So, I was at work the other day when an idea hit me, and I think it's the big fix for the Rustbelt's main problem.  (To recap, that problem is convincing the players to invest heavily in their characters, and be wholehearted advocates for the the characters, even though said characters are going to be beat up, heartbroken, addicted, shot, stabbed, and/or disfigured).  It's so damn simple.  I've beaten the bush around it a few times, and James put it into exact words in the previous Rustbelt thread when he pointed out that the Psyche gives you a reason to Push.

So, here it is:  You cannot Push unless you invoke a Psyche trait.

Recall that players can add to Psyche at-will.
Notice that this does not devalue the Push in the slightest.
And notice that players can no longer afford to neglect Psyche, or put things on it that they don't really mean.  Playing the Rustbelt without Pushing is like playing Sorcerer without going for the bonus dice.

Looking at Psyche in this light, I think a new category should be added:  Connections.  That is, relationships with people.  It can be used to Cope, and it's "Dependence" number goes up every time it is used (like Grip and Zeal).  Breaking the Connection (it's an on-or-off thing, like Limits) in some way leads to Woe, or must be justified by Faith.  The Connection must be mutual (i.e., both characters must have it) but the Dependence need not be equal.

So, I've got half a mind to implement this stuff right away and crank out a new draft.  But maybe there's some negative implications that I'm not seeing.  Anyone see any?  Anyone got anything else they want to say about the proposed rules?  Lay it on me.

-Marshall

Elegant! Now I don't need to have a White-wolf player at the table to have enough dice ;)

Actually, stacking dice became a problem in the last game I ran. When Doctor Morgan was trying to save Konrad and the mechanic from mutually killing each other he invoked a psyche trait for 5 bonus dice. I was like "aren't you gonna grab the dice for your doctor trait as well?" and the player was like "that doesn't feel very necessary, I can only get 10 max anyway". Also this balances out the players affection for their own characters with NPCs since I feel it's ridiculous to push with NPCs at times since they often start fresh with no Sweat or anything.

Most of all, it makes sense since the draft itself mentions how rare the kind of willpower to make a push is in the real world.

Marshall wrote:
So, here it is:  You cannot Push unless you invoke a Psyche trait.

Marshall wrote:
Looking at Psyche in this light, I think a new category should be added:  Connections.  That is, relationships with people.  It can be used to Cope, and it's "Dependence" number goes up every time it is used (like Grip and Zeal).  Breaking the Connection (it's an on-or-off thing, like Limits) in some way leads to Woe, or must be justified by Faith.  The Connection must be mutual (i.e., both characters must have it) but the Dependence need not be equal.

So, I've got half a mind to implement this stuff right away and crank out a new draft.  But maybe there's some negative implications that I'm not seeing.  Anyone see any?  Anyone got anything else they want to say about the proposed rules?  Lay it on me.

Another problem the psyche to push rule solves is the question wether NPCs push or not. Unfleshedout mooks don't have psyche and thus can't push. If the GM wants the NPC to push he gives him a psyche trait and the mook is instantly transformed into a full worth NPC.

Connection seem like a good deal and it certainly tilts the game in a another direction than the tough hard loners way. I could test that too even though I suspect my players (and me in extention) would feel it's a little too pathetic (in the words original meaning) for the setting since I have a very hard time playing out relationships (any kind) between NPCs and players. If it makes it in the rules you might as well (for aestetics) group Faith, Vice and Connection (needs a better name) in a sub group (so you have have them inside a neat frame on the character sheat). Still keep Faith and Vice separate, important flavor!

Marshall wrote:
So, I've got half a mind to implement this stuff right away and crank out a new draft.  But maybe there's some negative implications that I'm not seeing.  Anyone see any?  Anyone got anything else they want to say about the proposed rules?  Lay it on me.

Krippler wrote:
Another problem the psyche to push rule solves is the question wether NPCs push or not. Unfleshedout mooks don't have psyche and thus can't push. If the GM wants the NPC to push he gives him a psyche trait and the mook is instantly transformed into a full worth NPC.

jag wrote:
Hoping to be the person with the most rejected-but-useful suggestions,

I am no fan of dog shows and neither are you really since you took out the hardened damage for good descriptions of attacks ;)

I'm not that interested in a characters back story and I've actually developed a phobia of over worked characters since I've had a player who always spend lots of time making a detailed backstory so he gets hurt when they die dirty unlucky dice deaths. It could be nice flavor to have the characters drop a few lines of what they've been up to in the past but I wouldn't reward it personally since it is not only a reward for people who do it but also a punishment for those who don't. It creates the problem: want to survive this fight? Dream up a story about how your uncle used to take you shooting or always threw empty beer cans at you so you are super good at keeping your head down. Such elements slow the pace of the game down and aren't interactive, no choices (and locking the others around the table out from the spotlight since it's essentially a flashback) makes it uninteresting. Choices are why people play roleplaying games instead of listening to talk radio or reading books.

