Rocks fall, everybody (who bid their HP) dies

[Callan S.]

Um ... okay.  Does winning stakes get you those points back?  Or, once you lose them, are they gone for good?

I'm still considering how pools refresh. Currently I'm thinking at yet another personal D&D default that the resources don't refresh at all - you only ever get closer to your doom. They only refresh at the start of each session (note: Not per game world day but per real life session).

[Callan S.]

First of all, I don't think that Eric would go for icecream. How can you be so sure that he was a pure, 101% gamist back then, without any trace of simulationist concerns with causality, on the basis of such a short relation?

Same goes for you being sure it's sim. Mexican stand off, let's move on.

Actually, I don't quite agree that a desire for social appreciation is characteristic of the gamism as a whole. I'd even say that the "impress the girl" example wasn't an example of a gamist motivation, but of a completely out of game motivation, not connected with CA, that could just as well be realised in a different social context (I'd say that impressing the girl lays outside of even the meta-game level here, since it has completely nothing to do with the act of role-playing - it's not even "gaining social appreciation by the act of playing and winning", but simply trying to draw attention by means available; the player doesn't want to win the game - he wants to impress the girl).

The mechanic presented will probably work just perfectly with a proper group. That said, I'm still not convinced that it would work for every gamist. It's rather suited for a very, very, very small number of gamists who realise this very, very, very specific version of gamism.

I'm pretty cool with that. I know that heavy system use like in capes play isn't gamist. And I've come to think many other types of heavy system use, aren't actually gamist either. The only thing I can see that is different is that peer appreciation of technique is more important than mechanical win.

The thing is, winning doesn't mean you were doing better than everyone else. Probably hard to believe. How about a variant of chess, where both sides get to roll d1000 at the start of each turn and on a 1, they automatically win. Both players play awhile and one is crushing the other player and about to checkmate his king. Bang, the besieged player rolls a 1. He wins.

Since he won, does that automatically mean he did better than the other player?

By the gods, I hope you answer no. If you do, that's an example of why peer appreciation is more important than mechanically winning.

[Callan S.]

I think what would help is if you could make up a play example of this mechanic in action.  Try this scenario.  There's a princess locked away in the high tower of the castle.  Our three heros gather to rescue her.  The GM secretly decides it would take them 800 brute points to storm the castle because of all the extra guards assigned to defend the gate.  The players bid 50 wits points to instead come up with a plan that scares the guards off allowing them to get into the castle.

Whoa man, you've got some sort of 'buy a scene with points' mindset in place. I can't say anything about your example, cause it's like really out of place.

What if I revise your example: The GM silently thinks how he's going to smash the players brute points if they storm the castle. The players describe a cunning plan and make their resource bids (they put their wit resources at risk and only that resource, wit being a resource as in how much you can think before your brain fatigues). The GM says such a plan would weary the mind, hitting them for 50 of their wit points...and the plan wouldn't even avoid all fighting cause of the extra guards, so there's 50 brute points of damage too. The players take the wit damage, but not the brute damage because they didn't bid that.

In my mind, the players then think 'Nice victory, but yeah, we hid from the brute damage and it seemed pretty fair for that to happen. Next time we should also bid brute damage and come up with a plan so awesome that we don't take any brute damage, either! That'll prove how awesome we are!"

[Filip Luszczyk]

First of all, consider changing the procedure a bit. I suggest that it would work better like that:

1.The GM decides what's at stake and writes it on a scratch paper (or something).
2.Players bid openly.
3.The GM shows what's at stake and everything is resolved.

(If I understand correctly, currently its 2-1-3, right?)

That way you won't have this strange situation where players have to decide what to bid in secret from the GM, but openly to themselves. And the GM can also have some fun watching the group bidding, instead of just sitting and waiting till they announce that they are ready.

Same goes for you being sure it's sim. Mexican stand off, let's move on.

And where am I being sure it's sim, I must ask you? Maybe you mistake my point with one of Tony's or Bill's posts.

It seems to me that you simply can't accept that there might be middle ground when it comes to CA. He's either gam or sim, but can't be both? You are forgeting that there is no such thing like pure gamist (or simulationist, or narrativist, or anything) in the real world. What you say simply sounds like you wanted to pigeonhole everyone into one of the three categories, but CA's don't work like that. Keep in mind that they refer only to specific decisions in play, and using them to talk about persons or games is only a very big simplification. It's impossible to accurately analyze Actual Play using only one CA. A player could be gamist in a specific area, but sim or nar in every other, and this can shift from session to session, from game to game, and even more so when it comes to GM-ing.

