[Thornes] Issues with Ego.

[jburneko]

[Simon C]

Hi Jesse,

There are some really interesting ideas here.  I like how the only way to regain Ego is to kill someone, have sex with someone, or crush someone's ego.  That's some very exciting frontloading of theme!

Here's my initial response: If you're always choosing to reduce Ego over wounds or relationships, why not make them both happen? You choose wounds AND ego, or relationship AND ego.  Getting hurt or losing relationships hurts your ego.  That seems to fix the problem without introducing new ones.

I'm more concerned about your "ego tripping" mechanics.  For a start, I think they undermine the theme of your game.  If the game is about rampant egotists, or ego vs. the world, it seems like you're trampling on the interesting material to have a clear-cut mechanical penalty for too much ego.  The penalty for too much ego should be in the nebulous world of player judgements and aesthetics - like humanity in Sorcerer.

The appeal is another thing that seems to be trampled on by too many mechanics.  If you're rolling dice, it feels like a way to force someone to do your bidding, just like the other ways.  Here's my alternative rule:

"Any time a character suggests a course of action to another character, whether that's a direct order, or a desperate plea in the middle of combat, it's an "Appeal".  The GM and the players should be alert for Appeals when they happen.  The player of the character making the appeal can stake any amount of ego on the appeal (including zero).  If the suggestion is accepted, the accepting character gains the ego.  If it's rejected, the ego is lost."

I'm not sure if that works for you, because it introduces a new way of gaining ego.  What I like about it is that it makes the players alert to a particular kind of interaction between characters, and it highlights the moments when a character makes an appeal as a risky moment for that character.

[Marshall Burns]

Regarding Ego, and considering the game's Sorcerer heritage, there's an obvious solution:
Whenever something shameful, embarassing, or otherwise ego-busting happens to you, roll Ego vs. Ego; if you fail, lose a point of Ego (familiar, right?).

Now! For the Ego-damaging attacks, the victim still rolls Ego vs. Ego, but suffers penalties equal to the successes of the attack. This makes the other wounding options more attractive, because Ego damage, which is pretty damn brutal, might not work. And it's still worth the risk because it's brutal.

Ego Tripping needs to stay in some form. When your arrogance exceeds your ability, it ought to mean something mechanically. It shouldn't penalize your own actions, though; it should make you more vulnerable to the actions of others, because your arrogance blinds you, leading you to underestimate. So, rather than giving the loser bonus dice, I would say that someone with a lower Ego than an Ego Tripping opponent should receive a bonus equal to the margin of Ego Tripping on any one roll of the conflict.

Appeals ought to be harder the higher your Ego is. I'm not sure how that should be mathed, but it's an idea.

(I've been reading a historical novel called The Spider King, about King Louis XI of France, and it is probably influencing my thinking on these things.)

[Noclue]

	Logged

James R.

[jburneko]

Thanks Guys this is really useful,

I really like the idea of the player choosing to take Ego loss.  I'm not sure that quite works with how Wounds and Relationship Injuries currently work though because part of the game design philosophy is that whatever you advantage you gain now has to be used really, really soon or its lost.  That means Wounds and Relationship Injury recover lightening quick.  They last about two or three scenes tops.  That means I'm not entirely sure it would ever be worth it to take the Ego damage.

On the other hand it might encourage rather brutal timing.  If you get hit with particularly nasty injury of some kind knowing full well exactly what the next player/GM is going to do with it then it might be worth it.

I'd almost be tempted to combine James and Marshal ideas.  That you either take the certain injury or risk Ego loss.  That almost fits the theme of the game since if you did the Ego + Victories vs Ego roll that means such an option would always have a less than 50% chance success rate.  Pretty ballsy option.

I also like Marshal's idea that only people with less Ego than the Ego Tripping character benefit.  However, Thornes uses the Sorcerer definition of Conflict which means that each individual die roll is a conflict so there's no way to determine "one roll in the conflict".  Some options.

Least Brutal: One roll in the scene.

Less Brutal:  Any roll which does not benefit from Chained Victories or an Injury caused this scene.

Most Brutal: Every roll, period.

The Appeal issue remains problematic.  On the one hand, I'm tempted to just drop it.  Go the In A Wicked Age route and say attempts at rational, empathetic connection are left to role-playing alone with strong encouragement to the GM that such tactics should simply fail unless what's being offered directly plays into the NPC's agenda.  On the other hand there's a certain *kind* of Appeal that is more than just the player floundering around being afraid to take real action.  There are moments of genuine *tension* built around genuine *empathy*.  I feel like *those* moments still deserve some mechanical treatment.

Jesse

[JoyWriter]

Winning through someone elses failings rather than your own skill is not much of an ego boost. So what if taking adavantage of someone's ego tripping denies you gaining any ego yourself? At least for that conflict.

Sounds like appeals need some kind of empathy mechanic. Finding the right feel for that could be tricky though.

Mercy:
What if people have weaknesses that they empathise with, and people can try to hit them by revealing their relationships or injuries? Doing such an appeal would require people to test for ego loss. This kind of system would be the thing that stops people killing small children, and it's strength would be based on the relationship/injury rules, using their values somehow to make dice pools. Either that or characters would have hidden sympathies, which can be revealed by success, but there are some issues there with incentives to cheat etc.

I feel like there should be something different for appeals to better nature; ie to get people to do stuff rather than not do stuff, not sure how that would work though.