[Rifts PBP] I look at it. What do I get?

[TonyLB]

The exploration rules have a thread of thier own, stickied to the top, because I think they're so important. Here's the main thread list of the game.
http://rpol.net/game.cgi?gi=15181&gn=Rifts:+Do+you+dare%3F&date=1140499745
And here's the exploration rules own thread.
http://rpol.net/display.cgi?gi=15181&gn=Rifts:+Do+you+dare%3F&threadnum=1&date=1138354569

I just noticed I wrote in them that you can't use them in the middle of an adventure. But on the second post I wrote that these rules are a way of avoiding plot hooks if you so wish. Hoo boy, tuck into my writing! But I haven't recieved any PM's/posts asking for clarification, either.

Okay.  Your goal here is to figure out why your players are acting in a way other than what you expect, right?

Well let me offer a theory:  They think they're playing standard Rifts.  They think that your "exploration rules" (which to you are a central feature of the system, inherently changing the entire social contract of the entire game) are a side-note, and they're pretty much ignoring them.  They haven't asked for clarification on when they can be used, because they don't care, and don't intend to use them.

Because, y'know, what you've seen so far is 100% pure, uncut, bog-standard Rifts play.  The bushes rustle.  You step up a notch on defense.  You wait for developments.

I don't think you've said or done anything that would make it clear to your players that this isn't exactly what you expect of them.

But ultimately you choose just the risk that you want and create that stake yourself.

Uh ... no.  The player and the GM (that's you!) work together to get the player engaged with the risk.  It takes two to tango.

They can't choose to risk their lives in pursuit of a juicy reward if all you do is rustle some bushes.  When you do something that could, conceivably, be a risk, or grant a reward ... then they can choose to engage with that as a gamble, and to risk themselves to seek the reward.

[Callan S.]

Hi Tony,

Okay.  Your goal here is to figure out why your players are acting in a way other than what you expect, right?

Well let me offer a theory:  They think they're playing standard Rifts.  They think that your "exploration rules" (which to you are a central feature of the system, inherently changing the entire social contract of the entire game) are a side-note, and they're pretty much ignoring them.  They haven't asked for clarification on when they can be used, because they don't care, and don't intend to use them.

Because, y'know, what you've seen so far is 100% pure, uncut, bog-standard Rifts play.  The bushes rustle.  You step up a notch on defense.  You wait for developments.

I don't think you've said or done anything that would make it clear to your players that this isn't exactly what you expect of them.

I think that theory is probably how things are, so I basically agree with it. PBP players tend to be in about six games at once, from what I've noticed. So they tend to treat them all the same way, for simplicities sake.

Now, advising me to keep repeating the rules existence until it's drummed into their heads - I accept that is good advice, but it doesn't shift responsibility for their choice. I've talked with them about the exploration rules already (My third post in - and it actually refers to stuff like having enough details http://rpol.net/display.cgi?gi=15181&gn=Rifts:+Do+you+dare%3F&threadnum=2&date=1139460963&msgpage=2 ). If I tell someone about a rule where you do not open box Z, and then they forget latter on and open it, isn't that their responsibility? Really I don't think they are interested in exploration rules, as yet. Because they like doing things this way and chose to do that.

Uh ... no.  The player and the GM (that's you!) work together to get the player engaged with the risk.  It takes two to tango.

The work out process involves them leaving (exploration table) if the situation doesn't engage them and that signals to me that next time perhaps I should use a necrotic behemoth. When they DON'T leave and DON'T signal to me to try something else, but engage and expect to get something out of a situation at no risk,  that's not the tango.

What if If you ask someone if they want to play chess with you and they sit down with you. But then after a while you catch them moving the pieces the wrong way. However, they say "Oh, I didn't know we were playing yet", when you've been playing for the last five minutes. These players are 'sitting down' at my situation, yet moving the pieces the wrong way. They shouldn't have sat down if they don't want to play.

Now in this situation, I didn't say strongly enough 'THIS IS THE SITUATION TO ENGAGE, RIGHT HERE'. I really don't want to or have to stick to cliches of gamerdom, to attempt to communicate that (ie, gamer translation dictionary - Big bad monster : the risk). We all remember the Knights of the Dinner table comic, where they attack a pergola because they think it's some terrible risk/a type of monster. The actual content of the situation doesn't communicate anything about what to do with it, gamism wise.