So, I think you see things in Eric's article that not necessarily are there, and we have no proof that they are or are not.

I know that heavy system use like in capes play isn't gamist. And I've come to think many other types of heavy system use, aren't actually gamist either.

D&D is very heavy mechanically, but it's still gamist. It's not about heavy or rules light mechanics. It's how the mechanic is to be used by the players. Both low and high points of contact games can be gamist, if they support a particular type of gamist play.

The thing is, winning doesn't mean you were doing better than everyone else. Probably hard to believe.

Yes, hard to believe. Because gamism is about "winning", and there is nothing more to it. Now, "winning" can mean almost anything. We've been pondering this topic on Polish forums some time ago.

So, "winning" can simply mean "achieving mechanical victory by any means available". It can just as well mean "playing with a good technique, whether it actually leads to victory or not". And it can possibly mean "playing so that you don't achieve mechanical victory", too, if the player considers something like that his way of "winning" (on Polish forums someone described a case of Call of Cthulhu player who tries to accumulate sanity loss so that his character went mad before the end of the adventure).

The thing is, it's not "winning doesn't mean" - just "winning does not have to mean".

How about a variant of chess, where both sides get to roll d1000 at the start of each turn and on a 1, they automatically win. Both players play awhile and one is crushing the other player and about to checkmate his king. Bang, the besieged player rolls a 1. He wins.

Since he won, does that automatically mean he did better than the other player?

Yes, if you have mostly gamble oriented gamists.
No, if you have mostly crunch oriented gamists.
No, if you have gamists for whom "winning" means "being the best-looking goth kid on the chess tournament" here, and chess is only a pretext for meeting to demonstrate their goth-ness.
Yes, if you have gamists for whom "winning" means "beating on the enemy, by any means possible".
etc, etc, etc...

Does this answer satisfy you? If not, I suggest reading the GNS essays once more. Your insistence that gamism is always exactly one thing is nothing more than reducing a complex agenda to one of its possible applications.

(My, I hope that didn't sound rude or anything ;))

[Caldis]

What if I revise your example: The GM silently thinks how he's going to smash the players brute points if they storm the castle. The players describe a cunning plan and make their resource bids (they put their wit resources at risk and only that resource, wit being a resource as in how much you can think before your brain fatigues). The GM says such a plan would weary the mind, hitting them for 50 of their wit points...and the plan wouldn't even avoid all fighting cause of the extra guards, so there's 50 brute points of damage too. The players take the wit damage, but not the brute damage because they didn't bid that.

In my mind, the players then think 'Nice victory, but yeah, we hid from the brute damage and it seemed pretty fair for that to happen. Next time we should also bid brute damage and come up with a plan so awesome that we don't take any brute damage, either! That'll prove how awesome we are!"

Sure that's all great but I'll ask you again how does this determine success or failure of the action?  What does the bidding actually accomplish? Is victory guaranteed and the only question is how many points it costs?  Is completing the scenario with the most remaining resources points "winning" in your game?  If so that still leaves a big problem of not bidding any resources and still winning, if you win no matter what then bidding any resources is just a bad strategy.  There's no real reason to risk the points if you dont gain anything by doing so.

By your description is does also seem to depend a lot on how feasible the gm finds your plan.  The real game would become figuring out the way the gm thinks and coming up with a plan that exploits it and the bidding thing becomes an afterthought.  My impression is this isnt a bad starting point for a mechanic but it needs some refinement to make it actually useful in play.

[TonyLB]

I'm still considering how pools refresh. Currently I'm thinking at yet another personal D&D default that the resources don't refresh at all - you only ever get closer to your doom. They only refresh at the start of each session (note: Not per game world day but per real life session).

So ... your game is designed to systematically eliminate and disempower the people who are playing it the way you want them to (by pushing them inexorably closer to their doom), while protecting and empowering the people who play it the way you wish they wouldn't?

[Caldis]

Here's a way I think you could make this work.

Give the GM so many points for the scenario and he announces it at the beginning of the game.  In order for the players to succeed they have to match the gm's bid value but not the type of resource.  If they bid the same type as he did they lose the points, if they dont bid enough points they fail in what they were attempting and again lose the points if they match but lose nothing if the dont match.


