It's not my fault, I am just doing what the dice say my character would do! [Archive] - Page 4

Floret

2017-01-02, 06:31 PM

Cherish is probably too strong a word for what you mean, but yeah, as a non-native speaker that is understandable.

Fair enough^^

Suggestions are absolutely fine. I said that a dozen pages ago, but someone (Segev?) then replied that suggestions aren't good enough as they will simply be ignored without the force of mechanics which punish you for not going along with the suggestion behind them.

I found the argument to more along the lines of rules punishing/rewarding going along to incentivise certain decisions, as suggestions with some weight behind them. Which was what I was advocating for here as well, mind you, I was merely listing other reasons WHY I like that. That weight can do wonders to knock me out of my comfort zone of "Shall I really?" and go for "Why the hell not, it does seem rather plausible".

Again, comparing a decision to success on an action is a bit of a red herring. IRL I don't need to "roll" to decide I want to go target shooting, I just do it. But there is no way in the world I can "decide" to hit a bull's-eye every shot. They aren't the same thing.

Sure there are cases where there is a gray area between the two (such as a guy deciding to quite tobacco, or to stay up all night, or to ignore a screaming child, or to face a phobia) and I don't really have a problem with requiring a Will / Fort save or the lack to persevere in the face of adversity, but comparing a player deciding what to do when they come to a moral quandary and making an attack roll is a false equivalency.

I think the comparison of RPG situations to real life might be a bit of a red herring, actually - because what parts of your daily life would and would not be determined by a roll, were you in an RPG, is entirely dependent on the rules of the RPG. This becomes self-evident as soon as you have systems that free-form things others put in rules - and vice versa. Would "my player" need to roll to cook? Or does the system just look at a skill and think "Meh, well enough"? Would they need to roll sometimes, but not others?

Someone once bemoaned the lack of Critical hits and Failures in Larp, but - they are there, what the Critical Failure simulated is still happening (Stumbling over a rock in a fight, for example. Accidentally backing yourself down stairs.), it's just not labelled "Critical Failure" anymore. Depending on the system you might well have to need to "roll" to decide you wanna go target shooting. I know people notoriously bad at making decisions - I can imagine some sort of character drawback that makes them need to roll. I am really bad at actually doing things, despite wanting to do them - a roll to see how long it takes me would seem rather appropriate. So no, given the rather gigantic area of overlap, I am not necessarily seeing the false equivalence here.

The idea of forcing people to be seduced actually offends me. If a DM (or another player) tried to pull that in a game I was in I would leave the group immediately and have one more talein my collection of horror stories from Bizarro gaming world to share with the forum.

I don't know, rolling social skills against the players doesn't seem fun for anyone, and if it was common practice I can't see DM's not using this tactic to get their game "back on the rails". The forum is full of stories about railroading DMs and rebellious players, but I have never seen one that boiled down to "The old man asked us to kill the dragon, and we said no, so the old man rolled a 78 on his diplomacy roll and so we didn't have a choice and we have been forced to go kill the DM's stupid dragon even though we just want to go sailing and play pirates. How do we make ourselves immune to diplomacy so we can finally get off this railroad?"

Well. While I would never go so far as to say "No, the dice fell that way, you have to play seduced now" if the player objected very strongly (They will have a reason for that) I would certainly make a not of that, and if not an isolated incident of blatantly ignoring the results of dicerolls, probably talk with them about why they feel like they can or want to ignore those, and if it is a matter of playstyles clashing, ask them to leave the group.
(Please also note that "being seduced" almost never happens in my TRPGs, and would not result in more than a fade to black and maybe a flavourstatement about the encounter afterwards ("It was strange/great/You'd really have expected more from him after those grandiose words").)
Also note that this "all or nothing" is not an ideal state from my view, and I'd much rather do the thing about "go along, or suffer penalty X", leaving it as a choice.

As for rolling social skills against players: It adds to the experience, in my experience. And, while it is common practise in my games, I have yet to use it to get the players "back on rails".
I think why you haven't seen such stories might have a very easy explanation: Because social skills aren't ACTUALLY forcing anyone to do anything. If the GM wants to force players down a path, they will. The situation where to use social skills might be to obfuscate that fact - but if the GM succeeds at the obfuscation, players won't notice, and if they don't succeed, players will still point to the GM as the problem as opposed to the (abused) social skill. If, for the players, a great roll on a social skill is reason enough to "accept the suggestion" and have their characters be swayed - that won't actually be forcing them.

One other thing, you mentioned that you don't like the rules being different between PCs and NPCs.

I ultimately agree with you.

The thing is, the DM has all the power when dealing with an NPC.

The DM sets the difficulty of the social roll. The player does not. So we have an innate asymmetry.

Now, generally when an NPC is the victim of a social roll the player determines what the NPC will do, but ultimately the DM still decides how it plays out.

This is an inherently asymmetrical system. And by turning social rolls into "mind control" or "mechanical damage" rather than "suggestions" you are making an even more asymmetrical system where the DM has even more power.

Also, PCs are more developed than NPCs. This is just a fact of the way the game is played. A guard at a door isn't really a character, he is an obstacle, and can be safely resolved with a single roll just like a trap or a lock or any other obstacle could. The guard doesn't have a backstory or a personality (or at least not a fully fleshed out one) and the DM doesn't have any real stake in what happens to him. He isn't the focus of the game. Regardless of whether or not the rules treat him the same as the PCs is irrelevant, he isn't the same as the PCs by virtue of having a very limited role and a corresponding lack of screen time, so it isn't the same situation.

My players pointed out the same thing when we played Werewolf. In that game you have health, gnosis, rage, and willpower as resources. The players had to budget their resources for an entire game, while an enemy werewolf only had to budget them for a single scene. Thus in that case using the same rules for PCs and NPCs is actually UNFAIR because of the difference in how they are used.

Ah, but that argument is still intrinsically tied to certain gamestyles. The GM doesn't necessarily sets the difficulty of the social roll. In all situations where I, as a GM, actually use these things on players (Okay, so it is all game systems I actually play, yeah...), it is done as a contested roll within the system in some way. Meaning, for example in the 5 Rings game, both characters roll, and you need to beat the result of the oponent - not a number determined by the GM.
Step one in making social mechanics actually more than "roll against target number".

The argument about development... might be right, but I don't see how it really makes much of a point?

I would agree with the Werewolf example being a bit unfair, too; and would, as a GM, limit the resources of the NPC in comparison to what a PC might have; maybe just not make the NPC go "all out" with the resources, if avoidable, or simulate the NPC "having spent" (on offscreen stuff) some of it already. There are ways to filter this to make it work.

Ok, I will concede that you do have the "right" not to budge. But if you do, you won't have a game (or at-least not one that anyone (probably not even the DM) will enjoy). Its like the Dude says, "You aren't wrong, your just an ***hole.

Let me be blunt. This thread is a discussion about mechanics that force people to RP a certain way (or punish them for RPing wrong).

I see tons of pitfalls for adding mechanics to force people to role-play. I can see thousands of ways in which they can go wrong, and (virtually) none where they will help. Best case scenario they are an annoyance that I tune out. Punishing people for bad role-play is a harmful and destructive thing. Taking away player agency is never fun for anyone save for a brief thrill from a control freak DM.

I am not going to agree with you, and I am not going to stop posting in a thread that I started because other people don't like my opinions. If you really can't handle disagreement (which is not total, I do agree with you on many points and you have given me a lot to think about) then you need either stop reading the thread (or just put me, and Max, and Quertus on ignore) or get so nasty that we put you on ignore or a mod decides to close the thread entirely.

Which is about what I wanted to say - yeah, you have the right, but people have the right to say "Not with me".

I think your frame here is important to note. You do view these rules as forcing people - I, and some others, do not. We see them as helping us play a certain way, suggestions, with some weight behind them, but since we WANT those rules, and accept the base premise of "I don't have full control", we don't view us as being forced. From an outside perspective one might argue that we still are, even if we don't think so - but seeing as how the bad thing about force is that it goes against the will of the forced, I would argue that this is debatable. It is, in a large part, an issue of consent.

Now, I would go with something else as an example, but I can't think of something quite so fitting to make my point. So: Take the subject of BDSM. Now, (generally, mostly, and in the only acceptable cases) all people involved agree and consent to the things done in those relationships.
Many of the things done to submissive people by their partners are, without that consent would be abuse. And if someone that is not into these things were to be subjected to them, they would, quite rightfully, feel abused. Some people looking at BDSM relationships DO think the people are abused, and cannot understand why anyone would like this, or do not think anyone CAN actually like this and everyone that says they do are deluding themselves.
This does nothing to erase the fact that the people that DO consent to these relationships, and enjoy them, are having the time of their lives, and would sometimes not miss these things being part of their relationship for the world. The BDSM parts, as well as in RPGs the RP rules, are something to expand the range of what is possible and potentially enjoyable, and shape the experience - quite possibly by relinquishing control.

And... Yeah, no, don't stop posting if you don't wanna. I have literally no power to shut you up :smallwink:
I wanted to point out something I saw (and see) as a rather unuseful part of the discussion. The consequence you draw from this pointing shall be yours and yours alone.

Is an improv comedy troupe doing a bit, playing an RPG? I'd say no.
Are kids playing cops and robbers, playing an RPG? I'd say no.
Is a couple playing "the plumber and the lonely housewife", playing an RPG? I'd say no.

To me, it's not an RPG until there are mechanics, to provide a framework of reference and neutrally resolve interactions between the character and the "reality" outside that character. Just as it's not an RPG if the player (and thus the PC to a necessary extent) have no actual agency. Both freeform roleplaying and sitting there acting out the roles in someone else's story are too far away from the center axis of the graph to be RPGs. IMO. There's a "space" on that graph (which is probably more than two dimensional) where something is an RPG. Too far in any direction, and you've left the space and the thing in question is not an RPG.

This came up before, when someone insisted that if I said that some computer games called "RPGs" didn't really qualify because there wasn't enough player freedom, that meant that I would see freeform as the ultimate RPG. I tried then to explain that it's not a linear 1:1 relationship, such that "more freedom" = "more RPGish".

If improv theatre doesn't count, does Larp? The two are rather close in many respects. I would say Larp counts, improv theatre doesn't. Why? Because I define RPGs somewhat tautological as "Things the people involved consider RPGs".
So JRPGs for you lack the "RP", but free-form the "G"? Do I get that right?
I mean, I do disagree that your definition and find mine to be more useful, but that is a matter of taste, I suppose. Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmxIK9p0SNM&t=0s) is a link to a video I find very well discusses the problems of arguing definitions. I feel like we have run into that exact problem at this point.

For starters, because "inside the character" is where the player "lives" -- it is through the PC that the player experiences and interacts with "the world" and other characters in it. Anything that seizes control of that space is hijacking the player's only interface point with the entire game.

And if the characters are just like real people, then they have an internal life that's separate from the outside "real world". The world outside of a person can't control their imagination and thoughts and feelings, any more than a person's imagination and thoughts and feelings can control the world outside.

I'm sorry, I don't buy that argument. Because for me personally, I would see the entire player character as the interface for the player, not just the inside. The player can generally control the characters every action taken (If not the results of their actions). This does not seem like a solid way to separate the two.

Which is "quite a lot"

I asked Segev if his system, which seems to be driven by a character's desires, can model a character whose internal processes always mute and muddle and complicate anything that they feel.

You did, and I saw that as a rather helpful thing - asking questions on how things work and "taking them apart" makes such systems (and worldbuilding, and a lot of other things) stronger in the long run. At least half my worldbuilding is done by having to respond to players asking questions I would have never considered.

As for my personal system (Though you did not ask the question of it, doesn't hurt to answer it anyways): I personally do not see how such things need to generally mess with the base system. To model mental illnesses that would mess with the workings of it, the system has to have a certain amount of flexibility, and some dials to turn. "From what to gain morale" "From what to loose morale" and "How much morale to gain/loose", "How effective is morale", "is there a cap on morale and where is it" "Are there (permanent) conditions that mess with morale" are all dials that might be turned in my idea of a "Morale spiral".

Talakeal

2017-01-02, 08:23 PM

I think the comparison of RPG situations to real life might be a bit of a red herring, actually - because what parts of your daily life would and would not be determined by a roll, were you in an RPG, is entirely dependent on the rules of the RPG. This becomes self-evident as soon as you have systems that free-form things others put in rules - and vice versa. Would "my player" need to roll to cook? Or does the system just look at a skill and think "Meh, well enough"? Would they need to roll sometimes, but not others?

Yes, rolling to cook would be a roll in a real life RPG. That is something where the outcome is in question. I wouldn't bother rolling for it in a game because it is trivial, but I also would not declare that a player automatically failed, if there is a chance of failure I would call for a roll (or assume a statistically average success rate over a long period of time).

Well. While I would never go so far as to say "No, the dice fell that way, you have to play seduced now" if the player objected very strongly (They will have a reason for that) I would certainly make a not of that, and if not an isolated incident of blatantly ignoring the results of dicerolls, probably talk with them about why they feel like they can or want to ignore those, and if it is a matter of playstyles clashing, ask them to leave the group.
(Please also note that "being seduced" almost never happens in my TRPGs, and would not result in more than a fade to black and maybe a flavourstatement about the encounter afterwards ("It was strange/great/You'd really have expected more from him after those grandiose words").)
Also note that this "all or nothing" is not an ideal state from my view, and I'd much rather do the thing about "go along, or suffer penalty X", leaving it as a choice.

I have to say, I find this actively abhorrent and just reading it is making me more than a little bit angry.

As for rolling social skills against players: It adds to the experience, in my experience. And, while it is common practise in my games, I have yet to use it to get the players "back on rails".
I think why you haven't seen such stories might have a very easy explanation: Because social skills aren't ACTUALLY forcing anyone to do anything. If the GM wants to force players down a path, they will. The situation where to use social skills might be to obfuscate that fact - but if the GM succeeds at the obfuscation, players won't notice, and if they don't succeed, players will still point to the GM as the problem as opposed to the (abused) social skill. If, for the players, a great roll on a social skill is reason enough to "accept the suggestion" and have their characters be swayed - that won't actually be forcing them.

Could you actually give me some examples? I am really having a hard time trying to picture a situation where this is necessary or doesn't make the game less fun for everyone involved.

Ah, but that argument is still intrinsically tied to certain gamestyles. The GM doesn't necessarily sets the difficulty of the social roll. In all situations where I, as a GM, actually use these things on players (Okay, so it is all game systems I actually play, yeah...), it is done as a contested roll within the system in some way. Meaning, for example in the 5 Rings game, both characters roll, and you need to beat the result of the oponent - not a number determined by the GM.
Step one in making social mechanics actually more than "roll against target number".

What game do you play where it is just a straight contested roll? You don't modify it based on the circumstances? The nature and scope of the request? The personality and relationship of the people involved? If you were playing an Avengers game would it be equally difficulty to convince Iron Man to go out for drinks with me as it would be to convince Captain America to go on a murder spree? (The first being something trivial and in character, the latter being something extreme and out of character).

The argument about development... might be right, but I don't see how it really makes much of a point?

Undeveloped characters exist in a "quantum state". If I go to seduce random mook #3 I might be his type or I might not, the DM probably hasn't decided his preferences. On the other hand if I have been playing someone as gay for two years it is quite a bit less believable that I am one dice roll away from having an affair with a member of the opposite sex.

Now, I would go with something else as an example, but I can't think of something quite so fitting to make my point. So: Take the subject of BDSM. Now, (generally, mostly, and in the only acceptable cases) all people involved agree and consent to the things done in those relationships.
Many of the things done to submissive people by their partners are, without that consent would be abuse. And if someone that is not into these things were to be subjected to them, they would, quite rightfully, feel abused. Some people looking at BDSM relationships DO think the people are abused, and cannot understand why anyone would like this, or do not think anyone CAN actually like this and everyone that says they do are deluding themselves.
This does nothing to erase the fact that the people that DO consent to these relationships, and enjoy them, are having the time of their lives, and would sometimes not miss these things being part of their relationship for the world. The BDSM parts, as well as in RPGs the RP rules, are something to expand the range of what is possible and potentially enjoyable, and shape the experience - quite possibly by relinquishing control.

And people who DO NOT enjoy BDSM should not have it forced on them.

This is a discussion forum. We are discussing the pros and cons of the rules. No one here has the power to make anyone else play with such rules or to abandon such rules.

I'm sorry, I don't buy that argument. Because for me personally, I would see the entire player character as the interface for the player, not just the inside. The player can generally control the characters every action taken (If not the results of their actions). This does not seem like a solid way to separate the two.

You might not agree with it, but this has been the standard assumption for traditional tabletop RPGs since their inception.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-02, 08:29 PM

If improv theatre doesn't count, does Larp? The two are rather close in many respects. I would say Larp counts, improv theatre doesn't. Why? Because I define RPGs somewhat tautological as "Things the people involved consider RPGs".
So JRPGs for you lack the "RP", but free-form the "G"? Do I get that right?

You're close enough on that, yes.

I thought LARPS had some rules for resolving conflicts.

I'm sorry, I don't buy that argument. Because for me personally, I would see the entire player character as the interface for the player, not just the inside. The player can generally control the characters every action taken (If not the results of their actions). This does not seem like a solid way to separate the two.

Which is "quite a lot"

I'd consider the decision to attempt a physical action internal, but whether or not it succeeds to be external.

You did, and I saw that as a rather helpful thing - asking questions on how things work and "taking them apart" makes such systems (and worldbuilding, and a lot of other things) stronger in the long run. At least half my worldbuilding is done by having to respond to players asking questions I would have never considered.

As for my personal system (Though you did not ask the question of it, doesn't hurt to answer it anyways): I personally do not see how such things need to generally mess with the base system. To model mental illnesses that would mess with the workings of it, the system has to have a certain amount of flexibility, and some dials to turn. "From what to gain morale" "From what to loose morale" and "How much morale to gain/loose", "How effective is morale", "is there a cap on morale and where is it" "Are there (permanent) conditions that mess with morale" are all dials that might be turned in my idea of a "Morale spiral".

I don't sense any malice at all in it, but you did just indirectly state that I'm mentally ill.

Floret

2017-01-02, 09:50 PM

Yes, rolling to cook would be a roll in a real life RPG. That is something where the outcome is in question. I wouldn't bother rolling for it in a game because it is trivial, but I also would not declare that a player automatically failed, if there is a chance of failure I would call for a roll (or assume a statistically average success rate over a long period of time).

Any comment on the latter half of my argument? I find that would be the much more interesting thing to discuss, rather than just the cooking example. Yaknow, the one where I state "yes, at least to model certain people you should roll on "can I actually make a decision""; and that I feel if I were an RPG character, my player would regularly roll to get me to do things (And very regularly fail).

I have to say, I find this actively abhorrent and just reading it is making me more than a little bit angry.

I am sorry to hear that, and quite a bit confused. Why is "I would let the matter slide, but talk to the player about ignoring the dice" something that makes you angry? As I said, no player will ever be subjected to that without a failed roll on their part.

Could you actually give me some examples? I am really having a hard time trying to picture a situation where this is necessary or doesn't make the game less fun for everyone involved.

As pointed out repeatedly, "necessary" is not a criterium for me in that regard. I don't care for necessary, I care for "does this do something I like".
Where it adds to the fun? It can show off greater societal pressures experienced by the player characters, which some people enjoy, it can provide an opposition against whom "winning" feels more rewarding and fun ("Just not being influenced" feels different, and to some players worse, than actually beating the NPC charmer in a roll.).

For a more specific one:

From my 5 Rings game, again: A player (Doji Yuki) is beset by a higher official of one of the imperial families (Otomo Takeo, NPC, last name first in both cases). Now, Takeo has no right to command Yuki - he has no direct authority over her. But, given that his very job in society is to manipulate people into fighting each other, instead of the emperor, he wants to instigate a conflict (or rather, fan on an existing conflict), but without being seen as the person responsible. He thus goes to Doji Yuki and asks a simple request: Give her superior a piece of advice. He suspects the superior will interpret it as "start some ****".
Yukis player suspects Takeo is up to something. Heck, Yuki suspects Takeo is up to something. But Takeo does know the ins and outs of court, and is very good at talking, framing rules in ways that would make it utterly unreasonably for Yuki to deny that request. On the other hand, Yuki is also a trained courtier, if inexperienced, and rather good at framing societies rules to deny a request so politely it will seem indecent that it what ever asked.

Now both results are possible: That she HAS to accept the request, or look an utter fool that willfully ignores the foundation on which society is built - its rules, and that she can refuse without ever causing offense. Three ways to determine which:
1. Act it out. This is... unadvised, since, really, the players involved don't know THAT much about the details of what would be said in such a discussion. Even the settings authors don't. And yeah, one can improvise, but at that point this becomes an improv session, potentially runs into conflicting setting interpretations of detail minutia, and all about player skill and knowlege of Japanese court customs and rules. Also, the rest of the players sit idly by. Nah.
2. Just decide for the one that seems more reasonable. Possible, but it does leave a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth.
3. Roll the dice. Two social manipulators against each other, both have quite impressive dicepools - but let's see who can pull this off.

What game do you play where it is just a straight contested roll? You don't modify it based on the circumstances? The nature and scope of the request? The personality and relationship of the people involved? If you were playing an Avengers game would it be equally difficulty to convince Iron Man to go out for drinks with me as it would be to convince Captain America to go on a murder spree? (The first being something trivial and in character, the latter being something extreme and out of character).

Hm. I will give you that there is some arbitration, yes. And, yeah, that is mostly done by GM in most games (Though for example FATE has rather clear-cut rules for circumstance modifiers, and how to use them). Which is maybe why I want to actually codify all of that other stuff - to remove the need for GM arbitration a bit, and have the situation be more "fair" ad assessable. If the rules tell you "A "trivial" request requires you to at least draw even; an "impossible" request requires you to beat your opponent by 8 successes"/is impossible without mindcontrol (Purely arbitrary numbers, if the current ones of my WIP system), with varying steps in between of course, that suddenly requires less arbitration.
Now players need to sort if what is being asked (Given most people seem to prefer "play first, then roll" that should be easily established by the time of the roll) in the categories, and the categories need spiffy descriptions (I have stolen some for my system from someone on these forums a month or so ago).

Undeveloped characters exist in a "quantum state". If I go to seduce random mook #3 I might be his type or I might not, the DM probably hasn't decided his preferences. On the other hand if I have been playing someone as gay for two years it is quite a bit less believable that I am one dice roll away from having an affair with a member of the opposite sex.

I mean, sure. That I agree with. I think I see the argument you are trying to make? (Though, as I said, at least two rolls. :smallwink: And, in "my ideal" system, this is up to at least a more difficult contested roll, if at all possible. See above. That is, IF you even want to boil it down to the single roll, and don't want to make the roll easier first by "working" the target, gathering situation modifiers, getting to know weaknesses to exploit, etc.; all the things a well-fleshed out social system can pull off.)

And people who DO NOT enjoy BDSM should not have it forced on them.

This is a discussion forum. We are discussing the pros and cons of the rules. No one here has the power to make anyone else play with such rules or to abandon such rules.

Yes, of course. I said so myself in my post, if maybe not strongly enough if you feel the need to point it out again.
My whole point with the comparison was not to talk about BDSM though, it was merely the best example I could think of for the argument: You seeing this as "forcing people to RP properly" is a valid frame, that will make you unlikely to enjoy such rules.
But you seeing it that way does not mean it is necessarily the (only) truth about the situation. And pointing out that this is your frame, and that it IS a frame, helps understand and sort your criticism of such sorts of mechanics.

And... yes and no. We are indeed discussing the pros and cons of the rules, but also HOW to do these rules. It is this last conversation out of the two that I personally find the most productive and interesting. I have no power to stop the former discussion, but I can try and push it towards the latter. Which, granted, in this post I am utterly failing to do.

You might not agree with it, but this has been the standard assumption for traditional tabletop RPGs since their inception.

1. Is it? O.o I have only ever, before this discussion, seen "The player controls the character" as the standard assumption, and distinctly NOT with the qualifier "The player controls the character's internals". This thread or at least forum were the first time that I even saw the distinction being made.

2. Even if it has been "the standard assumption", we can still challenge it. If on grounds of its usefullness, if on us actively seeing RPGs in a different light.

You're close enough on that, yes.

I thought LARPS had some rules for resolving conflicts.

Some do. Vampire Larps often use Rock, Paper, Scissors, I am told. Most, at least where I play, don't, in so much as you don't count "try to get around the defenses of the other person and hit them with your foam weapon" as a rule.
One Larp I play in has extensive rules on how much equipment a character can enter the game with, if they have to answer to an NPC superior outside of the Con, if they have acquired Information they start the game with and a lot of other minor things - but none for combat other than the above Being hit = Being hit, and maybe "guns hit you if you are close enough" (In absence of actual projectiles being fired). Does that count as an RPG?

I'd consider the decision to attempt a physical action internal, but whether or not it succeeds to be external.

Okay, but then the player has control over externals. Because the character starting to do the action, if successfull or not, is still external by that definition. Out of interest, what do you say about such mechanics as in FATE, where the players have a certain control of the environment? Or other mechanics that give the player control over more than just the characters internals?

I don't sense any malice at all in it, but you did just indirectly state that I'm mentally ill.

If the descriptions you have given and wanted examples for how to model are describing you, then I suppose I might have, yes. But regardless, I would stand by the statement that those examples are, the way I read them, illustrating a person that is not entirely mentally healthy.
I want to stress that you are correct in not sensing malice. As I think I have mentioned somewhere in passing in this thread before: My view on mental illness is from experience, and not just through seeing it in others.

Cluedrew

2017-01-02, 09:54 PM

No, Floret isn't nasty. I said that she will have to become significantly nastier than she is if she wants to discourage me from disagreeing with her.Oh. That also strikes me as unlikely.

Also for anyone that might actually now have ImNotTrevor on ignore, you may skip this:

Firstly, thank you for engaging with me without hostility. A welcome change.A change back I hope most interaction in this thread (and the form and in many other places) have been without hostility. It is just the ones that do tend to stand out. I've been counting and it seems to hold.

I enjoyed your answer, to be honest, though it does end up defaulting back to "you don't" which is a rejection of the question of needfulness. A rejection I heartily agree with. It's not a meaningful or helpful question in this discussion, or really anywhere in the realm of TRPG mechanics.I'm glad you liked it. I think the similar question, about want instead of need is actually useful to ask however, and might be the one we should examine in the future. I tried answering that as well, because yes we can have a game without it, but can we have a better game with it?

For combat mechanics the answer has been yes in many situations. For social/personality mechanics... 26 pages and counting.

So while I do think you need to have some rules to have an RPG, I think that there is no rule or mechanic that cannot be thrown out, so long as the total number of rules does not reach 0.I will agree that to be a game needs rules, it seems to be part of the definition. Still I think that, in this context at least, comparisons to freeform role-play (lacking G) are more useful than comparisons to say chess (lacking RP).

If improv theatre doesn't count, does Larp? The two are rather close in many respects. I would say Larp counts, improv theatre doesn't. Why? Because I define RPGs somewhat tautological as "Things the people involved consider RPGs".Yes... perhaps the most correct definition but at the same time perhaps the most useless. Also nice video, thanks for the link.

As for my personal system (Though you did not ask the question of it, doesn't hurt to answer it anyways): I personally do not see how such things need to generally mess with the base system. [...] all dials that might be turned in my idea of a "Morale spiral".Personally I feel that these dials are actually the important part. It is kind of the point for me actually, because one of the main purposes of this is to describe characters and if it is always the same... it doesn't describe that much.

I feel I was going to say more but I lost the thought.

I'd consider the decision to attempt a physical action internal, but whether or not it succeeds to be external.... I've been thinking about this and really I think the thing you are trying to get at has nothing to do with internal and external, besides a lose correlation. I think what you are actually talking about is choice vs. ability. A character's choices are made by the player and character ability is handled by mechanics. Of course not even that is a completely clean divide, but few things are. Anyways, that framing makes more sense to me for what you are trying to describe.

I don't sense any malice at all in it, but you did just indirectly state that I'm mentally ill.What malice is there in stating someone might have a cold?

1

Talakeal

2017-01-02, 10:21 PM

I am sorry to hear that, and quite a bit confused. Why is "I would let the matter slide, but talk to the player about ignoring the dice" something that makes you angry? As I said, no player will ever be subjected to that without a failed roll on their part.

Maybe I am misunderstanding you. What I took away from the quoted post was that you were saying that you would kick a player from your group if they wanted to ignore dice results that would force their character to do something which they were uncomfortable with OOC.

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-03, 12:28 AM

Yeah. What I don't get though is why the fact that people don't buy in when there aren't hard mechanics. Most role-playing game rules seem to be written with the expectation that people are to RP their character's personality and not meta-game, yet for some reason people never seem to "buy in" to the consequences of what playing a character means.

There is another aspect to RPGs that a lot of systems rarely address well, and a lot actually really suck at fostering (or at least GMs sometimes really suck at enforcing):
The PCs need to, at a basic level, work together. It's a team game unless otherwise stated.

When the mechanics give a REASON for someone to abandon that basic premise, we are OK with it. When the Fiction layer does it, we get mad. Because when the player controls the fiction layer of their own character, and uses that fiction layer control to turn back on the basic premise of teamwork, that causes problems.

That is why Apocalypse World goes the extra step of making it very clear by telling the GM to say, specifically, "At the start, you guys are basically allies. You all know one another and are essentially on the same team. You don't have to be FRIENDS, but you are allies. You might become enemies through play, but you don't start that way."

This draws a very clear expectation of how things will go, and what the system expects.
1. As of session one, everyone is allies. Maybe not friends, but allies.
2. Interparty conflict might come up. It's not encouraged or discouraged, except at the start. But it might happen eventually.
3. If you go against this, you're literally breaking the rules. Because this is codified, and you have been informed. If you become the villain in session 1 and get killed, YOU'RE the A-hole.

So basically, they buy in to a team game. They buy in to a game where people have one another's best interests in mind. If you need to act out of character to keep group cohesion and stick to teamwork, you're expected to do it because the fun of the group trumps your individual fun when the two are in conflict. Always and for everyone.

At least, that's my take.

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-03, 01:01 AM

Also for anyone that might actually now have ImNotTrevor on ignore, you may skip this:

The fact that you spoilered this makes me facepalm. If someone is ignoring me, that's their issues. You don't need to accomodate. Just do your thing.

Unless the consensus is that I'm firmly in the wrong. In which case I'll just make my way clear.

(Heck, I'll even accept that I went beyond in one of my trains of thought but I abandoned it, so...)

A change back I hope most interaction in this thread (and the form and in many other places) have been without hostility. It is just the ones that do tend to stand out. I've been counting and it seems to hold.
They indeed have been. I was speaking of more recently.

I'm glad you liked it. I think the similar question, about want instead of need is actually useful to ask however, and might be the one we should examine in the future. I tried answering that as well, because yes we can have a game without it, but can we have a better game with it?

I agree with that, though I tend to go more minimalist and try to have only the rules that fit what I want.

For combat mechanics the answer has been yes in many situations. For social/personality mechanics... 26 pages and counting.

Most RPGs involve violence in one way or another. So it's not surprising that such rules are common. But they aren't universal, either.

I will agree that to be a game needs rules, it seems to be part of the definition. Still I think that, in this context at least, comparisons to freeform role-play (lacking G) are more useful than comparisons to say chess (lacking RP).[/SPOILER]

In this case, yes. Because they have more in common with the topic at hand than Chess. So yeah. I'm not saying it's not an apt comparison. Just pointing out that myself and Max actually do agree on things. Several things. But apparently insufficient things.

Floret

2017-01-03, 06:42 AM

Maybe I am misunderstanding you. What I took away from the quoted post was that you were saying that you would kick a player from your group if they wanted to ignore dice results that would force their character to do something which they were uncomfortable with OOC.

Hm... Well. Yes and no. See, before the games, I ask my players if there are any things that they consider off-limits. If this contains "Being seduced by an NPC", that would be fine to state at this point. If the things they consider off-limits are crucial to the game (Such as "playing morally questionable people" for my Shadowrun game), I will point out that the game might not be for them.

If the game then, runs into situations where the player says "nope" after the result of a dieroll, and it is not me effin up one of the off-limit things (In which case the fault is entirely mine, and I will apologize profusely and hold no hard feelings if the player should decide not to come back after I broke their trust in this way. It has never happened, but as a theoretical.), then it seems the player has to update their "off-limit" list, to which the same conditions apply as in creating the list in the first place: If this hits a thing that I consider crucial for the game, then this game is probably not for you, hard as it may be, and it would be time to leave the game.
But given that the base assumption is that I know what things are and aren't okay, it will disrupt the game a bit. Which is fine, Out-of character concerns always trump in-character concerns. No matter how in-character it would be for someone to do something, if the player REALLY doesn't want it, more power to them. If this happens once, no problem. If I start getting the feeling that it is being abused to get the character out of sticky situations, then we will need to talk.

So, I generally give players what I feel is a fair chance to avoid things that they are uncomfortable with out of character. It is important to know what you are getting yourself into, and to have fair warning of things that have potential to upset or hurt you.
If they do not take it, and then complain, then I would ask them to leave. Unless they or the group can tell me why the thing I think crucial might not actually be. I am willing to compromise - but I am not willing to throw away everything and suddenly turn a Shadowrun game into playing morally upright do-gooders because of one player.

Quertus

2017-01-03, 12:45 PM

It is my life experience that human beings are bad at seeing the drawbacks of something they desire.

And that those who try to point those drawbacks out tend to be greeted coldly.

That is major design flaw. Hopefully this behavior will be replaced in their next evolution.

This has not occurred for any other mechanic. Nor has it been ASKED of any other mechanics.

I am now asking.

Why is a combat mechanic NEEDED?

Actually, I kinda questioned the need for combat mechanics with my whole Padded Weapons Game thing. It was subtle.

Most of us have openly admitted to the drawbacks. Please don't paint the rest of the discussors in an untrue light.

And... who among you ("you" being proponents of various social / happiness / whatever mechanics) has actually admitted to the drawback that some characters will suffer additional penalties for playing in character, let alone addressed that problem? 'Cause I missed that part.

Sure, sacrificing your arm would come with drawbacks. But I don't think getting sad everytime you hug someone is realistic - such things wear off if you get used to them. If the system is free enough, it will be able to present that adapting - and if a player deliberately plays slipping into depression, then that player seems to want to play such a thing, and why not accept that the system aids you in that. Such a character would likely then not be made for continued play.

I once again find myself of two minds.

On the one hand, I feel, if anything, this understates the negativity of the situation. How many people eventually stop feeling bad about running a character who is useless / no fun / whatever? How many people eventually stop losing happiness to **** players, **** DMs, etc? Do we ever advise someone on this forum who is experiencing unhappiness from such a situation to just tough it out, because there is an upper limit to the duration of such unhappiness, and they will eventually adapt to no longer be unhappy with the situation? Because I certainly don't remember ever reading such advise.

Shouldn't the unhappiness associated with one's own inabilities be even longer lasting and more profound? Thus, shouldn't a character's unhappiness with their handicap be greater than our minor statistical inconvenience?

I don't play the character to experience the depression associated with the loss of an arm, I play the character to play the character. I wouldn't make a statistically suboptimal decision like sacrificing an arm because I want to explore that scenario, I'd make it if it is what the character would do. If the character happens to lose an arm along the way, I'll deal with that... or not. If it's a career-ending injury, I may have to retire the character that I cherish.

But, on the other hand, if I have a character who has lost an arm, wouldn't I want their depression to play out realistically? Wouldn't I want, not just penalties due to reduced physical capabilities, but penalties due to ongoing emotional trauma as well?

But, and I begin to suspect this may be yet another root of my problem with such systems, if we can't even agree that there would be psychological effects from losing an arm, let alone what those would be, I'd rather get to assign the penalties myself based on what I feel would be realistic for the character than have some system I don't trust mandate that I get a morale bonus for losing my arm. :smallyuk:

On that "ignoring the times when it will punish you" - I don't think I quite understand what you are saying, to be honest. Loosing morale is an ingrained part of the idea of a morality scale. "Taking a morale hit" for making a tough choice was a thing from the start - and the idea would be, in this case, that the results of the tough choice (Choosing the world over the arm, in this case; or the evening of study over the bar visit) balance out the morale hit in the first place. If you constantly gain and cannot loose, then the whole thing looses its point. So I am not sure what exactly your criticism is aimed at.

Proponents of such systems seem to talk about losing morale for making optimal decisions, or for ignoring social compels. But not about losing morale for correctly role-playing the character.

Problem: role-playing is not mechanically rewarding.
Proposed solution: model happiness as valuable resource / penalties for unhappiness.
Problem: correctly role-playing many characters / scenarios - such as the arm sacrifice - will come back to bite the character, punishing them both immediately and ongoing above and beyond the already potentially mechanically significant statistical losses from the loss of an arm.

That's what my "criticism" is aimed at.

How is piling on additional penalties supposed to make role-playing that in-character sacrifice easier? :smallconfused:

Now, "ignoring the times it will punish you" specifically (generally?) refers to the lack of (intentional) examples from the proponents of when, instead of giving you a bonus to make up for not making a statistically optimal decision, the system instead applies a penalty to taking an in character action.

The sacrifice example happens to be an unintentional example of the system punishing you for role-playing.

The theory was that it would be easier to just go with a "suboptimal" choice for the sake of RP, when it becomes less suboptimal. Yes.

And... No, it would not create just another vector. It might, if badly designed, yes. But also, it is about "easing" a perceived sting for people who actually WANT to RP, but still feel tempted by mechanical optimalcy. They are not the sort of person to 100% optimize in the first place, and they would not design the character to go for perfect optimum. Yes, this is a rather middle-ground person being targeted. That is the point. Both "I already RP as much as I want" as well as "Who cares for RP"-attitudes would likely not benefit. It is only that middle ground of people WANTING RP but feeling themselves cutting back on it in favour of mechanics.

No. That is indeed not the problem we are trying to solve. It is, as above "encourage Role-based decisions against mechanics in someone who generally likes roleplay, but is still tempted by mechanics".

My turn to "ignore the middle", apparently.

Still gives a problem when the mechanics run against the correct in character decision, does it not?

Say, with the +1 CHA vs. +1 STR above. (Ignoring it was the example of "boring" then, it is also simpler and easier)

Now, say my character is somehow in her build reliant on strength. But I have, for flavour reasons, been playing her as a Casanova. The In-world choice is between some Fairy giving one of two things: A silver tongue, to always find the right words to get every woman to swoon; and iron tendons, to make it easy to lift any weapon. (It is late, forgive my examples) Now, for my character, this might be a tough choice. But for me, as a player? The strength actually makes her more effective at what I play her for, the charisma better at something the character lives for, but that I as a player consider a nice addition for flavour.

Or make it more extreme: She is also arrogant, and thinks her strength great enough. I, as a player, know that is not true. I can look at the character sheet. She, as a character, would never consider the tendons. But mechanically, it REALLY would be better to take them. I, as a player, feel tempted to do something that would be out of character for her. And with no "consolation price" for the silver tongue, other than to witness the GM playing girls swooning over my character (Which, really, while maybe nice, isn't all its cut out to be, even if the GM is really good at voices and acting), I would at least think if I could come up with a justification for still taking the tendons, while the "in-character" choice would be rather clear. To lessen that mechanical temptation in people who are generally interested in roleplaying. THAT is the problem some people and proposed mechanics would like to adress. To ease the sting.

As for itches it would scratch for me (Regardless of if it solves the problem above. I personally can understand the problem, but I am generally fine with it - I can justify pretty much anything, so why not. I actively like my author stance.), is simply having rules for personality, and having the characters internal state mean something for the game world. Because then you can use that to model effects you could not before.
Going insane as in Call of Cthulhu or the aforementioned Darkest Dungeon, the psychological horrors of a wartime setting, portraying emotional manipulators in a more meaningful way (really I love social characters and want to give them more playthings, and since what social characters DO is play around with emotions means one would have to model emotions in some way. And to model emotion and changing it, kinda puts personality on the table.), or having the fact that my character is a certain way mean something for the game in a mechanical way, seeing as I consider the mechanics not the map of the ingame world but rather closer to maybe a window into it. Or even the way we actually interact with it.

Hmmm... I have no problem taking the mechanically suboptimal choice, if it is in character to do so.

I honestly don't know what it would take to get someone to move from a position where they don't care enough about what is in character to actually do it to a position where they do... but I suspect a game where you don't have to care about something being advantageous would be a good start - better than adding in more advantages to juggle.

Drugs, on the other hand, just release **** into your brain that makes you generally happier

Happy... Or depressed... Or just **** your ****. As I understand it, at least.

And, really, if I ask who a character is, and get as response an extensive backstory, I will probably roll my eyes. Probably something personal, but I have just learned that for getting a feel of a character, writing extensive backstorys can almost be counter-productive. The thing with extensive play is something different - if you have already experienced a character, you know more about their details and nuances, cause you lived through them. I would argue this has very little to do with you knowing more of what happened to them, and everything with having more ACTIONS the character took, as well as a closer link to their personality through playing it.)

Well, my backstory is just for me - I never want to show it to anyone. I'll try to describe my characters (Quertus is verbose academia, etc), but the description is not my character.

I want to second this. I would argue that, if what you consider your "core features" don't come up in your decision making, either you just don't notice them (As Jayem suggests), or... they aren't actually your core features. Humans can be rather bad at self-assessment. For a character you design from the ground up, you sort of know them better than you do yourself, so that problem will be compensated a good bit.

Hmmm... It is an interesting question. In my original usage, I defined my core features by their strength. Those features which I would not violate. Interestingly enough, one such feature, my code vs killing, has been removed over time.

The way I look at my core features from a... Rise of the Guardians perspective is completely different.

Or, looking at what abstract concepts I value, one could arrive at yet another completely different definition of my core principles.

Under no definition I have come up with are my core principles responsible for the majority of my actions. Admittedly, some definitions result in features that "see play" more often than others, but they are still minor actors compared to the huge ensemble cast of features that define my personality.

Consider placing a tray of random cupcakes in front of a group of children. Imagine evaluating exactly why each child chose the cupcake they did. What results might you get?

Favorite color, favorite flavor - these results are common, but are hardly a core personality feature.

It was pretty - recognizing quality or beauty certainly can be motivators, but rarely are at the core of one's soul.

Bigger, more icing, more sprinkles - greed can certainly be a major motivator, and a core feature of many beings.

That's what my friend took - this could be indicative of trusting their friend's judgement, or merely a desire for acceptance. Trust and acceptance can be strong motivators.

I'd never had one like this before - exploration, a desire for new experiences.

I have had one like this before - trust in the familiar.

I saw somebody wanted this one - envy, plain and simple. Or even a hateful desire to remove opportunities. Or, more generously, trust in the other person's tastes our decision-making ability.

I didn't want to pick one someone else wanted - conflict avoidance, desire not to cause problems, or even simple cooperative spirit.

It was closest - although this could represent laziness, it could also be motivated by group efficiency (if everyone is reaching across each other, it is less efficient), a desire not to be wasteful (if everyone is reaching across each other / reaching far, accidents are more likely), a desire not to get messy, or any number of other root causes.

For myself, the decision of which cupcake to take could easily vary from day to day, following almost any one of these motives, or one of dozens more. So... I feel justified claiming that my core features do not constitute the deciding factor in the majority of my decisionmaking. Unless, of course, I have completely misunderstood the concept of core features.

yaknow what? I am going to agree with ALL of this, up until the last paragraph. Or rather, I even agree with the last paragraph, to be honest, if with the slight caveat of having little problem with the GM taking over in some minor ways the PCs - after all, if the PCs have 99% of the time control, they are still very much needed, and this doesn't go away just because the GM at one point tells a player how their character might feel about a very specific thing. Or because a player CHOSE the "superstitious" trait, botched a roll, and is now scared of the forest path because an owl is sitting in the tree on the wrong side of the trunk, and that bodes bad luck.

But. That being said I do have a very big problem with the last paragraph: It is, in itself, doing exactly what the first paragraph chastises: Throwing out a red herring, though probably not deliberately. I am pretty sure I said it before (And not only I): NOONE actually wants to build a simulator that "runs the character for the player". Noone. Not one of us, at least. We do not want to build AI - we want to give hints, how the character MIGHT feel, with every power to the player to disagree, at the most part, if the proposed system goes in that direction at all.
Providing the player with certain motivation to prefer one choice over the other (Or to no longer prefer one choice over the other), or to simply provide orientational lines is in no way taking away player control. And does not reduce the players input to rolling dice. Existing systems such as the one of the "superstitious" trait described above do that far more, and those get readily accepted. Player buy-in might be one thing, since in those, the player chooses which traits to pick if any - but for a system as the proposed ones, it would come down to player buy-in being actually playing THIS system over the ones without such mechanics.

To get a bit polemic: Noone is trying to take your sandbox away. We are just trying to build our own - and if you, as you have said, don't wanna play in ours, that is fine with us. Just... please let us build ours in peace, and stop constantly shouting you wouldn't want that. We know that you don't. But we would.

So... This is where I get confused. If you just want mechanics to advise RP, then I'd suggest mechanics with no teeth. Something that just indicates that an individual with X trait would be more likely to take Y action. This is how one of my favorite groups ran things, where anyone could, at any time, ask for clarification on an action when it didn't mesh with their understanding of the character.

Perhaps the core of my inability to make this make sense to me may be the line you gave about being able to justify anything. Saying you want to roleplay, but can and will justify any decision, sounds like wanting a challenge, but knowing that you can and will cheat to win. It's not a challenge then.

Anyways, and roughly in reply to Quertus, I am going to take a moment and talk about goals. As in why am I interested in personality mechanics. (Aside: I have actually asked similar questions of other mechanics ImNotTrevor, its why my current work doesn't have initiative.)

First is to explore:
As a designer (and I am a game designer at a hobbyist level) I wonder what went wrong in all these systems that people don't like. I want to explore and see what can be done, and try to find a solution that works for no other reason than to do so. It is an interest of mine onto itself.

Hopefully, we're helping answer this one. Perhaps more so than you'd like. :smalltongue:

Second is to communicate:
To communicate what the system is about first off, I have given an examples before but I do believe the mechanics should make what the game is about clear. And so a game about characters should have some mechanics about the characters. (The form of such mechanics is still a work in progress.) It also gives players another opportunity to communicate about their characters, but that is a minor point.

Hmmm... people already have problems with the idea that taking teleport communicates an lack of desire for overland travel games. But, yes, purr the initial thread topic, it's certainly one way to get buy in. But certainly not the best. Because different people's idea of foo may be different, for any given value of foo. Explicit communication, having a conversation, is best.

