Hi!
  OK, My Thursday Playtest group is IRL and we get a new player this week. They come from a CRPG background and have never played a Tabletop RPG before. Not only that, but it is being run by my Wife (she has very little Gm experience).
  Like over half of all the players in my small circle of playtesters, he wanted to make a Thief (what's up with that?), but I talked him down to Mystic (He knew he wanted to make a Vampire though).
  So afterwords I asked my wife what she was thinking, she said she thought that our group needed a boost before the campaign got underway.
  What happened was she had set aup a nice little village for us to start in, including a gambling house.
  The new character walked in, and hypnotized the cashier to give him a bag of silver. Another character created a distraction and she decided to let it go down successfully.
  I was shocked, but she wass happy and he was happy, but it just seems wrong to me...

  Is this just a personal preference issue or is there a flaw in my game design or..?

Some clarifying questions:

- Why didn't you want a thief in the game?
- Why do the events seem wrong to you?
- Was there overt character motivation in play? In other words, what caused the action you describe?
- What is the goal of your game design here? What should have happened in general terms?

I can say right now that the more I understand roleplaying, the less credence I give to "personal preference" as a diagnostic theory. It simply doesn't have enough explaining power to justify dragging it up.

Hi!

- Why didn't you want a thief in the game?

- Why do the events seem wrong to you?

- Was there overt character motivation in play? In other words, what caused the action you describe?

- What is the goal of your game design here? What should have happened in general terms?

dindenver wrote: Well, in my opinion, Thieve's are disruptive to a normal group. Unless the whole party is in on the Thieve's schemes.

Basically it is a heroic game, I would hope that players would be motivated through the Reputation System and general cooperation to try and make a positive change in the game world.

Maybe I am blowing it out of proportion, but still, was curious what others would do about a situation like this.

dindenver wrote: Thieve's are disruptive to a normal group......it is supposed to be a heroic game....I would hope that players would be motivated through the Reputation System and general cooperation to try and make a positive change in the game world.

...causing some osrt of continuing plot complication.

the new player just got an idea and the new GM didn't see anything wrong ....If I were GM'ing, I would have used this opportunity to better explain the setting and the theme of the game to the new player.

What to do about the situation: depends on whether you're the game designer, GM or a player. Different responsibilities and privileges.

That being said, it seems to me that insofar as this isn't what you'd like the gameplay to look like, one could say that there's a problem with your game design. Had the new GM read the rules? If so, did the rules instruct the GM to intervene this way or that in a situation like this? Likewise, is there any rules or procedures the players are supposed to follow that, when applied, lead towards a heroic game?

If the perceived problem is orthagonal to the rules (that is, the rules do not address the issue), it seems you have your work cut out for you in designing rules that cause the kind of play you want. Likewise if the issue is addressed, but that address is inefficient. I suspect that even at best the latter is the case; your game seems to be rather traditional in allocating GM duties, which means that the GM can do exactly as he pleases in this kind of situation. You'll note that (apparently) you didn't intervene in the situation yourself during the game. Why not? Probably because it's the GM's pregorative to intervene or allow this kind of stuff, right?

That latter is an interesting question: if you thought that the management should have interrupted the scheme of the character, why didn't you cause that to happen? Are other players made impotent in your rules in this kind of situation? It seems to me you stumbled on quite tricky a problem here; if a player disagrees with how the GM runs a situation, there's no recourse anywhere. You the player just have to take it. Whether this is a lack or feature of the rules depends on your expectations.

What I'm coming to, however, is that even if your game explicitly said somewhere that the GM should punish villainous action, for example, I doubt even that would be efficient. A traditional GM is fundamentally overburdened by the routine of running a game; a novice GM has little chance of running additional plot-control measures on top of adjucating the rules. That's why it takes so long to learn to GM. From this perspective the problem is not in your rules or the GM, really, but in the whole idea of a GM; it simply takes time for a GM to learn the craft, and there's little you can do if you insist on traditional power duties.

From your answers I gather that your main solution to getting players to play heroic characters is GM instruction; you yourself would have blocked the events in the game and instructed the players in proper heroic values and the purpose of the game. Do I have that right? If I do, would you say that the reason the new GM didn't do this is that the game doesn't have rules to that effect, or that the game has the rules but the new GM didn't follow them? In other words, is the course of action you describe for yourself a part of the game's rules, or is it just how you prefer to run the game?