They can't choose to risk their lives in pursuit of a juicy reward if all you do is rustle some bushes.  When you do something that could, conceivably, be a risk, or grant a reward ... then they can choose to engage with that as a gamble, and to risk themselves to seek the reward.

All through this thread, we've had people saying how they'd want more information. No one yet has identified that information as being a reward in itself. I think my players aren't identifying it as such, either. Something to work on.

[Marco]

Uh ... no.  The player and the GM (that's you!) work together to get the player engaged with the risk.  It takes two to tango.

The work out process involves them leaving (exploration table) if the situation doesn't engage them and that signals to me that next time perhaps I should use a necrotic behemoth. When they DON'T leave and DON'T signal to me to try something else, but engage and expect to get something out of a situation at no risk,  that's not the tango.

What would you have had them do to risk something? I mean, if they had, say, approached the bush would that be better for you?

-Marco

[Rob Carriere]

Callan,
I can feel the logic of what you want...just outside my grasp. I'd like to run a bunch of very similar examples by you for "grading". Maybe that'll nail it for me.

I going to vary your actual play example. For brevity, I intend "rustle the bush" to stand in for the exact text you wrote during actual play and "posturing move" for the exact text the players wrote during actual play.

1. You: rustle the bush. They: posturing move.
This is the baseline that you're unhappy with.

2. You: rustle the bush. They: "We roll on the Exploration table. A 3. Despite the bush rustling in the wind, we can barely hear the call of the rare Tootybird to our left. But, there are no Tootybirds in this area, so it's probably a signal. We try to silently move there and investigate."

3. You: rustle the bush. They: posturing move+"We've clearly left our back exposed to attack by Retardodonts.", where the plausible presence of Retardodonts has been previously established.

4. As 3, but without the previous establishment.

5+6. As 3+4, but with a roll on the Exploration Table.

Are any of these close to what you want?
SR
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[Callan S.]

3 or 4 is fine. With 4, they can say they think they are risking something (like leaving themselves open to being snuck up on, or even just risking looking overstrung by pulling guns on what's just a bush).

The exploration table doesn't mix into that at all. You use the exploration rules when you want to leave. It's like buying a cake - you either pay for it (state risk) or go look at another cake entirely (use exploration rules). You don't get to start eating it while stating "I only wanted to know what it tastes like!!! How can I really know if I want to buy it, unless I start eating it?".

In the talkin' and stuff thread, one player even brought something up like the above statement.

If we don't want to just continue past what looks to be a very interesting option or opportunity, can we not advance forward recklessly & just ask questions about things we'd like described specifically (obviously we can't SEE everything but things we're concerned about that seem missing out of the description)

I take it that 'can we' means 'can we do this without suffereing a penalty for it'. Since I'd been talking about a minefield example with him via PM previously, if I agreed, in that case it would mean being able to walk into a minefield without any risk of being blown up (because that's a penalty).

It's kind of like the wolverines senses effect, in that it uses information gathering as a covert GM tool.

[Rob Carriere]

3 or 4 is fine. With 4, they can say they think they are risking something (like leaving themselves open to being snuck up on, or even just risking looking overstrung by pulling guns on what's just a bush).

The exploration table doesn't mix into that at all. You use the exploration rules when you want to leave. It's like buying a cake - you either pay for it (state risk) or go look at another cake entirely (use exploration rules). You don't get to start eating it while stating "I only wanted to know what it tastes like!!! How can I really know if I want to buy it, unless I start eating it?".

Cool! I think I get it now. My hangup was that on the one hand you want me to state more than I 'normally' would, yet on the other hand, there's narration that I have to explicitly purchase (by invoking the Exploration rules). That gets me into a 'relative to standard play this is both more and less' state, which, to me at least, is confusing. If you want your players to start doing this, I would really, really recommend a couple of worked examples in addition to the bare-bones rule that you linked to.

Now it seems to me that you have a procedural problem here. You want me to state risk and my reward will be stuff that in standard play would be 'free'. In addition, both in standard play and your revised form, this stuff is needed for play to advance. Thus, you rustle the bush and I, out of habit, make a pure-color posturing move. Play grinds to a halt.

So maybe, you need some more stick & carrot. Let's say that if I state that the risk is that I might get attacked from the rear, then I get a bonus if a rear attack happens, and a penalty if it doesn't. Now it becomes tactically interesting to guess at the risk.

