[TSoY] Key of Glittering Gold, problem

[Doyce]

Hey all,

I've run a scenario two times just recently where a character in the group (two different players, two different groups) had Key of Glittering Gold. Actually, it was called Key of Greed, but had the same goals:

Key of Glittering Gold
    Your character loves wealth. Gain 1 XP every time you make a deal that favors you in wealth. Gain 3 XP every time you double your wealth.

Hmm. The 3xp reward proved to be a real problem in the game, because it (literally) become exponentially harder to hit that Key reward, every time you hit it.  What I saw in both instance was that the players would find ways (that varied in believability) to dump their accumulated wealth down to nearly nothing in order to start doubling it again.  I found this a difficult action to 'believe', given the statement "Your character loves wealth."  You love it, so you accumulate it and then (for instance) purposely lose almost all of it so you can start over?  Meh.

Any thoughts on this?  Is there a better way to write that 3xp section?  Aside from the odd behavior it prompts in game, I don't like that it's set up to get exponentially harder to hit, every time you successfully DO hit it -- that's not something you see in comparable keys.

[Valamir]

...sounds like your player needs to be thinking bigger.  I wouldn't allow them to dump wealth...I'd measure the XP doubling from their high water mark...they don't get the xps again until they double what they had the last time they hit the key.

Then just make sure they have ample opportunity to go for bigger and bigger deals.  Bigger capers.  Bigger rewards.  Bigger Bigger Bigger. 

How much fun when they start planning ways to take the king hostage just because they NEED a king's ransom to hit their key again.

I also wouldn't be too big of a stickler about what constitutes "double".  "Double your wealth" to me is in the same category as "it cost a gazillion dollars"...that is to say its short hand for "a whole lot" but I wouldn't try to measure it to the penny.  If he did a big huge deal, and got a whole lot of money but it only increased his wealth by 60%...close enough in my book.

[Doyce]

The first part of the suggestion addresses what to do about what the player was doing in response to the (easy) assessment that it would become flat-out impossible to hit their key again after -- they hacked the restriction by dumping wealth -- I'd have probably done the same thing, and at the same time been annoyed with the Key for encouraging that in the first place.  I understood exactly why the players were doing it, and let it go simply because I didn't think the Key as written was particularly defensible.

As for not being a stickler for what 'double' means... well, at that point I'm really just drifting the Key to read "3xp for significantly increasing your wealth" and you get dead-boring debates about whether this score or that score was 'significant enough.'  Meh.

Neither of which addresses the main problem I have with the Key as written, which is that you *have* to keep hitting higher and higher marks to hit the key.  Other Keys don't have Goals that get exponentially harder... they don't, in fact, have goals that get harder as you hit the Key, period.  For example:  Key of Bloodlust requires that you beat someone better than you to earn 3xp, period.  It is a concrete benchmark (as opposed to saying "beat a 'significant opponent'") whose definition remains static, relative to the character's current ability. Key of Glittering Gold is, by comparison, problematic in wording, interpretation, and implementation.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Doyce,

Consider that it might be problematic on purpose, and the weird up-and-down behavior is also purposeful. Hoarding money is a process that becomes less and less enjoyable and fruitful. The up-and-down behavior sounds, well, like every person who's gotten addicted to gambling that I've ever met.

Now, changing the Key to fit your game isn't "drifting" or any other sort of term. Changing stuff to fit your game is how people play role-playing games, and have since people had role-playing games. TSOY embraces this. I know there's not a concrete measure of wealth in the game, so I can feel your pain on changing it to "a significant amount of wealth."

Here's a cool idea. What if it's "3 XP every time you double your investment in a deal." I'd put some common-sense limits on that, like no 3XP for 1 coin becoming two, but you can see how this would work well, I hope.

[Doyce]

Consider that it might be problematic on purpose, and the weird up-and-down behavior is also purposeful. Hoarding money is a process that becomes less and less enjoyable and fruitful. The up-and-down behavior sounds, well, like every person who's gotten addicted to gambling that I've ever met.

Clinton,

That's a good point -- and I'll confess that in bitching and whinging on about it, I started to think of how it could work, as written, in play.

As for the "gambler" behavior -- one of the players with this Key was talking about pairing it off with Colin's Key of Extravagance, from the wiki:

Key of Extravagance
Your character seeks every opportunity to impress those around you with his means and generosity. Gain 1 XP every time he gives a gift or spends money on an unnecessary luxury. Gain 3 XP every time he blows a significant fraction of his net worth. Buyoff: Refuse a luxury you could have had.

Yeah... put alongside Key of Glittering Gold and you've got... well, a very memorable character, if only for the parties they throw.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  It's me!
  Yeah, it wasn't my character, it was a pregen. And honestly, I thought doubling my wealth was an increasingly impossible task. And my solution of being a gambler seemed fitting for my character. A pirate and thief who has to refresh his pool often, seemed like gambling was a natural fit. I think limiting this key is a little unfair. I mean there are keys that you can initiate at any time, like bloodlust, anytime you want XPs, start a fight. Any time I want XPs blow off some cash and then get it back...
  I didn't really pick up on Doyce's irritation. Was a blip on the radar of a good night of gaming. I can't tell if its a big deal or just an annoying question in the back of his mind. I do think that limiting this key in an artificial way (i.e., double an investment or double some old money total that doesn't exist anymore) is a little harsh. The key is greed, not miser isn't it?
  Well, I hope I didn't trip you up too much and I hope we can figure it out without jacking up other players with this key...

[Doyce]

Hi!
  It's me!
  Yeah, it wasn't my character, it was a pregen. And honestly, I thought doubling my wealth was an increasingly impossible task. And my solution of being a gambler seemed fitting for my character. A pirate and thief who has to refresh his pool often, seemed like gambling was a natural fit. I think limiting this key is a little unfair. I mean there are keys that you can initiate at any time, like bloodlust, anytime you want XPs, start a fight. Any time I want XPs blow off some cash and then get it back...
  I didn't really pick up on Doyce's irritation. Was a blip on the radar of a good night of gaming. I can't tell if its a big deal or just an annoying question in the back of his mind. I do think that limiting this key in an artificial way (i.e., double an investment or double some old money total that doesn't exist anymore) is a little harsh. The key is greed, not miser isn't it?
  Well, I hope I didn't trip you up too much and I hope we can figure it out without jacking up other players with this key...

Dave,

No irritation with you at all -- as I said, I'd have done the same thing, and as Clinton's indicated, what you did was pretty much the intended behavior.

Fact of the matter is -- I've run that scenario again since you played, and the second player of West did exactly the same thing -- it just seemed... odd.  For myself, I wasn't looking for a limiter -- I think the thing's got limits enough as it is -- I was looking for some way to get rid of the 'sell down, earn back up' behavior, but it's honestly stopped bothering me. :)

So... there it is! :)

[colin roald]

As for the "gambler" behavior -- one of the players with this Key was talking about pairing it off with Colin's Key of Extravagance, from the wiki:...

Yeah... put alongside Key of Glittering Gold and you've got... well, a very memorable character, if only for the parties they throw.

Yeah, I pretty much wrote that key after looking at Glittering Gold and saying, well, then to go with *that* I want...

You could take either one of them alone if your character only cares about one side of the ride.  But I totally think the threshold has to be relative to current net worth.  Psychologically that's just how it works.  If I double a $1 bet, I'm not that excited.  A $10,000 bet, now, that is a horse of a different texture.