--

Thieves, an interlude: if you don't think thieves make good characters, why is there the option of playing them in your game?

--

From your description I imagine that the GM was slow in establishing situation in the game, and that's why the new player took initiative in this manner. Do I have that right? How does your game system address that interminate moment when everybody sits down to play, characters at ready, and somebody should start the adventure? Who does it? How? How do you make sure that the adventure will be heroic?

It seems to me that the player in question had initiative, which is a good thing. Perhaps you should be considering how to direct players to heroic endeavours instead of villainy? Alternatively, you could lose the preconceptions and work on supporting villainous choices, too.

--

What I would do in this situation if I was the game designer: I would ensure that my rules make it easy to start heroic adventures, and give some reason for doing so.

What I would do in this situation if I was the GM: I would validate the player's action; if we were supposed to be playing an adventure game, then I'd probably portray consequences in the manner of a trickster story, with light heart and ironic posture.

What I would do in this situation if I was a player: I'd play counterpoint to the initiative the other player took; perhaps my character would try to solve the crime, or he'd come along and become a sidekick of the master criminal.

If you thought that the management should have interrupted the scheme of the character, why didn't you cause that to happen?

I don't think the loose rules for Dominate are the problem. The problem is that you want your game to be all things to all people and yet you don't want people to play your game in certain ways. Can you see how you can't have it both ways? When we asked you, weeks ago, "What is your game about? What do the characters do?" this is what we meant. The answer is that you hope the adventures are heroic, yet you put in support for villainous anti-heroes.

I also get the feeling that you were GMing from the back seat -- not letting your wife do her thing on her own. You basically say, paraphrased, "everything was going great till I turned my back on those pesky kids, then they went and did something I didn't like." Well, if you hadn't been there at all, that's how they would have played your game. If you're going to be a player in your own playtests, don't also be the GM. Let the mistakes be made, take notes, and see why your game leads people to do what they do, even if you don't like them.

Hi Adam!
  Well, I don;t think I am trying to make a game that is all things to all people. Yeah, I put in rules for what happens to your character when you do something bad, but let's face it, even the good guys sometimes do something bad...
  I think I understand your point, but I don't think it is valid here. I know what I want the players to do. And I know how far I want to take the rules in order to push people in that direction. I feel that I am pretty close to that point. I admit that some tweaking might be in order, but I don't think that is why this situation occured.

  As to backseat Driving, I don't think that is the problem here either. I've been the player, not GM, in our Thursday night games for over a year and I have learned to let go and be a player. Also, I work from home Thursday nights, so it is hard for me to do much more than play. When the new player bandied about the idea of using Dominate on this or that character, we all were pretty much kibitzing them with suggestions as to why that was a bad idea or why it needed some work before the character tried it. I have been giving GM tips to my wife, but I have tactfully waited until the session was over and so far my comments have been welcomed.
  Thanks for reading this Adam!

dindenver wrote:
  I think I understand your point, but I don't think it is valid here. I know what I want the players to do. And I know how far I want to take the rules in order to push people in that direction. I feel that I am pretty close to that point. I admit that some tweaking might be in order, but I don't think that is why this situation occured.

dindenver wrote:
  As to backseat Driving, I don't think that is the problem here either. I've been the player, not GM, in our Thursday night games for over a year and I have learned to let go and be a player.

dindenver wrote: When the new player bandied about the idea of using Dominate on this or that character, we all were pretty much kibitzing them with suggestions as to why that was a bad idea or why it needed some work before the character tried it.

Hi!
  Tony, I'll PM you and ask how to set that up. I have no idea.

  Josh, Most of the player's objections centered around us being in this town for another day and not wanting to get caught/worse just so he could try his new doodad.

  Just to be clear, I didn't raise a stink or anything. But after it was all done, I wondered how we got there. I don't think it's the end of the world or anything, but I did try and ask some questions to figure out how that happened. Try to get at was it just a random idea or was there something in the system encouraging this behaviour.

Of course there was something in the system to encourage that behavior...you put the Dominate Power in the game...

