So last night's Indie Net-gaming session got off to a late start (We made some Torchbearer characters, but Shreyas didn't get there til later). While we were waiting for more arrivals, Bob, JB, and I got started on some serious theory discussion. Right now JB is working on a FUDGE variant - Vanilla FUDGE - that involves using character Attributes to regulate meta-game rewards. It's his baby, so he's gonna post more about it later. Because of some similarities, we got started deconstructing this old game of mine, which had some interesting ideas, but didn't quite work.

The two big points I raised were:

1. - Meta-game Player Effectiveness (director stance) Economies

I'm always seeing people handing out Player Effectiveness as a reward for Good Role-Playing (TM). This bugs me like crazy. Who decided that player effectiveness should be some kind of cookie that you give to the players when they're good little boys and girls? Bob characterized it as the "Guess What The GM Wants" style of playing. JB's comment was: "In nearly every game I've played (mostly GURPS and FUDGE) that has a supposed metagame currency related to 'role-playing performance,' it goes unused."

I contend that the mere act of playing the game is sufficient to warrant player effectiveness. This position relies on a foundational idea:

Meta-game player effectiveness is equivalent to director stance.

Director stance is the only way for a player to alter the imagined reality that doesn't involve working through his character. So we have two paradigms:

A - Player effectiveness as character effectiveness - The player can only affect the game world through the actions of his character.

B - Meta-game player effectiveness - The player can affect the game world independently of his character by using director stance.

My conclusion is that, to the extent that the second form of effectiveness exists in a system, the economy that controls it should be self-regulating. I see this in good examples like Universalis, Shadows, The Pool, and Donjon. In those games, player effectiveness is an economy that is regulated exclusively by player decisions.

The second big point arises from the previous one.

2. - In a game with player effectiveness via a meta-game economy as discussed above, is there any real point in also including player effectiveness via character effectiveness?

I think this is the point Zak was trying to make with Shadows. If player influence over the game is external, we don't even need to represent the characters in system terms at all. It would be putting into the game a more limited form of what we already have.

But then there's Mike, who has a deep seated need to be able to represent the game world with the mechanics. And I kind of share that perspective with him.

JB made an interesting point here. Player effectiveness is the ability to impact story. Director power is direct. But, assuming the absense of director power, if your character encounters appropriate contexts you are effective. The example JB used was of a D&D fighter: "If I'm in a fight, I'm effective. Even, mind you, if the character doesn't do so well! The story is, at that time, about My Guy." His conclusion: "Contextualizing PC effectiveness is equivalent to Director power."

If the GM, set up adventures so that the PC's effectiveness is emphasied, the player is protagonized; he has effectiveness. It's still player effectiveness via character effectiveness, since the GM is the one who sets up the protagonizing situations. But it gave me the answer to the original question:

What if the meta-game player effectiveness was simply a means to contextualize your character (I.E., your director power is limited to setting up situations in which your character will be effective)? Then character effectiveness would be important. The meta-game currency would just be a doorway to protagonization. I coined the term "niche projection" to represent this idea.

So with these two big ideas firmly in mind, we started talking about how one could apply these principles to a game. I made this observation, which seemed important: "Something that hit me earlier while reading these different games is that a player can have narration rights without having director power. The GM can define the facts for the player to narrate." This split can be very useful in regulating the flow of meta-game currency.

So we did some crunching on my old Mammon / Animus system to see how the ideas could be applied. Here's what we came up with:

(Throughout this description, I use generic RPG terms like Attribute and Trait. In an actual game, something more colorful could be devised, I'm sure. :)

Characters are represented in game terms by Attributes. An attribute is basically a category of traits. Traits are binary descriptors that are either present or not present. The number of Traits that a character has in a givne Attribute determines the attribute's rating. (I've been told this is just like Story Engine.

So you might have something that looks like this:

Physical 3
Strong
Fast
Eagle-eyed

In a conflict, the idea is to roll <= an attribute on 1d10. This target number can be increased by spending Karma points to activate traits. (Like, say I was shooting a bow, which uses my Physical attribute. I'd try to roll a three or less. But I could spend a Karma point to activate my Egale-eyed trait, raising the target number to 4.) Karma points can be used to activate any traits that are relevant, even ones from other attributes.

The die roll determines the outcome of the conflict (a success = favorability, a failure = disfavorability). The margin is the distance between the actual roll and the target number. In either case, the player has a choice:

If the player fails, he can either lose a number of Karma points equal to the margin, or he can narrate the scene, adding a number of concessions equal to the margin. (Concessions are facts that are not good for the character. :)

If the player succeeds, he can either gain a number of Karma points equal to the margin, or he can narrate the success adding a number of facts equal to the margin. (Whatever cool stuff he wants, in this case.)

