I'm going to start this post off with a warning.  I talk about my game a lot in this post, Burning Passion.  The rules I will be discussing were only applied to it roughly two weeks ago, and as such I haven't had a chance to playtest any of them out yet.  I wasn't going to post anything about them here until I had actually seen them in action a few times and gotten a better idea of how cruel reality destroys my precious idealistic theories, but I just noticed a fair amount of Trait-discussion that currently seems to be running strong in these forums and my system seems to have a somewhat unusual take on them.  There's a whole line of threads, but the most current one (with links to the others) is
[Legends of Alyria] Traits! Traits!

Also, as I look at this after having written it, this post is GIGANTIC.  I think anyone really interested in the topic will get something out of reading the whole text, but I may just be being narcissistic.  Probably the most interesting section to most designers will be the one answering the question "What's stopping the trait from being used every time you do anything?"  The rest is mostly context for those few paragraphs.

Burning Passion is a game about emulating the shounen manga format of conflict resolution.  It's very descriptive, it's very creative, it's very competitive, and it places a lot more emphasis on awesomeness and story-power than realism.  It's probably about as Gamist as you get in fiction.  Some of the more recognizable (mostly because their animated versions have been played on Cartoon Network) are things like Dragonball, Naruto, Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist, and One Piece.  Supernatural powers are common, and usually it's all about fighting, but that's by no means necessary.  There are very popular bread-baking, American football, and card-game playing manga out there, all unified by this highly-competitive, insanely-technical, and unashamedly-stylized/unrealistic format of conflict.  I wanted to make a game that captured the spirit of that, but that could be used for multiple kinds of settings or competition-types, from baking to giant-robot piloting.

The way I did it was just to make the core set of rules as simple as possible, and then make sure they could be used for anything.  The conflict resolution style is based off of the DitV Raise/See mechanic, where competitors take turns describing "Attacks" and "Defenses" and presenting dice to back up those descriptions with mechanical weight until one competitor runs out of dice and is overcome.  Every Competition begins with each player rolling 6d6 to simulate luck, and from there a character can Invoke one thing per turn to gain an edge.  There are really only two things they can Invoke, Facts and Special Moves.  "Special Moves" add a one-time bonus to an Attack/Defense, and aren't really relevant to the discussion at hand.  "Facts" are traits, each with an assigned die value that they let you roll upon Invoking, like "Dough-Kneading Genius 3d8".  This is still pretty in-line with DitV, but this is also where I took DitV and did my best to militarize it into a streamlined Gamist engine.

There have been a few stumbling blocks that people have brought up when it comes to using Traits as mechanics in games.  A few of the more frequently brought up ones seem to be: What's an allowable trait?/"Can I take 'Boba Fett's daughter 2d6?", What's the distribution of Credibility?/"I have 'Boba Fett's daughter 2d6', does that mean I can summon him into battle to fight for me?", and What's stopping the trait from being used every time you do anything?/"I use the self defense that my father, Boba Fett, taught me to beat up these thugs.  I get 2d6 now, right?  After that I'm going to reapply my make-up.  I've decided that he taught me how to do that, too, so I get an extra 2d6 on that roll as well."  I think I have answers to each of these issues.  Actually, I know I have answers to all of these issues.  What I think I have are answers to all of these issues that might actually be helpful enough to minimize the amount of dysfunctional play badly-used Traits causes.

What's an allowable trait?
Facts and Special Moves are the only two usable stats in the game, and they really don't interact directly at any point, so Facts pretty much cover everything about a character in Burning Passion.  If you have multiple layers of mechanics, like Attributes, Skills, and Facts, or even just Attributes and Facts there's a lot of room for things to get weird and for players to get optimization-obsessed, so I condensed everything into a single stat.  What this means is that the one stat covers everything.  At its core, a Fact is a measurement of story-weight more than a means to represent "a realistic simulation of the human body, mind, and spirit" or anything like that.  Facts can be Resources/Efficency (they're really the same thing in this setting), and they can also be Positioning.  Facts are how the players control the story, and different ways of wording those Facts allow for different types of control.  I'll get more into this in the next question.  Basically, though, the game rules themselves place no limits on what can be taken as a Fact.  Instead, they grant absolute Authority to do so to the GM.  More on that later, too.