In the talkin' and stuff thread, one player even brought something up like the above statement.

If we don't want to just continue past what looks to be a very interesting option or opportunity, can we not advance forward recklessly & just ask questions about things we'd like described specifically (obviously we can't SEE everything but things we're concerned about that seem missing out of the description)

I take it that 'can we' means 'can we do this without suffereing a penalty for it'. Since I'd been talking about a minefield example with him via PM previously, if I agreed, in that case it would mean being able to walk into a minefield without any risk of being blown up (because that's a penalty).

OK, I don't this Lazzlo guy from Adam, so I'm probably all wet, but couldn't he be talking about the same sort of thing? He does say "recklessly", which I would read as "with, I expect, a significant penalty". This would be somewhat similar to a D20 houserule I've toyed with on occasion, where you can always Take 20, but any risk will bite you. (So, for example, Take 20 on an Open Lock, will certainly set off any traps on that lock.)

SR
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[contracycle]

It feels rather to me that the risk issue is misleading; what this looks more to me like is: GM rustles bushes - "I'm offering you an encounter here, do you want one?"

And the problem was that you received neither a Yes or No response.  Is that fair?

[Callan S.]

Hi Contra,

It feels rather to me that the risk issue is misleading; what this looks more to me like is: GM rustles bushes - "I'm offering you an encounter here, do you want one?"

And the problem was that you received neither a Yes or No response.  Is that fair?

Yes and no! I'm offering an encounter (the encounter clearly involving the information I haven't given and that it can be earned by paying for that with risk stated).

But the buy in method has been screwed up. You don't just say yes (by either saying yes, or posturing for awhile). You say yes by stating your risk.

If I was interested in whether you just found the situation interesting aesthetically, I wouldn't have a risk buy in cost. And the reverse is true - if I don't ask for a risk buy in, then I must only want to know if you like the look and feel of the situation.

Now, I stuffed up in making this clear. And this leads to the player, by second guessing what the GM thinks, deciding for himself whether there is a risk cost. "Oh, a rustling bush...I think the GM must mean there is no risk cost for engagement" "Oh, a necrotic behemoth...I think the GM must mean there is a risk cost for engagement"

Once you have this precedent in place, the players can glide through all encounters presented by simply presuming there is no risk cost to anything (and there is reward in repeatedly thinking there is no risk - you never get stung -, so that's why they do it). Sure, you can apply damage/nastyness to them as they do it, but it's like the example where the GM decided for you that you made a bet and now you've lost it and must pay the penalty. It's a non event to do so.

[Callan S.]

Hi Rob,

So maybe, you need some more stick & carrot. Let's say that if I state that the risk is that I might get attacked from the rear, then I get a bonus if a rear attack happens, and a penalty if it doesn't. Now it becomes tactically interesting to guess at the risk.

They're already doing this but the other way around "I think the threat is from the front, so I draw and aim my guns at it (bonus: guns drawn at no time cost and an aimed shot bonus or at least no shooting wild penalty).

But there's no statement from them about deciding to take on the risk of the rear attack. Now, in the rules there is a penalty involved - you can't dodge attacks from behind. But I don't see anything in their statement that suggests they are taking that risk, for example. Like most posters here think a player should, they are only looking to explore the situation. I get the stick and carrot idea - but here the players just aren't embracing any sort of stick/risk that I can see. They embrace the rewards all right, but not the risk of stick.

I know I should sell risk to them, but it rubs me the wrong way that they settle into exploration with a technique which is aggressive yet subtle. If I have to do that, then it doesn't feel like I'm selling them on risk for any given encounter. It feels like I'm trying to sell them on the gamist agenda itself and I'm supposed to do that by warping the game world into a necrotic behemoth amusement park.

I dunno. I'm told in this thread I gave them nothing, but they want something (the rewards listed above). Why do they want them if nothing happened? It'd be like in Riddle of steel play, if the player said "Well, you just described a non event to me, Mr GM. Oh, by the way...I get my spiritual attribute dice on this next roll because of what you said in that scene, right?". In this case, by taking up the spiritual attribute bonus dice, the player would have to be agreeing that something meaningful happened in the GM's narration and it was NOT a non event. In my case, when the players take up the rewards, it should be an indicator that something happened.