But... Fine, I don't get "theme". Having rules that reward me for very specific ways of holding the idiot ball common to, say, horror movies will allow me to pick the character that best matches your intended theme, or to build a new character to try to munchkin the rewards instead of role-playing.

But what is the point of encouraging someone to munchkin the RP rewards instead of role-playing? What are you communicating?

Third is to represent:
That is, I want a character's internals* to matter in a game. Yes a lot of this can be represented by free-form role-play, and all things considered the core will always remain there, but I believe there is a place for mechanics to exist beside that.

I guess what I want is mechanics that complement role-playing. Definitely not replace it. And I am at best neutral to them enforcing it.

* Side note: For me there is a choices vs. abilities line similar to the one I think Max_Killjoy is arguing for (I still don't fully understand that position.) but it does not lie on the internal vs. external line... if one can even be drawn.

Imagine trying to build a diced combat system that doesn't interfere with padded weapons combat...

I have my doubts as to whether "freeform roleplaying" is, in any useful sense of the term, a "roleplaying game".

Useful in a "base case" form, perhaps?

Can we please go back to the point where the discussion was still calm and civil?

And I think there are two questions becoming mixed up here:

1. If (any) rules are needed. The answer to this is, from my perspective, no; Max has other ideas. Free-form RPGs were offered as support of the "no rules are NEEDED" position.
If you exclude free-form games from RPGs, Max, may I ask why? And on what basis? Because it doesn't seem to interact well with what I thought your position was so far - that RPGs are about in-character decision making - on which basis you want to exclude CRPGs, at least of the JRPG variant. Free-form games do have quite unrestricted decision making, generally.

2. The question of why and how character Internals and Externals are fundamentally different from each other. This, I personally would really like an answer for, because I still don't understand how, seeing as I don't see the line between them. Again, Max has other ideas, and seems to see a very strong line. I would be interested in both the definition of where to draw it, as well as the justification for drawing it - considering there needs to be some fundamental difference between the two categories, otherwise the line drawn is just arbitrary.

(Kinda like in literature theory, where "short story", while generally understood to mean "less words", isn't actually defined by word count, because that would draw an arbitrary line and make the definition just mean "less than x words". Instead, people take some fundamental characteristic that devides things (Compression of content and suggestive power, mostly, though the definition, as with most cultural things, tends to not be universal). Yes, this means a very short novel might theoretically be shorter than a really long short story.)

I want that fundamental difference. And, no, while "Internals are internal and externals are external" is indeed a fundamental difference, I do not quite see how this translates to "touching one with rules is okay, touching the other is intruding". This, I would like to understand - to comprehend WHY this is so strongly felt, and not just THAT it is.

So, after that: Does anyone still remember the models being discussed?

I remember the idea of the "morality death spiral"/reverse death spiral was proposed (By me, taking from ideas of Cluedrew's)
I remember morale points similar to fatepoints, but as an associated mechanic was proposed (By Segev, iirc)
And I remember Cluedrew having some other ideas the details of which sadly now escape me.

Can we now, seeing how people clearly feel it would add to the experience to have such rules, focus the discussion on the merits of the specific systems, and how to pull them off well? (Or suggest others. That would work.)

The idea of forcing people to be seduced actually offends me. If a DM (or another player) tried to pull that in a game I was in I would leave the group immediately and have one more talein my collection of horror stories from Bizarro gaming world to share with the forum.

I'm glad to see you haven't abandoned the Bizarro World descriptor. :smallwink:

I don't know, rolling social skills against the players doesn't seem fun for anyone, and if it was common practice I can't see DM's not using this tactic to get their game "back on the rails". The forum is full of stories about railroading DMs and rebellious players, but I have never seen one that boiled down to "The old man asked us to kill the dragon, and we said no, so the old man rolled a 78 on his diplomacy roll and so we didn't have a choice and we have been forced to go kill the DM's stupid dragon even though we just want to go sailing and play pirates. How do we make ourselves immune to diplomacy so we can finally get off this railroad?"

That is, indeed, the best and most likely use I see for such rules. And since people seem opposed to caring about such defects, saying that all rules can be abused, I can only advise not to make such rules at all then.

I see tons of pitfalls for adding mechanics to force people to role-play. I can see thousands of ways in which they can go wrong, and (virtually) none where they will help. Best case scenario they are an annoyance that I tune out. Punishing people for bad role-play is a harmful and destructive thing. Taking away player agency is never fun for anyone save for a brief thrill from a control freak DM.

Pretty much same thing here. Such rules will give me an insight into how the creator views the world, but little insight into my own characters. They will just be something I hope I can tune out.

Even trying to roleplay myself, they would add to character creation time. Then I'd struggle with fixing their alignment during play. Even once I got them "right", someone who had optimized their character's personality for the system would earn more cookies than I would. So I'd suffer through mechanics to be punished for role-playing. Not seeing the appeal.

I am not going to agree with you, and I am not going to stop posting in a thread that I started because other people don't like my opinions. If you really can't handle disagreement (which is not total, I do agree with you on many points and you have given me a lot to think about) then you need either stop reading the thread (or just put me, and Max, and Quertus on ignore) or get so nasty that we put you on ignore or a mod decides to close the thread entirely.

No, Floret isn't nasty. I said that she will have to become significantly nastier than she is if she wants to discourage me from disagreeing with her.

You said the same for Max and me. I don't know about Max, but, for myself, you need to be... Not nasty... Um... Stupid? Useless? Unable to learn? Me bothering to disagree with you is a sign of respect. Several people IRL have earned my disrespect such that I will not bother to disagree with them; no one in this forum has done so.

Just pointing out that myself and Max actually do agree on things. Several things. But apparently insufficient things.

I don't think it's the number of things you agree on that is the issue. Inigo Montoya may like the same games as the six fingered man, but I doubt you'll ever get them to play a game together.

Hm... Well. Yes and no. See, before the games, I ask my players if there are any things that they consider off-limits. If this contains "Being seduced by an NPC", that would be fine to state at this point. If the things they consider off-limits are crucial to the game (Such as "playing morally questionable people" for my Shadowrun game), I will point out that the game might not be for them.

If the game then, runs into situations where the player says "nope" after the result of a dieroll, and it is not me effin up one of the off-limit things (In which case the fault is entirely mine, and I will apologize profusely and hold no hard feelings if the player should decide not to come back after I broke their trust in this way. It has never happened, but as a theoretical.), then it seems the player has to update their "off-limit" list, to which the same conditions apply as in creating the list in the first place: If this hits a thing that I consider crucial for the game, then this game is probably not for you, hard as it may be, and it would be time to leave the game.
But given that the base assumption is that I know what things are and aren't okay, it will disrupt the game a bit. Which is fine, Out-of character concerns always trump in-character concerns. No matter how in-character it would be for someone to do something, if the player REALLY doesn't want it, more power to them. If this happens once, no problem. If I start getting the feeling that it is being abused to get the character out of sticky situations, then we will need to talk.

So, I generally give players what I feel is a fair chance to avoid things that they are uncomfortable with out of character. It is important to know what you are getting yourself into, and to have fair warning of things that have potential to upset or hurt you.
If they do not take it, and then complain, then I would ask them to leave. Unless they or the group can tell me why the thing I think crucial might not actually be. I am willing to compromise - but I am not willing to throw away everything and suddenly turn a Shadowrun game into playing morally upright do-gooders because of one player.

Ok, so... What if the player said they take issue with, say, the dice determining / influencing their character's internal thought process?

I have no problems with supernatural mind control (because that overrides what would be in character), and have survived gaming with the avatar of Slanesh (which, had it come out of the game into real life would have gone too far for my comfort), but I don't want to have to fight the rules when I know better than they do what is going on in my character's head.

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-03, 03:16 PM

Talakeal

2017-01-03, 03:20 PM

Hm... Well. Yes and no. See, before the games, I ask my players if there are any things that they consider off-limits. If this contains "Being seduced by an NPC", that would be fine to state at this point. If the things they consider off-limits are crucial to the game (Such as "playing morally questionable people" for my Shadowrun game), I will point out that the game might not be for them.

If the game then, runs into situations where the player says "nope" after the result of a dieroll, and it is not me effin up one of the off-limit things (In which case the fault is entirely mine, and I will apologize profusely and hold no hard feelings if the player should decide not to come back after I broke their trust in this way. It has never happened, but as a theoretical.), then it seems the player has to update their "off-limit" list, to which the same conditions apply as in creating the list in the first place: If this hits a thing that I consider crucial for the game, then this game is probably not for you, hard as it may be, and it would be time to leave the game.
But given that the base assumption is that I know what things are and aren't okay, it will disrupt the game a bit. Which is fine, Out-of character concerns always trump in-character concerns. No matter how in-character it would be for someone to do something, if the player REALLY doesn't want it, more power to them. If this happens once, no problem. If I start getting the feeling that it is being abused to get the character out of sticky situations, then we will need to talk.

So, I generally give players what I feel is a fair chance to avoid things that they are uncomfortable with out of character. It is important to know what you are getting yourself into, and to have fair warning of things that have potential to upset or hurt you.
If they do not take it, and then complain, then I would ask them to leave. Unless they or the group can tell me why the thing I think crucial might not actually be. I am willing to compromise - but I am not willing to throw away everything and suddenly turn a Shadowrun game into playing morally upright do-gooders because of one player.

See, my objection to this is two-fold.

I am not against sex in games. However, being forced to imagine your character having sex with someone that they are not attracted to because "the dice say they really do want it despite what they think," is just a little too rapey for me. In fact, I have more of an objection to that than to blatant rape, because if my character was physically / magically forced I could then get revenge or otherwise do something about it, while with a seduction role I then have to pretend that I like my abuser.

Second, (and this is a more general objection to social combat) it destroys my character concept.
For example, my last D&D character was part of a knightly order and had taken a vow of celibacy. He would literally kill himself before breaking this vow.
My last Mage character was asexual and had all sorts of psychological issues about relationships. Her best friend (who had very high social skills) was in love with her and had been trying to seduce her for years with little result. It would be totally out of character for her to then jump into bed with some random guy just because they rolled a natural 20.

Segev

2017-01-03, 03:58 PM

It's relevant to me if someone's trying to tell me that they know more about how my character "works" than I do, because of some notion they have of how the human mind works.Depending on what you consider "how your character works," and what the game considers to be advantageous vs. disadvantageous, you can do this...but it might cost more.

For instance, in a game about chess playing, skills involving being good at chess and maneuvering the tournament scene might cost more than skills revolving around cooking or gunplay. Designing a character who is great at being the chess master of the world will cost more than designing one who is okay at chess but is also a combat chef par excellance.

Likewise, in a game where the focus is on winning political power, playing a cold and calculating character who can feign just the right amount of emotion but never makes a misstep based on misperception of risk/reward and doesn't feel luxuries or comforts are worth even the tiniest risk of his political position unless they, themselves, help further his position will cost more than playing somebody who has a list of vices which are, in part, his very motive for seeking power and wealth (so he can feed said vices). Because the former is a more optimal character than the latter, inherently, so it costs more to make sure you have that specific set of desires than it would to build the less optimal character.

Just like in a game about adventuring, it costs more to build a consummate warrior and scholar who knows all about dungeon delving than it does to build a scholarly mage who is in over his head when they get out of civilization.

Some people actually do see the drawbacks, continuously, of everything, including the things they really really want. I happen to be one of those people.

Why should I be expected to build my characters with delusional optimism if I don't want to explore that?Then don't. The build choice simply has consequences and costs.

Why should somebody who wants to play somebody who is more like what they consider a believable individual be punished by having a less optimal character than you when they had to pay the same build costs?

And that would seem to be a system bias against a certain sort of character... in direct contradiction of your other response.

It sounds like you want to make a certain type of character -- one who isn't driven by desire and comfort -- more expensive to create.This is the same kind of logic that says that, when it's realized that an admissions test into a prestigious college favors those who grew up vacationing in the Hamptons over those who had to work summers in the fields in the Midwest due to cultural knowledge that is considered "common" in the Hamptons-vacationing set's culture, that changing the test to remove that bias is creating a system bias against those who grew up vacationing in the Hamptons.

In other words, I am proposing REMOVING a bias AGAINST those who aren't perfect long-term decision-making machines by introducing mechanics which simulate the drives those who aren't such characters experience.

It's reached the point where "murderhobo" is starting to sound less like a specific thing, and more like something in the vein of "Mary Sue" -- shorthand for nothing more specific or useful than "character who I don't like, and that I think other people shouldn't like either". "Badwrongcharacter" instead of "badwrongfun".Not really. ImNotTrevor addresses this pretty well here:

Murderhobo is pretty well established as a thing.

Murderhobos show the following features:
No connection to other characters
No connection to the setting
Kill without thought. Everything alive is XP waiting to happen.

So, no, Murderhobo isn't "anything I don't like" nor is it even necessarily "doing it wrong." Playing murderhobos is entirely appropriate in some kinds of games. It's only derogatory when applied to characters who are doing it in games which are trying to simulate a more "real people" kind of role playing experience. (And please don't retreat to a straw man that fantasy games with magic and monsters can't involve recognizably "real people.")

Segev -- I'm curious, how would your system handle/model a character whose internal response to any desire, is a reflexive internal "voicing" of the drawbacks of actually getting what they want?

For example, the thought that it would be nice to own a house with a yard and a garage and more room, instead of renting an apartment, would be met immediately by thoughts of the increased cost and the trouble of having a mortage and being responsible for all the maintenance and yardwork and so on.

Or the thought that it would be nice to have a pet again is immediately met by thoughts of having to clean up after it, and take it to the vet, and eventually have to go through it dying or having to have it put to sleep, and how terrible that was last time.

Or the thought that it would be nice to have a relationship is immediately met with thoughts of the complications of giving up privacy and independence and so on, and that's if it doesn't go down in flames at some point before that.Fairly transparently. Knowing the drawbacks only helps weight it. In fact, I'm assuming that the player knows the drawbacks anyway. The difference is that I'm adding in the short-term (or even medium- or long-term) satisfaction that owning a house with a yard might bring. Or having a new pet again. Or having a new relationship.

The notion that having a house with a yard does bring costs and trials but is still worth the satisfaction and enjoyment the character gets from what he CAN do with it, but which the player can't share, is the core of the philosophy behind what I'm proposing.

If the system only models the depression of having the pet put to sleep, but not the joy of having it, of course that creates a disproportionate pressure not to have one. But even knowing, when you get your new puppy, that you'll eventually be crying by her on a cold table as she's put to sleep, doesn't stop there from being joy in training her, playing with her, and having her companionship between now and that tragic future.

Similarly, even knowing that a relationship will lead to fights, and might end in heartbreak, doesn't mean there aren't positives. Heck, even knowing it's possible (s)he's a gold-digger who'll ruin you doesn't mean there isn't potential benefit; what if (s)he is exactly the sweet, gorgeous, smart, intriguing person (s)he seems to be, and is genuinely interested in you? Is the chance at happiness worth it? If the system only models the downsides should (s)he betray and destroy you, of course it isn't. But even the character who instantly evaluates all the potential downsides has the potential upsides to weigh, as well...and I propose modeling those up sides, too. (Or, conversely, the down sides to giving up on those chances out of fear of the drawbacks.)

I am not against sex in games. However, being forced to imagine your character having sex with someone that they are not attracted to because "the dice say they really do want it despite what they think," is just a little too rapey for me. In fact, I have more of an objection to that than to blatant rape, because if my character was physically / magically forced I could then get revenge or otherwise do something about it, while with a seduction role I then have to pretend that I like my abuser.This is one STRONG reason I advocate for a system which merely gives incentives (as rewards for playing along or disadvantages for resisting) towards things.

Now, I will quibble one thing, here: the dice saying they really want to probably DOES mean that your PC is attracted to this person...possibly in spite of him- or herself. (Unless the "you want to have sex with me" persuasion comes from something other than attraction; bribery or extortion, perhaps. In which case it's not playing against your character's desires, either; your PC isn't attracted...but the incentives or threats are such that your PC is tempted to go along anyway, despite what might be real revulsion.)

By the time the dice are speaking in this manner, it's not "your PC wants to despite thinking they don't;" it's "your PC wants to even though you think your PC shouldn't."

Second, (and this is a more general objection to social combat) it destroys my character concept. I'm with you here.

For example, my last D&D character was part of a knightly order and had taken a vow of celibacy. He would literally kill himself before breaking this vow.I've played characters like this. And my proposed system would support them!

In fact, it makes their decision more "real," to me: instead of simply saying, "Oh, yeah, he just ignores the temptations, because I say so and I have no reason to act like they're real," you can look at the effect in the mechanics and say, "Wow, yeah, that's a big temptation, but he wills himself through it," and, because the latter has him paying the costs (or turning down the rewards) in a mechanical sense, it is no longer "nothing vs. my concept," but now is "is the price worth my concept?"

And so the choice is more meaningful. His determination to suffer through whatever penalties (or to give up whatever rewards) actually means something because real costs (opportunity or otherwise) were paid to stick to his guns.

In case I'm not making this crystal clear, it takes it from a choice of "Do you walk through door #1, which costs you your concept, or door #2, which doesn't?" to "Do you walk through door #1, which costs you your concept but gets you this reward, or do you walk through door #2, which preserves your concept but costs this penalty?"

The value of your concept is measured by how much reward or penalty you forsake or endure to maintain it.

My last Mage character was asexual and had all sorts of psychological issues about relationships. Her best friend (who had very high social skills) was in love with her and had been trying to seduce her for years with little result. It would be totally out of character for her to then jump into bed with some random guy just because they rolled a natural 20.Well, such a character would be a little complex to build right, but it would probably involve having those issues about relationships represented by things which make entering relationships cost a lot of morale, possibly repeatedly each step of the way. The NPC Seductor would have at least as much trouble overcoming that as her best friend.

I'll add that I wouldn't ever use a "natural 20 auto-succeeds" measure with a system like this. Or, rather, it wouldn't auto-succeed in a manner that granted automatic "mind control." Even if it automatically did SOMETHING, it would just allow the seductor to have some sort of ability to reduce his impediments to your mage's heart. (And, likewise, your mage's best friend could have done the same and likely would have with the number of rolls "trying to seduce her for years" would represent. So, again, it's unlikely that nat 20s would do much.)

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-03, 04:45 PM

This is the same kind of logic that says that, when it's realized that an admissions test into a prestigious college favors those who grew up vacationing in the Hamptons over those who had to work summers in the fields in the Midwest due to cultural knowledge that is considered "common" in the Hamptons-vacationing set's culture, that changing the test to remove that bias is creating a system bias against those who grew up vacationing in the Hamptons.

In other words, I am proposing REMOVING a bias AGAINST those who aren't perfect long-term decision-making machines by introducing mechanics which simulate the drives those who aren't such characters experience.

Even if one agrees that there's a bias created by existing mechanics that don't include the sort of system that you're proposing -- which I do not -- you're effectively just saying "half the questions on the admissions exam will now be biased by a new different set of cultural knowledge".

And given what you've posted of your system, it really is saying "we don't think you should be able to play characters who aren't deeply driven by their desires, presuming a very specific model of human motivation as "more realistic" -- and then you're attempting to make a false contrast with the notion that any character not falling into that system is some sort of unrealistic "perfect decision making machine".

So, no, Murderhobo isn't "anything I don't like" nor is it even necessarily "doing it wrong." Playing murderhobos is entirely appropriate in some kinds of games. It's only derogatory when applied to characters who are doing it in games which are trying to simulate a more "real people" kind of role playing experience. (And please don't retreat to a straw man that fantasy games with magic and monsters can't involve recognizably "real people.")

I'd say you're not using it that way, but I get sick of those terms because other people use them as a lazy way of dismissing "badwrongcharacters" without actually have to explain what they don't like, and every time someone uses it, I have to spend forever figuring out if they're using it as a technical term or as a term of cheap derision. And with that deep unclarity in the use of the word, I'd say it's better for people to just say what they mean than fall back on a term that's been so diluted.

(And what would make you think that I'd say that fantasy games can't involve "real people" characters?)

Fairly transparently. Knowing the drawbacks only helps weight it. In fact, I'm assuming that the player knows the drawbacks anyway. The difference is that I'm adding in the short-term (or even medium- or long-term) satisfaction that owning a house with a yard might bring. Or having a new pet again. Or having a new relationship.

The notion that having a house with a yard does bring costs and trials but is still worth the satisfaction and enjoyment the character gets from what he CAN do with it, but which the player can't share, is the core of the philosophy behind what I'm proposing.

If the system only models the depression of having the pet put to sleep, but not the joy of having it, of course that creates a disproportionate pressure not to have one. But even knowing, when you get your new puppy, that you'll eventually be crying by her on a cold table as she's put to sleep, doesn't stop there from being joy in training her, playing with her, and having her companionship between now and that tragic future.

Similarly, even knowing that a relationship will lead to fights, and might end in heartbreak, doesn't mean there aren't positives. Heck, even knowing it's possible (s)he's a gold-digger who'll ruin you doesn't mean there isn't potential benefit; what if (s)he is exactly the sweet, gorgeous, smart, intriguing person (s)he seems to be, and is genuinely interested in you? Is the chance at happiness worth it? If the system only models the downsides should (s)he betray and destroy you, of course it isn't. But even the character who instantly evaluates all the potential downsides has the potential upsides to weigh, as well...and I propose modeling those up sides, too. (Or, conversely, the down sides to giving up on those chances out of fear of the drawbacks.)

This is one STRONG reason I advocate for a system which merely gives incentives (as rewards for playing along or disadvantages for resisting) towards things.

There's a line from a song... "Hunger hurts, but starving works, when it costs too much to love."

To some people, and thus to some "real people" characters, the potential joy of each simply isn't worth the eventual costs (or even the possible costs) and/or the inevitability of those costs makes that joy impossible in the first place. The "chance of happiness" isn't worth it.

Until your system can model those people, it has a giant hole.

Now, I will quibble one thing, here: the dice saying they really want to probably DOES mean that your PC is attracted to this person...possibly in spite of him- or herself. (Unless the "you want to have sex with me" persuasion comes from something other than attraction; bribery or extortion, perhaps. In which case it's not playing against your character's desires, either; your PC isn't attracted...but the incentives or threats are such that your PC is tempted to go along anyway, despite what might be real revulsion.)

By the time the dice are speaking in this manner, it's not "your PC wants to despite thinking they don't;" it's "your PC wants to even though you think your PC shouldn't."

And that's exactly why I'm so leery of these ideas -- I reject in total and in parts the notion that the dice or the GM or the game designer, does, will, or even can, know more about what a PC wants than the player does.

Talakeal

2017-01-03, 04:50 PM

I'm with you here.
I've played characters like this. And my proposed system would support them!

In fact, it makes their decision more "real," to me: instead of simply saying, "Oh, yeah, he just ignores the temptations, because I say so and I have no reason to act like they're real," you can look at the effect in the mechanics and say, "Wow, yeah, that's a big temptation, but he wills himself through it," and, because the latter has him paying the costs (or turning down the rewards) in a mechanical sense, it is no longer "nothing vs. my concept," but now is "is the price worth my concept?"

Ok, now I am really confused.

I am fine sacrificing effectiveness for my character concept. I thought your whole premise was that you weren't ok with that, and you wanted a system that would reward you for RP decisions so that they weren't strictly mechanically suboptimal.

In this case your system appears do be doing the exact opposite of what you wanted out of it, but you are saying that is a good thing.

Where am I getting you wrong?

BRC

2017-01-03, 05:00 PM

And that's exactly why I'm so leery of these ideas -- I reject in total and in parts the notion that the dice or the GM or the game designer, does, will, or even can, know more about what a PC wants than the player does.
Want does not always translate into action. I can think of several situations where a dice roll is a perfectly reasonable way to determine a character's actions, but almost always in the form of a pre-established flaw that the character has, usually resulting in some kind of Compulsion.

For example, if a character is offered some drugs, and says no, the GM shouldn't be able to roll some dice and say "no, it's too tempting, you accept the Drugs".

However, if my character is an established drug addict, then I think it would be reasonable for a dice roll to represent the struggle between their willpower/reason and their addiction.

Similarly, most "Sense Motive" type mechanics merely tell you if you DETECT deceit. They rightfully don't force you to trust an NPC you roll poorly against. You could fail to detect deceit, and simply decide that the NPC is better at lying than you are at spotting lies. However, if your character has some sort of pre-established compulsion, I could see that being the case.

For example, if a PC is approached by a panicked man saying "HELP! MY CHILD WAS KIDNAPPED, THEY RAN INTO THAT ALLEYWAY!", and you don't get anything off a sense motive role, you normally shouldn't be forced to assume that he's telling the truth. But, if your character is compulsively heroic, then it wouldn't be unreasonable for the game to do something to encourage you to run into that alleyway, which may or may not be an ambush.

@Segev, I'm nervous about the way you describe that system, since it seems to me that it would discourage running high-concept characters. If you're constantly presented with a string of choices that punish you for sticking to your character concept.
I guess there's a certain masochistic enjoyment that can come from watching your character suffer due to their convictions, but most players are going to prefer to see their character thrive and succeed. That's why most systems REWARD you for sticking to your conviction, even when there are mechanical or in-universe consequences.

Let's go with the chaste Knight, he has taken a sacred vow of celibacy, but, in classic trope form, the Pirate Queen the PC's are trying to get help from has taken a fancy to him, and attempts to seduce him. If he agrees, then she'll be far more likely to lend the PC's a ship to take them where they need to go.

A classic Reward for Flaw system would say that you have door #1 Sleep with the pirate queen, sacrificing your character concept, but getting the party the ship they need. OR, door #2, stick to your character concept, lose the ship, and receive some meta-reward (XP or inspiration or FATE points), so you, as the player, are still having a good time, even though you just passed on a chance to achieve your goals. These systems take the mindset that losing the ship is a PUNISHMENT, to be canceled out by the REWARD of knowing that your character kept their vow, even if it means the party is now trapped on an island full of cutthroat pirates.
Door #1 Sacrifices your concept, but gets you a big, immediate reward (the Ship)
Door #2 keeps your concept, and gives you some meta-reward as a consolation prize, so that rebuffing the pirate queen STILL helps your character succeed,

Your system would say that losing the ship IS the Reward, because it means you really believe in your character's convictions!

What such a system encourages is a bunch of generic, unprincipled mercenaries who only have restrictive concepts so they can throw them aside for the reward.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-03, 05:24 PM

Want does not always translate into action. I can think of several situations where a dice roll is a perfectly reasonable way to determine a character's actions, but almost always in the form of a pre-established flaw that the character has, usually resulting in some kind of Compulsion.

Yes -- however, I responding to this comment:

By the time the dice are speaking in this manner, it's not "your PC wants to despite thinking they don't;" it's "your PC wants to even though you think your PC shouldn't."

To which a more direct response than my previous was "the dice don't get to tell the player what the player character wants, the dice can butt the hell out".

Compulsions are a more specific topic than we're talking about here, as far as I can tell.

@Segev, I'm nervous about the way you describe that system, since it seems to me that it would discourage running high-concept characters. If you're constantly presented with a string of choices that punish you for sticking to your character concept.
I guess there's a certain masochistic enjoyment that can come from watching your character suffer due to their convictions, but most players are going to prefer to see their character thrive and succeed. That's why most systems REWARD you for sticking to your conviction, even when there are mechanical or in-universe consequences.

Let's go with the chaste Knight, he has taken a sacred vow of celibacy, but, in classic trope form, the Pirate Queen the PC's are trying to get help from has taken a fancy to him, and attempts to seduce him. If he agrees, then she'll be far more likely to lend the PC's a ship to take them where they need to go.

A classic Reward for Flaw system would say that you have door #1 Sleep with the pirate queen, sacrificing your character concept, but getting the party the ship they need. OR, door #2, stick to your character concept, lose the ship, and receive some meta-reward (XP or inspiration or FATE points), so you, as the player, are still having a good time, even though you just passed on a chance to achieve your goals. These systems take the mindset that losing the ship is a PUNISHMENT, to be canceled out by the REWARD of knowing that your character kept their vow, even if it means the party is now trapped on an island full of cutthroat pirates.

Your system would say that losing the ship IS the Reward, because it means you really believe in your character's convictions!

What such a system encourages is a bunch of generic, unprincipled mercenaries who only have restrictive concepts so they can throw them aside for the reward.

As far as I can tell, the effect of this proposed system would not be opening up more characters as workable or more character decisions as valid (on a mechanical level with the presumption that current mechanics "punish", that is -- the characters are already completely workable and valid in most systems). As with many of these, it would just encode a certain conception of "human motivation" as correct within the rules of an RPG, and make characters who fall outside that conception harder to create and harder to roleplay.

Ok, now I am really confused.

I am fine sacrificing effectiveness for my character concept. I thought your whole premise was that you weren't ok with that, and you wanted a system that would reward you for RP decisions so that they weren't strictly mechanically suboptimal.

In this case your system appears do be doing the exact opposite of what you wanted out of it, but you are saying that is a good thing.

Where am I getting you wrong?

See above.

This is why I'd make this system, or any like it, voluntary on a per-character basis.

If a player decides that they'll take the mechanical "punishment" for making the decisions they think their character would make, from the character's perspective, and with the character's knowledge in mind, and they don't want any "compensation" or "reward" for doing so, then just let them do that.

Segev

2017-01-03, 05:58 PM

Even if one agrees that there's a bias created by existing mechanics that don't include the sort of system that you're proposing -- which I do not -- you're effectively just saying "half the questions on the admissions exam will now be biased by a new different set of cultural knowledge". Sort of. What I'm really getting at is that the questions currently assume that you can just tax the peasants more and it won't have any negative repercussions, ever, so just tax them more as the right answer. But the peasant coming in to take the test realizes that this doesn't work, because he knows why the taxes hiking would kill him, so he answers "wrong."

Eh, this analogy is falling apart. Sorry. I know what I mean, and I can see where you're reading it wrong, but I can't articulate it in a way that I believe would be sufficiently illustrative in a different manner than I've tried. My apologies for my failure at communication. I'll still try, but...I hold little hope of success.

I am saying that there is a bias in existing mechanics in favor of playing the character who cares nothing for friends or family, is not swayed by romance, sexual titillation, or luxury, and is driven to work with total dedication at the highest-paying jobs without a care in the world for the stresses thereof and no concern for any sort of luxury, vice, or entertainment, because he will have the most wealth and power to do whatever he wants.

You might argue that this is realistic! Real people have the same incentives! And only idiots give in to those temptations like wanting to waste money and time on a movie or a date or waste emotional energy on a family or romance or risk STDs or blackmail or (horror of horrors) unwanted children by dallying in sex. Yet you will find people who, despite WANTING to be the high-wealth, high-power executive, will squander their money. You'll find politicians who know the risks dallying with interns and less-well-vetted paramours, for naught but the physical pleasure (or the power rush).

But the game rewards only the sort who never make the foolish choice. The player in no way gets any reward for having his character make the foolish choice, because he doesn't get to share in its pleasures.

That is the bias I am attempting to correct, by adding in rewards for the player which reflect the rewards the character perceives. Or costs for the player's gameplaying resources commensurate with the opportunity costs the character perceives in turning down the temptations that would risk his perfect career path to wealth and power.

And given what you've posted of your system, it really is saying "we don't think you should be able to play characters who aren't deeply driven by their desires, presuming a very specific model of human motivation as "more realistic" -- and then you're attempting to make a false contrast with the notion that any character not falling into that system is some sort of unrealistic "perfect decision making machine".No, I'm saying with this system that playing a character who is able to overcome his desires comes at a cost compared to not doing so, such that playing a character who is deeply driven by his desires isn't equivalent to choosing to play a blind character in D&D, where you get no benefit and only costs for doing so.

(And what would make you think that I'd say that fantasy games can't involve "real people" characters?)I don't know (not sarcastic). It was just a straw man I felt being raised and wanted to nip in the bud. If you weren't going to, great. Sorry if I seemed to be besmirching your character. (pun about "character" unintended)

There's a line from a song... "Hunger hurts, but starving works, when it costs too much to love."

To some people, and thus to some "real people" characters, the potential joy of each simply isn't worth the eventual costs (or even the possible costs) and/or the inevitability of those costs makes that joy impossible in the first place. The "chance of happiness" isn't worth it.
Until your system can model those people, it has a giant hole. Sure. And I believe they're covered by my system.

The pains of getting involved would, for such characters, create costs that would make it difficult to even get started. Just as the alcoholic would find refusing to indulge his addiction difficult, due to costs associated with doing so which would make the benefits of not being drunk seem less worth-while.

Character growth might occur by these people enduring the pains and finding their way to better situations. Or they might not grow in that direction and maintain those traits throughout.

The character who finds sex to be incredibly nerve-wracking when it's impressed at him would, perhaps, find the seductress to be charming and pretty, but the moment she started pushing towards a passionate embrace of any sort, she'd find that her efforts to enflame his desire are coming up against his horrific discomfort with getting closer in that way, and even if she could cost him morale points for refusing her, the morale points he'd cost himself by accepting are equivalent or greater. It might be a catch-22 for him. But I would expect there to be catch-22s for any character type where somebody is trying to build desire for something that they inherently deplore or find repulsive/unpleasant.

Similarly, the bisexual seductor coming after the completely straight dude would run up against his "ew, not into guys" thing which would make him cost morale points to get hot and heavy with another guy.

Does that make sense?

And that's exactly why I'm so leery of these ideas -- I reject in total and in parts the notion that the dice or the GM or the game designer, does, will, or even can, know more about what a PC wants than the player does.We have disagreed here before, but I will again bring up physical capability. I think there's no way that your NPC can be stronger than my character, but yet, we roll dice to decide who wins the arm wrestling competition.

Additionally, the dice or the system simulating your character's hunger, drug addiction, or exhaustion may well know better than you, the player, do how bad a craving is or how much the exhaustion makes him unable or unwilling to get up. You're not suffering the withdrawal, the hunger, or the exhaustion. To you, getting up to answer the phone means you get to go participate in a cool action-adventure scene. To your character, getting up to answer the phone means GETTING UP, which is bad enough in and of itself, and if he really suspected it would mean he would have to run around and engage in strenuous physical activity, he'd be even more reluctant.

To you, knowing your PC wants to lose weight, refusing to have a snack is trivial. To your PC, that snack looks so tasty and he is hungry, darn it, and that's highly unpleasant.

So yes, the simulation CAN know better how your PC feels than you do. The dice, as part of the simulation, can report this to you.

Ok, now I am really confused.

I am fine sacrificing effectiveness for my character concept. I thought your whole premise was that you weren't ok with that, and you wanted a system that would reward you for RP decisions so that they weren't strictly mechanically suboptimal.

In this case your system appears do be doing the exact opposite of what you wanted out of it, but you are saying that is a good thing.

Where am I getting you wrong?
Okay. It's not about "sacrificing for concept." It's about "sacrificing for RP."

I posit that, of all possible devoted knights sworn to celibacy who believe they would rather die than forsake that oath, there are those who nevertheless engage in sexual intercourse at some point. (As evidence, though admittedly in a slightly different oath being violated, see Lancelot.)

Therefore, I further posit that something about at least some situations causes sexual intercourse to be sufficiently tempting that a knight sworn to celibacy would violate his oath, even if he had previously thought he'd rather die than do so.

The proposed system would model that temptation as rewards for violating said oath or penalties for sticking to it when faced with these situations. The magnitude of these rewards or severity of these penalties would model how impressive that temptation was, both in general and, more specifically, to that particular knight.

In a story, where we don't have any player playing the knight, the severity of the temptation can be informed or, if the storyteller is good, shown to the audience, and the greater the audience believes the temptation to be, the more impressive the knight's dedication is should he still resist it. (And, as well, the more understandable the knight's violation of his oath is if he gives in.)

In a game, where there is no system like I propose, it doesn't matter how well the storyteller describes the temptation, nor how much he informs the knight's player that "it's really really seriously tempting, dude, I mean, like almost irresistible," as long as the player knows that he gets nothing for giving in but suffers in-game penalties for resisting, the game pressure is 100% to resist. Add in that his concept is "I want to be a celibate knight who would die rather than violate his oath," and it's a foregone conclusion that he's going to resist the temptation. The temptation simply doesn't exist as a real thing. It's not impressive that he resists. In fact, if it's not just a non-event, it's an eye-roll-inducing bit of mary sueness, because there's no cost to it but we're expected to pretend that he's still done something amazing.

With the system I propose, or something like it, the decision to resist or give in still rests with the player, but the magnitude of reward or severity of penalty tells all how serious the temptation really is to the knight. And if the knight turns it down and the rewards were really high or the penalties really severe, his dedication to his oath at great personal cost (even if said cost is purely emotional and in resisting desire) is actually meaningful.

Does that clear up where I'm coming from?

@Segev, I'm nervous about the way you describe that system, since it seems to me that it would discourage running high-concept characters. If you're constantly presented with a string of choices that punish you for sticking to your character concept.This is, in part, a question of the kind of game you're playing. Are these strings of choices really that important and imposing? Build a character that meets your high concept and will resist them, much the same way a "strong man" high concept would be built to be able to overcome any strength-based obstacles the GM saw fit to impose.

I guess there's a certain masochistic enjoyment that can come from watching your character suffer due to their convictions, but most players are going to prefer to see their character thrive and succeed. That's why most systems REWARD you for sticking to your conviction, even when there are mechanical or in-universe consequences. I agree. I find it ironic that this is being brought up as if I'm against it, because it is recognition that systems currently punish anything but perfect optimal-decision-making-engines of PCs that inspires the desire I have for a system like the one I propose.

The idea here is not that any particular set of things must be universally tempting, but that there are things which tempt everybody, and that when those things are not in alignment with optimal game-winning choices, there needs to be a subsystem reflecting that temptation the character perceives but in which the player otherwise cannot share. So as to avoid having the desire to succeed and thrive coming into opposition to the desire to RP your character realistically.

Let's go with the chaste Knight, he has taken a sacred vow of celibacy, but, in classic trope form, the Pirate Queen the PC's are trying to get help from has taken a fancy to him, and attempts to seduce him. If he agrees, then she'll be far more likely to lend the PC's a ship to take them where they need to go.

A classic Reward for Flaw system would say that you have door #1 Sleep with the pirate queen, sacrificing your character concept, but getting the party the ship they need. OR, door #2, stick to your character concept, lose the ship, and receive some meta-reward (XP or inspiration or FATE points), so you, as the player, are still having a good time, even though you just passed on a chance to achieve your goals. These systems take the mindset that losing the ship is a PUNISHMENT, to be canceled out by the REWARD of knowing that your character kept their vow, even if it means the party is now trapped on an island full of cutthroat pirates.

Your system would say that losing the ship IS the Reward, because it means you really believe in your character's convictions! Nonsense. My system, at most, suggests that the pirate queen has a certain level of success at making "sex with her" its own reward. If that's adding to the temptation, then that's fitting. I mean, are you telling me that the believable story here is that this celibate knight would sleep with a woman he has no interest in because she'll give him a ship?

Maybe it is. Maybe the pirate queen really isn't seductive, or the knight's value for his oath is such that violating it costs enough morale to counteract any bonus she'd give him from her seduction. I mean, let's gender-flip this: the Pirate King is seducing the Lady Knight. The narrative expectation here is that she might be doing it JUST for the boat, because the narrative conceit is that women don't "want" it the way men do. How well the Pirate King does on his seduction roll would reflect how well he overcomes her chaste reticence to make her want it in spite of herself.

Again: she still has the choice, as controlled by her player.

But this system doesn't say "losing the ship is the reward." It says "you have two options: sleep with the Pirate Potentate (and get whatever pleasures the coupling gives, plus possibly a ship); or don't (and suffer whatever aches of desire, and keep your vow and whatever comes with it).

It isn't about artificially balancing scales. It's about making sure that all weights are fairly placed upon the scales of your decision making algorithm.

What such a system encourages is a bunch of generic, unprincipled mercenaries who only have restrictive concepts so they can throw them aside for the reward.Not really. It encourages people to take their character's drives and desires and comforts into account, by ensuring that those have appropriate gameplay weight compared to the existing gameplay weights.

Again: "Pirate Queen is seducing me" having "ship" as reward but "she's hideous!" as a downside vs. "keep my vow" as the up side but "no ship" as the downside of refusing her is a different equation than "ship" as reward and "she's hot and I want the sex, too" as a reward vs. "keep my vow" but "no ship" and "no sex with the hot babe" as downsides to refusing.

I mean, don't you agree that the weight of the decision for our chaste knight is different depending on whether the Pirate Potentate is sexually desirable or not?

jayem

2017-01-03, 06:00 PM

See, my objection to this is two-fold.
Second, (and this is a more general objection to social combat) it destroys my character concept.
For example, my last D&D character was part of a knightly order and had taken a vow of celibacy. He would literally kill himself before breaking this vow.
My last Mage character was asexual and had all sorts of psychological issues about relationships. Her best friend (who had very high social skills) was in love with her and had been trying to seduce her for years with little result. It would be totally out of character for her to then jump into bed with some random guy just because they rolled a natural 20.
A system (at least one not made in the 1890's) that didn't at least try to deal with the second case wouldn't get off the starting blocks. One would assume there would also be some advantage in turn for those chosing orientations distracted by the sexy as well as disadvantages. I'd imagine most would have the Bondesque libido being the special case, and leaving distinguishing the rest to the players discretion, (or perhaps 3 categories, tempted by anything no chance against elites, tempted by elite seducers only, imune).
Although the games where these would become a really significant part (anything with Vampires perhaps, or other novelties) might also argue that it wouldn't be out of character (but in that case, the mechanics would be more complex anyway, and you'd know this from the start).

As for the first case there are 2 contradictory and different things the Player could want from this.
He could want him to be functionally 'asexual' as above, but for different reasons and with different dialog. In which case there's clearly no problem.

He could want the character to be really tempted but also really committed. Which isn't going to be easy (with any mechanic). Which is a shame as it's the interesting case. The option where 'he literally kills himself' has to be a real threat. You'd need something like having to spend morale points to resist temptation but then crash out really badly if he fails to keep his vow.

Cluedrew

2017-01-03, 06:13 PM

The fact that you spoilered this makes me facepalm. If someone is ignoring me, that's their issues. You don't need to accomodate. Just do your thing.Actually last time I quoted someone Max_Killjoy had on ignore I made a comment of theirs look bad out of context and more insults got thrown and although they didn't care (so I let it go) I felt bad about it, so I was avoiding a repeat.

I agree with that, though I tend to go more minimalist and try to have only the rules that fit what I want.Same... except sometimes it is not so minimalist. Sometimes having massive expanses of rules is what we want. It all depends.

Problem: correctly role-playing many characters / scenarios - such as the arm sacrifice - will come back to bite the character, punishing them both immediately and ongoing above and beyond the already potentially mechanically significant statistical losses from the loss of an arm.I actually agree that this is a problem, but I hope it is one that can be solved.

Replies to my interest in personality mechanics, exploration:

Hopefully, we're helping answer this one. Perhaps more so than you'd like. :smalltongue:Hin, maybe. But so far I still feel I am getting something worth while out of it.

Reply to communication:

Hmmm... people already have problems with the idea that taking teleport communicates an lack of desire for overland travel games. But, yes, purr the initial thread topic, it's certainly one way to get buy in. But certainly not the best. Because different people's idea of foo may be different, for any given value of foo. Explicit communication, having a conversation, is best.

But... Fine, I don't get "theme". Having rules that reward me for very specific ways of holding the idiot ball common to, say, horror movies will allow me to pick the character that best matches your intended theme, or to build a new character to try to munchkin the rewards instead of role-playing.

But what is the point of encouraging someone to munchkin the RP rewards instead of role-playing? What are you communicating?To the first, yes, explicit communication is better, but would it not be better still if the thing you are communicating about is also clear about itself.

Funny story, the system I am currently building has produced underpowered characters. Some of this is that the numbers were just too low, but part of it (I think, playtests still in progress) is people are consistently building characters "wrong". Now I just could say this... I know I have been tempted, but instead I am trying to get the system to the point that its obvious how to build the a character "correctly".

To the second & the third: I don't really view munchkins as a major concern, plus we are still trying to get this working for people with go intentions so lets not get ahead of ourselves. Really any game can be made be unfun by bad players, I know no way to prevent that. The best outcome I suppose is that a character that is munchkined on RP mechanics is more fun to play with than one that is just played on combat mechanics.

Reply to represent:

Imagine trying to build a diced combat system that doesn't interfere with padded weapons combat...I'm sorry I don't understand what your point is here. Sure they can interfere with each other but I think both can be used to represent a character if used properly. Of course there is a whole conversation about using them properly too but... is that what you are talking about?

I was going to say more but I'm kind of tired. I've kind of been sitting here not writing for a while.

2

BRC

2017-01-03, 06:29 PM

[QUOTE=Segev;21558362
Nonsense. My system, at most, suggests that the pirate queen has a certain level of success at making "sex with her" its own reward. If that's adding to the temptation, then that's fitting. I mean, are you telling me that the believable story here is that this celibate knight would sleep with a woman he has no interest in because she'll give him a ship?

Maybe it is. Maybe the pirate queen really isn't seductive, or the knight's value for his oath is such that violating it costs enough morale to counteract any bonus she'd give him from her seduction. I mean, let's gender-flip this: the Pirate King is seducing the Lady Knight. The narrative expectation here is that she might be doing it JUST for the boat, because the narrative conceit is that women don't "want" it the way men do. How well the Pirate King does on his seduction roll would reflect how well he overcomes her chaste reticence to make her want it in spite of herself.

Again: she still has the choice, as controlled by her player.

But this system doesn't say "losing the ship is the reward." It says "you have two options: sleep with the Pirate Potentate (and get whatever pleasures the coupling gives, plus possibly a ship); or don't (and suffer whatever aches of desire, and keep your vow and whatever comes with it).

It isn't about artificially balancing scales. It's about making sure that all weights are fairly placed upon the scales of your decision making algorithm.

Not really. It encourages people to take their character's drives and desires and comforts into account, by ensuring that those have appropriate gameplay weight compared to the existing gameplay weights.

Again: "Pirate Queen is seducing me" having "ship" as reward but "she's hideous!" as a downside vs. "keep my vow" as the up side but "no ship" as the downside of refusing her is a different equation than "ship" as reward and "she's hot and I want the sex, too" as a reward vs. "keep my vow" but "no ship" and "no sex with the hot babe" as downsides to refusing.

I mean, don't you agree that the weight of the decision for our chaste knight is different depending on whether the Pirate Potentate is sexually desirable or not?[/QUOTE]

That seems suspiciously like you're just throwing some balance on the scales in different ways.

