[American Wizards] a new way to handle "difficulty"

[Marshall Burns]

American Wizards is a game idea I've been working on about students at a wizard college called the American Institute of Wizard Arts.  I've posted about it before, mostly regarding the character model.  I've since changed the character model quite a bit--inspired by Super Action Now!, I changed all the effectiveness components to dice pools.  I also reduced the number of them, which was huge, to 12 Attributes--4 physical (Vigor, Grace, Senses, Beauty), 4 mental (Intellect, Wit, Awareness, Composure), and 4 abstract (Will, Flow, Conduit, and Aura)--then the Arts & Lore section (skills and such) and Faults (detrimental traits). Then I added the section Bonds, which is for relationships.  Not just relationships with people, though; relationships with objects, materials, places, and concepts are possible.  We're talking about wizards, after all.  Then I put it away to work on Witch Trails and the Rustbelt, but a few days ago it just exploded in my brain and demanded attention, due to a new idea for the resolution mechanic.

The original idea was to roll d100 and add the values of relevant stats, then subtract a difficulty rating set by the GM; if the result is over 0, it's a success, with the extent of the successfulness indicated by how much over 0 it is.  Under 0 would be a failure, and the lower under 0 it is the worse the failure is.

Then I thought I'd use the SAN! dice mechanic (roll whatever dice are relevant, 5 or higher is a "Point," highest number of Points wins), and to value each category of effectiveness component at a different die size.  But I never could think of an arrangement that I was happy with.  So I thought, what if you could have dice of any size in every pool?  Like, under my Vigor I might have 1d20, 5d6, and 4d8.  When I roll my Vigor, I can choose any or all of those dice to roll, and the rolled dice are spent and must be refreshed later (similarly to TSOY, I'm thinking).  When assigning dice to stuff during chargen and advancement, each die size could have a cost in some sort of "character points," based on the probability of rolling 5 or higher on that die.

Then I thought about the currency I proposed in the craps thread, where one chip was worth one effect.  So, what if one "Point" was worth one effect?

The ramifications of this are awesome.  For one thing, it doesn't matter what the effect is--opening a lock is 1 point, conjuring a flame is 1 point, killing something is 1 point.  Entirely appropriate for wizards; after all, creating effects in reality is what they DO.  It also doesn't matter what the method is, it's still one point. 

And of course, the catch is that one task is not necessarily one effect.  If you're cooking a steak, changing it from "raw" to "cooked" is one effect, one point.  But what about preventing it from being burned?  That's another effect, and another point.  What if there's an earthquake going on, shouldn't that make it harder?  Ignoring or somehow avoiding the detrimental effect of the earthquake is another effect, another point.

See what's happening here?  Rather than in some twitchy "difficulty rating" that has to be arbitrated by the GM, difficulty is being described in terms of what is actually difficult about the task at hand as indicated by the fiction.  HOW COOL IS THAT?  In other words, "damn straight the fiction is part of the rules, hardcore."  (Thanks, Brand, for that phrasing, "a role-playing game is a game where the fiction is part of the rules," by the way).

It also makes handling interference and danger (as in "there's a danger of X") very simple and straightfoward.  Plus it allows unpleasant consequences, even after successful rolls. 

Now, normally, applying unpleasant consequences after a player made a successful roll would make me feel guilty.  But I love them.  In fact, when we were playing kill puppies for satan, my character barely managed to get a cash register open by rolling on his Cold of 1.  Now, he was doing this behind the back of the burly owner of the pawn shop where this was happening; Stephen was GMing, and he said, "Okay, you get the register open, and the drawer pops out.  And it goes DING!"
I ate that up; it was beautiful.  You can get away with stuff like that in kpfs because the dice don't mean much and the GM is supposed to punish your character anyway, but what about in other games?  Especially a game where your character is a wizard and thus ostensibly powerful?  Runs the risk of being annoying, deprotagonizing, right?

But it's important to the setting; wizards are forever cooking up something that's cool and interesting but impractical and probably dangerous, for no good reason other than it's cool and interesting.*  It's all about the cool, the aesthetics, for these guys; it's called the American Institute of Wizard Arts for a reason.  Then of course there are unpleasant consequences that have to be dealt with.  In fact, I expect that sort of thing would be the stuff that kicks play into motion. 

Luckily, this point-effect economy makes that easy to implement, because they can address such consequences that would be detrimental to creating the intended effect (i.e., things that they might do wrong) in their first roll--then unpleasant consequences contingent on what they did right could follow after with another run through the resolution mechanics, and you don't have to look like a goof unless you want to (or maybe if the dice hate you, but the uncertainty they provide is kinda part of it; why else use Fortune?).