So in our example where the players were trying to rescue the princess from the castle lets say the gm has decided this scenario is worth 1200 points.  This value could even be required to match the combined value of the players abilities if you want to make it fair but then again winning against tough odds or taking on an easy opponent can be an interesting change.  So anyways the gm has 1200 points for the whole scenario and announces it to the players, they have their points that wont refresh until this scenario is done.  The players come up with a plan to get into the castle, the first step in this scenario.  The gm decides on how many and what type of points to bid on this instance, they dont have to relate in anyway to what type of defences have been described for the castle but the type will be important later in resolution. The gm can only bid one type of resource.

So the player decide to bid their resources.  They also have to chose only 1 type and they must pool their resources.  They total their bid, come to an agreement on what type of resource and when they are ready both the players and the gm reveal the bids.  The players succeed if they match or beat the gm's bid.  They fail if they didnt' bid as much as the gm point wise.  Either way we compare the type of resource and if both the players and the gm's type match the players lose that amount.  The type of resources bid also determines the narrated effects in a sort of fortune in the middle manner.  In our example  we'll say the gm bid 200 points on brute the players bid a total of 350 on wits.   Because they've beat the gm's total they have succeeded in entering the castle and they did it by using wits so we know think up a way in which the players wits overcame the brute force of guards.

It the gm had also bid wits and both totals remained the same then the players would have lost the amount they bid but still been successful.  I 'd suggest taking the total starting from the player with the lowest bid and working up but never taking more than they've bid.  In either case the gm has used up his 200 points and can not reuse them.

[Callan S.]

So ... your game is designed to systematically eliminate and disempower the people who are playing it the way you want them to (by pushing them inexorably closer to their doom), while protecting and empowering the people who play it the way you wish they wouldn't?

Yes. It shows just how missplaced playing a design rule is, doesn't it?

Honestly, if my mechanic was instead a to do list for getting players to organise a time they can all get together in real life, to 'play' it would mean not turning up - since turning up means 'risk' and no reward to make up for it!

The mechanic helps create something to turn up to in the first place. Over and over again in this thread though, there's the assumption there already is a game arena to play in. There isn't and you are dishonouring your fellow players by thinking there is. Once you've locked in your bids, only then does the arena exist.

[Callan S.]

Hi Caldis,

I'm not sure I have formalised victory status in mind, like other indie RPG's tend to use. As a player I want to push a rock off a cliff onto an orcs head below, to state a victory status would be to describe that result. What I want the design to focus on is the player simply describes what they do, without saying it's intent. Then they see what happens. So they might describe their PC pushing the rock and may or may not bid fatigue points while doing so. Then they see what happens. See, that's where the gamist arena is supposed to be (and only supposed to be) - guessing how the game world will work out in your favour. You can still lose and the rock thuds a foot to the left of the orc. My proposed mechanic only lets the player determine if his fatigue points were part of the bet or not.

[Caldis]

I'm not sure I agree with you on the scope of the gamist agenda but let's ignore that for now and look at this mechanic.

It seems to me you are looking for a random resource management system that will affect what the characters are able to do in game.  Once the player has run out of resources the character is pretty much going to be useless.  It kind of works like hit points in Dungeons and Dragons except rather than being dependant on the combat system your mechanic is dependant on the players skill and luck at betting. 

The up side would be that the mechanic is more directly related to the player, the downside is that it does devalue the SIS.  What the player bid determines the result rather than the long drawn out process of how the player created the character, what type of abilities he gave the character, how well he rolled on the d20, etc.  The downside is that a lot of players get a huge kick out of all that extra stuff, unless you still have that in the game in some other manner?

Couple questions for you yet, what is the scope of an action in your game?  Would you bid for every sword swing or is combat resolved in one roll and this mechanic would only come into play when combat is over?  What are you planning to use as a resolution mechanic and how does it integrate with this?

I can see it working in the manner I've laid out above, it may even be a more intriguing mechanic than hit points or the like, I do worry it may be somewhat clunky and slow game play down for little advantage.  How do you plan to handle those concerns?

[Bill Masek]

Callen,

I'm pretty cool with that. I know that heavy system use like in capes play isn't gamist. And I've come to think many other types of heavy system use, aren't actually gamist either. The only thing I can see that is different is that peer appreciation of technique is more important than mechanical win.