When the player doesn't narrate (he takes or loses Karma), the GM does. The GM narrates straight results... no special cool stuff, but no special bad stuff either.

Shreyas added the idea of splitting your result between Karma and Facts, which seems to really balance out the system symmetricaly. In either case (success or failure) the player may decide to split the margin between Karma and Facts. On a failure, he can lose Karma to reduce the number of concessions he has to make. On a success, he can reduce the number of Karma he gets by adding coon facts. In both these cases the GM narrates.

So, what do you think? :)

Paganini,

Are we talking universally or is it a matter of preference? I think your article is encumbered by not recognizing a design focus issue.

Paganini wrote: Meta-game Player Effectiveness (director stance) Economies

I'm always seeing people handing out Player Effectiveness as a reward for Good Role-Playing (TM). This bugs me like crazy. Who decided that player effectiveness should be some kind of cookie that you give to the players when they're good little boys and girls?

Paganini wrote: I contend that the mere act of playing the game is sufficient to warrant player effectiveness. This position relies on a foundational idea:

Meta-game player effectiveness is equivalent to director stance.

Paganini wrote: Director stance is the only way for a player to alter the imagined reality that doesn't involve working through his character. So we have two paradigms:

A - Player effectiveness as character effectiveness - The player can only affect the game world through the actions of his character.

B - Meta-game player effectiveness - The player can affect the game world independently of his character by using director stance.

My conclusion is that, to the extent that the second form of effectiveness exists in a system, the economy that controls it should be self-regulating. I see this in good examples like Universalis, Shadows, The Pool, and Donjon. In those games, player effectiveness is an economy that is regulated exclusively by player decisions.

Paganini wrote: In a game with player effectiveness via a meta-game economy as discussed above, is there any real point in also including player effectiveness via character effectiveness?

Paganini wrote: Player effectiveness is the ability to impact story. Director power is direct. But, assuming the absence of director power, if your character encounters appropriate contexts you are effective....

...[JB's] conclusion: "Contextualizing PC effectiveness is equivalent to Director power."

If the GM sets up adventures so that the PC's effectiveness is emphasized, the player is protagonized; he has effectiveness. It's still player effectiveness via character effectiveness, since the GM is the one who sets up the protagonizing situations. But it gave me the answer to the original question:

What if the meta-game player effectiveness was simply a means to contextualize your character (I.E., your director power is limited to setting up situations in which your character will be effective)? Then character effectiveness would be important. The meta-game currency would just be a doorway to protagonization. I coined the term "niche projection" to represent this idea.

Paganini wrote: So with these two big ideas firmly in mind, we started talking about how one could apply these principles to a game. I made this observation, which seemed important: "Something that hit me earlier while reading these different games is that a player can have narration rights without having director power. The GM can define the facts for the player to narrate." This split can be very useful in regulating the flow of meta-game currency.

Le Joueur wrote:
Are we talking universally or is it a matter of preference? I think your article is encumbered by not recognizing a design focus issue.

Are you saying that bad role-playing should be rewarded simply because of participation?

Fang wrote:
Is there any reason that a "Type A effectiveness" game need much in the way of "Type B effectiveness?" What about vice versa?

One question, don't you mean "...is emphazied, the character is protagonized." After all, players cannot be the protagonists in a game can they?

Fang wrote:

Paganini wrote: So with these two big ideas firmly in mind, we started talking about how one could apply these principles to a game. I made this observation, which seemed important: "Something that hit me earlier while reading these different games is that a player can have narration rights without having director power. The GM can define the facts for the player to narrate." This split can be very useful in regulating the flow of meta-game currency.

This only counts if you consider "narration rights" as the only "meta-game currency" available for players.

Paganini wrote:

Le Joueur wrote: Is there any reason that a "Type A effectiveness" game need much in the way of "Type B effectiveness?" What about vice versa?

You're just restating my question:

2. - In a game with player effectiveness via a meta-game economy as discussed above, is there any real point in also including player effectiveness via character effectiveness?"

I'm getting the feeling that you didn't read my whole post before responding. But that's okay, I don't mind clarifying these points.

Paganini wrote: If the type B effectiveness is limited in use to contextualizing characters, then it's worthwhile to have both type B and type A in the same game.

Here's how it works: players have limited type B effectiveness that they can only use to create situations that contextualize their characters (like the ability to frame mini scenes in Story Engine). The rest of the time players have to rely on their characters to impact the shared reality.

Paganini wrote: Type A limits player effectiveness to character effectiveness; a player may only impact the imagined reality via the actions of his character. A player is exactly as effective as his character is.

