

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

what if the whole scene is really cool and the player gets off on his character doing awesome stuff?

We're assuming via the rules that the characters can do awesome stuff. Rolling to see if the wind is strong enough to matter dampens the ability of the character to do awesome stuff. That's a rule that acts as a choke on the awesomeness.

Your rules are there to give your protagonists power, not take it away.

If you know that the wind god owes you a favor — it's written down on your player sheet — then you can give narration of the effect to the player. How much effect that has on the outcome of the conflict is another matter. You can roll the Queen's stubbornness, you can roll against rival gods, whatever. But the wind god owes you a favor.

Or, you could say that the wind god, if she doesn't make good on this deal, that is, it doesn't have the desired effect, she owes you another favor (the effects of which you can deal with yourself — do you get to use each Favor once? Does more Favor mean greater success? Whatever.) because she didn't make good this time.

Incidentally, I'm going to submit to Vincent's wisdom and suggest you keep away from the GNS issue for the time being. It's just not as important as figuring out this stuff.

Tommi, I understand. I think it's a flaw in Steve's conception, a vestige of crappier games than his is liable to be. No insult meant to you at all.

[Tommi Brander]

Speaking of Vincent, here's some reading.
If doing the cool stuff is very important to the game, let the players do it. Do not specify the kinds of effects they can achieve and do not specify what they need to do to get it.

An example: Dur is the ruler of Underworld (where the dead go). Blah blah about how he relates to other deities. He has given people back to the realm of the living, but always at great personal cost. [Hero], for example, sacrificed his child to get his loved one back. There are rumours of Dur taking people down early if sufficient bribes are paid.

A player wants his character to bring back his mother who was a powerful shaman. Let the player tell the great cost. Let the player describe the rituals. After determining if this works, let the player describe the exact events. This way, players can contribute to the coolness of it all.
Better yet, let all the players decide if the ritual works based on the coolness. Each player has, say, 2 tokens for this purpose. When someone does a ritual, players can give the tokens if the visual images conveyed are cool. Roll d6, result is equal to or lesser than the number of tokens received, and it succeeds.
This is but an example, mind. Let character abilities have influence, for example. Use the standard resolution system of the game.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Tommi's idea is good. Listen to it.

I wouldn't have it be a success/fail roll, but whatever. I think you roll the die, look at the result, if it's high enough to do what you need, great. If it's not, do some awesome ritual that gets the other people around the table excited enough to give you props and then use them to mod the die roll (or count them as simultaneous rerolls, or whatever). Then you've got the tokens to give to other players. That way, you want to give away those tokens — you can't use them on yourself, just to prop up others.

[Tommi Brander]

I wouldn't have it be a success/fail roll, but whatever. I think you roll the die, look at the result, if it's high enough to do what you need, great. If it's not, do some awesome ritual that gets the other people around the table excited enough to give you props and then use them to mod the die roll (or count them as simultaneous rerolls, or whatever). Then you've got the tokens to give to other players. That way, you want to give away those tokens — you can't use them on yourself, just to prop up others.

Yes, this is much better (I just gave it today to one poster on RPG.net, and forgot it now. Gah.). But, if observing the cool rituals is the point, not creating cool rituals, obviously neither this nor my original idea are useful.
It all comes back to the point of playing.



Joshua, now that I remember to say it, we are cool.

[lumpley]

Steve, take Contracycle's answer to heart.

ok, I can understand that. instead of rolling my god connection vs. a target number, then using the results of that, I roll my god connection directly against the queens reistance to intimidaiton.

there must be a reason why that is better that isnt just 'you cut out an intermediate step that way'?

...

yeah, so this reason not to proceed using the way that makes sense must be pretty good.

Easy! The real cause and effect in a roleplaying game isn't in the fictional game world, it's at the table, in what the players and GM say and do.

If you want awesome stuff to happen in your game, you don't need rules to model the characters doing awesome things, you need rules to provoke the players to say awesome things. That's the real cause and effect at work: things happen because someone says they do. If you want cool things to happen, get someone to say something cool.

