Advantage/Disadvantage: What does the divide tell us?

[TonyLB]

Characters in many games have clear-cut advantages and disadvantages.  The way games treat these is becoming a source of fascination for me.

I was raised (as a gamer) in Champions.  First edition, thank you.  Champions has very clear ideas about what is a character advantage, and what is a character disadvantage.  Your own energy blast will always be to your benefit.  Always.  It only works that way.  There are no rules (at least none I've ever seen used) for your energy blast scorching your fingers, or getting out of control, or being a negative in any way.  The negatives (Limitations) you used to get it for bargain basement prices can be negatives, but the energy blast itself is always a positive.  Likewise, your Code vs. Killing will never give you mechanical advantage.  Ever.  It is a pure negative.  So (again, purely mechanically) somebody who projects devastating bolts of energy from their orifices can't have trouble because of that, and somebody who values human life can't gain any strength from that belief.

So there you have, system-enforced, a certain judgment on what is important about the character, and what the player should be excited about:  The player should be excited about showing their characters virtues, and should in no way be excited about their faults.  Moreover, it is crystal clear that a fault is a fault, and a virtue is a virtue.  When people wholly buy into this reward system, virtues get screen-time any time the players can manage.  Faults get screen-time only when the GM forces it.

What impressed the hell out of me about Nobilis is its Restriction system.  Players are rewarded for bringing their character's flaws into play.  Devastatingly simple, isn't it?  Suddenly you have players actively interested in showing that their characters have faults.  They actively engineer situations to play to them.  The system gets a strong message across, just through that:  We love these characters in part because they are flawed.  Rockin'.

Equally powerful, in the other axis, is Dogs in the Vineyard, which simply says "All those things that you'd think intuitively have to be negatives?  They don't have to be.  Use them as positives, it all works out."  Suddenly you have players realizing left and right that they can make their own judgment about what is a virtue, what is a fault.  The system gets a strong message across, just through that:  Everything, good and bad, has an important place in making a person who they are.  Rockin'.

Those are two different ways to give players more power to express themselves through character faults.  What happens if we combine the two?  Don't (yet) jump into the question of "How would you, logistically, make players want to not play that lop-sided."  I'll be making another thread on that soon, honest.  Let's just assume that there are good reasons for players to explore the whole field of possible traits, and (independently) the whole spectrum of "helpful/hurtful" applications.

In a system where any trait can be used by a player either as positive or negative, what you see in action is player judgment about what the trait means to the character, at that moment.  Say the Stakes are "Does Seth Impress the Girl?" and Joe (playing Seth) uses "Reckless." If Joe increases Seth's chances then he is saying "Being Reckless is something good for Seth."  If Joe decreases Seth's chances then he is saying "Being Reckless is something bad for Seth."

The line between this and "Recklessness is a virtue" or "Recklessness is a fault" is (and should be) very thin.  Players are expressing judgments (at least) about what they like and dislike in other people.  What I'm excited about is the prospect that players might also be expressing judgments about what they like and dislike in themselves.

How could we make that happen?

[Eric Provost]

I'm not 100% clear on your goal here, but I'm going to work on what I think you're talking about, which is setting up a system that rewards players for expressing the traits of their characters as both advantages and disadvantages.

Well all rewards come down to control of the story, don't they?  If you were to just look at dividing up control of the story into two different forms of control and then tie Advantage narration to form1 and Disadvantage narration to form 2 then I think you'd have it.

For example:

Narrating an advantagous trait gives you immediate authority over the story through your avatar, the character.  This is pretty much automatic.  The advantage allows the character to get closer to what they want which is, by extension, what you want.  Thus you gain control of a thin-spectrum bit of the story, and that's whatever challenge or conflict the character is up against right now.

On the other hand narrating a trait as disadvantagous while taking away from your ability to control the conflict or challenge might provide you with a bit of, oh let's call it: Hurdle Currency.  And let's say that Hurdle Currency gives you the authority to author conflicts or challenges for any of the protagonists in the future.

xxxx

The more I think about this the more it feels like repeating a word over and over 'till it becomes meaningless.  I'm not sure I'm on topic and I'm not sure I've had anything to say at all.

