I'm running a play by post at the moment - its in the same spot where I've run games before and commented about them here.

This ones played different as I've layed out the largest reward cycle. However, this posts not about that - its about an interesting reaction I had. First I'll fill in on the structure a bit - the combat cycle is largely dice based, with a modifier (between +0 and +4 to hit) decided by the GM based on moves made (and were rolling a d20).

It's got a large dice component to avoid 'mother may I syndrome'. Like if I made that GM fiat larger and the dice effects smaller, basically you wouldn't be able to do much unless you get GM bonuses. With a larger dice component, there's a fair chance of players actively continuing play without having to go through GM fiat. So rather than requiring the GM's okay just to like, actually play anything at all, you can go with the numbers. It's more beneficial to get the GM bonuses, perhaps even saving you from losing if the odds turn against you. But there's a game there regardless.

So, the effect it had on me? Well, the player had a run of luck on the sites dice roller, wacking one monster pretty easily, then getting two natural twenties in a row, and most recently hitting and rolling max damage, splatting another. Notably this means absolutely no need for those GM bonuses to hit. I think the effect on me started after the second crit, where I just reused a previous monster description. Before that they were fairly varied. He just splat that one in one hit.

And I'm constipated, might be a way of putting it. I see putting the monsters up gets no SIS sort of action at all. Sure, it was okay before when he wasn't trying to get bonuses (probably a topic for another thread, as to why). That's because I thought it'd bite him in the ass. But now when the images and dimensions I put some effort into are brushed away by meer numbers, ugh, I don't want to give any more.

What I want is to crush him. And that was coming first and foremost when I thought of some mo fo of a multi bandsaw blade  based poltergiest just stepping in and crushing him. Yeah, I still got creative, but I can tell its not an end to me now - its a means. And no I'm not just putting up a meanie image - I layed out at the start that I determine the HP (within a stated, fixed range though). Oh, max HP I think for Mr I don't need any clever moves I'm so damn lucky!

Keep in mind when I write that, I don't hold anything against him - but I do hold something against him winning!

I'm rather glad I had set limits to the HP allocation and GM fiat is only in how much of a bonus I give (and there's no fiat anywhere else, just rules and rolls). This way I can really lay in the boot like I want to and no pissy 'oh be fair' bullshit in the way. I'm not fair in chess (following the rules is NOT fair, it's part of what you just do), nor do I want to be when Mr lucky needs a bandsaw applied to his head!

But in the other part of my headspace, man I was sooooo dry in terms of any sort of demand for creative monster making. Stuff that, it was just debilitating what happened. Why would I lovingly make something for it to be just treated that way?

And from an outside perspective, I think the rush to crush him can reduce the variety of challenges, getting two dimensional. There's room for that hippy creative streak too.

Well, I guess I wanted to say that more than ask questions about it. But it's a fun footnote.

With so strong random factor in relation to the bonuses, bonuses for clever/cool/whatever moves will not work well.

It kind of reminds me one of my attempts at running Exalted using TSoY rules (first edition), where I've been awarding a bonus die for cool stunts. One bonus die didn't make enough change there, as only two best rolls were counted and the player was rolling quite a number of bonus dice from Secrets and Pools anyway. What I got was the player gathering a big pile of dice in the final climactic scene, commenting that "I don't even stunt, what for?", and then demolishing the dreaded Mask of Winters himself with one good roll.

If you want to motivate the player, it would better if the bonuses constituted a large portion of his effectiveness (e.g. look at Wushu, and how it's impossible to get anywhere without describing cool stuff - and one could just as well reward clever moves instead of cinematic stunts there). Another option is giving out resources for clever moves instead of bonuses, and making sure these resources will be needed. This is how vanilla Exalted works, were smart players stunt not to get additional die or two (with pools of 10-20 dice being common it's not a substantial enough bonus to motivate anyone), but to regain motes of Essence and Willpower points (and character drained of Essence and Willpower is a dead character). So, what about giving out some HP replenishment for clever moves instead of bonuses to hit?