You can't put powers in the game and then be shocked when player's use them.  I mean really...if I had the Dominate Power in real life the first thing I'd do is figure out a way to use it to get mad cash...ok...well...maybe the SECOND thing...but really, why is it so astonishing that a player would do that?

Don't put it in the game if you don't want players to use it. 

Honestly one of the silliest game designer statements I've ever read on these boards is "Well, in my opinion, Thieve's are disruptive to a normal group."  Dude...YOU put the thief into the game...and then you don't want players to actually use it?

Here's a hint...find a way to make thieves in your game fun and not disruptive...or ditch 'em.  Any sense of "I put them in there because people expect to see them, but I never really want one in my campaign" needs to be eradicated from your mind or your entire game design effort is a collosal waste of time.

And I mean that in the most constructive way possible.  Design the game YOU want to play and make rules to support the way YOU want to run it.  If you don't like thieves in your games...don't put them in your games.  If you don't want players dominating NPCs...don't put that power in the game. 

Game design tip #2:  take the total number of pages you have written about your game right now.  Divide that by 3.  You'll be ready to start serious playtesting when you cut your page count down to that 1/3 number.  Why?  Because then you'll be forced to decide...to REALLY decide what it is that's important to you and what you're trying to accomplish with this game.  I don't care how good a game designer you are, I guarentee 2/3ds of what you have written is shite.  That's not insulting, I apply that same rule to me as well.  Cut Cut Cut Cut...when you go to a steak house you want the best cut of meat...when you go to a game store you want the best cut of game.  Force yourself to make the hard choices you need to make.  If you're sitting on stuff in your game that you don't use all the time (and I mean all the time not maybe-once-someday) ditch it.  Cut it.  Dump it.  Its a malignant tumor in your design and you need to get it gone.

Hi!
  I did not let the player bring a thiefly character.
  There is no "Thief" built into my game. It's classless. Andonly one skill that could only be used by a Thief (pickpocket)

  As to your second point, I'm doing my best to edit it to be the game I want to play. I've added some stuff, I've deleted some stuff. It's shaping up rather nicely. I'm typically not very verbose, so in all likelihood, I need to add, rather than delete. But I will take that under advisement and see what can go.

dindenver wrote: Most of the player's objections centered around us being in this town for another day and not wanting to get caught/worse just so he could try his new doodad.

Hi!
  We were in a small village of only 500 Trolls. We were leaving with a caravan in the morning. So we had to be on our best behaviour for a few hours more. And I don;t think the players quite understand just how powerful they are, they might have been afraid that they would get overwhelmed.
  I guess the prob's I have are as follows:
- First real action of a new Roleplayer was not so heroic in our heroic game
- Whether or not my game encourages this sort of banditry (of course I put Dominate in there to be used, but was hoping that it would be used against evil)
- Whether or not I gave the GM enough tools to decide the outcome in a way they prefer (after talking to her, I feel that it went they way she wanted)
- Whether this is a "dangerous precedent" or a larf
  So, that is where I am coming from...

dindenver wrote:
Hi!
  I did not let the player bring a thiefly character.
  There is no "Thief" built into my game. It's classless. Andonly one skill that could only be used by a Thief (pickpocket)

dindenver wrote:

  As to the overall arc of the rules, they reinforce heroic play to a point. There is support for Villainous play. And it does not require Genre rules or optional rules or anything like that. They key difference is that players vie to accumulate Negative Reputation instead of Positive.

So how did the reputation rules come into play in the scam scene? Or if not, why not?

From your objections to the scene, I gather that you want the rules to encourage heroic behaviour - or at least force a conscious decision between good or bad behaviour. So why did this not happen? Could it be that your reputation system is basically "tacked on", instead of being an integral part of the rules? What I mean is: does a character's morality have a direct impact on his actions, or does the GM have to remember to even invoke the reputation rules as an afterthought to a scene?

For example, I consider the humanity rules in the old Vampire, the sanity rules in Call of Cthulhu, or the honor rules in Hackmaster to be basically "tacked on". Each of the games claims to put a lot of emphasis on the subject, but instead of making it an integral part of resolution, they use vanilla task resolution and leave it to the GM to maybe add or subtract a few points once things are done. Since this basically amounts to extra book keeping and has no meaningful impact on character effectiveness and tactics, it tends to be forgotten.

