[DRYH] a more competitive style of play

[Spooky Fanboy]

Let us say, hypothetically, that I felt like monkeying around with Don't Rest Your Head a bit. One thing in particular I wanted to try would be to take the hope dice pool and allow individual players to get hope (or something like it) individually. In particular, I want to reward the players for certain kinds of behavior. Do you have any advice on how to do that, and by doing so, how do I risk accidentally screwing up this game?

(Note: party unity is not a concern of mine. In fact, I wish to encourage party rivalry. And I already have some ideas percolating on how to prevent the players from going directly at each others' throats.)

[Spooky Fanboy]

Apologies for the double-post.

Also, I'm trying to brainstorm a fairly intuitive magic-system based on this version's analog of Madness. The more powerful a magical action is, the more Madness the character risks. Characters in this game will be quite powerful in regards to the magic they can use, but the magic is intrinsic to them, and thus taxes them mentally for each use. Any ideas on benchmarks you could give me would be helpful.

I'm sorry if I seem a bit coy about all this. If you want an idea of what I'm working on, please PM me.

[iago]

There are hope coins, but not a hope "dice pool" so your first post confuses me a little.

You won't break much at all if you have despair that the GM spends to screw a particular player turn into hope coins for that particular player and no one else.  If that's what you're suggesting, go ahead and do that, with my blessing.

Rewarding hope for doing cool stuff?  Sounds good to me.

I think as far as Madness dice go, the examples of madness talents in the book should give you an idea of what the sliding scale is from 1 to 6 dice.  Without knowing the context of the magic you're talking about for your variant, though, I'm not sure how to advise you...

[Spooky Fanboy]

There are hope coins, but not a hope "dice pool" so your first post confuses me a little.

You won't break much at all if you have despair that the GM spends to screw a particular player turn into hope coins for that particular player and no one else.  If that's what you're suggesting, go ahead and do that, with my blessing.

Rewarding hope for doing cool stuff?  Sounds good to me.

I think as far as Madness dice go, the examples of madness talents in the book should give you an idea of what the sliding scale is from 1 to 6 dice.  Without knowing the context of the magic you're talking about for your variant, though, I'm not sure how to advise you...

I was talking about how the hope coins were in a communal dish, from which the players could take as needed. Sorry about the mangled terminology. I think a mix of what you suggested sounds good to me, as long as it won't break anything else. DRYH is a tight little game.

As for the magic, I'm thinking of stacking it that sensory magics are the most basic, illusion/deception based magic is a little more difficult, actual changes immediate to the character are medium difficulty, and wider area effects that change reality are the most difficult, with the furthest out being changes that would affect a small fantasy kingdom. Sort of a Madness 1 to Madness 8 scale.

[iago]

Honestly, you can set the madness cap as high as you like, so 1-8 won't cause you much trouble.  It's all a question of how willing you are to have madness dominate and send you running for the hills or frothing at the mouth.

[Spooky Fanboy]

One more question: will setting the cap for Discipline at 4 instead of 3 imbalance things toward the characters too much, or is it a question of needing more Pain dice for the big challenges?

[iago]

One more question: will setting the cap for Discipline at 4 instead of 3 imbalance things toward the characters too much, or is it a question of needing more Pain dice for the big challenges?

Let's see, if you're going for +1 Discipline...

- You're reducing the likelihood that Exhaustion or Madness will dominate in small-Pain conflicts
- Increasing the character's die pool in a less risky fashion in high-Pain conflicts
- Increasing the chance that Discipline will dominate, which means it will be easier for characters to reduce their Exhaustion or get back Fight/Flight
- Increasing the number of times a character must "snap" before becoming a Nightmare through Permanent Madness
- Increasing the number of dice players can roll when they're "helping" a primary protagonist

... I think that's it.  If you want all of this, have at!

[Spooky Fanboy]

Let's see, if you're going for +1 Discipline...

- You're reducing the likelihood that Exhaustion or Madness will dominate in small-Pain conflicts
- Increasing the character's die pool in a less risky fashion in high-Pain conflicts
- Increasing the chance that Discipline will dominate, which means it will be easier for characters to reduce their Exhaustion or get back Fight/Flight
- Increasing the number of times a character must "snap" before becoming a Nightmare through Permanent Madness
- Increasing the number of dice players can roll when they're "helping" a primary protagonist

... I think that's it.  If you want all of this, have at!

Oof, this is a tough call. On the one hand, I'll need the PCs to be legendary badasses, but on the other hand, cool things will happen if they run up their Exhaustion/Madness meters. I don't want small groups to be a hassle for the PCs, but I don't necessarily want to make it too easy for them to heal back up.

Maybe a slight alteration: If their roll succeeds with Discipline on top, allow them to spend a hope chip to heal up one level of Exhaustion or Madness, but don't make it automatic. That could work; I need my PCs to be legendary, but a bit...brittle. Do you think that might skew play unfavorably doing so? Is that putting too much emphasis on the hope chips? Or does it jsut alter the dynamic without crashing the game?

[iago]

It's true, altering the side-effects of Discipline is the shortest path to a solution if you don't like that particular line.  But I think you'll end up taxing the hope economy a little too strongly with what you're suggesting.   Hm, hm, hm.

One thought I had was to make Discipline *dangerous* when it dominates.  Try this on for size:

- Exhaustion starts at 2, not 0.
- Exhaustion hitting 7+ is bad, as always.  But Exhaustion hitting 0 is bad, too.
- Fight & Flight can only be recovered with Hope, never as a part of Discipline dominating.
- The killer app: When Discipline dominates, it always reduces Exhaustion. 
- If Exhaustion hits zero, you're "rested", but that also means your insomnia isn't helping you.  You lose access to your Talents for the next scene.  Parts of the Mad City may be invisible to you.  After the next scene, your Exhaustion starts back at 2.

What's interesting about this is that it creates a big incentive for the players to raise their Exhaustion even when they don't need to.

[Darren Hill]

I like the idea of that mod, and may try it myself (when I next have a group of players willing to play a darker game!).

[Spooky Fanboy]

Actually, for my game, I may want to tax the "hope" a little more strongly.

See, I'm not trying to run a straight game of DRYH. I'm using it as a basis for a fantasy game. And the purpose of the characters isn't to stay awake, it's to keep one step ahead of the people they're manipulating. There's certain behaviors I'm trying to encourage through the hope economy.

I'll PM you soon and explain what I'm trying to do. It's late now, and I need to get to bed.

[iago]

I hear you.  I'm just concerned that you aren't giving Discipline domination anything to do *without* spending Hope.  It should do *something*, I think, for "free" -- I think I'd feel cheated if all Discipline dominations did for free was prevent any other pool from dominating.