I also think this sort of mechanic would make it easy to implement a rotating-GM or everybody's-a-GM-for-everybody-else (like SAN!) sort of thing, which I think I want for this project.

Now, of course, it's quite likely that I'm blinded by enthusiasm and excitement, and there is some terrible problem with this.  Which is why I thought I'd post it.  I don't think there is, but it's worth asking.  So, anyone foresee any problems with such an arrangement?  Also, is there anything that you would like to me to explain more completely?

-Marshall

* Okay, this is one similarity that this game's setting has to Harry Potter.  Why would anyone invent jellybeans that taste like grass or earwax or vomit?  Why would someone make a book about monsters that was itself a monster and likely to bite your hand?  Because it's cool.  But, on the whole, the setting has nothing to do with Harry Potter.  If anything, it's far more comparable to Unseen University from the Discworld novels.

[Plognark]

I've always had a fondness for success based systems, even though they tend to be a little course.

I like the idea of the difficulties being linked to each task or element you're trying to control, with a simple +1 success per extra thing you're trying to manage. Pretty similar to some of my own game systems, so maybe I'm just biased. ^_^

[David Berg]

Hi Marshall,

Lemme see if I read you right.

The player goal here in casting a magical effect is color beyond effectiveness.  Not that effectiveness doesn't matter; the majority of the time, a player casting a spell will want the spell to work to his character's benefit.  However, the number one priority is that the magical effect be cool and interesting.  So the following would be bad American Wizards play:

"I try to magically turn up the heat under the sausage to char it."  (Chooses certain dice, rolls them, gets 2 points to work with.)  "Okay, the heat does indeed go up and the sausage does indeed get charred."  The End

And the following would be good American Wizards play:

"I try to magically turn up the heat under the sausage to char it."  (Chooses certain dice, rolls them, gets 2 successes to work with.)  "Okay, the heat does indeed go up and the sausage does indeed get charred.  However, the knob was loose, and without hand pressure to hold it on, it flies off the stove, getting everyone's attention.  As NPC Fred stoops to pick it up, the suddenly boiling grease in the pan spatters onto him, causing him to yelp and accidentally shoot me with his magic wand."

...or perhaps I've read to many of your SAN! accounts?    Anyway, your resolution structure strikes me as providing good opportunities for such color, but I don't see any clear incentives (no TILT!) -- I'll elaborate below.

If I read you wrong, and attempts really are about success, then suppose the player rolls 4 successes, and says, "Okay, (1) the heat does indeed go up, (2) the sausage does indeed get charred, (3) the chef notices the increased flame before anything catches on fire, and (4) all the other flames on the stove are unchanged."  The GM or another player can still come up with flying knobs and spattering grease.

How many effects are necessary to complete a given task seems like a pure matter of player imagination; thus, in any sort of contested outcome, whoever isn't limited by "number of successes rolled" should always win.

In terms of straight up difficulty, I don't see how this system is any different than a game where the GM takes a difficulty rating and then narrates what exactly transpired in the fiction to reflect the margin of success or failure rolled against said difficulty.  This is something all my White Wolf GMs have always done.  The GM refers to fiction when setting the difficulty rating, just as your players refer to the fiction when breaking tasks into effects.

Maybe I'm missing something.  If so, a quick two-player example of play would probably clue me in.

Ps,
-David

[Marshall Burns]

David,

Er, well, it's somewhere between those two extremes.  Success is important, and so is Color, because both of them feed into this sorta four-pronged advancement mechanic I've cooked up.  In addition to, of course, Color contributing to enjoyment of the game and success contributing to getting what you want.  And, there is a mechanic similar to TILT!, although I didn't mention it.  It's called Applause, and it's in the form of dice that each player is allotted and may give to other players to applaud them for something.  Or bribe them; I don't care.  "I'll give you this shiny red d20 if you set Professor Axwhistle's desk on fire" is fine with me.