So, chaste knight is propositioned by sexy pirate queen. For the purposes of this argument, the Knight is, in fact, attracted to her.

The Classic "Reward for Flaw" system, looking at things from a purely mechanical prospective, says "Choose between getting the ship, or getting extra XP for playing up your character's conviction". A choice of two rewards.

Your system proposes an additional mechanical reward for a raunchy night with the pirate queen, some sort of morale bonus, with a penalty for turning her down, as your chaste Knight suffers for his convictions.
Ignoring the idea that it would make sense to invoke ANOTHER penalty, as the Knight regrets breaking their oath, you've now established that there is a mechanical benefit to sleeping with the pirate queen, in order to "Tempt" the Knight's player into accepting her offer.
The problem is, there's only anything on the other side of the scale for this specific character. If she was attracted to, say, the party Bard, rather than the Knight, the bard has no reason to say no.

But, in order to tempt the Knight, you've now established an additional mechanical bonus to accepting her offer.

You're basically setting up a system where there is a mechanical bonus to anything pleasurable that somebody could have an in-character reason to refuse.

You're character is a vegetarian? Well, you can stick to that, OR take advantage of this +2 bonus from eating a delicious bacon cheeseburger. Suffer a -2 penalty from the smell.

Your character doesn't drink? Apparently everybody else is getting a +1 bonus from cracking open a cold one. Suffer a -1 penalty because it looks really refreshing.

I have seen something similar, usually with Addiction flaws, where you suffer a penalty, based on the severity of the flaw, if you don't do whatever it is you are addicted to for too long. Some systems then give you a meta-reward if you suffer some serious consequence because of the penalty, or in trying to satisfy your addiction (You are high during this next fight, so take some meta-resource for playing up an addict). But, those are usually opt-in features, rather than universal rules.

BRC

2017-01-03, 07:33 PM

okay, had some more time to think and got to the crux of my issue.

Over on the other thread, I made this statement (Which you noted) (Edited so as to not overuse the term)

Think about it this way, every Player is filling three roles, with three separate goals, Gamer, Roleplayer, and Storyteller.

The Gamer wants to Win the game. They want to kill the dragon, level up their character, get the loot ect. The Gamer acts as somebody with a knowledge of the game rules, and whatever powers are granted to them by the game mechanics.

The Roleplayer wants to achieve whatever in-character goals they have. They may want to kill the dragon, they may want the wealth and prestige that comes from killing said dragon, they certainly don't want to die. They exist as an entity within the world, having whatever abilities their character sheet gives them.

The Storyteller wants to tell a good story. That could be the story of the Heroes Heroically Slaying the Dragon, that could be the story of a Noble Sacrifice To Save The Rest of The Party. They only have whatever abilities they have as gamer and character, plus the ability to suggest stuff to the GM.

So, let's go back to our Knight and our Pirate Queen.

The Gamer wants to do whatever helps them Win. The Roleplayer wants to be true to their character.

Let's remove the ship from the equation. The Pirate Queen offers to have sex with the Knight.
The Gamer doesn't care. The Roleplayer says No, because their knight is chaste. Easy Answer, No.

Then, the Pirate Queen says that she might be more amenable to lending the PC's a ship if the Knight helps her work off the stresses of command.
Now, the Gamer(Who wants a ship, assuming that helps them achieve their goal) says Yes, the Roleplayer says no, because their knight is chaste.

Now, the Player is conflicted, they must either hurt their chances of Winning, or abandon their character. Gamer and Roleplayer are in conflict.

At this point, something like FATE would offer the player a Fate Point for turning down the Queen's offer. A Fate Point doesn't do nearly as much to get them to their destination as a Ship would, but it let's the Gamer feel like they got SOMETHING for sticking to their character concept. Under this system, you can succeed as a Roleplayer, while not necessarily failing as a Gamer.

Your system is doing the opposite in order to make the Player suffer the same indecision as the Character. Offering even greater incentive to say Yes, while doing nothing to mollify the Roleplayer. This just makes the conflict between Gamer and Roleplayer worse, which makes the game miserable to play.

And then there's the Storyteller aspect, what makes a better story?
A) The Noble Knight, restrained by their oath, resists the temptations of the Pirate Queen
Or
B) Oaths are nice and all, but the pirate queen is like, really hot. So the Chaste Knight is now...just some dude with a sword?

Does the game really benefit from making the players feel the same temptations that their characters do? RPGs are skinner boxes. They are designed to reward good behavior.

It sounds like what you want to happen is to make it REALLY hard for the player to say No, but then to do so anyway. You might as well just be swatting them with a rolled up newspaper.

Floret

2017-01-03, 09:22 PM

And... who among you ("you" being proponents of various social / happiness / whatever mechanics) has actually admitted to the drawback that some characters will suffer additional penalties for playing in character, let alone addressed that problem? 'Cause I missed that part.

It highly depends on the system if that will be the case, I feel. Can you give an example of a situation that you feel presents this sort of drawback?

I once again find myself of two minds.

On the one hand, I feel, if anything, this understates the negativity of the situation. How many people eventually stop feeling bad about running a character who is useless / no fun / whatever? How many people eventually stop losing happiness to **** players, **** DMs, etc? Do we ever advise someone on this forum who is experiencing unhappiness from such a situation to just tough it out, because there is an upper limit to the duration of such unhappiness, and they will eventually adapt to no longer be unhappy with the situation? Because I certainly don't remember ever reading such advise.

Shouldn't the unhappiness associated with one's own inabilities be even longer lasting and more profound? Thus, shouldn't a character's unhappiness with their handicap be greater than our minor statistical inconvenience?

I don't play the character to experience the depression associated with the loss of an arm, I play the character to play the character. I wouldn't make a statistically suboptimal decision like sacrificing an arm because I want to explore that scenario, I'd make it if it is what the character would do. If the character happens to lose an arm along the way, I'll deal with that... or not. If it's a career-ending injury, I may have to retire the character that I cherish.

But, on the other hand, if I have a character who has lost an arm, wouldn't I want their depression to play out realistically? Wouldn't I want, not just penalties due to reduced physical capabilities, but penalties due to ongoing emotional trauma as well?

But, and I begin to suspect this may be yet another root of my problem with such systems, if we can't even agree that there would be psychological effects from losing an arm, let alone what those would be, I'd rather get to assign the penalties myself based on what I feel would be realistic for the character than have some system I don't trust mandate that I get a morale bonus for losing my arm. :smallyuk:

No, I don't either, but we also shouldn't treat players and characters the same. The player would, in that situation of their character (voluntarily, I might add.) loosing the arm, have quite a lot of freedom as to how fast the mental healing process goes. Having a player toughen through the situation is unnecessary, having a character do so, as long as the player doesn't mind, is something different entirely. (Also, the situations aren't equivalent: In the case of being unhappy in a gaming group, you can actually just remove the source of the unhappiness. With a lost arm, that is... not so.)

As for how big the handicap should be... who knows? People react to these things differently. If one is to model that, there needs to be some flexibility. There is no "one true answer" on how to react to loosing an arm. There is never only one "in character" decision.

Maybe a bit of a detour, but... See, we seem to be playing RPGs for vastly different reasons. I construct my characters deliberately so that they will run into problems, and face difficulty because of who they are, because I like to explore such situations. The character isn't real, not directly, but merely a vessel to help me experience situations I want to (Or make it more likely to experience interesting situations). The question of "in character" and "correctly roleplaying" a character is, for me, somewhat of a detour, because that is not actually what I aim for. As said above, in no situation ever is there ACTUALLY just one "right" or "in character" choice, but loads. Which one I take will always be influenced by what I actually want out of playing the character - and that is never "just playing the character", I deliberately constructed the character. Not to say that the character can't surprise me, but I will adapt them somewhat.

And there we get to the actual "personality rules" part of the system. Because, yes, people react differently to those kinds of things.
So at this point either have the penalties assigned freely by the player or group consensus, or predefined personality traits. Or have the discussion take place on the base of the predetermined traits.
How to phrase the guidelines for creating these traits would be a different matter and require extensive thoughts of what kind of picture of humanity seems apropriate for the game and the stories it will be supposed to tell.

Proponents of such systems seem to talk about losing morale for making optimal decisions, or for ignoring social compels. But not about losing morale for correctly role-playing the character.

Problem: role-playing is not mechanically rewarding.
Proposed solution: model happiness as valuable resource / penalties for unhappiness.
Problem: correctly role-playing many characters / scenarios - such as the arm sacrifice - will come back to bite the character, punishing them both immediately and ongoing above and beyond the already potentially mechanically significant statistical losses from the loss of an arm.

That's what my "criticism" is aimed at.

How is piling on additional penalties supposed to make role-playing that in-character sacrifice easier? :smallconfused:

Now, "ignoring the times it will punish you" specifically (generally?) refers to the lack of (intentional) examples from the proponents of when, instead of giving you a bonus to make up for not making a statistically optimal decision, the system instead applies a penalty to taking an in character action.

The sacrifice example happens to be an unintentional example of the system punishing you for role-playing.

How is the arm sacrifice "correctly roleplaying" anything? How is consistently loosing morale due to not having an arm, if the sacrifice was felt "in character", necessarily the "right" way to simulate? The character obviously gave up on the arm out of free will. There is nothing "correct" about roleplaying the character as completely devastated from the loss of the arm. It is entirely a matter of how you choose to interpret the situation. The character might as well be reminded of their heroic deeds and the great sacrifice they made when hugging someone. Know they did the right thing, and have the missing arm to prove it.
This is a matter of tone, character, and style. To make it a blanket "this will pile on negative morale" is simply... false, from my perspective.

My turn to "ignore the middle", apparently.

Still gives a problem when the mechanics run against the correct in character decision, does it not?

Hmmm... I have no problem taking the mechanically suboptimal choice, if it is in character to do so.

I honestly don't know what it would take to get someone to move from a position where they don't care enough about what is in character to actually do it to a position where they do... but I suspect a game where you don't have to care about something being advantageous would be a good start - better than adding in more advantages to juggle.

But what is the "correct" in character decision? There will never be just one. Characters, as well as people, are complicated. And the situation I describe has that exact problem: Mechanics running against character. Personality systems might give a bit of a push in the opposite direction.

You might not have a problem, but other people have expressed that they have. As I have said repeatedly: This is probably not a system for you, and it not jelling with you entirely alright from a design perspective. :smallwink:
And... enough to push them over the edge. To give that little additional incentive to going for the "in character" decision might well be enough. Tipping the scales can be done by such a system. Completely reverting them for someone who actually doesn't care obviously not. The point is that the current system is unbalanced in the first place. How to balance it - by taking things away or by adding more things, is entirely a matter of taste. (Or to leave it that way because one doesn't mind so much)

Well, my backstory is just for me - I never want to show it to anyone. I'll try to describe my characters (Quertus is verbose academia, etc), but the description is not my character.

Ah, see. And noone wants to equate that description to your character. But giving good guidelines for phrasing your character out in ways that are helpful for understanding the basic strokes of your character.

So... This is where I get confused. If you just want mechanics to advise RP, then I'd suggest mechanics with no teeth. Something that just indicates that an individual with X trait would be more likely to take Y action. This is how one of my favorite groups ran things, where anyone could, at any time, ask for clarification on an action when it didn't mesh with their understanding of the character.

Perhaps the core of my inability to make this make sense to me may be the line you gave about being able to justify anything. Saying you want to roleplay, but can and will justify any decision, sounds like wanting a challenge, but knowing that you can and will cheat to win. It's not a challenge then.

To actually be a push, there have to be some teeth - because a mere suggestion without ANY force does simply present another option but helps nothing to decide between it and another. If presented with choice A and B someone said "you could do C!" that is nice, but does nothing to help you decide. If they instead said "I'll give you a kiss if you choose A", that might.

And... no, see the thing is I KNOW that I can justify pretty much everything. This coming from Larp where there is rather big incentive to avoid certain decisions for safety reasons, and the need to justify things that don't immediately seem logical In character coming up somewhat regularly.
But since I know that, I don't quite trust me to actually go ahead and make decisions against my (the players) interests, because the character was somehow tempted. So I want teeth and suggestions. Because I don't quite trust me, or at least I want to let myself fall and roll with the punches, not try and compensate them as much as I can.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I can work without them. As I have pointed out, my Larp characters (Not getting to be PC much outside of it these days) have done some stupid, stupid **** because the temptation was just so great - or because they have less selfcontrol than would be advisable, for example.
And I can work with them. I have, I find, written a rather compelling story and interesting ideas and character concept out of the (very cheesy) Shadowrun 5 disadvantage "Hobo with a shotgun" (You basically get extra buildpoints for spending less money on your characters lifestyle, at the drawback of fluff. And yes, that is the official name.)
I can have fun either way. But given that the "working with them" is the easy way out, and the one I might be more likely to take, exploring mechanics that get me to take the way of working without the justifications more often sounds like an interesting and promising opportunity.

Hmmm... people already have problems with the idea that taking teleport communicates an lack of desire for overland travel games. But, yes, purr the initial thread topic, it's certainly one way to get buy in. But certainly not the best. Because different people's idea of foo may be different, for any given value of foo. Explicit communication, having a conversation, is best.

But... Fine, I don't get "theme". Having rules that reward me for very specific ways of holding the idiot ball common to, say, horror movies will allow me to pick the character that best matches your intended theme, or to build a new character to try to munchkin the rewards instead of role-playing.

But what is the point of encouraging someone to munchkin the RP rewards instead of role-playing? What are you communicating?

The point, I feel, is communicating "personality is able to affect the game, and fleshing out who your character is is important". You will be forced during character creation to think about your characters personality, and far beyond the "answer these questions about your character after you're done messing with the stats. Or don't. You can play without answering" that I have regularly seen crop up.

For an example: FATE produces MUCH different characters from The Dark Eye, for example. Now the Dark Eye, in its character creation chapter, talks heavily about personality, and has 20 questions to ask of your hero (Why are there always 20. Every time there is a number there seem to be 20.). But you can play with ignoring all of that.
With FATE? Not so much. You actually need to (By Core RAW) play your character during character creation, while coming up with ideas on what they did during the "adventures" of the other PCs. The consequence is that after creating a character for FATE, I already have a pretty good feel for them. With the Dark Eye, even if I answered the questions, I don't. Now I might put in the same amount of thought for TDE, but the game in one case communicates "This is a game where who your character is matters" (Notwithstanding you can technically create 5 aspects without personality, yes.) and in one "What your character is matters, and what they can do. The rest is flavour."

Or, for a milder example: 5 Rings has, the last of the 20 questions, the question "How will your character die?". This does directly communicate a lot about the sort of game it is. A deadly game, where characters are expected to die. But also a game where the characters very likely have traits that might very likely lead to their untimely death.

Funnily enough, this will probably discourage munchkins from actually picking up the game. Because munchkins don't want to RP generally, and being "forced" into even a bit of it, and the game telling "RPing is an integral part" is communicating "This has things you don't want" to them.

Ok, so... What if the player said they take issue with, say, the dice determining / influencing their character's internal thought process?

I have no problems with supernatural mind control (because that overrides what would be in character), and have survived gaming with the avatar of Slanesh (which, had it come out of the game into real life would have gone too far for my comfort), but I don't want to have to fight the rules when I know better than they do what is going on in my character's head.

If the players say they take issue with that, then they should not play in a game that makes this part of the experience, quite simply. And if I am intending to run a game where it is part of the experience, I would suggest the game is not for them and advise them against joining the group.

And see, that is the problem of a basic premise: That you actually know better. Proponents of these rules say, at least in some cases:
"Quite frankly, you don't. Because you aren't ACTUALLY your character, OR in an equivalent situation from them."

See, my objection to this is two-fold.

I am not against sex in games. However, being forced to imagine your character having sex with someone that they are not attracted to because "the dice say they really do want it despite what they think," is just a little too rapey for me. In fact, I have more of an objection to that than to blatant rape, because if my character was physically / magically forced I could then get revenge or otherwise do something about it, while with a seduction role I then have to pretend that I like my abuser.

Second, (and this is a more general objection to social combat) it destroys my character concept.
For example, my last D&D character was part of a knightly order and had taken a vow of celibacy. He would literally kill himself before breaking this vow.
My last Mage character was asexual and had all sorts of psychological issues about relationships. Her best friend (who had very high social skills) was in love with her and had been trying to seduce her for years with little result. It would be totally out of character for her to then jump into bed with some random guy just because they rolled a natural 20.

Hm. I feel this somewhat misses the point I made.
to 1. This comes down to a matter of playstyles. If you have very particular opinions on how your character is and what can be possible for them, you are likely not gonna enjoy playing in a game where the dice can fall in a way that "tell you what your character feels", so to speak, simulating desires and temptations you as a player will never feel as strongly as your character.
I mean, the alternative here is either to take it out as a game element completely, or to not have any way for NPCs to actually be seductive, and have any weight behind the GM decision "I want there to be a seductress at court" outside of the GM actively seducing the players. And I would have far more of a problem with that than with the dice telling me "your character is very, very turned on". I honestly don't know what to say beyond "I, personally, enjoy the dice telling me how strong the temptation my character feels is/how convincing the courtier talking to me is; and I have known and play with other people who share that enjoyment".

to 2. If you do not want to do this with your characters, under the circumstances I described, then discuss that before the game, plain and simple. If you haven't brought up "I don't want my character to do this, ever", and you then loose the social challenge, I do not find it an unreasonable expectation that you will go along with your part of the social contract previously agreed - namely, to accept the results of the dice; especially given that there was ample opportunity to discuss excempting certain things from rolling dice for. (Not by virtue of "natural 20", no, and I find mechanics that simply say "natural 20, so everything works" ridiculous. The test may well be too hard to actually pass without first changing things about her outlook, which a competent social system might be helpful at modelling.) I also strongly favour, as said, systems that give suggestions with drawbacks and costs, rather than immediate "you have to do this" effects.

Also: You asked for examples of where I find rolling social skills against players helps, from my perspective, the fun. I provided examples, and I'd be interested in your comment.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-03, 09:32 PM

It isn't about artificially balancing scales. It's about making sure that all weights are fairly placed upon the scales of your decision making algorithm.

What algorithm?

Not really. It encourages people to take their character's drives and desires and comforts into account, by ensuring that those have appropriate gameplay weight compared to the existing gameplay weights.

1) Who the hell is the game designer, or the GM, or the dice, that they get any say in what the player's character would or would not find "desirable" or "comforting"?

2) This presumes that those weights exist, which some of us have been trying to point is not a universal truth for all players.

Koo Rehtorb

2017-01-03, 09:35 PM

Maybe it's okay that not every system supports every type of character.

Talakeal

2017-01-03, 10:23 PM

Maybe it's okay that not every system supports every type of character.

I agree that it is ok for a wide variety of games. I also think that I would not enjoy playing games which can't support the full range of human personalities. I also think that even though we acknowledge that different people like different games we will still discuss said games on internet discussion forums and invariably argue why we feel that our preferences are best.

Hm. I feel this somewhat misses the point I made.
to 1. This comes down to a matter of playstyles. If you have very particular opinions on how your character is and what can be possible for them, you are likely not gonna enjoy playing in a game where the dice can fall in a way that "tell you what your character feels", so to speak, simulating desires and temptations you as a player will never feel as strongly as your character.
I mean, the alternative here is either to take it out as a game element completely, or to not have any way for NPCs to actually be seductive, and have any weight behind the GM decision "I want there to be a seductress at court" outside of the GM actively seducing the players. And I would have far more of a problem with that than with the dice telling me "your character is very, very turned on". I honestly don't know what to say beyond "I, personally, enjoy the dice telling me how strong the temptation my character feels is/how convincing the courtier talking to me is; and I have known and play with other people who share that enjoyment".

to 2. If you do not want to do this with your characters, under the circumstances I described, then discuss that before the game, plain and simple. If you haven't brought up "I don't want my character to do this, ever", and you then loose the social challenge, I do not find it an unreasonable expectation that you will go along with your part of the social contract previously agreed - namely, to accept the results of the dice; especially given that there was ample opportunity to discuss excempting certain things from rolling dice for. (Not by virtue of "natural 20", no, and I find mechanics that simply say "natural 20, so everything works" ridiculous. The test may well be too hard to actually pass without first changing things about her outlook, which a competent social system might be helpful at modelling.) I also strongly favour, as said, systems that give suggestions with drawbacks and costs, rather than immediate "you have to do this" effects.

I still find the idea of putting people into the game who need to force PCs to sleep with them to prove their point in the story to be creepy as all hell.

But yeah, you and I apparently have extremely different goals when it comes to an RP. I accept that people have different goals, but I do my best to accommodate people with different preferences in my games, I don't kick people out for having different views and then fall back on claiming that it is "my right as a GM" to be unyielding and never compromise. Weren't you the one saying that I was being unreasonably uncompromising and shouting down people who I disagreed with just a few pages ago?

Also: You asked for examples of where I find rolling social skills against players helps, from my perspective, the fun. I provided examples, and I'd be interested in your comment.

Yeah, that is a classic case of the GM taking away control of a PC from their player to railroad the game. IMO it would certainly be overstepping the GM's bounds and would severely piss me off if it occurred at the table. And I am pretty sure that is not a minority opinion; I have been all but roasted alive on this forum for saying that I don't allow PCs to loot fallen comrades or that I assume a statistically average distribution of successes and failures when narrating what happens "off camera".

Does that clear up where I'm coming from?

I guess, but not in a good way.

Before I thought you wanted to balance out fluff and crunch benefits so that you didn't have to sacrifice one for the other, which is a laudable (if unfeasible) goal.

But now it looks like you just want to "punish" people who you deem to be "mary-sues' and build a system that encourages people who have poor impulse control and a heap of vices.

There is another aspect to RPGs that a lot of systems rarely address well, and a lot actually really suck at fostering (or at least GMs sometimes really suck at enforcing):
The PCs need to, at a basic level, work together. It's a team game unless otherwise stated.

When the mechanics give a REASON for someone to abandon that basic premise, we are OK with it. When the Fiction layer does it, we get mad. Because when the player controls the fiction layer of their own character, and uses that fiction layer control to turn back on the basic premise of teamwork, that causes problems.

That is why Apocalypse World goes the extra step of making it very clear by telling the GM to say, specifically, "At the start, you guys are basically allies. You all know one another and are essentially on the same team. You don't have to be FRIENDS, but you are allies. You might become enemies through play, but you don't start that way."

This draws a very clear expectation of how things will go, and what the system expects.
1. As of session one, everyone is allies. Maybe not friends, but allies.
2. Interparty conflict might come up. It's not encouraged or discouraged, except at the start. But it might happen eventually.
3. If you go against this, you're literally breaking the rules. Because this is codified, and you have been informed. If you become the villain in session 1 and get killed, YOU'RE the A-hole.

So basically, they buy in to a team game. They buy in to a game where people have one another's best interests in mind. If you need to act out of character to keep group cohesion and stick to teamwork, you're expected to do it because the fun of the group trumps your individual fun when the two are in conflict. Always and for everyone.

At least, that's my take.

I guess that makes sense, it just seems really weird to me.

Saying:
"I need more build points, so I took the allergic to horses flaw. Now I have to walk everywhere," will be met with "Way to go brah! You game that system!" but when no such flaw is available saying "I like the idea of playing my character with a few flaws to make him more human, and I am thinking about saying he always walks because he is allergic to horses," is met with "No way! I'm not waiting for your slow ass! Stop ruining the game trying to be a special snowflake brah!"

Cluedrew

2017-01-03, 10:33 PM

I'm going to take a moment out of the blue and switch gears:

The Pitfalls of Personality: That is the things that personality mechanics should almost certainly never do (unless A. I'm wrong or B. your going for something very particular) or do rarely in extreme corner cases because a perfect rule set is asking a bit much.

First is Lack of Flexibility: People are varied. Make sure you can represent all the characters you want to cover in this game. Depending on what the systems premise is what that range is will vary. But considering that we are talking about role-playing games there is a certain minimum that will be expected. Combat 5 might be everything you have to say about a character's fighting ability, but Willpower 3 is not... that doesn't really even count as a personality mechanic.

Second is Overriding the Player: That is the player should still get to decide who the character is. This is related to the above but also wraps around a particular exception which is what happens when you roll (if you get the dice involved at all). There the decision is made by the random outcome, but there the chances should roughly match what the player had in mind. And if the character also understand exactly the external pressures, the match should be almost perfect.

Third is ... wait, removing decisions is a part of the second. What was the third... I can think of a couple that just apply to all rules (don't make it to complex, have it fit the kind of game you are trying to make) so I don't think I need to go into those. I kind of want to create a list of "weaker problems" (things that should be avoided, but wouldn't invalidate the system) just to call them the potholes of personality but I think those might be the only two that can really trash a system. Anyone have any others?

This post in particular feels like me combining and putting a spin on what others have said up to this point, rather than an original creation of my own. So nice work everyone. One idea that is... mine-ish is that a lot of arguments against personality mechanics in general seem to act on the assumption that one or more of these pitfalls is unavoidable once you introduce personality mechanics. Which I feel is untrue, I believe systems can exist that can avoid these problems and contribute to the game. In fact, for particular kinds of personality mechanics I have seen it.

1

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-04, 01:31 AM

I guess that makes sense, it just seems really weird to me.
Which part seems weird, specifically?

Saying:
"I need more build points, so I took the allergic to horses flaw. Now I have to walk everywhere," will be met with "Way to go brah! You game that system!" but when no such flaw is available saying "I like the idea of playing my character with a few flaws to make him more human, and I am thinking about saying he always walks because he is allergic to horses," is met with "No way! I'm not waiting for your slow ass! Stop ruining the game trying to be a special snowflake brah!"

Mechanics shape gameplay expectations. Plain and simple. When the rules say "Flaws are a thing, guys." Then people expect them to come up.

In the first, you're communicating this: "Hey guys, you know that Flaw mechanic that's in this game that lets us purposefully make ourselves weaker/shoot ourselves in the foot for the giggles, that we're all aware of and bought into? I'm going to engage that mechanic." Nothing unexpected has happened.

In the second, with no context within the game, you are communicating this: "I'm going to purposefully make myself weaker/shoot myself in the foot purely for the giggles and you lot have to deal with it even though none of you bought in to dealing with such things." Something unexpected has now happened. You are no longer playing the same game as everyone else*. You're bringing in a new element that now everyone else at the table MUST engage with to keep you in the group. You've singled yourself out as operating on different rules than everyone else, but because it is a team game, they HAVE to deal with your self-imposed weakness. When your weakness doesn't just affect you, as with your horse example, I can 100% understand the hostility. Because at that point you're requesting permission to inconvenience the entire group for your own amusement.

*caveat: if other people are shooting themselves in the foot for giggles and getting away with it in this context, you have a player problem.

Floret

2017-01-04, 06:21 AM

I still find the idea of putting people into the game who need to force PCs to sleep with them to prove their point in the story to be creepy as all hell.

But yeah, you and I apparently have extremely different goals when it comes to an RP. I accept that people have different goals, but I do my best to accommodate people with different preferences in my games, I don't kick people out for having different views and then fall back on claiming that it is "my right as a GM" to be unyielding and never compromise. Weren't you the one saying that I was being unreasonably uncompromising and shouting down people who I disagreed with just a few pages ago?

It is your right to find creepy. As in many manners, I think this is up to execution - I have been completely fine with my character being tortured in a Larp, and yet balked at a torture scene in a Shadowrun game. It was not WHAT happened that made it feel like a powertrip for the GM, it was HOW. Despite me, in both cases, having the same choice of "accept it or resist and die", and in the one example, being somewhat more directly in the scene.
(And, really, I haven't DONE it yet, but would be fine with it being done to me as well as with doing it is my point. My argument being that if a PC is a charmer that can seduce characters by virtue of their skills, an NPC should, or at least can have possibly, that same ability.)

Well, I personally find that if preferences lie too far apart, the compromises having to be made for everyone to be alright will severely infringe upon the fun of the other players. Sure, there is a degree along which it works, but at a certain point of difference it would, from my perspective, just be better to run different games. (Maybe one character is a bit more min-maxed than the others, or one character is deliberately designed as clashing with hight society. But: This still is a high society game, and the player needs to accept that they hav to deal with that clash. We are not gonna NOT play in high society suddenly, and the character is gonna suffer. But as soon as one player wants a power fantasy and the rest play classic Cthulhu, it's not gonna be compatible.)

And I don't think this is "kicking people for having differing views". And not to be "unyielding". But I have preferences of what games I enjoy playing. I am not gonna GM a campaign I don't enjoy just because one player might not like my way of playing. In fact, there are more than enough games out there, and playing them with people who share your preferences is way more fun that compromising - and compromising on your enjoyment of the game - at every turn.
See, say for example I can and will deal with people who share only 70% of my preferences easily, but as soon as this drops below 60 or 50? Why should we not just play different games? Noone has any right to play in any game, nor any right that people play in their game. But beyond a certain amount, compromise just infringes on the fun.

This is an entirely different matter than saying people are shouting down others in a discussion (And I did not say you were doing it, if maybe unintentionally implied it). A discussion is supposed to be an exchange of ideas with people who you disagree with, an RPG game is a game where you invest hours upon hours into a hobby that you are supposedly having fun with. I would be an ******* if I did not at all listen to player feedback, but at some point the difference between preferences is just too great, and there need to be different games for everyone to still have fun.

Yeah, that is a classic case of the GM taking away control of a PC from their player to railroad the game. IMO it would certainly be overstepping the GM's bounds and would severely piss me off if it occurred at the table. And I am pretty sure that is not a minority opinion; I have been all but roasted alive on this forum for saying that I don't allow PCs to loot fallen comrades or that I assume a statistically average distribution of successes and failures when narrating what happens "off camera".

Yeah, no. Leaving things up to the dice is the antithesis of railroading, as I have no power to know how they will fall. If I want to railroad the players, rolling the dice for that is one of the worst ideas I can have - because as soon as the dice fall in my disfavour, the players have a reasonable expectation that the game will now NOT go according to the plan the dice just denied. How can this ever be railroading?
I do agree that it is taking away control from a PC, sure. And if the players all agree that this sort of thing is allowed to happen before they sit down, then... all is good. Sure, you would not agree with that, and that is fine, but then don't expect an invitation to my table. We could be friends and do any number of things together - but you playing in a game I GM might not be one of them.

Whether or not mine is a minority opinion is completely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that all of my players are on board with it, not what the grand gaming public thinks about the game.
For protocol: I personally would not roast you, and in the first case merely not agree with you (Make the players suffer the consequences, but don't deny them to do that would be my way. Or at least want an explanation for WHY I can't do that.); in the second actually heartily agree.

I guess that makes sense, it just seems really weird to me.

Saying:
"I need more build points, so I took the allergic to horses flaw. Now I have to walk everywhere," will be met with "Way to go brah! You game that system!" but when no such flaw is available saying "I like the idea of playing my character with a few flaws to make him more human, and I am thinking about saying he always walks because he is allergic to horses," is met with "No way! I'm not waiting for your slow ass! Stop ruining the game trying to be a special snowflake brah!"

Yeah, both of those are communicating different things. If something is in the rules as a valid option, it is automatically legitimised to a certain degree. It's in the rules after all. And everyone agreed to the rules. Something that bites the whole group has to be negotiated with them - but something in the rules has already been negotiated.
Of course the same group reacting in these diametrically opposed ways is of course unlikely. But if people are gonna react negatively to character flaws that bite everyone, then having some legitimisation for them can help them be accepted.
Also what notTrevor said.

Lorsa

2017-01-04, 07:32 AM

I apologize again for not having been around. I see the thread moved on without me, including some more interpersonal conflict (which, even though I am not involved, makes me feel uncomfortable as I am conflict-avoiding even by Swedish standards).

I believe I have to respond to people which responded to my previous post. It is only good form after all (and there are some interesting points raised). However, I really hope I will have time to move on a bit more with thinking through social mechanics tomorrow at the latest.

There was a second argument (and a third) brought forward rather prominently in this thread:
Namely, that while we can talk with each other, that isn't really equivalent to what the characters are doing in-world. While actually scaling a wall is, well, actually scaling a wall, talking as your character around the table really isn't you character talking at the city gates to get past the guard. The situation you are in is, while it might seem the same at a surface level (Both are talking), not actually the same.

To go back to the now probably tired sweettalking: If one is using their attractiveness and charm to distract someone to make them more willing to do what you want because they can't think straight? Great! But... you're not gonna get your player to feel that attraction and arousal. So suddenly their character is affected by something they are not, which influences their characters thinking and talking - but... it doesn't, not in the same way, because the player isn't feeling it (I mean, I could go and MAKE my players feel it, but, uhm, no.)

What this was supposed to illustrate: Despite technically the same actions being performed (Opening your mouth and pressing out words), the circumstances this action is performed under are so fundamentally different in both cases, that the argument of "but we CAN do this like in the world without much effort" seems... ridiculous, on a certain level. If that approximation is enough for you - great! More power to you, everyone should play the way they want. But to the argument "It is one of the things we can easily do" I can just say... No. No, we really can't.

The third argument, funnily enough from the side being against social mechanics, but I can turn it around: It is a fundamentally different experience. Walking through a dungeon with a torch physically in your hand (Bad idea. Use a lantern.), sword in the other trying to spot the trapsj ust is'nt hearing the atmosphere and situation being described, maybe with background music put on by the GM, and rolling if you find them. (Though I have had BGM on a Larp for the final battle some time. Was quite interesting. I digress.) And just because you like one thing doesn't mean you'll like the others. Same goes for fighting, scaling walls and all that other jazz. I happen TO like both, but I like them for very different reasons - because they are different things.

And, same goes for social mechanics. Rolling dice to convince someone just... isn't talking your way through a guard, hoping your brain will catch up with your mouth, scrambling for every idea, trying to read him, and what you can glean from that to adapt your persuasion attempt. Rolling dice for rousing the fighters to action just isn't actually standing there, atop the palisades, having to come up with the words and shouting out your lungs so your voice carries them to everyone. And if you want to sit around a table, comfortable, and roll dice? The former might be more like what you want out of the situation.

It is true that talking at the table isn't identical to talking in the fictional world the characters live in. I do not disagree with this.

However, I am not sure it completely invalidates my argument. I mean, even IF we were to scale a wall instead of merely describing it and rolling dice, it still wouldn't be identical to the characters doing it in the fictional world. However, what I tried to say was that while many physical actions range from impossible (e.g. killing a dragon) to impractical (e.g. scaling a wall, hitting the GM with a sword), social actions are neither impossible nor impractical, at least not to the same extent.

So while we can not truly talk with each other in situations identical to our characters', we can still, practically speaking, talk with each other.

Or, looking at it from another angle, while talking with each other at the table is still not identical to the characters interacting in the world, it is at least more identical than most other things we do. While the two things (physical and social) may not be different in a way that makes them orthogonal to each other, they can still be different by scale.

Also, I want to again delve into the "sweet-talking" and "making players feel the character's emotions" discussion.

I think the aim in an RPG should always be to invoke feelings in the players. Luckily for us, human beings are exceptionally good at generating emotion based on imaginary sensory input.

People read romance novels and feel aroused. The listen to scary stories and feel afraid. If I were to take your post at face value, it seems as though you are saying this is impossible. I am certain in saying that I can safely provide a large enough sample of people which would prove otherwise.

So, if you want to seduce a character, you can invoke the same feelings in the player simply by description. You don't need to make the player feel the same things by physically touching them or whatever you have imagined you doing, you can simply describe what the NPC is doing. I promise you, most of the time, this is enough.

I mean, honestly, *I* have been aroused by events described to me during a RPG session, just as I have been aroused by books or stories that I've read. I am equally certain that I have managed to invoke arousal in my players, on occasion. Sure, the emotions might not be identical in the strictest sense, but they don't have to be. Close enough approximations are usually enough (at least for me). Claiming that since no emotion can ever match truly with that of the character's, therefore we should aim to reduce all emotions to numbers and rolls goes against what I want out of RPGs (and books and movies for that matter).

I, too, like to talk as my character (Most of the time. Sometimes I just wanna get it over with. Sometimes I can't find the words and think my character would - so I just give rough outlines. Sometimes I switch back and forth for my NPCs. Back to topic.).
(Minor note: I have seen books gloss over unimportant dialogue. I couldn't name any specific example, but something akin to "They talked until well in the night, but nothing really came of it" I defnitely remember reading.)

So how do I solve this problem of "I like talking in character as well as rolling dice"? By doing 1). And, to be honest - I don't agree with your assessment of what the disadvantage is. Or rather, I can see where it might come from - but it is ENTIRELY a problem of wheighing the "talk input". If you use it to set the difficulty of the roll completely, or just modify a pre-thought number, what really matters is how much you let the talking influence. Or, an option you completely miss: If at all. There isn't actually any rule that one has to have the talking influence the rolls being made.

I personally handle it at my table in this way:
1. Talk, sure, and make whatever argument you want. (If you wanna roll a Lore skill to have me come up with an argument for you that your character knows but you don't, alright. I will do my best.)
2. At the end of your talk, you have to roll. And what exactly you said might influence the target numbers/difficulty/whatever the system has a bit, if it is really incessantly clever, but never by more than maybe 10%. (So, a +2 (maximum) in Dark Eye; in FATE MAYBE +1; -10 TN (at most) for L5R; something like that.) Most times, though, I handle the roll pretty independently of what was being said - how good you, as a player are at bringing your argument, means rather little for how good your character is at presenting it.

I can see 2) working - but I wouldn't really want it. There I actually agree with the problems.

Yes, there are many occasions in books were dialogue is glossed over. Very rarely (if you dislike academic hedging, read never) does a book gloss over all dialogue. This is similar to what I do, and want out of, a RPG. Some dialogue is glossed over, some is acted out in detail.

I didn't really miss the option of "you can have talk first but have the roll difficulty be unaffected by it" as it is still part of "talk first, roll second". It is true that I didn't discuss it at length, which was by purpose, as it fails to give the player a feeling that whatever they chose to have their character say actually has an impact on the result. Of course, if this is undesirable, then sure, that's one way of doing things.

However, I believe that if you talk first but rule the interaction to have zero effect on the outcome, you run into some weird issues. Either you have to retcon what was being said into something else (in which case why talk at all) or run into verisimilitude problems (why was this NPC convinced by such ludicrously poor arguments).

I also typically weigh in the interaction into the difficulty of the roll. However, I can actually weight it so much that no roll is deemed necessary. Sometimes presentation is irrelevant (I wanted to take a detour here but I will have to wait for my next post).

What I often also do is alter how I act with my NPCs based on the PCs' skills (and NPCs'). For example, if a character is very good at sense motive (or similar skills), I will act more twitchy and fake when lying with an NPC than I would if the character has poor sense motive. Obviously I also allow for rolls, but it can let the players spot lies during the conversation without having to take a pause to roll dice. I remember once when I had a player ask to roll to check for deception and I asked "what do YOU think" to which I got the reply "I think he (the NPC) is lying!" and I said "then go with that, it's what a roll would tell you too".

I hope I got all my problems with your arguments out there and haven't missed any. So far, I must say, I am not convinced :smallwink:
For convincing people of things they don't already believe - hard to do directly, yes. But that is why people call for more fleshed-out and varied social mechanics - to represent the ways in which people actually manage to make others "come around". Because those processes are a lot more varied (and easier to have be successfull) than just convincing people by direct argument.

Yes, people ask for more fleshed-out social mechanics quite often. Which ties back to what I said at the beginning of my first post that it seems as though social mechanics is the one thing people are least happy with. Doesn't mean everyone is unhappy with it, or that they are so all the time, but it's something that is the source of a lot of debate (see this thread).

Also, the only thing you really need to be on the same page with me on (so far) is that social mechanics can be broken down into two main categories (or four, depending):

1) Talk first, roll second
2) Roll first, talk second
possibly
3) Talk never, roll only
4) Roll never, talk only

If I can also convince you of other things (such as that you can invoke emotions in your players by mere description), that is an added bonus. If we also agree on which of the above main categories is preferential (a personal choice), then we have a lot in common and can move on. :smallsmile:

I should say a lot more, but let me address what I view as a false dichotomy. I have players say what their characters say - kind of - and a) modify it according to the characters social skill; b) have the NPC react according to the characters social skill. By which I mean, NPCs will readily take offense to things said by low Chr characters, but merely be amused by or point out more offensive things said by high Chr characters. I like to describe it as a vector: what the player says indicates the [i]direction[i], the character's social skill determines the distance / magnitude.

I do similar things (read the above example of modifying how well I lie when acting as an NPC based on the relative deception vs. sense motive skill). One could view this procedure as a "talk and modify" point or a "roll only when necessary but always take the character's skill into account". It is a tricky thing though, and may not be suitable to or desirable by all groups.

Quick question about Lorsa's post:

Why are RP-related rules the only ones which need to justify their own existence?

No other rules need to, or are asked to justify themselves.

Justify combat rules. Do you NEED them?
Justify detailed item lists.
Justify Hit Points.
Justify Armor Class.

Explain why those are NEEDED and I'll explain why RP rules are needed.

To put my point very simply:
No rules are NEEDED.
"Do we need RP rules?" No. We don't need any rules. We just like them. We don't need to justify having systems for the sake of having more neat things to play with and do.
RP rules aren't like wifi on a toilet. They're not some extra extravagance with no point. They're just a neat thing people like.
Unless you can categorically justify every other RPG mechanic as NEEDED for an RPG to be an RPG, shove off with that balogna.

You are right, of course, that no rules are strictly needed. In the end, all my answers to your above questions would boil down to "we need them because we want a way to...". So the want always precedes the need.

So, if we talk about combat rules, I would say:

"We want a slightly random neutral arbiter to determine the outcome of attempted actions as it is impractical to resort to actual swordplay (or shooting); therefore we need combat mechanics."

Whereas the reason why I questioned the need in regards to social mechanics (not RP mechanics in this case, although you and others might view them as interchangeable) is that it is not nearly as impractical to attempt the actual action itself. You can still WANT social mechanics simply due to liking them for whatever reason, or as in above, merely wanting a slightly random neutral arbiter, even though it isn't impractical to resort to the action itself.

I think, if I am not making myself clear, that in regards to social mechanics, half the reason why I typically want rules is removed, which leads me to question their need.

So no, I can't categorically justify every RPG mechanic in the sense you are asking. Any mechanic is only needed insofar as it provides us with what we want.

That doesn't mean we can't question them though. We can question both whether they are needed to do what we want, and if if we want what we think we want (and discuss how we want different things).

Does what I say still qualify as balogna, or is there some trace of decent thought in it?

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-04, 10:58 AM

You are right, of course, that no rules are strictly needed. In the end, all my answers to your above questions would boil down to "we need them because we want a way to...". So the want always precedes the need.

So, if we talk about combat rules, I would say:

"We want a slightly random neutral arbiter to determine the outcome of attempted actions as it is impractical to resort to actual swordplay (or shooting); therefore we need combat mechanics."

Whereas the reason why I questioned the need in regards to social mechanics (not RP mechanics in this case, although you and others might view them as interchangeable) is that it is not nearly as impractical to attempt the actual action itself. You can still WANT social mechanics simply due to liking them for whatever reason, or as in above, merely wanting a slightly random neutral arbiter, even though it isn't impractical to resort to the action itself.

I think, if I am not making myself clear, that in regards to social mechanics, half the reason why I typically want rules is removed, which leads me to question their need.

So no, I can't categorically justify every RPG mechanic in the sense you are asking. Any mechanic is only needed insofar as it provides us with what we want.

That doesn't mean we can't question them though. We can question both whether they are needed to do what we want, and if if we want what we think we want (and discuss how we want different things).

Does what I say still qualify as balogna, or is there some trace of decent thought in it?

I'm fine with the idea that certain mechanics accomplish a certain task. But it always comes down to a want. "We want a mechanic that does this:" is going to be more accurately stated than "This mechanic is needed."

I think questioning the strengths and weaknesses of certain mechanics is fine, too. I'll never stand opposed to that unless it's blind criticism of a system that one has 0 experience with (since many rules read differently from how they play, and frankly if you haven't even read the rules then you have no idea if the concern you're talking about is addressed or not.)

I bring that last one up due to past experience with people wanting to pick apart a few singular mechanics in Apocalypse World without understanding what the system wants and what the system contains.

But, to bring my sacred cow to the fight, I'll describe a few aspects of its social mechanics that I enjoy:

Non-binary outcomes. You do more than succeed or fail, more than "they do what you want" or "they don't." Even on a success, multiple things can happen. For instance if I roll for a Go Aggro against another PC to make them do what I want by threatening violence, there are several ways it can break down. Even if I fully succeed, I have a gun in Leroy's gut and I tell him "Move or I shoot" and my dice show the highest outcome possible, I haven't removed all his options. I've successfully reduced them to two options: Move, or get shot. And he can choose whichever one he prefers.

This is true of all social moves. You don't remove all choice. You reduce the number of viable options and establish who is in control of the interaction.

Secondly, I like that players are encouraged on multiple levels to give one another influence over their characters via a stat called Hx (stands for History, must say Hex.) This also has twofold purpose through one move: Help or Interfere. They are the same move. People with more influence are better at helping you. But they're also better at interfering with your purposes. AND, once your Hx with someone is high enough, you get XP and the Hx restarts. So you want other people to be close to you, too.

Etc etc.

For what Apocalypse World wants to be, these social mechanics are perfect, IMO. They aren't perfect models of human behavior. But they are perfect at making the game do what it is designed to do.

Segev

2017-01-04, 12:17 PM

What algorithm?Whatever algorithm you use to make your decisions, as a player. At the risk of insulting your intelligence, let me explain that when I say "algorithm," here, I mean it in its most basic sense: a set of actions taken to reach a conclusion. "Do I get up or stay in bed for another hour?" involves invoking a decision-making algorithm that evaluates your immediate discomfort based on getting up now and your estimated day-long discomfort from how tired you think you'll be if you get up now vs. the activities and accomplishments you could make in that extra hour of awakeness this morning, possibly also weighing how long it takes you to "fully wake up" compared to when you need to be ready to act "awake" today. Your algorithm will weigh all of these things (or at least any of them you actually think of) in determining whether getting up now or staying in bed is what you choose to do.

To which a more direct response than my previous was "the dice don't get to tell the player what the player character wants, the dice can butt the hell out".

Compulsions are a more specific topic than we're talking about here, as far as I can tell.

1) Who the hell is the game designer, or the GM, or the dice, that they get any say in what the player's character would or would not find "desirable" or "comforting"?
They are the same entities which tell you that your PC can or cannot actually keep going for 40 days of hard labor without showing the faintest signs of fatigue, or that he can't throw fireballs when he doesn't have that ability on his character sheet, or that he can't get up out of his wheelchair and walk if he has "parapalegic" as a flaw, or that he can't invent gunpowder by using your real-world knowledge (possibly accessed via the internet) of what the recipe is and how to gather the ingredients when he should have no reason to bother picking up bat guano and brimstone in the first place in your stone-age setting.

