[ingenero] invoking mechanics that dont change the fictional situation

[stefoid]

My game uses 'plays' in conflict situations, which is: to do something, the player must describe the characters intended actions as "what, how and why".  i.e.  "Jack is going to knock him over, using a takedown in order to gain an advantage"  or  "Jack targets his body with a double handed, overhead axe swing"  (implied 'why' is to inflict damage)

One of the aims of 'plays' is that the fictional situation changes with each character intent - thats why "how and why" are important, so that people are concentrating on the situation and not just the mechanics -- without the action changing the fictional situation, it just becomes a nebulous battle of attrition watching numbers go down until someone 'wins'.  To that end, plays are working as intended.

However.

The game also has the concept of risking 'body'  and/or 'soul'  in a conflict to overachieve.  This gives a bonus chance to the chance of success of a play, or to the successful effect - more damage or greater advantage gained.   If they succeed with their action, they dont lose the resources they risked, but if they draw or fail, they lose those resources.

This risk is supposed to be described by the player as the character performing something physically risky, or in some way applying extra effort / focus to the task - becoming more desperate in other words.  But that isnt happening during play.  In the heat of the moment, both player and GM are forgetting that invoking the risk mechanic is supposed to result in a change in the fictional situation of the invoking character, and its coming out as a bland, nebulous "I risk a point of Body"  or  "Im throwing two points of soul"   

Now the question
I need some sort of rule or mechanic that makes sure that the change in the fictional situation happens when resources are risked, but in an encouraging way that makes the player want to remember it, rather than a punitive way that forces the GM to have to remember to 'enforce it'.

Any ideas?

[David Berg]

Your descriptions of "risk for bonus" leave me wanting more info:
1) "more desperate" -- What fictional actions emerge from that?
2) "physically risky" -- This seems like a fine example, but I assume you'll need others for situations where that wouldn't apply.
3) "extra effort/focus" -- This assumes that they weren't already trying as hard as they could.  Unless there's some reason why that would be so, I'd encourage you to ditch this line of thinking entirely.

If you share some good examples of "what happens in the fiction when someone risks a point of body/soul" covering a range of situations, I'm sure I could come up with some ideas for the rules you want.

First idea: when choosing to risk, you do lose a point; narrate what/how/why.  Then, if your action succeeds, you narrate how the success restores you, giving you the point back.  This may be a good idea or a terrible one depending on how you envision Body and Soul in the fiction.

[stefoid]

Body is essentially hitpoints.  Soul is a vague mix of willpower and confidence.

They define how tough it is to knock a character out of the contest.  when Body is reduced to less than 1, the character is not physically able to go on.  when Soul is reduced, the character doesnt want to go on.   They are physically or mentally defeated.

You can risk Body in physical contests.  Using combat metaphors, the normal stance divides attention between offence and defence.  When you risk Body you are simply playing  more offensively at the risk of increased negative consequences if it doesnt come off.

examples play out in my head like "I wind up and really let him have it!"   or "I charge straight in!"

Likewise you can risk Soul in any type of contest.  This  represents pinning your hopes on a desperate action, redoubling your efforts, finding that little bit extra, giving 110%, etc...   In movies and fiction, the hero can always try harder in climactic dramatic situations.  Usually in slow motion with a rise in volume of the dramatic music paying in the background, you know?

Your descriptions of "risk for bonus" leave me wanting more info:
1) "more desperate" -- What fictional actions emerge from that?
2) "physically risky" -- This seems like a fine example, but I assume you'll need others for situations where that wouldn't apply.
3) "extra effort/focus" -- This assumes that they weren't already trying as hard as they could.  Unless there's some reason why that would be so, I'd encourage you to ditch this line of thinking entirely.

If you share some good examples of "what happens in the fiction when someone risks a point of body/soul" covering a range of situations, I'm sure I could come up with some ideas for the rules you want.

First idea: when choosing to risk, you do lose a point; narrate what/how/why.  Then, if your action succeeds, you narrate how the success restores you, giving you the point back.  This may be a good idea or a terrible one depending on how you envision Body and Soul in the fiction.

[stefoid]

Thats just given me an idea, Dave.  Obviously with physical situations, you can describe the observable effect of risking body, thats relatively easy.

But you cant easily observe the change in situation of risking soul - which is why it goes into slo-mo and the music rises!

Fortunately we are playing an RPG so the player can describe the change of situation inside the characters head, without resorting to such b-grade film tactics.

So yeah, thats helpful, but its still advice of the hand wavy form "It would be nice when you do that sort of thing if you could say this sort of thing"

[stefoid]

First idea: when choosing to risk, you do lose a point; narrate what/how/why.  Then, if your action succeeds, you narrate how the success restores you, giving you the point back.  This may be a good idea or a terrible one depending on how you envision Body and Soul in the fiction.

I like your thinking but Im not sure it would work.  In my mind, risking goes something like this:

Lets say Im using the play "sweep the guy off his feet, using a takedown, in order to gain an advantage"

I want to risk 2 points of body in order to increase the resulting advantage (gives an extra +2 to the resulting advantage if successful)

So I add something like "but rather than topple him straight over, Im going to risk 2pts of body by lifting him up and slamming him down to make sure he is good and dazed, to gain extra advantage"

and if you succeed, thats exactly what happens, but if you fail, not only did you not get what you wanted, but you take 2 pts of body yourself, which the GM narrates something like "You come in and grab him around waist, but he is heavier than he looks.  While you are struggling to lift him, he headbutts you right in the face, causing you to let go.  Blood streams down from your nose and you momentarily see two of him..."