What's the distribution of Credibility?
Players have a lot of Credibility in Burning Passion.  Theoretically, they have absolute Credibility over anything undefined in the SIS, and a fair amount of power even over things that are defined.  How does this work?  During play a player can, by default, do anything.  There are three things that can prevent a character from doing something: Limitations, Facts, and StoryPower.
Limitations are things that humans Just Can't Do, like fly or shoot lasers out of their eyes.  If a character attempts to do one of these things the GM can tell them that they can't.  However, There's a sub-section of the whole "Facts" rules where you buy the capacity to overcome these Limitations.  So, by default you can't fly, but if you spend 12XP or whatever on the flight Technique you can.
Facts that stop you from doing things are just like the Facts on your character sheet, but are hidden throughout nature.  You might try to climb a wall, but the GM might tell you that you can't because it's "Too Tall".  What this actually means is that implicit in the wall is a Fact, "Too Tall 1d8".  When blocked by a Fact the character has two choices.  They can either give up or Invoke a Fact of their own.  If they Invoke a Fact of their own one of three things happens, as the GM judges.  If the character's Fact completely overrides the wall's Fact "I Invoke my Wings 2d10 Fact, which is tied to my Flight Technique to fly over it", or if the matter isn't relevant to the story (it would be a Task rather than a Conflict) then the GM just says the character succeeds. Likewise, if the Fact is not helpful in the least the character just fails ('I Invoke my "Loves Inspirational Posters of Cats 'Hanging In There' 4d8" Fact').  If the two Facts are actually related ("Strong Gripping Hands 1d6"), the situation escalates into a Competition.
StoryPower is a nebulous force that the GM can use to keep the game from being disrupted.  It's basically a blank slate of absolute Credibility and Authority given to the GM in the interest of protecting the story.  Attached to this slate, however, is the advice that it be used as absolutely little as is necessary to maintain the mood/coherence of the game.  StoryPower is what keeps one player from outright ignoring other players' contributions to the story, if one player begins dictating the actions of another player against that player's wishes or begins retconning out that other player's effects on the game-world the GM is expected to step in and stop them.  That said, there are cases where a player can even control another player's actions.  "You look at me and feel an overwhelming sense of shame.  You're not going to shoot me.  I'm your best friend. You love me." is a legitimate Attack one player could make on another, even though it to some extent dictates that player's actions.  The GM is only supposed to step in when one player's control begins to interfere with other players' enjoyment of the game, and as such is based more on reading the players' comfort levels with having other players dictate some of their actions than on any objective rule-set.
The more important to the Story a character/event is the more StoryPower is attached to it.  For example, if Boba Fett exists in the story entirely in a supporting role to his daughter, the trait "Boba Fett's Daughter 2d6" would probably be able to summon him more or less at will.  The thing is, he'd only be 2d6 effective whenever a Competition rolled around, so if the character imagines the actual Boba Fett as being more powerful than that they need to either buy up his ranks or expect him to be only somewhat effectual.
If Boba Fett is a big part of the game's plot, however, he'd be a lot less controllable.  If he's meant to be a lurking and dangerous character, whose presence makes a big impact on any scene it is a part of, then "Boba Fett's Daughter 2d6" probably isn't going to be able to summon him.  It's still good for Positioning, though, and it can be used in other ways (I'm getting ahead of myself here, I'll come back to this next question).  There isn't any hard statistical ruling on what determined how much protection StoryPower gives a character from player manipulation; it's entirely up to the GM to decide when it does or doesn't get used.  It's one of the GM's primary tools in controlling the mood of the game, and its responsible use is something that the rulebook will discuss extensively.
Can StoryPower be used to force Railroading and GM Fascism?  Of course it can, but that's something the GM really can do in any game.  However, the rulebook for this game is going to be, like, 20% rules 80% advice/interpretations in an attempt to limit how often this happens.  It's dangerous, but such an absolute statement of GM power is needed in this game, for reasons about to be stated in answering the third question.