If you want to play a character who is never affected by anything he feels that you, as a player, don't yourself feel in equal amount, that's fine. This subsystem probably isn't for you. If you're a magnificently perfect player who has omniscient ability to precisely evaluate all factors, and you'd never ever consider what is mechanically beneficial before making a decision and never feel cheated by the game for the mechanics telling you you're less effective for a decision that you, as a player, can't actually enjoy the benefits of, great.

If you feel I'm insulting you in the above, then please realize it's in reply to your disdainful, insulting condescention in implying that desiring to have the emotional state of a character represented in the mechanics is somehow bad RP or imposing a tyrannical evil upon you, since you couple any rebuttal to points explaining why this is necessary with a rather arrogant-seeming, "It's not necessary for me, because I can evaluate my character's emotional state just fine, so everybody else should, too. And besides, I don't ever make sub-optimal life decisions for emotional or desire-driven, short-term reasons. People who do are idiots." If that's not what you believe you're saying, let me assure you that it's how a lot of your arguments and "I don't need it and I don't act that way" come off.''

I mean no insult, but when you simultaneously hold up yourself as a paragon of excellence but then take umbrage at it being pointed out that that's what you're doing, it's a little hard to discuss points with you. "I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I don't need this because I am so good I can do without it. How DARE you discuss making something that would make me re-evaluate my PC's actions, even though I say I don't care about those things now?"

2) This presumes that those weights exist, which some of us have been trying to point is not a universal truth for all players.Those weights exist, whether those players VALUE them or not.

Thing is, if a player doesn't value those weights...then he will continue to not value them even when new weights are added. This should be a wash to such players. It's a little hypocritical to say "I don't care about those mechanical incentives to have my character ignore personal comfort, cravings, and desires, but if you introduce mechanical incentives to pay attention to those things, you're punishing me by making my choice to ignore them actually have mechanical weight!" If you don't care about the mechanical weight now, why should you when the mechanical weights change?

As far as I can tell, the effect of this proposed system would not be opening up more characters as workable or more character decisions as valid (on a mechanical level with the presumption that current mechanics "punish", that is -- the characters are already completely workable and valid in most systems). As with many of these, it would just encode a certain conception of "human motivation" as correct within the rules of an RPG, and make characters who fall outside that conception harder to create and harder to roleplay. I have to say that you're essentially ignoring a huge portion of what I've been saying in favor of a straw man, here.

Your straw man relies on a claim that there is a universal set of things which are "everybody likes this" in the mechanics, when I've been saying that this is less likely to be true. Each character should have their likes and dislikes defined, at least in broad strokes. The sole area that assumption might be considered to hold true is if you take into consideration something like "lifestyles." A higher-priced lifestyle is assumed to be more rejuvenating to one's mental reserves than a lower-priced one.

There might be some baseline norms in place, but even those should be malleable by virtue of defining your likes and dislikes appropriately. If you want to play a cold-hearted Spartan warrior-explorer who gains all his joy from the longest of long-term goals and cares nothing for comfort, companionship, or any petty distractions, that should be quite doable. It should have its own drawbacks and benefits. Currently, in most systems, it's the optimal person to play. My goal is not to make it "worse" to play than other types, but to make it "no better" to play than other types.

That seems suspiciously like you're just throwing some balance on the scales in different ways.

So, chaste knight is propositioned by sexy pirate queen. For the purposes of this argument, the Knight is, in fact, attracted to her.

The Classic "Reward for Flaw" system, looking at things from a purely mechanical prospective, says "Choose between getting the ship, or getting extra XP for playing up your character's conviction". A choice of two rewards.Ideally, anything so core to your concept is going to be its own reward in the system I propose.

Your system proposes an additional mechanical reward for a raunchy night with the pirate queen, some sort of morale bonus, with a penalty for turning her down, as your chaste Knight suffers for his convictions.
Ignoring the idea that it would make sense to invoke ANOTHER penalty, as the Knight regrets breaking their oath, you've now established that there is a mechanical benefit to sleeping with the pirate queen, in order to "Tempt" the Knight's player into accepting her offer.Here's the thing: why are we ignoring this idea? That's like saying, "Ignoring that the pirate queen is offering her ship, the knight has no benefit from accepting."

If the Knight's chastity is important to his character concept, it presumably is represented somewhere in his makeup. Even leaving aside whether he loses his class features or whatnot (which is possible if it's, say, D&D's Vow of Chastity), he must value his Oath for SOME reason. Is it for its own sake? Is it for the sake of his faith in his order and its doctrine? Is it because he believes virginity stores up spiritual energy in a man to make him more powerful (true or not)? Is it because he's saving himself for his fiancée back in the kingdom from whence he came?

The player has defined something in his Knight's personality makeup, something in these RP/social mechanics, that is tied to his chastity and why he values it. I mean, why wouldn't he, if it is so central to his concept? Whatever that "thing he likes/is proud of/is holding to" might be, when he gives in to the Pirate Queen, he's violating it. That has its own penalties, whether immediate morale hits in the form of guilt or personal self-loathing, or in longer-term costs by eroding the value and strength of his convictions that are the source of his chastity. Heck, maybe it's in the form of opportunity costs: Refusing the Queen serves as an upholding of his strongly-held values, which is its own morale reward, and thus counterbalances any morale hit she might be giving him when he refuses the immediate enjoyment.

I think my personal preference, though admittedly this system is fuzzy in the extreme right now, would be for "give in to the pirate queen" to be not an immediate morale hit, but instead to be an erosion of his conviction. This would allow it to serve as a form of character development. There is a cost: his conviction that he's eroded provides less solace and less strength in the future. Morale benefits from it might be lessened, or its ability to serve as a bulwark against future temptations might be weakened. But such costs may be, to the player, desirable, if he wants to tell a story of a knight discovering that chastity or even his order is not righteous, or somesuch.

These things should be sources of confidence and morale when held to, and painful to abandon, but character development should allow it. Perhaps, in the short-term, it balances out: his guilty feelings over breaking his vow mean he gets limited to no morale boost from the pleasures the Queen offers, but hey, ship! As he erodes whatever it is that makes him value his chastity, however, maybe the solace of the Queen's embrace helps more and more. Heck, maybe she even builds up in him a place for herself in his heart, and she becomes a valued pillar of his personality, so his relationship with her becomes its own bulwark. (This might be especially true if he was saving himself for his fiancée back home, but slowly decides the Pirate Queen is the real desire of his heart.)

The problem is, there's only anything on the other side of the scale for this specific character. If she was attracted to, say, the party Bard, rather than the Knight, the bard has no reason to say no.Okay. And why is that a problem? The Bard doesn't gain morale or value a thing which has "chastity" as a thing he preserves. He also doesn't have the Knight's ability to resist a pretty woman seducing him for nefarious purposes, because he lacks the Knight's conviction against it.

Sure, here, the Bard has no conflict. So what? Not everything NEEDS to be a conflict.

I don't have a problem with Sumra the politician hating tacos and thus having no desire for a taco before his big speech. I have a problem with Armus, who likes tacos, having no incentive to eat that taco but a disincentive not to, via the mechanics. If Sumra doesn't like tacos, his player doesn't face the "well, would Sumra like it ENOUGH to want it NOW or would he be willing to wait?"

Maybe the problem that's at the root of our disagreement is that people are focusing on "all situations must have an RP conflict!" when I'm saying "Situations where the conflict should be there should have it in the mechanics." I'm not saying that we should have conflict making all choices equal all the time. If the Pirate Queen wants the Bard, great, it's not a conflict, but it still can be interesting.

Heck, what if the Knight's chastity is rooted in "I want to be monogamous," and he is thus making sure that his first time is with the only partner he ever plans to have, so his reluctance is merely a question of whether the Pirate Queen is "the one?" (Presumably the "monogamous" thing comes from an adherence to a philosophy or creed he holds dear.)

But, in order to tempt the Knight, you've now established an additional mechanical bonus to accepting her offer. No, in order to reflect how desirable the Pirate Queen is, I've established an additional mechanical bonus to accepting her offer.

There's a difference.

It isn't about making "Break your vow to get a ship" more of a challenging choice.

It's about making "Just how much does the Knight sexually desire the Pirate Queen?" have mechanical impact.

I think, again, you're confusing the issue. To analogize back to Armus and the Taco before the Speech, the ship is "Armus wants to do well on his speech." The vow of chastity is "Armus loves tacos."

If the vow of Chastity has its own mechanical weight (say, he loses a feat if he breaks it), then that changes the analogy. He's already weighing "ship" vs. "feat" at that point. There is no weight assigned, without the system I propose, to the Pirate Queen's desirability. She could be the most beautiful woman in the world with sensual skills that melt the minds of the most jaded men, or she could be the ugliest, most gruesomely terrifying crone; without "my" system, these things have equal mechanical weight. With such a system, if the Queen is sexy as heck, it adds mechanical weight to the "take the offer" side. It would also SUBTRACT weight from the "take the offer" side if she is repulsive. The sex becomes an unpleasant experience, something even the Bard might not do were it not for the promise of the ship.

It also would have weight for the "keep the vow" side based on how emotionally invested in his vow the Knight is. Is he keeping it just for the feat, despite not really caring about it on a personal level? Or is he keeping it out of deep-seated convictions? These questions are answered by his mechanical investment in whatever sources that vow.

You're basically setting up a system where there is a mechanical bonus to anything pleasurable that somebody could have an in-character reason to refuse.

You're character is a vegetarian? Well, you can stick to that, OR take advantage of this +2 bonus from eating a delicious bacon cheeseburger. Suffer a -2 penalty from the smell.

Your character doesn't drink? Apparently everybody else is getting a +1 bonus from cracking open a cold one. Suffer a -1 penalty because it looks really refreshing. Not quite. If your character has vested, personal dedication to not doing these things, those dedications are their own source of strength. Not only do they help bolster against the tempting power of such things (while you suffer a -1 for refusing, you get a +1 from holding to your convictions, but if you give in, you erode your convictions so while you get nothing this time (+1 for accepting, -1 for guilt over breaking convictions), next time you might be in the same boat as everyone else).

I have seen something similar, usually with Addiction flaws, where you suffer a penalty, based on the severity of the flaw, if you don't do whatever it is you are addicted to for too long. Some systems then give you a meta-reward if you suffer some serious consequence because of the penalty, or in trying to satisfy your addiction (You are high during this next fight, so take some meta-resource for playing up an addict). But, those are usually opt-in features, rather than universal rules.Ignoring the meta-reward for "complications," what I'm looking to do here is establish a baseline, but allow for building convictions, preferences, or whatever that alter that baseline to build a personal "map" of desires.

"In general, people like tasty food better than plain food," would be a baseline thing. If you have taken the time and effort to build specific food preferences, your character's food preferences override this baseline. Possibly to your advantage (you're unmoved by the proferring of this food, or even refuse the one dish that you don't like that happened to be poisoned), or possibly to your detriment (you can't actually get a benefit others are getting because there's nothing here you like...or you HAVE to eat it to be polite and suffer a penalty for forcing yourself).

So, let's go back to our Knight and our Pirate Queen.

The Gamer wants to do whatever helps them Win. The Roleplayer wants to be true to their character.

Let's remove the ship from the equation. The Pirate Queen offers to have sex with the Knight.
The Gamer doesn't care. The Roleplayer says No, because their knight is chaste. Easy Answer, No.

Then, the Pirate Queen says that she might be more amenable to lending the PC's a ship if the Knight helps her work off the stresses of command.
Now, the Gamer(Who wants a ship, assuming that helps them achieve their goal) says Yes, the Roleplayer says no, because their knight is chaste.

Now, the Player is conflicted, they must either hurt their chances of Winning, or abandon their character. Gamer and Roleplayer are in conflict. My proposal is to balance the conflict in the mechanics by having something so core to the character have its own morale consequences. Keeping the vow has positive benefits. Breaking it has consequences (possibly entirely negative, possibly not, depending on player goals...again, if the player wants to grow the character away from the vow, this would be an opportunity to do so).

At this point, something like FATE would offer the player a Fate Point for turning down the Queen's offer. A Fate Point doesn't do nearly as much to get them to their destination as a Ship would, but it let's the Gamer feel like they got SOMETHING for sticking to their character concept. Under this system, you can succeed as a Roleplayer, while not necessarily failing as a Gamer.

Your system is doing the opposite in order to make the Player suffer the same indecision as the Character. Offering even greater incentive to say Yes, while doing nothing to mollify the Roleplayer. This just makes the conflict between Gamer and Roleplayer worse, which makes the game miserable to play.Again, the mollification for the role player is that we've mechanically represented his devotion to the vow.

It sounds like what you want to happen is to make it REALLY hard for the player to say No, but then to do so anyway. You might as well just be swatting them with a rolled up newspaper.Not really. I want the temptations to say "yes" to be represented accurately. I want the reasons to say "no" to be just as accurately represented. Which the PLAYER decides his character does remains his choice. The consequences should just reflect the difficulty of the choice (one way or another).

I guess, but not in a good way.

Before I thought you wanted to balance out fluff and crunch benefits so that you didn't have to sacrifice one for the other, which is a laudable (if unfeasible) goal.That is my goal, yes.

But now it looks like you just want to "punish" people who you deem to be "mary-sues' and build a system that encourages people who have poor impulse control and a heap of vices.No. I want to make it so that being a mary sue isn't the optimal choice.

Note that a "mary sue" here is characterized by having a ton of laudible informed traits which only show up when they benefit the character, and the mary sue conveniently "overcomes" whenever they'd be of detriment. It has nothing to do with me preferring a particular character to find Suzy Seductress to be irresistible or not.

I really only bring it up because that trait set seemed to be looming in Max_Killjoy's accusation that somebody could "optimize" this system.

As a side note, a well-designed system being optimized is a good thing; the well-designed system has the optimal design within it epitomizing what the system is trying to achieve.

What I am trying to achieve here is a system wherein playing a character as the person he is is the optimal way to play. Whatever kind of person he is.

So if you're playing the efficient dungeon-crawling machine, playing him that way at all times, even when it would be...socially uncomfortable...and disadvantageous in non-dungeon-crawling situations, would be at least strongly encouraged. If you're playing the noble fop, then there would be advantages to that but you'd still have incentives to stick to his foppish ways even when it's situationally disadvantageous in a material sense.

"I need more build points, so I took the allergic to horses flaw. Now I have to walk everywhere," will be met with "Way to go brah! You game that system!" but when no such flaw is available saying "I like the idea of playing my character with a few flaws to make him more human, and I am thinking about saying he always walks because he is allergic to horses," is met with "No way! I'm not waiting for your slow ass! Stop ruining the game trying to be a special snowflake brah!"Eh, I'm more in the boat of, "I didn't get anything for this allergy to horses, but it's making me less effective in the game. This is frustrating."

Though note that I'm not really advocating for "flaws" that give "build points" here.

Koo Rehtorb

2017-01-04, 12:35 PM

Yeah, no. Leaving things up to the dice is the antithesis of railroading, as I have no power to know how they will fall. If I want to railroad the players, rolling the dice for that is one of the worst ideas I can have - because as soon as the dice fall in my disfavour, the players have a reasonable expectation that the game will now NOT go according to the plan the dice just denied. How can this ever be railroading?

I don't think this is necessarily true. It's the antithesis of the most blatant form of open railroading, but you can absolutely use the dice in service of more subtle versions of it.

"Roll for it. Oh no the target number was one higher."

"Sneaking into the castle? Okay roll for sneaking up to the wall. Roll for sneaking over the wall. Roll for sneaking across the courtyard. Roll for sneaking into the keep. Roll for sneaking up to the first floor. Roll for sneaking up to the second floor- oh look you failed, encounter time."

You may not have control over the physical numbers on the dice, but you do have control over difficulty and the ability to call for tests, in most games, at least.

BRC

2017-01-04, 03:01 PM

My proposal is to balance the conflict in the mechanics by having something so core to the character have its own morale consequences. Keeping the vow has positive benefits. Breaking it has consequences (possibly entirely negative, possibly not, depending on player goals...again, if the player wants to grow the character away from the vow, this would be an opportunity to do so).

Again, the mollification for the role player is that we've mechanically represented his devotion to the vow.
Not really. I want the temptations to say "yes" to be represented accurately. I want the reasons to say "no" to be just as accurately represented. Which the PLAYER decides his character does remains his choice. The consequences should just reflect the difficulty of the choice (one way or another).

Okay, tried to trim down the quote to what I think is the crux of your idea.

So, your goal is to provide mechanical incentives to represent the various factors that would make a decision, not just assigning bonuses/penalties to tempt players away from their convictions.
Which is better, but not without issues, since it seems like doing so would require the GM to basically be assigning mechanical bonuses based on a character's internal logic.

Without any sort of mechanical system, the Player thinks "What does my character value more, keeping his oath, or appeasing his hormones?", and makes the call from there.

Under your system, the GM is providing mechanical reasons to simulate that internal conflict. "Your Oath is a Core Principle, which means it always has a bonus of +10. However, the Pirate Queen is really hot, and she rolled well on her Seduction roll, so she's got a +12. Therefore, right now your character wants to sleep with the pirate queen more than he wants to keep his oath."

Which seems like the GM is telling the player what their Character wants to do.

I guess I could kind of see it working, especially for those "Oh, I know I'll regret this later" type situations, where you can really want to do something, but still have a good reason to not do it. Situations where something is both appealing, and not neccessarily the best idea? It seems unnecessary, and it requires you to put a numeric value on how much a character wants to do something.

With something like an Oath, that's a core part of the character concept, it could be easy. When you build the character, you say that keeping this Oath is a core principle, and can write "Keep Oath, +10" on their character sheet somewhere.

But, for more transient situations, it seems like a lot of bookeeping. The Players track down a fugitive with a hefty bounty, but they claim that they were framed by the Judge. The GM would have to assign a value to each character wanting to collect the bounty money vs wanting to let an innocent go. That seems like a call the PLAYER should be making about their character's values, rather than something the GM should be assigning.

georgie_leech

2017-01-04, 03:21 PM

Segev

2017-01-04, 03:48 PM

Okay, tried to trim down the quote to what I think is the crux of your idea.

So, your goal is to provide mechanical incentives to represent the various factors that would make a decision, not just assigning bonuses/penalties to tempt players away from their convictions.
Which is better, but not without issues, since it seems like doing so would require the GM to basically be assigning mechanical bonuses based on a character's internal logic.

Without any sort of mechanical system, the Player thinks "What does my character value more, keeping his oath, or appeasing his hormones?", and makes the call from there.

Under your system, the GM is providing mechanical reasons to simulate that internal conflict. "Your Oath is a Core Principle, which means it always has a bonus of +10. However, the Pirate Queen is really hot, and she rolled well on her Seduction roll, so she's got a +12. Therefore, right now your character wants to sleep with the pirate queen more than he wants to keep his oath."

Which seems like the GM is telling the player what their Character wants to do.

I guess I could kind of see it working, especially for those "Oh, I know I'll regret this later" type situations, where you can really want to do something, but still have a good reason to not do it. Situations where something is both appealing, and not neccessarily the best idea? It seems unnecessary, and it requires you to put a numeric value on how much a character wants to do something.

With something like an Oath, that's a core part of the character concept, it could be easy. When you build the character, you say that keeping this Oath is a core principle, and can write "Keep Oath, +10" on their character sheet somewhere.

But, for more transient situations, it seems like a lot of bookeeping. The Players track down a fugitive with a hefty bounty, but they claim that they were framed by the Judge. The GM would have to assign a value to each character wanting to collect the bounty money vs wanting to let an innocent go. That seems like a call the PLAYER should be making about their character's values, rather than something the GM should be assigning.

You've got, I think, the basics of what I'm getting at, though I would try to avoid the GM assigning things to the players' characters on case-by-case bases.

Instead, the GM would work with the baseline, and the players would apply their characters' convictions, preferences, likes, etc. appropriately. The GM would do this with awareness of the PCs' proclivities, of course, so that he'd know that Sir Knight is going to find the plea for help getting justice against a wicked Moneylender-Duke from a downtrodden widow a harder thing to resist than a plea for help from a sexy milkmaid (offering sex) to intimidate the not-so-wicked Moneylender-Duke into not making her pay her debt (even though she can).

So, to work with our Pirate Queen (and ignoring, for the moment, ship vs. no ship, as that's a known quantity on the decision-making side of things), the Pirate Queen rolls (either one-off or as a series of rolls throughout an encounter) using her social mechanics to determine just how sexy and seductive she really is today. The Knight's player acknowledges that his character is straight and not asexual (so no penalties to her roll or bonuses to his defensive target number for that), but also holds up his dedication to his oath as a defense against her wiles.

Now, this "defense" could take the form of an actual modification to the target number, so she has a harder time rolling it, or it could be a penalty he'd take in morale points for giving in (due to guilt or whatnot) which simply counteracts any bonus morale she is offering for having given in.

Using that latter model, she might, using her skills/traits, roll well enough to offer 12 morale points for sleeping with her (and a penalty of the same for refusing), but the fact that he'd lose 10 morale points for giving in means she's really only offering 2. If he also would gain 10 morale points back for resisting (based on personal satisfaction that he stuck to his principles), he's only losing a net of 2 morale points for refusing. Thus, because the Pirate Queen is up against a knight with this chastity principle that has its own morale rewards and penalties, she has a greatly diminished effect on him.

Let's take this a step further, since I touched on it already, and say it's the amazingly seductive Pirate King. He's known to have 10 women in every port, and they're almost invariably willing, if not wholeheartedly eager, bedmates. Our chaste knight is still a straight male. Our super-seductive Pirate King is, however, bisexual, and has set his sights on the knight. He'd still likely let his new paramour's party borrow his ship for naught but the nightly pleasure of the knight's pleasure for the duration of the trip. So all else is equal.

But now, our knight is straight, and thus there is a 10 "unpleasantness" (numbers pulled out of thin air for now) associated with sleeping with another man. Without his dedication to his chastity, the Pirate King's 12 on the seduction would still make a straight man net 2 morale for giving in! Or lose net 2 morale for refusing (though the ongoing benefit of having not eroded his "straightness" might be enough additional reward, depending on the player's desires for the character and the character's future defense against homosexual seduction). With the knight's 10 morale loss for breaking his oath and the 10 "unpleasantness" associated with sleeping with a man, however, the Pirate King's 12 seduction actually is only enough to make it so that the knight would "merely" lose 8 morale if he gave in. And, if the knight refuses, he...well, I will say he loses nothing.

An examination of that is that we don't want to encourage seeking out offers you would be repulsed by as a means of gaining morale for refusing them, so the "defense" application of it against having a "desirable" offer reduced to less than 0 morale lost for refusing it should bottom out at 0. It's loss prevention, not morale gain.

Back to the point, though, the straight Knight's chastity oath and sexual orientation shuts down the Pirate King's seduction effort, leaving only the question of whether the ship is worth the morale hit. And the potential erosion of the knight's devotion to his sexual orientation and whatever sources his chastity vow.

Of course, the player may choose to give in or refuse in either case. His player just has emotional consequences for it (good or bad).

In addition, the GM hasn't had to customize things based on the Knight's personality to arbitrarily come up with numbers. The system tells him all the numbers involved. The ratings of the Knight's traits give the 10 for the vow and for his sexual orientation. The Pirate King's social traits determine the numbers going in to whatever system ultimately generates the 12 morale point offer (and penalty). There is customization, since the numbers for each character will likely be different, but it isn't arbitrary at the time of gameplay any more than the AC of the knight (vs that of the bard or the enchantress) is arbitrarily determined by the GM, nor their hp.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-04, 04:02 PM

Whatever algorithm you use to make your decisions, as a player. At the risk of insulting your intelligence, let me explain that when I say "algorithm," here, I mean it in its most basic sense: a set of actions taken to reach a conclusion. "Do I get up or stay in bed for another hour?" involves invoking a decision-making algorithm that evaluates your immediate discomfort based on getting up now and your estimated day-long discomfort from how tired you think you'll be if you get up now vs. the activities and accomplishments you could make in that extra hour of awakeness this morning, possibly also weighing how long it takes you to "fully wake up" compared to when you need to be ready to act "awake" today. Your algorithm will weigh all of these things (or at least any of them you actually think of) in determining whether getting up now or staying in bed is what you choose to do.

I wouldn't call that an algorithm... algorithm would imply to me some sort of actual calculation going on.

They are the same entities which tell you that your PC can or cannot actually keep going for 40 days of hard labor without showing the faintest signs of fatigue, or that he can't throw fireballs when he doesn't have that ability on his character sheet, or that he can't get up out of his wheelchair and walk if he has "parapalegic" as a flaw, or that he can't invent gunpowder by using your real-world knowledge (possibly accessed via the internet) of what the recipe is and how to gather the ingredients when he should have no reason to bother picking up bat guano and brimstone in the first place in your stone-age setting.

That's conflating what the character wants, with what the character is capable of making happen, and conflating character limits with setting limits.

I could easily make a character who wants to be able to cast spells, but can't, because there's no magic in their setting.

I can easily decide that my character wants to shoot that guy, but whether the shot actually hits is a matter of character skill and mechanics.

If you want to play a character who is never affected by anything he feels that you, as a player, don't yourself feel in equal amount, that's fine. This subsystem probably isn't for you. If you're a magnificently perfect player who has omniscient ability to precisely evaluate all factors, and you'd never ever consider what is mechanically beneficial before making a decision and never feel cheated by the game for the mechanics telling you you're less effective for a decision that you, as a player, can't actually enjoy the benefits of, great.

I want to play a character where I decide what the character feels in the first place, how the character reacts to and deals with those feelings, whether and how the character expresses those feelings, etc. It's my character -- I'm not playing a pregen that someone else handed me. It's an RPG, not an acting gig -- I'm not reading from a script or taking ques from a director.

If you feel I'm insulting you in the above, then please realize it's in reply to your disdainful, insulting condescention in implying that desiring to have the emotional state of a character represented in the mechanics is somehow bad RP or imposing a tyrannical evil upon you, since you couple any rebuttal to points explaining why this is necessary with a rather arrogant-seeming, "It's not necessary for me, because I can evaluate my character's emotional state just fine, so everybody else should, too. And besides, I don't ever make sub-optimal life decisions for emotional or desire-driven, short-term reasons. People who do are idiots." If that's not what you believe you're saying, let me assure you that it's how a lot of your arguments and "I don't need it and I don't act that way" come off.''

I mean no insult, but when you simultaneously hold up yourself as a paragon of excellence but then take umbrage at it being pointed out that that's what you're doing, it's a little hard to discuss points with you. "I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I don't need this because I am so good I can do without it. How DARE you discuss making something that would make me re-evaluate my PC's actions, even though I say I don't care about those things now?"

I have no idea how you take my comments as statements of superiority. I'm telling you that I don't like any system of this nature because they interfere with how I personally roleplay and how I see the relationship between player and PC. AND, I'm trying to get it across that there are many other players besides me who don't see the mechanics as "a weight" and don't want this sort of interference in how they play their character -- for some of us, you're fixing a problem that doesn't exist by adding another obstacle.

As for disdain, if it comes across that way, it's because I'm vehemently against the suggestion that the system or the dice or the GM or the game designer have any right to tell the player how that player's character feels or thinks or makes decisions.

Those weights exist, whether those players VALUE them or not.

It's entirely subjective. The weight doesn't exist if the player doesn't feel it or doesn't care.

Claiming it objectively exists is like claiming that every advertisement puts pressure on every person seeing or hearing it to buy the product... when in reality some people just ignore commecials completely, and some people laugh at them but don't even remember what they were for, and some people change the channel, and some people hate the commerical so much they refuse to buy the product.

Thing is, if a player doesn't value those weights...then he will continue to not value them even when new weights are added. This should be a wash to such players. It's a little hypocritical to say "I don't care about those mechanical incentives to have my character ignore personal comfort, cravings, and desires, but if you introduce mechanical incentives to pay attention to those things, you're punishing me by making my choice to ignore them actually have mechanical weight!" If you don't care about the mechanical weight now, why should you when the mechanical weights change?

One, you're assuming that the weights you're adding are entirely equivalent to the weights that exist.

Two, it's presumptuous to even have these outside assertions regarding the player character's feelings and desires and thoughts.

Three, once systems like this are in place, people who ignore them are more likely to be accused of "bad roleplaying" or "trying to play bad characters".

I have to say that you're essentially ignoring a huge portion of what I've been saying in favor of a straw man, here.

Your straw man relies on a claim that there is a universal set of things which are "everybody likes this" in the mechanics, when I've been saying that this is less likely to be true. Each character should have their likes and dislikes defined, at least in broad strokes. The sole area that assumption might be considered to hold true is if you take into consideration something like "lifestyles." A higher-priced lifestyle is assumed to be more rejuvenating to one's mental reserves than a lower-priced one.

There might be some baseline norms in place, but even those should be malleable by virtue of defining your likes and dislikes appropriately. If you want to play a cold-hearted Spartan warrior-explorer who gains all his joy from the longest of long-term goals and cares nothing for comfort, companionship, or any petty distractions, that should be quite doable. It should have its own drawbacks and benefits. Currently, in most systems, it's the optimal person to play. My goal is not to make it "worse" to play than other types, but to make it "no better" to play than other types.

You say that... and then a ways down in the post, we get to this...

No, in order to reflect how desirable the Pirate Queen is, I've established an additional mechanical bonus to accepting her offer.

There's a difference.

It isn't about making "Break your vow to get a ship" more of a challenging choice.

It's about making "Just how much does the Knight sexually desire the Pirate Queen?" have mechanical impact.

Which all rests on the presumption that the Knight even finds the Pirate Queen at all desirable in the first place.

So are you letting the player determine that for their character, or are you impossing that attraction? If it's the latter, then it has exactly the same problems as the "everybody likes this" you claim is a strawman. "Everybody likes this" or "your character likes this" from the system or the game designer or the GM, are functionally identical. They intrude on the player's absolute agency over the internal wants, feelings, and thoughts of their character.

The problem goes deeper than balancing weights, or whether the weights exist. The problem is that you're trying to tell the player what their character wants or feels or thinks, in the first place. Your system rests on a violation of the basic relationship between the player and their character.

To be blunt, when the question of "does the Knight find the Pirate Queen desirable?" comes up... unless you are the player and the Knight is your PC... you have no standing to determine that answer. None. Zero.

Talakeal

2017-01-04, 04:13 PM

Stuff.

I must say that it must be very nice to live in Germany. Around here we are always desperate to find more gamers and so we have to compromise (a lot) if we actually want to game. Its hard to find enough players to even form a group, and being able to choose a preferred gaming system, let alone style, is just a pie in the sky fantasy.

Also, when the DM is the one who determines how often a check is rolled, what the difficulty is, and what the results of success or failure are it is certainly giving the DM the advantage in the situation. True it isn't as bad as just saying "You what I want, no questions asked, because I am the DM and I said so!," but it is still taking away power from the player and giving power to the DM.

Stuff.

One of us is not seeing something about your system then.

The idea of offsetting RP disadvantages with mechanics would be something like
GM: "You are starving and suffer a -2 penalty to constitution for hunger. However, you might be able to capture one of the rats in the corner and devour it to offset the penalty for a while. Do you?"
Player: "No, I am a vegetarian, and even if I am starving the rat's life matters just as much as mine."
GM: "Ok, you still suffer the -2 constitution penalty for starvation, however sticking to your conviction fills you with determination and you get a +2 bonus to wisdom!"

While your system is more like:
GM: "You are at a restaurant and order a salad, but the smell of the steak at the next table makes your mouth water. Are you sure you don't want a steak?"
Player: "No! I am a vegetarian! The very idea of eating meat actually makes me sick to my stomach."
GM: "Ok, you can stick to your principles. But the struggle between your Id and Ego puts your mind in turmoil. Suffer a -2 morale penalty!"

Now, some people struggle and are conflicted. Others aren't. A guy who is attracted to men but refuses to engage in a homosexual affair to religious purposes might be tempted, but for your average straight guy just isn't interested one way or the other.

If the player wants to play a "flawed" character or one who is ultimately struggling with their choices in life that is a thing. I am fine just RPing the conflict internally, but I would not object to a system like you described where they get bonuses to some things and penalties to others to represent their struggle. But if I am playing a character who is simply not interested in that temptation, or who is has the willpower / moral fortitude to ignore their temptations it just seems like a screw-job.

Ok, so my knight character:

He was the son of a noble family trained for war. As a young man who had finished his training but not yet earned his spurs and very much a teenager he was returning from a crusade and became lost in the deep primeval forest. In his wanderings he stumbled upon the queen of the forest, a beautiful wood-nymph and daughter of the demigod who embodied the land itself. He instantly fell in love with her, and in a stupor immediately pledged himself to her service, to obey her in all things, to protect her woodland realm, and to forsake the company of all mortal women to prove his devotion to her. She didn't really understand or care for such things, but the knight was charming and charismatic enough that she did not flee from him or send him away. Weeks later when he returned to the world of men he forsook the lands and title that were his birthright to better devote himself to his mistress and his new cause.

His oaths are to the forest queen, but she doesn't really care about them or even understand them, so they are really to himself. He gets no mechanical benefit from them whatsoever. Not only has he forsworn the company of mortal women, but he really isn't interested. After seeing such supernatural beauty (combined with a stubborn personality and the normal teenage reaction to their first love) human women just don't do it for him. If he did manage to be seduced somehow, likely the result of magical or chemical coercion, he would commit seppuku the moment he came to his senses as that is the only way for him to regain his honor (and his sense of self worth).

Now, I suppose you could get some interesting drama out of this. For example, he expects his love to be purely of the courtly variety. He knows that as a mortal and one who is not of royal blood he would never be worthy of her attention. If she did show interest in him, however, that would be a conflict. Would he give in to her? Would his vow to obey her win out over his vow of chastity? Would he be willing to (in his mind) defile the most beautiful creature in the world so that he can indulge his own selfish and unworthy heart?
I think that would be a much more interesting story and is a lot closer to the Lancelot comparison you made earlier than either trading his purity to the pirate queen for a ship or giving in to Floret's court seductress because of a dice roll.

Now, I sacrificed plenty for this character's vows.
I refused to take my attacks of opportunity for tripped or disarmed opponents or the bonuses for flanking as a refused to engage in dishonorable combat.
I never attacked an enemy before they were ready, which cost me an inordinate number of actions, and I actually allowed the BBEG to complete his ritual of doom and summon a big bad demon to help him in the final battle because I refused to strike him when he was unable to fight back.
A destroyed a major relic and went without a magic weapon for much of the campaign because the one I got was axiomatic and thus anathema to the fey I had sworn to protect.

I made plenty of mechanical sacrifices for the character concept, so many that the other players (and the DM) were kind of getting annoyed with me, which was one of the reasons why I started this thread in the first place.

Now you are saying that in your ideal world I would have ALSO had morale penalties piled on top of all that to "make my oaths more meaningful?" To me that seems completely crazy and counterproductive.

Now, I will quibble one thing, here: the dice saying they really want to probably DOES mean that your PC is attracted to this person...possibly in spite of him- or herself. (Unless the "you want to have sex with me" persuasion comes from something other than attraction; bribery or extortion, perhaps. In which case it's not playing against your character's desires, either; your PC isn't attracted...but the incentives or threats are such that your PC is tempted to go along anyway, despite what might be real revulsion.)

By the time the dice are speaking in this manner, it's not "your PC wants to despite thinking they don't;" it's "your PC wants to even though you think your PC shouldn't."

We probably shouldn't discuss this to much lest we risk the thread being closed, but I have to say that this is a little too close to the logic that some real life sexual predators use to justify their behavior for my comfort.

Segev

2017-01-04, 04:29 PM

I wouldn't call that an algorithm... algorithm would imply to me some sort of actual calculation going on. Okay. Well, at least you know what I meant when I used the word, now. Which is the important point here.

That's conflating what the character wants, with what the character is capable of making happen, and conflating character limits with setting limits.Sort of. I could make an argument that the Pirate Queen rolling her dice at you to make you want her is provoking hormones in your knight's brain which he can't control, but that's getting well beyond what I really want to be modeling here.

Here's the thing: I am willing to bet that, if you, Max_Killjoy, were magically transported to the fictional world and were physically placed in your Knight's position, and the Pirate Queen were actually really there trying to seduce you, you'd have a very different sense of how desirable she was to you (or your knight, whose shoes you're literally in for this hypothetical) than if I, as a GM, were to describe her seductive efforts to you. Especially given that I'd probably get awfully embarrassed if I tried to get to, um, detailed, which would make the situation more humorous IRL than sexy. And neither of us likely would be happy with me play-acting the Pirate Queen's coming onto you too...vividly. I, frankly, am not a sexy, confident woman in the seat of her power with a body that could melt the chilliest ice king's libido into putty. She, however, is. Her stats say so.

That's what the die roll (or the sequence of die rolls and other mechanics invoked in the scene) is meant to represent, and why it does tell you that, yes, your character DID find her alluring after all. She really WAS that good.

You, as player and final decision-making Agent in your character's mind, however, decide what he wants to do about it. He does feel that desire. It isn't a choice. But he is just as free with my system as without to have you decide he gives in or refuses.

I could easily make a character who wants to be able to cast spells, but can't, because there's no magic in their setting.

I can easily decide that my character wants to shoot that guy, but whether the shot actually hits is a matter of character skill and mechanics. Sure.

You can easily decide to make a character who wants to resist the temptations of a sexy woman, but can't, as well.

I want to play a character where I decide what the character feels in the first place, how the character reacts to and deals with those feelings, whether and how the character expresses those feelings, etc. It's my character -- I'm not playing a pregen that someone else handed me. It's an RPG, not an acting gig -- I'm not reading from a script or taking ques from a director. And you do. You do this when you design him, just as you decide when you build him that he's physically powerful and good at sailing, but can't write poetry and doesn't know how to match navy blue to black without looking tacky.

The system I propose has you design his preferences, predillections, social traits and peccadillos, vices, virtues, etc. These then come into play in interaction with things which have a baseline desirability or unpleasantness, and modify it according to how different your PC is from this baseline based on your design.

If you want him to be totally uninterested in the Pirate Queen...build him to be so.

I have no idea how you take my comments as statements of superiority. I'm telling you that I don't like any system of this nature because they interfere with how I personally roleplay and how I see the relationship between player and PC. AND, I'm trying to get it across that there are many other players besides me who don't see the mechanics as "a weight" and don't want this sort of interference in how they play their character -- for some of us, you're fixing a problem that doesn't exist by adding another obstacle.

As for disdain, if it comes across that way, it's because I'm vehemently against the suggestion that the system or the dice or the GM or the game designer have any right to tell the player how that player's character feels or thinks or makes decisions.

Mostly just acknowledging this. I don't have a good reply right now. Apologies.

It's entirely subjective. The weight doesn't exist if the player doesn't feel it or doesn't care.

Claiming it objectively exists is like claiming that every advertisement puts pressure on every person seeing or hearing it to buy the product... when in reality some people just ignore commecials completely, and some people laugh at them but don't even remember what they were for, and some people change the channel, and some people hate the commerical so much they refuse to buy the product. Not so. If I have two jobs, one of which involves riding roller coasters and reporting on them and pays $1/hour, and another which involves skunk herding but pays $100/hour, and somebody really doesn't care about money, that doesn't change that the choice to take the roller coaster job doesn't have a weighted consequence that he's making 1/100 of what he otherwise would have. He just doesn't care.

One, you're assuming that the weights you're adding are entirely equivalent to the weights that exist. Not "equivalent," but "equally valid." Why are you assuming that, even though you claim you don't care about mechanical impact of your choices now, you'd care about THESE mechanical impacts enough that it would distort your play away from what you assert is "in character" for your PC?

Two, it's presumptuous to even have these outside assertions regarding the player character's feelings and desires and thoughts.No more so than presuming to be able to assert from the outside what he's physically or mentally capable of.

Remember, again, that the ideal form of this subsystem would have you build your character's personality when you create him, just as you do every other aspect of his mechanical representation.

Three, once systems like this are in place, people who ignore them are more likely to be accused of "bad roleplaying" or "trying to play bad characters". This is already present. This is a wash. Sorry, I don't find this to represent a change from what already is present.

You say that... and then a ways down in the post, we get to this...

(<Segev> Pirate Queen baseline desirability as objectively determined by her seduction skill invocation </Segev>)

Which all rests on the presumption that the Knight even finds the Pirate Queen at all desirable in the first place. I will refer you to my more detailed examination of this in the post before the one of yours I'm replying to, here.

So are you letting the player determine that for their character, or are you impossing that attraction? If it's the latter, then it has exactly the same problems as the "everybody likes this" you claim is a strawman. "Everybody likes this" or "your character likes this" from the system or the game designer or the GM, are functionally identical. They intrude on the player's absolute agency over the internal wants, feelings, and thoughts of their character. The player determines his character's overall predillections. What I'm asserting here is that the Pirate Queen has skill/talent/whatever representing how good she is at seducing people. You can no more (or less) no-sell that capability of hers than you could no-sell her swordsmanship if she started swashbuckling at you. If you built your PC to have absolutely no interest in sex, or to be attracted only to men, or otherwise designed not to be attracted by default (or to be default repulsed) by the Pirate Queen, she has an immense barrier to overcome in her efforts to seduce. If she is good enough, she still somehow makes your PC feel desire for her on some level. If she isn't, she doesn't.

The problem goes deeper than balancing weights, or whether the weights exist. The problem is that you're trying to tell the player what their character wants or feels or thinks, in the first place. Your system rests on a violation of the basic relationship between the player and their character. Again, I disagree. It informs the player of the character's experience in how it differs from the player's. The fundamental relationship: the ultimate CHOICE of HOW THE CHARACTER REACTS; is still intact.

If Tormentron the Torturer starts ripping the fingernails off of your knight, you do get to decide whether he gives in to the torturer's demands, but you don't get to decide whether or not the ripping off of the fingernails causes your knight pain.

To be blunt, when the question of "does the Knight find the Pirate Queen desirable?" comes up... unless you are the player and the Knight is your PC... you have no standing to determine that answer. None. Zero."Unless you are the player and the knight is your PC, you have no standing to determine whether or not a burning hot brand shoved into his groin is painful. None."

I assert that these are equivalent claims. They are both false. The game and other people's mechanics can determine whether or not the knight feels pain. The game and other people's mechanics can determine whether or not the knight feels desire. What they should not do is tell the player how the knight reacts to these things. What choices the knight ultimately makes. THAT is the player's fundamental relation to the character.

(We are, of course, ignoring things like dominate person being brought into play, here.)

jayem

2017-01-04, 04:41 PM

BRC

2017-01-04, 04:49 PM

Think instead of that +12 for seduction +10 for keeping the oath meaning that the character is overcoming a +2 worth of difference to keep to the oath. That is, when you look at it, that's not actually all that significant, so it's not necessarily a huge thing for the character to do, but it does require some conscious effort, kind of like how I need to remind myself that I really shouldn't eat those cookies on the table for the +2 deliciousness. Then you get to ask, "would my character sacrifice their convictions for this momentary pleasure, represented by that +2?" Some characters say yes, some say no.
Except that the Knight's dedication to their oath is already factored into the decision making process by the +10 to saying No.
You can't say "After factoring in how much I care about my oath, there's only +2 left. I care about breaking my oath too much for a mere +2"

You've got, I think, the basics of what I'm getting at, though I would try to avoid the GM assigning things to the players' characters on case-by-case bases.

Instead, the GM would work with the baseline, and the players would apply their characters' convictions, preferences, likes, etc. appropriately. The GM would do this with awareness of the PCs' proclivities, of course, so that he'd know that Sir Knight is going to find the plea for help getting justice against a wicked Moneylender-Duke from a downtrodden widow a harder thing to resist than a plea for help from a sexy milkmaid (offering sex) to intimidate the not-so-wicked Moneylender-Duke into not making her pay her debt (even though she can).

So, to work with our Pirate Queen (and ignoring, for the moment, ship vs. no ship, as that's a known quantity on the decision-making side of things), the Pirate Queen rolls (either one-off or as a series of rolls throughout an encounter) using her social mechanics to determine just how sexy and seductive she really is today. The Knight's player acknowledges that his character is straight and not asexual (so no penalties to her roll or bonuses to his defensive target number for that), but also holds up his dedication to his oath as a defense against her wiles.

Now, this "defense" could take the form of an actual modification to the target number, so she has a harder time rolling it, or it could be a penalty he'd take in morale points for giving in (due to guilt or whatnot) which simply counteracts any bonus morale she is offering for having given in.

Using that latter model, she might, using her skills/traits, roll well enough to offer 12 morale points for sleeping with her (and a penalty of the same for refusing), but the fact that he'd lose 10 morale points for giving in means she's really only offering 2. If he also would gain 10 morale points back for resisting (based on personal satisfaction that he stuck to his principles), he's only losing a net of 2 morale points for refusing. Thus, because the Pirate Queen is up against a knight with this chastity principle that has its own morale rewards and penalties, she has a greatly diminished effect on him.

So, by this logic, if the Pirate Queen wasn't quite as sexy, and only got an 8, the Knight would gain 2 morale points for refusing, as he proudly sticks to his convictions. If I can get freudian here, the Pirate Queen's 12 represents the Id, the Knight's 10 represents the super-ego, and the Ego makes the final decision, accepting the bonuses or penalties from doing so.

The obvious way I see to game this system is to intentionally seek out things that you refuse. Bringing up this bit

An examination of that is that we don't want to encourage seeking out offers you would be repulsed by as a means of gaining morale for refusing them, so the "defense" application of it against having a "desirable" offer reduced to less than 0 morale lost for refusing it should bottom out at 0. It's loss prevention, not morale gain.
Not fully sure what you mean here, so let me bring up a few scenarios for you to mull over.

1) Our Knight's Player wants some morale bonuses for whatever reason, so he has his Knight wander past the Brothel, where a Lady of the Night calls out to him with an offer. Now, this prostitute is no Pirate Queen, she's used to seducing lusty sailors, not chaste knights, and merely gets a 5. The Knight refuses, and happily collects his net +5 morale points. He does this every time he needs to stock up on morale points, since the Brothel is always going to try to pull in any passerby that looks like they have money, and he can pretty reliably resist those particular temptations.

