[Misery Bubblegum] How do you reward bad timing?

[Thunder_God]

Ok, I understand :)

I still stand by my suggestion to switch into Both Defer>Both Lose 1, Both Resolve> Both Gain X, End(?).

[TonyLB]

Well, you and Ralph both bring up the issue of resolving ... and I think that part of why my mind is having trouble grappling with this issue is that while such plots certainly do resolve in the sense that a climax is reached and dramatic tension is released, I don't think that they resolve in the sense that the exact same question will never be raised again.

The question "Does he love me?" becomes "Does he still love me?" and can keep coming back no matter how many times it is "resolved."  So I want to be clear that we're talking about "resolved for now," not "resolved forever."  Which, I think, feeds back into both of your points.

Ralph, I very much like the idea of the doubling cube (though I'm not sure an exponential curve is the right way to do it).  They defer because they get a better reward (if they get the reward) later.  It fits very well with the classic explanation of why people go through such hardships:  because it makes their eventual victory so much sweeter.  In this case you're explicitly paralleling that.

And Guy, you're right that the Resolution should be something that is valuable enough to be sought after, and that the downside of it is that when you get it you can't keep seeking.  Otherwise people are going to defer forever.  I get what you're saying about switching the double-defer and double-resolve values, and I think you're right.

So here's my addition to make your two points work together:  The players should have to invest some resources into raising the conflict in the first place.  Yes, it's widely accepted that "Does he love her?" has been a conflict several times, and that it probably will be in the future, but if you want it to be an open conflict today then you have to pay for that privilege.

Players invest those resources in hopes of getting back (a) a long cycle of resolve/defer pairings that profit them and (b) a big pay-off at the end for resolving a goal that has been 'ripened' (or whatever) by all that dramatic tension.

They risk losing those resources if the conflict is resolved too early (giving them a payoff that doesn't compensate for the initial investment) or if the conflict is resolved in failure (giving them no final payoff) or, worst of all, both.

I'm not quite sure where the "resolved in failure" outcome so necessary to drive this dynamic comes from.  The two obvious choices are to pin it either on a selfless GM (traditional) or competing players (my personal thing).  There may be something better though, that I just haven't thought of.