Bonuses for describing "cool moves" have always left a bad taste in my mouth, for a number of reasons.  First, as you point out, the "mother may I" thing.  At a certain point, your choice as GM over whether to give out bonuses or not is gonna be the deciding factor in whether the player succeeds or not.  That's a pretty uncomfortable situation.  Putting the characvters in a tough situation, and then deciding for them whether they have a chance of getting out of it is a recipe for frustrated palayers.

Also, I don't like judging my friends' contributions to the game.  Who am I to say "that's one dice cool, but Tom, he gets three."? It makes me uncomfortable forcing my creative ideas onto the players, making them play by my rules.  We all have a stake in the game.  If someone's having fun describing what their character is doing, it feels like I'm trampling their creativity if I say "No, only one dice for that."

Another reason is that, as seems to have happened in your game, if "cool descriptions" serve a mechanical purpose in the game, as soon as there's no mechanical reason for them, the cool descriptions stop.  If someone's not inclined to describe things anyway, giving them bonus dice for it just means they'll do the bare minimum to get by.  It doesn't increase their enjoyment of the game, since you're forcing them to do something they don't want to do.  Players who enjoy doing it will do it anyway.

The last reason is that it makes narration really messy.  With a fortune-at-the-end mechanic, "cool descriptions" are always going to be a bit weird.  "I flip over his head, spinning in mid air, to kick him in the back of the head" looks a bit odd when it's followed by rolling a one.  It's dissatifying to have your description of the scene negated immediately afterwards by a bad roll.  It also leads to a weird disconnect, where sometimes moves that look really awesome, still mess up.  Rolling the dice after describing the action will always lead to slightly wonky looking combat.

So that's why I don't like it.  Sorry, I didn't realise I had such strong views until I started writing. 

For this player, the urge to crush him is an understandable one, but in the end, I think it's counterproductive.  You're just encouraging him to think of each subsequent thing as something else to smack down.  Try giving him encounters that require interactions other than rolling to hit. 

I know that you put a lot of work into those encounters, but you can hardly blame the guy for engaging with them exactly as you intended, by fighting them.  In his mind, he's exactly fulfilling the social contract.  You provide challenges, he defeats them.  I understand the frustration, but I think it's part of the satisfaction for some players - looking at what the GM has created, then smashing it up. 

Hi Filip,

Your TSOY example sounds like it'd end up a very small increase in the overall chance to sauced. In D&D for example, I've noticed even a +2 can make a change, while here its up to +4. That's a 20% bonus at its peak.

Basically the design is set so the player is already pursuing something, and uses SIS interaction to supplement that pursuit. As you say in Wushu its impossible to do anything without describing cool stuff - thus it's impossible to pursue anything, without first interacting with the SIS. In my design, pursuit comes first, then SIS interaction. In Wushu its design puts SIS interaction first, then pursuit comes second. I've only skimmed wushu, but it registered as sim promoting to me. In the end, I don't want the SIS to come first and foremost - Once Ron talked about exploration as a little wooden platform, then nar or gamism as a really alien to wood material on top, like plastic or steel. That alien desire to win should come first here.

In the end, the SIS is supposed to present adversity - but the player has bypassed that by his play choices. Sure, its not a chess like move that's done it, but just gamblers guts. In chess if I get my queen behind enemy lines but he picks her off with a pawn, his choice removes that adversity. Here the SIS is just another game piece (again, first and foremost) and he's picked it off (by his gambling moves)

At the point described I did feel disappointment - the switch to 'I want to crush him' did not come straight away. However, the disappointment lay in feeling I had to put loving effort into more imaginative creations, only for them to be removed without care or consideration, and to keep on doing so for the game. Blah! But once I considered putting loving effort into kicking his ass by cooking up an ass kicking creature (ass kicking first, SIS second), the excitement came back. But I could feel a 'gear shift' between the two.

