Player Choice vs Anti-Optimization

[Christoffer Lernö]

I think that maybe the actual question in my thread Ygg Demonic Corruption kinda got lost. So I post it again in a more general form. It might be of interest in other situations as well.

(Note: Please read this with sim games in mind, it's not necessarily valid in other styles)

Let's say I have a kind of mechanic which is supposed to disencourage players from abusing a certain style of play (in the Ygg case: magic). This is done through randomizing the negative effects. That way the players can't anticipate the sideeffects, and they are dissuaded from using the style of play unless they are really forced to (in which case they accept the possible negative consequences).

What do I mean? Well actually normal combat is a good example. Any character can go into combat, but run into a randomizer so they cannot be 100% sure of the outcome. Therefore players will put off fighting unless they have to (in theory, there are massive amounts of games that doesn't work like that, but it's an example ok?)

However, at the same time I'm worried about the effects of unwanted randomized effects. In combat it's wounding and character death. In the Ygg magic system it's demonic corruption (physical changes) that doesn't fit with the character concept, maybe "ruining" the character.

On one hand I can't let the players decide the outcome (decide when they die and when they live), on the other I don't want the outcome to become so random that it's deprotagonizing.

For the random effects, we do have two different types of random effects. Some which serves in some way to protagonize the character or deepen the character concept, and those which de-protagonize or runs counter to it.

In the fighting analogy, we can look at the hero dying a heroic death saving his friend vs. being killed by a very lucky roll by a goblin (or failing to jump a chasm).

How do we solve this within the a sim framework? For Ygg it's the matter of "how do I keep the players scared of having their characters get demonic changes without, when it finally happens, ruining their character concept?"

As an example, let's say a player has this female sorceress, very good looking. The player fears she will turn into a Frozz type of demon losing all body hair, getting reptile skin and the like. It would ruin the investment in making her a femme fatale.

If the player KNOWS there is no chance of getting that thing (because you can choose or reroll stuff), he/she might simply don't worry about the demonic changes very much and as effect, use "too much magic" (in the sense that it doesn't fit with the setting).

On the other hand actually allowing that to happen would ruin the character for the player.

What is the way out? An obvious would be for the GM to fudge the results, but that seems like treating the symptom and not the disease.

Any ideas?

[damion]

1)Reading the original thread.

There is nothing inherently evil with being a sorcerer. The problem is that using it you start to look as if you were. Individual spells and summonings might be "evil", but most spells and abilities are quite neutral - they can be used for both good and evil.

I think this is your problem here.  Transforming into a demon isn't really all that bad. People will just know your a sorcerer. Realisticly, people will just know any person wandering around with horns, fangs ect is a sorcerer, unless there are enough actual demons wandering around that people are afraid of all of them. Your Femme Fatal concept would be a silly concept for a sorcerer, unless the player wanted to roleplay the loss of their looks.  Basicly, the turn-to-demon thing must be part of the characther concept to begin with.



As for your original question.
I think you need to define what you mean by 'abuse'.  Most games take a soft/hard limit approach. You can go up to your soft limit with now problem, between soft and hard you MIGHT have a problem and above hard you WILL have a problem.

It sounds like your saying that every magic use in Ygg has the potential of
1)Nothing bad happening
2)Something a little bad happening
3)Something REALLY bad happening.

Honestly, I don't think this is a viable method for long term play. The best analogy I can think of is Hucksters in DeadLands. No-one can play them as a serious charachter because every time you use the abilities there is small, but non-zero chance that you have your characther concept destroyed.

The solutions I can think of are.
1)Proved a safe zone somehow. I.e. little uses where nothing bad can happen,ect.
2)Relegate magic to a secondary, hail-mary ability.  Basicly, it will only be used needed, thus it shouldn't cost to much.

[Christoffer Lernö]

To be honest James, I was mostly thinking of the taints as a cool thing to happen to the sorcerers. It wasn't a punishment. However, I quickly saw that this was a way not only to add colour but also get that feeling of slowly sliding into the abyss.