-Eric

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

I'm a bit confused also on whether you are asking for mechanics ideas or not, but i'm going to follow Eric's lead.

I would say create a trait, for the moment we can go with a name like karma.

1. Use a trait as an advantage, you get a bonus equal to karma, and karma decreases by one.
2. Use a trait as a disadvantage and increase karma by one then get a decrease equal to karma.

Notice the order of adding and subtracting is done differently to keep plus/minus balanced.

Example:

Karma = 7
Seth uses Reckless as an advantage, he adds 7 to his roll and decreases Karma to 6.

By the way, neat idea.

Karma = 6
Seth uses Reckless as a disadvantage this time, he adds 1 to karma, which now equals 7 and subtracts 7 from his roll.

[Josh Roby]

Two other points of reference:

In 7th Sea, there are no disadvantages; everything is expressed as either an advantage (both Large and Small are advantages -- Large gives you a strength modifier [or something], Small lets you get into small spaces) or as a Background which gives you Drama Dice / XP when the GM brings it into play.  Like a lot of 7th Sea, though, it relies on this pseudo-antagonistic relationship between the GM and players, and it doesn't pan out well.

To toot my own horn, FLFS will have stats called Thematic Batteries which are player-defined; Gentleman or Rake or Loyal or Competitive or whatever else (the example character has "Cockney").  Thematic Batteries give you bonuses and handicaps, but players always choose when they work (players also always have the ability to call for a die check, any time, in any situation).  Thing is, to get the bonus, you "discharge" the Battery.  The only way to "charge" the Battery is to take the handicap.  So characters will display their flaws early in the game and then redeem them later in the game.  Additionally, NPCs have Thematic Batteries that work exactly opposite -- the GM (or controlling player) can immediately use Thematic Batteries for a bonus, declaring aloud what the Thematic Battery is (Otto is HUGE!); at any point afterwards the players can cite the Thematic Battery and give Otto the handicap (The bigger they are, the harder they fall!).  Combine this with player ability to call for a check whenever they think it's appropriate, and players are empowered to take advantage of NPC characterization whenever they like.

While I expect Thematic Batteries will get heavy emphasis in play, they work in tandem with a pretty traditional Attributes-and-Skills system that provides a sort of baseline competency which is modified by characterization in the form of the Batteries.  Said Atts and Skills are pretty staticly positive (although they're base-4, removing the possibility of any character being 'average', a minor point I'm still amused by).  I don't see how you can implement a system that is entirely freeform in terms of what is an advantage and what is a disadvantage without some sort of baseline.  That of course doesn't mean it's impossible, just that I don't see it.

Additionally, I think any such system needs some sort of mechanic to regulate when something can be used as an advantage and when it can be used as a disadvantage -- even if that mechanic is 'when the controlling player uses it, it's an advantage, when another player inflicts it, it's a disadvantage'.

Tying this sort of player judgement into the XP/Reward System is an intriguing idea, and one I've tinkered with in FLFS.  This could give players the incentive to use their stats as disadvantages.  I'd go a step further and say that it could also give players the incentive to use their stats as advantages in creative ways.  If every use of this "judged" stats is rewarded, then that will very much bring those stats into the spotlight of play.

Eric, I think you're conflating player control with character control.  Tapping one of these stats as a disadvantage still confers story control to the player -- you're just controlling it in ways that are not advantageous to your character.  Now, depending on the game, that may be seen as a good thing or a bad thing, but the fact remains that you're still adding to the story and still characterizing your character.  If we want the reward system to reinforce that characterization, we should reward both the positive and the negative characterization.  If the reward system is supposed to reinforce character competence, we should reward the positive characterization.  If we want to reinforce character setbacks, we should reward the negative charaterization.

[TonyLB]

Joshua:  That last paragraph... yeah.  That, particularly.

I'm not talking just about bribing people into accepting the idea that their characters can have flaws (though that's cool, as I testify on Nobilis's behalf).  I'm talking about getting people on board with the idea that they want their characters to have flaws... that, indeed, sometimes what they want is for their characters to lose, and when they want that the flaws are weakness for the character but strength for the player.

