[T.E.A.M.]Mechanics to Force Player Interaction

[CommonDialog]

Hiya Group,

I am designing a game which is heavily centered around teamwork.  The players gain all sorts of neat bonus dice if they work together, but I am toying with the idea of introducing a mechanic where a player can not work together as part of the team, not contribute as many or any bonus dice to the team, but not suffer the negative consequences of failing the roll.  They also don't share in the glory.

As part of this, I want to have a mechanic where every character has a reaction stat to every other player.  This stat denotes the trust/friendship level between the players and is a reflection of how much they contribute to the team.

I have a few questions.
1.  What games have done this successfully?  I am thinking Cold City perhaps...
2.  In everyone's experience, how often are these stats used and how often are they just ignored?
3.  Any advice/thoughts on the mechanics?

[jueqel]

Interesting mechanic. Is the degree of teamwork finite or open ended in either direction?
You mention trust/friendship, but are there other stats? I mean is the kinship between characters defined in specific terms and type of working relationship, or is it just one general teamwork stat?

[Madheretic]

Hey there, Mr. Dialog!

1. I think you could benefit from taking a look at The Mountain Witch. Its own trust mechanic is pretty close to the one you've described.

2. In The Mountain Witch you sure as heck don't ignore trust! Seriously, not having trust like being up a creek without a paddle, or a even boat for that matter. Trust me, I've been there!
The key rule that makes it relevant is that you cannot cooperate with another player without spending trust, and there are basically no means to increase your chance of success except by cooperating. This may or may not be right for what you want to do, especially if you have a more conventional skill+bonuses type of resolution in mind.

3. What you've written so far is pretty sparse, so my thoughts have mostly been questions: When a player chooses not to contribute, are they just sitting on the sidelines, or could they be tackling the same conflict on their own? Do you have any mechanics in mind to back up the "glory" the team earns, or the negative consequences they might encounter? How, when and according to whose judgement does trust change? Have you considered what role leadership might play in the mechanics?

[CommonDialog]

And this is why I post to the Forge... great questions one and all!

In my game, I envision teamwork happening firstly by there being a common pool of dice that available to every member of the team who is participating as a team member.  Think of the crew of the Enterprise.  Sulu may be the one firing phasers, but his ability to do so is based on Kirk executing a good battle strategy, Checkov manuevering the ship, Spock scanning the proper shield frequencies, and Scottie shunting the proper amount of power from the warp drives.  So Sulu's player is rolling, but he gets to roll from the common pool that everyone chips into.  The only reason a player would withold his or her dice from the pool is
a)  They are working counter the group which at this point in the game design can happen
b)  They want to keep themselves from the negative consequences of the action and thusly from its glory as well.

I just really want a way to show that teams gel as they go through battle together and the guy who witholds his dice from the pool so he can spend them running to the escape pod is the lump in the gel.  (I very much want to create a mechanic that makes it enjoyable from a roleplaying aspect to be the stick in the mud, though I may end up tossing it out, too.)  The game is about working together and the glory therein, but part of me hates forcing players to be a team.  I think it's more dramatic if there is the option to abandon the team.

Moutain Witch is not a bad idea, but I'm not sure about spending trust.  I think that trust is earned and lost based on a character's actions and guides how players should roleplay.  That was more my thought.  Is it too simplistic to have a relationship modifier that guides roleplay and leave it at that?  The basic mechanic is such that any one person has far less bonus dice to spend on a conflict than they can contribute to the group so teamwork is generally created via the rule set.  I just thought the trust would give it a little more flavor.

To your questions, there are other stats.  I envision the game being far more like a traditional RPG with physical, mental, and will stats as well as skills.  I basically was thinking about including a relationship map as part of the character sheet so that the relationships between each character could be recorded.  I also like the idea of trust being two way, so if I trust you 5 of 10, you may trust me 1 out of 10.

As for mechanics to back up glory or consequences, that is a very interesting point.  The game at least how I envision it is largely conflict oriented (not necessarily combat) oriented so the team is working towards a goal.  To be frank, the game as it stands now, will have a space opera conflict setting taking place during the Birth of the Sixth Republic and the struggles between two races.  I had considered going genreless and saying that the mechanics can be slotted into any setting (Roman combat and office politics being two other ideas I had) but I just find a rich setting to be more compeling and fun to write.  I do include rules for retrofitting the rules to other settings.

Interesting idea about leadership.  I had not.  What I did envision was that every setting would have roles.  So for the space combat game the roles include ship captain, gunner, engineer, ship pilot, fighter pilot, squadron leader, CAG, doctor, damage control, marine, negotiator, science officer, first officer.  Each role would have required skills.  The important thing would be that no role would be more important than any other and as long as each player played their character's role they would add all their dice to the pool.  If they character played in a related role (for instance the fighter pilot acting as squadron leader or an engineer taking over damage control) they would add most of their dice.

I'm going to think about Leadership.  I think that would give the trust mechanic a shot of steroids, huh?

[Callan S.]

Hi,

The game is about working together and the glory therein, but part of me hates forcing players to be a team.  I think it's more dramatic if there is the option to abandon the team.

Ideally, what would a player be going for, in abandoning the team? For example, in chess I don't think about why I'm trying to check the other king, it's just part of winning the game. Is there something to win by abandoning the team?

Or would the player being going for the option, as an illustration of his characters mind "I didn't agree to those executions before...you know, you guys can get yourselves out of this mess", for example?

[CommonDialog]

I hate to think of this as winning/losing.  I think that by not participating in the team you avoid the crap that would go down if they succeed or fail.  This can be good and bad.

So if you decide not to be part of the team, you avoid taking damage if they fail basically.

So is there a reaosn to have a relationship map mechanic if players are always part of the same team?

[Callan S.]

I hate to think of this as winning/losing.  I think that by not participating in the team you avoid the crap that would go down if they succeed or fail.  This can be good and bad.

So if you decide not to be part of the team, you avoid taking damage if they fail basically.

At that stage though, it's kind of up to the player as to what their getting at by deciding not to team.

Hypothetically, lets say the common reason players would avoid teaming is to help them win.

If that were the case, leaving it as is would make it about winning/losing. Do you want to leave it at a 'don't team, don't take damage'? Because it doesn't tell the player why they should be interested in avoiding damage - they'll make up their own reason, one example is: to help them win.

[Filip Luszczyk]

Are you sure you want the relationships or trust between the characters measured? Cause, if it's all about how well they work together, you could rather measure support. Everyone could have a separate support meter to everyone else (two sided thing). Then, the character could have his basic pool determined depending on skills and role and all, and the rest of the group would have an option of adding their current support scores to the pool.

If the conflict failed, the acting character would lose his own support (from his side) to those who were helping him. If the conflict succeeded, the acting character would improve his support to the rest (again, from his side). Acting solo would have the benefit of keeping one's support values intact.

Support values could be improved by interacting with other players outside conflict, possibly. Maybe if a mutual interest was exposed in a scene, both support values would be improved, and if some issue between them came to light, both support values would be lowered.

Also, you could give characters a support value to themselves. Player would have an option of adding this "solo" support value only when acting solo, and it would be improved or lowered depending on success or failure. However, there would be no way of improving it outside conflict.

So, facing a lot of easy problems alone would make one ready for later difficulties, giving some actual chances to succeed alone in a critical situation. However, others support would still be the most sure way of dealing with difficult problems - although each time teams cohesion would be tested.

[CommonDialog]

Filip,

I think you have hit closer to how I see the game going (and yes I should Power 19, I know, I know.)  I am going to have to think about the game and do some writing on it.

What I might do is leave out soloing and see what my playtesters think and what you all think and go from there.