I'll consider the HP idea for my next thing (I can't change the rules now, that would be SC breach), in order to make the SIS a more appetising supplement in the pursuit of a win.

Hi Simon,

Simon wrote:
Bonuses for describing "cool moves" have always left a bad taste in my mouth, for a number of reasons.  First, as you point out, the "mother may I" thing.  At a certain point, your choice as GM over whether to give out bonuses or not is gonna be the deciding factor in whether the player succeeds or not.  That's a pretty uncomfortable situation.  Putting the characvters in a tough situation, and then deciding for them whether they have a chance of getting out of it is a recipe for frustrated palayers.

Also, I don't like judging my friends' contributions to the game.  Who am I to say "that's one dice cool, but Tom, he gets three."? It makes me uncomfortable forcing my creative ideas onto the players, making them play by my rules.  We all have a stake in the game.  If someone's having fun describing what their character is doing, it feels like I'm trampling their creativity if I say "No, only one dice for that."

Would you like to go through what has priority with you? Like what things come before all else, what comes second, and suchlike.

With priority, yes.

In terms of murk, Ron used it once in terms of a game he was designing, where he knew how to swing a psionic sword, but he didn't know when to do it. When to actually do it is where the murk lies.

There is no uncertainty of procedure in this game I laid out for the player. Its laid out like a chess or monopoly. The SIS only enters through the bonus to hit, or bonus to prowl - it doesn't enter the game through determining what procedure to use next.

One perspective that may help is to imagine you were invited to play the game, having been given the details from above. If you would accept, I could ask about why, especailly relative to the system used. If you wouldn't, I could describe it technically, but I doubt it would help.

I wonder.  Is "using up your lovingly made creations without care or consideration" actually part of the fun for some players, like it's a way of "beating" you? Is it saying "you put in all this work, and I'm going to smash it all up, because I'm the best at this game there ever was".  Is that a fair appraisal of one approach to a Gamist agenda?

Certainly I've seen that glow on a player's face when they interrupt an NPC in mid plot-exposition with a lucky arrow-to-the-face, becasue they know that I liked the NPC, and they'd just messed everything up.

I feel like we're talking past each other a little, and I'm getting a (probably unintended) defensive tone from your post.  My intention here isn't to attack you, or to say "you're doing it wrong". Let me know if this discussion's not useful to you, and we can wrap it up.

Lets imagine I am invited to play your game (Which, by the way, looks like fun).  My first question would be this:

From your PBP:

You can also describe your moves and get a bonus of up to 20%, determined by the GM.

You might want to give a fuller account of that in another thread. It's not indicative of any agenda as yet. From reading accounts here, its probably because A: you liking it probably made the NPC one of the biggest stakes in the game, and B: Direct combat attacks are the hardest for a GM to flat out veto - everyone knows an arrow to the face is an arrow to the face. While diplomacy, as another approach, can just sputter ("Oh, yes you convinced him to do X, but that doesn't include X, Y or Z!"). In the short account, it sounded like a player hungry to affect the game at a significant level. Yes, the player probably did enjoy your reaction, but I've seen many healthy capes accounts where players enjoyed others groaning at their new destiny. Except in capes, everyone knows the system and accepts a vulnerability because of it. Did you accept your NPC was vulnerable to system use?

Hi Simon,

With the priority list I held off saying more because I don't want to add more guidance, I want to see what sort of answer I get. On murk, I made sure to use concise language. Onto the important part of it, do we share any mutual ground on murk and what it is?

I'm not sure what you mean by this.  There's no description of what criterea you're using to decide what bonus "describing your moves" nets me, which means I might have quite different ideas about when this is appropriate.  For example, in Exalted, "stunt" dice are usually only awarded a few times in a session.  Players who constantly showboat for stunt dice are considered to be breaking the "spirit" of the rule, which reserves them for "special occaisions".  If I ask ask for bonuses too often, am I breaking some unwritten rule?