Then again, that's a thought. What if they aren't embracing the carrot either? They just do it for looks or something? Is that what other posters have thought of them as - kind of something you just say and not really a reward?

OK, I don't this Lazzlo guy from Adam, so I'm probably all wet, but couldn't he be talking about the same sort of thing? He does say "recklessly", which I would read as "with, I expect, a significant penalty".

Reading it that way doesn't make sense to me in game play terms. If he's asking for that, then he means "Can I walk into the minefield, get blown up and then have my 'what is the danger' questions answered?". With that reading, the info comes too late, so I don't think he means that. I think he wants to walk in, but nothing happens to him until he gets the answers he's looking for. And once you have that precedent, he can keep advancing and asking, using the 'you can't get me until you answer my question' procedure to protect himself all the way through from any event, until he wants it to happen. Stealth GM technique. This player left the game a few days after this discussion.

Side note: Looking at this now, I can see in my own past where I've gone down similar roads. I'm laying into the players in this thread, because I don't want to go soft on myself.

[Rob Carriere]

Hi Callan,

Then again, that's a thought. What if they aren't embracing the carrot either? They just do it for looks or something? Is that what other posters have thought of them as - kind of something you just say and not really a reward?

In some of the games I play, I would consider a posturing move pure color and expect neither reward nor penalty. But those aren't tactical games; I can't imagine playing a tactical game involving combat where changing my character's facing isn't significant.

Regarding the minefield: point well taken. I agree there's clearly something wrong there and it's something I've seen a lot. With the people I currently play tactical games with, when anything resembling this type of discussion comes up, the first thing we do is roll out a battle mat, draw a picture and place all the PCs on it. From that point on, putting your die (we use dice instead of miniatures) in a square means that you accept all consequences that come with that square, be they good, bad, or ugly. So, in your example, putting your die in a square with a mine in it means 'boom'. Never mind the posturing, questions, or handing of munchies to the GM, 'boom'.

Now, we can do that, because we're playing FTF. Rolling out a battle mat through the Internet is a tad of a sticky issue. :-)

But it seems to me that the clarity that the map brings is what you seek and I'm not sure the statement of risk you're pursuing will bring you that. That is, I think your idea of stating risk is really interesting, but not a solution to this problem. Of course, that's easy to say for me, because I don't know what would be a solution. :-(

Side note: Looking at this now, I can see in my own past where I've gone down similar roads. I'm laying into the players in this thread, because I don't want to go soft on myself.

Heh. Those are the toughest issues to crack, but often the most rewarding.

SR
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[Callan S.]

In some of the games I play, I would consider a posturing move pure color and expect neither reward nor penalty.

Consider what would happen, if I initiated combat and when they went to shoot I said "You haven't drawn your weapons yet". They would say "Yes we have, like we said in our posturing post". It's another way of using causality to insist on a reward, without actually entering the give and take of gamism. This can even be done in an entirely honest way - players just wouldn't think to rewind something that's happened, because that is so awkward/damaging to do to the imagined space. Yet the action is undercutting the reward system.

Regarding the minefield:*snip*
But it seems to me that the clarity that the map brings is what you seek and I'm not sure the statement of risk you're pursuing will bring you that. That is, I think your idea of stating risk is really interesting, but not a solution to this problem. Of course, that's easy to say for me, because I don't know what would be a solution. :-(

Your battlemap is a risk stating device, IMO. When a player moves his piece, it's so well known around the table that any particular square could mean BOOM, that it's clear he's taking on risk. I'd say the battlemap is more sophisticated than raw spoken statements of 'I take on risk X'. I think were talking about similar things. :)

[Callan S.]

Here's a further account of actual play, after they ignored the rustling bush and headed into the forrest. PS so you know, the rustling bush was a monster, but it was a monster trying to get out of the forrest alive. The rustling just ended when it was dragged back into the forrest.

You pass by ancient trunks covered in moss, their still, monolith presence surrounds you. There are no bird calls here, or apparently any animals to be seen. The ground is mossy and wet, with an occasional large centipede slithering through the undergrowth.

You pick your way over fallen logs and through thick undergrowth, but soon come across a thick cluster of vines and thorns. It reaches up about 20 feet and is so thick you can't even see through it. Looking for a way past, you follow the edge of it for about 30 feet, until you find you've ended up in a corner where another wall of thorns and vines intersects the first.

This is out of the ordinary. What's involved with this? What do you do?