-Vincent

[stefoid]

Also if the interest is the act of magic and all the cool colour, then again we can probably ignore things like the strength of the wind, and instead deal with something like the amount of effort the wind god can be bothered to put into the appeal, or the kind of bargain the character can strike.  So maybe you say, the PC goes to a windy hilltop and invokes the pesence of the wind god, with a bunch of special effects.  Because what we are interested in is the Coolness, it would be a good idea to make the invocation and the special effects automatic, rather than a task to be rolled for, a property of the PC, part of what makes them a PC.  And it would not be Cool if it just didn't work.  But to stop them doing it all the time, they have to be ritually purified or something etc. 

OK, so then the basic act of magic is to purify yourself, go to your hill, invoke the god, whereon the GM gives it some special effects, wind spirits and so forth.  The resolution then resolves around some kind of bargain or negotiation process, and that is what you then need to build, and which we can discuss.  Starting from the player desire for the actual act of magic to be Cool, we have determined something about how the act of play might go, and from there, what the mechanics have to serve.  Some sort of bargaining system, for which a randomised roll would be appropriate.  Or perhaps, the characters trade acts of worship and dedications for such services, and the resolution determines the cost they have to pay, either from credit or required in the future.  Anyway, this whole process would take up a fair bit of spotlight time, and so should probably definitional to the character, or a major resource, something to be considered for character creation.

this is good.  it kind of extends the system I had in place by allowing the player to have a say in a more dramatic way. 

i.e. current idea is that players have a conneciton (skill) to the god, which belongs to the favour (stat).  The more favour-related rolls you make, the more penalities to future favour roles you collect.  its kind of a hubris thing.  You can tap your favour at any time to bump rolls and stuff, which is kind of short term resource useage.  If you leave ti for a while, like the next scene/day or whatever, it replenishes itself.

however to make something really grody happen, like in this example we are talking about, requires bargain/sacrifice on part of the player..  perhaps the character collects a favour penalty semi-permantly until such time as the player comes through with his end of the bargain?

<incidently, perhaps this method can be extended to the other areas of the character resources that collect penalties...  physical and mental?  such that if the character wishes to perform some super-effort under duress, they get major bonuses, but they collect semi-permanent penalties.  they literraly bust a gut?>

So there are a couple of approaches just proceeding from the idea that you want the act itself to be interesting in play, rather than originating in the worlds logic.  Even the second scenario, in which the question of whether you have a trapped spirit powerful enough to do the job might arise, it need not be resolved by rolling for it - it could be determined by the value of the captured spirit as a character asset. 

you mean its value measured not by its utility, but by its....?

So this is what is meant by insert rolls where you want them.  If what matters in the game is whether the queen is influenced, you design the system to answer that question - you don't need to start and end with physical determinism and causality.  If  what matters in the game is the character's relationship to a god, then you design the system to answer that question, and again physical determinism is unnecessary.  If what matters is the economy of the characters stock of assets, you answer that question. 

youve got me thinking that I could design a realtionship-system that applies to all types of entities, both people and supernatural, and the magic system emerges out of it.

Im still not there with this task  vs. conflict stuff, but i see lumpleys reply below this one, so Ill take a looksee.

[stefoid]

Speaking of Vincent, here's some reading.
If doing the cool stuff is very important to the game, let the players do it. Do not specify the kinds of effects they can achieve and do not specify what they need to do to get it.

I agree there is a fine line between giving players enough information to provide an imaginative hook, and giving them too much information so there is no mystery about it - its like if the movie shows you the monster, it becomes unscary.  youve got to hint at the monster.  so for plausibility's sake, or authenticity or whatever, I think the players need some guidance as to the extent of effect they can achieve and the extent of the effort required to get there.

An example: Dur is the ruler of Underworld (where the dead go). Blah blah about how he relates to other deities. He has given people back to the realm of the living, but always at great personal cost. [Hero], for example, sacrificed his child to get his loved one back. There are rumours of Dur taking people down early if sufficient bribes are paid.