My perception from other games with similar mechanics is that "describe your moves" means "flashy moves will get bonuses", but flashy moves don't fit my concept of the character, or the tone of the game.  It seems like you're going for something different with this game from what I've experienced in other games.  Can you be more specific about what that is?

I'm sorry, Callan, it seems like we're really talking past each other.  I don't understand what you're asking in your reply, and it seems like you didn't understand my post much either.  Maybe I misunderstood something about your initial post?

At this point I don't know how to proceed.  Maybe if you re-state any questions you still have, we can start again.  If you feel like you've got what you wanted out of this thread though, we can leave it here.

Cheers,

Simon

Hi Simon,

A couple of my questions had limited reply options - even if their not fully understood, you could just try the answer that sounds the best for each (even if it isn't perfectly accurate) and then see what gets built onto that answer. I mean, if we understood each other perfectly from the start, we wouldn't need a forge to post at, aye? :)

One was "Couldn't I always have some unwritten rules you could possibly break?". Would you say yes or no?

The other I need to quote you for context

It seems like you're going for something different with this game from what I've experienced in other games.  Can you be more specific about what that is?

"Couldn't I always have some unwritten rules you could possibly break?".

Is there any other way you could find out?

You can also describe your moves and get a bonus of up to 20%, determined by the GM.

You can also describe your moves and get a bonus of up to 20%, determined by the GM..  If you want bonuses to attacks, you need to describe the move then wait for me to assign a bonus, then roll. I can't give you the bonus after you've rolled the attack, only before. Basically the bonus is derived from moves that would seem effective, rather than just motivation or looks. Morale has some effect though.

It might be good if you start a thread on those unwritten rules - I'd like to know more about why that comes to mind first, with an actual play account involved. I could have unwritten rules about who rolls the dice, or when your allowed to post - but you ask about this first, amongst a thousand other possible unwritten rules. I just have a hunch that rather than asking what rules there are, you want there to be rules about that specific area - what can be added to the SIS. Probably further talk on it would meander - a fresh post with actual play in it would be the most fruitful way to continue, I'd say.

I guess? Like, I could try various things in the game until I hit on what works (which is pretty much the definition of "murk").

Is this the response you wanted? I feel like this conversation is getting a bit abstract, when it could benefit from being a bit more concrete.

How did you intend the player to discover the rule you were using? Was it surprising to you that the player wasn't describing moves effectively, given that the player was unaware of the rules you were using?

I drifted a bit there. Simon, are you asking about my goals of play? Because you seem to be asking about how I meet your goals of play with the rules I'm using, and getting frustrated when you can't see how they'd meet your goal. I've been answering thinking you know your own goals, but want to find out mine by the differences of expectations between the two. I might be wrong about what you want to find out. It occurs to me we keep talking about how players are supposed to handle play, rather than why they play. Do you want to find out more about my goals for playing?

Um, I don't think we're having a very productive discussion of this issue, Callan. I'm sorry, but I'm finding it really hard to work out what you want from this thread at this point.  If it's ok with you, I'm going to leave it there.  It's not an aspersion on your game, or on your style of play, just I think the issue of what we're actually talking about has got hopelessly complicated.  I'd gladly participate in a new thread where you re-state your questions.

Cheers,

Simon

I think it would have been better to determine some shared ground basics and work from there, rather than try to understand my motives from the very begining.

Hi Filip,

In relation to that HP thing, I was thinking either a banking system or the bonus is applied to multiple rolls. Banking, as in use the bonus now or save it up, being able to accumulate up to eight points that you can spend at a tactically appropriate time to get a +8 bonus.

Or the player just describes one attack approach for the whole round and that bonus is applied to all the attacks in the round (here, that's four attacks). This makes it higher stakes, even a +1 is like a +4 spread over four attacks. It also has no book keeping like the above idea. But a negative is no experimentation - the player can't try a new approach on each attack, if the old approach didn't work out well. Kind of pointless to roll one attack at a time then, may as well roll them all at once (perhaps I'm being silly, but was trying to keep with the tradition of doing one attack at a time).

Just spinning some ideas.