These three threads:

Introduction and character creation: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17325.0

Character creation (revised) & consequences: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17512.0

Mechanical basics: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17696.0

talked about the devlopment of Cold City. Now that I'm much further on with the game and much valuable playtesting has taken back and revisions done, I was struck by the lack of use that the trust mechanic received in game. It's use was sparse to say the least, even though players enjoyed the aspect of assigning trust during character creation and how this immediately created tension within the group.

The existing mechanic, as talked about in the threads above, places the power to spend trust in the hands of the trusting character. But why not reverse this? Why not give the power to spend the trust assigned to the trusted (rather than the trusting) character? To my mind, this (along with some other changes to the benfits received from trust) would hopefully encourage use. A further change is to the way trust flows back and forth. As outlined below, tokens move back and forward between players as they spend trust? Who do they give trust to? Will they ever get it back? Do they give it to the characters they trust, or do they feel betrayed by them because of some occurence in game?

Feedback on these initial thoughts would be appreciated, particularly in regard to the flow of trust around the table. I'm interested in looking at how the concepts of betrayal and trust-reinforcement could be worked into this by some means, particulary relating to the removal of trust of the a character does something another finds objectionable or untrustworthy.

Trust

Trust plays a big part in Cold City. Are your fellow team members spies feeding information back to their political or military masters? Are they in league with more sinister forces? Do you trust their personal or political motivations?

In order to reflect this element, once the group has sat down to play, find out what the other characters are and decide what your character thinks of them. Do they trust them and if so, how much do they trust them?

Trust can vary a lot, even within the time frame of an individual games session. The actions of a character can heavily influence what the other PCs might think of them. If they start acting in a suspicious manner, trust might go down. If they start acting in a manner which inspires trust, it might go up. But hang on, why are they acting like that? Maybe you shouldn’t trust them…

At the outset of the game, each player will have a pool of trust to assign to the PCs equal to the number of characters, minus 1. Players should look around the table, think about the other characters, let the other players describe their characters and start to think about what their characters feel about the others.

However, players should take into account their characters nationality, attitudes, traits and hatred. How will this influence the assignment of trust? Who do they feel they can rely on in a tight spot?

Assigning Trust

To represent trust in the game, the players will need to have some form of representative token. These can be poker chips, card counters, dice or whatever.

Trust is assigned by the players voting trust to the other characters. Prior to the voting, the players should note down who they trust and by how much. If, say, a player has three trust points to spend, they might spend one on one character and two on another. Or maybe all three on a different character, it’s up to the individual and how they see their character trusting others.

Once all of the players have noted how much they trust the others, go round the table asking “Who trusts………?” If a player has noted that they trust the character who’s name has been called out, then they push and appropriate number of tokens across to them. The receiving player then notes down how much trust they got from each other player, if they got any at all.

Example

Colin, Kris, Myles and Richard have all sat down and created their characters, so now comes the process of assigning trust. As there are four characters, each character has 3 trust points to assign.

Colin is playing Ivor Smidt (German), a former scientist now assigned to the RPA as a technical liaison offer. His name is called out first and those who trust Ivor push token across to. Sadly for Ivor, nobody seems to really trust him and only Myles, playing British linguist David Johnson, pushes a single trust token across to him.
Next to be called out is the character played by Kris, the stoic and reliable Ivan Kovochyva, a Red Army soldier. Rather surprisingly, Jean-Pierre Lasseau (a former Maquis radio operator player by Richard) trusts Ivan quite a lot, and Richard pushes two tokens across to Kris.

The previously mentioned David Johnson (played by Myles) is up next and in this case, Colin (Ivor Smidt) pushes two tokens across to Myles and Kris (Ivan Kovochyva) pushes a single token across.

Last to go is Richards character, the former French resistant Jean-Pierre Lasseau. All of the other players show a certain amount of trust in Richards character and he gets a token pushed across from each of the three other players.

At the end of this, the characters each have the following trust pools:

David Johnson 3
Ivan Kovochyva 2
Jean-Pierre Lasseau 3
Ivor Smidt 1

You will note that some of the players did not spend all of their trust at the outset. This is perfectly permissible, as long as the players spend at least one trust point during the assignment process. The remaining trust can then be held back and assigned to characters during play, as events unfold and their nature becomes apparent. This reserved trust can be assigned at any time.

Trust In Play

Now that each character has their trust pool (represented by an appropriate number of tokens), how does this function in play?