I believe that I have found the true source of your all the conflicts and problems.  There are misconceptions as to the goal of your game.  I do not believe that the goal of your game is actually gamist.  I believe that you goal is as follows:

The goal of this game is to create a meta-game through which a player can maximize the appreciation of others for themselves.

I do not see how the bidding system generates appreciation.  True, you can bid a lot or a little.  But so what?  Why should I care what someone else bids?  I won't benefit from it.  I won't find the experience any more or less immersive because he or she chose one number over another.  If anything, the lack of mechanical interaction seems like it would generate apathy.

That said, I think that we could tweak your bidding system slightly so that it supports your goal very well.  Let us try to find where in GNS it falls, then from there we can work on insuring that it

As stated, your goal falls outside of GNS.  Or, rather, it falls into every GNS option to some degree.  Each option can help you achieve your goal in a different way.

To make sure that we are on the same page, I am very quickly going to define GNS for you.  I believe that many of the conflicts in this thread have resulted from simple miscommunication.

Gamisim:  The player's primary goal is to win
Simulationisim:  The player's primary goal is to create player immersion.
Narativism:  The player's primary goal is to create an awesome story

Here are some ways each of the different GNS options can help you achieve your goal:

Gamisim:  In a gamist game you can have actual mutualism and altruism.  You can impress other players with your tactics.  You can take great risks and sacrifice for the group as a whole.
Simulationisim:  You can impress others with your acting skills.  When you succeed at generating immersion you create enjoyment for the group as a whole.
Narativism:  I would recommend against narativisim as it tends to be story focused, not player focused.  It is about working together to create a story everyone can appreciate, not creating appreciation for yourself.  Might be able to impress others with your story creation skills, but that's about it.

If you want to include more then one of these goals into your game that's fine.  However, you will need to prioritize them.  These goals will come into conflict with one and other.  In order to maximize the benefit that your players will achieve from your game, you must decide which goals take precedence over which.  On the other hand, you don't need to  If you only want one, that is fine as well.

Its getting very late so I am just going to wrap this up with one possibility which I could see strongly supporting your goal.

You choose to make your game gamist.  When you bid and succeed you generate resources FOR ANOTHER PLAYER.  This is the only way to generate resources and they never refresh.  Mutualism and co-operation are the only ways to become more effective.  Perhaps there is an overarching goal (the win condition) so that players can make personal sacrifices to draw closer to it.  If you have a goal then it would need to be impossible to draw closer to it (and thus win) without actually spending resources.

I am not saying that this is the only way to go.  The game Eric described was simulationist and you seemed to really like that.  There would be nothing wrong with figuring out ways to shift the system to help generate that kind of immersion.

Best,
        Bill

[contracycle]

The goal of this game is to create a meta-game through which a player can maximize the appreciation of others for themselves.

Yes.  However, the conclusions you go on to draw are completely spurious IMO.

And its only outside the scope of GNS in that its proposing a kinda negotiation about the terms of the local game, which is unsual in gamism, but not in its ethic or mindset, which are gamist.

I also think your breakdown of GNS is highly simplistic but lets set that aside.

I think part of what is happening here is that we are going too far too fast.  An idea was floated for consideration and comment, a whole game was not offered for examination and critique.  Attacking such as exists of the idea at the moment for not "working" is premature.  I've had this problem myself, where an idea needs commentary to develop but is hard to communicate with out a developed example.

For one thing we are mostly ignoring any link that may exist between the SIS and mechanics which will presumably exist in a developed version.  Callan mentions "like HP or fatigue points", so maybe it would pay to consider more closely something like the CHOICE to be made by electing to bet fatigue, or HP, or both, and how that would be reflected in the action in the SIS, what you would describe in play as a consequence of that choice.

Another thing that has been elided by this layer of abstraction is that presumably, charracters can die.  Thats why there is still something riding on the notional risks.  We can pose the question thus: if approached by your enemies, do you choose to run (bet fatigue) or fight (bet HP)?  In the latter case, if the price the GM demands is high, the character may die.  That is implied by the qualitative distinction between the nature of the points and what they represent, and the distinction is implied by the fact there is more than one pool of them.

