For the longest time I have been hating on roleplaying incentives and roleplay controlling mechanics. Recently, however, I've decided that I'd like to try my hand at designing such a system for one of my smaller projects in the interest of see how it affects the game.

What I don't need...
Inquires as to how this system fits into the game, just know that it does and have faith in me. =)
Doubt regarding the necessity of including something like this in any game whatsoever.

What I do need...
Constructive criticism on the mechanics presented.
Suggestions on terminology. Specifically regarding the list of Traits at the bottom.

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[center]The Mechanics[/center]
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Creation: Distribute the following values amongst your Traits; +3, +2, +1, +1, 0, 0, 0, 0, -1, -1, -2, -3. With your GM’s permission, you may apply more negatives but you must balance it with an equal number of positives.
Setup: Whenever your character's reaction to an event is in question, the GM will call for a Judgment Test. You may then select three Traits, you should choose at least one positive and one negative Trait. The GM will then select one of these Traits based on how what sorts of reactions he suspects should be produced. Situations may come up where the GM deems one Trait, or specific Traits, to be the only applicable choices.
Judgment Test: Roll 1d10 and add the Trait’s value to the result. If the result is 6 or higher, your reaction must lean towards the right side (Virtue). If the result is 5 or lower, your reaction must lean towards the left side (Vice). You may refuse to react in the manner that you rolled but doing so accumulates one Stress Token.
Stress Tokens: Stress Tokens are removed over time, very slowly. Usually one per week unless the GM deems a situation of great happiness capable of wiping away your stress. For every Stress Token over 4, apply a -1 to all of your Judgment Tests. If you reach 8 Stress Tokens, your character will be so depressed that he may end up committing suicide.
(while not noted in this section the game text... Stress Tokens also lower the character's Synchronization Level, which makes it more difficult for him to control machines with his mind)

Example: The player’s pilot, Neivann, is searching an abandoned warehouse for his brother. He comes upon a man beating a teenaged boy. The man turns to him as soon as he enters and says, “Listen, buddy, you can just forget this happened and take 100 credits for your trouble. Easy money, right?” The GM calls for a Judgment Test, the player chooses Wrath, Greed and Apathy.

Example One: The GM chooses Wrath. Neivann has a -1, he is prone to violence it seems. The player rolls a single d10 and gets a 6, reduced by 1 to 5. He must react in a violent manner. Neivann, with anger in his eyes, draws his pistol an opens fire with no mercy shooting to kill. On the other hand, if he had scored a 6 or higher, Neivann may have accepted the money and went away, or offered the man money in order to secure the boy’s safety.

Example Two: The GM chooses Greed. Neivann has a +2, he is not easily swayed by material wealth and is more prone to give than to take. The player rolls and gets a 5, plus 2 is a 7. He must act is a charitable, non-greedy way. Neivann says he will not accept the money, instead he tries to intimidate the thug with the threat of the police. If Neivann had achieved the opposite result, he could have accepted the money and left or asked for more money in order to keep things a secret.

Example Three: The GM chooses Apathy. Neivann has a +1, he is prone to action and emotional attachment. The player rolls, gets a total of 8. Neivann must act with passion and action! Neivann decides he cannot let an innocent boy be treated like this with no recourse, he pulls free his pistol and fires at the thug’s limbs hoping to take him out with lethal shots. If Neivann had achieved the opposite result, he may have shrugged noting that this has nothing to do with his brother and walked off to avoid further involvement.

What happens if the player offers the GM choices that don't seem to make thematic sense, such as if in your example with the guy beating the kid, the player chooses Lust, Envy, and Despair?

It really depends on how you interpret those traits. Or, rather... how creatively you can maneuver within them.
For instance... Lust could be used... though it would be pretty disturbing. Envy could also be used, what if the character is a psychopath who loves beating children? "No one beats a child unless its ME!" Despair also works. The event is so emotionally disturbing that the character reacts by not reacting, despair grips his heart and freezes his judgment.

Instead of doing my best to wriggle out from under your astute scrutiny, I'll actually answer you. You'll note that I said in the OP, "Situations may come up where the GM deems one Trait, or specific Traits, to be the only applicable choices." This is could be one of those situations... Where the player thinks he is a super sneaky clever guy by choosing Traits that may not make sense for a given situation. The GM would then recognize this as one of those situations, and choose a Trait for the player. Likely one that may produce a result he doesn't like. Just to spite him, naturally.