Allow me to play devil's advocate. Connections (relationships) mechanics are pretty darn common in narrativist RPGs (see My Life with Master, Trollbabe, Burning Empires, etc etc etc etc). Is it possible that real human connections is the fruitful void in The Rustbelt, and so, ought not be mechanized?

Paul

Wilmer,
Er, well, what I had in mind wasn't something particulary in-depth...  What got me thinking about it was a line in "Where He Was Going" by William S. Burroughs (from his Tornado Alley).  The main character is in a firefight with the cops (it turns out to be "another shoot-out dream," but that's irrelevant for this), shooting them with a Tommy gun, and there's this line, (paraphrased)

He puts three bullets across [the deputy's] chest, spaced an inch apart.  He has the Touch.  "It's an instrument," Machine-Gun Kelly told him, "Play it."

Marshall wrote:
What I'm talking about is more like people as Vice.  The thing that differentiates it from Vice is that it is shared between two people, both of whom can benefit from it and both of whom can destroy it.  At its best, it might be a real connection.  At its worst, it's emotional vampirism. 

Since it didn't occur to you till now and never occured to me (I was thinking of having sex be a Vice but that doesn't need to be connected to a special person or ever a person at all) you should write something about relationships as Vice. Or maybe people are too jaded and only those who Hunger for human connection gets hurt in a mechanical way. Not kissing your daughter goodnight giving you withdrawal is logical if she's got a grip on you but calling the relationship a Vice is really scary for some reason. Maybe a limit like "I'd never hurt my daughter" can be stretched to include not not punching through a steel door.

These things doesn't need to be set beforehand anyway, since the Push requires Psyche people won't realise all of their Psyche components till they are in a dire situation! How cool isn't that, not having your relationship put on paper till it's really on the line and only by admitting it you get the power to save it.

Here's a better idea than Connections, since half of what they would do is already covered by Vice, and the other half would be handled by this:

Limits needs to be expanded into something, with a different name, that includes oaths, promises, sworn duties, that sort of thing.  Promise you made to other people, to yourself, to God, all of that.

Mechanically, it'd still work just like Limits.  (I really like the rules about Limits, because they're easy to lose, and hard to get back).

But I have no clue what to call it.

How cool isn't that, not having your relationship put on paper till it's really on the line and only by admitting it you get the power to save it.

What about Obligations instead of Limits?  If you think about it, the Limits were just obligations that the character had to himself, right?

What would an obligation look like?

"Take care of your child?" seems a little vague to me especially since it's easy to just hit the character with some other Psyche if it breaks that unwritten rule.

I'm thinking more like, "I'll never let harm come to my child,"  "I must uphold the law," "I will never kill a man in cold blood," "I promised [blank] that I wouldn't let him die."

Maybe Thresholds is a better name.  "I've never let harm come to my child," "I've never broken the law," "I've never killed a man"?

Fuck, why not just make it Limits & Obligations?

I really want Obligations in there, because I want there to always be the possibility of Pushing for someone else's sake, even if you can't Push for your own sake.  Especially when it comes to the Last Push.

Or, maybe I'm just being a dork in trying to limit the Push exclusively to Psyche traits.  Maybe it's "You can Push for your own sake only when invoking a Psyche trat; you can always Push for someone else's sake."

Okay, so I'm nearly done with the re-write of the text.  Here's a rundown of what's getting changed:

1. The text is being, in general, tightened up.  There's some convoluted phrasing in there that needs to be fixed, there's a lot of wordiness that needs to be cut down, there's too much explication of things that are clearly implied by the rules, and there's far too much repetition.  Poison'd, which is exemplar in its tightness, is what got me thinking about this, and an admonishment from Paul settled me into doing it.

2. Stuff about the setting is being stripped down.  I've realized that I've got eight years worth of writing stories about the Rustbelt and playing the game in its various forms, and all of that stuff is trying to present itself as canon.  I'm now beating it down with a baseball bat, saying, "You won't add anything to people's enjoyment of the actual game!"  It keeps getting up and saying, "But I'm so cool!" but I keep beating it down.