What's stopping the trait from being used every time you do anything?
This seems to be the issue that people have the most trouble with related to Traits, but it's something I'm actually less worried about than the above two questions.  I deal with this issue with a Drama resolution technique known as Partial Invocation.  Basically, before a character Invokes a Fact the player controlling the character describes the action associated with the Invocation.  Usually this will be during a Competition to get more dice, but it applies to a lesser extent in normal play when Invoking Facts to override NPC Facts as well.  The GM then judges the strength of the Fact relative to the way it's being used/what it's trying to accomplish.  The GM can just tell the player that their Invocation was a success and give them the full dice, or they can tell the player that the Invocation's strength isn't high enough and that they can only Partially Invoke.  What this means is that the Fact's dice are rolled, but the size of the dice is decreased.  So, "Boba Fett's Daughter 2d6" being used with the description "I go into the self-defense stance my father taught me and wait for one of them to make a move" might give 2d4 instead of 2d6.  If this causes a die size to shrink below d4, then the relationship is too weak and the Fact can not be Invoked.
There are a bunch of factors that are considered when deciding on the strength of an Invocation, but ultimately it comes down to common sense.  I'll list the names of the factors here briefly, though, to give you a rough idea of what they are: Usefullness In Competition, Justification of the Description, Using the Fact's Full Description, Interestingness of Description, Flow of the Narrative, Previous Actions Outside of Competition, Mood/Realism Levels of Scenario, Overall Usefulness of Fact.  None of these are hard statistics, the system for determining how strong an Invocation is entirely Drama-based, and full Credibility is given to the GM.
The last listed factor may be of interest to Trait-based discussions, "Overall Usefulness".  What this means is that how general and useful a Fact is must be considered when deciding on its strength.  A Fact like "Physically Capable 1d8" is going to be useful in all sorts of situations, so its strength should by default be fairly low, probably never being Invoked for more than 1d6 even at the best of times.  A useless Fact like "Crocheting Queen 4d8" should probably be over-strengthened, so it could be Invoked at full strength even for things like sewing a hole in a tent shut, even though no actual Crocheting is being done.  All of this changes if the focus of your Scenario is on competitive weaving, of course.  REALLY useful Facts, like "Great At Everything 5d10" should be weakened so much that they simply can not be Invoked, since even giving 5d4 in all situations is potentially game-breaking.

In the end, I built a game completely around Traits.  It came out kind of weird.  It's hard-line Director's stance, Gamist-enabling, heavily Drama-based, and is completely dependent upon absolute Credibility and Authority in the hands of the GM.  Is it going to need a LOT of Drama-system rules disguised as "Advice" for the GM to play properly?  Absolutely.  Is it going to be fun?  I hope so.  Will it probably change to near unrecognizability post-feedback/playtesting?  Yeah, probably.

What do you think about my solutions to the three listed problems?  I wrote way more than I expected to.  Did I lose my mind half-way through and slide into incoherency?  Was any of what I said relevant to anything any other designer could be interested in?  Am I being innovative with my ideas, or am I just driving myself down the long ugly road towards incoherent game design?

Thanks,
Misha

Well, after reading that and understanding most of it I can say:
1) You seem to have addressed the issues you presented well, but without full rules for your game I can't say exactly how perfectly they fit.
2) Didn't seem to lose your mind, no
3) Sure, I think that someone writing or playing a trait based game could use some of those ideas
4) I don't know what road you're headed down, but the ideas seem good.

Hope that helped, I'm not really sure what else to respond to that with, but if you have any other questions I'll do my best to answer them, and I'm sure some of the other people here would like to help out too.

Hi Misha,

I don't think you've provided any solutions - the GM will end up providing solutions for himself. It's what I call a stone soup design (and there are alot of them about), which is much like the old story/fable of a hungry man coming to a village and getting food by pretending to make soup...stone soup. But it tastes a little better if everyone from the village puts something in...

I've actually heard stone soup told as a con job and also told as a story about the benefits of sharing, so it's not exactly negative in itself. However the costs involved in a RPG, either in buying it and/or time/concentration in use means the people are being charged to actually add the ingrediants.

I haven't actually proved my statement that the GM will be the only one providing solutions, I've just stated it. It's a little involved to get into any level of proving it and you might not be interested, so I just briefly note it here in case your interested to see if it is the case.

Callan,

Are you saying that by forcing the GM to make the final decision based entirely on his (or her) own subjective judgment that I'm forcing him to basically write his own system inside of my system to make my system playable?  Even with guidelines and extensive advice?