Trust never goes away, it merely circulates about, changes form and gets assigned to different people. When you choose to spend trust, you take a token from your pool and pass it across to another player. The player spending the trust gets to choose who they push the token to. Receiving the token increases the receiving players trust pool by one., meaning they now have more trust to spend in critical situations.

Remember: if a player spends a trust point, they must give a token to another player, thereby increasing the amount of trust they have to spend. Who should they give the token to, how will the receiving player use that trust? Will they ever get it back? Trust tokens should flow around the table, always changing hands and moving from player to player.

At its most fundamental level, characters can draw on trust to increase their chance of success. Spending a trust token allows the player to double the active stat being used for the purposes of forming a dice pool. [further results of spending trust to follow]

Cheers
Malcolm

Malc,

what do you want the trust pool to highlight? At the moment it seems to highlight who is the most trusted character at any given moment and draw attention to who they trust when they spend it.

On the subject of usage, if trust isn't getting used and you want it to be, I'd be tempted to revise resolution so that it's much more likely to fail if trust isn't involved. Mountain Witch is good at this, the resolution is brutal unless you spend trust. This would mean it would flow around more regularly.

-Matt

Matt wrote:
Malc,

what do you want the trust pool to highlight? At the moment it seems to highlight who is the most trusted character at any given moment and draw attention to who they trust when they spend it.

On the subject of usage, if trust isn't getting used and you want it to be, I'd be tempted to revise resolution so that it's much more likely to fail if trust isn't involved. Mountain Witch is good at this, the resolution is brutal unless you spend trust. This would mean it would flow around more regularly.

-Matt

Are you intending the trust aspect of the game to start out "how we expect each other to be" and drift towards "how we actually are". In which case I'd be tempted to start with arbitary values based on nationality (plus maybe one free point to assign, based on initial gut feeling), and then push hard for trust movement during play.

If trust only gets moved when you've a high chance of failure (since you need the extra dice), you need to make those situations as common as possible, but with the current system that means always targeting what the character is bad at, as that's the time they're most likely to need that boost from trust. I'm not sure of a good way to resolve that issue with the current mechanics, maybe it's not as big an issue as I think it is.

Another question that might be worth pondering is what part of the character creation gives a genuine reason not to trust the other group members? At the moment trust acts as a barometer for who is trusted, but what are my reasons not to tust them? Do they have conflicting agendas? In which case make sure that's a defined part of creation "I want something the other's don't, what is it?", maybe based off government orders? Going back to TMW as an example, it does this by giving everybody a dark fate, thus creating the situation where trust needs to be given, but you can never be sure if the guy you've given it do will use it against you later...

I like the idea of trust moving as a result of conflict consequences. Maybe add something whereby trust can be knocked out of you instead of damage? Then passed on. I think a key thing with all trust movements will be requiring from the player a reason for why that use of trust to boost is passed on to that other player, to help build the story. For example, conflict blows two trust out of my PC, but I give it to Heinrich's player. "Because the blow actually just crushed that pack of cigarettes he game me." Same with spend to boost and who you hand it off to.

-Matt

Matt wrote:
Are you intending the trust aspect of the game to start out "how we expect each other to be" and drift towards "how we actually are". In which case I'd be tempted to start with arbitary values based on nationality (plus maybe one free point to assign, based on initial gut feeling), and then push hard for trust movement during play.

If trust only gets moved when you've a high chance of failure (since you need the extra dice), you need to make those situations as common as possible, but with the current system that means always targeting what the character is bad at, as that's the time they're most likely to need that boost from trust. I'm not sure of a good way to resolve that issue with the current mechanics, maybe it's not as big an issue as I think it is.

Another question that might be worth pondering is what part of the character creation gives a genuine reason not to trust the other group members? At the moment trust acts as a barometer for who is trusted, but what are my reasons not to tust them? Do they have conflicting agendas? In which case make sure that's a defined part of creation "I want something the other's don't, what is it?", maybe based off government orders? Going back to TMW as an example, it does this by giving everybody a dark fate, thus creating the situation where trust needs to be given, but you can never be sure if the guy you've given it do will use it against you later...

I like the idea of trust moving as a result of conflict consequences. Maybe add something whereby trust can be knocked out of you instead of damage? Then passed on. I think a key thing with all trust movements will be requiring from the player a reason for why that use of trust to boost is passed on to that other player, to help build the story. For example, conflict blows two trust out of my PC, but I give it to Heinrich's player. "Because the blow actually just crushed that pack of cigarettes he game me." Same with spend to boost and who you hand it off to.

