Hello all. Name's Nathan. I've read all the articles in the articles section and a good number of the recent posts and figured I'd have at it and post my own post.

Does it work to tie a meta-game resource with a reward system? Specifically I'm thinking of giving Fudge points instead of experience points and adjust improvement costs appropriately.

These points can be spent on more than just increases in statistics. They can also be used during the game to reroll dice, automatically suceed at actions, etc. I'm also thinking of giving the ability to buy "influence" on the plot with them. For example, I'm running a game where there's a particular nemesis for the party. The plot has him being a long term background nemesis (the kind that last though seasons in television shows). If the players so choose, they could spend enough points to effect his removal, distraction away from them, incarceration, etc. or atleast begin to move the plot in that direction.

I'm looking for a way to have rewards usable as a metagame resource for narrativist decision making. Extra player empowerment when it comes to the plot and direction of the story. This way, Fudge points will become a universal reward. They can be used for character improvement, modifying in game results and even modifying story/plot related directions.

Any thoughts on this idea?

Nathaniel

Nathaniel wrote: Does it work to tie a meta-game resource with a reward system? Specifically I'm thinking of giving Fudge points instead of experience points and adjust improvement costs appropriately.

Hey Nathan,

Rewarding players with metagame currency is pretty standard stuff. Deadlands, for example, provides no other form of reward, though fate chips (the metagame currency) can be, and are expected to be, converted into experience. There is a decent section in the gamemaster's book concerning balancing rewards with challenge so that the currency is being spent, but not so much that the characters are never advanced.

In a sense, The Riddle of Steel works the way you describe. However, I would recommend taking a look at Jasper's The West Wind. He lays out pretty clear rules regarding the use of metagame resource to shape the setting and story. Hong Kong Action Theatre is also worth a look for it's Star Points, which allow for a process called "script revision", if I remember correctly.

Later,
Grant

Hey, Nathan, if I'm reading you right, you seem to be looking for a "does everything" reward system. I'm not sure whether that works. There were a couple of threads in which this was discussed (and shoot me, I had saved the links so I could use some of what I wrote there in an upcoming Game Ideas Unlimited article over at Gaming Outpost, and having just written the articles (for posting probably next month) deleted the links from my computer--but the search function works pretty well here).

Take a look at what I wrote on GNS and Player Rewards for some consideration of the problems that tend to afflict reward systems that don't know what they're doing. You might also find something of use in my comments on GNS Crisis of Faith, where reward system is used as an example of how to effectively encourage desired types of play, and how to create confusion through incoherent rewards.

I hope this is useful.

--M. J. Young

iago wrote:
In fact, I don't even go for the transformation of Fudge points into experience points. Fudge is such a roughly-grained system, a huge amount of "sheet" advancement doesn't seem apropos, so I'm much more comfortable giving people a greater pool of semi-renewable, consumable resources (Fudge Points) than I am with constant accretion of sheet potency (Experience Points).

M. J. Young wrote: Hey, Nathan, if I'm reading you right, you seem to be looking for a "does everything" reward system. I'm not sure whether that works.

I know every newbie to a discussion board wants to bring up something "new" or revolutionary, but I still wonder about what I just came up with. I haven't seen the idea of a reward system that increases sheet potency based on demonstrated proficiency within the game (even if through metagame resources like fudge points) rather than demonstrating proficiency because of sheet potency. Has anyone done this? Spending metagame resources to consistently succeed with a given skill and thus have that skill increase to reflect the increase as demonstrated by the success? It's almost a reversal of most rewards systems where you increase in sucess because you increased the "sheet potency."

RuneQuest/ElfQuest/CoCthulu have a similar mechanic in that if you succeed in a skill, you get to check it off and see if it increases, but still that's not quite the same. It's already at the higher level and the discription on the sheet is just catching up with how the character is in the actual game.

Any thoughts on this method of reward?

Nathan

Hi Nathan,

I think you'd be interested by a complete read of Champions from its earliest incarnation all the way up through the current Fifth Edition, which includes the invention of "the Hero system" about half-way through the story.

In a word, Champions is a point-based system, one of the earliest ones, in which one simply amasses points pretty steadily each session and spends them to buy new stuff one's character can do. It mirrors four-color comic-book character development exceptionally well.

Now for the interesting parts ...

1. The point-costs of the powers on the sheet, once spent, are not gone. One can, for instance, build a Multipower permitting several applications of one's Cosmic Ring, and then later, having amassed the necessary points, convert the entire existing Multipower to a Variable Power Pool, which is much more expensive. The Multipower is now gone, replaced by the VPP, which is paid for both by the "old" points and the new ones which up until now were merely banked.