Then it seems like the "player chooses 3" step is kind of illusory. The GM goes into the situation knowing which trait he wants to target. If the player offers up that choice, the GM goes for it. If the player doesn't, the GM says "wrong!" and goes for it anyway.

It also seems like the binary nature of the resolution mechanism might make it very difficult to achieve consistent characterization. Do you think it would be difficult to play a character who is paranoid 70% of the time and trusting 30%?

MacLeod wrote:
It really depends on how you interpret those traits. Or, rather... how creatively you can maneuver within them.
For instance... Lust could be used... though it would be pretty disturbing. Envy could also be used, what if the character is a psychopath who loves beating children? "No one beats a child unless its ME!" Despair also works. The event is so emotionally disturbing that the character reacts by not reacting, despair grips his heart and freezes his judgment.

Instead of doing my best to wriggle out from under your astute scrutiny, I'll actually answer you. You'll note that I said in the OP, "Situations may come up where the GM deems one Trait, or specific Traits, to be the only applicable choices." This is could be one of those situations... Where the player thinks he is a super sneaky clever guy by choosing Traits that may not make sense for a given situation. The GM would then recognize this as one of those situations, and choose a Trait for the player. Likely one that may produce a result he doesn't like. Just to spite him, naturally.

Is there anything to stop players from "powergaming" this mechanic and choosing only slightly negative traits (-1 traits) and strongly positive traits (+2 and +3) in all situations? In other words, let's say I am a player assigning my stats and I put my -3 in, say, wrath/envy. Let's also assume I want to avoid being a wrathful person. Couldn't I just choose to not select wrath/envy unless the GM forces me to, and instead focus on my strongly positive traits?

Also, how does the GM choose which Trait to ultimately test? Is it arbitrary?

Overall I like the system and I like how players accumulate Stress. A system like this could be adapted for, say, horror games or stuff like that.

Geethree, my response to Dan seems to handle a few of your issues. =)
Its completely possible for a player to try and powergame his way through Judgment Tests... but the fact of the matter is, he is likely to garner the wrath of the GM who will begin altering events to hurt his character. Hopefully, a lesson is learned at the end of such a punishment. That being, play your character or pick up a different game where power gaming is supported.

@Guy: My goal behind players suggesting Traits is to give them some control over their character's possible reactions. The reason I didn't have it so the players chooses the exact Trait is the very thing that Geethree mentioned... power gaming. People inherently want to win, or control their characters every move. So they will have the inclination to choose whatever they think will benefit them the most. One can easily utilize Vices to their own ends, by the way.
That said, the other way around could work beautifully with two individuals that trust one another quite a bit.

It is my hope that players choose a Trait for what they want their character to do, another representing what they think the character would do and finally another one that may be somewhere in between. You bring up a good point though, it is likely that I'll need to include something similar to what I just said in the game text.

@Dan: It could seem illusory if that is the kind of GM you are. There is no reason to target something in particular unless you are feeling spiteful. The GM always has the freedom to ignore the boundaries of the rules in any game... I simply make the option visible in this particular case.

I agree for sure. That is why a character can choose to ignore the result. This is to emulate those moments where your gut reaction is, "G's, I hate that guy and his kids. I hope the are set aflame!" but you suddenly realize, "That's a horrible thing to think about... he really isn't that bad, just sort of annoying right now." But there has to be a cost for ignoring your gut reaction, thus Stress Tokens.

Also, I want to note that a particular reaction is colored by the Vice/Virtue. Like a theme. So there is plenty of wiggle room left... which makes avoiding Stress Tokens easier.
(obviously you can still gain them from Mental Scars, and, not noted here but you can gain Stress Tokens from taking very large sums of physical trauma)

I agree with previous posters that the double choice as presented may cause some issues, with both forceful GMs and powergaming players. Maybe it can be solved, at least partially, by a change that makes both choices matter? You could, for example, put the roll between the choices. First the player select three traits, then he rolls for all of them and after this the GM chooses between the highest positive (6+) and lowest negative (5-) results. This means that sometimes the GM has no choice: if all rolls gave 6+ or all gave 5-, the highest or lowest, respectively, goes. It may also be done another way around, with the GM choosing three traits and the player selecting highest or lowest roll.