A player wants his character to bring back his mother who was a powerful shaman. Let the player tell the great cost. Let the player describe the rituals. After determining if this works, let the player describe the exact events. This way, players can contribute to the coolness of it all.
Better yet, let all the players decide if the ritual works based on the coolness. Each player has, say, 2 tokens for this purpose. When someone does a ritual, players can give the tokens if the visual images conveyed are cool. Roll d6, result is equal to or lesser than the number of tokens received, and it succeeds.
This is but an example, mind. Let character abilities have influence, for example. Use the standard resolution system of the game.

I understand the flavour of what your saying but Ill have to think about if it works for me.

just on your example, for me, its getting too meta-gamey at this point.  the fact that I (the player) think my own effort is cool should be enough, without other people voting on it - to use an analogy, for me that takes it from being a drama whoe to more like a reality TV show.

[stefoid]

Well then that can be a valid player goal.  This tells us something about what the player rather than the character wants.  So now we can propose, perhaps, that this should be a fairly long scene, rather than something that can be reduced to remarking "I do the ritual".  So probably we don't want this to be resolved by a single roll, as that would be over very quickly.  Again, conflict resolution is better than task resolution for this purpose.

I think this is the crux of the matter as I understand it.  I think the term task vs conflict resolution  maybe whats throwing me.

example: remember the daze.....(its all getting hazy)

GM: so what are you doing now?
P1:  well, obviously we have to get to the town, in order to stop the barbarian queen marrying the son of the evil preist
GM: OK, so your on horseback, that'll take 3 days.  So who is on watch on the first night....?
P1: CANT WE JUST GET TO THE FRICKEN TOWN ALLREADY?!?!

(unhaze)

sometimes its the journey or the process thats important.  often its not.  how can you as a game designer decide?  you cant its infinitely variable depending on situation.  when is a task just a task that we can skip over, and when is the task something that we shouldnt skip over -- when its the 'conflict'?  isnt that entirely subjective?

if sometimes the same task is important and sometimes it needs to be skipped...  do I as a designer really want to tell the players which tasks are important and which ones arent? 

[TonyLB]

if sometimes the same task is important and sometimes it needs to be skipped...  do I as a designer really want to tell the players which tasks are important and which ones arent? 

No, you want to create rules where the players tell you.

That's what we've been talking about.  Have we still not managed to communicate that in a way that you can turn over in your mind, and make use of?

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Well then that can be a valid player goal.  This tells us something about what the player rather than the character wants.  So now we can propose, perhaps, that this should be a fairly long scene, rather than something that can be reduced to remarking "I do the ritual".  So probably we don't want this to be resolved by a single roll, as that would be over very quickly.  Again, conflict resolution is better than task resolution for this purpose.

I think this is the crux of the matter as I understand it.  I think the term task vs conflict resolution  maybe whats throwing me.

The resolution can be paced however you write the rules.

example: remember the daze.....(its all getting hazy)

GM: so what are you doing now?
P1:  well, obviously we have to get to the town, in order to stop the barbarian queen marrying the son of the evil preist
GM: OK, so your on horseback, that'll take 3 days.  So who is on watch on the first night....?
P1: CANT WE JUST GET TO THE FRICKEN TOWN ALLREADY?!?!

(unhaze)

sometimes its the journey or the process thats important.  often its not.  how can you as a game designer decide?

By having a system that will allow flexibility while giving the control that the players need.

It's not easy, but you're on your way.

you cant its infinitely variable depending on situation.  when is a task just a task that we can skip over, and when is the task something that we shouldnt skip over -- when its the 'conflict'?  isnt that entirely subjective?

if sometimes the same task is important and sometimes it needs to be skipped...  do I as a designer really want to tell the players which tasks are important and which ones arent? 

No, the players want to say that, and you want to write rules that give them the ability.

Get yerself a copy of Dogs in the Vineyard. Vincent's not saying so because he's polite, but it answers these questions.

Seriously, Steve, you've got some good kernels here, but you're getting stumped on problems that other people have already solved. Use their solutions if you can't come up with your own for the time being. After a while, you'll see how their solutions aren't exactly what you need, then you'll build your own solutions from the picked-apart remains of their rules.