Thoughts on Delayed Success Vs. Failure

[Illetizgerg]

Now, personally, I can't stand it when I hear that little kids can't play dodge ball because, good golly miss molly, the idea of last man standing could do nothing but drive one of those little eight-year-olds to drinking or gang violence. I have, however, been doing a lot of consideration when it comes to my own game, and I've been thinking that it might be nice to have a game that runs on the idea of delayed or differed success.

The basic idea is that character advancement occurs through Work, not "experience". As characters defeat enemies and advance the story they accomplish Work. When a character loses all their health (I still like the concept of Safety, so I think I'll keep using that) they become helpless and are no longer immediately useful, however they do not die. They do, however, lose Work.

Simply put, failure would not result in players having to start over. Instead, failure (particularly in battle) simply has the opposite effect of success.

Of course the setting would need to match, so my idea is to move over to a more pulp comic setting. Because pulp comics are very driven by their protagonists, I was thinking of having players work towards "filling out" their characters, adding more attributes in order reveal more about their characters. Similarly, when characters start losing Work they take more flaws, which have a similar effect in revealing new things.

What do you guys think? What kinds fo games have used this before?

- Gregory Zitelli

[Arturo G.]

Hi, Gregory!

There are a couple of different points (or more) here.

How is "Work" used after you gain it? Or is it just a measure of your accomplished goals?
Why do you want the characters to lose it when they fail? Is it not enough not to be able to earn it?

The Safety thing, probably is from a previous thread I have not read. Anyway, there are many games in which the characters do not die, except when the player feels it is appropriate. Your incapacitation idea reminds me to Trollbabe (have a look at the Adept Press forums in this site).

[Double King]

It's not clear to me what the implications of "work" are.  What's the difference in your game between losing "work" rather than adding a "damaged goods/demoralized/emotionally scarred" stat that coexists with the experience mechanic?

[TempvsMortis]

You're really just reducing experience then, aren't you? I don't think work should be used towards experience. What if "Work" or whatever was really your advancement towards your character's story-goal. Thus, failure (i'd probably expand a loss situation to be things other than just defeat in combat) results in the prolonging of the protagonist's struggle. You could also possible relate work with how strongly a character can affect the story, etc. so that losing it really represents something. I like the sentiment though.

[Illetizgerg]

I suppose I should have elaborated a bit more, so let me do so now. I actual had quite a few ideas that I was going to explain but didn't have the time to, so I realize that my first post might have been a bit cryptic.

One of the things I wanted to stress was the conceptual idea of Work vs. Experience, mainly that Work represents a character's efforts towards progressing the story, and Experience represents a character's acquired ability. Because the game is looking to be more story-oriented, Work fits much better. Furthermore, Work can be defined almost like it is in Physics, namely that it is a measure of how much of a character's effort (force) was sent towards (in the direction of) the story progression (displacement).

Now prior to all this my game (I am referring to Faux-Fi Horror) used Assets and Drawbacks to represent player-defined traits used like Skills classically are. The traits were not limited just to talents that characters had, as they could also represent things like supernatural powers, curses, and personal contacts. I also used Safety as a measure of how close your character was to being removed from the game, with it being based sort of on how much your character seemed like a main character.

In terms of progression, my idea was that you would either have Work thresholds, or you would just try to fill up your Work and then it would go back down to zero. Regardless, when you got enough Work you would be able to add a new Asset. Similarly, if you were to lose all of your Safety then you would have to take on another Drawback.

There are two reasons why I wanted characters to lose Work when they lose their Safety. The first is that both Assets and Drawbacks flesh out characters, and I wanted to avoid characters getting either one so close together, although this is sort of minor. The big reason is that there is a question of what happens when you "max out" your Work or "min out" your Safety.

With Work what I wanted to do is give players goals, with the promise of new ways to express their characters. Because I still like the idea of players going through characters fairly regularly though, I wanted to basically set an ultimate goal, after which a character is finished. What I was thinking is that you try to get a certain number of Assets, at which point a character is totally realized. At that point the player can retire that character and gain special benefits when creating their next one, or they can keep it around, however it cannot grow any more.

The thing is I would also like to find a way to handle Drawbacks similar to Assets, which means there has to be some kind of cap on when you have too many Drawbacks. I could literally just say that if you get the max number of Drawbacks and you lose all your Safety then your character really does die, but I think that is a bit arbitrary. By saying that a character loses Work it means that there is always a penalty even if you have the max number of Drawbacks, but then again there is the question of whether or not the lack of gaining Work is a big enough penalty in and of itself.

And yes, I am planning on having failure encompass more than just combat. Going back to the definition, if the story goes in one direction and the characters were working in the opposite direction then they would do negative Work.

- Gregory Zitelli

[chronoplasm]

Question:
Is it possible for a character to become overworked?

[Illetizgerg]

Question:
Is it possible for a character to become overworked?

Not exactly (despite how cool it sounds). If a character is fully developed then they lose the ability to increase their Work (from the standpoint of the game mechanics).