I've posted a thread on the subject, because I think that (while it interlaces importantly with the question of how you judge individual traits helpful/hurtful) it's a distinct issue for discussion.

[Callan S.]

Hi Tony,

Systems like capes have various resources, which can be mechanically pursued to really explore certain things/characters. You pursue those mechanical systems by going after the beneficial points. If seths recklessness is part of that system and you can decide it's a negative, then your going to stop pursuing it mechanically and it'll go against the systems mechanical rewards. Or, if you can decide it was a negative without any mechanical consequence, then it's not really part of the system to begin with.

As a wack idea on my part, it's simulationist. Your getting to declare just how a part of the world works "Being reckless is good for the part of the game world we call Seth". Recently I've been toying in my mind a phrase "Address of causality". A godlike yet at the same time primal expression of a players interest/pep. If it is sim, the problems above fade away somewhat, as the results from that address, whatever their effect to the rest of the mechanics, are derived from that address and are thus very interesting to the player who made it.

[Josh Roby]

Callan, yes, that can be a valid "Simmy" decision -- but while true, I think that's a superficial analysis of what could be.  Imagine a system that rewards players for making their characters fail, and/or where character failure is as useful a tool as character success.  Integrate that decision into the fabric of the game, making it part of the game, with mechanical support.  What have we got then?

[Tony Irwin]

Hi Tony,

TSOY pays the players bonuses for bringing their character's "stuff" to bear in a situation. But the player can also have their character do a grandstanding rejection of that stuff and get a one off payment for forever rejecting that stuff.

I think it makes play generate story that better resembles the stories we love in other genres. Big end of act climaxes where the character embraces/rejects the qualities that are saving/damning them.

Nixon does it again huh? I wrote two games after playing Paladin. What will I do this time?

Perhaps though you want a system where the player could affirm or reject stuff on a scene by scene basis.

Ron Edwards kind of talks about that in this thread talking about the new TSOY rules. I haven't played the fudge version and admit I haven't accomplished that kind of scene-by-scene dramatic play with the regular version. I'm imagining that what you're after might be a bit gentler than that though?

In Pony Hello the players request "project" scenes where their heroines get on with individual grand projects to help the broken communities they travel to. The scene might focus on deciding whether to even have a project, picking a site/materials/partners, siging contracts/making payments, completing and "birthing" the project, protecting the project, "owning" it once it's completed. *

When the player makes efforts towards completing the project, the project offers more situation specific bonuses to players. In our last game one player was building a courthouse - it gave bonuses in conflicts to all the players when they were chasing down some sheep rustlers.

But players are rewarded with one off bonus dice for use in any situation when they have a scene where the character asserts their right not to continue the project, or not to bow to pressure to do it in a particular way.

So players are rewarded for either affirming or rejecting their character's project, but the rewards are different. Each different situation can result in a different choice. For me running the session, what I considered one of the most successful parts of play was when one player was alternately affirming/rejecting her project in successive scenes as I kept swinging the pressure different ways (and as her needs for different types of bonuses changed). **

Tony

* Which Sorceror supplement inspired this? Don't tell if you know.
** The pony stable got built in the end.

[Tony Irwin]

Sorry Tony, I reread my above post and it isn't very clear how it relates to your post.

The point I was trying to make is that in Pony Hello running a project is kind of a neutral value. It's in different situations that it begins to appear as either an advantage or disadvantage to be involved in one. The player decides which it is on a scene by scene basis. They're given a different reward depending how they decide, but they're always being rewarded for putting their character in a scene which forces them to make a decision about it.

Tony

[Callan S.]

Hi Joshua,

I can easily imagine a system where character failure is rewarded. I just can't imagine a game system where the players failure to aptly use the system is rewarded.

The only thing I can imagine is where it's not a game system and thus not supposed to be used in an apt way. It's more a statistical toy, which you manipulate not so as to earn resources within it, but simply to explore it. In that instance, declaring a certain mechanic is good or bad and then seeing what happens as the stats interact, makes sense to me.