Type B does not limit player effectiveness in this way; players may directly impact the imagined reality.

2. - In a game with player effectiveness via a meta-game economy as discussed above, is there any real point in also including player effectiveness via character effectiveness?

paganini wrote: The die roll determines the outcome of the conflict (a success = favorability, a failure = disfavorability). The margin is the distance between the actual roll and the target number. In either case, the player has a choice:

If the player fails, he can either lose a number of Karma points equal to the margin, or he can narrate the scene, adding a number of concessions equal to the margin. (Concessions are facts that are not good for the character. :)

If the player succeeds, he can either gain a number of Karma points equal to the margin, or he can narrate the success adding a number of facts equal to the margin. (Whatever cool stuff he wants, in this case.)

When the player doesn't narrate (he takes or loses Karma), the GM does. The GM narrates straight results... no special cool stuff, but no special bad stuff either.

This thread is full of great stuff, and my thinking for a long while now has been in this same area. So much to say, although I think I'm ducking your rewards question - sorry if that's the main point. . . . Let me build from here:

Paganini wrote: Here's how it works: players have limited type B effectiveness that they can only use to create situations that contextualize their characters (like the ability to frame mini scenes in Story Engine). The rest of the time players have to rely on their characters to impact the shared reality.

Fang:

No problems. On rereading #2 it does look kind of obtuse. :)

Anyway, I think you *do* follow, because using type B player effectiveness to contextualize characters is all I was talking about.

Em:

The question is not whether the two options are mutually exclusive (they aren't), but of whether or not it's useful to include both in one game.

You have to find a situation where having type B effectiveness doesn't make type A effectiveness superfluous. So, can they be made to coexist in a way that is useful? The answer is, yes, if you limit the use of type B effectiveness to contextualizing characters.

(Note: This doesn't have to be the ONLY way to do it. It's just the method that we came up with last night. I think the important thing to keep in mind when coming up with new mixes is that for type A effectiveness to be meaningful, type B effectiveness must be limited in some way. Gordon goes into this in his post. In the words of JB, "It's director stance, not god stance.")

This is an important idea, because it means that we can have a game that Mike will want to play - a game in which game-entities are defined in and act according to system terms; but also a game that contains lots of director stance.

BTW, look closely at the resolution mechanic I presented in the first post. I'm giving the players a choice between (future) character effectiveness and (instant) player effectiveness.

If your roll succeeds: Get Karma (future type A - character effectiveness) or define Cool Facts (immediate type B - Story Now!).

If your roll fails: Lose Karma or define Concessions.

Same choice, both ways. If you win, you choose between two different things that you'd like to "have." If you lose, you choose between two different things that you don't "want."

This is funny. Nathan and I agree he'll post his design, and I'll post theory, and he posted theory, and I think I'll be posting Vanilla FUDGE tomorrow.

BTW, you may also treat "a game Mike wants to play" and "a game JB wants to play" as equivalent. One of my other theoretical points regarding type A vs. type B effectiveness was that in a "type B" game such as Story Engine one runs a certain risk of having effectiveness of the character be kind of blah; the mechanics have no color of their own, because conflict resolution is one system only, so there's really only one kind of effectiveness.* Or if there's a variety, it's only so that the player can contextualize the abilities/traits/whatever as a kind of mini-game. This makes the player come up with color (or allows them to provide it, on the positive side).

I want type-B play with more crunch. Sorcerer accomplishes this with the demon's Powers--each Power is unique. Story Engine has magic (the traditional way of sneaking Director stance into an otherwise simmy game, IMO) fuelled by the burning of descriptors, but only some magic; in studying Hero System, I found that often, cost of a power was proportional with how "directorish" it was (not consistently by any means, but the pattern is there, I think). Nathan and I converged in design philosophy when we both grokked that for type B to have more flavor as part of system, you apply type A effectiveness in a way that actually makes some difference.

I worry that we may be in the suburbs of El Dorado here, but we'll see.

--JB

*Edit: an extreme example would be someone in Story Engine using their Cooking trait to influence a combat. Probably similar to the classic problem of playing a character whose intelligence (or negotiating skill, or fast-talk or whatever) is different from the player's by a wide margin. It seems a little unfair somehow to reward the player who's clever at contextualizing while other good players languish. And again we have the problem of putting judgment of this stuff in the GM's lap; in Universalis, this is more or less self-managing with the Challenge mechanic. But I digress.

J B Bell wrote: This is funny. Nathan and I agree he'll post his design, and I'll post theory, and he posted theory, and I think I'll be posting Vanilla FUDGE tomorrow.