Now if people go saying "oh, I want that funky taint that gives me horns" then something is wrong. That's all I'm saying. It's supposed to be a deterrent not a goal.

On the other hand, I'm thinking along here as I type, maybe its a sign of something being wrong with the way I made the taints.

I conciously shaped every taint to be a sort of consistent demonic image... so far so good. The problem is that the taint is not really taint. What I'm describing is more a "revealing of the demonic part of their soul".

(Bear with me a while as I expand on this idea)

So there is no "changes due to taint" to begin with, there is only a revealing. So maybe this is a better scheme: Basically when you make your character you take a shape the demonic part of your soul is assuming. This might be with horns and all that stuff.

This is how the character will eventually look. This is also the form you take when working powerful magic. As you get more tainted, you must take more traits from this form to become permanent. The order is chosen by the player.

In addition to the demonic form there are also "corruptions" or what to call them. These are effects beyond that of the demonic form, effects you may or may not get. Aside from a few dictated from the form you've choosen there is also a bunch of general ones.

These corruptions represent the random part of the form, and are all permanent once you aquire them. However, they only come from abusing your power (using a lot of it) whereas the slow change into demon form is more predictable and inevitable.

I think this presents a fair compromise.

/C

P.S. James, if you don't mind... there's a mismatched quote tag in your message which makes it a bit hard to read. If you don't mind, would you care to edit your message and put it right?

[M. J. Young]

I'm not certain whether you're happy, and I'm not certain how I missed this thread; but I thought I'd make a suggestion.

Randomize the negative outcome and give the player some input not into what actually happens but into what might happen. For example, you could rule that whenever the negative effect comes, a list of six items will be made. The referee puts down two, the player puts down two, and the other players agree on two more; the caveat is that all must be perceived as negative at some level, but this gives the opportunity for the player to partly steer the direction of such negative outcomes, partly. Roll d6, and whichever listed item comes up, that's what you get.

We use something like this for botch outcomes in Multiverser, although the referee generally creates a list and rolls against it, in which some things will be worse than others, and some, while technically a botched result, may work in the player's favor.

--M. J. Young

[Christoffer Lernö]

Hmm.. it's an idea. Maybe not immediately applicable to the situation, but I'll keep it in mind.
There are a few concepts that are kind of mixed up in my particular mechanic.

1. Colour for the sorcerers in form of a fully fleshed out demon form
2. Deterrent for excessive use of magic
3. A measurement of time left before losing all magic powers

What I wrote in the posting above was that I probably should separate these 3 which actually solves most of the problem which came from the mixing thing. That way I can keep 2 as a really BAD THING and 3 functioning on a mere cosmetic level patterned after 1.

[KAR 120 C]

This touches on two wider problems really. The first is the problem of the sanctity or otherwise of character concept. This is one of those personal taste issues, personally I'm from the camp that thinks PCs should face the consequences of their IC actions. If your charcter concept demends that you should never lose your hands, don't stick them in a blender.

The second issue is correctly modelling the consequences of PC actions in game. If you stick your hands in a blender it's your fault theg et mangled, if they get randomly cut off because of the Sandwich Making Critical Miss table, it's an issue with the system.

It seems to me (and I could be entirely wrong here) that you want this transformation to be a creeping, insidious thing, rather than a sudden "one wrong roll and you've blown it" setup. In this case sorcerers shouldn't be getting spontaneous features at all, they should be developing them slowly. Instead of gambling every time you use magic you pay a very small price which slowly builds up.

[Christoffer Lernö]

Actually it is both (creeping and sudden stuff), but please look at this thead which provides the details on how I was thinking of solving it.

[Mike Holmes]

I find that you get better results of behavior not by penalizing actions, but by giving incentive to do others. In this case, you have an especially bad problem because you have run into a classic Sim design problem. That is, you want to punish players, who do the "wrong" behavior, but you don't want them to actually suffer from it. The classic example of this problem is character death in most games. GM's want to punish players for doing the "wrong" things ("you can't rob the King, he has too many guards"), yet you want them to also be heroic and get into fights.