Another thing worth, IMO, taking into consideration is that not only (and not in all cases) behaving contrary to a vice affects stress. It should be possible to force oneself to act against a virtue, accumulating stress. It should also be possible to reduce stress by acting according to a high virtue (self-realization, motivation, finding your worth) or a high vice (relaxing by drinking, by beating someone). It may motivate players to choose both high virtues and high vices for their rolls, especially when their stress level is high.

My last suggestion is to tie changes in traits' values to the tests and stressful choices. If someone often gives in to a vice, the corresponding value may drop. If he behaves virtuously, accepting stress, it's a good reason for the trait to rise. This way the choices done affect the personality, as it really happens. Good behavior is hard for people of strong vices, but with time and effort they have a chance to reform.

Steenan wrote:
I agree with previous posters that the double choice as presented may cause some issues, with both forceful GMs and powergaming players. Maybe it can be solved, at least partially, by a change that makes both choices matter? You could, for example, put the roll between the choices. First the player select three traits, then he rolls for all of them and after this the GM chooses between the highest positive (6+) and lowest negative (5-) results. This means that sometimes the GM has no choice: if all rolls gave 6+ or all gave 5-, the highest or lowest, respectively, goes. It may also be done another way around, with the GM choosing three traits and the player selecting highest or lowest roll.

Another thing worth, IMO, taking into consideration is that not only (and not in all cases) behaving contrary to a vice affects stress. It should be possible to force oneself to act against a virtue, accumulating stress. It should also be possible to reduce stress by acting according to a high virtue (self-realization, motivation, finding your worth) or a high vice (relaxing by drinking, by beating someone). It may motivate players to choose both high virtues and high vices for their rolls, especially when their stress level is high.

My last suggestion is to tie changes in traits' values to the tests and stressful choices. If someone often gives in to a vice, the corresponding value may drop. If he behaves virtuously, accepting stress, it's a good reason for the trait to rise. This way the choices done affect the personality, as it really happens. Good behavior is hard for people of strong vices, but with time and effort they have a chance to reform.

If I'm not mistaken, don't the +/- scores just act as biases to the random choice between options, with no effect on success of any attempts using the skills?

If that is true, then all the picking of pairs is doing is choosing what question you want to ask about your character: Would he prefer to be violent, or try to defuse the situation?

In that case I have a few questions:

What if someone just puts minuses in all the traits? You know, if they actually want to play a complete bastard? Because it feels sometimes (mainly with the mental scars) that you expect players to want to play their guy all in the positive direction, can you cope with someone who doesn't? If you expect the GM to lamp them for it, why?

Secondly if any trait can be applied to any situation, why do the GM and player do that choice dance? Is it just because you don't want to roll all the stats simultaneously?
Because when reading this I imagined something very different: One of those games workshop scatter dice or a spinner, and a ring around it marking out the different impulses their character has when meeting a situation, with different sizes depending on their importance, and opposites adjacent so they can adjust in size by moving into each-other's space. So this would show your characters first reaction, and they can either suppress it because it's not appropriate or go with it, using the stress mechanic. Another cool thing about that kind of mechanic is that each "trait pole" would then be opposed by two opposites instead of one, the impulses on either side of it.

If you don't want that, which could be interesting enough in itself, presumably you want the choice to always be interesting. Like the opposite of those events in infamous: It's not the game asking you "hero or villain" in a slightly staged way, but you asking the character the very same kind of question. In that case, as with most dice rolls you need to care about both options. What if the GM chooses the three and the player picks one? Then the GM can insure that they are appropriate enough according to his aesthetic standards, and the player gets the final choice, so knows to pick one they can actually play out to their own satisfaction.

Now I would say I think the apathy <-> passion axis is a bit of a bad idea: We put so much bother in games design to insuring that rolls are interesting, and you have a roll to make a character boring. :P It's application to intention makes it a bit more interesting, with the problem of doing nothing when horrible things are going on, so I'd like to see that axis folded into the others, with wrath vs forgiveness. With forgiveness, chastity, cowardice and trust, you should have enough traits that can be passive to cover apathy when necessary. Then total apathy and disengagement could be the price of too much stress. As usual, take to many "negative points" and you lose your character for a bit.