Its too early to get into details of refreshing pools and the like.  The question asked was what kind of attributes characters shoulod have, if any.  Callan, do you mean trad attributes in addition to the point pools?  I think this would be an oppotunity to do something much more impressonist with whatever figures flesh out the character representation.

[Bill Masek]

contracycle,

The goal of this game is to create a meta-game through which a player can maximize the appreciation of others for themselves.

Yes.  However, the conclusions you go on to draw are completely spurious IMO.

Hence why my last post was not for you, but for Callen.  You will notice the previous line was:

I believe that you goal is as follows:

Only he can know what his goal is.  Not you.  I am making a conjecture based on what Callen has been saying.  If this conjecture is correct then the rest of the post should be useful to him.  If not he can explain his actual goals and from there we can tweak his mechanic.

An idea was floated for consideration and comment, a whole game was not offered for examination and critique.

True.  And no one has ever offered him a full game.  However, mechanics must exist in some kind of context.  The Sorcerors Cool Rule mechanic has no place in a gamist game.  Our analysis in this game has only been as deep as necessary to explore the bidding mechanic.

Callan mentions "like HP or fatigue points", so maybe it would pay to consider more closely something like the CHOICE to be made by electing to bet fatigue, or HP, or both, and how that would be reflected in the action in the SIS, what you would describe in play as a consequence of that choice.[
...
Another thing that has been elided by this layer of abstraction is that presumably, charracters can die.  Thats why there is still something riding on the notional risks.  We can pose the question thus: if approached by your enemies, do you choose to run (bet fatigue) or fight (bet HP)?  In the latter case, if the price the GM demands is high, the character may die.  That is implied by the qualitative distinction between the nature of the points and what they represent, and the distinction is implied by the fact there is more than one pool of them.

If that the mechanic in quesion were:  "The GM says you must bid X resources total but the players get to decide how these are divided" then it would not be a problem.  (Other then the fact that it wouldn't help Callen achieve his goal.)  But that is not the mechanic.  The current mechanic allows you to bid what ever you want.  The "bidding 0 always" strategy has been the sticking point.

Its too early to get into details of refreshing pools and the like.

If you don't feel you need this kind of information then don't ask.  But if someone else feels they do then they have every right to.


Instead of arguing with people who are trying to help Callen, your energies would be better spent trying to help him yourself.  It does not matter if their comments would not help you improve his game, as long as it helps him.  If you have something to add to the mechanic or recommendations for it, please feel free to state it.  But don't waste time trying to pretend you know whose ideas are helpful and whose are not.  Only Callen can know that.

Best,
        Bill

[wheloc]

Ooh... ooh... I got a couple of questions.

First, what guidlines do you suggest a GM should follow when deciding how many of what resources things should cost?  If her main concern is "what things would realistically cost", then dosn't this part of the system have a Simulist slant?  If her main concern is "what's best for the story" then dosn't this part have a Narritivist slant?  I'd argue that "what's fair (according to the rules of the game)" would be a gamest slant, but you've said that you want your system to be gamist without the GM having to worry about fairness, so this presumibly isn't what you're going for (or is the goal to allow the GM to make decisions based of setting or plot without having to abandon gamist play?).

Second, what guidlines do you suggest a player should follow when deciding what to bid?  Is it the same as the GM's?  Is it a pure metagame decision (such as how interested the player is in the scene?  or how confident they are about their plan?), or does it represent something in character (such as how much risk the character is willing to take?  or how much effort the character is putting forth?)?

Third, what's the point of secrecy during the "bidding"?  As near as I can figure, both the GM and the player pick a resource loss and the character loses the lowest of these two picks.  This seems like a pretty non-confrontational way to determine the cost; what's the harm in letting the GM know what I'm bidding (since she's no way to force me to lose more then I'm willing to bid anyway)?  We'd probably achieve simlar results if we just discussed and consensed on what resources should be lost (we might even achieve more satisfying results, as we both come up with factors that the other didn't consider).

[contracycle]

Instead of arguing with people who are trying to help Callen, your energies would be better spent trying to help him yourself.  It does not matter if their comments would not help you improve his game, as long as it helps him.  If you have something to add to the mechanic or recommendations for it, please feel free to state it.  But don't waste time trying to pretend you know whose ideas are helpful and whose are not.  Only Callen can know that.

Indeed, Bill.  So why don't we try that, instead of proposing impossible problems about taking advantage before play even begins, for example.