2) Same situation, but this time the Prostitute gets a 6, and the Knight is aware that some Brothels in this town have secretly been infiltrated by Cultists. Even if this brothel is likely uncorrupted, the idea of even potentially bedding down with a demon worshipper makes the thought even more disgusting than normal, giving the prostitute an additional -4. Now her final score is merely a 2. (The "Disgust" modifier hasn't totally canceled out her professional wiles), vs the Knight's 10. If the Knight refuses, does he walk away with a bonus of 4 (6 vs 10, since the Disgust modifier doesn't gain him anything), or a bonus of 8 (Because her final score was 2 vs his score of 10)?

3) the Pirate Queen is beautiful, and this time she approaches, not a knight, but the party Bard. The Bard has no oath of chastity, quite the opposite in fact. Sure, he's already paid for a night at the inn, but that's hardly a major factor here. So, the Queen is coming at him with a 12, he's got a 0, which would give him a net +12 for accepting, and a -12 for refusing, as he spends all night hating himself for turning her down.

However, the Pirate King is ruthless, and famously jealous. Any man found in his Wife's bed is chained to a rock and left to be drowned by the rising tide. This does nothing to change the temptation of the act itself, but there are now dire consequences for accepting.

How does this change the math? Does the Bard still suffer a -12 penalty if he refuses to avoid ticking off her husband, rather than to avoid having wasted the four silver he already paid the inn? Or is the Player, taking the role of Ego here, judging the +12 bonus versus the consequence of an angry pirate king. Why is the Queen's seduction mechanically tracked, but the king's fearsome reputation left out?
Let's say the potential horrible death counts as a "Core Principle", and so he gets a -10 to resist, just as the Knight does. If he accepts, but then successfully slips out in the night without being discovered, does he walk away with a net +12, or a net +2 (12 from the Queen, vs 10 from the core principle of "I Really Don't Want To Tick Off The Pirate King"), since he got the rewards while dodging the consequences.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-04, 04:49 PM

kyoryu

2017-01-04, 04:54 PM

Personally, I like the way Apocalypse World and other PbtA games handle things like this. If someone gets control on you, they get a number of points. Those points go away when you do the thing they want. Until that happens, you can use those points to make Bad Things happen to the character (specifics depending on the form of control).

As a player, this puts you in a position where you can go along with the control and get rid of it. Or, you can fight it and suffer the penalties, but they'll last a fixed time.

I find I vastly prefer that type of "soft control" as it puts the player in a fairly similar place to the character in terms of their decision making.

And it creates decision points for players, rather than mechanical determination, which I find to always be a positive thing.

Segev

2017-01-04, 04:55 PM

I must say that it must be very nice to live in Germany. Around here we are always desperate to find more gamers and so we have to compromise (a lot) if we actually want to game. Its hard to find enough players to even form a group, and being able to choose a preferred gaming system, let alone style, is just a pie in the sky fantasy.Where DO you live, again? It's often easier to find games in college towns or near (at least in the suburbs of) major cities, at least in the USA.

One of us is not seeing something about your system then.

The idea of offsetting RP disadvantages with mechanics would be something like
GM: "You are starving and suffer a -2 penalty to constitution for hunger. However, you might be able to capture one of the rats in the corner and devour it to offset the penalty for a while. Do you?"
Player: "No, I am a vegetarian, and even if I am starving the rat's life matters just as much as mine."
GM: "Ok, you still suffer the -2 constitution penalty for starvation, however sticking to your conviction fills you with determination and you get a +2 bonus to wisdom!"

While your system is more like:
GM: "You are at a restaurant and order a salad, but the smell of the steak at the next table makes your mouth water. Are you sure you don't want a steak?"
Player: "No! I am a vegetarian! The very idea of eating meat actually makes me sick to my stomach."
GM: "Ok, you can stick to your principles. But the struggle between your Id and Ego puts your mind in turmoil. Suffer a -2 morale penalty!"
Again, you're ignoring that anything that's a principle the character finds worth sticking to probably has its own mechanical representation. "I'm a vegetarian!" as a moral/ethical trait is similar to "I will remain chaste" as an oath. "I'm a vegetarian!" as a personal taste thing, instead, is akin to being straight (and not gay), where you react to meat the same way the straight guy reacts to another guy hitting on him.

Now, some people struggle and are conflicted. Others aren't. A guy who is attracted to men but refuses to engage in a homosexual affair to religious purposes might be tempted, but for your average straight guy just isn't interested one way or the other.And I'd look for such a guy to have "dedicated to Religion X" as something he values and from which he draws morale at times. Having (consensual) homosexual sex would violate that, and thus would cost him morale (and possibly erode said dedication to the religion). He'd feel the desire based on not having "straight" as a 'defense' against any seduction attempts by guys, so he might also suffer more morale penalties for sticking to his guns, but it's still his choice and he might even work to build up his dedication to that religion stronger if he really wants to keep resisting apparently persistent attempts by gay guys to seduce him.

Ok, so my knight character:

He was the son of a noble family trained for war. As a young man who had finished his training but not yet earned his spurs and very much a teenager he was returning from a crusade and became lost in the deep primeval forest. In his wanderings he stumbled upon the queen of the forest, a beautiful wood-nymph and daughter of the demigod who embodied the land itself. He instantly fell in love with her, and in a stupor immediately pledged himself to her service, to obey her in all things, to protect her woodland realm, and to forsake the company of all mortal women to prove his devotion to her. She didn't really understand or care for such things, but the knight was charming and charismatic enough that she did not flee from him or send him away. Weeks later when he returned to the world of men he forsook the lands and title that were his birthright to better devote himself to his mistress and his new cause.

His oaths are to the forest queen, but she doesn't really care about them or even understand them, so they are really to himself. He gets no mechanical benefit from them whatsoever. Not only has he forsworn the company of mortal women, but he really isn't interested. After seeing such supernatural beauty (combined with a stubborn personality and the normal teenage reaction to their first love) human women just don't do it for him. If he did manage to be seduced somehow, likely the result of magical or chemical coercion, he would commit seppuku the moment he came to his senses as that is the only way for him to regain his honor (and his sense of self worth).

Now, I suppose you could get some interesting drama out of this. For example, he expects his love to be purely of the courtly variety. He knows that as a mortal and one who is not of royal blood he would never be worthy of her attention. If she did show interest in him, however, that would be a conflict. Would he give in to her? Would his vow to obey her win out over his vow of chastity? Would he be willing to (in his mind) defile the most beautiful creature in the world so that he can indulge his own selfish and unworthy heart?
I think that would be a much more interesting story and is a lot closer to the Lancelot comparison you made earlier than either trading his purity to the pirate queen for a ship or giving in to Floret's court seductress because of a dice roll.
See, here he'd have a massive personality trait dedicated to his loyalty to this ideal he has of this forest queen. Maybe rolling his knightly vows all into it, or having a few representing different aspects.

Regardless, he'd have the fact that betraying his loyalty to her by sleeping around would hurt him morale-wise significantly helping to prevent it from even being tempting. Add in that you've said he's essentially monosexual for the forest queen, now, and that'd be just as strong as any other sexual orientation-based disinterest (or repugnance) for sleeping with another woman. It would be incredibly hard to even get him interested, let alone be so seductive as to make it even mildly attractive as a proposition, it sounds like.

Now, if she were to show interest or even try to seduce him? His monosexual orientation would be turned against him. Either it would be pitted against his idealized "purity" view of her, or his singular "dedicated to the ideal of her" trait would be turned against itself, essentially self-neutralizing, and so he's faced with whatever seductive talent she brings to bear. And it REMAINS your choice, as his player, whether to turn her down or not, but mechanics will tell you how hard that choice is. (Maybe this would be worked as either strengthening his definition of his dedication to her as asexual purity, or redefining it as romantic love + lust, based on his choices.)

Now, I sacrificed plenty for this character's vows.
I refused to take my attacks of opportunity for tripped or disarmed opponents or the bonuses for flanking as a refused to engage in dishonorable combat.
I never attacked an enemy before they were ready, which cost me an inordinate number of actions, and I actually allowed the BBEG to complete his ritual of doom and summon a big bad demon to help him in the final battle because I refused to strike him when he was unable to fight back.
A destroyed a major relic and went without a magic weapon for much of the campaign because the one I got was axiomatic and thus anathema to the fey I had sworn to protect.

I made plenty of mechanical sacrifices for the character concept, so many that the other players (and the DM) were kind of getting annoyed with me, which was one of the reasons why I started this thread in the first place.

Now you are saying that in your ideal world I would have ALSO had morale penalties piled on top of all that to "make my oaths more meaningful?" To me that seems completely crazy and counterproductive.I'm saying that you'd suffer morale penalties here if you forsook your oath for these things, actually. These things don't seem like they'd have emotional temptation to them, so you wouldn't gain morale for taking advantage of them nor lose it for letting the opportunities slide; they're their own mechanical rewards already, and barring some social salesman trying to push them on you, the morale system wouldn't come in at all on the "break the vows" side. Further, the vow itself would serve as a bulwark of defense against such blandishments from salesfolks. Equally well whether they're honestly selling you legitimate good advice, or trying to fool you into doing something stupid as well as wrong-by-your-oaths.

We probably shouldn't discuss this to much lest we risk the thread being closed, but I have to say that this is a little too close to the logic that some real life sexual predators use to justify their behavior for my comfort.Maybe, but they're deliberately misconstruing what I'm saying. But this actually highlights the distinction between telling you what your character feels and telling you what your character chooses to do:

The sexual predator might well be right that the poor victim was aroused and had desires the victim was denying.

The sexual predator, however, is still entirely in the wrong because the victim had chosen to reject or resist those desires and not to engage in the act.

Therefore, the sexual predator was forcing the victim into a nonconsensual sexual act. The sexual predator is in the wrong.

Likewise, it doesn't matter how much morale the sexy seductress offers, nor how bad the morale penalty for refusing her is; the ultimate choice of whether to accept or reject her lies with the target character's player. The mechanics may tell the character that he feels totally wound up and wrung out and emotionally drained by the choice, but it's not the mechanics which tell the character what he ultimately chooses.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-04, 04:55 PM

Ok, so my knight character:

He was the son of a noble family trained for war. As a young man who had finished his training but not yet earned his spurs and very much a teenager he was returning from a crusade and became lost in the deep primeval forest. In his wanderings he stumbled upon the queen of the forest, a beautiful wood-nymph and daughter of the demigod who embodied the land itself. He instantly fell in love with her, and in a stupor immediately pledged himself to her service, to obey her in all things, to protect her woodland realm, and to forsake the company of all mortal women to prove his devotion to her. She didn't really understand or care for such things, but the knight was charming and charismatic enough that she did not flee from him or send him away. Weeks later when he returned to the world of men he forsook the lands and title that were his birthright to better devote himself to his mistress and his new cause.

His oaths are to the forest queen, but she doesn't really care about them or even understand them, so they are really to himself. He gets no mechanical benefit from them whatsoever. Not only has he forsworn the company of mortal women, but he really isn't interested. After seeing such supernatural beauty (combined with a stubborn personality and the normal teenage reaction to their first love) human women just don't do it for him. If he did manage to be seduced somehow, likely the result of magical or chemical coercion, he would commit seppuku the moment he came to his senses as that is the only way for him to regain his honor (and his sense of self worth).

Now, I suppose you could get some interesting drama out of this. For example, he expects his love to be purely of the courtly variety. He knows that as a mortal and one who is not of royal blood he would never be worthy of her attention. If she did show interest in him, however, that would be a conflict. Would he give in to her? Would his vow to obey her win out over his vow of chastity? Would he be willing to (in his mind) defile the most beautiful creature in the world so that he can indulge his own selfish and unworthy heart?
I think that would be a much more interesting story and is a lot closer to the Lancelot comparison you made earlier than either trading his purity to the pirate queen for a ship or giving in to Floret's court seductress because of a dice roll.

Now, I sacrificed plenty for this character's vows.
I refused to take my attacks of opportunity for tripped or disarmed opponents or the bonuses for flanking as a refused to engage in dishonorable combat.
I never attacked an enemy before they were ready, which cost me an inordinate number of actions, and I actually allowed the BBEG to complete his ritual of doom and summon a big bad demon to help him in the final battle because I refused to strike him when he was unable to fight back.
A destroyed a major relic and went without a magic weapon for much of the campaign because the one I got was axiomatic and thus anathema to the fey I had sworn to protect.

I made plenty of mechanical sacrifices for the character concept, so many that the other players (and the DM) were kind of getting annoyed with me, which was one of the reasons why I started this thread in the first place.

Now you are saying that in your ideal world I would have ALSO had morale penalties piled on top of all that to "make my oaths more meaningful?" To me that seems completely crazy and counterproductive.

I'd say the Pirate Queen doesn't stand a bloody chance of seducing your Knight, it's not even a question, and the idea of even getting mechanics or penalties or bonuses involved is utterly counter-productive, and amounts to nothing more than the system meddling where it doesn't belong.

We probably shouldn't discuss this to much lest we risk the thread being closed, but I have to say that this is a little too close to the logic that some real life sexual predators use to justify their behavior for my comfort.

Yeah... "your character wants it even though you don't think they do" does kinda set off some of those same alarms...

I'm imagining these mechanics being used by a male GM against a female player for situations similar to some of those described, and it's a sketchier place that I really would ever want to go as a GM, or see happen at a table I was playing at.

Koo Rehtorb

2017-01-04, 05:07 PM

Pendragon is interesting in how it handles this sort of thing. It has an array of attributes representing personality aspects.

Chase/Lustful
Energetic/Lazy
Forgiving/Vengeful
Generous/Selfish
Just/Arbitrary
Merciful/Cruel
Modest/Proud
Pious/Worldly
Prudent/Reckless
Temperate/Indulgent
Trusting/Suspicious
Valorous/Cowardly

Obviously these things push/pull against each other, raising one lowers the other. Most of the time it doesn't have any effect, but if you get one to a high enough rank then you become notable for that and it's an invitation for the GM to step in and go "There's a mechanical chance that your guy will do X thing that's in line with his notable personality trait."

Attributes will slowly change over time based on how the guy is played, so if you're constantly portraying your knight as Lustful then eventually his Lustful stat might just rise high enough that it will compel him to behave lustfully at certain points in time.

Segev

2017-01-04, 05:31 PM

@ Segev

First, stop falsely equivocating physical damage and emotional reactions. Every time you try to counter-argue against the rejection of external emotional control by comparing it to external sources of physical injury, it just makes your entire argument less convincing. Sorry, but there is no reason why emotional states over which you have no conscious control should be any more sacrosanct than physical capabilities over which you have no conscious control. I can't stop myself from being miserable and grouchy when I'm hungry due to not having eaten in too long, nor from being sad if I learn that my best friend died, nor from being scared if I learn I've screwed something up that could have lasting disastrous consequences, nor from being aroused by a scantily clad attractive female.

Neither, then, is there any reason why mechanics cannot determine whether a given character is miserable and grouchy because he's hungry, nor from being scared when he learns the mob knows where his family lives, nor from being attracted to that sexy seductress.

What is and should remain sacrosanct is your choice of how you react to it. If you want to consciously force yourself to be pleasant while starving, to refuse to give in to the fear the mob invokes with the threat to your family by doing what they say, or turn down the sexy girl trying to get you into bed, that's your choice as a player of that character.

There's nothing wrong with a system that says you can't control how your character feels about it (except in how you designed him in the first place).

Of course, a really well-designed system would let people work on these things, much like they can in real life, but that's going to get more complicated than we're really discussing here.

Second, the idea that there's some universal "seduction ability" that can make anyone (interested in the user's sex, or maybe even not) physically aroused is nonsense. It's laughable. There is nothing that's universally arousing, there's no look or action or whatever that's universally seductive. You sound like my friend in college who would say some girl was hot, and I'd be unimpressed by her in particular, and he'd always respond "If she offered you'd take it, don't lie". (Sorry to be a touch crude, that's how he was.)And that's why the enormous amount of "defense" against her seductive prowess is wrapped up in aspects of your character which determine what he finds attractive.

If she still manages to make your PC feel desire for her, it means she's found a way around that. It isn't about "universally desirable" being a thing; it's about her being so good at seduction that she figures out how to use what she has to flip your "desirability" switches. She figured out (or lucked onto) enough of what your character DOES find desirable to use her skills to pluck at those strings, and did so well enough to overcome your revulsion and reasons to find the idea distasteful in such a way that you do find yourself tempted, by whatever degree the mechanics determine. As represented by the final morale offering/penalty.

Except that the Knight's dedication to their oath is already factored into the decision making process by the +10 to saying No.
You can't say "After factoring in how much I care about my oath, there's only +2 left. I care about breaking my oath too much for a mere +2"Actually, because the final choice remains with the player, you absolutely can.

The "mere +2" is how much you feel a yearning to do so. It measures 'net desire.' It's how much you'd, in the short term, still feel better (despite the self-flagellation for having broken your oath) after succumbing to the temptation, and how much, in the short term, the ache/craving pains you if you resist it. That you chose (and therefore your character chose) to accept the short-term pain rather than take the short-term gain says something about his real dedication to his oath. "Even though, right now, I do feel a genuine yearning to do this, I refuse because I consciously choose to value my oath and my long-term dedication to it over this short-term temptation."

So, by this logic, if the Pirate Queen wasn't quite as sexy, and only got an 8, the Knight would gain 2 morale points for refusing, as he proudly sticks to his convictions. If I can get freudian here, the Pirate Queen's 12 represents the Id, the Knight's 10 represents the super-ego, and the Ego makes the final decision, accepting the bonuses or penalties from doing so.

The obvious way I see to game this system is to intentionally seek out things that you refuse. Bringing up this bitYou hit on why I wrote that bit. Lemme quote the rest here, then respond:

Not fully sure what you mean here, so let me bring up a few scenarios for you to mull over.

1) Our Knight's Player wants some morale bonuses for whatever reason, so he has his Knight wander past the Brothel, where a Lady of the Night calls out to him with an offer. Now, this prostitute is no Pirate Queen, she's used to seducing lusty sailors, not chaste knights, and merely gets a 5. The Knight refuses, and happily collects his net +5 morale points. He does this every time he needs to stock up on morale points, since the Brothel is always going to try to pull in any passerby that looks like they have money, and he can pretty reliably resist those particular temptations.

2) Same situation, but this time the Prostitute gets a 6, and the Knight is aware that some Brothels in this town have secretly been infiltrated by Cultists. Even if this brothel is likely uncorrupted, the idea of even potentially bedding down with a demon worshipper makes the thought even more disgusting than normal, giving the prostitute an additional -4. Now her final score is merely a 2. (The "Disgust" modifier hasn't totally canceled out her professional wiles), vs the Knight's 10. If the Knight refuses, does he walk away with a bonus of 4 (6 vs 10, since the Disgust modifier doesn't gain him anything), or a bonus of 8 (Because her final score was 2 vs his score of 10)?This is exactly what I was saying should be prevented.

Therefore, I would write the "revulsion" aspect as a reduction in the penalty for refusing a temptation, not as a separate reward for resisting the temptation. Thus, the penalty could be reduced to 0, if the knight's dedication to his chastity was such that he didn't feel real regret over turning it down, but deliberately walking through the male brothel wouldn't make him feel better about himself for turning down the boys he doesn't find appealing in the first place.

Similarly, the suspicion that the particularly sexy prostitute might be affiliated with a cult is sufficient turn-off to still leave him with no regrets over turning her down (perhaps he just has to imagine finding her turning into a demon mid-coitus to act as a metaphorical cold shower), but he doesn't get a rush of morale just because he walked by her and found the thought more repulsive than appealing.

3) the Pirate Queen is beautiful, and this time she approaches, not a knight, but the party Bard. The Bard has no oath of chastity, quite the opposite in fact. Sure, he's already paid for a night at the inn, but that's hardly a major factor here. So, the Queen is coming at him with a 12, he's got a 0, which would give him a net +12 for accepting, and a -12 for refusing, as he spends all night hating himself for turning her down.

However, the Pirate King is ruthless, and famously jealous. Any man found in his Wife's bed is chained to a rock and left to be drowned by the rising tide. This does nothing to change the temptation of the act itself, but there are now dire consequences for accepting.

How does this change the math? Does the Bard still suffer a -12 penalty if he refuses to avoid ticking off her husband, rather than to avoid having wasted the four silver he already paid the inn? Let's say the potential horrible death counts as a "Core Principle", and so he gets a -10 to resist, just as the Knight does. If he accepts, but then successfully slips out in the night without being discovered, does he walk away with a net +12, or a net +2 (12 from the Queen, vs 10 from the core principle of "I Really Don't Want To Tick Off The Pirate King"), since he got the rewards while dodging the consequences.Here, unless the Bard has a trait that somehow makes betraying the pirate king its own "bad stuff" (maybe a personal loyalty or hero worship, or a fear that is so strong it comes up even when the pirate king has no means of knowing nor enforcing it), no, the Bard's fear of the pirate king isn't going to really come up here.

The bard gets the +12 (or suffers the -12) based on his choice to (not) sleep with the Pirate Queen; sure, he knows that if he's caught, the Pirate King'll come after him, but barring some reason to believe that he would get caught, his "self-preservation 10" clause doesn't kick in.

The way I'd expect to see such an encounter play out, the Bard's player might invoke his "self preservation 10" at first, and then part of the Pirate Queen's seduction could involve convincing the Bard that there's no way the Pirate King would ever find out. If she successfully persuaded him of this, the Bard's player couldn't invoke that anymore, so the full +/-12 of her seduction kicks in. (If she fails to, perhaps simply resorting to "Aren't I worth it?" then the "self-preservation 10" means she nets only a +/-2 morale, which the Bard's player can then choose to act on how he likes. If he takes the -2 and refuses, that means he is suffering some pangs of thwarted desire even though he knows it would have killed him. She almost is worth that risk. If he takes the +2 and accepts, his fear of being discovered makes the experience...less satisfying...than it would've been if he'd managed to put that fear out of his mind.)

By the by, I really appreciate questions like these, as they do help me flesh out my thoughts on it more.

Cluedrew

2017-01-04, 05:46 PM

Every time you try to counter-argue against the rejection of external emotional control by comparing it to external sources of physical injury, it just makes your entire argument less convincing.What areas could we draw metaphors to? Making a metaphor from one hard to pin down mental process to another isn't very useful. Nor is saying "because" and although launching into a dissertation about the various studies published in the last thirty years would have a lot of weight... it might be a bit too much.

I find I vastly prefer that type of "soft control" as it puts the player in a fairly similar place to the character in terms of their decision making.I think soft control is actually a good way to go. Because it adds weight but still give the override to the player.

I also prefer the idea of "highlights". A while ago Lorsa mentioned not always having a clear idea of characters at the start of the story. To me this is one of the main drawbacks of the heavier system where you assign numbers to all aspects a character's personality, that you must know everything from the start (plus the shear amount of overhead). Instead I would rather pull out a couple key features, because usually a character only has so many aspects that you want to highlight on a regular basis. I think this also relates to what Koo Rehtorb was talking about, we ignore the "average" values and focus on the extremes.

It also sort of solves the problem of detail. Personality mechanics are often held to a higher standard than others in this regard (I generally agree with this) but at the same time... how much detail do we want to encode? It seems to often be less than the detail we want back out. That part can't be fixed but at this very least this focuses the effort where we tend to want the most results, at the most prominent character traits.

2

jayem

2017-01-04, 05:51 PM

So, by this logic, if the Pirate Queen wasn't quite as sexy, and only got an 8, the Knight would gain 2 morale points for refusing, as he proudly sticks to his convictions. If I can get freudian here, the Pirate Queen's 12 represents the Id, the Knight's 10 represents the super-ego, and the Ego makes the final decision, accepting the bonuses or penalties from doing so.

The obvious way I see to game this system is to intentionally seek out things that you refuse. Bringing up this bit

Not fully sure what you mean here, so let me bring up a few scenarios for you to mull over.

1) Our Knight's Player wants some morale bonuses for whatever reason, so he has his Knight wander past the Brothel, where a Lady of the Night calls out to him with an offer. Now, this prostitute is no Pirate Queen, she's used to seducing lusty sailors, not chaste knights, and merely gets a 5. The Knight refuses, and happily collects his net +5 morale points. He does this every time he needs to stock up on morale points, since the Brothel is always going to try to pull in any passerby that looks like they have money, and he can pretty reliably resist those particular temptations.

2) Same situation, but this time the Prostitute gets a 6, and the Knight is aware that some Brothels in this town have secretly been infiltrated by Cultists. Even if this brothel is likely uncorrupted, the idea of even potentially bedding down with a demon worshipper makes the thought even more disgusting than normal, giving the prostitute an additional -4. Now her final score is merely a 2. (The "Disgust" modifier hasn't totally canceled out her professional wiles), vs the Knight's 10. If the Knight refuses, does he walk away with a bonus of 4 (6 vs 10, since the Disgust modifier doesn't gain him anything), or a bonus of 8 (Because her final score was 2 vs his score of 10)?

3) the Pirate Queen is beautiful, and this time she approaches, not a knight, but the party Bard. The Bard has no oath of chastity, quite the opposite in fact. Sure, he's already paid for a night at the inn, but that's hardly a major factor here. So, the Queen is coming at him with a 12, he's got a 0, which would give him a net +12 for accepting, and a -12 for refusing, as he spends all night hating himself for turning her down.

However, the Pirate King is ruthless, and famously jealous. Any man found in his Wife's bed is chained to a rock and left to be drowned by the rising tide. This does nothing to change the temptation of the act itself, but there are now dire consequences for accepting.

I'm tempted to say that the first scenario is hardly without real life precendent, although reliably resisting tends to be less reliable than sometimes thought.
Likewise with the second, I'd expect would get a stronger sense of superiority from the disgust. I guess that's really where you do want addictive behaviour to come in from a gameplay point of view, but it would be messy. Part of a fix would be to note that going to the brothel in the first place is hardly the actions of a chaste knight, but even that could be worked round.

On the third if he goes for it, it's fairly simple: If he (the character) gets the rewards (in the characters eyes) without the consequences he (the player) ought to get the reward without the consequences. If he goes for the it and gets consequences then he's got his own punishment (and probably didn't get to the reward). That's dependent on the actions of the Pirate king, and outside the players control. It's a gamble both IC&OC.

If he doesn't go for it, then I'm not so sure. The fear ought to be able to mitigate compulsive behaviour, so needs taking into account for that, somehow. Prevent feelings of regret, I don't know, I think that's something for play testing.

jayem

2017-01-04, 06:13 PM

In one Scenario, the Knight unwraps the parcel and finds a pile of gold, the travelers earnings.

The Gold is a material reward (much like the ship in the pirate example), so by your system it shouldn't factor into things. If the Knight keeps it, he suffers a -10 morale penalty because he sacrificed his honor for crass material gain. He stresses, he can't sleep at night, he can't justify his actions to himself, so that's fine.

In the second Scenario, the parcel contains, not gold, but THE BLADE OF SIR VALIANT! A mystical relic of considerable power, which has apparently been used as a common sidearm by some spice merchant.
While you could justify a Knight being unable to justify stealing some gold, but this sword represents so much more. Or, since the Sword is a Material reward, does it not factor in at all. Does the Knight agonize over taking the sword just as much as he does over taking the gold, or can he console himself by using the Sword to save the merchant's village from a demonic invasion.
Yes (maybe)?
Practically the non-moral weights on the player are much higher instead of 10MP for 5GP it's 10MP* for 50GP **. And saving a village would console him IRL and in game terms (maybe there could be an intermediary vow,that goes double or quits on the moral, "This is a chance from the God's I will save a village"). Not sure how you'd work it.
OTOH without the MP's it's 5GP for free (well a bit of acted angst) and 50GP for free which isn't right either.

*or perhaps 50MP.
**And depending on how they balance will affect how much they agonize (if it's extreme either way, there's no agony, the agony is when both choices are similar)

BRC

2017-01-04, 06:19 PM

Thinking about it, it seems like you're trying to separate Immaterial reasons to make a decision from material ones, then provide mechanical bonuses and penalties due to Immaterial reasons, but that doesn't really work if you're modeling penalties as being the result of emotional stress, because material reasons DO help people make decisions, just as much as immaterial ones. Money does, in fact, buy happiness. People agonize over giving up practical gains for emotional reasons, and people happily compromise their principles for material gains.

The bard should be suffering more emotional distress if he turned down the Pirate Queen for no good reason, than if he did so to save his own skin. In the latter scenario, a quick walk past the skeletons of her previous lovers should be enough to console him, because things like "Her husband would have me brutally killed" Are factors that help people both make, and live with, their decisions. People turn down tempting offers because they had good, practical reasons to do so all the time without much in the way of emotional turmoil.

Let's move away from the Pirate Queen, and try a different example. Our Honorable Knight stumbles across some bandits attacking a traveler on the road. The Knight drives them off, but it's too late, the traveler has been mortally wounded.

With his dying breath, the Traveler presses a parcel into the Knight's hand, asking the Knight to take it to his family in the next town over.

In one Scenario, the Knight unwraps the parcel and finds a pile of gold, the travelers earnings.

The Gold is a material reward (much like the ship in the pirate example), so by your system it shouldn't factor into things. If the Knight keeps it, he suffers a -10 morale penalty because he sacrificed his honor for crass material gain. He stresses, he can't sleep at night, he can't justify his actions to himself, so that's fine.

In the second Scenario, the parcel contains, not gold, but THE BLADE OF SIR VALIANT! A mystical relic of considerable power, which has apparently been used as a common sidearm by some spice merchant.
While you could justify a Knight being unable to justify stealing some gold, but this sword represents so much more. Or, since the Sword is a Material reward, does it not factor in at all. Does the Knight agonize over taking the sword just as much as he does over taking the gold, or can he console himself by using the Sword to save the merchant's village from a demonic invasion.

I get that you're trying to simulate the Material Gains of the Sword vs the Emotional turmoil of Honorable Conduct, BUT that particular dynamic is already happening in the player's mind, mirroring what the character is going through. I don't think it needs any particular reinforcement.

Going back to the whole Gamer/Roleplayer/Storyteller model, the reason systems like FATE hand out points for when sticking to your principles costs you something is because the Gamer is a persona of cold logic that wants to Win. The Roleplayer can accept a decision that goes against their character's principles for the same reasons the Character can. "My character can justify taking the Sword because of all the good it could be used for. Therefore, that is not an out-of-character decision, even if it violates one of their principles". The Gamer (Remembering that all players are Gamers, Roleplayers, and Storytellers simultaneously) hates passing up the advantage the Sword represents, and demands receiving SOMETHING as consolation.

(Note: I had this post on the last page, but I deleted and reposted it, since I technically opened the window a while back, but didn't actually write the post until the conversation had progressed, and so I was accidentally responding to posts that came AFTER this one

Which means that Jayem is responding to THIS post in the one above. Wow this got confusing.).

Segev

2017-01-04, 06:50 PM

I'm not sure it's relevant that the player "already" feels the PARTICULAR example you've outlined: that of honor vs. greed. It doesn't make the character's feeling of it reflected mechanically invalid.

If anything, the fact that there is something mechanical to soothe the gamer side of things helps the player feel he didn't make a "bad" choice "for the sake of RP." That he didn't have his knight in chess choose not to take the enemy Queen "just because it wouldn't be chivalrous."

This may not be the kind of situation it's designed to repair (since you indicate this particular player does feel the same sense of honor the character should), but it's hardly going to invalidate it.

If you read my reply to your Pirate Queen/Bard/Pirate King's jealousy scenario, you'll see I took the fear for the Bard's life into account.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-04, 07:44 PM

Sorry, but there is no reason why emotional states over which you have no conscious control should be any more sacrosanct than physical capabilities over which you have no conscious control. I can't stop myself from being miserable and grouchy when I'm hungry due to not having eaten in too long, nor from being sad if I learn that my best friend died, nor from being scared if I learn I've screwed something up that could have lasting disastrous consequences, nor from being aroused by a scantily clad attractive female.

You think that people have no more conscious control over their emotional states than they do over whether being stabbed makes them bleed, or whether they can jump 10 feet straight up or not? :confused: OK...

This does not match my experience.

(And let us not waste time on falsely equating "lack of perfect control" to "lack of any and all control".)

Neither, then, is there any reason why mechanics cannot determine whether a given character is miserable and grouchy because he's hungry, nor from being scared when he learns the mob knows where his family lives, nor from being attracted to that sexy seductress.

Yes, there is.

That part of the game, the "inside" of the PC, belongs to the player. Not to the GM, not the dice, not the rules, and not to the game designer.

What there's absolutely no reason for, is anyone or anything to ever -- ever -- intrude on that.

There's nothing wrong with a system that says you can't control how your character feels about it (except in how you designed him in the first place).

There's literally everything wrong with it. There is no way in which this can be said to be a good idea.

The very fact that you have this specific personal notion of how every person works on the inside, that is not universally true and is not universally agreed with, and yet you're trying to encode that notion into the rules of RPGs, so that every PC is bound by those "internal mechanics".. the very fact that you're trying to do this... is exactly why it should never ever be done.

The very fact that you're trying to impose this exact, specific internal experience on every character no matter what... is exactly why it's a bad idea.

If any game came with these sorts of mechanics, I would refuse to buy it, and refuse to play it.

If any GM insisted on trying to tell me what my character's internal experience is, I would walk away from the table and not come back.

The only reason this isn't as offensive as trying to tell a real person that you know what they think and feel better than they do, is that the PC isn't actually real and can't be demeaned and belittled and insulted in the same way a real person can.

flond

2017-01-04, 07:57 PM

The only reason this isn't as offensive as trying to tell a real person that you know what they think and feel better than they do, is that the PC isn't actually real and can't be demeaned and belittled and insulted in the same way a real person can.

Yes. And that's what makes it fine. That it's not a real person.

Not all games are about a sacrosanct internal experience. You don't like those types of games. That's fine. There is however nothing wrong with them. And if you want something to help ensure genre fidelity, they're great for that. (And yes you don't like it. It's not your cup of tea. That doesn't make it terrible.)

Segev

2017-01-04, 08:28 PM

You think that people have no more conscious control over their emotional states than they do over whether being stabbed makes them bleed, or whether they can jump 10 feet straight up or not? :confused: OK...

This does not match my experience.

(And let us not waste time on falsely equating "lack of perfect control" to "lack of any and all control".) Then let's give the player the same amount of control over emotional states that he has over whether his character gets stabbed in the first place.

Yes, there is.

That part of the game, the "inside" of the PC, belongs to the player. Not to the GM, not the dice, not the rules, and not to the game designer.

What there's absolutely no reason for, is anyone or anything to ever -- ever -- intrude on that. Why? Do you actually suppose that nobody is able to persuade anybody of anything? That skilled musicians, artists, performers, writers, or speakers cannot evoke emotions, even if the audience might not have specifically wanted them? That, to use the same example we've been on, the Pirate Queen cannot arouse Sir Chasteboy even if he'd prefer not to have such urges?

What is it about emotions and urges and feelings that has you so convinced they should be and must be solely the province of the player to determine, no matter what? Why are bards, socialites, seductresses, and manipulators character archetypes which should always fail if the player of the character they're seeking to influence doesn't want them to succeed? Consider carefully: the GM, too, is playing the NPCs, and by the logic you're applying, he should be the sole arbiter of what NPCs feel. "It's different for NPCs" doesn't hold a lot of water; NPCs are no more or less characters than are PCs. The fact that the GM has as many NPCs as he wants and controls the environment, too, is irrelevant. And the idea that players only have the one PC and that makes it somehow sacrosanct for emotional control and impact (but not anything else about the PC's capabilities) is also irrelevant, and not even always true, to boot. The Rifts game I'm in has two players who actually each control two PCs. I've been in other games where some or all players control more than one PC. Do these players have less right to sacrosanct control over their PCs' mental states than the player with only one PC? No. What's good for one character and his player must be good for another if we're to be consistent, here.

So, again: why are emotions to be sacrosanct from the mechanics? You keep asserting they are, and rejecting the analogy to anything else. You are therefore implicitly (if not explicitly) asserting a special case for emotional state and drives. Why? Please justify it; assertion doesn't make something so.

There's literally everything wrong with it. There is no way in which this can be said to be a good idea. Please justify this position. You keep asserting it, but haven't defended it. I have defended my position; you've responded with "no, you're wrong" and nothing more than that. Well, with outrage, as well, but that's not exactly a logical defense.

The very fact that you have this specific personal notion of how every person works on the inside, that is not universally true and is not universally agreed with, and yet you're trying to encode that notion into the rules of RPGs, so that every PC is bound by those "internal mechanics".. the very fact that you're trying to do this... is exactly why it should never ever be done. Er...

No. I don't know how "every person works on the inside." I know how people interact in the real world, and I recognize that people can be manipulated and make "poor choices" based on immediate desires overwhelming long-term planning. I recognize that characters in stories that are believable people make believable mistakes of similar nature, and that PCs in games have mechanical incentives NOT to make those mistakes and zero incentive (from the player's perspective) TO make those mistakes. Or decisions. I posit that it would be nice for socially-capable characters to be able to have their social capabilities represented in meaningful mechanics, rather than mechanics which ultimately result in "you really SHOULD have this character agree with me because I rolled high, even though you have no reason to do so as the player of that character other than me guilt-tripping you over it by calling you a bad role player/crummy GM if you don't." I mean, again, we don't rely on "you should let me declare that character dead because I rolled high on my combat roll." We have full-fledged subsystems to determine whether an attack roll was high enough and how serious the damage from that hit really was compared to how much punishment the target can endure/avoid.

Yes, yes, you find comparisons to physical combat unconvincing, but I find your repeated rejection of it with nothing but a "it's totally different" - i.e., with no actual support other than your assertion - equally unconvincing.

The very fact that you're trying to impose this exact, specific internal experience on every character no matter what... is exactly why it's a bad idea. What exact, specific internal response?

I'm trying to model drives and their intensities.

Maybe it would help if you defined for me what model you think I'm incorrectly applying to "all people." Because I'm being extremely loose in trying to model things, here. My criteria are that we need something that has mechanical meaning that can be affected by things you like and things you dislike, and which can allow you to be tempted by things (or repulsed by things) so that your desire to do something - how much you feel a temptation to do something or a reluctance not to do something - can be reflected in mechanical terms.

Are you saying that people don't feel urges, temptations, or reluctance? Is that the model I'm "imposing" that is "extremely specific?" If not, what? I am baffled.

If any game came with these sorts of mechanics, I would refuse to buy it, and refuse to play it. Okay.

If any GM insisted on trying to tell me what my character's internal experience is, I would walk away from the table and not come back.So you leave games with Enchantment magics that can make you charmed? Or with fear effects?

If not, why are those okay? If the answer is "magic is different," then what about non-magical fear effects? What about bardic morale bonuses? I understand you aren't a fan of D&D, but are you seriously saying that you'd get up and leave the table if a bard gave you a morale bonus to hit? That's telling you that your PC is feeling more upbeat and sure that he can succeed and thus is doing better.

If those are okay, where is your line being drawn and why?

The only reason this isn't as offensive as trying to tell a real person that you know what they think and feel better than they do, is that the PC isn't actually real and can't be demeaned and belittled and insulted in the same way a real person can.

Yes. And that's what makes it fine. That it's not a real person.

Not all games are about a sacrosanct internal experience. You don't like those types of games. That's fine. There is however nothing wrong with them. And if you want something to help ensure genre fidelity, they're great for that. (And yes you don't like it. It's not your cup of tea. That doesn't make it terrible.)

As flond says, they're not real people. But more to the point, I am not telling somebody else how they, themselves, feel. I am telling you how a fictional character feels. I'm not even telling you what choices he makes based on those feelings. Nor, at the heart of it, am I saying it MUST be a specific feeling. Only that whatever he's feeling about the situation, he will (in the short term) feel better or worse by X morale points depending on the choice he makes. You can feel free to tell me WHY he feels better or worse based on his choice, if it makes you feel better. If the Pirate Queen's seduction roll results in a net +2 morale points for you for giving in and sleeping with her, and a net -2 morale points for refusing, feel free to come up with why the result you get is the result you get. Maybe your refusal nets you -2 morale points because you're so disgusted and insulted by the whole situation. Maybe your giving in nets you +2 morale points because you're that happy you could get a ship for your friends, despite all the anguish over breaking your vow and your disgust at sleeping with this woman. I honestly don't care how you fluff it, though hopefully you fluff it in a way that makes sense. "I get -2 for refusing because the moon is full and that makes me angry" doesn't make much sense.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-04, 08:36 PM

Yes. And that's what makes it fine. That it's not a real person.

Not all games are about a sacrosanct internal experience. You don't like those types of games. That's fine. There is however nothing wrong with them. And if you want something to help ensure genre fidelity, they're great for that. (And yes you don't like it. It's not your cup of tea. That doesn't make it terrible.)

It's still insulting to the player of the character.

flond

2017-01-04, 08:39 PM

It's still insulting to the player of the character.

Why? I mean maybe, maybe I could understand this if the rules were hidden, but otherwise, I knew going in that (for example) sometimes Pendragon is just going to hijack my character and make them act Cowardly because of the Cowardly virtue. I signed up for it.

Segev

2017-01-04, 08:43 PM

It's still insulting to the player of the character.

Why? How? This doesn't make sense. The player of the character isn't the character. The player of the character isn't experiencing what the character is experiencing.

Koo Rehtorb

2017-01-04, 09:56 PM

I've seen longtime players of traditional RPGs, like D&D but not exclusively that, cling really hard to their character's internals. I have a theory that it's because in these traditional RPGs character internals are really the only thing that players feel like they own at all. The DM traditionally holds very close control over the world and setting and even the ruleset with garbage rules like "the DM is always right". I will happily surrender some power over character internals in exchange for more control over the world. I prefer world building to be a collaborative experience, and something that doesn't stop when play begins.

But then I've never been particularly attached to character internals or considered them sacrosanct. The way I usually play a character is to mentally write down a small handful of traits that are important to me and let everything else be fluid. My favourite character started out with "Former slave, HATES slavers/slavery", "Pragmatic, will happily murder her enemies in their sleep", and "Emotionally reserved, will push other people away at all times".

I didn't, and don't, particularly care about anything beyond those handful of defining traits. I don't care what her sexual preferences or tastes for luxurious foods or opinions on the monarchy are until they become relevant in game. And I am usually happy to define those details in a way that will make the game more interesting for myself/other players if and when they do become relevant, insofar as they don't contradict previously established details in an unbelievable way.

And furthermore I consider, and I fully admit this is a subjective taste and opinion, players who repeatedly say "My character wouldn't do that" to be bad players. Sure, if it's central to your concept go ahead and say it, but if you're doing it all the time about everything then there's a problem and it's bad for the game. Your character isn't a real person, you define what they would or wouldn't do, define your character in a way that makes the game more interesting and quit shutting stuff down if it isn't vital to your concept.

Floret

2017-01-04, 11:07 PM

It is true that talking at the table isn't identical to talking in the fictional world the characters live in. I do not disagree with this.

However, I am not sure it completely invalidates my argument. I mean, even IF we were to scale a wall instead of merely describing it and rolling dice, it still wouldn't be identical to the characters doing it in the fictional world. However, what I tried to say was that while many physical actions range from impossible (e.g. killing a dragon) to impractical (e.g. scaling a wall, hitting the GM with a sword), social actions are neither impossible nor impractical, at least not to the same extent.

So while we can not truly talk with each other in situations identical to our characters', we can still, practically speaking, talk with each other.

Or, looking at it from another angle, while talking with each other at the table is still not identical to the characters interacting in the world, it is at least more identical than most other things we do. While the two things (physical and social) may not be different in a way that makes them orthogonal to each other, they can still be different by scale.

Also, I want to again delve into the "sweet-talking" and "making players feel the character's emotions" discussion.

I think the aim in an RPG should always be to invoke feelings in the players. Luckily for us, human beings are exceptionally good at generating emotion based on imaginary sensory input.

People read romance novels and feel aroused. The listen to scary stories and feel afraid. If I were to take your post at face value, it seems as though you are saying this is impossible. I am certain in saying that I can safely provide a large enough sample of people which would prove otherwise.

So, if you want to seduce a character, you can invoke the same feelings in the player simply by description. You don't need to make the player feel the same things by physically touching them or whatever you have imagined you doing, you can simply describe what the NPC is doing. I promise you, most of the time, this is enough.

I mean, honestly, *I* have been aroused by events described to me during a RPG session, just as I have been aroused by books or stories that I've read. I am equally certain that I have managed to invoke arousal in my players, on occasion. Sure, the emotions might not be identical in the strictest sense, but they don't have to be. Close enough approximations are usually enough (at least for me). Claiming that since no emotion can ever match truly with that of the character's, therefore we should aim to reduce all emotions to numbers and rolls goes against what I want out of RPGs (and books and movies for that matter).

We can talk to each other. Sure. We can also climb the table we are sitting around if our character is scaling the castle wall. We can also eat cookies and chips when our characters are eating a feast.
Just because the action performed can and would, on the most basic level, be described with the same word, does not mean they are in any way equivalent beyond that base action.

Taking your other view: It might be more identical, sure. But still far, far from identical ENOUGH for me to accept the thing being played out at the table as a competent enough proxy of what is happening in-world to merely accept it without the dice, who are, at least in some view, representatives of what is going on in-world.

As for feeling emotions through proxy... I do agree that it can be done. And I have, of course, felt it. Films, comics, RPGs and books have moved me to tears, made me happy, and, at times, aroused (As well as pretty much all other emotions). Where I disagree is that they can actually match with what the character feels, through experience. At least for me, it's not possible. Not in TRPGs. Larp is a different matter for me. Maybe I am more visually inclined.

And I don't want to reduce all emotion to numbers and rolls. What I DO want to do, is to support these emotions with numbers and rolls. And maybe even that for representing the character's emotional state, these numbers and rolls are more important than the emotion the player feels. As I have said before, out of TRPGs I don't want high emotion and immersion. Because I won't get them out of them, not in the same way that I do from Larps (And boy does every immersion TRPGs could do pale for me in comparison) - out of TRPGs I want to roll dice, and tell a story together, through proxy of characters with abilities potentially impossible to pull off IRL but at the very least unconnected to the player. For which emotions in players are a nice benefit, but not the raison d'etre.

Yes, there are many occasions in books were dialogue is glossed over. Very rarely (if you dislike academic hedging, read never) does a book gloss over all dialogue. This is similar to what I do, and want out of, a RPG. Some dialogue is glossed over, some is acted out in detail.

I didn't really miss the option of "you can have talk first but have the roll difficulty be unaffected by it" as it is still part of "talk first, roll second". It is true that I didn't discuss it at length, which was by purpose, as it fails to give the player a feeling that whatever they chose to have their character say actually has an impact on the result. Of course, if this is undesirable, then sure, that's one way of doing things.