Briefly, and so no one has to ask, the four-pronged advancement mechanic includes:
Experience- you get this for experiencing stuff.  The more intense and the more varied the experiences, the more Experience you get.  You get additional Experience for following the Seven Virtues of the American Wizard--Panache, Aplomb, Curiosity, Nerve, Creativity, Resourcefulness, and a Sense of Humor--which are intended to get you into trouble, particularly when combined.  You get more Experience for embarassing failures than for sterling successes, because failure is more edifying.  Experience is used to increase your Arts & Lore.
Prestige- you get this for accomplishing things and looking good doing it.  The more impressive and the more witnesses, the more Prestige you get.  You get additional Prestige for following the Seven Virtues.  You lose Prestige through embarassing failures and making an ass of yourself.  Prestige is used to increase your Bonds.
Corruption- you get this for acts of destruction, malice, harmful negligence, and manipulation.  The more heinous the act, the more Corruption you get.  You lose Corruption through acts of healing, creation, and charity.  You can buy off Corruption by sacrificing Experience. Corruption increases your Flaws (which I mistakenly called "Faults" earlier).
Mastery- you get this at the end of a storyline/scenario.  The less Corruption you have, the more Mastery you get.  Mastery is used to move dice from Flaws to Attributes.  Once you are Flawless, you can then move dice from Attributes to a special pool called Transcendence, which can be rolled for any purpose.  If you manage to get all of your Attributes into Transcendence, you become a Master and are free from time, death, the body, etc. and your personal story has come to its earthly end, as you go off to explore the unknown universes that you are now free to enter. For many wizards, this is the ultimate goal.

Okay, that's not exactly brief, but that's the gist of it.

The game is probably going to be co-GMed in the manner of SAN! (but with a focus on narrative with humor on the side, rather than full-blown absurdity and humor). 

So, here's an example of what I'm thinking of, with random player names:

Carlo:  "Okay, so I char the sausage by enhancing the heat, using my Will."  No one has any problems to add; he rolls two successes, so the heat goes up and the sausage is charred.
Nancy:  "The boiling grease in the pan is going to spatter onto Fred.  Boy, is he gonna be mad about that."
Carlo:  "What?  No!  I prevent it from hitting him, by shoving him out of the way."
Nancy:  "Okay, but the grease might--" 
Carlo: "--And I'm careful to do it so that the grease won't hit me either."
Nancy:  "Heheh.  But if you lose your focus, the heat will get out of control, and all the grease will probably catch fire."
Carlo:  "Okay, so, I make an effort to maintain my focus too.  That's--how many was that?"
Nancy:  "Three.  You need three points."
Carlo activates his dice (let's say, a d8 from Vigor, a d10 from Will, a d6 from Grace, and a d12 from "Bond:  my pal Fred") and rolls; only two points!
Carlo:  "Oh crap."
Nancy:  "You got that right.  So, which one goes wrong?  Do you get spattered, or does Fred get spattered, or does the flame get out of control?  I'll give you this shiny red d20 if you let the stove catch fire."

Now, there's is no upper limit to the amount of problems you can throw at a character who is trying to do something, but there is a limit to the nature of the problems:  they need to make sense (I'm writing a whole chapter about arcane theory so that players will know what "makes sense" when dealing with magic), and they need to be, in some way, interesting.  Both of these criteria of course depend on the group's aesthetic.  I'm relying on players to get on the same page about this, and to practice some degree of restraint, based on a shared desire to make an interesting and humorous story.  But the game's gonna be pretty up-front about that requirement.

In terms of straight up difficulty, I don't see how this system is any different than a game where the GM takes a difficulty rating and then narrates what exactly transpired in the fiction to reflect the margin of success or failure rolled against said difficulty.

Well, sure, he refers to the fiction in setting the difficulty rating, but what's his standard?  Maybe he's got a chart to help him out, but where on that chart is "cooking a sausage"?  Is it harder than picking a padlock?  Is it easier than making a U-turn in traffic?  How is the poor guy to judge that?

-Marshall

[David Berg]

Thanks for elaborating!

I wonder, is the turn structure in your example just one of many possible approaches to resolution, or is it always supposed to be done as:
1) Wizard's player announces intent
2) Other player(s) announce complications that would make that intent harder to achieve (i.e., require more successes)
3) Wizard's player rolls dice.  If he gets sufficient successes, his intent is achieved.
4) Other player(s) announce unintended fallout of the achievement.
5) ...begin the process again at Step 1, with the new intent being to avoid some or all of said fallout
6) stop rolling dice and adding complications and fallouts when "what makes sense" and "what would be interesting" are exhausted (I could see a given attempt being over and done with after one cycle through 1-4, or an attempt spurring an entire scene of many many cycles)

That's the part I didn't get from your initial post.  If that is indeed the system, then I get it now. 

I assume that more complications and more fallout equate to more opportunities to earn Experience, Prestige, and Corruption, right?  Your example leaves me uncertain on that score.

I think a key will be this:

I'm writing a whole chapter about arcane theory so that players will know what "makes sense" when dealing with magic

combined with this:

I'm relying on players to get on the same page about this, and to practice some degree of restraint, based on a shared desire to make an interesting and humorous story.