Im not sure how you see your suggestion panning out - does the player state the stakes of the risk up front?  or what?

[happysmellyfish]

How frequently do you envision these conflicts being played out? And how varied should they be?

I ask because, a while back, when playing a hack and slash RPG, my group had this weird urge to narrate every action in rich detail. This sounds like a good idea - for a while. But we were playing a hack and slash so, all we were narrating was 50 iterations of "I try to strike." Pretty soon, we had nothing in the tank, and the purpler prose was quietly forgotten, replaced with pretty raw dice rolling. Then, inevitably, when we get back to the village, and there's a chance for 'proper roleplaying' everyone is bored of all that storytelling crap, and the scenes fall flat.

That's happened a few times to me, over the years.

That's not what I think will happen with your game, but I do think it could be a risk. So just as a ballpark figure, how long should these conflicted scenes last? And at what point do you think people are going to start running out of narrative juice, particularly if the mechanical aspects are more or less static?

Oh, and one last question, how much control do players have of the game world? I'm not using the correct Forge lingo for this, but what I mean is - do players just control player characters? Or do they also control certain aspects of the scene as a whole? Can they narrate that a bus load of sexy college girls happens to drive past, and if they mess this up, they'll lose a lot of Soul? It seems like, if the players are able to narrate more than just their own character's actions, they'll be able to produce more varied Body/Soul instances.

[Paul Czege]

Hmm. Maybe the additional requirement of players narrating what they're risking is a creative problem for the players. Is the narrating of the additional risk creatively inspiring? Or is it just additional complexity and work?

What I might do is have some thresholds on those Body and Soul points:

If you're down more than one Soul point, you have to get another character to do something for you that's really your responsibility.
If you'd down to just one Soul point, you won't take action on your own behalf until someone else gets angry and argues some sense into you.

If you're down more than one Body point, you act after the opposition in your next physical conflict.
If you're down to just one Body point, you don't act at all in your next physical conflict until you've been harmed by the opposition.

Something like that.

Paul

[stefoid]

How frequently do you envision these conflicts being played out? And how varied should they be?

I ask because, a while back, when playing a hack and slash RPG, my group had this weird urge to narrate every action in rich detail. This sounds like a good idea - for a while. But we were playing a hack and slash so, all we were narrating was 50 iterations of "I try to strike." Pretty soon, we had nothing in the tank, and the purpler prose was quietly forgotten, replaced with pretty raw dice rolling. Then, inevitably, when we get back to the village, and there's a chance for 'proper roleplaying' everyone is bored of all that storytelling crap, and the scenes fall flat.

That's happened a few times to me, over the years.

That's not what I think will happen with your game, but I do think it could be a risk. So just as a ballpark figure, how long should these conflicted scenes last? And at what point do you think people are going to start running out of narrative juice, particularly if the mechanical aspects are more or less static?

Oh, and one last question, how much control do players have of the game world? I'm not using the correct Forge lingo for this, but what I mean is - do players just control player characters? Or do they also control certain aspects of the scene as a whole? Can they narrate that a bus load of sexy college girls happens to drive past, and if they mess this up, they'll lose a lot of Soul? It seems like, if the players are able to narrate more than just their own character's actions, they'll be able to produce more varied Body/Soul instances.

The basic mechanical options for the players are (in combat language)  offensive, defensive, or try for advantage.  a contest will last for about 6 or 8 iterations if both opponents are skilled, or maybe just 2 or 3 iterations if unskilled.

In challenge phase (where these rules comes into effect) it is 100% in character point of view.

I have to playtest more to work out if things get too hard to narrate or too repetitive.

[stefoid]

Hmm. Maybe the additional requirement of players narrating what they're risking is a creative problem for the players. Is the narrating of the additional risk creatively inspiring? Or is it just additional complexity and work? 

Good questions.  I havent been able to determine if its a creative problem or simply forgetting/familiarity with the rules.

It seems to me that it should be extra creatively inspiring reward for the extra work.  But I cant back that up yet. 

What I might do is have some thresholds on those Body and Soul points:

If you're down more than one Soul point, you have to get another character to do something for you that's really your responsibility.
If you'd down to just one Soul point, you won't take action on your own behalf until someone else gets angry and argues some sense into you.

If you're down more than one Body point, you act after the opposition in your next physical conflict.
If you're down to just one Body point, you don't act at all in your next physical conflict until you've been harmed by the opposition.

Something like that.

Paul

I can see that, but its a separate issue.  The issue is with the risking of body and soul in the first place having no basis in the fiction, even though the rules say 'hey, you know you should kinda try to remember to base the risk action in the fiction, please'

With regard to the consequences of having lost body or soul, I dont want to have any more bean counting during conflict than there already is.  By all means play 'ouch!'  or 'dammit!'  when you take a hit, but there are no mechanical effects.

with