The answer in the case of combat is that if character death is problematic to make it impossible (or damn unlikley) to occur, mechanically. I can already hear the "realists" out there saying "but that's not realistic"! No, it's not, but it is a simulation of the adventure genre. IOW, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Either there are real, negative repercussions to an action that you want to punish, or there are not, and the punishment will not prevent anything.

People try all sorts of work arounds to these problems, but it all comes down to the same thing. For example, to prevent character death, games often include fate mechanics or the like that allow a player to spend a point or something and get out of the nasty situation. But this sort of metagame does not change the fact that all you have done is to make avoiding death a resource game. The character is just that much more effective in combat, and can thus do all those things that you wanted him to not be able to do until he's out of points. This is no solution.

Right now your punishment is pretty weak. In fact, as you've noted, getting all twisted up is not only not a punishment for some players, it's an incentive. I've played lots of Gamma World where players went looking for radiation fields to bathe in so that they could get more mutations. Sure, they were aware that they couold get defects, but that didn't deter them in the slightest.

First, they knew that they were more likely to get a benefit than a defect. And moreover, defects are actually a fun thing to have. Remember, you're making a Sim game here, not a Gamist game. The Sim player just wants to see what will happen, they aren't concerned with winning. As such any special modification to the character is interesting and worth getting (this goes to Ron's long standing argument that giving points for disadvantages is highly Gamist).

Look at what you have. This is worse than Gamma World mutations. Wth your system, the player is guarunteed to get something good (the effect of the "spell") by using magic. And he has only a chance to have something "bad" happen. And when that "bad" thing happens to the character, will he actually be dissapointed? Probably not ("Cool, horns!").

System Maters. If you put a chart in front of a player that lists "Random Events Some of which Include Horrible Bloody Deaths", players will insist they get a roll on that chart for their character. Why? Because it's a cool and dramatic part of the game. Else why would the designers have included it (or so goes the player logic)? If you had a chart that only had bad things on it, then players would avoid it like the plague, and wonder why you included such rules. That's no fun.

You want players to have access to magic of this sort, but to use it sparingly, right? Consider a reward instead of a punishment. The simplest idea I can think of is just to give out the regular reward for the game (I can't remember what that is for this game). For example, if EXP is the normal reward, claim that demonic magic wielders, learn more quickly than others when in their untainted form, and thus get an EXP bonus (determined randomly each game-week or something like that if you really want to make it addictive). But they don't get the bonus when they are tainted. So the player has an incentive not to use his powers. Then allow him to choose the form of his taint so that it's also cool when he slips in that direction. So it's a choice between using powers and looking cool, or getting more EXP. Either way the player thinks it's cool. Instead of worrying about using his character's abilities which is a downer.

This is not a suggestion for exactly how to handle this, but just meant to show you haow you can avoid punishment as a way to adjust behavior. I'm sure you can come up with some reward that fits the game better.

Mike

[simon_hibbs]

Your problem is that using magic and turning into a demon are
tradeoffs. Why not hand over administration of this tradeoff
to the players?

One way might be to assign 'corruption points' to each demonic
corruption feature. As characters use more powerful magic they
gain corruption points that they must get rid of by 'buying'
corruptions. Cool corruptions with neat advantages, such as fangs
or scaly armoured skin, are only worth a few corruption points
but useless or annoying corruptions such as foul breath and
constant sweating are worth more. That way the player has the
dilema, but ultimately can't blame anyone else for their choices.

There is one remaining problem - when do players have to spend their
corruption points? Perhaps havign unspent corruption points act
as a penalty on all spellcasting abilities? That way there's a clear
incentive to use them up.


Simon Hibbs

[Marco]

Hi,

I didn't read all the responses so maybe this has been covered--but I'm dealing with something very similar for two projects.