JoyWriter wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, don't the +/- scores just act as biases to the random choice between options, with no effect on success of any attempts using the skills?

What if someone just puts minuses in all the traits? You know, if they actually want to play a complete bastard? Because it feels sometimes (mainly with the mental scars) that you expect players to want to play their guy all in the positive direction, can you cope with someone who doesn't? If you expect the GM to lamp them for it, why?

Secondly if any trait can be applied to any situation, why do the GM and player do that choice dance? Is it just because you don't want to roll all the stats simultaneously?

Because when reading this I imagined something very different: One of those games workshop scatter dice or a spinner, and a ring around it marking out the different impulses their character has when meeting a situation, with different sizes depending on their importance, and opposites adjacent so they can adjust in size by moving into each-other's space. So this would show your characters first reaction, and they can either suppress it because it's not appropriate or go with it, using the stress mechanic. Another cool thing about that kind of mechanic is that each "trait pole" would then be opposed by two opposites instead of one, the impulses on either side of it.

If you don't want that, which could be interesting enough in itself, presumably you want the choice to always be interesting. Like the opposite of those events in infamous: It's not the game asking you "hero or villain" in a slightly staged way, but you asking the character the very same kind of question. In that case, as with most dice rolls you need to care about both options. What if the GM chooses the three and the player picks one? Then the GM can insure that they are appropriate enough according to his aesthetic standards, and the player gets the final choice, so knows to pick one they can actually play out to their own satisfaction.

Now I would say I think the apathy <-> passion axis is a bit of a bad idea: We put so much bother in games design to insuring that rolls are interesting, and you have a roll to make a character boring. :P It's application to intention makes it a bit more interesting, with the problem of doing nothing when horrible things are going on, so I'd like to see that axis folded into the others, with wrath vs forgiveness. With forgiveness, chastity, cowardice and trust, you should have enough traits that can be passive to cover apathy when necessary. Then total apathy and disengagement could be the price of too much stress. As usual, take to many "negative points" and you lose your character for a bit.

IMO the other problem with apathy/passion is that it's very broad and thus could probably be applied to nearly any situation. I don't think it's a bad idea conceptually (obviously apathy and passion are real emotions people feel that drive their actions), but for your game it might be better to cut it out in favor of having more specific Traits that better apply during judgment tests.

Entropic/Lawful seems like another problematic trait, so I might consider cutting apathy and entropy in favor of having a more solid list of traits. Maybe roll entropic/lawful and deceitful/honest into one trait?

Truth be told.
I wonder if a catchall Trait is an altogether bad thing though? The sort of Trait you could turn to when nothing else seems to make sense?

MacLeod wrote:
Mental Scars are suppose to represent psychological trauma manifesting itself negatively... which is why I noted that they should be applied to the highest Positive Trait by default... to simulate a massive deviance from that person's normal personality due to the trauma. I'm not sure if this is 'realistic' or not... I just want a way to generate Trait shifts, Stress Tokens and rare personality deviance. =)

Someone mentioned this previously. I've included it as an alternate option, but I have also attached a warning to it... Trust should be pretty good between the GM and his players for this option to be useful or else it falls into the powergaming trap... Well, unless the GM just goes and chooses three Negative Traits and gets all dickish about it.
Then again, these sorts of conflicts may be inevitable with this system given some players' attitudes...

JoyWriter wrote:
Ah got you, well then you might want the equivalent in the opposite direction too, because otherwise everyone will sink slowly into the vices, with the player who doesn't care about his character being awful paying much less stress than everyone else.

Another way to do it is to use shuffled cards, where you can duplicate more of a certain card to weight the probabilities. I'm sure there are many other ways.

Hang on, what is powergaming here? Even if they could manipulate the system somehow, and I don't see how they could, all they would be achieving was the ability to decide how their character reacts to stuff. Like you said, this system does not change effectiveness! Even if someone cheats this subsystem you're just back with how people have been playing for years, seeing stuff the GM produces and deciding what their character feels about that. What are you worried about them doing?

So I've been fiddlemajiggin' with the Trait system on and off today, thought I'd post a little something before I left for some C&C action.