If you really want these decisions to matter, try to make them the first thing a player considers before deciding on a course of action, instead of the last. E.g., you could have a "morality score" that adds to your chance of success for good acts andis  subtracted for evil acts (negative morality enhances evil). Or even use attributes based on morality ("selfish", "loving", etc.) instead of the usual physical/mental competence stuff.

- First real action of a new Roleplayer was not so heroic in our heroic game
- Whether or not my game encourages this sort of banditry (of course I put Dominate in there to be used, but was hoping that it would be used against evil)
- Whether or not I gave the GM enough tools to decide the outcome in a way they prefer (after talking to her, I feel that it went they way she wanted)
- Whether this is a "dangerous precedent" or a larf

nsruf wrote: If you really want these decisions to matter, try to make them the first thing a player considers before deciding on a course of action, instead of the last. E.g., you could have a "morality score" that adds to your chance of success for good acts andis  subtracted for evil acts (negative morality enhances evil).

dindenver wrote:   The new character walked in, and hypnotized the cashier to give him a bag of silver. Another character created a distraction and she decided to let it go down successfully.
  I was shocked, but she wass happy and he was happy, but it just seems wrong to me...

Hi Cal!
  No, was not a real plan. In fact, I remember asking (my char is a Monk and didn't partake of the gambling so I couldn't do anything about it except kibbitz) "What if he gets spotted using his power?" And only after the new player had started figuring out what he needed to add/subtract from his roll did another player, who's char was already gambling, volunteeered to be a distraction.
  My char wasn't there and I figured my Wife was the GM, so I stopped objecting. It seemed like the new player was more interested in taking Dominate out for a spin than telling a cool story or accomplishing an in-game goal. I guess if he has been playing San Andreas, this was pretty tame in comparison, lol

  Om a side note, I think the Rep system will prolly do it's bit. He'll take a hit and if he is jerky "in game" then he'll have to go through the no man's land of low rep (most chars start with between +6 and +8 positive rep) until they start reaping the perceived benefits of negative rep.

dindenver wrote:
Hi Cal!
  No, was not a real plan. In fact, I remember asking (my char is a Monk and didn't partake of the gambling so I couldn't do anything about it except kibbitz) "What if he gets spotted using his power?" And only after the new player had started figuring out what he needed to add/subtract from his roll did another player, who's char was already gambling, volunteeered to be a distraction.

  Om a side note, I think the Rep system will prolly do it's bit. He'll take a hit and if he is jerky "in game" then he'll have to go through the no man's land of low rep (most chars start with between +6 and +8 positive rep) until they start reaping the perceived benefits of negative rep.

Hi Dave,

You mention in your first post that half your players wanted to play Thieves. You say your game is skill based and not class based, this lead me to two thoughts that I didn't see mentioned.

1. Something about the skills of the Thief makes those skills either seem cooler, or something about the system suggest those skills may be more effective.
2. Your playtesters may have no interest in being heroic.

I'm also curious, are you using a stat plus skill type system of resolution? For instance pick pocket + dexterity or some similiar idea?

Hi!
  In order to gain reputation, all you have to do is help others. To maintain it, all you have to do is not harm others (or more accurately, not get caught).
Gaining Reputation requirements Table
Reputation--Witness--Witness Involved--Effected Not Involved--No Reward
-10 to 2-----------Y----------------Y/N-----------------------Y/N-------------------Y/N
3 to 5--------------Y------------------Y------------------------Y/N-------------------Y/N
6 to 8--------------Y------------------Y-------------------------Y---------------------Y/N
9 to 10------------Y------------------Y-------------------------Y-----------------------Y
Witness – The minimum way to gain positive Reputation is to have a witness that can recall the helpful deed.
Witness Involved – If there are witnesses that had a stake in the aid provided, the word will be spread further and wider, and higher Reputation Stats are possible.
Affected Not Involved – If the character was able to help and prevent the effected witnesses from having to exert any effort, the gain in Reputation will be even better.
No Reward – The only way to gain the ultimate levels of Reputation are to help without any desire for apparent reward.
  It effects interpersonal skills. It moves slowly, so micromanaging is not required. But it does effect the game world. And being in and around 0 (so called neutral) has no benefits...