If so, what would be necessary for me to add to my rules to change them from a vacant hole the GM has to fill to a Drama-based resolution system?  It seems to me like any time you use Drama to resolve something in a game you're forced to shove the specifics of judging resolution on subjective personal judgment.  Or am I missing your point entirely?

As you said, you haven't completely explained your statement, so I can't really respond to it.  If you're willing to spend the time typing it out I would be more than interested to read it and consider its implications to my system.

You could also consider a form of Trait fatigue.  So every time you use a given trait in this Chapter (Or whatever time unit), the dice level does down by one.
So, I use 'I'm Awesome 5d10' goes to 'I'm Awesome 5d8' and so on, until finally it's 'I'm Awesome 5d0'.  This provides incentive to save awesome traits until they can provide the maximum impact.  And it also, at least in my Gamist mind, would provide incentive to make traits a bit more specific, that way I can pull them out in different scenarios.

Just another suggestion.

otspiii wrote: If so, what would be necessary for me to add to my rules to change them from a vacant hole the GM has to fill to a Drama-based resolution system?  It seems to me like any time you use Drama to resolve something in a game you're forced to shove the specifics of judging resolution on subjective personal judgment.  Or am I missing your point entirely?

As you said, you haven't completely explained your statement, so I can't really respond to it.  If you're willing to spend the time typing it out I would be more than interested to read it and consider its implications to my system.

Hi Misha,

I'll answer your last questions first (in fact, I'm changing your initial post's order all over the place). You're formalizing Trait-specification techniques which are already known in play and design. However, that's a good thing, because these specifications are obviously in need of formalization! We should all start taking care that people who try to play aren't inadvertently divided into the Traits-friendly ones vs. the, well, Markus (who I think represents a widespread but until now tacit concern).

Here are your specifications:

1. Resource limit
2. Firm embedding in SIS at all levels with clearly assigned Authority
3. Precise procedures for how and when they get invoked/used

None of these are new. But I do think you've articulated and formalized them better than existing texts have done.

Before continuing with the Trait discussion, I'm confused about one thing. You wrote,

... It's hard-line Director's stance, Gamist-enabling, heavily Drama-based, and is completely dependent upon absolute Credibility and Authority in the hands of the GM.  Is it going to need a LOT of Drama-system rules disguised as "Advice" for the GM to play properly?  Absolutely.  Is it going to be fun?  I hope so.  Will it probably change to near unrecognizability post-feedback/playtesting?  Yeah, probably.

Can StoryPower be used to force Railroading and GM Fascism?  ...

From what I see, it's "The GM decides if it automatically works, fails, or whether we go to fortune". That's drama resolution with the GM option to perhaps go to fortune. I think Misha is correct in what she's calling it.

If they Invoke a Fact of their own one of three things happens, as the GM judges.  If the character's Fact completely overrides the wall's Fact "I Invoke my Wings 2d10 Fact, which is tied to my Flight Technique to fly over it", or if the matter isn't relevant to the story (it would be a Task rather than a Conflict) then the GM just says the character succeeds. Likewise, if the Fact is not helpful in the least the character just fails ('I Invoke my "Loves Inspirational Posters of Cats 'Hanging In There' 4d8" Fact').  If the two Facts are actually related ("Strong Gripping Hands 1d6"), the situation escalates into a Competition.

From some of the responses I got I've decided that my definition of Drama might be different from the norm, to some extent.  Hopefully my responses here will illustrate what I mean when I say "Drama".

Callan wrote:
I think your working from the idea that pretty much everyone says drama is great - so if drama always goes to personal judgement, and drama is great, how could going to personal judgement be going wrong?

Callan wrote:
The reason I asked if your interested is because I'll ask you to do the work of proving it to yourself.

If you wanted to test if the game doesn't provide any solutions, what methods and benchmarks would you use to test that, if any?

Remember there are no authorities around - there's no one who is positioned relative to your life that can tell you when you go wrong (and you'll accept it when they tell you, rather than argue with them). If you don't self police, your not policed at all. Do you have any self policing methods in regards to this?

Ron wrote:
I'm not seeing the Drama-based part at all. Are you talking about the heavy verbal and imaginative framing that goes into forming conflicts, which is then consequential for what can and cannot be done and what Traits can be used?