After thinking further on Geethree's previous suggestion... I've decided to remove Apathy/Passion and Deceitful/Honest. I'm going to go ahead and allow Entropic/Lawful to handle honesty, loyalty, chaotic behavior and other such things. =)

While I'm here... Does anyone have any suggestions for a good term to cover the opposite of the Mental Scar mechanic? I keep drawing blanks on a good name for such a thing.
Any help would be appreciated.

MacLeod wrote:
While I'm here... Does anyone have any suggestions for a good term to cover the opposite of the Mental Scar mechanic? I keep drawing blanks on a good name for such a thing.

I'm considering your idea, Jaydubbya.
I'm definitely going to use Inspiration though. =D

Well, I don't know much about the uses of systems like this, but I like it, a lot. It's even given me the urge to consider something like it for dealing with stress buildup in some of my own games. MacLeod, you are really on to something interesting here. Good luck with it.

That said, I think your terminology is fine as-is. Afterall, if the game it's used in is your game, then it is ultimately your choice what terminology to use. I like the "sins" aspect of this very much. I also think it would tie well into psychological disorders, too. You could have a horror or psychological game, where various sights and interactions pull at characters, drawing them further from sanity at every turn.

Thanks, SeeThirty. =)

This project sprung directly up from my thoughts about how I could use life's stress to erodes concentration. Simple quest with a surprise ending.

Its funny that you should mention psychological and horror... I just got done watching the extreeemely excellent 'The Signal', and I began to think about a psychological horror campaign of survival in a world gone mad. Well, that and 'The Thing', of course... but that movie always pops as a digging desire to be turned into a RPG, being the greatest horror movie of all time. ^_^

Anyways...

I'm thinking of some day using the Traits system in the aforementioned psychological horror in a world gone made that takes place in the here and now. Normal, everyday people have simply lost it and are giving into the extremes of their personalities. Each reaction (as per the Traits system outlined here) is a bizarre, over exaggerated caricature of itself. All characters, including the PCs, have a high level of suggestibility. Something even as small as body language can set off a violent reaction if someone feels threatened.

I think with some tweaking this little system could do that sort of thing pretty well. =) Obviously the horrors of the PCs' actions are going to be frequent, what with them accidentally murdering someone that was just helping them simply because they scratched their back. But hey, it looked like they were going for a gun! So, Mental Scars will have to change a bit as will Stress Tokens... This is definitely giving me something neat to think about.

I like your system and how it incorporates the Deadly Sins.

How will the players maintain control over what they do? Do they get an acceptable range of behavior after their roll to see if they go good or bad? Or is it just up to the GM?

I'm envisioning that at some point somebody will open up a battle over what would truly be ethical in one place and what would be villainous in another. I love it when games actually use black-and-white morals, but what if the players and the GM start to have a fight over what their characters would really do, how they would be roleplayed, and whether or not they even want to approach the situation?

Players maintain control over their characters in a few ways...

1) Trait distribution during character creation. You have an opportunity here to affect the probabilities of your reactions later.

2) Deciding what three Traits to use for a Judgment Test.

3) The actual reaction is still described by the player. He must, must, color his reaction with the rolled Vice/Virtue. The Vice/Virtue is like a theme for the reaction... is plays to it but the player ultimately decides what it means to his character. Being cowardly may mean avoiding, running away from something or, it could be falling to your knees and begging for mercy. It could even manifest as inaction, fear grips your heart and you cannot move from where you stand.

I agree with your last point for sure. The hope is, is that everyone will try to be all grown up about it and try to come to a happy medium for everyone. That said, the GM has a tough job so his word is always final on any matter as far as I'm concerned.
I don't argue with GMs, I make suggestions and I comment but I don't press any further... aggressive people just want to argue, they think its because of the rules but it is more or less their propensity towards drama and competition that drives their desire to argue. Not all games can facilitate all play styles and personalities, unfortunately.

That said, for the game I'm building... it is possible to yank it right out... but it would lose some of its unique charm that way.

It's definitely something you should leave in, but maybe you should have a system for conflicts of interest between the players and GM. One of the features of roleplaying is quantifying things that normally would never be quantified. So maybe you could have a Stat like "Will" or "Dominance" or "Self Control" or something that means that the player gets his way more often. (They would resolve the dispute with dice rolls.)

Oh, hey... you bring up a good point that I should have mentioned in the last post.