Hi Dave,

If that was directed to me, I don't feel you answered my question. Perhaps I'm missing something? It did make me wonder something else. You say that the highest level of reputation can only be gained by the character helping someone without thought of reward. What I would like to know is who judges this criteria?

If the Gamemaster does then you can have a serious situation of deprotagonization if the Gamemaster says the condition hasn't been met when the player thinks it has. If the player judges then it's not really a condition as the player will receive the award when they say they receive the award.

This is an interesting system. But Clyde's right: if the GM is the only person who decides whether or not the criteria are met, this could easily become "get a reward for doing what the GM likes and get punished for doing what the GM dislikes."

Also, while it makes sense that characters can only earn or lose points in "Reputation" from things they do that people find out about, that doesn't map to "heroism" very well. Think of how much of the most heroic action in The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars happens without witnesses, with only two or three people alone together (Luke, Vader, the Emperor; Frodo, Sam, Gollum) -- not all of whom even survive. A "did anyone see you?" system doesn't encourage people to be heroic in such situations; it encourages "don't do good deeds, when no one's watching you!"

Maybe you have another system where players get rewards for doing the right thing when no one's watching -- Inner Strength points, or whatever. But if Reputation based on witnesses is all you've got, then you're actually encouraging unheroic, cynical play.

Hi!
  Sorry Clyde, that rep post was for Cal.

  Prolly the second option. One of the Thief wannabes always tries to play evil in our campaigns (sometimes well, sometimes not so evil, but never in a way that is disruptive to the group). The others I am not sure about, except to know that they are not 100% on the heroic vibe (more anti-hero-ish). It strikes me as odd mostly because my book has a whole page explaining why Theives aren;t alkways a good match in most parties, lol In fact, some of the players have made Warriors with tons of Thief skills, lol

  Yeah, it is Roll, plus skill, plus Ability mod, plus circumstantial mods vs TN/Opposing roll

dindenver wrote: One of the Thief wannabes always tries to play evil in our campaigns (sometimes well, sometimes not so evil, but never in a way that is disruptive to the group). The others I am not sure about, except to know that they are not 100% on the heroic vibe (more anti-hero-ish).

Hi!
  We got a pretty good group. It's a mix though. We all naturally pick different kinds of characters.
  Even when we did an "Evil" campaign in Blood of Heroes, we were not too bloothirsty or particularly evil. We were more of evil masterminds, manipulating the world through plot and sabotage...
  Tom is the guy we can trust to make an evil/anti-hero character in our games. I think it stems from his Punk attitude and general dislike of authority.
  Lawrence is  new, I dunno where it's coming from. I told him Tom already had a Thief and he didn't feel like making a second, so we didnl't get into the whole we're all heroes shpeel with him. Which I now regret.
  The other guy is one of my on-line playtesters and I think he just did it to be different.
  Cheryl (my wife) always makes a upright good guy (good gal?) and when we all voted to play a second evil campaign she was never very open to it (in fact she was the GM for our one evil campaign).
  Pat is the ultimate casual gamer. He plays what everybody else is playing. His chars are creative and easily motivated by money, lol
  Eric is an old-school wargamer. When it comes to RPGs, as long as he gets to beat something up every two or three sessions he's happy. I think he usually makes chars modeled after himself. So they are usually intellectuals with combat potential (moinks, mages, etc.).
  Nate is sort of passive/aggressive. He never says what he wants. Even when he GM'd Exalted. He's a good guy though, and is good at finding math glitches, etc.

Hi Dave,

I thought you might be doing something like attribute + skill. The reason I asked is I was thinking that if you want to promote Heroism why not make an attribute called Heroism. Heroism could be your only attribute, and you define when it can be used. For instance:

Heroism can be used when:

• You help others.
• You fight evil.
• You do something reckless, like swing from the chandalier
• You know what you want on this list better than I do.

This would mean that you wouldn't have to try to force players to be heroic, they could be bad if they wanted, but when they were bad they would be only as effective as a normal human. This could also help tone down the need to keep track of reputation, as the players could invest in their heroism which will determine how heroic they want to be. I think if you did something like this you wouldn't have to convince anyone not to make thieves. Thieves would be suboptimal, unless they were like Robin Hood.