Ron wrote:
I suggest that if you frame StoryPower as a "first among equals" thing rather than a "den daddy" thing, then it'll be no big deal. The reasoning is that, at the table, you're playing with people who all want StoryPower (by whatever name) to be in operation, otherwise play turns into endless negotiations and confusion. So it's not a matter of whether one person "uses it right," it's a matter of whether the people in the group know it when they see it. If so, then putting final decisions about it into one person's hands is a fine design decision.

SoftNum wrote:
You could also consider a form of Trait fatigue.  So every time you use a given trait in this Chapter (Or whatever time unit), the dice level does down by one.
So, I use 'I'm Awesome 5d10' goes to 'I'm Awesome 5d8' and so on, until finally it's 'I'm Awesome 5d0'.   This provides incentive to save awesome traits until they can provide the maximum impact.   And it also, at least in my Gamist mind, would provide incentive to make traits a bit more specific, that way I can pull them out in different scenarios.

Just another suggestion.

Callan wrote:
From what I see, it's "The GM decides if it automatically works, fails, or whether we go to fortune". That's drama resolution with the GM option to perhaps go to fortune. I think Misha is correct in what she's calling it.

I actually thought afterwards I just totally assumed your gender and had probably stuffed up!

Okay, I'm glad I didn't try to prove anything much because your own testing method seems squarely set on using playtest as your trial method. That's a strong, provocative testing area, so that seems good from my evaluation.

Really you've chosen playtest as your method (good on you :) ). But I will say I find any system where you can entirely decide if something passes or if it fails, or if you roll, as being identical to a blank sheet of paper. I'd actually suggest a minimum trait strength rather than the entire capacity to veto, because while bobba fett could be used over and over at the minimum, it shows the player they could probably pick something more effective. At the same time it challenges your imagination as GM, because they can still invoke it over and over and instead of being able to push away anything that's a bit outside your imaginative comfort zone. There aught to be some small amount of friction - friction is how you feel something, both physically and mentally! I'm thinking of the invocation of 'Dave' in this tentacle city playtest. In that, if someone doesn't like Dave just suddenly appearing - tough (to put it more politely than Willow did...just teasing, Willow!)! And I think the same should damn well go for Bobba Fett - if he's used over and over again, tough! There shouldn't be advice - if you can write advice, you can write mechanics that force variation (can't use the trait again until you've used two others would give it a more varied turnover, for a start, and is entirely simple mechanics rather than rules advice). The ability to absolutely say a trait fails or suceeds removes all friction - the person judging it feels no push.

I'll also say that working within the fiction someone else has established is both fun and useful. But if you don't have a choice about it, it's not fun, you've just got a gun held to your head loaded with veto rounds. Roleplayers too eagerly embrace people working within the fiction, while scorning someone just using the system as they wish (multiple Bobba Fetts). BOTH must be valid and pleasantly accepted outcomes or its not working together in the fiction, it's just gun to the head time. That's my understanding of human psychology, anyway. Though I'll say you'll obviously enjoy the working in the fiction more. It's like asking a woman out - you aught to enjoy it if it's just dinner together and that's all (no sex!). But gamers are fixated on working in the fiction, or so I say in a moment of passion! If you can't enjoy raw system use with no fiction interaction/if you can't enjoy just having dinner together, then that system sucks. But if you can enjoy that, often you will go on to quite intimate...err, detailed fiction interaction!

Excuse me slipping in the dating analogy.

Callan,

I'm going to go out on a limb here and give my own interpretation of "System Matters".

System isn't game-play.  System guides game-play, it points out what direction for game-play to go in, and if the system and the group's goals are similar there might be little to no drift separating the two, but they aren't the same.  I genuinely do not see the difference between a table of results and a piece of GM-advice except in that one requires a little more drift than the other.  My goal isn't to tell the GM exactly how to run every aspect of his game, it's to tell the GM how to decide how to run every aspect of his game.  I understand that in doing this I ask for a bit more out of the GM than other systems do, but that's why I'm making efforts to streamline all of the Fate-based resolution systems so much.