The entire game system revolves around a roll and keep mechanic. The keep portion is specific to the test involved. The Judgment Test is a [1], regardless of the dice you throw you will always keep just one.
With that in mind, there exists a skill called Judgment. Thus, for every Rank the PC has in it he may throw more than one die. This means that he can actually cherry pick his result by choosing which die to keep. So, if he wants to react with a Vice/Virtue he can. However, skill ranks are precious so not every PC will have a Rank 2 or better Judgment (Skills go up to Rank 5).

Aha... that works, but I was referring to more specific behavior after you already rolled and had to choose.

Yeah, as I mentioned before... As long as the player keeps his reaction thematically correct, he is free to do as he pleases. What constitutes as thematically correct is completely up to the GM and his interpretation of the Traits as I have described them in the game text.

I'm not sure what I think of the judgement skill thing: It's against my reflexes to put in a skill that allows you to mitigate a section of the system; it feels like too much of an encouragement to say "Yes it is a ball and chain on your leg, but if you set up your stats right you can ignore it!", you know? I prefer giving people a subsystem if they take a skill, with bonuses for the extra complexity, so everything people are actually doing they want to do.

Additionally, the whole thing with judgement is normally that you get better answers in terms of outside events. That skill would be more like self control, cos it's not like a question where answers can be right or wrong, just more or less like your idea of the characters internal integrity.

That's just a renaming thing though. My preference is for players with more self control to have more stress points available, and just have the same fun system for everyone. So perhaps people pick three of the cards, and you play that street game of swapping cards around, then they flip one and roll for how it goes. Then everyone, GM and players rely on you to make the cards interesting to interpret, and then on their own skill in making it fit:

If people are choosing to play your game, then they probably are choosing to use the system too, so I would expect that they will be prepared for doing that kind of thing. If you get them to set out at the start of play how they see those cards, then hopefully they will have enough agreement between them that you won't need anyone stepping in unilaterally unless it is the player paying stress. Don't be to draconian on their implementation if you don't have a really good reason for why they are the way they are, instead I'd encourage people to use your system by all the examples of awesome stuff it has done in playtest!

Also, you could use pictures to exemplify the virtue/vice pairs, one the right way up and one upside down. Then if you have enough cards players could put the one they got in front of them, the appropriate way up, to remind them of their characters intention. You could even have other characters try to change their mind, and go through the process above again when something unexpected is revealed or the situation/scene is resolved.

As of right now... whenever I do get a chance to playtest this system, I intend to alternate between the two methods we have discussed: the original method and then the card drawing method.

As for the Judgment Skill, its named that way because of the Test associated with it. Though, Self Control does fit better in many ways, it doesn't sound better. I'm not sure how much that actually counts for, in the end.

To be honest, most people probably won't end up with a very high Judgment Skill... Look at it this way, rookie characters begin the game with 12 Skill points. There are four primary Skills for that most characters will end up needing, they aren't required because deviations from the norm are allowed. Skills can be bought up to Rank 3 initially, Simple Skills cost 1 Sp per Rank while Complex Skills cost 2 Sp per Rank. Judgment is a Complex Skill. So you can see where only specific, specialized characters will end up with a decent Judgment Skill. Veteran characters are more likely to have a decent Judgment but by then they will have been the slave of their die results for a very long time.

That said, if my predictions concerning the Judgment Skill prove false during playtesting then it is definitely going to change.

I really like your suggestions regarding the cards. In a perfect world where I have a budget and an actual audience to sell this game to, I would have background art on each card depicting the extremes of each Vice/Virtue in addition to the things you mentioned. =)

I would actually like to keep the Judgment system, as it should be possible to escape your limitations. If other skills worked like this and you could take "ranks" or extra dice in them, up to a certain cap, I think it would be more self consistent and helpful within the larger game.

Mhmm... I do like the idea of characters gaining more and more control over themselves as they grow older. =)

The entire game is based around Skills and a roll 'n' keep system similar to Legend of the Five Rings. Differents tests have a different keep value and a different modifier. Skills cap at 5. Dice Keep caps at 3. With special points you can boost dice rolled and dice kept, separately.

Although there is some disconnect in "I'm going to focus on getting better with a sword than with my drinking problem," it does represent how you can spend your time wisely - but that itself presents problems, because Sloth is one of the things to get over...

The new list of Traits doesn't include Sloth/Apathy so that isn't a problem anymore. =)