Laying down who trusts who based on nationality would lead (from my point of view) to the Soviet or German characters always being in the position of least trust, thus they require to prove themselves the most during play

The introduction of a a characteristic such as 'Hidden Agenda' would be a way of reinforcing the variety of viewpoints on interests that the characters have. 'Hidden Agenda' could inform the characters viewpoint, guide their actions and, if they are acting upon it, provide bonuses in conflicts where the character can advance their agenda. Each player would be aware that the everyone has a hidden agenda, but would be unaware what it is or how far they are pushing it.

Malcolm,

I've read your initial description of the trust mechanic and so I hope the following comments are in some way helpful.

First of all, I think that trust is a tricky thing to turn into a mechanic since it's such a mysterious real world concept.  It's also pretty much been abused in every gaming and interpersonal relationship I've ever been in.  So modeling and putting rules around it are problematic.

If I can paraphrase the way your rules are working, basically what happens is that my PC is empowered because other people trust him/her?  Basically, my ability to resolve tasks in difficult situations is directly related to the number of people who trust that I will not double cross them (as opposed to say, they believe in my ability to perform the action.)  Am I missing something?

If you go with this, I see a real potential for abuse and min/maxing.  I can foresee a scenario where I go around, make everyone trust me, collect all the tokens and then suddenly behave completely crosswise to how I acted before (which should actually deplete the amount of trust I've built.)  However, since I have everyone's tokens, I can now perform super feats, and can influence the game according to my secret agenda.

This leads me to a couple of thoughts.

#1  I think it was hinted, but not necessarily formalized that each trust token records in some way who owns it.  So when I start off with a pool of say 4 trust tokens, each will have a C on them (or they may all be read or what have you.)  So when I give a token to you, it's a symbolic representation that I trust you.  Not Bob or Steve trusts you, but I trust you.  When you use my token, I choose who that token goes to because I trust them, not because you trust them (or it may go back to my pool.)

#2  I would suggest reworking the way a trust token is spent in a way that #1 becomes important.  Here's my thought.  Let's say you're playing a quickdraw expert who is great at mowing down enemies with your lucky revolvers.  I am playing an expert locksmith who can pick any lock given time.  You need to get through a superlocked security door and you have one of my trust tokens.  We determine that getting through this door is something where my intelligence would come in handy, so you use my stat to augment yours (perhaps we add them together or we double my intelligence stat) for the purposes of making the lockpick roll.  (Come to think of it I think there would have to be some sort of bonus over and above just adding them together as most systems have rules for characters working in cohesion.)  I think one of the most important parts is that if you spend my trust token, my PC pretty much has to work with you because you are playing on my trust unless doing so would be completely out of character for the PC (For instance, you can't make the 50 year old Catholic Priest help you find a human sacrifice no matter how many trust tokens you spend.  Unless that Priest has a Hidden Agenda, Dark Past, or is a general sadist.  You get my drift.  :))

#3  I think that under dire circumstances, one player can take trust tokens from another player if that player's character acts completely untrustworthy.  (Yeah, I know you helped me break into my bank, but you just shot my grandmother...)  This will keep people from hoarding trust.

I hope some of that helps.

Matt wrote:
Depends. If you made it so each nationality's starting trust for another is 0, 1, 2, the gut reaction point has a bigger impact. If you push trust at every conflict, it should change quite rapidly. So you might have the starting trusts for others being:

American:
Other American: 2
British: 1
Soviet: 0
German: 1
Soviet
Other Soviet: 1
American: 1
British: 1
German: 1

Then each character gets a starting pool based on how much others trust him.  This might skirt to close to what zodiac animals do in TMW, however. It is very effective though...

Matt wrote: Since the situation is generally "Mission-based", the logical kind of hidden agenda is one that subverts the mission aim to their governments interests. You could come up with some generics and make each player choose one for his character at the start of the mission, then fill in details as they go. I don't think it necessarily needs a mechanical benefit, after all they can always spend trust to have more chance of achieving their agenda, and that gives a nice thematic charge to things: "I trusted you, and you use it to do what?!"

Commo wrote: If I can paraphrase the way your rules are working, basically what happens is that my PC is empowered because other people trust him/her?  Basically, my ability to resolve tasks in difficult situations is directly related to the number of people who trust that I will not double cross them (as opposed to say, they believe in my ability to perform the action.)  Am I missing something?