Minimum trait strength. . .this actually gives me a really interesting idea for an alternate Invocation-system to use if this one proves unplayable.  I could make char-gen almost into a madlib, where a handful of  Traits are picked to describe different parts of the character's life.  Every conflict every one of these Traits would be Invoked, but the size of the dice they grant would be determined by the nature of the conflict.  Hobby: Flower Arranging would probably only give a d4 in a fist-fight, while Personality:Stubborn might grant a d6, Concept: Biker a d8, and Skill: Brawling a d10.  I'd have to completely overhaul huge sections of the system to fit this in, but it certainly seems like it could be interesting.

The reason I'm not going to do it that way is focus, though.  In Gamist play there are always the areas of the game in which all the competitive maneuvering is focused.  In D&D 4th Ed it's in character build, grid positioning, and power timing.  In Pokemon it's balancing high stats with a well-rounded selection of elements.  In Burning Passion I want it to be primarily focused on Description.  I'd say Color, but by making it the focus it really isn't Color any more, is it?  Mechanics like absolute patterns to how you can Invoke traits put the focus on building Trait-machines, putting the focus more on turning those absolute patterns to your advantage.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it goes directly against the design principles I'm using for this system.  For me, when all the focus is on the character's build it leads to systems that are more fun to make characters for than to play.  Some of the focus will be on character creation, of course, but I want to put as much of it as possible into the Ephemera of visceral description.  I feel like my current system better serves that goal.

I see the friction in the game being the players striving to impress the GM into strengthening their Invocations.  I agree that by giving the GM complete veto power I remove some of the friction he experiences, but I think that he has, in the end, the ultimate push to worry about: Is he making the game enjoyable for everybody involved?  While the players' focuses are directed towards description, I feel like that should be the focus I give to the GM.  By complicating the areas in which the GM has authority I bring the focus from reading the players' enjoyment levels and adjusting accordingly to rules-scholaring.  I think that by doing that I really would begin to increase the risk of GM-abuse.

Hrmm, I'd have thought that this system would promote player control over the fiction more than the vast majority of other systems.  I give the players huge amounts of directorial authority, I just follow up by giving the GM veto-power.  The GM's job isn't to tell a story that he comes up with with internal logic and rules completely his own that the players had just better shut up and deal with.  The GM's job is to make sure the players are enjoying themselves.  Having a strong internal mood-based logic to the fiction is a tool with which he engages the players, nothing more and nothing less.  The fiction should ideally be a representation of what the players want.  I feel like if anyone has a gun to their head it's the GM; if he does a poor job of running the game the players can just drop out.  He has the ultimate veto power within the system, but the players really have the ultimate veto within the social contract.

As for the system=dinner, fiction=sex analogy. . .the system and fiction are really almost the same thing in this game.  It's not that the system isn't fun without the fiction, it's that it's missing vital organs and bleeds out when you separate the two.  Does this make me a slut?

I'm really enjoying this discussion.  Everything I'm saying here I was aware of on some level before, but it really helps me consider it and understand it when I have to bring it out and explain it to someone else.

Thanks,
Misha

Hey Misha, interesting setup.

One thing I would watch out in your playtest is what I could call the "target number fatigue":

Since the Partial Invocation thing calls for the GM to be constantly(?) judging the numerical value of player contributions, I am sure that I, personally, would get real tired real fast with trying to be reliably consistent and fair in these judgments. "Applies/does not apply" is an order of magnitude easier assessment to make.

Mikael wrote:
One thing I would watch out in your playtest is what I could call the "target number fatigue":

Since the Partial Invocation thing calls for the GM to be constantly(?) judging the numerical value of player contributions, I am sure that I, personally, would get real tired real fast with trying to be reliably consistent and fair in these judgments. "Applies/does not apply" is an order of magnitude easier assessment to make.

Hi Misha,

I don't know if you're interested in pursuing this, but you're mangling the terminology. Your resolution system is hard-core Fortune. Everything you're calling "Drama" is merely the necessary connection between the Fortune mechanic and whatever else is happening in play at the moment (and with whom). All resolution mechanics need such grounding; it's not a big deal except that game texts have historically screwed the pooch, thus making it a big deal.

One part of your solution is the same as I did with Sorcerer: it works, it doesn't work, or roll. Again, this isn't anything to do with anything but Fortune. To clarify:

- If we were talking about Drama, then the rule would be, it works, it doesn't work, or someone says whether it does. 