However, I believe that if you talk first but rule the interaction to have zero effect on the outcome, you run into some weird issues. Either you have to retcon what was being said into something else (in which case why talk at all) or run into verisimilitude problems (why was this NPC convinced by such ludicrously poor arguments).

I also typically weigh in the interaction into the difficulty of the roll. However, I can actually weight it so much that no roll is deemed necessary. Sometimes presentation is irrelevant (I wanted to take a detour here but I will have to wait for my next post).

What I often also do is alter how I act with my NPCs based on the PCs' skills (and NPCs'). For example, if a character is very good at sense motive (or similar skills), I will act more twitchy and fake when lying with an NPC than I would if the character has poor sense motive. Obviously I also allow for rolls, but it can let the players spot lies during the conversation without having to take a pause to roll dice. I remember once when I had a player ask to roll to check for deception and I asked "what do YOU think" to which I got the reply "I think he (the NPC) is lying!" and I said "then go with that, it's what a roll would tell you too".

Sure. Not always. Just as I, most of the time, talk out social interactions. In my Shadowrun game today I actually feel at one point I talked too long - but talking is fun! The interaction was, in the end, still resolved by a contested roll of my NPC against the player. (Or rather, the PC against my NPC. He was on the "offensive", so to speak.)

I haven't noticed those issues, ever. I have, at times, supplied additional arguments, or reframed the ones the PC made to make them more convincing, yes - but not as "you said something different" but "you managed to build on the previous points". At other times it was really only a matter of "how convincingly did I present this". My players very rarely bring arguments one couldn't be swayed by.

For your last example: That is something I, as a player, would balk at. My character has stats, and I invested points in them. And, yes, you say you took them into account - but I want to feel it. I WANT to roll the dice. Rolling dice is fun. Do not take that from me for some ideal of immersion that, while at the table, I don't share.

Yes, people ask for more fleshed-out social mechanics quite often. Which ties back to what I said at the beginning of my first post that it seems as though social mechanics is the one thing people are least happy with. Doesn't mean everyone is unhappy with it, or that they are so all the time, but it's something that is the source of a lot of debate (see this thread).

Also, the only thing you really need to be on the same page with me on (so far) is that social mechanics can be broken down into two main categories (or four, depending):

1) Talk first, roll second
2) Roll first, talk second
possibly
3) Talk never, roll only
4) Roll never, talk only

If I can also convince you of other things (such as that you can invoke emotions in your players by mere description), that is an added bonus. If we also agree on which of the above main categories is preferential (a personal choice), then we have a lot in common and can move on. :smallsmile:

Hmm... I do agree one can represent the entirety of social interactions between characters in a game by these four categories. Yes. With some being rarer than others, and all ultimately a playstlye difference. There might also be ways of a system to contain multiple (As in, important convos get 1); less important ones 3))
I am not sure I would call them social mechanics. For me, social mechanics would be the different ways to achieve or build on this base assumption, but this is mostly arguing semantics. Most people, when they are talking about social mechanics, are talking about the actual mechanics, not the underlying assumption which this is, I feel, sorting.

For protocol: I do also agree that one can invoke emotions in players with mere description.
We also seem to agree on the fact that model 1) is the most desirable. What we do not, however, seem to agree on is to what model a deviation is desirable: Where I would go for 3), to shorten playtime and be able to gloss over unimportant conversations that nonetheless depend on character skill how well they go. You seem to favour 4) as a possible outbreak, for immersion purposes and if the dice are not "necessary". (For me, as rolling dice is a central motivation for playing TRPGs, removing the dice from the equasion is a thing I would never want to do. As such, for me, dice are always "necessary".)

I don't think this is necessarily true. It's the antithesis of the most blatant form of open railroading, but you can absolutely use the dice in service of more subtle versions of it.

"Roll for it. Oh no the target number was one higher."

"Sneaking into the castle? Okay roll for sneaking up to the wall. Roll for sneaking over the wall. Roll for sneaking across the courtyard. Roll for sneaking into the keep. Roll for sneaking up to the first floor. Roll for sneaking up to the second floor- oh look you failed, encounter time."

You may not have control over the physical numbers on the dice, but you do have control over difficulty and the ability to call for tests, in most games, at least.

Alright, it can be used in service. I give you that. I will note that this is the GM distinctly not giving the decision fairly over to the dice, as per what I am describing, but instead just pretending to do so and fubbing the results until they get what they want. The situation I am describing is one of the decision actually and fairly being handed over to the dice. And that is, I don't think, in any definition railroading.

In the example, there is one contested roll. No matter how the dice fall, there will only be one. And, given that the target number for the PC is set by the result of the diceroll for the NPC, there is no fudging the target number either.
There must be something they add to the game, if my players readily accept and enjoy them. And that something must go beyond railroading, as what I am doing with them... really isn't railroading. At least I fail to see how it would possibly be railroading.

I must say that it must be very nice to live in Germany. Around here we are always desperate to find more gamers and so we have to compromise (a lot) if we actually want to game. Its hard to find enough players to even form a group, and being able to choose a preferred gaming system, let alone style, is just a pie in the sky fantasy.

Also, when the DM is the one who determines how often a check is rolled, what the difficulty is, and what the results of success or failure are it is certainly giving the DM the advantage in the situation. True it isn't as bad as just saying "You what I want, no questions asked, because I am the DM and I said so!," but it is still taking away power from the player and giving power to the DM.

I don't think it is about Germany. The RPG market at least is actually dwindlingly small here in comparison to the US (I DO live in the most populated area of Germany, though, granted). I just recruit my players by talking to my friends about cool new ideas, and they sign on. Currently am running 3 games, with a fourth one sadly not getting off the ground. All of them were full within a week.
Maybe I am just lucky in having friends here that share my playstyle enough. (Though I do also have friends where that is not the case). Maybe my method works better than whatever you are using. Or maybe I am more social, outgoing or just am better at convincing other people to try something.

The GM already has the advantage. The GM is, technically, by virtue of running the game and deciding everything, for things concerning the in-game world literally a god restrained by social contract and not being an ass.
And... so what? Yes, you are taking power from the players. There's no law against that. There is no general rule that the more power the players have, the better. It's all a matter of what people want out of a game.

@ Segev

First, stop falsely equivocating physical damage and emotional reactions. Every time you try to counter-argue against the rejection of external emotional control by comparing it to external sources of physical injury, it just makes your entire argument less convincing.

Second, the idea that there's some universal "seduction ability" that can make anyone (interested in the user's sex, or maybe even not) physically aroused is nonsense. It's laughable. There is nothing that's universally arousing, there's no look or action or whatever that's universally seductive. You sound like my friend in college who would say some girl was hot, and I'd be unimpressed by her in particular, and he'd always respond "If she offered you'd take it, don't lie". (Sorry to be a touch crude, that's how he was.)

1. As Segev has said, you still have to actually give a reason for why there is the fundamental difference between internal and external. I do understand that it is this way for you, but to understand your argument, which is based solely and centrally on this assertion that they ARE, I need to understand WHY. Otherwise I have no choice but to disregard your argument as baseless and meaningless.

2. Yes. But if you want to seduce someone, you don't do a set routine. I mean, sure, at stripclubs they do, but as has been said: For seducing someone, you "feel out" what they like and then supply it. There is nothing universal about certain things, and there are certainly people that certain other people can't supply with what they want (Such as a straight guy trying to seduce a lesbian); but that would be represented by failing the rolls. If you reduce "seduction ability" to "knowing the buttons that get every human around", that is of course laughable, but to think that is how "seduction ability" actually works is laughable in and of itself.

To note: I do agree, that with your premise of the internals of a character being untouchable, such mechanics as the proposed are intruding and have no place.
I simply, as others have in the last few posts, don't agree with your premise that they ARE.

I've seen longtime players of traditional RPGs, like D&D but not exclusively that, cling really hard to their character's internals. I have a theory that it's because in these traditional RPGs character internals are really the only thing that players feel like they own at all. The DM traditionally holds very close control over the world and setting and even the ruleset with garbage rules like "the DM is always right". I will happily surrender some power over character internals in exchange for more control over the world. I prefer world building to be a collaborative experience, and something that doesn't stop when play begins.

But then I've never been particularly attached to character internals or considered them sacrosanct. The way I usually play a character is to mentally write down a small handful of traits that are important to me and let everything else be fluid. My favourite character started out with "Former slave, HATES slavers/slavery", "Pragmatic, will happily murder her enemies in their sleep", and "Emotionally reserved, will push other people away at all times".

I didn't, and don't, particularly care about anything beyond those handful of defining traits. I don't care what her sexual preferences or tastes for luxurious foods or opinions on the monarchy are until they become relevant in game. And I am usually happy to define those details in a way that will make the game more interesting for myself/other players if and when they do become relevant, insofar as they don't contradict previously established details in an unbelievable way.

And furthermore I consider, and I fully admit this is a subjective taste and opinion, players who repeatedly say "My character wouldn't do that" to be bad players. Sure, if it's central to your concept go ahead and say it, but if you're doing it all the time about everything then there's a problem and it's bad for the game. Your character isn't a real person, you define what they would or wouldn't do, define your character in a way that makes the game more interesting and quit shutting stuff down if it isn't vital to your concept.

I agree with this. All of this. It is, in fact, pretty much how I do things and think about a lot of these things.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-04, 11:46 PM

Then let's give the player the same amount of control over emotional states that he has over whether his character gets stabbed in the first place.

Or you could worry about the rest of the entire setting, all the NPCs, all the interactions between characters, etc, instead of meddling needlessly with this one thing that the player of the PC knows better than you or anyone else.

Why? Do you actually suppose that nobody is able to persuade anybody of anything? That skilled musicians, artists, performers, writers, or speakers cannot evoke emotions, even if the audience might not have specifically wanted them? That, to use the same example we've been on, the Pirate Queen cannot arouse Sir Chasteboy even if he'd prefer not to have such urges?

Charm is deeply over-rated. Most of it comes across as smarm, as artiface, as transparent manipulation, etc.

And no, I don't think that PQ can really arouse the knight, if he didn't want to be aroused. "I couldn't help myself" is a combination of cultural myth, an excuse people tell themselves afterwards, when they give in despite knowing they shouldn't, or after they do something terrible; and fictional contrivance, something that makes for "better" stories in the minds of Hollywood hacks and romance novelists.

What is it about emotions and urges and feelings that has you so convinced they should be and must be solely the province of the player to determine, no matter what? Why are bards, socialites, seductresses, and manipulators character archetypes which should always fail if the player of the character they're seeking to influence doesn't want them to succeed? Consider carefully: the GM, too, is playing the NPCs, and by the logic you're applying, he should be the sole arbiter of what NPCs feel. "It's different for NPCs" doesn't hold a lot of water; NPCs are no more or less characters than are PCs. The fact that the GM has as many NPCs as he wants and controls the environment, too, is irrelevant. And the idea that players only have the one PC and that makes it somehow sacrosanct for emotional control and impact (but not anything else about the PC's capabilities) is also irrelevant, and not even always true, to boot. The Rifts game I'm in has two players who actually each control two PCs. I've been in other games where some or all players control more than one PC. Do these players have less right to sacrosanct control over their PCs' mental states than the player with only one PC? No. What's good for one character and his player must be good for another if we're to be consistent, here.

So, again: why are emotions to be sacrosanct from the mechanics? You keep asserting they are, and rejecting the analogy to anything else. You are therefore implicitly (if not explicitly) asserting a special case for emotional state and drives. Why? Please justify it; assertion doesn't make something so.

Because you are violating the only guaranteed player agency that exists.

Because you are literally, willfully, deliberately hijacking the character away from the player. You are telling the player "We know better than you do, how to play your character. We know more than you about what your character feels and thinks and wants."

Because you're dealing with the ultimate unknowable. You literally cannot know what goes on inside the head of another person, you can only surmise, you can only made educated guesses. You cannot truthfully claim to know how another person's mind works, or what they're really feeling, or what they're really thinking. You cannot know this of another person, and you cannot know this of their character. The only person who can EVER know what's really going on in that PC's mind, is the person who plays that PC. That PC's mind exists only within the mind of the player, and no where else, and just as you cannot get into the player's head, you cannot get into their PC's head.

No. I don't know how "every person works on the inside." I know how people interact in the real world, and I recognize that people can be manipulated and make "poor choices" based on immediate desires overwhelming long-term planning. I recognize that characters in stories that are believable people make believable mistakes of similar nature, and that PCs in games have mechanical incentives NOT to make those mistakes and zero incentive (from the player's perspective) TO make those mistakes. Or decisions. I posit that it would be nice for socially-capable characters to be able to have their social capabilities represented in meaningful mechanics, rather than mechanics which ultimately result in "you really SHOULD have this character agree with me because I rolled high, even though you have no reason to do so as the player of that character other than me guilt-tripping you over it by calling you a bad role player/crummy GM if you don't." I mean, again, we don't rely on "you should let me declare that character dead because I rolled high on my combat roll." We have full-fledged subsystems to determine whether an attack roll was high enough and how serious the damage from that hit really was compared to how much punishment the target can endure/avoid.

First, you again assert that this "mechanical incentive" is a universal weight for all players, rather than something you're far more concerned about than many other players.

Second, it's starting to sound like your real motive here is that you want PCs to "make mistakes". :smallconfused:

Yes, yes, you find comparisons to physical combat unconvincing, but I find your repeated rejection of it with nothing but a "it's totally different" - i.e., with no actual support other than your assertion - equally unconvincing.

For starters, a couple of dudes throwing punches or swinging swords is dirt simple compared to the emergent cumulative properties of 100 billions neurons and trillions of synapses and whatever else might be going on in a single human mind.

What exact, specific internal response?

I said "specific internal experience". Evidently the experience of being a bundle of barely-contained urges and drives and desires that's only held together with constant stressful effort.

I'm trying to model drives and their intensities.

It looks more like you have a specific model of how humans work on the inside, and you're trying to encode it into game mechanics so that all characters are bound by that model.

Maybe it would help if you defined for me what model you think I'm incorrectly applying to "all people." Because I'm being extremely loose in trying to model things, here. My criteria are that we need something that has mechanical meaning that can be affected by things you like and things you dislike, and which can allow you to be tempted by things (or repulsed by things) so that your desire to do something - how much you feel a temptation to do something or a reluctance not to do something - can be reflected in mechanical terms.

Are you saying that people don't feel urges, temptations, or reluctance? Is that the model I'm "imposing" that is "extremely specific?" If not, what? I am baffled.

I'm saying that the way people experience and deal with those things, and sometimes even if they do feel them at all, is incredibly variable, and no one model is going to encompass all the possibilities, and certainly not one you're going to write up for an RPG.

I'm also saying that no one has any business telling a player what their character feels. The very problem is that you're trying to mechanize likes and dislikes, desires and disgusts, which strips them of their nuance and subtlety and variation. Just leave it to the player and get on with the damn game.

Okay.

So you leave games with Enchantment magics that can make you charmed? Or with fear effects?

If not, why are those okay? If the answer is "magic is different," then what about non-magical fear effects? What about bardic morale bonuses? I understand you aren't a fan of D&D, but are you seriously saying that you'd get up and leave the table if a bard gave you a morale bonus to hit? That's telling you that your PC is feeling more upbeat and sure that he can succeed and thus is doing better.

If those are okay, where is your line being drawn and why?

I have no patience for mind control or charm magic or anything of the sort, either. The people I gamed with realized this and didn't push the issue with my characters when they were GMing, and I built my characters to be as resistant as possible just in case.

In the case of the bard, if it fit the character I was playing to do so, I'd just ignore the bonus.

As flond says, they're not real people. But more to the point, I am not telling somebody else how they, themselves, feel. I am telling you how a fictional character feels. I'm not even telling you what choices he makes based on those feelings. Nor, at the heart of it, am I saying it MUST be a specific feeling. Only that whatever he's feeling about the situation, he will (in the short term) feel better or worse by X morale points depending on the choice he makes. You can feel free to tell me WHY he feels better or worse based on his choice, if it makes you feel better. If the Pirate Queen's seduction roll results in a net +2 morale points for you for giving in and sleeping with her, and a net -2 morale points for refusing, feel free to come up with why the result you get is the result you get. Maybe your refusal nets you -2 morale points because you're so disgusted and insulted by the whole situation. Maybe your giving in nets you +2 morale points because you're that happy you could get a ship for your friends, despite all the anguish over breaking your vow and your disgust at sleeping with this woman. I honestly don't care how you fluff it, though hopefully you fluff it in a way that makes sense. "I get -2 for refusing because the moon is full and that makes me angry" doesn't make much sense.

Great, now it's disassociated too.

So what, you don't even care what the character feels, as long as you can force them to "feel something"?

You can't cure "muderhoboism" by adding more mechanics... you're just going to get them minmaxing those mechanics too.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-05, 12:02 AM

kyoryu

2017-01-05, 12:22 AM

For starters, a couple of dudes throwing punches or swinging swords is dirt simple compared to the emergent cumulative properties of 100 billions neurons and trillions of synapses and whatever else might be going on in a single human mind.

Never mind that those same neurons and synapses and what else are *also* going on during combat. Never mind that combat is often a matter of outsmarting your opponent, not just wildly swinging swords.

If you think it's simple, I recommend you take some classes in some kind of competitive martial art - boxing, judo, BJJ, whatever.

Koo Rehtorb

2017-01-05, 12:25 AM

Why does "more interesting" as a phrase in gaming almost always seem to be code for something terrible or embarrassing or traumatic happening to a PC, and other players demanding that the player of that PC go along with it?

Because flaws and weaknesses are what make characters in all fiction, not just gaming, interesting. Perfect people are not relatable. That doesn't mean a character's life needs to be a never ending series of embarrassing errors.

As for characters, I prefer to know more about them before I start, so that they can be more coherent and consistent and grounded in the world... I don't like "Schrodinger's character" any more than I like "Schrodinger's setting"... whether that's in an RPG campaign, or when I'm trying to write something. Too much "make it up as you go along" ends up with way too much "well isn't that convenient..."

In my experience the only thing you need to make a consistent and coherent character is the ability to remember what you've said in the past and not contradict it. This will naturally lead to a character becoming better fleshed out over time.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-05, 12:26 AM

Never mind that those same neurons and synapses and what else are *also* going on during combat. Never mind that combat is often a matter of outsmarting your opponent, not just wildly swinging swords.

If you think it's simple, I recommend you take some classes in some kind of competitive martial art - boxing, judo, BJJ, whatever.

I have.

This isn't a matter of "a fight is simple". It's a matter of "the mind is far more complex than that." There are as many neurons in a single human brain than there galaxies in the universe, and an order of magnitude more connections between those neurons... and that's just the hardware level of the human mind, never mind all the emergent properties like, oh, consciousness and whatnot.

kyoryu

2017-01-05, 12:31 AM

In my experience the only thing you need to make a consistent and coherent character is the ability to remember what you've said in the past and not contradict it. This will naturally lead to a character becoming better fleshed out over time.

In fact, I'd argue that to some extent, Schrodinger's character/setting is unavoidable. There is simply not enough time to *fully* flesh out a character or setting before the game starts, and so information is constantly added.

No matter one's view, there is a certain amount of information set at the start, and more added over time.

In some cases/systems/methods, it's probably made a little more obvious to the players, which I can understand as off-putting.

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-05, 01:51 AM

I think the problem some of the folks here are having with Max (and this is a theory but I'm noticing it the more I look) is that he tends to state his personal opinions as declarative statements as if they were fact.

"Character internals are distinct from character externals" is a declarative statement.

He also tends to word his opinions as commands. (Ie, "Just leave the character to the player and get on with the game" which I'm paraphrasing.)

It might be wise to recall the choice words of The Dude.

http://m.quickmeme.com/img/e5/e53d7f8067067a51029cde8260094ff5867b10ab6676b1d493 c8dd8d23c4571b.jpg

With all of this, its sometimes good to be reminded: We're talking about the TRPG equivalent of liking vanilla or chocolate.

No matter how intensely someone argues for vanilla, it's still just their opinion. We're talking preferences. Keep it chill. (I only say this because I sense rising tension)

Talakeal

2017-01-05, 02:45 AM

Stuff.

Yeah, I think you and I are just so diametrically opposed when it comes to both our preferred style as a PC and as a DM that we are never going to agree on anything.

As a player I like to create a detailed character and then do my best to experience life through that characters eyes, and I can't do that in a game where the DM keeps poking around and altering the player. Likewise when I DM I like to create a detailed world for the PC's to explore and then let them go about it in their own manner without having a real "story" planned.

We are so different in both goal and methodology that I think trying to find common ground is just going to lead to endless arguments.

And furthermore I consider, and I fully admit this is a subjective taste and opinion, players who repeatedly say "My character wouldn't do that" to be bad players. Sure, if it's central to your concept go ahead and say it, but if you're doing it all the time about everything then there's a problem and it's bad for the game. Your character isn't a real person, you define what they would or wouldn't do, define your character in a way that makes the game more interesting and quit shutting stuff down if it isn't vital to your concept.

How often does this come up? I don't know if I have ever actually had a DM try and tell me what my character did so that I would have the opportunity to say "my character wouldn't do that,"

Not to pull out the age card, but I have been gaming in various groups for over 25 years now, and I can't actually remember that ever happening. I am sure it has happened at some point and I just can't recall it (wait, actually, no, there was one time I recall. The DM described a monster and then told me that it was so scary that I had to run away without any sort of roll or anything because he didn't trust me to properly RP being afraid ).

Also, to continue with the age card, I have had PCs whom I have been playing on and off for going on two decades now, and I have a pretty good idea of what those characters would and wouldn't do. If its an established part of the character I don't see why it needs to be part of the "core concept" for me to desire some consistency. (Which is not to say that I am not open to character growth and change, or to learning new things about the character when traveling through uncharted territory, I just don't think established facets of the character need to be changed based on the whims of the DM or a roll of the dice.

Koo Rehtorb

2017-01-05, 03:06 AM

How often does this come up? I don't know if I have ever actually had a DM try and tell me what my character did so that I would have the opportunity to say "my character wouldn't do that,"

It's not the most common thing, but it happens. And to clarify, this isn't really about the GM handing down prescribed actions from on high. The most recent example in my gaming is the wall flower player who refuses to take any risks or drive play. It's less that he's avoiding what we think he should do and more that he rejects all suggestions to do *anything* and prefers to sit passively and watch us do things, under the shield that "his character wouldn't do that".

Also, to continue with the age card, I have had PCs whom I have been playing on and off for going on two decades now, and I have a pretty good idea of what those characters would and wouldn't do. If its an established part of the character I don't see why it needs to be part of the "core concept" for me to desire some consistency. (Which is not to say that I am not open to character growth and change, or to learning new things about the character when traveling through uncharted territory, I just don't think established facets of the character need to be changed based on the whims of the DM or a roll of the dice.

The key point is once you establish something then it becomes part of the character, subject to change only under character development. The longer you've played a character for the more developed they naturally become and the more history you have to draw on. My point is that it's really not needed to give a new character that kind of developed background.

However one should also keep in mind that real people are not always consistent either and characters sometimes making seemingly contradictory decisions isn't the end of the world, and sometimes making those contradictory decisions on behalf of the game isn't sacrificing consistency for it.

jayem

2017-01-05, 03:43 AM

I have.

This isn't a matter of "a fight is simple". It's a matter of "the mind is far more complex than that." There are as many neurons in a single human brain than there galaxies in the universe, and an order of magnitude more connections between those neurons... and that's just the hardware level of the human mind, never mind all the emergent properties like, oh, consciousness and whatnot.

Technically there are about 100 billion neurons in the human brain, which is less than the stars in the milky way (by a factor of between 1-4) and less than the galaxies in the universe by at least a factor of 10 and greater than the population of the planet (by about a factor of 20). Which still gives massive numbers when you consider them.

But then 4 million of them are just passing the visual information (admittedly partially preprocessed) and however many knows how many involved in processing it fully and we summarize that with "you see a cow", rather than the GM constantly drawing pictures to give them the proper processing, and 'spot checks' (who's the GM to say how well you were looking?).
And 75% of them are mainly involved with movement and the actions involved in the fight, walking, etc... (so really the 'mind mechanics can be quarter as advanced, and still be nominally fair! Which is of course rubbish, so clearly it's not just the number of neurons)

And even the other 25% are involved with the task that you'd expect rolls for and completely determine external actions. 'Picking a lock', 'Navigation', are pretty much solely the consequences of the connections of neuron's.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-05, 07:39 AM

Technically there are about 100 billion neurons in the human brain, which is less than the stars in the milky way (by a factor of between 1-4) and less than the galaxies in the universe by at least a factor of 10 and greater than the population of the planet (by about a factor of 20). Which still gives massive numbers when you consider them.

Numbers I found were ~100 billion galaxies and ~100 billion neurons, with at least an order of magnitude more synapses.

Cluedrew

2017-01-05, 07:54 AM

I think the problem some of the folks here are having with Max (and this is a theory but I'm noticing it the more I look) is that he tends to state his personal opinions as declarative statements as if they were fact.Oh he does, but if you ask him why he will usually explain why he believes that. Speaking of which there is something I would a bit more detail on from him, although it is an odd thing:

If any game came with these sorts of mechanics, I would refuse to buy it, and refuse to play it.Why are you here? Or rather, why are you bothering to participate in this thread, what do you hope to get out of it. Personally I think it has been a very good topic, but at the same time we stopped introducing new ideas a while ago. So I want to move on talking about the pros and cons of different mechanics, like Floret said about 2-3 pages ago.

I would like to talk about actual mechanics as well, perhaps mixed in or in parallel with the conversation about whether they can work. Anyone care to join me?

1

Lorsa

2017-01-05, 09:50 AM

This thread moves too far for me right now unfortunately. Life gives me too little time, even though intellectually it is rather interesting. It does have the problem though with too many thoughts circling around in my head, which makes it rather hard to convert them into a neat string of words.

Sorry, but there is no reason why emotional states over which you have no conscious control should be any more sacrosanct than physical capabilities over which you have no conscious control. I can't stop myself from being miserable and grouchy when I'm hungry due to not having eaten in too long, nor from being sad if I learn that my best friend died, nor from being scared if I learn I've screwed something up that could have lasting disastrous consequences, nor from being aroused by a scantily clad attractive female.

Neither, then, is there any reason why mechanics cannot determine whether a given character is miserable and grouchy because he's hungry, nor from being scared when he learns the mob knows where his family lives, nor from being attracted to that sexy seductress.

What is and should remain sacrosanct is your choice of how you react to it. If you want to consciously force yourself to be pleasant while starving, to refuse to give in to the fear the mob invokes with the threat to your family by doing what they say, or turn down the sexy girl trying to get you into bed, that's your choice as a player of that character.

There's nothing wrong with a system that says you can't control how your character feels about it (except in how you designed him in the first place).

Of course, a really well-designed system would let people work on these things, much like they can in real life, but that's going to get more complicated than we're really discussing here.

I think the reason why emotions are more 'sacrosanct' than, say, physicals, have been described before. The argument, of course, is not "these rules should never exist" but rather "these rules interfere with what I want (see the discussion with ImNotTrevor)".

Basically, what you want and what Max_killjoy wants are two different things. Neither is objectively better or worse than the other, but I think much of Max_killjoy's hostility comes from that often when one tries to explain how these rules interfere with what you want, people respond by saying "why no they shouldn't, if you like to roleplay your character, these are perfect!". It is obviously a matter of taste, but sometimes in discussions surrounding RP mechanics it feels like people are saying "no, that's not how you are feeling, you are feeling this (or should be)". Ironically enough, that response is disliked for the very same reason certain RP mechanics are disliked; they try to negate your own feelings.

Part of what I want out of a game is to feel things. More specifically, I want to, as much as possible, feel what my character is feeling, think what they are thinking etc. I want to, not play, but be a person in the fictional world. I know it isn't possible, but it's what I want, and I will try my best.

Therefore, whenever a game tries to tell me what my character is feeling which contradicts with how I feel my character is feeling, the game actively strives against what I want.¨

It is a matter of who is the arbiter of my character's emotions, me or the game. It doesn't have to work being tilted towards my character acting with "perfect rational clarity" either. There may be occasions where the game says "you do not find this seducer attractive" whereas I as a player, due to how the situation was described by the GM, really DO feel my character finds this seducer alluring and wants to go along with it. Why should the game hold higher authority than me? I mean, it could, obviously, but I do not want it to.

For this reason, rules that are "emotion-less" work better with what I want. For example, the rules can say "since your character hasn't eaten for 2 days, they get a -4 penalty to concentration and physical exertion checks", but doesn't actually say "you feel hungry". The first statement helps me with another thing I want (a world with verisimilitude) whereas the second does not.

To sum it up, I want the description of the fictional events to help me judge how my character feels. I don't want the game to tell me whether my judgment is right or wrong. I want to weigh my character's devotion to chastity over the seductive allure of the Pirate Queen. Not being allowed to do so makes the game less fun (for me). Having rules that say which is right or wrong DOES mean I am not allowed to do so myself.

It's bad form to end after a "sum up", but another thought which occurred to me which I will only mention briefly, is that I value description highly. It is what helps me being 'in the game' so to speak. If, for some reason, the rules contradict with the description, it means I somehow have to retcon the forgoing description to match up with the game. This is something I want to do as little as possible. Which is why, in regards to say persuasion, if an NPC gives me really crappy arguments but the GM then declares "she rolled awesome so you are now convinced" is really annoying. Either I have to go back and rewrite the entire conversation into something that would be convincing for my character, OR I have to change my character's personality into one which would find the arguments compelling. Both are rather unsatisfactory (I may not be able to avoid them entirely, but I can attempt to minimize it).

I'm fine with the idea that certain mechanics accomplish a certain task. But it always comes down to a want. "We want a mechanic that does this:" is going to be more accurately stated than "This mechanic is needed."

I think questioning the strengths and weaknesses of certain mechanics is fine, too. I'll never stand opposed to that unless it's blind criticism of a system that one has 0 experience with (since many rules read differently from how they play, and frankly if you haven't even read the rules then you have no idea if the concern you're talking about is addressed or not.)

I bring that last one up due to past experience with people wanting to pick apart a few singular mechanics in Apocalypse World without understanding what the system wants and what the system contains.

But, to bring my sacred cow to the fight, I'll describe a few aspects of its social mechanics that I enjoy:

Non-binary outcomes. You do more than succeed or fail, more than "they do what you want" or "they don't." Even on a success, multiple things can happen. For instance if I roll for a Go Aggro against another PC to make them do what I want by threatening violence, there are several ways it can break down. Even if I fully succeed, I have a gun in Leroy's gut and I tell him "Move or I shoot" and my dice show the highest outcome possible, I haven't removed all his options. I've successfully reduced them to two options: Move, or get shot. And he can choose whichever one he prefers.

This is true of all social moves. You don't remove all choice. You reduce the number of viable options and establish who is in control of the interaction.

Secondly, I like that players are encouraged on multiple levels to give one another influence over their characters via a stat called Hx (stands for History, must say Hex.) This also has twofold purpose through one move: Help or Interfere. They are the same move. People with more influence are better at helping you. But they're also better at interfering with your purposes. AND, once your Hx with someone is high enough, you get XP and the Hx restarts. So you want other people to be close to you, too.

Etc etc.

For what Apocalypse World wants to be, these social mechanics are perfect, IMO. They aren't perfect models of human behavior. But they are perfect at making the game do what it is designed to do.

I think this is one of the major flaws with many RPG books; they never state explicitly what they want to do. You end up having to guess it based on the rules. Maybe the designers don't really know themselves what they truly want, or they think the knowledge is too abstract for people and will only be confusing. I don't know. But it sure would be easier to judge whether or not rules fill their intended purpose if we knew what the purpose was.

As for non-binary outcomes of social mechanics; I agree that this is a good thing. I haven't actually read through the Apocalypse World corebook, but I hear it is obligatory reading for all GMs, so I think I should take the time to do it.

Quite often though, you want many things out of a RPG, and therefore developing rules to fit with all your wants can be rather difficult. Sometimes your even wants conflict, which just adds to the problem.

However, sometimes it IS possible to just read the rules of a game, without playing it, and saying "this isn't what I want". I rarely do though, I usually give every system a chance to see how the actual play turns out (preferably by a GM who likes the system).

Zombimode

2017-01-05, 10:40 AM

Part of what I want out of a game is to feel things. More specifically, I want to, as much as possible, feel what my character is feeling, think what they are thinking etc. I want to, not play, but be a person in the fictional world. I know it isn't possible, but it's what I want, and I will try my best.

Therefore, whenever a game tries to tell me what my character is feeling which contradicts with how I feel my character is feeling, the game actively strives against what I want.

I can understand where you are comming from. But there is something that makes me think that this is not quite MaxKilljoys stance. He has also spoken quite adamently against Charm and Mind Control effects

At least as I see it there is an important difference between Charm etc. and stuff like social mechanics that dictate how your character feels towards other characters. Instances of the second kind do take away the authorship on your characters feelings because they model events that fall in the natural chain of causal relations regarding the feelings of your character. What your character feels when someone tries a seduction IS causaly related to the whole context of the seduction. But the decision on how the character actually feels should be completely on the player, following your position.
Rules in this context abstract the formation of the characters feelings but by doing so take away authorship.

With Charm/Mind Control the situation is different. While the effects are too described by rules, they are not an abstraction. They simply adjucate the effects from the definition of a Charm in game terms. And this is important: Charm/Mindcontrol is defined by being a violation of the natural chain of causal relations. That is what makes them supernatural. Being Charmed does not take away your authorship on your characters feelings. It prevents you from controling your characters feelings because your character is under a system agnoistic condition the character from being in control. You can substitute "Charmed" or "Mind Controled" with "Dead" or "In Temporal Stasis" for the same effect.

Now, what those effects DO take away is control. And I think this loss of control is what concerns MaxKilljoy far more then a loss of authorship.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-05, 10:48 AM

I think the reason why emotions are more 'sacrosanct' than, say, physicals, have been described before. The argument, of course, is not "these rules should never exist" but rather "these rules interfere with what I want (see the discussion with ImNotTrevor)".

Basically, what you want and what Max_killjoy wants are two different things. Neither is objectively better or worse than the other, but I think much of Max_killjoy's hostility comes from that often when one tries to explain how these rules interfere with what you want, people respond by saying "why no they shouldn't, if you like to roleplay your character, these are perfect!". It is obviously a matter of taste, but sometimes in discussions surrounding RP mechanics it feels like people are saying "no, that's not how you are feeling, you are feeling this (or should be)". Ironically enough, that response is disliked for the very same reason certain RP mechanics are disliked; they try to negate your own feelings.

Part of what I want out of a game is to feel things. More specifically, I want to, as much as possible, feel what my character is feeling, think what they are thinking etc. I want to, not play, but be a person in the fictional world. I know it isn't possible, but it's what I want, and I will try my best.

Therefore, whenever a game tries to tell me what my character is feeling which contradicts with how I feel my character is feeling, the game actively strives against what I want.¨

It is a matter of who is the arbiter of my character's emotions, me or the game. It doesn't have to work being tilted towards my character acting with "perfect rational clarity" either. There may be occasions where the game says "you do not find this seducer attractive" whereas I as a player, due to how the situation was described by the GM, really DO feel my character finds this seducer alluring and wants to go along with it. Why should the game hold higher authority than me? I mean, it could, obviously, but I do not want it to.

For this reason, rules that are "emotion-less" work better with what I want. For example, the rules can say "since your character hasn't eaten for 2 days, they get a -4 penalty to concentration and physical exertion checks", but doesn't actually say "you feel hungry". The first statement helps me with another thing I want (a world with verisimilitude) whereas the second does not.

To sum it up, I want the description of the fictional events to help me judge how my character feels. I don't want the game to tell me whether my judgment is right or wrong. I want to weigh my character's devotion to chastity over the seductive allure of the Pirate Queen. Not being allowed to do so makes the game less fun (for me). Having rules that say which is right or wrong DOES mean I am not allowed to do so myself.

Yes, exactly.

I want to connect with my character, and explore who that character is, and engage the setting and the emergent story via that character... and these sorts of rules directly interfere with that.

And yes, the "we know what you feel, more than you do" or "we know what you want, more than you do" thing is a flaw in both the rules themselves, and in the responses when someone objects to those rules.

It's bad form to end after a "sum up", but another thought which occurred to me which I will only mention briefly, is that I value description highly. It is what helps me being 'in the game' so to speak. If, for some reason, the rules contradict with the description, it means I somehow have to retcon the forgoing description to match up with the game. This is something I want to do as little as possible. Which is why, in regards to say persuasion, if an NPC gives me really crappy arguments but the GM then declares "she rolled awesome so you are now convinced" is really annoying. Either I have to go back and rewrite the entire conversation into something that would be convincing for my character, OR I have to change my character's personality into one which would find the arguments compelling. Both are rather unsatisfactory (I may not be able to avoid them entirely, but I can attempt to minimize it).

Indeed.

This is part of why I lean "simulationist" and post about verisimilitude so much. As inputs and outputs that all loop together, the rules and the setting and the descriptions and the actions and the reactions, all need as much synchronicity and mutual coherence as possible.

Now, what those effects DO take away is control. And I think this loss of control is what concerns MaxKilljoy far more then a loss of authorship.

Why can't it be both?

.

kyoryu

2017-01-05, 11:32 AM

What Max really wants, from what I can see, is the illusion of *being* his character.

Rules that tell him what his character thinks or does take him out of that mode pretty abruptly.

BRC

2017-01-05, 12:01 PM

What Max really wants, from what I can see, is the illusion of *being* his character.

Rules that tell him what his character thinks or does take him out of that mode pretty abruptly.

To be clear, the rules are telling him what his character WANTS, which is essentially the same thing. It's inserting some rules between player and character.

I suppose a neat parallel would be Intimidation mechanics, as an acceptable form of "This is what your character is feeling right now" type deal that is commonly used.

An enemy makes an intimidation check or uses their frightful presence, you fail whatever check is used to resist that, the GM says "Your character is scared now".

Although that might be acceptable because Fear is a more basic, visceral reaction than the more complex mechanics of desire and motive.

People are more familiar with losing control of themselves due to fear than due to being enticed into something. The former is a very basic "I don't want to be screaming, and yet, I'm screaming." The latter is about making a conscious decision that, on some level, you know you don't agree with.

Admittedly, Segev's proposed mechanics DO account for this distinction. At no point does the player actually Lose Control of their character, instead the purpose seems to be to make something that would be tempting for the character equally tempting for the player.

Still, it is the game telling the Player what their character Wants, even if it's not what their character does. Max would prefer that the Player be allowed to make that judgement without the game getting involved and telling them how much their character wants something

Which is to say, the GM saying "The pirate queen is stunningly attractive. Part of you is screaming to accept her offer" should be enough to help the player make their decision, without bringing numbers into it

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-05, 12:15 PM

What Max really wants, from what I can see, is the illusion of *being* his character.

Rules that tell him what his character thinks or does take him out of that mode pretty abruptly.

That's close. Perhaps more about the feeling of "being there" and "being in the moment".

( Of course, based on responses I've seen in the past, perhaps I should preemptively point out the difference between a conscious "illusion", and a delusion. Seriously, I've had people tell me "immersion is bunk, you know you're not your character, unless you're insane". )

Segev

2017-01-05, 12:19 PM

[non-magical] Charm is deeply over-rated. Most of it comes across as smarm, as artiface, as transparent manipulation, etc.I have added the bracketed bit there, because I believe it is what you mean. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The issue, here, Max, is that you're mistaking "badly-done charm" with "all charm." Truly charming people often have you liking them without you even realizing they were "being charming." Sure, if you recognize a pattern of just how easily they make friends, you might come to say, "Oh, she's charming!" Or you might say it as a compliment regarding how likable she is.

But unless you're going to claim that there is not one human being who has ever lived that is likable, and that any effort to be anything but coldly distant and rationally mechanical in all dealings with other people is "smarm" and "manipulation" that is off-putting...you're reading "charm" incorrectly. Your perspective is skewed, and you're using the term to refer to a narrow subset of it being done badly. Arguably, you're using it WRONG, because "attempting to charm" and "being charming" are not the same thing. And being smarmy and unlikably manipulative is not, by definition, actually charming.

And no, I don't think that PQ can really arouse the knight, if he didn't want to be aroused. "I couldn't help myself" is a combination of cultural myth, an excuse people tell themselves afterwards, when they give in despite knowing they shouldn't, or after they do something terrible; and fictional contrivance, something that makes for "better" stories in the minds of Hollywood hacks and romance novelists. Er... no. I can tell by how you wrote this that you're making a huge mistake of conflating "desire" with "action." There is, in fact, a field of study of the "desire-action gap" (with closely-associated, often used synonymously "intention-action gap" and "value-action gap") wherein you have a DESIRE to do something, but fail to act on that desire.

(The "intention-action gap" more properly refers to things like when I say "I will exercise every morning" and then, when the time comes...I don't on a given morning. The "value-action gap" is commonly associated with hypocrisy.)

The desire-action gap is, quite simply, why you might feel a sudden urge to punch somebody when they cut you off in traffic, but you don't actually follow them to a place where you can get out of your car and do so. Why a character holding a gun on a smarmy bastard who is taunting him over how they killed his children doesn't pull the trigger, even though failing to do so takes great effort of will.

To bring this back to our Pirate Queen and Chaste Knight, the Pirate Queen arousing him is not equivalent to him breaking his vow. Surely you've seen situations where somebody is actively coming on to somebody else, and the target of this seduction is clearly responding. Clearly finds the seductor alluring and desirable...but doesn't actually go off and make out with them or find a room to engage in sexual congress. Or do you think that only happens in fiction? That in reality, nobody who isn't going to go all the way is ever tempted to do so? Temptations don't exist unless you're going to go through with them?

When I say the Pirate Queen can arouse the Chaste Knight, I am saying she can present a temptation in such a way that it is a temptation. Not that she automatically takes the final decision on whether and how to act on that temptation away from the player.

Because you are violating the only guaranteed player agency that exists.
At no point does the system I am proposing take the actual agency away from the player. The player still chooses what the PC does about the desires he's feeling.

Because you are literally, willfully, deliberately hijacking the character away from the player. You are telling the player "We know better than you do, how to play your character. We know more than you about what your character feels and thinks and wants." Nope. This is 100% false. This is not what the system I propose does.

What the system I propose does is inform the player of what the character feels. What he wants and how deeply he feels that want. What he craves, and how painful it is to resist that craving. How satisfying it would be to sate that craving.

The player is still the one with complete agency over how the character reacts to this. At no point does the Pirate Queen, no matter how seductive she is, have the ability to make the Knight "willingly" (according to the rules of the game and who determines what his will is) have sex with her. That is solely the province of the player. (She could, obviously, have him tied to her bed and rape him. Or use mind-control magics, if those exist independently of the system I'm proposing. Which I believe everyone here would agree is also rape. But those are all things well outside the "seduction" we've been discussing.)

Because you're dealing with the ultimate unknowable. You literally cannot know what goes on inside the head of another person, you can only surmise, you can only made educated guesses.Of real people whose minds I cannot read? Of course, this is true. Characters in fiction are not such beings.

You cannot truthfully claim to know how another person's mind works, or what they're really feeling, or what they're really thinking.Again, true for real people, not necessarily true for fictional constructs of characters. When I read a novel, for example, and the character's thoughts and feelings are spelled out for me, I absolutely know how his mind is working, at least there.

You cannot know this of another person, and you cannot know this of their character.I can absolutely know this of any fictional character, as long as the agent responsible for defining that character's thoughts and feelings tells me. If an author tells me that his character thinks in such and such a way, and feels such about some topic, I know how that character feels.

I cannot know, IRL, if any given person I'm talking to is, for example, gay. I can know whether they claim to be gay or straight. I can judge based on their actions whether I think they're telling the truth. I can guess, as you say, from action, as well (if my male acquaintance is drooling over a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, I will probably guess that he is straight or bi, for example). With a fictional character, however, if the author tells me that he is gay, I know for a fact that he is gay. With a randomly-generated character that has tables for such things, when I roll the dice and find out his sexual orientation is "asexual" according to the table, I absolutely know that he is disinterested in sex in general and doesn't find men or women particularly appealing.

I can know what a fictional character's thoughts, feelings, and predilections are if the agent determining them tells me what they are.

The only person who can EVER know what's really going on in that PC's mind, is the person who plays that PC.False.

Let's consider characters in a play. There are at least three people with input into how a character in a play is thinking and feeling at any given point in the performance: the author (most obviously), the actor, and the director.

The author clearly defines in his screenplay what the character is saying and (to some extent) doing at each given point the character is on stage. If the author says in notes or interviews or what-have-you that the character as he wrote him is thinking or feeling a particular way, we know that the character, at least in the play as the author intended it, thinks and feels that way.

The director, however, gives specific instruction on where the actor will stand, and even on what emotion and gesticulation to put behind the lines. The director is often the one who answers the performance cliché question of "What's my motivation?" For THIS production, the director instructs the actor as to what the character's reasoning and drives are.

The actor, meanwhile, is rarely just a puppet of the director, not if he's any good. Actors, too, have an idea of what their character is really thinking and feeling. They may take the director's provided motivation, or they may decide it's bupkis and come up with their own (leading, potentially, to arguments).

In typical P&P RPGs, the player of the character is author and actor and (at least insofar as the PC is concerned) the director. This is the model you, Max_Killjoy, are calling sacrosanct.

The system I am proposing removes directorship from the player. The system I am proposing BECOMES the director. It didn't author the character and design his personality traits (though it provided a framework to do so). It doesn't dictate nor act out the lines the character says nor the actions and choices the character makes. It does tell the player-as-actor what the "motivation" is in this scene. It gives the player direction as to how strongly his character experiences certain wants and revulsions. That's it. The player retains full agency over what the character actually does.

That PC's mind exists only within the mind of the player, and no where else, and just as you cannot get into the player's head, you cannot get into their PC's head. You keep asserting this. I have rebutted it above. You need to justify why this is not only so in some systems, but must be sacrosanct in all systems. If it's just "Max_Killjoy likes it that way," that's fine, but it is not objective fact if that's all you've got. It's just your personal preference.

First, you again assert that this "mechanical incentive" is a universal weight for all players, rather than something you're far more concerned about than many other players.

Second, it's starting to sound like your real motive here is that you want PCs to "make mistakes". :smallconfused:I can't quite parse what you mean by the first sentence, here, sorry. I can see why you can draw the conclusion of the second, however. It's less that I "want the character to make mistakes," and more that I want bad choices that are objectively nothing but bad if you consider only the mechanics of the game not to be "in character" for the PC to make. If the bad choice is in character, I want the mechanics to support it being at least a rational game-play-move of a choice by offering consequences commensurate with the emotions and drives which make it an "in character" choice to that character.

