I was thinking of a system where it isn't left to GM fiat to decide if a bonus is given. On top of that the system wouldn't be crunchy, so really you don't get much in terms of bonus's from tactics there. But were trying to facilitate a basic gamist structure. Where do you get your bonuses from then?

Basically what happens is that, say were in combat, the player declares the details of their move. Everyone is listening of course and can evaluate what was stated by their own criteria.

Now, all the other users (by users I mean all other players and GM) can each declare their going to spend a point to increase the players bonus for that move. The more people who spend a point/like your move, the higher your bonus gets (each person can only give one point at a time though). This happens fluidly...you don't freeze the game waiting for this vote. The move gets stated and at that time the other users can either give a point or not. Of course, you can't vote for yourself.

Again I'll just note that the GM (whatever that role otherwise involves) is still just another voter. Your final bonus amount is going to be representative of the groups preference, not just one persons.

Now, apart from discussing that I want some help with a problem here. It's pretty clear that with unlimmited points to spend, people may keep voting for each other as that means others will then vote for them, or something like this. Prefered taste will dampen this sometimes, but I think that needs assistance somehow. It's a bit of a tight rope...I want the crowds preference to show up here, but some restraint shown there.

One idea might be: Limited points...this doesn't seem that great as people will hold off rewarding anything until they get nearer the big baddy. This wont be a reflection of crowd preference, it'll be a tactic.

Another idea might be: "Aww, come on Callan, why don't you trust 'em to just judge it right?". I really think there needs to be some friction in place here, to both aid creative focus (in terms of what is rewarding) and avoid that "I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine" problem.

The basic idea is that the group determines what tactics are rewarding to do in the game world rather than just one person (ie, the GM). But while they're doing this role I don't want their gamist role to influence it. I understand many people are responsible enough to seperate the two roles, but giving them something to help with that rather than leaving them on their own to do so seems preferable. I'd prefer it, for example, rather than being left to enjoy a game where I have to maintain firm personal discipline to maintain certain parts of it.

How about this game system? It's like a variant of The Questing Beast (The Pool) (TQB). Each player (I'll include the GM as a player) has X D6 each. When a player finishes announces an action, every other player (going clockwise around the table) has the option to either reward or punish the player. The reward is one or more D6, the punishment is one or more D6. The reward goes into the player's pool; the punishment is removed from the player's pool into the punisher's pool. If the player runs out of D6 to pay for punishments, their action fails and the player gets to state what happens (much like a Monologue of Defeat). Otherwise, the player rolls any number of D6 from their pool, any "1" results giving a Monologue of Victory, any "6" results giving a Monologue of Defeat, any other result, the GM gets to state what happens. Any adversely affected characters divide the spent D6 equally between. Otherwise, the GM gets any remaining dice.

Note that no dice are spent on Motifs!

Are the players competing against the GM, or against each other? This makes a big difference to their reward strategies!

Hi Andrew,

every other player (going clockwise around the table) has the option to either reward or punish the player. The reward is one or more D6, the punishment is one or more D6. The reward goes into the player's pool; the punishment is removed from the player's pool into the punisher's pool.

It seems like it is impossible to expect the system to distinguish between "Sue thinks Bob is describing some totally awesome moves" and "Sue is trying to help Bob be more effective".

That said, possibly you could ease the situation by going to a more drama-die-like model, and letting players award coolness points, but they can't be used until the next encounter, instead of having them help with the cool move itself. This would at least prevent giving an immediate tactical benefit. I don't know what would happen with coolness points from the last encounter of the game -- possibly they'd hold over until the next adventure, or possibly they'd just go away.

I guess yet another approach might be to say that once somebody gets a bonus for an action, the NPCs can also get the same bonus for doing it; so if, I dunno, the players reward backflipping into combat, they run the risk of being ambushed by backflipping kobolds.

It seems to me that rather than a limited number of points you want an inherent limiter in the use of points.

One thought I had was that each player starts with a number of points equal to the total number of players, and whenever a point is given away it is lost from the player who had it and given to the player who gets it. This would be easy to track with something like chips. A player who didn't do cool moves himself would soon be out of chips, and so couldn't reward the moves of others.

That might not have the effect you want, though, as it becomes clear that the players would all benefit from passing chips around.

The other idea is this: ratio the points given to the players, total, against a fixed number, such that every time the players give that number of points, the referee gains a bonus point for use by the villains. If the ratio is one to one, of course, there's no advantage to the players--they bonus the villains as much as themselves. But if it were two to one, they know that they're building up points for the enemy to use against them every time they give points to each other, yet their benefit is greater. I'm inclined to think that either two to one or total players to one is going to prove the best ratio, but I'd experiment with it.