2a. The true Setting (in Big Model terms) of the game is "a place where hardship and desperation are the norm, and there are forces at work urging people toward depravity" -- everything else is the Color of the Setting.    Discussion of the setting in the text is being stripped down to the presentation of that core, the Rust, and a few examples, so that individual groups can truly do their own take on it without me breathing down their necks through the text.  Color will be mostly absent in the text; I think that illustrations and the CD of original music (to be included with the ashcan) will handle Color nicely on their own.

2b. The overture has been changed to make the origins of the 'Belt a mystery.  I've realized that, in presenting it as due to the consequences that abuse of capitalism has on the working classes, I was addressing Premise for the prospective players.  That is robbing them of possible fun.  I don't want to do that, not even a little bit.

2c. With the exception of the overture and the short piece found in the Character Dynamics chapter, all fiction is being removed.

2d. At some point, I will write "Color Supplements" that will be available for free online in which I will detail the Counties used in my play and stories, and also present glossaries of Rustbelt slang, in-depth explorations of specific cultures (esp. underground and adventuring cultures), and perhaps some fiction.

3. Neither Connections nor Obligations is going into the rules.  Furthermore, Limits are out.  For one thing, they are pretty obvious, and, for some reason, writing them down seems to rob them of their impact. The intended functionality can be handled quite well by the GM asking the player how the character feels about a morally questionable act.  For the other thing, Paul is probably right that real human connection is the fruitful void, and all the good Limits revolve around how you treat other people.

4.  Criteria for the Push are definitely being implemented.You may Push if any of the following apply:  you are acting to pursue Hunger; you steadied your nerve with Vice or Faith; you are close to or already suffering Withdrawal and acting to get your fix; you are acting to uphold your Faith; you are acting to heal/redeem/absolve your Woe; or you are acting on behalf of someone that you care about.

5.  Traits are out. So that you don't get stuck with one die on crucial rolls, in their place is a situational Advantage system that does basically the same thing in an on-the-fly manner, with a "one advantaging factor = one bonus die" guideline.  Bonus dice granted by special equipment, weaponry (gun against melee, f'rinstance, gives an advantage to the shooter), and magic are subsumed into this as well.

Whew.  When I get this done, it is going to be AWESOME.

Dude, you are fucking possessed! I'm really excited about it.

Paul

Sounds like good changes, especially stripping it of color. I think your playtest sessions got me to understand the setting the best since they are what got me into reading the rules and I was a bit confused when all the goofy things like riot control rhinos were mentioned (although I'd totally used them and I've already used the kidney-stand). Advantage dice seem to solve the sword vs. knife issue as well.

A question about armor: since hit locations are no problem what use is armor at all? You can have someone with ankle to neck plate armor and he'll still just get stabbed in the face. Advantage dice for fighting someone who tries hitting you in a sweet spot? Hide all armor under clothes?

It feels wrong somehow to have disadvantage dice (cancels out advantage dice and pick the lowest one) for difficult rolls. I'll try it out next time anyway, hoping to get my game going on friday.

Paul,
I am excited too!  And also super-nervous!  Increasingly, as GenCon approaches.  I started smoking again, I'm so nervous.

Wilmer,
To tell the truth, armor has never been used very much in the game, even in the older versions, so I hadn't really thought about that.  But I can see the problem.  I think that Advantage dice are probably the best way to handle it (one for "I'm armored," unless in a melee brawl with someone else who is armored, you get the picture).  And converting edged/bullet damage to blunt damage at the armored location, for purposes of whether it can be taken to Sweat or not.

One thing that I'm really liking about the Advantage system is how clear-cut it makes jockeying for advantage in fights.  "I push him off-balance!" is suddenly so easy to handle; Tough vs. Tough (or maybe Slick/Spry) to see if it works, and if it does then the guy gets an Advantage die next round, for "The other guy is off-balance."
And, of course, stuff like "We're in the open and my weapon has more reach" "We're in real tight, and my weapon is smaller" (yes, the weapon advantage rules in Sorcerer & Sword are the shiz-nite) "I've got him pinned to the ground" "This pre-Rust gun is actually accurate."

I hadn't thought of Disadvantage; I was just gonna let both sides in conflicts have Advantage where it applied.  But Disadvantage  might be neat.  It's worth testing, certainly.