Would you say Persephone eating the dates was "a mistake?" What if her player knew the consequences but she didn't? Would it be "a mistake" then?

For starters, a couple of dudes throwing punches or swinging swords is dirt simple compared to the emergent cumulative properties of 100 billions neurons and trillions of synapses and whatever else might be going on in a single human mind.

Technically there are about 100 billion neurons in the human brain, which is less than the stars in the milky way (by a factor of between 1-4) and less than the galaxies in the universe by at least a factor of 10 and greater than the population of the planet (by about a factor of 20). Which still gives massive numbers when you consider them.This is actually my area of expertise, as I did my dissertation on spiking neural networks using the Izhikevich model. That particular model is one of the best out there, and while you're right about "only" 100 billion neurons being present, the patterns of connection and the polychronous spike patterns that actually comprise thought and everything the brain is DOING with those neurons are massively exponentially greater in number. It is theoretically possible to simulate the universe down to the particle in a "brain" made up of far fewer neurons than there are particles in the universe, because the growth of potential meaningfully related spike patterns grows so much faster than the rate of adding neurons that even all the various position, momentum, energy, etc. information about each particle would eventually be encodable in them.

Which is mostly an interesting (to me) aside, because it's beside the point. I'm not trying to model everything a brain can do. I'm trying to model some simple, abstracted personality elements and how they interact with and influence desire. What you find appealing and unappealing. These can be abstracted to rules as simple (or complex) as any others in RPGs. Combat, for example, is actually trying to model a set of forces that come into play at both Newtonian and atomic scales, dealing with biology and structural bioengineering as well as material physics.

Calculating all the details of what's going in to a simple sword-swing and whether it penetrates flesh in harmful enough ways to impede the performance of the biological machine to which that flesh belongs is done with massive abstraction, and we totally ignore or grossly abstract the psychological factor of pain, adrenaline, and inhibitions that are designed to prevent further damage more than being based on actual physical failure. (Humans generally feel totally wiped out when they physically have at least as much in them as they've already spent, and we can have pain stop us from doing things we're physically capable of long before the act would actually fail if we didn't have the psychological limiter of pain inhibiting us. Add in various hormones which come out in stress to modify pain thresholds and muscular performance, and it gets even more complex.)

But we don't need it to be that complex to have an engaging combat system. Neither do we need perfect modeling of every aspect of brain chemistry and neural firing timings to have a useful and engaging system that serves as a "director" indicating "motivation" for the scene.

I said "specific internal experience". Evidently the experience of being a bundle of barely-contained urges and drives and desires that's only held together with constant stressful effort.

It looks more like you have a specific model of how humans work on the inside, and you're trying to encode it into game mechanics so that all characters are bound by that model. Hardly. I don't really know where you get this idea.

From observation of others and my own internal experience, I witness that there are things people WANT but don't necessarily ACT upon. That when multiple conflicting desires arise, people don't always choose the one they would have said is the wisest, nor the one they will have wished they'd chosen in the long run. Even, sometimes, knowing IN THE MOMENT THEY CHOOSE that they'll regret it later. People also rationalize choices they want NOW as something they'll regret less than the regrets they expect to have later for them. Or minimize the risk estimation to justify taking a risky but desired choice.

From observation of game mechanics in systems I am aware of, these kinds of "unwise" choices are never modeled appropriately, so the game only rewards the "wise" long-term choice and never the "unwise" short-term choice. This creates pressure on a player of an RPG to play characters who might be showing much stronger will than they "should," even in the player's own mind, because the player feels that the incentive to play "in character" is insufficient compared to the incentive to play "optimally." In addition, due to the very thing Max_Killjoy mentions: not being able to actually be in somebody else's head; the player may question whether his determination of a character's level of "want" is accurate. Is he making a choice because he wants to win the game and just justifying playing out of character by saying "oh, er, um, sure, he'd tough it out?" Or worse, is he saying "he'd make this unwise choice" ONLY because he's afraid he's not playing "in character" otherwise, but doing so too strongly to the point he's exaggerating a character trait beyond what it "should" be? Mechanics help calibrate this.

I'm saying that the way people experience and deal with those things, and sometimes even if they do feel them at all, is incredibly variable, and no one model is going to encompass all the possibilities, and certainly not one you're going to write up for an RPG. Again, the same could be said for combat mechanics. The goal is to get "good enough," not reach perfection. And I think we're a lot closer to "good enough" already than you seem to. So far, you've not been providing actual backing for why you think otherwise other than "people don't work that way." You've not provided evidence of this beyond your assertion.

I'm also saying that no one has any business telling a player what their character feels.You are saying that. But assertion doesn't make it so. Justify the assertion, please.

The very problem is that you're trying to mechanize likes and dislikes, desires and disgusts, which strips them of their nuance and subtlety and variation.Some, perhaps. Just as reducing combat to attack and damage rolls strips the battle of nuance regarding where the attack is aimed on the body, how it's trying to maneuver past the shield, whether it's overpowering armor or trying to slip through a chink, how the defender is parrying, whether the parry carries a riposte, how many attempted blows and feints and defensive positionings there are for each attack roll, etc.

But the very point behind having personality traits defined in broad strokes and with further nuances is to get those nuances in. It won't be perfect, but just as you fill in the combat gaps with narration detailing why and how the attacks hit or missed or did hp damage, you can get lost nuance back by filling in explanations for what the morale offerings and penalties mean, what the tactics of the persuasion rolls are, and why the various "defense" traits are useful.

Just leave it to the player and get on with the damn game. No matter how much you decry it as "unconvincing," this could be said about anything in the game.

I have no patience for mind control or charm magic or anything of the sort, either. The people I gamed with realized this and didn't push the issue with my characters when they were GMing, and I built my characters to be as resistant as possible just in case.

In the case of the bard, if it fit the character I was playing to do so, I'd just ignore the bonus. Well, this pretty much puts you as an outlier of a player. I am sorry so many systems are not to your liking, but I cannot really take your concerns strongly into account in judging whether something I propose is useful if you take this extreme a stance.

As a side note, though, with a system such as I propose in place, Charm magics could ride this system rather than requiring "save or lose control of your character" mechanics. (Domination probably still would have that, though, given its fundamental nature.)

Great, now it's disassociated too.Only because you've insisted on it being so. The mechanics are pretty clearly modeling something in the game world; you're just asserting that there's no possible way you could be happy with their model, so are demanding that you be able to reject the model and substitute your own. Which I'm granting can be done.

So what, you don't even care what the character feels, as long as you can force them to "feel something"? We've gotten into the weeds of using this coupled with a social system, so "yes," because it would be unfair to allow you to reject the social mechanics that influence your character in ways you don't want them to in the same way that it would be unfair to allow somebody to reject the combat system if it influenced their character in ways they didn't like. "Nuh-uh, there's no way you could hit my character! He's too fast!" "Nuh-uh, there's no way you could make my character like you! He's not into that!"

Well, maybe he IS too fast, but the enemy made you dodge into a stalagmite, and you took 1d6+2 damage anyway (instead of taking it from his short sword). Maybe he's NOT into that, but the fact that the persuader TRIED 'that' means you suffer the 2 lost morale from disgust (instead of from rejecting something you kind-of wanted even though you didn't want to want it).

You can't cure "muderhoboism" by adding more mechanics... you're just going to get them minmaxing those mechanics too.Actually, murderhoboism may be a consequence of min/maxing certain mechanics, but if those mechanics changed such that murderhoboism wasn't optimal, min/maxing those mechanics would not result in being a murderhobo.

This is, however, merely a side benefit, if you consider it a benefit at all.

This thread moves too far for me right now unfortunately. Life gives me too little time, even though intellectually it is rather interesting. It does have the problem though with too many thoughts circling around in my head, which makes it rather hard to convert them into a neat string of words.I know the feeling. x_x

To sum it up, I want the description of the fictional events to help me judge how my character feels. I don't want the game to tell me whether my judgment is right or wrong. I want to weigh my character's devotion to chastity over the seductive allure of the Pirate Queen. Not being allowed to do so makes the game less fun (for me). Having rules that say which is right or wrong DOES mean I am not allowed to do so myself.The problem is that this means that it's solely dependent on the GM's ability to be not merely an exquisite storyteller, but to do so in a way that makes you honestly feel like he's the hot seductress, the silver-tongued merchant, and that you, yourself, are suffering the pain of having your fingernails ripped off, or the indignity of being dragged through raw sewage. To so spectacularly describe the foulness of the odor that you, as a player, beg him to stop because you CAN practically smell it and it's so miserable that you truly share in your character's experience.

Games simply cannot expect this of their GMs. Nor of their players. That's WHY we have mechanics.

It's bad form to end after a "sum up", but another thought which occurred to me which I will only mention briefly, is that I value description highly. It is what helps me being 'in the game' so to speak. If, for some reason, the rules contradict with the description, it means I somehow have to retcon the forgoing description to match up with the game.Ideally, the rules won't contradict the description. If they do, it's a failure of the mechanics, most likely. (If it isn't, it's a case of the describer ignoring the world the mechanics are trying to model. "No, I don't take 10d6 falling damage; I sprout wings and fly." "But...you can't do that." "Tough."

Now, what those effects DO take away is control. And I think this loss of control is what concerns MaxKilljoy far more then a loss of authorship.If that's so, then I will repeat again: One thing the rules I propose never takes away is control of the character's choices and actions. The character's authorship - who he is (as defined by his build) and what he says (as authored in the moment) - remains the player's sole province. (Well, insofar as is reasonable. Given social mechanics, the fumble-tongued doofus isn't going to be saying eloquent soliloquies, even if his player gives them. But that's not even part of the system I'm proposing insofar as we've been discussing.) The characters ACTIONS - what the player-as-actor does - remain solely the province of the player (again, insofar as the character is capable of taking those actions; he can't sprout wings and fly if the game rules don't allow it). It is only the directorship that is placed in the hands of this system. "You're experiencing these urges and drives and desires to these various degrees." It remains solely the player's choice how the character acts in response to them. The system only applies emotional consequences based on the sated or thwarted yearnings involved.

Segev

2017-01-05, 12:35 PM

To be clear, the rules are telling him what his character WANTS, which is essentially the same thing. It's inserting some rules between player and character. Yes, but for me, at least, having this helps me better experience being the character, because I am incapable of really knowing what he's feeling. I do not have the cold, slimy wall beneath my fingers as the only thing preventing me from falling to my doom. It's hard for me to judge just how terrifying that really would be. (Admittedly, my proposed system doesn't really touch this specific example, most likely. Maybe it could, but I feel it's a stretch.)

Which is to say, the GM saying "The pirate queen is stunningly attractive. Part of you is screaming to accept her offer" should be enough to help the player make their decision, without bringing numbers into itI get the impression that Max_Killjoy would feel insulted by this, too. By the arguments he's already made, it would seem presumptuous by his lights for the GM to say that she is, in fact, attractive at all, let alone that Max_Killjoy's PC has any part of him "screaming to accept her offer."

Frankly, my system does that. It tells you just how much part of your character is crying out to accept, by assigning a number of morale points you'd gain for doing so and lose for refusing.

That's close. Perhaps more about the feeling of "being there" and "being in the moment". I contend that it's not really possible because you're NOT there. And that, even if you feel it IS possible, having a number assigned to how severe your PC's feelings on the issue are doesn't change that.

If the system consistently has your PC wanting things differently than you think he would, then there's either a flaw in the system or how you build your PC's personality model within the system. It is my goal, should I ever actually build the system beyond a thought experiment, to have it accommodate just about any personality type...except highly inconsistent ones which are more constructs of game-winning convenience than actually consistent people. (And yes, here is where I do have a conception of how people work. I do expect that people have a certain amount of internal consistency, and that they only change with effort over time as a general rule.)

( Of course, based on responses I've seen in the past, perhaps I should preemptively point out the difference between a conscious "illusion", and a delusion. Seriously, I've had people tell me "immersion is bunk, you know you're not your character, unless you're insane". )I assure you, I would not accuse you of confusing an illusion for a delusion. Immersion is quite possible without being crazy enough to believe you're actually, truthfully part of fictional events.

BRC

2017-01-05, 12:38 PM

I think theres another issue here, which is that your system is proposing mechanical bonuses and penalties separate from the normal reward/punishment system.

Usually in an RPG, such bonuses are used to reward behavior that the game wants to encourage. The game wants you to think tactically and flank enemies, so it gives you a +2 bonus to attacking flanked enemies.

The game doesnt want you to wield weapons your character is not proficient with, so take a -4 penalty to such attacks.

A lot of penalties and bonuses are also similationist (trying to hit an enemy with cover, for example), but that usually falls under the system encouraging you to model good tactics.

If you have two ways to make the attack, one gives you a +2 bonus, the other gives you a -2 bonus, the system is telling you which method is "Correct". Sure, you can always CHOOSE to take the -2 to your attack, but its not what the game wants you to do.

For example, 7th sea 2nd edition gives you a bonus every time you use a skill for the first time in the scene, because they want you to be changing up your approach to create a more exciting scene. Using a variety of skills is the "Correct" way to play.

FATE gives fate points for playing up your Aspects because they want you to "Correctly" play your character by playing up those aspects. If your character is scared of fire, then the "Correct" move is for you to flee from a burning building.

Your system is using bonuses and penalties in a PURELY Simulationist manner. Accepting the Pirate Queen's offer may confer a +2 bonus, and refusing to do so may give a -2, but that +2 isn't supposed to represent anything except the in-game morale boost. You're not trying to tell the player that accepting her offer is the "Correct" move in this situation.

Your goal isn't to encourage players to give in to every temptation, but to model the struggles of desire and conviction.

However, that intent doesn't necessarily come across clearly. Tying it to a numerical bonus and penalty mechanic will always be hard to separate from the game telling you the "Correct" way to play your character.

kyoryu

2017-01-05, 12:43 PM

That's close. Perhaps more about the feeling of "being there" and "being in the moment".

( Of course, based on responses I've seen in the past, perhaps I should preemptively point out the difference between a conscious "illusion", and a delusion. Seriously, I've had people tell me "immersion is bunk, you know you're not your character, unless you're insane". )

I try my best not to use pejorative terms or language towards people, especially for things as silly as different preferences in their elf-games.

Segev

2017-01-05, 12:46 PM

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-05, 01:05 PM

I have added the bracketed bit there, because I believe it is what you mean. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The issue, here, Max, is that you're mistaking "badly-done charm" with "all charm." Truly charming people often have you liking them without you even realizing they were "being charming." Sure, if you recognize a pattern of just how easily they make friends, you might come to say, "Oh, she's charming!" Or you might say it as a compliment regarding how likable she is.

But unless you're going to claim that there is not one human being who has ever lived that is likable, and that any effort to be anything but coldly distant and rationally mechanical in all dealings with other people is "smarm" and "manipulation" that is off-putting...you're reading "charm" incorrectly. Your perspective is skewed, and you're using the term to refer to a narrow subset of it being done badly. Arguably, you're using it WRONG, because "attempting to charm" and "being charming" are not the same thing. And being smarmy and unlikably manipulative is not, by definition, actually charming.

"Likeability" != "charm".

I've lost count of the number of individuals that I'm told are "charming"... that make my skin crawl. And the reported "charmingness" and skin-crawliness for those individuals is fairly proportional.

At no point does the system I am proposing take the actual agency away from the player. The player still chooses what the PC does about the desires he's feeling.

Nope. This is 100% false. This is not what the system I propose does.

What the system I propose does is inform the player of what the character feels. What he wants and how deeply he feels that want. What he craves, and how painful it is to resist that craving. How satisfying it would be to sate that craving.

Any difference between "this is what your character feels" and "this is what your character does" is a matter of degrees, and not at all qualitative.

I can't quite parse what you mean by the first sentence, here, sorry.

I mean that you seem to regard this "make optimal choices" weight from the existing mechanics of most systems as a universal, objective extant thing -- when other players keep telling you that their experience is different, and that it's not universal and not objective.

Therefore, you are trying to "balance" this weight by adding another set of mechanical weights as a counterbalance -- but in doing so, you are:

1) Potentially unbalancing the scales for any player who doesn't experience that same subjective weight from the extant rules.
2) Simply adding another set of factors to be minmaxed by those who do feel that weight and consider the weights their primary driver.
3) Providing a new opening for those who ignore the +/- from your new rules to be accused of "bad RP" or "murderhoboism".
3) Trespassing on ground that belongs entirely and solely to the player.

The cure is worse than the sickness.

I can see why you can draw the conclusion of the second, however. It's less that I "want the character to make mistakes," and more that I want bad choices that are objectively nothing but bad if you consider only the mechanics of the game not to be "in character" for the PC to make. If the bad choice is in character, I want the mechanics to support it being at least a rational game-play-move of a choice by offering consequences commensurate with the emotions and drives which make it an "in character" choice to that character.

Those choices are typically nothing but bad if you consider them objectively anyway.

The real world doesn't actively reward or compensate people for making these sorts of bad decisions... I see no reason why game mechanics should either.

(And before we go back around this one again, no, I don't consider the "feels" from making these choices anything of a real reward or compensation.)

Would you say Persephone eating the dates was "a mistake?" What if her player knew the consequences but she didn't? Would it be "a mistake" then?

In a world where rules of hospitality are part of objective reality and have consequences enforced by the universe, yes, it was a mistake.

From observation of others and my own internal experience, I witness that there are things people WANT but don't necessarily ACT upon. That when multiple conflicting desires arise, people don't always choose the one they would have said is the wisest, nor the one they will have wished they'd chosen in the long run. Even, sometimes, knowing IN THE MOMENT THEY CHOOSE that they'll regret it later. People also rationalize choices they want NOW as something they'll regret less than the regrets they expect to have later for them. Or minimize the risk estimation to justify taking a risky but desired choice.

Whereas other people sense the potential regrets and risks far more strongly than they sense the immediate "rewards".

From observation of game mechanics in systems I am aware of, these kinds of "unwise" choices are never modeled appropriately, so the game only rewards the "wise" long-term choice and never the "unwise" short-term choice. This creates pressure on a player of an RPG to play characters who might be showing much stronger will than they "should," even in the player's own mind, because the player feels that the incentive to play "in character" is insufficient compared to the incentive to play "optimally." In addition, due to the very thing Max_Killjoy mentions: not being able to actually be in somebody else's head; the player may question whether his determination of a character's level of "want" is accurate. Is he making a choice because he wants to win the game and just justifying playing out of character by saying "oh, er, um, sure, he'd tough it out?" Or worse, is he saying "he'd make this unwise choice" ONLY because he's afraid he's not playing "in character" otherwise, but doing so too strongly to the point he's exaggerating a character trait beyond what it "should" be? Mechanics help calibrate this.

Maybe for you. For others, they just get in the way.

I'm going to hazard a guess that your decision-making process is different from those other players, and so for you these perceived "incentives" loom far larger, to the point of appearing as objective weights against a decision-making scale.

If that's so, then I will repeat again: One thing the rules I propose never takes away is control of the character's choices and actions. The character's authorship - who he is (as defined by his build) and what he says (as authored in the moment) - remains the player's sole province. (Well, insofar as is reasonable. Given social mechanics, the fumble-tongued doofus isn't going to be saying eloquent soliloquies, even if his player gives them. But that's not even part of the system I'm proposing insofar as we've been discussing.) The characters ACTIONS - what the player-as-actor does - remain solely the province of the player (again, insofar as the character is capable of taking those actions; he can't sprout wings and fly if the game rules don't allow it). It is only the directorship that is placed in the hands of this system. "You're experiencing these urges and drives and desires to these various degrees." It remains solely the player's choice how the character acts in response to them. The system only applies emotional consequences based on the sated or thwarted yearnings involved.

There's no real difference between "this is what your character feels" and "this is what your character does".

(Honestly, I cut a lot out because it amounted to you blowing off my objections as "unproven"... by then stating your unproven objections to my objections.)

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-05, 01:06 PM

I try my best not to use pejorative terms or language towards people, especially for things as silly as different preferences in their elf-games.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to per-empt anything I thought you might say along those lines -- but rather potential comments from other parties, given how often I've seen those comments in the past.

BRC

2017-01-05, 01:23 PM

Well, it's introducing a new subsystem with its own things to reward and punish. The reason "morale points" interact with the rest of the game's rolls is because it's the best way I have to "tack on" a subsystem that has meaningful interaction with the existing system.

I would hesitate to have constant, blanket morale bonuses and penalties. I do kind-of have the latter, but only if you've done the hit point equivalent of falling into "dying" hp levels. That is, you've gone into negative morale points. Which should be at least as hard as going into negative hp.

Personally, I'm starting to like the idea, but I think it's too complex to work as a subsystem on top of a standard dungeon-crawly hack-and-slash game.

Instead, It probably fits best in some sort of courtly intrigue/ drama system, where temptations, ambitions, and agendas ARE the bread and butter of the content. It's a system that I think can work well, but only if all the players have already bought into it. If they sign up for the mechanics telling them that their character wants something in the same way other players sign up for the mechanics telling them when their character gets stabbed.

Allow me to propose something

The system is a courtly intrigue system. PC's take the form of persons of considerable influence, ability, and resources, trying to push their agendas and achieve their goals, mostly by convincing other people to do things.

In this system, Morale stands in for hit points and ambition. To be at zero Morale is to mean your character is miserable, wondering if their goals are worth their struggles, and unable to expend additional resources or start new endeavors until they recover.

To be at, say, -10 Morale means that your character has given up their Ambitions, deeming them not worth the sacrifices they must make to achieve them. The character retires from the game. Depending on what made them lose their morale, the result could be them retiring to a quiet post in the countryside, blowing their fortune in an excess of hedonistic debauchery, or stabbing their enemies to death in the town square and getting hauled off to prison.
While the character may stick around as an NPC, and could even be "Revived" by extraordinary events, they're basically out of the picture.

Your Max HP is calculated somehow. To be at Max Morale means that your character is enthusiastically confident about their current position in life.

Morale naturally recovers over time at a rate determined by a character's Lifestyle. Lifestyle could mean a luxurious house, a loving family, regularly exercising political power in their everyday duties, or even the regular adoration of the public. Your character is frequently reminded of their accomplishments and what they are fighting for. However, Lifestyle alone can only bring you up to, say, 1/3rd of your total max Morale.

Convictions are a unique form of lifestyle bonus that can independent of any external factors, but places severe limitations on the character's actions. For example, if your character is a Monk, your "Lifestyle" may consist mostly of work, prayer, eating simple vegetables grown in the monastery garden and sleeping on a hard cot in a plain 8x6 cell, but their Faith keeps them in high spirits, just as a wealthy merchant-prince who lives in an luxurious villa hosting elaborate parties is kept in high spirits by their lifestyle.

A Knight's "Lifestyle" might consist of wandering the countryside, sleeping by the road and defending the innocent from bandits, but their Conviction means that they get encouraged by the knowledge that they are bringing good into the world.

Every character, NPC and PC alike, has a set of Principles, which may overlap with their Convictions. Something like "Protect the Royal Family", "Gain wealth", "Help the common folk", "Oppose the Empire", ect.

a Principle is basically a general goal, something the character cares about and is working towards. A Conviction is a hard and fast rule the character follows.

"Live Life to the Fullest" is a Principle. "Never turn down a chance to have fun" would be a Conviction.

Somebody with Principle "Live Life to the Fullest" can still turn down any given chance to party without too much distress. At the same time, Principles are much harder to erode. A single break can erode a Conviction, but you don't really lose a Principle until a pattern of behavior or events leads you to decide you don't care about that thing anymore.

The Temptation/Choice system is a primary means by which both the PC's and NPC's interact with their "Enemies". However, a PC is ALWAYS free to refuse an offer, even if it would take them out of the game. An NPC, generally speaking, can only refuse an offer that would drop them below 0 morale if doing so violates one of their Principles. A Temptation (or whatever) is anytime the Character is offered something that they want.
Technically speaking, even being given something with no reason to refuse is still a "temptation", you just say Yes and accept the morale.

It's GM's discretion, but generally speaking, an NPC should only violate a Conviction if the net bonus of the temptation is GREATER than the score of that Conviction, even after the principle and their personal willpower has been applied.

For example, if the Pirate Queen was the PC, and the chase knight was the NPC, then the Queens 12 vs Knight's 10 would just result in the Knight losing -2 Morale. The Pirate Queen would need to get a score of 20 (Twice the Knight's Principle 10 (Chastity)) before the NPC knight would accept)

Two vital stats in this system are Willpower, and Ambition.

Willpower is used to reduce the penalties from refusing a Temptation. If the Temptation is abhorrent or disgusting, you get a Willpower bonus. If the Knight has willpower 2, plus Conviction (Chastity) 10, vs the pirate queen's seduction of 12, then they would take no penalty for refusing, and gain +2 morale for accepting (at the cost of eroding their Conviction).

Ambition is used to increase the morale Gained from an Offer that lines up with one of your principles. If the Bard has Principle (Live Life to the Fullest), and Ambition 4, then accepting the Pirate Queen's offer would net them 16 morale, while refusing would still only lose them 12.

I dunno, I'm just blathering here.

Edit: Additional musing on Conviction and Lifestyle

Maybe any Lifestyle morale recovery must be rooted in one of three things. Conviction, Principle, or Luxury.

Anybody can gain regain morale from a Luxurious lifestyle. Good food, fine clothes, a warm bed to sleep in, plenty of entertainments, ect. Simple creatures comforts. However, this is reliant on certain external factors. You need the money to keep flowing in to maintain such a lifestyle, and after a few in-game months, the Morale recovery rate drops unless you spend more to improve it once again.

If you live a life according to your Principles, you can regain Morale without spending a lot of money. A royal advisor with Principle (Serve the King) can live a simple life, but as they spend their days in service to their beloved monarch, their life becomes it's own reward. You don't necessarily play through each day where they advise the king on some matter, but the fact that they are doing so helps them recover Morale.
This goes away either if they compromise their principle, or lose whatever it is in their life that lets them fulfill it. If the Advisor lost their job, not only would they lose some morale for doing so, they would be unable to use this principle to recover it.

You can have a lifestyle that invokes multiple principles. If you have three principles: Love of Family, Love of King, and Love of Country, then an advisor who spends his days advising the king on what is best for the country, then goes home to his loving family, who can live a good life due to his salary as an Advisor, he can invoke all three Principles to recover Morale.

Convictions are basically Principles on steroids. If you invoke a Conviction to recover Morale, you can get quite a lot, but only if your lifestyle is actively defined by your Conviction.

For example, you can't invoke Conviction (Chastity), if you spend your downtime not having sex. But, the abovementioned Monk could invoke Conviction (Faith) to recover morale from their Aesthetic lifestyle. Or, a Knight with Conviction (Protect the Innocent) Could recover Morale if they spend their downtime protecting Pilgrims on the road.

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-05, 01:57 PM

Oh he does, but if you ask him why he will usually explain why he believes that.
Yes. And it usually involves more declaratives. Hence the continuation of the miscommunication.
(As far as I'm observing.)

I would like to talk about actual mechanics as well, perhaps mixed in or in parallel with the conversation about whether they can work. Anyone care to join me?

I'm willing to bring in Apocalypse World, and have already. I'll talk about a few things that may be both relevant and worthy of disection:

Playbooks
Apocalypse World classes are called Playbooks, and a lot of the time they will imply some basic things about what the character will be by taking the class.

Brainers creep people out. Their primary stat is Weird, and your Moves (special abilities) let you ask things like "What are your character's secret pains?" And "For what does your character crave forgiveness?" What KIND of creepy you are is up to you, but brainers are creepy. It's part of the class.

The Faceless is violent. Everything about that character barfs out violence and grotesquerie. Their moves give them armor whenever they're being super-aggro, allow them to establish permanent grudges, and give them a reliance upon/strength from a mask that they always wear. Specifics are up to you, but the general truth that The Faceless is a mask-wearing superviolent rage-spewer is always gonna be there.

I find that many games do similar, but few make what they're doing so clear as Apocalypse World does. Apocalypse World clearly tells you what thematic niche each class fills, though without outright saying it.
The Driver is your freeroaming, mad-max character.
The Angel is the post-apocalypse medic
The Hardholder is your Immortan Joe, your Governor, your Rick Grimes. All are equally well presented as Hardholders.

Etc etc.

You've alo got things like Hx, where you voluntarily give other characters influence over your own, and in so doing also bid for influence over them right back. You make them better able to help you... and better able to hinder you, too.

I can go into further detail as people have curiosity.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-05, 02:14 PM

To be clear, the rules are telling him what his character WANTS, which is essentially the same thing. It's inserting some rules between player and character.

Does... thinks... wants... it's the same thing qualitatively, the only difference would be of degree (of hijack).

However one should also keep in mind that real people are not always consistent either and characters sometimes making seemingly contradictory decisions isn't the end of the world, and sometimes making those contradictory decisions on behalf of the game isn't sacrificing consistency for it.

All the more reason to not simplify characters down to snippets and tags.

This also ties into part of why I dislike character classes -- they define the character by an oversimplification.

And it ties into something I've seen some system do, defining the character by some short quippy comment or phrase. Hell, Cook's Cypher System literally does this with it's odd "I'm a _____ _____ who _____!" thing, as do FATE's character aspects (apparently).

Talakeal

2017-01-05, 02:55 PM

Numbers I found were ~100 billion galaxies and ~100 billion neurons, with at least an order of magnitude more synapses.

I remember in my college physics class the professor said that the number of potential thoughts the human brain can formulate is roughly equivalent to the number of particles in the observable universe and is by far the most complex system we know of.

I can understand where you are comming from. But there is something that makes me think that this is not quite MaxKilljoys stance. He has also spoken quite adamently against Charm and Mind Control effects

At least as I see it there is an important difference between Charm etc. and stuff like social mechanics that dictate how your character feels towards other characters. Instances of the second kind do take away the authorship on your characters feelings because they model events that fall in the natural chain of causal relations regarding the feelings of your character. What your character feels when someone tries a seduction IS causaly related to the whole context of the seduction. But the decision on how the character actually feels should be completely on the player, following your position.
Rules in this context abstract the formation of the characters feelings but by doing so take away authorship.

With Charm/Mind Control the situation is different. While the effects are too described by rules, they are not an abstraction. They simply adjucate the effects from the definition of a Charm in game terms. And this is important: Charm/Mindcontrol is defined by being a violation of the natural chain of causal relations. That is what makes them supernatural. Being Charmed does not take away your authorship on your characters feelings. It prevents you from controling your characters feelings because your character is under a system agnoistic condition the character from being in control. You can substitute "Charmed" or "Mind Controled" with "Dead" or "In Temporal Stasis" for the same effect.

Now, what those effects DO take away is control. And I think this loss of control is what concerns MaxKilljoy far more then a loss of authorship.

Yeah, I agree, mind control muddies the issue because it is explicitly a supernatural element that overrides the normal system. I don't have a problem with it, but I don't think it should be discussed alongside mundane character motivation systems.

Which is not to say that GM's can't use mind control to be jerks. I remember reading a post on the Vampire forum long ago that boiled down to "I ban the Iron Will merit because if the PCs are immune to their elder's mind control powers how will I ever force them to go along with the plot?" Which is to this day one of the most cringe-worthy gaming styles I have ever heard of.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-05, 03:11 PM

Yeah, I agree, mind control muddies the issue because it is explicitly a supernatural element that overrides the normal system. I don't have a problem with it, but I don't think it should be discussed alongside mundane character motivation systems.

Which is not to say that GM's can't use mind control to be jerks. I remember reading a post on the Vampire forum long ago that boiled down to "I ban the Iron Will merit because if the PCs are immune to their elder's mind control powers how will I ever force them to go along with the plot?" Which is to this day one of the most cringe-worthy gaming styles I have ever heard of.

Dominate is a prime example of WW's mediocre skill at constructing "powers". Pass-fail mental manipulation, with no active resistance, that BEGS players to take a Merit that utterly negates it. That Discipline is actually a contributing factor in my dislike of mind control abilities and character hijacking.

Segev

2017-01-05, 03:25 PM

"Likeability" != "charm".

I've lost count of the number of individuals that I'm told are "charming"... that make my skin crawl. And the reported "charmingness" and skin-crawliness for those individuals is fairly proportional. Then those people are not, in fact, charming, as a general rule. Unless you find people that others really like to be skin-crawly as a general rule, in which case...you're weird. I don't mean that perjoratively, just objectively. If nearly everybody that other people like makes your skin crawl, you are by definition an unusual person.

If, however, they're saying that that person is charming, but they do not find him likable...I question what they mean by "charming."

As I write this, I realize we're quibbling over a definition. I reject your argument based on saying "charm is overrated" because the way you use "charm" has nothing to do with the system I'm proposing.

Any difference between "this is what your character feels" and "this is what your character does" is a matter of degrees, and not at all qualitative. Uh...what?

That's so patently false that I feel like trying to demonstrate why is like trying to demonstrate why "liquids are solid" is false.

Um. So. Are you telling me, honestly and with a straight face, that you've never, once in your life, felt like yelling at somebody but restrained yourself? You've never, not once in your life, felt hungry but chosen not to eat because you didn't like the food options or were trying to wait for a later meal or dessert? You actively ARE NOT HUNGRY if you decide not to eat RIGHT NOW? You've never had a friend suggest going someplace or doing something that you thought sounded like fun, and you'd have liked to do it, but you had other obligations and chose them over going to do that thing? Instead, because you had other obligations, you didn't have even the slightest wistful thought that could be expressed as "I wish I could, but...?"

I mean... gah, Max. This... I am trying very hard to take you seriously here, but this sounds like no living human being I've ever even heard of.

What you're saying, here, if it is to be correlated meaningfully to an objection to the system I propose, is that you never feel temptation without giving in to it. Is that REALLY what you are claiming?

I mean, the counter-example is as easy as finding somebody on a diet and offering them their favorite dessert. They certainly will express interest and desire for the desert, even if they ultimately reject it because they're dieting and have the willpower and determination to stick to it. It sounds like you're claiming that no, if they don't take the dessert, they felt not a lick of desire to eat it. No temptation at all.

Please, understand that I am not trying to take you out of context, nor exaggerate your point to ridiculousness. What you said here truly sounds like this is literally, denotatively, what you are saying. If it isn't, I am utterly baffled as to what you ARE saying. So while this sounds ridiculous to me, it is because what you said makes truly this little sense to me.

I mean that you seem to regard this "make optimal choices" weight from the existing mechanics of most systems as a universal, objective extant thing -- when other players keep telling you that their experience is different, and that it's not universal and not objective. It...is. The mechanics have an objective, universal impact. You can calculate it objectively. To use Armus's taco example, you can precisely calculate the odds of the flatulence appearing, combine that with the impact that has on his speech roll, and calculate from there a combined impact on the probability that he will roll well enough to get the Ministry (assuming the speech is the final decider and all other factors are known, for simplicity's sake).

In the case of giving away the gold found in a traveler's pack because he asked you to, rather than keeping it for yourself, there is an objective number of gold pieces you do not have that you otherwise would have.

Now, you can claim that some players will value the objective benefits or losses in the mechanics more or less than others. That's fine and probably true, since players are people and people are different. But so, too, will different players value the objectively assigned weights of the morale bonuses and costs. The goal is to try to balance the two so that at least the objective weights of the mechanical numbers accurately represent the magnitude of the choices before the character.

Therefore, you are trying to "balance" this weight by adding another set of mechanical weights as a counterbalance -- but in doing so, you are:

1) Potentially unbalancing the scales for any player who doesn't experience that same subjective weight from the extant rules. Why? If they don't experience the subjective weight as important, why would they experience it suddenly as being important with the addition of another objective weight?

2) Simply adding another set of factors to be minmaxed by those who do feel that weight and consider the weights their primary driver. Irrelevant. Should they do so, the result will still come closer to being a character who actually has human-like motives and drives. Or at least they will come right out and define their character to be the ultra-driven determinator they'll play him as, in which case this comes out as a wash and isn't a problem anyway.

3) Providing a new opening for those who ignore the +/- from your new rules to be accused of "bad RP" or "murderhoboism".Quite the opposite. The fact that they take the consequences of their choices means that they're not meta-gaming for the purpose of winning the game. That's like saying that somebody who still chooses to eat broccoli even if it becomes magically universally unhealthy is MORE open to being called a "health nut" than they were before.

3) Trespassing on ground that belongs entirely and solely to the player. You keep saying that, but you have yet to demonstrate it as more than your own opinion, nor to even address my rebuttal.

The cure is worse than the sickness. Given that your points for why it's bad have all been rebutted, I disagree.

Those choices are typically nothing but bad if you consider them objectively anyway.

The real world doesn't actively reward or compensate people for making these sorts of bad decisions... I see no reason why game mechanics should either.

(And before we go back around this one again, no, I don't consider the "feels" from making these choices anything of a real reward or compensation.) Okay. Then why do people in real life make those choices? They get no compensation for them. They'd be happier if they made the wiser choices. What on earth possesses them to make unwise choices?

Since you reject "feels," clearly they are not motivated by them. What motivates these people to make "bad choices" rather than the objectively good long-term ones, if there is absolutely, positively nothing they gain from making the bad choices, on any level, but the good choices would come with positives that everybody agrees would be the results?

What motivates people to make bad decisions if what you say is true?

In a world where rules of hospitality are part of objective reality and have consequences enforced by the universe, yes, it was a mistake. So... why did she do it?

Whereas other people sense the potential regrets and risks far more strongly than they sense the immediate "rewards". Okay. Your point being? This doesn't exactly argue against what I've proposed. Maybe, taken in context, it could be stretched to. But... no, sorry, this still comes into the "so choose to take the morale hit for now and get the long-term benefit" territory.

Maybe for you. For others, they just get in the way. Okay? Different systems for different people. But you've been vehemently arguing as if I'm flatly wrong for even wanting such a system, and that NOBODY in their right mind could POSSIBLE agree with me, because such a system is inherently bad and nonrepresentative of any real human behaviors.

I'm going to hazard a guess that your decision-making process is different from those other players, and so for you these perceived "incentives" loom far larger, to the point of appearing as objective weights against a decision-making scale. Um. "Having something I can enjoy as part of playing the game going forward" is, in fact, an objective weight. I...don't see how that's arguable. Now, you can say "other players might not care as much about that," but that doesn't change that the weight is there. Just how much they care about it. If they don't care about the long-term weight, why should they care about a short-term one that'll be gone much sooner? Especially if, as you say, there's no reward for bad decisions, and the closest you've come to acknowledging that I see short-term rewards for them is to deny that "feels" count as rewards.

There's no real difference between "this is what your character feels" and "this is what your character does". Factually false. See my first incredulous few paragraphs to you in this post.

People feel desire to do things they ultimately decide not to all the time. It probably is because the desire to do it is outweighed by a mutually exclusive, stronger desire, but the desire is still there. "Self control" - making short-term decisions with long-term in mind - means valuing the long-term consequences and desires over the short-term ones even when the short-term ones are, temporarily, more powerful.

(Honestly, I cut a lot out because it amounted to you blowing off my objections as "unproven"... by then stating your unproven objections to my objections.)You also cut out the majority of my analysis of why the director telling you how you feel moment to moment has no actual hard control over what you DO about how you feel.

Personally, I'm starting to like the idea, but I think it's too complex to work as a subsystem on top of a standard dungeon-crawly hack-and-slash game.

Instead, It probably fits best in some sort of courtly intrigue/ drama system, where temptations, ambitions, and agendas ARE the bread and butter of the content. It's a system that I think can work well, but only if all the players have already bought into it. If they sign up for the mechanics telling them that their character wants something in the same way other players sign up for the mechanics telling them when their character gets stabbed.

Allow me to propose something

The system is a courtly intrigue system. PC's take the form of persons of considerable influence, ability, and resources, trying to push their agendas and achieve their goals, mostly by convincing other people to do things.

In this system, Morale stands in for hit points and ambition. To be at zero Morale is to mean your character is miserable, wondering if their goals are worth their struggles, and unable to expend additional resources or start new endeavors until they recover.

To be at, say, -10 Morale means that your character has given up their Ambitions, deeming them not worth the sacrifices they must make to achieve them. The character retires from the game. Depending on what made them lose their morale, the result could be them retiring to a quiet post in the countryside, blowing their fortune in an excess of hedonistic debauchery, or stabbing their enemies to death in the town square and getting hauled off to prison.
While the character may stick around as an NPC, and could even be "Revived" by extraordinary events, they're basically out of the picture.

Your Max HP is calculated somehow. To be at Max Morale means that your character is enthusiastically confident about their current position in life.

Morale naturally recovers over time at a rate determined by a character's Lifestyle. Lifestyle could mean a luxurious house, a loving family, regularly exercising political power in their everyday duties, or even the regular adoration of the public. Your character is frequently reminded of their accomplishments and what they are fighting for. However, Lifestyle alone can only bring you up to, say, 1/3rd of your total max Morale.

Convictions are a unique form of lifestyle bonus that can independent of any external factors, but places severe limitations on the character's actions. For example, if your character is a Monk, your "Lifestyle" may consist mostly of work, prayer, eating simple vegetables grown in the monastery garden and sleeping on a hard cot in a plain 8x6 cell, but their Faith keeps them in high spirits, just as a wealthy merchant-prince who lives in an luxurious villa hosting elaborate parties is kept in high spirits by their lifestyle.

A Knight's "Lifestyle" might consist of wandering the countryside, sleeping by the road and defending the innocent from bandits, but their Conviction means that they get encouraged by the knowledge that they are bringing good into the world.

Every character, NPC and PC alike, has a set of Principles, which may overlap with their Convictions. Something like "Protect the Royal Family", "Gain wealth", "Help the common folk", "Oppose the Empire", ect.

a Principle is basically a general goal, something the character cares about and is working towards. A Conviction is a hard and fast rule the character follows.

"Live Life to the Fullest" is a Principle. "Never turn down a chance to have fun" would be a Conviction.

Somebody with Principle "Live Life to the Fullest" can still turn down any given chance to party without too much distress. At the same time, Principles are much harder to erode. A single break can erode a Conviction, but you don't really lose a Principle until a pattern of behavior or events leads you to decide you don't care about that thing anymore.

The Temptation/Choice system is a primary means by which both the PC's and NPC's interact with their "Enemies". However, a PC is ALWAYS free to refuse an offer, even if it would take them out of the game. An NPC, generally speaking, can only refuse an offer that would drop them below 0 morale if doing so violates one of their Principles. A Temptation (or whatever) is anytime the Character is offered something that they want.
Technically speaking, even being given something with no reason to refuse is still a "temptation", you just say Yes and accept the morale.

It's GM's discretion, but generally speaking, an NPC should only violate a Conviction if the net bonus of the temptation is GREATER than the score of that Conviction, even after the principle and their personal willpower has been applied.

For example, if the Pirate Queen was the PC, and the chase knight was the NPC, then the Queens 12 vs Knight's 10 would just result in the Knight losing -2 Morale. The Pirate Queen would need to get a score of 20 (Twice the Knight's Principle 10 (Chastity)) before the NPC knight would accept)

Two vital stats in this system are Willpower, and Ambition.

Willpower is used to reduce the penalties from refusing a Temptation. If the Temptation is abhorrent or disgusting, you get a Willpower bonus. If the Knight has willpower 2, plus Conviction (Chastity) 10, vs the pirate queen's seduction of 12, then they would take no penalty for refusing, and gain +2 morale for accepting (at the cost of eroding their Conviction).

Ambition is used to increase the morale Gained from an Offer that lines up with one of your principles. If the Bard has Principle (Live Life to the Fullest), and Ambition 4, then accepting the Pirate Queen's offer would net them 16 morale, while refusing would still only lose them 12.

I dunno, I'm just blathering here.

Edit: Additional musing on Conviction and Lifestyle

Maybe any Lifestyle morale recovery must be rooted in one of three things. Conviction, Principle, or Luxury.

Anybody can gain regain morale from a Luxurious lifestyle. Good food, fine clothes, a warm bed to sleep in, plenty of entertainments, ect. Simple creatures comforts. However, this is reliant on certain external factors. You need the money to keep flowing in to maintain such a lifestyle, and after a few in-game months, the Morale recovery rate drops unless you spend more to improve it once again.

If you live a life according to your Principles, you can regain Morale without spending a lot of money. A royal advisor with Principle (Serve the King) can live a simple life, but as they spend their days in service to their beloved monarch, their life becomes it's own reward. You don't necessarily play through each day where they advise the king on some matter, but the fact that they are doing so helps them recover Morale.
This goes away either if they compromise their principle, or lose whatever it is in their life that lets them fulfill it. If the Advisor lost their job, not only would they lose some morale for doing so, they would be unable to use this principle to recover it.

You can have a lifestyle that invokes multiple principles. If you have three principles: Love of Family, Love of King, and Love of Country, then an advisor who spends his days advising the king on what is best for the country, then goes home to his loving family, who can live a good life due to his salary as an Advisor, he can invoke all three Principles to recover Morale.

Convictions are basically Principles on steroids. If you invoke a Conviction to recover Morale, you can get quite a lot, but only if your lifestyle is actively defined by your Conviction.

For example, you can't invoke Conviction (Chastity), if you spend your downtime not having sex. But, the abovementioned Monk could invoke Conviction (Faith) to recover morale from their Aesthetic lifestyle. Or, a Knight with Conviction (Protect the Innocent) Could recover Morale if they spend their downtime protecting Pilgrims on the road.

It's an interesting start. I agree that it's a difficult thing to layer on an existing D&D system. I used that because it's a common baseline. Better systems to try to layer it onto (or modify existing subsystems of along these lines) would be L5R or Exalted or Scion or various other White Wolf products with heavy social components.

BRC

2017-01-05, 03:35 PM

Does... thinks... wants... it's the same thing qualitatively, the only difference would be of degree (of hijack).

I guess technically, in that both are getting inside your character's head, but the degree of difference is massive.

It's the difference between the GM saying "A plate of freshly baked cookies is sitting on the counter" "Your stomach rumbles at the delicious smell of freshly baked cookies" and "You proceed to voraciously devour the plate of cookies". Most people here seem to find the second acceptable, you do not. I think it's a pretty massive gap.

All the more reason to not simplify characters down to snippets and tags.

This also ties into part of why I dislike character classes -- they define the character by an oversimplification.

And it ties into something I've seen some system do, defining the character by some short quippy comment or phrase. Hell, Cook's Cypher System literally does this with it's odd "I'm a _____ _____ who _____!" thing, as do FATE's character aspects (apparently).

That seems to come down to preference.
This is coming to the "Different Definitions of Narrativism" from the other thread, but games like FATE are often trying to simulate a given type of story. The characters in such games are supposed to represent...well, Characters more than simulated people.