If your Arcane Theory gives the players strong guidance on appropriate complications and fallout, in terms of both type and presence/absence, then I think a sense of "how to play" might be achieved.  (What I mean by "presence/absence" is a sense of "think about concerns of type A, and not of type B; thus, if you think A applies, you probably should complicate things, and if you think only B applies, you probably shouldn't.")  If Arcane Theory winds up being weak as player guidance, then I think the players may wind up largely defining "how to play" themselves, based on how well they achieve consensus on what makes an "interesting and humorous story".

Any thoughts on how you're going to foster such a consensus?  (The Seven Virtues seem like part of that, but I can't tell how important a part.)

Hmm, I seem to have gone into interrogation mode here.  It's not my intent to assume you haven't already worked out all the issues I've raised.  I'm just raising them in case it's useful food for thought.  The broad nature of your "am I missing anything?" feedback request kind of prompted me to just go after whatever leapt out at me.  So, uh, don't feel like you owe me any answers!

Ps,
-David

P.S. When you said "what is actually difficult about the task at hand as indicated by the fiction", my brain went very different places than "number of successes required depends on players' vision of what makes an interesting and humorous story."  Just more food for thought in terms of presentation.

[Marshall Burns]

David,

Yep, those 6 steps are pretty much exactly it.  That's one of those things that it never occurred to me to mention, because it was "obvious" or something; thanks for digging it out!

I don't resent the "interrogation"; it's thought-provoking, and it's the sort of thing I'm looking for with this post.  And I plan to address your questions.  Not at this moment, but at some point.  One's a short answer, though, so I'll go ahead and hit it: 
Yes, more complications and fallout means more chances to accrue (or lose, when applicable) Experience, Prestige, and Corruption (these need a catch-all term, huh?).  They're dealt with at the end of a scene by looking at a checklist.  F'rinstance:  "If you damage (directly or indirectly) something beautiful, take d8 Corruption" or "If you failed miserably but were following all of the 7 Virtues, take d20 Experience."  And you take all that apply.
Oh, and those dice on Exp/Pre/Cor aren't rolled; the entire currency is in dice, so you would spend a d8 from your Experience pool to add a d8 to an Arts&Lore pool.  Really, you don't "spend" them, you just move them around.

I'd like to make a few other clarifications while I'm here:
1.  The old AW thread that I linked to says some stuff about this being a Sim game; disregard that.  That post was made before I knew what I was talking about.  AW is supposed to be a mostly-lighthearted Nar game (think Terry Pratchett, in terms of the balance of lighthearted and serious).  In fact, disregard everything in that old thread aside from the setting.  I'm not even sure why I linked to it.

2.  My distaste for arbitrated difficulty ratings is not universal (The Rustbelt relies on them, and they work there because Rustbelt resolution is a completely different animal), nor is it because I think that it's a recipe for disaster to give a GM power (which I don't).  It's just that arbitrating difficulty factors for the sortof things the PCs are going to face in AW would be too hard, so I want a clear-cut, self-policing mechanic for that.

3.  The resolution system is only used when something's at stake.  I mean, you wouldn't have this:
"I walk down the concourse to class."
"You trip on a rock!"
"What?  No!  I roll my [blah blah blah]"
However, if you were running to class because you were late, or you were walking to class while talking to a pretty/handsome wizard who you wanted to impress, then there might be a possibility of tripping.

In the sausage example, I just assumed that cooking the sausage was important.  Maybe Carlo's working at a restaurant to help pay for tuition, or maybe he's in a cooking class, or maybe he and Fred have their girlfriends over at their apartment for a double-date and they're cooking dinner.  Whatever it is, he has to cook a sausage, and it's important (to him) that he does it well.  Therefore, dice and complications and fallout come into play.  As for, "how do we decide when it's important?"  Well, that's another matter of style and aesthetic, but I really don't think it's a tough one.  Once you've got style and aesthetic nailed down, it's just a matter of one player saying, "Hey, I think you need to roll to cook that sausage."  If even one player thinks something deserves a roll, then it does.

-Marshall

[Spooky Fanboy]

I have a question. Why does the character require 12 stats to define, plus skills, plus relationships? I can see the need for skills, and relationships, but 12 stats? I'm kind of puzzled why there are so many.

[Marshall Burns]

What they boil down to is Action, Discretion, Reception, and Condition in the three arenas (Abstract, Physical, and Mental).  That is, it's the same four stats voiced in three different ways.  It lets you say, "this guy is heavy on Action all around," or, "This guy's got Abstract out the ears, but not so much on Physical and Mental," or, "This guy's good at Reception in the Abstract, Action in the Physical, and Discretion all around."  I like it when I can look at a character's attributes and get a colorful picture of them already; in this case, I'm making lots of colors available.