If you go with this, I see a real potential for abuse and min/maxing.  I can foresee a scenario where I go around, make everyone trust me, collect all the tokens and then suddenly behave completely crosswise to how I acted before (which should actually deplete the amount of trust I've built.)  However, since I have everyone's tokens, I can now perform super feats, and can influence the game according to my secret agenda.

Commo wrote: #1  I think it was hinted, but not necessarily formalized that each trust token records in some way who owns it.  So when I start off with a pool of say 4 trust tokens, each will have a C on them (or they may all be read or what have you.)  So when I give a token to you, it's a symbolic representation that I trust you.  Not Bob or Steve trusts you, but I trust you.  When you use my token, I choose who that token goes to because I trust them, not because you trust them (or it may go back to my pool.)

Commo wrote: #2  I would suggest reworking the way a trust token is spent in a way that #1 becomes important.  Here's my thought.  Let's say you're playing a quickdraw expert who is great at mowing down enemies with your lucky revolvers.  I am playing an expert locksmith who can pick any lock given time.  You need to get through a superlocked security door and you have one of my trust tokens.  We determine that getting through this door is something where my intelligence would come in handy, so you use my stat to augment yours (perhaps we add them together or we double my intelligence stat) for the purposes of making the lockpick roll.  (Come to think of it I think there would have to be some sort of bonus over and above just adding them together as most systems have rules for characters working in cohesion.)  I think one of the most important parts is that if you spend my trust token, my PC pretty much has to work with you because you are playing on my trust unless doing so would be completely out of character for the PC (For instance, you can't make the 50 year old Catholic Priest help you find a human sacrifice no matter how many trust tokens you spend.  Unless that Priest has a Hidden Agenda, Dark Past, or is a general sadist.  You get my drift.  :))

Commo wrote: #3  I think that under dire circumstances, one player can take trust tokens from another player if that player's character acts completely untrustworthy.  (Yeah, I know you helped me break into my bank, but you just shot my grandmother...)  This will keep people from hoarding trust.

I think this is vital, yes. There should always be the opportunity for players to take trust away from characters who act in a manner which cause the other characters to mistrust them.

Malcolm,

I think you touched on the major weakness of my thoughts on trust.  It leads far too much into a as you put "boring" reciprocal arrangement.  I trust you...you trust me and we trade trust back and forth.  Then again... this is how trust works in real life.  In many larger gaming groups I've had, trust has tended to flow from me to another one or two individuals and that's all.  There have been a few notable exceptions where my PC has trusted other PCs.  The really funny example of this I can think of is when I convinced another PC (and her player, too) that she had me blood bonded when I was unbondable.  So, I was in fact lying.

At any rate, and I wish I knew Cold City better, is there anyway to force characters into situations where they need to trust multiple people or trust character A in the first scene (I use the term loosely since it sounded better than block of time) and trust character B in another?

Matt wrote:

I think this is vital, yes. There should always be the opportunity for players to take trust away from characters who act in a manner which cause the other characters to mistrust them.

You could always allow players to move one point or trust around the table each after every scene. So, after the scene where my PC betrays Gregor's by using trust to boost a roll that backs my hidden agenda, we get to re-evaluate how we stand.

You could do this trust movement in order of lowest trusted to highest, that way the guy who's currently most trusted can move his point he sees how the new situation is panning out. That could nicely reflect the political nature of the situation.

-Matt

Commo wrote:
I think you touched on the major weakness of my thoughts on trust.  It leads far too much into a as you put "boring" reciprocal arrangement.  I trust you...you trust me and we trade trust back and forth.  Then again... this is how trust works in real life.  In many larger gaming groups I've had, trust has tended to flow from me to another one or two individuals and that's all.  There have been a few notable exceptions where my PC has trusted other PCs.  The really funny example of this I can think of is when I convinced another PC (and her player, too) that she had me blood bonded when I was unbondable.  So, I was in fact lying.

At any rate, and I wish I knew Cold City better, is there anyway to force characters into situations where they need to trust multiple people or trust character A in the first scene (I use the term loosely since it sounded better than block of time) and trust character B in another?

Then again, playing devils advocate, this could potentially result in a static situation where the less trusted characters make no moves, which feeds on up the chain and trust never changes through induced paralysis.