The point is to create a detriment for the bonus.

I hope that helps.

--M. J. Young

M. J. Young wrote: *snip*
The other idea is this: ratio the points given to the players, total, against a fixed number, such that every time the players give that number of points, the referee gains a bonus point for use by the villains. If the ratio is one to one, of course, there's no advantage to the players--they bonus the villains as much as themselves. But if it were two to one, they know that they're building up points for the enemy to use against them every time they give points to each other, yet their benefit is greater. I'm inclined to think that either two to one or total players to one is going to prove the best ratio, but I'd experiment with it.

The point is to create a detriment for the bonus.

I hope that helps.

--M. J. Young

Noon,

I also like MJ's 'two for one' idea. It strikes a nice balance between player benefit and the risk of frivolous awarding of bonuses.

However, there is still no enforced correlation between the award and the actual 'coolness' of the move itself. The players could still rack up chips deliberately at the 2:1 ratio, and use the spare chips to counter any beneft form the GM's own expenditure.

Ultimately, I think you are going to have to trust the players to be honest about this - I don't think that a voting system will by itself counter the 'gamist role' you mentioned at the beginning of this thread.

However, if they keep voting for particularly 'soft' maneuvers, just to get the bonuses - I think the best way to handle this is to have the NPC's start using the same maneuvers too!

If the players realise that they are voting for the effectiveness of a maneuver that anyone can use, this may prompt them to think more carefully about what they are giving bonuses for.

Oh, I also think it's worth considering the difference between 'tactical advantage' (which gives a bonus now) and 'cool maneuver' (which could be rewarded with tokens that could be spent later.)

Hope this helps,

Doug

Noon wrote: Hi Andrew,

every other player (going clockwise around the table) has the option to either reward or punish the player. The reward is one or more D6, the punishment is one or more D6. The reward goes into the player's pool; the punishment is removed from the player's pool into the punisher's pool.

The other players who are giving these rewards or punishments...what resource are they drawing from to do this?

Noon wrote: The more people who spend a point/like your move, the higher your bonus gets (each person can only give one point at a time though). This happens fluidly...you don't freeze the game waiting for this vote. The move gets stated and at that time the other users can either give a point or not. Of course, you can't vote for yourself.

Again I'll just note that the GM (whatever that role otherwise involves) is still just another voter. Your final bonus amount is going to be representative of the groups preference, not just one persons.

Hi Doug,

Doug Ruff wrote: Noon,

I also like MJ's 'two for one' idea. It strikes a nice balance between player benefit and the risk of frivolous awarding of bonuses.

However, there is still no enforced correlation between the award and the actual 'coolness' of the move itself. The players could still rack up chips deliberately at the 2:1 ratio, and use the spare chips to counter any beneft form the GM's own expenditure.

Ultimately, I think you are going to have to trust the players to be honest about this - I don't think that a voting system will by itself counter the 'gamist role' you mentioned at the beginning of this thread.

However, if they keep voting for particularly 'soft' maneuvers, just to get the bonuses - I think the best way to handle this is to have the NPC's start using the same maneuvers too!

If the players realise that they are voting for the effectiveness of a maneuver that anyone can use, this may prompt them to think more carefully about what they are giving bonuses for.

Oh, I also think it's worth considering the difference between 'tactical advantage' (which gives a bonus now) and 'cool maneuver' (which could be rewarded with tokens that could be spent later.)

Hope this helps,

Doug

Doctor Xero wrote: This seems to do nothing more than replace game master authority with a popularity contest---and a fertile field for clandestine alliances.

In every gamist group I have read about or witnessed, the majority of players would determine their praise/punish votes based on their relationship with the player and not on the cleverness or coolness of his/her move. Favoritism, jockeying to sidestep actual in-game competition, and covert (or overt!) alliances would become the controlling forces.

*snip*
However, it is far harder for each individual to hold every other individual accountable. Now instead of having one person watched by five players, we have six people each watching each other, each of them with their own embedded interests in every outcome, a task which is far more difficult and far more prone to error. Similarly, players now have to keep eyes out looking for alliances, suspicious patterns in voting, etc.

Of course, if these mechanics are used for a game based on Paranoia or Diplomacy or Steve Jackson's Illuminati in which out-of-game competition and doubledealing pretty much replaces in-game competition, I think this mechanic is excellent.

Doctor Xero