- Gregory Zitelli

[chronoplasm]

But what if I want to play a character that starts out as a compulsive workaholic with two failed marriages and recovering from a heart attack who gradually develops into a more easy-going and chillaxed character so he can spend time with his kids?
Does that mean the character has to work all the time to stop working all the time?

[Illetizgerg]

You're confusing literal work with conceptual story-based work.

In that case your character would be introduced with only some of his backstory. For instance, he might start with a Drawback reflecting his heart attack (could literally be "Had a Heart Attack"), and maybe an Asset or two further building the character (like "Workaholic" or "Jaded Like You Don't Even Know"). As the game progressed you could gain Assets which work towards making your character more chillaxed, and when you suffered serious defeat then the character's other weaknesses would begin to come out (like his divorces).

The game is sort of horror/murder-mysteries, so the characters will be placed in a story such that the work they are doing is judged against that story.

- Gregory Zitelli

[Will]

I may be missing nuances but this seems like the words Work and Experience are very interchangeable with the stipulation that the game rewards experience for plot advancement rather than for individual actions. People are getting hung up on the word which is causing confusion.

Essentially what we have is X which is used to measure the overall success of the character and is likely used to improve the character in some manner (skills, stats, stuff). Traditionally X is rewarded for an action; killing a beasty, reading a spooky book, figuring out a puzzle, whatever. In this case X is being rewarded for advancing the story towards goals. You don't gain X for defeating a bad guy unless defeating that bad guy advances the plot, on the other hand you might gain X simply by asking the right questions if it reveals important information pointing you the right way and you could LOSE X by killing someone who had a vital clue... At this point X is being named Work but it could be called XP and do the same job.

Is that at all accurate?

[Illetizgerg]

That's sort of what I was thinking, but not exactly.

Consider the story as being measured in various dimensions, in such a way that it has a position at different points in time. For instance, what if the player characters are trying to stop some evil organization. One "dimension" of the story would be the control held by said organization, which can presumably be measured in some way. At some point in time the position of the story in these dimensions is compared to the position it had at some other time, and the direction of motion is compared to the direction that the players were trying to push the story in.

Say the players are fighting a battle with said organizations henchmen. The success of the player's characters in the game is a dimension, and the players are trying to push the story in the direction of success. If the characters succeed then they applied force in the direction of motion, thus they did positive Work on the story. Alternatively, if the characters fail then they applied force in the opposite direction, meaning they did negative Work.

Another example would be that same battle, except lets say that one character had to go and disable some power grid. The other players stay behind to fight the goons. In this situation the main group is pushing for success in the battle, and the other character is pushing for disabling the power grid. In this situation the other character is pushing perpendicular to the outcome of the battle, meaning that he will not do positive or negative Work in the battle.

The difference from what you were saying is that the story is not set in stone, so the player's contribution to the story is measured according to how things turn out, not how the GM wanted them to turn out.

- Gregory Zitelli

[madunkieg]

Your wording is still somewhat problematic, but I think I understand what you're trying to get at. It is just points that are awarded for working towards a goal (be it GM or Player chosen), and that's pretty standard XP outside of D&D. Your suggestion to subtract points for effort that hampers achieving a goal is a little new, as far as I know. It will hopefully encourage active, focused play, but might also discourage exploration and character change (players tend to over-focus on goals).

How will your system establish goals? How will it allow goals to be changed? How will conflicting goals be handled?

[Will]

The difference from what you were saying is that the story is not set in stone, so the player's contribution to the story is measured according to how things turn out, not how the GM wanted them to turn out.

I think I see where you are coming from, part of this I was missing was the idea that you tally up and reward/penalize at the end...

A mechanic that does this gracefully is a bit of a sticky wicket if the goals being worked towards aren't known ahead of time (at least to the referee). A lot of looking back and going over past actions would be required and a lot of subtle working towards a goal you didn't even know they were going to may be forgotten or overlooked, or even penalized if the intent was not clearly understood.

One way this could work is to have overall success be a lot more vague, basically any work done towards resolution is tallied where resolution is however the players make it through, even false starts and red herrings, then have your other vectors be something like Ghostbusters personal goals and maybe even add in a party goal agreed on by the players (make the world better, make money, defeat the shadowy villain).

I have no really good immediate suggestion on dealing with negative work outside of outright disruptive behavior... having a photographic memory would be the best solution

[Illetizgerg]

I think there's still some confusion when it comes to what dictates positive and negative rewards. What I was saying is that at the end of a series of events (for instance, at the end of a battle) you observe what things succeeded. If characters were working towards making something happened and that something did indeed happen then the character gains a positive reward. If, alternatively, the character was working towards making something happen and the opposite happened then they would be negatively rewarded, or have rewards taken away.

There are no set goals. You simply observe what actually happens, then you see what the characters were trying to make happen. If they succeeded then they are rewarded, and if they failed then they are penalized.

- Gregory Zitelli