- If we were talking about Karma, then the rule would be, it works, it doesn't work, or check the relevant number.

Neither of those is actually redundant! Or rather, good mechanics design for either are based on making them not redundant. If the Drama is unconstructed, then the third part of the rule is redundant, and that is consistently suck-ass no fun. Good Drama mechanics use things like Resources and turn-order to provide construction. You might say, hey, Karma should be the same, it could be redundant too, and you'd be right. My point here is that the third option must be mechanically significant, which is also to say, there's no such thing as "Drama," but instead, specific Drama mechanics.

But here's the savage part: unconstructed Fortune is suck-ass no fun too. It's based on the very same idea but comes from the other direction, as I hope to show by repeating the parallel rule:

- If we were talking about Fortune, then the rule would be, it works, it doesn't work, or use the dice/cards/whatever.

Here, there's little danger of forgetting the mechanics/construction of the third part. But look at what happens when you forget about the first two rules: you roll for everything, and don't know why you don't when you don't, or what it means when you do and fail, and people start flailing around with meaningless perception rolls and weird little tasks. I'll never forget the account posted long ago about the modern-day vampires trying to work a copy machine, which occupied the group for hours.

Whew.

All of that is to say, the distinctions between the three resolution methods (and they are not exclusive, incidentally; mechanics often mix and match them) all support your basic design decision. Which is, if you're going to use dice, then bloody fucking well know when and when not to use them, and place your decisions about that into the rules in terms of real Authority.

That's good design and good game-writing.

I won't bother you more with terminology if you say not to. I do think you're missing out, though.

Best, Ron

Hrmm, okay, I see what you mean.  I think I understand the terminology a little better now, and you are correct.

No worries, though.  Like I said, I designed the system to focus on what I wanted to focus on, not with the goal of using "Drama" as a mechanic.

My stance on terminology in general is that I'm very interested in it because how it's constructed can give you a lot of insight into the priorities of those who built it, and it can keep everyone who understands it on the same page during discussion.  I am, however, very mercenary in my use of it.  Concepts are concepts, and I'll use whatever words I need to to communicate those concepts.  Advanced terminology is very useful for communicating with people who understand it, but can be alienating for laymen.  So, you're absolutely not bothering me when you clarify things for me, Ron.  Thank you very much.

Trying to figure out what to say and what to leave unstated in the rules is what I'm working on a lot now.  It's tricky, because a lot of the unstated is unstated because gamers take it for granted, myself included.  For me, that's what The Forge does best.  Identify what people take for granted in RPGs that they probably shouldn't.

Hello Misha,

Just a few things that came in mind as I was idly reading your thread. When you say system isn't gameplay, you imply some kind of order between the two. The obvious direction would be that the gameplay issues from the system, but as a designer, you consider it the other way round, which is appropriate during the design phase, provided you don't forget that the actual gameplay that will take place later (and mostly upon game tables you won't attend to) will be deduced from the system (encompassing soft notions such as GM's advice and the like okay).

So that sets how important is the system building. I deeply understand your wish to design your game with the minimum "hard parts" such as variables and tables possible. Yet, you must take into account what solution you offer instead and when I read you, I have the feeling that you're vaguely thinking that none is needed because every game you ran didn't need these. Of course they didn't, you were running those games. Alas, I have to say that this question "what or who will replace the hard parts?" must be answered.

Your description of your game actually gives this answer, you wish to give the GM this power. Right. So with cooperative players, you get a GM-driven storytelling game. Is that what you wish? It seems to me that you maybe wish the game to be more Gamist or at least, opened to more competition and I'm not so sure that you can blend raw GM-driven storytelling and competition at the same time. Because a competition needs opponents and if the other players aren't, then the opponent is the GM. And... He has every power in game since he decides everything, so it's biased from the start.

Very simple, not necessary "hard" mechanisms, Trait fatigue, exhaustion, threshold, use limitation or the like would do the job. From what I'm reading you're very reluctant to incude that in your game but the choice you've made gives the GM player an overwhelming and looming position difficult to relate to Gamist play. There's plenty options, really. Rolling (thus increasing the Fortune level), Bidding, Collective Choice (vote or something like that), considering traits as a resource, give every trait its drawback so that a player wouldn't use it so often, etc. The only thing is, I think you have to choose one. Yes, that would lower the GM's position, true. Imho, that's just as good a benefit as balancing the traits. Take him down.