Here is how we are addressing "mutations during play" taken as a result of some in-game agent so as not to destroy conception.

1. We try to give the player an option (you rolled badly! Either "get really sick" or "grow an arm out of your forehead"). The first might incapactate or even possibly kill the character--but it won't ruin their conception (another possibility could be blackouts, temporary insanity, etc.)

2. For a character that is likely or "supposed" to mutate (intended to) we give extra points for rolls on random charts (Taking your chances) vs. choosing.  There are also categories of choice: the player picks an "angelic" mutation vector and then gets random rolls on that vector.

3. Make them curable. Maybe it's hard--but if the fem-fatale turns into the lizard woman, she can be cured. She'll just wear a thick cloak for 2 weeks to hide the unsightly mutation.

-Marco

[ks13]

I think there have been some great suggestions here on how to deal with this problem. I can't speak for Pale Fire's vision of his system, but if I looked at it as a possible player of Ygg, what I would find very interesting would be:

1) to have some choice of the corruptions my character undergoes (either define them at the start or get to pick them from a list during play)

2) a way to be able to cast a spell without any corruption (long prep. time, rituals and hard to find components make it difficult but possible)

3) a corruption cost system as suggested by Simon, with perhaps demonic changes reducing the amount by a little (they are kind of cool and perhaps even a benefit - that is until the transformation is complete and you become powerless) and taints (as defined by Pale Fire on another thread) taking up many more corruption points

4) having corruption points decreasing the effectivness of some character bonus (as per Mike's idea of rewards) such as experience or a special ability (perhaps every sorceror has some defensive ability or power that gets dimished with accumulated corruption, thus providing a nice incentive to remain corruption free)

Something along these lines would make me want to play a character like this. If the character can only go downhill after play starts, then I'm not really interested. In regards to the character concept, the changes and taints are an inherent part of the concept. Players shouldn't expect otherwise, unless their intent is only to use non-corrupting forms of magic. But in that case the readily available power is a great temptation and would make for some great role-playing.

[Christoffer Lernö]

Oooh, you produced so much neat stuff here that I don't really know where to begin. Maybe with the stuff I'm disagreeing with since that's the quickest thing to write. :)

For example, to prevent character death, games often include fate mechanics or the like that allow a player to spend a point or something and get out of the nasty situation. But this sort of metagame does not change the fact that all you have done is to make avoiding death a resource game.

Since Ygg will use a form of fate points, I'd like to address this comment. As I see it, fate points has the same use as the excessive amounts of hitpoints in AD&D and similar games. It's there to insure that a stroke of bad luck doesn't kill a character. Although in principle you are right (avoiding death becomes a resource), it's not the primary intention of it. The intent is to make death a predictable thing: If you attack an army you know you'll run out of fate points before they run out of people to attack you and you'll die, however if you initiate fight with an unknown enemy you know you'll be able to at least survive to run away if the first round of combat shows you vastly misjudged the opponent.

So I maintain it's a good thing, especially if your setting can give a reasonable explanation why there could be such a meta-mechanic.


That aside, I like your observations Mike in regards to reward mechanic and such. I have one minor issue though, and that is that you could see (in your example) "getting more EXP" as simply the basic XP level for a magic user. Seeing it that way you actually has a punishment mechanic for the taints after all. More taints, more weird looking stuff and less XP. Doesn't that sound like a punishment?

That aside, I remembered something I scribbled down in the old rules, something about the more corruption you have, the less control you have over the magic you're using which gives a lot of side effects.

I'm side tracking here, but let me just throw an old idea to you... In that idea, you got more powerful for every spell you cast because the chaos energies kinda got stored in your body. So after a while you could use twice the amount of the energy you could use before.
So what's the drawback? Well, the uncontrolled magic also increased, and it would take twice the energy to keep it from creating side effects.

