A mechanic swiped from Nine Worlds: Goals

[Web_Weaver]

It might help if you explained how Nine Worlds defined a "Muse", and what limitations there are.

[Vaxalon]

Okay, Nine Worlds has a pretty simple system.  When you are in a conflict, you draw cards from your deck equal to the power you are wielding, plus the values of any muses you are pursuing. The more cards you draw, the more likely you are to succeed.

Muses must be things that are demonstrably achievable, and involve people, places, or things in the gameworld.
"Become the Champion of Apollo"
"Kill Doctor Lucky"
"Get the brain from Zombie Five"

When you achieve the muse, you cash it in for points you can use to boost your stats.

You can only have a maximum of nine muses, and they can have a maximum value of nine.  in practice, people regularly ran into the point ceiling but never had anywhere close to nine muses at a time.

[Vaxalon]

In Dungeons and Dragons, if you have a +3 to hit, and you're trying to hit an armor class of 14, and you roll a seven and say, "Ten, I hit!" whose responsibility is it to tell you that no, you didn't?  The rules don't really tell you.

Sorry I know nothing about D&D

In DnD, if you're rolling to hit, you add 1d20 to the bonus and compare to the armor class of the target.  If the total is equal or higher than the armor class of the target, you hit and can then roll for damage.

[Tim Ellis]

I disagree that any rule that is left to the social level is negligent design.  You can't make a rule for everything!  The "Don't be a dick" rule is ALWAYS in force.  At ANY point, even when a player is acting fully within the rules, another participant can say, "Dude... don't be a dick."  The game designer HAS to leave BROAD swathes of play to the social level, because to attempt otherwise leads to Waiting/Tea or KKKKK.... or Clue.

I think it depends in part on the intended audience.  A commercial RPG that deals with a potential problem by saying "A good GM will not let this happen" or "An experienced GM will be able to deal with players who try this..." is ignoring the fact that the purchaser may be new to RPG's and not have the knowledge/confidence to be able to handle players who are acting within the letter, if not the spirit of the game....

[Web_Weaver]

Okay, Nine Worlds has a pretty simple system.  When you are in a conflict, you draw cards from your deck equal to the power you are wielding, plus the values of any muses you are pursuing. The more cards you draw, the more likely you are to succeed.

Things are much clearer now! So, in Nine Worlds the 'goal' or 'muse' is integral to the resolution system.

Muses must be things that are demonstrably achievable, and involve people, places, or things in the gameworld.
"Become the Champion of Apollo"
"Kill Doctor Lucky"
"Get the brain from Zombie Five"

Already we have a tighter definition to your rule proposal by listing examples. The 'involve people places or things in the game world' is actually a clear limitation to the way they can be used, and referring to the examples gives guidance to a GM. With this advice it is easier for the GM to rule on other, potentially more vague goals.

When you achieve the muse, you cash it in for points you can use to boost your stats.

Is this the primary system of development and reward in Nine Worlds? Are you suggesting that this could be adapted as the primary system in HQ?

You can only have a maximum of nine muses, and they can have a maximum value of nine.  in practice, people regularly ran into the point ceiling but never had anywhere close to nine muses at a time.

I am guessing that the Nine Worlds character sheet has less things on it than HQ, is this correct?

I think it depends in part on the intended audience.  A commercial RPG that deals with a potential problem by saying "A good GM will not let this happen" or "An experienced GM will be able to deal with players who try this..." is ignoring the fact that the purchaser may be new to RPG's and not have the knowledge/confidence to be able to handle players who are acting within the letter, if not the spirit of the game....

Agreed totally. Rules have to be clear, indicative of a style of play and in a context that allows a clear interpretation when problems occur. The fact that traditionally, games have been unclear in these areas of contention and style is the reason that this forum exists at all. The GNS articles address this incoherence of rules texts head on. If we are attempting to achieve anything in the HQ forum, it is a coherent set of techniques and rules adaptations.

Jamie

[Web_Weaver]

Revisiting the potential problem with vague goals, there is little incentive to resolve them.

e.g. a player with "Be the Best" as a goal has no predefined end point to that part of his story. While that is good in terms of open ended usage and adaptability, the player may be reluctant to let go of the increasing skill and play a game of 'find the pea' with the GM over defining its resolution.

Have you observed this in play, or is there a warning against this in the game text?

The rule as quoted gets around this problem by being specific and also by being changeable, so I would see little reason to allow vague goals. The Nine Worlds playtesters may have encountered this in playtesting and decided on how specific they should be.

Of course, with co-operation the problem is lessened, but without a specific clause that defines who gets to decide when goals are achieved the potential is there for dysfunctional behaviour on either side.

[Vaxalon]

Is this the primary system of development and reward in Nine Worlds? Are you suggesting that this could be adapted as the primary system in HQ?
...
I am guessing that the Nine Worlds character sheet has less things on it than HQ, is this correct?

Yes, and not exactly.

Yes.

[Vaxalon]

e.g. a player with "Be the Best" as a goal has no predefined end point to that part of his story. While that is good in terms of open ended usage and adaptability, the player may be reluctant to let go of the increasing skill and play a game of 'find the pea' with the GM over defining its resolution.

Have you observed this in play, or is there a warning against this in the game text?

The rule as quoted gets around this problem by being specific and also by being changeable, so I would see little reason to allow vague goals. The Nine Worlds playtesters may have encountered this in playtesting and decided on how specific they should be.

Of course, with co-operation the problem is lessened, but without a specific clause that defines who gets to decide when goals are achieved the potential is there for dysfunctional behaviour on either side.

Ideally, the GM and Player would agree when the goal was taken, what would be required for resolution.

The goal you posit would not be allowed.  That's a personality trait, not a goal.