Patrice,

It's not really that I don't want ANY 'hard parts' in the system, it's that I feel like I already have one or two pretty hard parts installed and I want to keep the rest of the system somewhat lean so as to not overwhelm new players.  I think (and I can't confirm this until playtesting, but I will be watching very closely for it) that the only two places things get at all squiggly and subjective are in judging Invocation strength and in the process of story-composition, both of which have extensive documentation meant to guide the GM through dealing with the topics.  I'm trying to figure out how to give as much guidance to GMs as possible without forming raw mathematical charts.  My problem with raw mathematical charts is that the places they could be used in are places where staring at a table in the book would really drag down gameplay, so the GM is going to have to be making snap judgments.  If there's an objective numerical table dictating what those snap judgments should have been it's just asking for gameplay to degenerate into table-thumping rules-lawyering.  I'm trying to give the GM as much guidance as possible without taking away the mystery that makes the creative process creative rather than analytical.

Does that make sense?  I could give examples and so on of what I'm worried about if it doesn't.  It's a somewhat hard worry to communicate, but I have the feeling anyone who has run a couple games could relate.

I'm not really driving for a Storyteller game.  The GM has full Authority over rules issues, this is true.  The GM also has veto power over story issues, but isn't that true of almost any game?  The GM is instructed to "give the Players as much control of the plot as they want/can stay focused with".  Can the GM declare that the amount that they can "stay focused with" is none and play the game Illusionist-style?  Yeah, I guess, but there's only so much damage control you can write in for dysfunctional GMs before you start arbitrarily limiting everyone else.

I do hear you on the issue of the GM having both unlimited power and being the big force the players compete against.  I think that this is one of the big issues of Gamist play.  I do plan on writing as much as possible about GM methods to set difficulty levels in play, but that's one of the sections I can't really start working on until I've done some playtesting.

There are a few more mechanics in the game that I haven't talked about here, and one is an energy-point pool that Invoking drains.  However, it's currently under heavy enough review that I can't say much more about it than that and have it be meaningful.  There's also an indirect limiter I've installed.  You start with 3 dice in your pool from "random chance", up to 3 more from Invoking to start the competition, and up to 3 every turn from Invoking.  However, every turn you will spend 2 to attack and (on average) 2 to defend.  No more than 8 Facts can really be Invoked in any single Competition before the pool drains to zero.

When I say "lean" I don't mean "unregulated".  Other than Invocation Strength and Story-Composition, I really am trying to be careful not to let anything be undefined or "unbalanced".  I do appreciate your input, though, and I will be keeping an extra critical eye on the topics you brought up during playtesting.

Thanks,
Misha

otspiii wrote:
The GM also has veto power over story issues, but isn't that true of almost any game?

Patrice wrote:
This principle, which almost every player seems to take for granted in RPGs is far from being that absolute. Most RPGs feature common rules known to all its players that the GM can't possibly ignore or bypass. I very well know that many players get into that confusion stating that the GM has to define and run the opposition and is the absolute reference of its course at the same time. It always strikes me as a poor and unsatisfactory solution.

There are plenty options to regulate it otherwise without getting into any "hard" logics: You could set a flowing range of opposition corresponding to the character's potential, or you could set easy and understandable tiers of challenge, levels of difficulty, reference numbers, etc. What I fear when I read you is that you have the insight of the possible trouble going without a fixed definition would be and you try to avoid it through... Training the GM into being a good GM. That involves quite a lot. That involves first that the GM would willingly and happily take the pain to go through it and that involves as well that he would share your statements. It's possible, but it's a big job and your GM audience would narrow to these volunteers. A few hints and tips are always welcome, but one day you'll have to hand the game to them. Why not begin with that?

Just great then! I mean, if you've set flowing ranges acknowledged by all the players and tools to determine whether a Trait could possibly be taken into account or not plus some regulation system involving tying the Traits to some kind of resource, dice pool, action point, whatever, well, you don't have anything left to worry about, do you? You've solved the overuse issue, the misuse one and the GM status. The only thing now is that everything lays upon what system you've designed for these regulations. That will sure take a lot of tweaking.