In mechanical terms, they're all identical (pools of dice of various sizes, just like everything else), and there's usually gonna be at least, like, four of them applicable to a given task.  They aren't something you have to sweat about.

[David Berg]

The old AW thread that I linked to says some stuff about this being a Sim game; disregard that.  That post was made before I knew what I was talking about.  AW is supposed to be a mostly-lighthearted Nar game

Interesting.  I can envision a way to play this Sim, wherein "do what seems aesthetically appropriate" is judged primarily on the basis of how it interacts with the group's shared package of of references and prior SIS-establishment, rather than primarily on whether it produces a Good Story.  I'm curious to see how your playtesting goes!

arbitrating difficulty factors for the sortof things the PCs are going to face in AW would be too hard, so I want a clear-cut, self-policing mechanic for that.

Sounds like you've nailed "self-policing".  As for "clear-cut", well, it won't satisfy any fans of mathematical precision, but I think it's nicely subordinate to the game's largest priorities, so in that sense no one should be floundering around wondering what to do (unless the group can't "click" on those priorities).  So, yeah, cool.

If even one player thinks something deserves a roll, then it does.

You say "deserved" is judged based on stakes.  I am curious as to why it isn't based on potential for aesthetic contribution, i.e., "I just decided to burn the sausage because my character's a prankster dick," and "I want you to roll for that, because I have a hilarious idea about spattering grease."

[Marshall Burns]

I don't think it'd be very easy to play it as Sim; the whole Exp/Prestige/Corruption/Mastery thing has a lot of choices addressing human issues built-in.  Or, at least, it's supposed to.  We'll see how that goes, of course.

You say "deserved" is judged based on stakes.  I am curious as to why it isn't based on potential for aesthetic contribution, i.e., "I just decided to burn the sausage because my character's a prankster dick," and "I want you to roll for that, because I have a hilarious idea about spattering grease."

The second guy could just add in the spattering grease, even if the first guy didn't have to make a roll.  But if there's nothing at stake, well, all you get is slapstick, which basically turns this into SAN! with wizards.  Fun, but SAN! can already do that.  Of course, there's lots of things that can be at stake.  Even things that seem minor, like energy that you might need for an upcoming challenge (whether its finals, or the soccer game against the British Institute of Wizard Arts, or confronting Professor Gamboni because he has been humiliating you and you're not gonna put up with it anymore, whatever).

[Mikael]

Marshall,

have you considered the option where players have to pay some sort of currency to define additional effects, while retaining the requirement for appropriate and interesting effects? That would remove the possibility for an arbitrary number of complicating effects. Perhaps the currency spent on the effects would be wagered somehow, in a way not directly tied to the success and failure of the original player. You could play around with the currency economy to achieve the desired level input. What would this do to the system you have envisioned? Too gamey?

[Marshall Burns]

Mikael,
My game Super Action Now! requires the spending of currency to throw complications at the other players, and you earn it by making people laugh (because the game is supposed to be funny).  It's a punishment mechanic; if you're not funny, you lose power.  But, no one has run out since, like, the second session.  I don't think that sort of thing is necessary

[Mikael]

Hmm. I certainly did not have a punishment mechanic in mind. Earning the necessary tokens could be completely automatic (N per session, or everyone gets N as soon as everyone has spent their tokens, or something more interesting), while the requirement for point expenditure would a means for you to guide the amount of complications people throw out. I feel that this might be necessary to keep the game from dragging or becoming too tiresome when you play longer.

But perhaps your playtesting has shown that such is not necessary, and I am seeing problems where there are none.

[Marshall Burns]

In the interest of accuracy, I should note that playing SAN! has demonstrated that in SAN! the points aren't really necessary--the reason I made the points in the first place is because the game is competitive, and the competition had to square with the funny (although I didn't realize that's why I did it, but that's a different story).  Since my group is all on the same page with regards to "competition serves the funny, competition is subordinate to the funny," the points aren't necessary.  My thinking is that it will be simple to change "competition" to "complication" and "funny" to "story."

[Marshall Burns]

To go into this a touch more:
Way I see it, there's a limited number of general cases in which complications would be thrown at someone, and here they are:

1.  Player thinks it would be appropriate, and is correct.  This is ideal, and I don't want to prevent it, ever.  What if someone runs out of points, and this case comes up?  Well, crap.
2.  Player thinks it would be appropriate, and is incorrect.  This is unfortunate, and calls for clear discussion between players about what is appropriate, and why this isn't appropriate at this time.  Points have no correlation to this.
3.  Player is being an ass.  This is very unfortunate, and something that rules won't fix.  Points can put a choke on this, but in the mean time we're putting up with the assery until the guy runs out points.  Screw that.