2. Very often, a lucky roll or what was called Pushing one's power will inspire a player or GM to spend points on an ability or skill or whatever, formalizing an action during play into a real ability. Although in Session A, the character actually managed to leap particularly high for one reason or another, and the points weren't spent for Superleap until Session B, we consider the character to have demonstrated Superleap in Session A, retrospectively.

3. A house-rule that appeared in many independent groups across the country included "burning" existing but unspent experience points for concrete bonuses to dice rolls or even for "do-over" full metagame rewrites of events that were just played.

Today, I think that Hero Wars' point system is perhaps the closest to the system that you're considering. I strongly recommend reading this game as well.

Best,
Ron

Welcome to the Forge, Nathan.

I have been using a very similar system for the Cyberpunk game I'm running now, and it's been fantastic. For want of a better name, they're called Cool Points, mainly because I give them out when players do cool stuff -- cool lines, cool descriptions, an unexpected decision or action that turns the plot in a cool way; basically jamming, to build on Ron's gaming-group-as-band analogy, any kind of nifty show of creativity. The specific criteria I explained to the group was: any time you do something that makes one or more of the group go, "ohthatssocool!"

These points work in two ways: They can be used to increase the chances of success on a single roll (Cyberpunk vets will recognize this as the role normally filled by Luck), but they can also be used as experience points, to raise an attribute or skill via a White Wolf type experience table.

In practice, the flexibility has worked quite well. Some of my players like the "reward now" aspect, and others like the "reward later".

-- Ben

Hi Nathan,

To answer your specific question, I'm not aware of any system that formally uses the exact mechanism you describe. Hero Wars comes close, because the cost of using Hero Points to increase an ability depends on whether or not the advancement is justifiable as occurring as a result of events of the previous session. But it doesn't go so far as to make a direct exclusive link between the ability increase and the use of Hero Points to bump that ability during prior play.

A few months ago I suggested a mechanism fitting your description for a game Pale Fire is working on. An ability score could increase permanently only as a result of using a metagame resource to reverse a failure. The idea was to represent skill advancement as it's depicted in certain genres (some fantasy, most anime) in which skill improves as a series of spontaneous breakthroughs occurring at critical stressful moments, rather than through practice or training. (In fact, in these subgenres when a protagonist's training is depicted, it's often represented as having failed, until the crisis and resulting breakthrough occur.) I'll see if I can find the thread.

I think it would be a cool mechanism, but some issues need to be resolved, including "stakes thresholds" (is it necessary to prevent frivolous attempts to do very difficult but pointless feats just to have the chance to invoke the advancement mechanism?) and the possible drawbacks of not being able to advance a skill that's not used in a session -- e.g. how do you learn the language of a place you plan to visit several months hence?

- Walt

Yeah, there have been many games that have looked at this idea in different measure. Some of them like to reward failure instead of success. Some like to limit attempts. Lots of variables.

But, as Walt points out, Hero Wars is so close to your idea that yours is bound to work. Hero Wars certainly does, and yours is so close that I can't see any difficulties with it.

That said, a lot will depend on what sort of game you put it into. Any details?

Also see Experience Dice from 7th Sea.

Mike

wfreitag wrote: Hi Nathan,
I think it would be a cool mechanism, but some issues need to be resolved, including "stakes thresholds" (is it necessary to prevent frivolous attempts to do very difficult but pointless feats just to have the chance to invoke the advancement mechanism?)

and the possible drawbacks of not being able to advance a skill that's not used in a session -- e.g. how do you learn the language of a place you plan to visit several months hence?

Mike Holmes wrote:
That said, a lot will depend on what sort of game you put it into. Any details?

This is actually pretty much the reward system which I favor strongly.

I think part of the appeal is that it can be appreciated by players with various preferences. A player wants to exert story control? Not a problem. A player wants to have an impressive character sheet? It can be done. A player wants to be able to control when his character succeeds and fails? Sure.

Since these all come from the same pool, you don't run into serious balance issues, either...

Stuart

OK, that gives us the setting. What are the characters like? What is the action centered on? In terms of your actual play, and also in terms of how you intend to write up the game. That is, your PCs are examples; are they highly representative? Or do you intend greater breadth than what they represent?

What I'm getting at is to ask "why is it important that the characters develop skills at all?"

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: OK, that gives us the setting. What are the characters like?

What is the action centered on?

In terms of your actual play, and also in terms of how you intend to write up the game. That is, your PCs are examples; are they highly representative? Or do you intend greater breadth than what they represent?

What I'm getting at is to ask "why is it important that the characters develop skills at all?"