[Web_Weaver]

Cool, I think this resolves Mike's concerns earlier, (although I can't speak for him obviously). By discussing what the resloved goal would look like you are loosely predefining it, and so it should be easy to recognise and agree on when it occurs.

I find this idea very interesting so please remain patient with my questioning.

The other issue that comes to mind is the change of emphasis in the mechanics. You are importing a mechanic that is entwined with the resolution system in its origional context, and to some extent this would either replace the current augmentation system or dovetail with it.

I suppose you could just treat it like any other augment, but it would appear that Nine Worlds holds the idea far more centrally than this. So my questions are:

Do you envisage this goal based mechanic as a fundamental shift in emphasis from standard HQ, or just another tool in the box?

Would standard augmentation be de-emphasised to make room?

Essentially, you would be changing the nature of HQ toward one of character progression through goal resolution, this could act as a motivation towards a more narrativist style, but how centally would it need to be placed to have the desired effect? i.e. Could it be ignored if just shoehorned in?

[Vaxalon]

I see it as another tool in the box.  It would not replace the existing system.

Goal abilities would be no different than any other, and would have to be bought alongside skills and personality traits and the rest, so I don't think it's very much of a shift.

To be honest, the only thing that really changes is the trade-in.  After all, you can already have a personality trait that says, "Wants to become King of Galatea" and get the augment whenever he's working in that direction, right?

[Web_Weaver]

Absolutely, I see your point and its valid, I am actually tending towards a more extreme position. If you are going to focus on goals why not go the whole way and bring it into the heart of the system, just as it appears to be in Nine Worlds.

My main thrust here is to promote the narrativist agenda in HQ, so if that is not your explicit aim then your proposition is fine as it stands.

If you just introduce it as an extra tool it becomes a single aspect of the game, and only a subtle change to the current rules. The text already suggests HP be given for achieving goals, your method would just act as a way of using the goals as active or augmenting skills in the mean time.

Currently the character advancement system has very little in it to aid a narrativist agenda, apart from blandly flagging to the GM what skills are important to you. Changing the focus towards resolution of goals forces a profound change upon everyone round the table. Games then, have to be focused upon getting to loosely defined end-points for characters to advance. The players would demand resolution and actively seek out those situations and the GM would have better flags to latch onto. Goals could act as a temporary storage tank for all HP gained until the goals are achieved, and only then be used to increase other stats.

My only concern is that it may push out of joint the augmentation mechanic, but, at present, if the group is commited to a narrativist creative agenda then augmentation merely provides an opportunity for character colour.

It would even be possible to do away with HP pools, and just reduce goals by one point when you require a change in resolution. In this way it would emphasise that forcing a change in fortune is actually contrary to achieving wider goals. It is a focus on "now" not the future.

[Vaxalon]

Yeah, I'm fairly happy with the way HQ works, so I don't want to make major changes.  This is an incremental change that may lead to more drastic changes in the future.

[Mike Holmes]

At the risk of belaboring a tangent, I should clarify my position.

In the case of the D&D rule, there is very little ambiguity. So it's not likely to be a problem. But, that said, there are two enforcement rules in play in D&D. First, as this is a rule if any player sees it being broken, he can complain about it. That is, for things as concrete as a die mechanic, every player becomes a judge as to whether the rules are being followed. And every player will step forward at times to correct mistakes.

But, let's say that the player in question maintained that he was correct for some bizarre reason. There is a step that's taken before you "dickhead" the player out of the game. The D&D rules, in most editions at least, say that the DM is the final arbiter of all rules clarifications. It's not just tradition, the text says so in most cases.

So, yes, even in the case of the modifier in question, there is an "enforcement rule" that exists.

But the important thing here is that, while you have narrowed the criteria down somewhat, in having the goal statements have an infinite number of permutations, there must be some grey area. No matter how you slice it, you'll never get such an open-ended idea down to the point where there can never be a case that's borderline. You might be able to get it to the point where you can probably ignore the case, and get away with it.

But why?

Saying that the Narrator is the final arbiter on this is simply not as big a deal as you're making it out to be. If the definition is as clear as you say it is, the Narrator will probably not have to use the power often or at all. Further, being last arbiter does not mean that you can't negotiate first. In your example above, you can still do that while being final arbiter of things...you see me do it every time we play.

The final arbiter power comes into play when there are irreconcilable differences of opinion. I think it's a goal by the definition, you think it's not. We can't continue to play until the decision is made. All making the narrator final arbiter here does is to ensure that, if it ever gets to that point, and hopefully it never will, that the narrator gets to decide if he can have the goal or not.

Note, again, again, again, I personally dislike being in this position as well, and seek to find ways to make the criteria "hard" so that we don't ever need to go to a final arbiter - basically where saying "no" could be done by any player and is seen as just enforcing a clear rule,and not making a judgement. This is why I'd prefer something like a set limit on the number of goals. Such a limit is exactly the sort of thing that's not open to subjectivity at all.

The HQ text does have some vague "final arbiter" type clauses, and actually you could probably invoke them here. But generally I think HQ does a good job of avoiding these, and instead delineating responsibilities directly (Narrator selects improv mods, for instance). So I prefer the individiual rules to have a clause that's direct about it. Otherwise you open the door to final arbiter power getting expanded into things like "I can choose to ignore the rules if I want" and such (but that's another topic).

Anyhow, again, this is a tangent that probably belongs more in a design or theory forum. The general rule is a good one, and, as written now, will probably require little enforcement. I assume that you're thinking of this rule in conjunction with the "character advancement" rules you're currently using, right Fred? Not with the original system?

Mike

[Vaxalon]

Yes, I'm planning on using both.

I'll post a completed rule on the game site.

[Vaxalon]

http://www.thesmerf.com/vaxalon/RegainTheStars.html#Goals