His eyes sweep everything around them, mainly using thermographic vision, a soft tug on the robot horse's left ear indicating that Ed should do the same.  Always alert, the 'Slinger's head jerks towards thre slightest movement.
Ed.  Are there any strange chemicals in the air?

At Jesse's question, the horse can be heard to sniif loudly, turning his head to either side to scent the area around them better.

[Private to DM (Dare Master): Molecular analyzer.  Anything?]

Are you betting that you can find something to help you out here? At the cost of...lost time (15 seconds), would you say? If you happen to have made the wrong bet?

OOC:  Just trying to see if Ed might be able to tell us if anything dangerous is in the air.

Thoughts?

[TonyLB]

Thoughts?

Callan:  Do you have a question here?  Piling on more evidence doesn't really spark more "thoughts" in me.  I've got my own theory about what's happening, and you choose not to hear it.  That's fine.  But I don't know what kind of stuff you do want to hear.

All I'm picking up, in my attempts to read your intentions, is that you really, really want us to sympathize with you because the terrible non-Forge roleplayers are destroying your beautiful dream.  I don't really have a productive or polite response to that.

[contracycle]

Yes and no! I'm offering an encounter (the encounter clearly involving the information I haven't given and that it can be earned by paying for that with risk stated).

Ah well then;  your problem is that this looks like a Nigerian money-laundering scam.

For only a nominal fee you - yes you sir - can be put in touch with a shady person with a need to discretely move millions of dollars by means of your clean bank account.  All thats required is certain payments to grease the wheels of what is clearly an already dodgy deal.  Except of course there is no deal, and the real purpose is to get you to make those facilitative payments.

It seems to me your risk is, or at least appears to the players, to be doubling up.  It makes no sense to expose yourself to risk only for the purpose of exposing yourself to yet more risk.  What they are trying to do with their interrogative questions is assess whether or not the situation is a) risky and b) how risky.  If they must assume risk in order to even find out a) and b), then it must either be the case that they take on unnecessary risk in what would otherwise (had they not asked the question) have been safe, or they acquire both the risks inherent to the situation and whatever they gambled to find out what the situation was.

Lets borrow the minefield/board example and propose a slightly different methodology.  If this were a live game, you would write "a rustle in the bushes: diff 20" (whatever) and put it down in front of the players; whoever is macho enough to accept the 20 points of risk can turn the card over and trigger the encounter.  In your particular medium, perhaps these "quest anouncements" can be published in a coloured text, for clarity and attention.  But whatever happens, I think you are going to have to show your hand before they will show theirs.

Tony wrote:

All I'm picking up, in my attempts to read your intentions, is that you really, really want us to sympathize with you because the terrible non-Forge roleplayers are destroying your beautiful dream.  I don't really have a productive or polite response to that.

Perhaps it might not be a good idea to import the supercilious arrogance presently infesting the blogosphere...

[dunlaing]

Callan: I think you need to adopt an explicit format to posts.

Tell your players explicitly that the game you are trying to play is one where for any given action, they must state a risk. Explain to them what "risk" means in this context. Give examples. You may have already done this part, but if so, just copy and paste it as context for the following.

Enact a new format for all posts. Have posts look like this:

ACTIONS: Describe your actions/narrations. Basically write out anything you would normally have written out, and have been writing out so far, but keep it all IC.

REWARDS: OOC what you hope the result of your action is.

RISK: OOC what you're risking. See above for definition of risk. You will not receive either the REWARDS above or even benefits that might have come out of your ACTIONS (such as a drawn weapon, for example) without risking something.

Here's an example of the new format:

ACTIONS: His eyes sweep everything around them, mainly using thermographic vision, a soft tug on the robot horse's left ear indicating that Ed should do the same.  Always alert, the 'Slinger's head jerks towards thre slightest movement.
Ed.  Are there any strange chemicals in the air?

At Jesse's question, the horse can be heard to sniif loudly, turning his head to either side to scent the area around them better.

REWARDS: Molecular analyzer.  Anything?

RISK: I spend 15 seconds doing this.

If you can get your players to follow this format, then they will see when they are asking for rewards without risk, and you will have explicit ways to discuss with them inappropriate risks (e.g., REWARDS: I defeat the mama dragon and steal the egg. RISK: I am delayed 15 seconds.)

Do you think this might help you?