An example: When Yen starts out she can use 6 points of magic in a round. Anything thrown by Yen works perfectly, no weird effects or anything.
Fast forward to a year later when Yen has been using magic a whole lot. Yen now also has 4 points of demonic magic in her body which she can add to any spell effect. At the same time there is a uncontrolled demonic flows of 4 points every time she uses magic. That means although Yen can cast spells up to 10 points/round there will be 4 points of demonic effects every round as a "bonus". To remove this flow she can spend magic on it. It costs 2 points to block 1 point of demonic effects. That means if Yen wants to cast a clean spell without any demonic side effects she can only use 2 points/round for the actual spell, because 8 points of the magicflow goes to block the demonic effects.
Of course in desperation Yen could unleash her full potential of 10 points of magic flow but that would create wild demonic magic for 4 points thrashing around uncontrollably at the same time.

(Does that sound cool or just complicated?)

Simon, I won't go for the corruption points, but that's only because I hate making up points for "how much is this corruption worth", those would still be pretty arbitrary and as such meaningless.

On the other hand one could have a very simple currency and say that any corruption is worth exactly 1 point.

KS, I kinda agree with your stuff - except for 2) letting the character get away without taint kinda cheapens the whole thing. UNLESS it's for certain spells only, I was planning to make it work that way. In addition, the lowest spells would work without furthering corruption once they are learned. On the other hand people can make magical items to avoid using magic. I haven't really dug into that area, but I plan to. Basically you should be able to get by without using corrupting magic after you set yourself up with some magical items and abilities. If you really want to go wild with the magic on the other hand, well then you gonna go down pretty quick.

[Mike Holmes]

So I maintain it's a good thing, especially if your setting can give a reasonable explanation why there could be such a meta-mechanic.

I never meant to say that they weren't a "good thing". Just that this sort of system does nothing to prevent any sort of behavior. Which is what the thread is about.

That aside, I like your observations Mike in regards to reward mechanic and such. I have one minor issue though, and that is that you could see (in your example) "getting more EXP" as simply the basic XP level for a magic user. Seeing it that way you actually has a punishment mechanic for the taints after all. More taints, more weird looking stuff and less XP. Doesn't that sound like a punishment?

Nope. Not getting a reward is not a punishment. This is a common mistake. If that were the case, then all rewards could be seen as punishments. What makes a reward a reward is the simple perception that people have that what is being gained is something that would not otherwise be gained if they do not do a certain behavior.

Yes, this menas that simply changing your wording can often mean the difference. Note how advertisers, who know this only too well, do not say "If you don't act soon, you'll get less of our product" they say "If you buy now, you'll get more of our product as a special offer". And, yes, this works.

An example: When Yen starts out she can use 6 points of magic in a round. Anything thrown by Yen works perfectly, no weird effects or anything.
Fast forward to a year later when Yen has been using magic a whole lot. Yen now also has 4 points of demonic magic in her body which she can add to any spell effect. At the same time there is a uncontrolled demonic flows of 4 points every time she uses magic. That means although Yen can cast spells up to 10 points/round there will be 4 points of demonic effects every round as a "bonus". To remove this flow she can spend magic on it. It costs 2 points to block 1 point of demonic effects. That means if Yen wants to cast a clean spell without any demonic side effects she can only use 2 points/round for the actual spell, because 8 points of the magicflow goes to block the demonic effects.

Of course in desperation Yen could unleash her full potential of 10 points of magic flow but that would create wild demonic magic for 4 points thrashing around uncontrollably at the same time.

(Does that sound cool or just complicated?)

Hmm. Mechanically, I'd say it's sound. But the thing is that by going corrupt you have more options, and more potential power.

In a point based game like Hero System, for instance, often points are offered for taking disadvantages. You may note however that this is always limited; no more than -X amount of disads can be taken. Why would they limit these? Because they know that no amount of adversity is actually a deterent to acquiring more power. Players will take obscene amounts of disads if allowed to. Why is that? Because, as Hero System points out inth text, disadvantages aren't really bad from the player's POV. They actually protagonize the character by giving him personal demons to overcome. He becomes more interesting on both ends if the player takes more disads.

Ron has noted how people love to take disads like "Pshchopathic" as it means that they have an in-game reason to act however they like, and they get points for it!

The same is true for the example you have above. If I want my character to be more powerful, I will just go corrupt, and then my character is even more fun, because, in addition to being more powerful, my character is potentially annoying, or self-damaging or whatever corrupton effects are like. Which just means my character gets more attention. Do other character types have such nifty mechanics working to keep the action focused on them?

Having characters that go corrupt is fine, actually; that might be a character type you're comfortable with in the game. Your mechanic above is just not an impediment in any way to going corrupt. There is no real upside to not being corrupt.

A simple solution would be to have the player simple get less powerful as they go corrupt. IOW, the reward for not using your powers is that they remain powerful. That will greatly reward not using powers. I know this does not make sense with the world view that you have, but it would work in another game with another sort of magic, and gives you another example of how to create an effective disincentive. Note how most games do exactly this. In D&D you can only use so many spells and then you're useless. In lots of spell point games, if you drain you're pool, you can't cast anymore. So you're reluctant to use the abilities.

In your game if you use magic you get stronger. That requires some really bad downsides to counter. What if corruption simply made you less heathy, and therefore easier to kill? What if it could kill you itself? That would be a definite punishment that would work. If you start the character as corrupt (say they have to go corrupt to learn spells), and low on Health (or whatever keeps you alive in this game), then you could make not casting look a lot like a reward by saying that as the player refuses to cast, his score goes back to a "normal" level.

Still migh not be what you're looking for, but I'm trying to get you close enough so that you can figure out the solution yourself.

Mike

[simon_hibbs]

Simon, I won't go for the corruption points, but that's only because I hate making up points for "how much is this corruption worth", those would still be pretty arbitrary and as such meaningless.

Every quantified or categorised attribute or ability in any roleplaying game is arbitrary. I don't see why arbitrary necesserily equals meaningless.

On the other hand one could have a very simple currency and say that any corruption is worth exactly 1 point.

Surely that makes it only more meaningless, not less. It also eliminates any sense of there being a tradeoff. I thought the whole point of this thread was to come up with a tradeoff mechanic so players: 1) wouldn't be forced to choose things they don't like; yet 2) Would have to take at least some unpalatable characteristics as the price of power.


Simon Hibbs

[Christoffer Lernö]

Ah, I get what you mean Mike. Like you say ideal would be if they got less powerful the more they use their magic. In a way total corruption represents a primitive cut-off in the way you're suggesting. It's not a coincidence.

If your have evil persons with the only downside to using magic is that they'll look like demons, would that stop them? The world would be totally dominated by magicians.

There has been a lot of talk about not having to get corruption from spells and that has been overshadowing the fact that YES the magic is running out if you use it. We're talking about a very definate limit here. If you use magic regularly you're in deep shit after only a few months of frequent use.

However, it's not ideal. In fact the players might not be aware of the risks they are taking the first couple of times they play the game. Sure, the taints gives some things away somewhat, but since it's not entirely coordinated and doesn't really reduce efficiency it's not all that helpful.

That leaves me with thinking out some limitation which fits with the setting.

I can't really think of something great off the top of my head. Maybe the more demonically tainted you are, the less contol you have over demons and demonic energy (and so when you're fully tainted you'd have no control at all, that makes it a little more continuous rather than the abrupt loss of control I have right now). Another, cooler but harder to implement idea would be to be something like geas. You get weaknesses. The more you use magic, the more weaknesses you get, kind of like you get psychological limitations, physical weaknesses and so on. With psychological limitations I'm thinking about being unable to do certain things. Can't cross running water or can't leave their castle or whatever. These could be physical too. But there has to be a reason why, and I don't have any good natural explanation which really fits with the setting.

I guess I have to keep thinking about it.