And just as fictional Characters can be summed up in a handful of clever phrases, those games use the same shorthand.

Like, I know that my private detective spend twenty years on the police force dodging corruption and scandal before being unceremoniously fired to clear up a spot so the Mayor's nephew could be promoted to Detective. I know that this has colored his outlook on justice, politics, and society. But, 90% of the time the relevant thing is that I'm a grumpy, cynical detective, which is what's written on my character sheet.

jayem

2017-01-05, 03:38 PM

Numbers I found were ~100 billion galaxies and ~100 billion neurons, with at least an order of magnitude more synapses.
They found (reason to expect) a whole pile more (of small galaxies) last year. Though even before then it was ~200 billion.
However a galaxy is pretty boring (in terms of long distant interactions). Whereas neurons (as you point out) aren't. Even if they were binary on-off switches (which they aren't) and everyone had the same configuration (again which they don't) that's a heck of a lot of possible states (though how many are actually meaningful, and how many are functionally identical is obv a lot harder).

Interestingly enough in a (computing or shallow) neural net explicitly, there will literally be something like +4's coming at you from one angle and -5's coming at you from another and them being compared and firing (the action) if the + outweigh the -. That's also true for any part of the (bigger) brain locally, but they then get combined scaled, combined, inverted, scaled and combined and used for further signals (pace the emergent properties), and then with feedback and hormones and drugs blocking the synapses, etc...
But does suggest +4baddie, +2food, + ... actually isn't as unrealistic a set of inputs for the player as might be thought, effectively with the GM replacing through to the visual cortex, etc... and then leaving the player to do the bit from there to whatever triggers action, and then the GM to do that bit.

On the charm thing, clearly it is working on the others. Whether that implies special immunity on your part, or that they aren't focusing on you so you see the strings, or what...

Regarding BRC's comment. Would expect them[social&emotional rules] to come into their own the more intrigue [social&emotional interactions], etc... become important, and less so the simpler encounters become.
So as you approach the extremes of Nethack it's purely overhead with no purpose, as you approach the extremes of FilmDirector likewise. It is kicking in before the full intrigues though*, it's notable that part of the problems on Talekeal's money thread are that there are no time pressures or social/impulse pressures but there are financial pressures. "As far as the setting; it has heavy themes of colonialism and inequity. Wealth, technology, power, and responsibility are all inexorably linked. Not having any wealth system or reward for being rich hurts the themes of the setting. Having everyone playing "hobos with shotguns" and scrimping for every penny they can find also hurts the themes of the setting.".

*and even then you can have different games to allow both flavours respectively. Arthur&Lancelot forever against Mordred, or Arthur against Lancelot are totally different games but both interesting stories. Mission Impossible spy stories or stories like that of Vananu or Lonetree.

Talakeal

2017-01-05, 03:58 PM

Stuff.

About Seduction:

RPGs don't really model attraction very well. Someone might be charismatic, and they might have skills to make themselves appear to be someone they aren't, but ultimately who they are is far more important.

For example, if you were trying to model me in an RPG, I am most attracted to moody outsiders, people who I would rate with a low charisma score. To use the first analogy that pops into my head, in the second Addam's Family movie Wednesday and Pugsley are sent off to a summer camp where all of the other children are popular, pleasant, perky, and traditionally attractive. I would give the other girls at camp much higher charisma scores, but if thirteen year old Talakeal was at that camp I would be ignoring all of those girls in favor of Wednesday because she was my type.

If I create a character in an RPG I am usually going to have their general preferances figured out before coming to the table. If I don't, I will get a feel for them natural over time simply by spending time in character. If I have dice telling me what I am feeling this is actively going to contradict how I actually feel when I am in character, and it is going to make for a game that is a lot less fun and immersive if I keep having to tell myself that I hate the NPCs I love and love the NPCs I hate.

About Force:

True, your system doesn't actually force people, but it certainly coerces them.

Also, if the system doesn't model actual happiness it is a disassociated mechanic as people are getting morale penalties for no reason. If it does penalize unhappiness, well, isn't that just kicking people when they are down?

What Max really wants, from what I can see, is the illusion of *being* his character.

Rules that tell him what his character thinks or does take him out of that mode pretty abruptly.

Pretty much the same for me as well.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-05, 04:04 PM

Then those people are not, in fact, charming, as a general rule. Unless you find people that others really like to be skin-crawly as a general rule, in which case...you're weird. I don't mean that perjoratively, just objectively. If nearly everybody that other people like makes your skin crawl, you are by definition an unusual person.

If, however, they're saying that that person is charming, but they do not find him likable...I question what they mean by "charming."

As I write this, I realize we're quibbling over a definition. I reject your argument based on saying "charm is overrated" because the way you use "charm" has nothing to do with the system I'm proposing.

Your statement said or implied that person being charming is the same as a person being likeable.

My experience is that someone does not have to be charming to be likeable, and that being "charming" doesn't by any stretch automatically make a person likeable.

Uh...what?

That's so patently false that I feel like trying to demonstrate why is like trying to demonstrate why "liquids are solid" is false.

Um. So. Are you telling me, honestly and with a straight face, that you've never, once in your life, felt like yelling at somebody but restrained yourself? You've never, not once in your life, felt hungry but chosen not to eat because you didn't like the food options or were trying to wait for a later meal or dessert? You actively ARE NOT HUNGRY if you decide not to eat RIGHT NOW? You've never had a friend suggest going someplace or doing something that you thought sounded like fun, and you'd have liked to do it, but you had other obligations and chose them over going to do that thing? Instead, because you had other obligations, you didn't have even the slightest wistful thought that could be expressed as "I wish I could, but...?"

I mean... gah, Max. This... I am trying very hard to take you seriously here, but this sounds like no living human being I've ever even heard of.

What you're saying, here, if it is to be correlated meaningfully to an objection to the system I propose, is that you never feel temptation without giving in to it. Is that REALLY what you are claiming?

I mean, the counter-example is as easy as finding somebody on a diet and offering them their favorite dessert. They certainly will express interest and desire for the desert, even if they ultimately reject it because they're dieting and have the willpower and determination to stick to it. It sounds like you're claiming that no, if they don't take the dessert, they felt not a lick of desire to eat it. No temptation at all.

Please, understand that I am not trying to take you out of context, nor exaggerate your point to ridiculousness. What you said here truly sounds like this is literally, denotatively, what you are saying. If it isn't, I am utterly baffled as to what you ARE saying. So while this sounds ridiculous to me, it is because what you said makes truly this little sense to me.

I did not say that there was no difference between "wanting" and "doing".

I said that there is no difference between telling a player "this is what your character wants" and telling a player "this is what your character does".

Both are versions of "we know more about your character than you do, and we know more about how to play your character than you do". Both are effectively attempts to hijack the character as a character.

It...is. The mechanics have an objective, universal impact. You can calculate it objectively. To use Armus's taco example, you can precisely calculate the odds of the flatulence appearing, combine that with the impact that has on his speech roll, and calculate from there a combined impact on the probability that he will roll well enough to get the Ministry (assuming the speech is the final decider and all other factors are known, for simplicity's sake).

The numerical effect is objective.

The weight -- which is what you've been talking about -- is subjective.

Maybe looking at the objective numbers themselves and the subjective weight that different players experience from or attach to those numbers (including no weight at all, for some) as one and the same... is part of why you're not getting how potentially unfun this sort of thing is for some players.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-05, 04:19 PM

About Seduction:

RPGs don't really model attraction very well. Someone might be charismatic, and they might have skills to make themselves appear to be someone they aren't, but ultimately who they are is far more important.

For example, if you were trying to model me in an RPG, I am most attracted to moody outsiders, people who I would rate with a low charisma score. To use the first analogy that pops into my head, in the second Addam's Family movie Wednesday and Pugsley are sent off to a summer camp where all of the other children are popular, pleasant, perky, and traditionally attractive. I would give the other girls at camp much higher charisma scores, but if thirteen year old Talakeal was at that camp I would be ignoring all of those girls in favor of Wednesday because she was my type.

If I create a character in an RPG I am usually going to have their general preferances figured out before coming to the table. If I don't, I will get a feel for them natural over time simply by spending time in character. If I have dice telling me what I am feeling this is actively going to contradict how I actually feel when I am in character, and it is going to make for a game that is a lot less fun and immersive if I keep having to tell myself that I hate the NPCs I love and love the NPCs I hate.

To expand on this...

The idea of "the sexy pirate queen" or whatever, being able to seduce anyone who is "into women", presumes that there's ONE "scale of sexy" against which all characters can be rated, and that a character can be the sexiness version of "universal solvent".

BRC

2017-01-05, 04:21 PM

I did not say that there was no difference between "wanting" and "doing".

I said that there is no difference between telling a player "this is what your character wants" and telling a player "this is what your character does".

Both are versions of "we know more about your character than you do, and we know more about how to play your character than you do". Both are effectively attempts to hijack the character as a character.

I think I know where you're coming from here. You want to be the sole occupant of your character's head, the sole arbiter of how your character responds to outside stimuli, even unconsciously.

Your way of phrasing it is a little odd, and is I think what's confusing people.

It's not that there's no difference between "This is what your character wants" and "this is what your character does", it's that, as far as you're concerned, both are an unacceptable violation of your agency as the Player. Other people are reading that as "There is no practical difference between the desire to do something and actually doing it.

that said, I have some questions, how do you consider the following scenarios, concerning whether or not you find them acceptable, or if they're a violation along the lines of "Your character wants to sleep with the pirate queen":

1) The Dragon Roars, your character fails their check against fear. The Game's mechanics now tell you that your character is afraid of the Dragon.

2) The Dragon Roars, you make your save against fear. The GM says that , for a moment, you are frozen in place, terrified, but you shake it off and steady yourself once again. The GM has just told you how your character responded to the Roar.

3) The Dragon roars, there is no mechanical effect, but the GM describes the sounds as "Terrifying", and "Gripping your hearts with fear". Whether or not it affects your actions, the GM has just told you that your character is afraid of the Dragon.

4) You make an Insight check against an NPC. The GM says "They seem likable and trustworthy. You are convinced that, if they are lying, they are not doing so intentionally." You used a mechanic to simulate your character making a conclusion, and the GM has told you what your character concluded, complete with a value judgement.

5) You make an Insight check against an NPC, Rather then describing the NPC averting their eyes during key statements, fidgeting, or pausing to think before describing some over-elaborate detail, the GM simply says "You can tell that they are lying". The GM has told you your character's conclusion, rather than letting you work out the conclusion for yourself from the evidence your character noted.

6) The GM, while setting the scene, describes the "Delicious smell of freshly baked bread wafting from the Kitchen". The GM has just informed you that your character finds the scent of freshly baked bread (and this bread in particular) Delicious.

7) Similar to above. While setting the scene, the GM describes "A gorgeous painting of a knight riding through a snowy mountain pass". The GM has just told you that your character found this particular painting to be aesthetically pleasing.

8) You make a Knowledge History check about a historical figure. The GM replies "He was a cruel and evil King, who conscripted the peasants into his army and forced the nobility to finance his conquests by holding their families hostage in his palace". The GM has described some objective facts (Conscripted peasants, held noble families hostage), but prefaced it with your character's conclusion (A Cruel and Evil king)

kyoryu

2017-01-05, 04:25 PM

For example, if you were trying to model me in an RPG, I am most attracted to moody outsiders, people who I would rate with a low charisma score. To use the first analogy that pops into my head, in the second Addam's Family movie Wednesday and Pugsley are sent off to a summer camp where all of the other children are popular, pleasant, perky, and traditionally attractive. I would give the other girls at camp much higher charisma scores, but if thirteen year old Talakeal was at that camp I would be ignoring all of those girls in favor of Wednesday because she was my type.

What's interesting here, to me, is how you're picturing seduction - in this case, the person that would be theoretically "seducing" you is seen as utterly passive. You're talking about your desire to pursue them, *not* the likely results if they made an effort to seduce *you*.

Now, for social skills like that, I'd also typically put in the "it has to be logical" clause first - which also means that you have to be in a position to be receiving the "seduction", which I don't assume to be an instantaneous thing, either. It's a pacing thing, really - you don't go from "hate" to "love" immediately, regardless of how well you roll. There's a process. So if you had an active dislike for someone, I'd probably require a series of acts over time... first to get you to neutral, then friendly, and then finally seduction.

That seems to come down to preference.
This is coming to the "Different Definitions of Narrativism" from the other thread, but games like FATE are often trying to simulate a given type of story. The characters in such games are supposed to represent...well, Characters more than simulated people.

And just as fictional Characters can be summed up in a handful of clever phrases, those games use the same shorthand.

Uh, I don't think that's accurate. Part of the difference is that Fate is what I call a "reflective" system. In other words, what's written on the character sheet is assumed to be a fraction of the entirety of the character. So your aspects don't really "sum up" your character. They remind you of certain key elements, and attach game widgets to them.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to per-empt anything I thought you might say along those lines -- but rather potential comments from other parties, given how often I've seen those comments in the past.

No worries. Your reaction here is probably similar to my reaction when people say things about narrative systems.

kyoryu

2017-01-05, 04:26 PM

To expand on this...

The idea of "the sexy pirate queen" or whatever, being able to seduce anyone who is "into women", presumes that there's ONE "scale of sexy" against which all characters can be rated, and that a character can be the sexiness version of "universal solvent".

You're also assuming here that seduction is primarily a passive thing, and that there aren't skills/techniques involved.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-05, 04:48 PM

You're also assuming here that seduction is primarily a passive thing, and that there aren't skills/techniques involved.

That's not what I intended to say or imply.

Expand my statement to included "or presumes active actions that act as a universal solvent".

Talakeal

2017-01-05, 04:49 PM

What's interesting here, to me, is how you're picturing seduction - in this case, the person that would be theoretically "seducing" you is seen as utterly passive. You're talking about your desire to pursue them, *not* the likely results if they made an effort to seduce *you*.

Now, for social skills like that, I'd also typically put in the "it has to be logical" clause first - which also means that you have to be in a position to be receiving the "seduction", which I don't assume to be an instantaneous thing, either. It's a pacing thing, really - you don't go from "hate" to "love" immediately, regardless of how well you roll. There's a process. So if you had an active dislike for someone, I'd probably require a series of acts over time... first to get you to neutral, then friendly, and then finally seduction.
.

I am assuming that "attraction" is a mostly passive thing, not seduction. Active seduction is going to be a hell of a lot harder, perhaps even impossible, if there isn't an existing attraction to build off of.

Cluedrew

2017-01-05, 05:13 PM

This thread moves too far for me right now unfortunately.I feel you. You also said some good things about tastes and goals. I think that is an important point because there seems to be a lot of conflagrating of good/bad and like/dislike. Which is a really sticky thing to separate, but they are separate and we should not confuse the two.

Now comes the unexpected bit, I think we should actually be focusing on like/dislike. Why? Because we are talking about a game we play for fun. Any objective value of a game is a moot point (except as an guess of how much people will like it) because we do not directly experience that.

This is actually my area of expertise, as I did my dissertation on spiking neural networks using the Izhikevich model.And I'm not even surprised. I was just waiting for someone to come out with way more background knowledge then necessary.

Any difference between "this is what your character feels" and "this is what your character does" is a matter of degrees, and not at all qualitative.No, its a quantitative difference. And the difference between the micro-meteors that burn up in the earth's atmosphere and the one that could destroy all life on it is the quantitative difference of mass. So just because they exist on the same scale does not mean the difference between them is insignificant. I mean if they are for you that's fine too, for me the turning point seems to be somewhere in feelings. Base reactions (fear, surprise) are fine, higher level things (like, enjoyment) I would like to decide (usually in both cases, it is not simple).

Which actually brings me to the point that I think you and I differ on this matter. For you adding mechanics move things from you deciding to the rules deciding. For me I find that adding mechanics move things from I decide at the time to I decide before hand.

Yes. And it usually involves more declaratives. Hence the continuation of the miscommunication.All logic boils down to that eventually.

I'm willing to bring in Apocalypse World, and have already. I'll talk about a few things that may be both relevant and worthy of dissectionI am know some of Apocalypse World (mostly by proxy of general Powered by the Apocalypse systems) and there are a couple of things I think it does well. You indirectly mentioned some of these.
It almost completely lacks overrides (the player still gets to decide).
It gets some by in because the mechanics are usually associated with playbooks. So you only use the ones you want.
They leave some wiggle room to make it map to your character better.
All of which actually give a lot more power to the player than it is generally assumed for personality mechanics. And I think that is might be the difference, they have never felt like they are impeding on my vision of the character, they always seem to step back when they need to.

About Seduction: RPGs don't really model attraction very well.Those are two different things. Although yes, most RPGs don't to very well at either.

6

Segev

2017-01-05, 05:20 PM

About Seduction:

RPGs don't really model attraction very well. Someone might be charismatic, and they might have skills to make themselves appear to be someone they aren't, but ultimately who they are is far more important.Eh... yes and no. Let's look at your example here:

For example, if you were trying to model me in an RPG, I am most attracted to moody outsiders, people who I would rate with a low charisma score. To use the first analogy that pops into my head, in the second Addam's Family movie Wednesday and Pugsley are sent off to a summer camp where all of the other children are popular, pleasant, perky, and traditionally attractive. I would give the other girls at camp much higher charisma scores, but if thirteen year old Talakeal was at that camp I would be ignoring all of those girls in favor of Wednesday because she was my type.First of all, your example is a little...counterproductive...because the way it's written, the "perky, 'charismatic'" girls are written to be dislikable, while Pugsley, Joel, and (especially) Wednesday are written to be relatable and even likable. It doesn't hurt that Christina Ricci is a good actress with a fairly strong charisma of her own.

Even ignoring that, however, you're assuming that all a socialite is doing is relying on appearance and passive "social role" to be winsome. This is far from the truth. No small part of the reason that Harmony (er, um, whatever the lead blond camper's name was) is not at all charming to the audience is that she is directed by script and director to play her "charm" as over-the-top insincere.

Were she to play it with some genuine desire to be friends with Wednesday, and tone back any judgmentalism to mere confusion rather than overt, insulting put-downs, she probably would be far more likable, in general.

The stereotypical reason people like quiet loners over the "supposedly charismatic" types are related to their own personality being somewhat timid or uncomfortable with the exuberant. Exuberance, despite what is often said, is not inherently charismatic. In fact, there are reasons Pinkie Pie is off-putting, even in canon, despite being supposedly very likable: her exuberance is very in your face and uncomfortable if you're not already swept up, willingly, in it.

I'm not trying to psychoanalyze you or anything, Talekeal, so if it sounds like I am, I apologize. But I wager that a truly charismatic person of the "blond popular girl" type could win you over if she was of a mind to. Not necessary seduce or anything, just approach you and make you comfortable talking with her. She wouldn't do it the same way she would with a boisterous, self-confident jock type who was actively seeking out the loudest and most exuberant cheerleader; she'd have some sense - instinctive or otherwise - for what makes you (un)comfortable and tailor her approach to be likable to you. Consciously or not. And no, this needn't be some sort of malicious manipulation, either. Putting people at ease is a skill and a talent, and like any skill or talent can be used for good or ill.

(If you are actively wanting to hate her, of course, she will have a much harder time winning you over. But at least for purposes of gaming, I would propose that having an insurmountable barrier to ever winning somebody over, no matter how good you are, is bad design. That doesn't mean that a given character can be not-good-enough to overcome a given barrier, of course.)

I think this goes also to Max_Killjoy's assertions about "charming" people. I think he's using the term to describe a set of behaviors that actually characterize (low skilled) manipulators trying to "be charming" and failing. If you don't find yourself at least liking the person while she's charming you, she isn't being charming. She's failing at it. By definition. You might have mixed feelings - you might not WANT to like them, but find them likable in that moment anyway - but if they're charming, you are charmed. If you're not charmed, they're not being charming. By definition.

If I create a character in an RPG I am usually going to have their general preferances figured out before coming to the table. If I don't, I will get a feel for them natural over time simply by spending time in character. If I have dice telling me what I am feeling this is actively going to contradict how I actually feel when I am in character, and it is going to make for a game that is a lot less fun and immersive if I keep having to tell myself that I hate the NPCs I love and love the NPCs I hate.Actually, the system I propose supports your stated style of play, here. Admittedly, if you're trying to build it in play, it might require the same sort of flexibility many GMs I've had offer when building new characters and discovering the build isn't working how you wanted: you may need to rework the build after the first session or two, when you know better how you want it to be. I don't see this as a problem.

Also, ideally, there'd be systematic ways to build and erode those traits you've assigned, so you can have character growth and change.

About Force:

True, your system doesn't actually force people, but it certainly coerces them.Sure. But so do the existing systems. The coercion is to play optimally. Take the gold rather than honorably return it to the traveler's family, for example.

Also, if the system doesn't model actual happiness it is a disassociated mechanic as people are getting morale penalties for no reason.It's designed to be associated, but it's flexible enough that, if the association doesn't satisfy, the player can refluff it. This is, honestly, true of any associated mechanic; it can become dissociated if the player(s) want to refluff the explanation because they don't like the canon one.

If it does penalize unhappiness, well, isn't that just kicking people when they are down?Actually, it's representing them BEING down.

Your statement said or implied that person being charming is the same as a person being likeable. It rather is pretty much the definition. I'm sure there are some nuances between the two words, but I don't think it's possible to be truly charming without being likable.

My experience is that someone does not have to be charming to be likeable, and that being "charming" doesn't by any stretch automatically make a person likeable. I think you're again seeing the term "charming" mis-used to identify people who are smarmy. Smarmy is not charming. Smarmy is trying (and usually failing) to be charming by laying on insincere or over-the-top "LIKE ME!" behaviors all too thickly. Sometimes can be charming if done in a sort of "crosses the line twice" manner, but it's rare.

"Charm" is not an easy thing to do if you don't already know how to do it. I would bet that most of those you've been told are "charming" that are setting your teeth on edge don't actually have those naming them as "charming" all that charmed, either. And are actually examples of people TRYING to be charming, or thinking they are.

It's hard to nail this down because I can't avoid using the terms to define the terms.

The difference between somebody who thinks he's charming and somebody who genuinely is is that the former comes off as uncomfortably over-the-top, while the latter makes people happy he's around.

I did not say that there was no difference between "wanting" and "doing".

I said that there is no difference between telling a player "this is what your character wants" and telling a player "this is what your character does". Of course there is. "Your character wants, to some degree, to give in and sleep with the Pirate Queen. He finds her offer tempting," is quite different from, "Your character agrees to sleep with the Pirate Queen, and the two of you go off into her bedroom." The former stops short of actually having your character violate his oath (unless you go on to say that he does so). The latter says he does so, without allowing for input from you (the player).

How can you not see that those are distinct?

Both are versions of "we know more about your character than you do, and we know more about how to play your character than you do". Both are effectively attempts to hijack the character as a character. It is, agreed, telling the player that the mechanics determined how strong an urge his character is feeling. How much he desires (or doesn't desire) a given choice. I see nothing inherently wrong with that. The converse argument would be that you, the player, are demanding to tell the character that you know more about how he feels than he does, even though he's feeling it and you, the player, aren't. It's equally silly, because the character IS NOT the player and what agent determines how the character feels is not sacrosanct, nor should it be.

It is NOT hijacking the character any more than telling the player that choosing to go with the pirate queen gets him a boat, and choosing not to means she'll call for her men to execute his friends. It's still the character's choice, whether the influences driving him to make one decision or another are emotional urges or physical extortion and bribes.

I agree that WHAT THE CHARACTER CHOOSES should be sacrosanct. The character is his player's game piece in the world. And the player is and should be the final arbiter of what choices the character makes. It is the player who decides whether the character chooses one heartache or another, or whether to take a pleasure or reject it, for whatever reasons the player feels the character would do so. But just as the player doesn't get to decide that rejecting the pirate queen means he gets the ship anyway, he doesn't get to decide that rejecting the pirate queen means he doesn't feel the pangs of regret at what could have been. Even if, overall, he's glad in the long run that he didn't do something he'd regret more, later.

The numerical effect is objective.

The weight -- which is what you've been talking about -- is subjective. Okay.

Maybe looking at the objective numbers themselves and the subjective weight that different players experience from or attach to those numbers (including no weight at all, for some) as one and the same... is part of why you're not getting how potentially unfun this sort of thing is for some players.What I'm not getting is why it's "potentially unfun" because of subjectively different weighting, but not "potentially fun" for the same reason. You're arguing that people have different weights they'll assign, which is plausible, but that this means that everybody (except me) will apparently find it unfun, because obviously everybody else will assign weights such that it is worse. Nobody (but me), according to you, will be the sort who would assign weights such that it's more fun.

Ultimately, you seem to be rejecting the notion that my position is valid or that people would share my frustration at having their character's "in character" choice driven by the character's emotions and desires be utterly unreflected by the mechanics, such that it's easy for the player to make the game-rewarded choice where it is theoretically, in character, a hard choice for the character. But the character making the alternate choice is HARD for the player, even though it'd be easy for the character in the moment. And the fact that I find this to be so is somehow totally wrong and not how anybody else, ever, would feel, so that's why this system is not just not for you, Max_Killjoy, but objectively bad for everybody ever.

At least, that's how your arguments seem to be. Is that not what you're arguing?

To expand on this...

The idea of "the sexy pirate queen" or whatever, being able to seduce anyone who is "into women", presumes that there's ONE "scale of sexy" against which all characters can be rated, and that a character can be the sexiness version of "universal solvent".Sort of. But there are also many different kinds of, say, physical strength, and they can be centered in different areas of the body, but we reduce it all down to one "strength" attribute in most systems that measure it. So on one front, this is an acceptable abstraction.

On another, there IS a very common "scale of sexy" that can be used as a baseline. If your character has a significantly different "scale of sexy," that can be represented in the personality traits you build for him when you design him, along with things like the fact that he's "into women." And that would automatically factor in when dealing with the "sexy pirate queen." If she doesn't fit THAT different scale, you get a bonus (or she a penalty) as she tries to use her sexiness. Meanwhile, when you run into a lady who more fits your character's "type," she gets bonuses related to your preference, essentially elevating her effective sexiness wrt your character.

Koo Rehtorb

2017-01-05, 06:43 PM

Cluedrew

2017-01-05, 10:31 PM

On Charming: I don't personal use the word charming very often, but I do know some people who really are "charming", two I can think of off the top of my head, who just manage to be friends with everyone they come across. And there is nothing skin crawly about it, in fact it didn't even occur to me at the time that they were. At the time I just thought that they were people I got along with. Then I realized they seemed to get along with absolutely everyone. I say then like it changed something, I still get along with them because... well if it is an act it is not one I could see through. "Get along with (almost) everyone" just seems to be part of who they are.

To Segev: I have actually been thinking about your system for a bit and I have a few things I would like to say about it. First off I think it might be a bit rules heavy, I have the same worries as Koo Rehtorb on the matter. But I haven't seen the finished system nor is rules heavy actually a bad thing, just make sure it is what you are going for.

The more important point is I think you might be mixing a bit too much into the morale modifiers. Particularly I think how you represent "restraint" might an issue. I am sick of the Pirate Queen example so lets say Jill is on a diet and is offered some cake. (Admittedly I'm not sure this interaction is dramatic enough to bother with in most systems, but I think it has the right elements.)

Now eating cake is +4 but Jill is on a diet so she might feel a bad if she eats it so it nocks it down to +1. Now lets say she then comes across a less tasty piece of cake, base +2, but -1 after modifiers. Should she really get a morale bonus for turning down a piece of cake she wouldn't want to eat (as much) anyways?

In short, I think I found a kink in the system you may want to look at.

0

Talakeal

2017-01-05, 11:39 PM

@Segev: Of course the movie portrays the protaganists in a more sympathetic light. I was merely using it as a scenario for how I would have felt if I were placed in such a situation in real life.

Now, in real life I am very single minded and obsessive, to the point where one of my friends, who was an actual drug junkie, said that he had never seen anyone so determined to get something as I get with girls. I have had a lot of very beautiful woman try and engage me (usually in strip club settings), but I seldom give them more than the cold shoulder or cursory politeness if I am not attracted to them to begin with.

So yeah, I suppose it is theoretically possible for a girl (or heck maybe even a guy...) to seduce me if I am not attracted to them, but such a thing seems so unlikely that it isn't really worth coding into the rules. It would be like saying that my fighter keels over from a heart attack in the middle of trying to attack an orc, theoretically possible but so unlikely (and unfun) that no game outside of FATAL is going to have rules for it.

jayem

2017-01-06, 04:04 AM

I don't consider character internals to be sacrosanct but I'm having a hard time seeing the utility of this proposed system. It seems like a lot of pointless irritating bookkeeping. You seem, and I do apologise if I'm wrong I haven't carefully read every post in this long ass thread, to be trying to simulate character internals, which doesn't seem particularly workable to me.

On one hand you run the risk of everything being too simplified. What are the rules for the Pirate Queen trying to seduce my gay man character? I would be annoyed if I was told that he's moved by her magnificent rack despite himself.

I would suggest cutting out any pretense of simulating a person entirely and just approach it from a narrative angle. "The Pirate Queen is trying to seduce you. If you decide that your character is attracted to the Pirate Queen and succumb to her wiles then take a Sparkle Point that you can use later to do whatever with."

The idea is closely tied into making different people different socially (just as weapon skills make people different weaponally).
So practically there is no way any game (where this was important) wouldn't have some adjustment for something like that. Otherwise there'd be no point. Probably you'd react the same way my male straight character would react to Prince Charming (which is probably simple to ignore, leaving it for the GM&me to create exceptions if it's been 12 months at sea with him protecting me from an angry crew or something), or exactly how my female straight character would. And again in that case the only way it would affect would be if you'd chosen it as your character.

Assuming it didn't, you'd have to speak to the GM. Perhaps if you might to explain how this lifelong commitment to vegetarianism didn't come up in the hamburger store, ... but is important now it might not be believed. Perhaps they can make an exception, perhaps you can refluff the rule and explain it's effect some other way

Koo Rehtorb

2017-01-06, 04:33 AM

The idea is closely tied into making different people different socially (just as weapon skills make people different weaponally).
So practically there is no way any game (where this was important) wouldn't have some adjustment for something like that. Otherwise there'd be no point. Probably you'd react the same way my male straight character would react to Prince Charming (which is probably simple to ignore, leaving it for the GM&me to create exceptions if it's been 12 months at sea with him protecting me from an angry crew or something), or exactly how my female straight character would. And again in that case the only way it would affect would be if you'd chosen it as your character.

Assuming it didn't, you'd have to speak to the GM. Perhaps if you might to explain how this lifelong commitment to vegetarianism didn't come up in the hamburger store, ... but is important now it might not be believed. Perhaps they can make an exception, perhaps you can refluff the rule and explain it's effect some other way

I agree this would be preferable to the first option. But again, it seems like this would rapidly be getting into the bloated and unwieldy territory. Sure, the gay man character can be declared to be unaffected by the Pirate Queen's wiles. But then everyone's clamoring for exceptions to everything and it devolves into arguing and players furiously pointing out their backstories.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-06, 07:42 AM

Segev

2017-01-06, 10:18 AM

In the interests of trying to make shorter posts, I will be trimming quotes. I hope I don't trim important bits. Apologies in advance if I do.

You seem, and I do apologise if I'm wrong I haven't carefully read every post in this long ass thread, to be trying to simulate character internals, which doesn't seem particularly workable to me.If by "simulate character internals" you mean "model their likes, dislikes, urges, and drives," then yes. And I think it reasonably workable.

On one hand you run the risk of everything being too simplified. What are the rules for the Pirate Queen trying to seduce my gay man character? I would be annoyed if I was told that he's moved by her magnificent rack despite himself.This was covered in prior posts, but probably lost in the wall of text. If your gay man (or straight woman, or any other "not my orientation, thanks") character is in this situation, the lack of compatible orientation would be a huge barrier. It either would be in the form of "being the right orientation" giving a bonus, or "not being the right orientation" giving a penalty.

Ultimately, if the Pirate Queen does well enough in the mechanical part of this encounter to make your gay man character still find himself with a morale offering for accepting and a morale loss for refusing, she's found some way to get to him. It might not be her "magnificent rack." It might be that she came off as so manly and awesome that he finds himself responding. Or maybe her commanding personality just overwhelms. Or maybe it's her fantastic fanny which she used to remind him of his last boyfriend (in a good way). Ideally, the system would be involved enough that it's more than a single roll, so her tactics might include learning what DOES appeal and plying those vectors of allure.

On the other hand there's the unwieldy approach. "You're in the Food Witch's lair. There's a marvelous Jamaican feast prepared to tempt you, foolish mortal." "My character vomits when he eats spicy food." "Aha! Turn to page 364, table 98, and consult the spicy food hater modifiers!"No need to be that pedantically specific; "I have 'can't stand spicey food' as a 4 point trait" would be sufficient. In essence, the traits' applicabilities are based on the narrative/scene-setting, but once the traits are determined, their numbers are all you need for the mechanical resolution.

I would suggest cutting out any pretense of simulating a person entirely and just approach it from a narrative angle. "The Pirate Queen is trying to seduce you. If you decide that your character is attracted to the Pirate Queen and succumb to her wiles then take a Sparkle Point that you can use later to do whatever with."That would be what exists in nearly every system already, with the added mechanic of, essentially, Fate or Hero or Bennie points, or whatever. We're back to bribing for "making an objectively bad decision" rather than running a game based on actually simulating the Pirate Queen's seductive prowess and your character's libido.

Remember, my goal isn't to reward people for allowing "narrative bad stuff" to happen, but to emulate those character drives for the player's benefit so that playing true to character is not ever at war with playing optimally in the game. If you're making the without-this-system optimal move anyway, this system applied costs to it commensurate to your in-character drives to make the without-this-system non-optimal move. If you make the without-this-system non-optimal move, the system provides a mechanical reward commensurate with the satisfaction your character feels for sating the short-term urges.

I have actually been thinking about your system for a bit and I have a few things I would like to say about it. First off I think it might be a bit rules heavy, I have the same worries as Koo Rehtorb on the matter. But I haven't seen the finished system nor is rules heavy actually a bad thing, just make sure it is what you are going for.I do tend towards rules heaviness, whether intentionally or not. A lot of this rules kruft is to get more nuance and precision. A lighter version of it would involve fewer rolls and more acceptance of broad strokes without nuance, which tends to be the trade-off in any system for rules lightness, in my experience.

The more important point is I think you might be mixing a bit too much into the morale modifiers. Particularly I think how you represent "restraint" might an issue. I am sick of the Pirate Queen example so lets say Jill is on a diet and is offered some cake.

Now eating cake is +4 but Jill is on a diet so she might feel a bad if she eats it so it nocks it down to +1. Now lets say she then comes across a less tasty piece of cake, base +2, but -1 after modifiers. Should she really get a morale bonus for turning down a piece of cake she wouldn't want to eat (as much) anyways?[/quote]The answer to this specific question gets back to the discussion I had on a prior page regarding "defensive" modifiers not giving morale points, but instead just reducing morale penalties to a minimum of 0.

Now what qualifies as a "defense" might be its own examination and spawn lengthy arguments, so this may not be perfect as a solution.

Personally, I would probably not model "being on a diet" as a personality trait. Personality traits, to me, are things which are part of the person's sense of self-identity, or things they have deep-seated desires or revulsions for. Jill, presuming she's gone on this diet recently, may really want to lose weight, but she clearly doesn't have "not a dessert-eater" as a deeply seated part of her identity. Maybe she's trying to build up a personality trait which would be a shift in her real habits; if so, her efforts to resist the cake would still come with the full -4 (or, for the lesser-quality cake, -2) morale cost right now, but would count towards helping her build that "eats a healthy diet" personality trait.

The motivation - losing weight - is its own reward down the line if she achieves it, whether she's trying to make a permanent shift in her personality to make it easier to maintain, or she's just resisting for now but plans to go off the diet after a while.

Now, in real life I am very single minded and obsessive, to the point where one of my friends, who was an actual drug junkie, said that he had never seen anyone so determined to get something as I get with girls. I have had a lot of very beautiful woman try and engage me (usually in strip club settings), but I seldom give them more than the cold shoulder or cursory politeness if I am not attracted to them to begin with.Note that the girls to whom you aren't initially attracted - particularly in a strip club - may not be putting forth much effort to seduce you, specifically. After all, they are looking for company or tips, and there are many other men around who are interested. Unless the girl is particularly or specifically interested in you, personally, she has little motivation to spend the social effort to figure out how to allure you, when she's got easier fish on the line.

Max_Killjoy is not wrong to scoff at the notion of a universally attractive anything, and at the concept of a universally seductive approach. A skilled performer or mass-social-influencer is going to play to the crowd. The most common sets of likes (or dislikes). In a strip club, the conventional beauties will be using conventional means to turn on the majority of the men who share those conventional tastes. She's looking to maximize the bonus she gets from "being the right type," so if you're the outlier with an unusual (for the room, at least) "type" that you prefer, she's not going to specifically try to turn you on, unless she has some reason to value your attention over that of the majority.

That doesn't mean a skilled socialite can't tune their approach to be successful with a given person. They just have to want to, and they won't use the same approach with, say, Talekeal, as they would with Joe Schmoe with the "traditional" tastes that Talekeal doesn't share.

Yeah, I've been in a "strip club" exactly once, for a friend's bachelor party, and it was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. For me, it rates a sizable negative on the, um, "getting interested" factor.I've never been to one; my morals preclude it. I imagine, for that reason, I'd be profoundly uncomfortable if I found myself in one for whatever reason, unless I'd first had those morals worn down and my personality and comfort zone with lasciviousness had...broadened.

So yeah, I suppose it is theoretically possible for a girl (or heck maybe even a guy...) to seduce me if I am not attracted to them, but such a thing seems so unlikely that it isn't really worth coding into the rules.The coding isn't done with any specialized, different mechanic, though. It's just rooted in your personality traits relating to what you do and don't like. Note, again, that the "gay seductor" is going to use different techniques and approaches to seduce the guy who is into quiet goth chicks than he is the flamboyant homosexual that likes flirty body-builders. And your incompatible orientation still provides him a massive barrier to overcome. So if he's "that good," it's not that he's turned you inherently gay; it's that he's found other buttons to press which affect you in spite of being turned off by guys.

And, of course, if your player is so discomfited by the notion of you-as-his-character in any way succumbing to homosexual seduction, he still can turn it down and pay the morale cost. Which is due to disappointment, in theory, but may also include a certain horror/disgust that said disappointment is present.

The idea is closely tied into making different people different socially (just as weapon skills make people different weaponally).

So practically there is no way any game (where this was important) wouldn't have some adjustment for something like that.
Exactly. The system as I'm envisioning it has a list of (hopefully broad) personality traits that define what's important to the character. Maybe with nuanced notes, maybe not; the player and GM should have a mutual understanding of the context of it all, with those as general guidelines.

Those traits are what modify away from a baseline expectation. The baseline likely lies somewhere along the notion that you like pleasant things, dislike unpleasant things, and feel good when sating desires for pleasant things and feel bad when you have to turn them down or endure unpleasant things. There are baseline expectations for what qualifies as "pleasant" and "unpleasant" for the average person, and if you lack traits which suggest otherwise, you're thought to be an "average person" wrt any given (un)pleasant stimulus. Broad traits with a good understanding of their context will allow for nuanced use wrt specific stimuli.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-06, 01:17 PM

I think I know where you're coming from here. You want to be the sole occupant of your character's head, the sole arbiter of how your character responds to outside stimuli, even unconsciously.

Your way of phrasing it is a little odd, and is I think what's confusing people.

It's not that there's no difference between "This is what your character wants" and "this is what your character does", it's that, as far as you're concerned, both are an unacceptable violation of your agency as the Player. Other people are reading that as "There is no practical difference between the desire to do something and actually doing it.

that said, I have some questions, how do you consider the following scenarios, concerning whether or not you find them acceptable, or if they're a violation along the lines of "Your character wants to sleep with the pirate queen":

1) The Dragon Roars, your character fails their check against fear. The Game's mechanics now tell you that your character is afraid of the Dragon.

2) The Dragon Roars, you make your save against fear. The GM says that , for a moment, you are frozen in place, terrified, but you shake it off and steady yourself once again. The GM has just told you how your character responded to the Roar.

3) The Dragon roars, there is no mechanical effect, but the GM describes the sounds as "Terrifying", and "Gripping your hearts with fear". Whether or not it affects your actions, the GM has just told you that your character is afraid of the Dragon.

4) You make an Insight check against an NPC. The GM says "They seem likable and trustworthy. You are convinced that, if they are lying, they are not doing so intentionally." You used a mechanic to simulate your character making a conclusion, and the GM has told you what your character concluded, complete with a value judgement.

5) You make an Insight check against an NPC, Rather then describing the NPC averting their eyes during key statements, fidgeting, or pausing to think before describing some over-elaborate detail, the GM simply says "You can tell that they are lying". The GM has told you your character's conclusion, rather than letting you work out the conclusion for yourself from the evidence your character noted.

6) The GM, while setting the scene, describes the "Delicious smell of freshly baked bread wafting from the Kitchen". The GM has just informed you that your character finds the scent of freshly baked bread (and this bread in particular) Delicious.

7) Similar to above. While setting the scene, the GM describes "A gorgeous painting of a knight riding through a snowy mountain pass". The GM has just told you that your character found this particular painting to be aesthetically pleasing.

8) You make a Knowledge History check about a historical figure. The GM replies "He was a cruel and evil King, who conscripted the peasants into his army and forced the nobility to finance his conquests by holding their families hostage in his palace". The GM has described some objective facts (Conscripted peasants, held noble families hostage), but prefaced it with your character's conclusion (A Cruel and Evil king)

1) Not my favorite, but willing to accept the premise if dragons have an actual supernatural fear affect attached to their roar in the setting, and my character had a real chance to resist. What would push it firmly into unacceptable territory is if the character had to take a penalty or lose a "moral point" for successfully resisting the fear.

And you know what... I think you just hit on something else that's been bugging me about Segev's system, that hasn't been articulated. It seems like the character is being "fined" for successfully resisting... in these examples a "social attack". Successfully resist P-Q's attempt to seduce? You take a penalty / pay a cost.

2 and 3) Would prefer the GM "paint the picture" and let the PC react appropriately, once the success or failure of any resistance is determined if applicable.

4 and 5) In general, I am not fond of "mundane" rolls as a straight-up lie detector. I'd rather have the (opposed?) roll, and then the GM gives the player added information to represent what their character noticed, not direct conclusions. Unfortunately, I've found some players view this as the GM trying to "weasel out" of giving a direct answer.

6) Would prefer the GM to leave off the conclusion of "delicious" unless they have some indication that the character likes the smell of bread, but I'm not going to stop the game to make a "stink" about it.

7) Would prefer the GM to stick to descriptors of the painting, but again, not going to bring the game to a halt over it.

8) Would prefer the GM to stick to facts and let the PC draw their own conclusion.

6, 7, and 8 also fall under the generally good writing advice of "show, don't tell". "Show" me the bread, the painting, or the history.

BRC

2017-01-06, 02:03 PM

1) Not my favorite, but willing to accept the premise if dragons have an actual supernatural fear affect attached to their roar in the setting, and my character had a real chance to resist. What would push it firmly into unacceptable territory is if the character had to take a penalty or lose a "moral point" for successfully resisting the fear.

2 and 3) Would prefer the GM "paint the picture" and let the PC react appropriately, once the success or failure of any resistance is determined if applicable.

4 and 5) In general, I am not fond of "mundane" rolls as a straight-up lie detector. I'd rather have the (opposed?) roll, and then the GM gives the player added information to represent what their character noticed, not direct conclusions. Unfortunately, I've found some players view this as the GM trying to "weasel out" of giving a direct answer.

6) Would prefer the GM to leave off the conclusion of "delicious" unless they have some indication that the character likes the smell of bread, but I'm not going to stop the game to make a "stink" about it.

7) Would prefer the GM to stick to descriptors of the painting, but again, not going to bring the game to a halt over it.

8) Would prefer the GM to stick to facts and let the PC draw their own conclusion.

6, 7, and 8 also fall under the generally good writing advice of "show, don't tell". "Show" me the bread, the painting, or the history.

Seems fair enough. 6,7,8 all seem like they could get clunky, since the GM has to go into extra detail when describing a scene to get the intended effect, but like you said, you're not going to raise a fuss over it, so it's not a big problem.

And you know what... I think you just hit on something else that's been bugging me about Segev's system, that hasn't been articulated. It seems like the character is being "fined" for successfully resisting... in these examples a "social attack". Successfully resist P-Q's attempt to seduce? You take a penalty / pay a cost.

I think this may be a misunderstanding of the intent behind the attack.
P-Q's seduction isn't necessarily supposed to take the form of an "Attack" that you successfully resist by saying "No", and are punished for doing so. I guess we've been discussing it in those terms? But it's supposed to be a simulationist mechanic. The game mechanic isn't there to make your character give in, but to model the struggle your character is going through.

I suppose the "resistance" would take the form of whatever mechanics exist to negate or lower the penalty for refusing. Some sort of Willpower roll or something that represents the character overcoming base desire with rational thought, and thus reducing the "Emotional Distress" penalty, potentially down to zero.

Like, the Queen seduces, get's a twelve.

Then apply the Knight's relevant Conviction, leading to +2/-2 or something.

Then, before the Knight's player makes a decision, the Knight gets an active "Willpower" roll as they shout down their raging hormones.

Then, regardless of the result of the willpower roll, the player can decide to accept or refuse.

So, if the Knight gets at least a 2 on their willpower, they would get a +2 for saying Yes, and lose nothing for saying No. The Conviction is applied before the Willpower so you can still get to a situation where you get a boost from resisting the temptation by Conviction alone (If the PQ only got an 8). Most characters won't have a relevant Conviction for every situation, so usually it's Will vs Temptation.

If you choose to accept, it's fine, you can throw out your logic with a big "Nah" and enjoy the benefits.

Disgust take the form of a bonus to the Willpower roll and an equal reduction to the reward for saying yes, so it can't push things into gaining morale for saying No, but it reduces the "Yes" reward, and still helps you cope with refusing.

So, you are never "Punished" for successfully resisting, only for refusing after failing to resist.

But that doesn't address your beef with the system (Mechanically Taking control of the Character's thought processes away from the Player), and nothing ever will.

Segev

2017-01-06, 02:12 PM

1) Not my favorite, but willing to accept the premise if dragons have an actual supernatural fear affect attached to their roar in the setting, and my character had a real chance to resist. What would push it firmly into unacceptable territory is if the character had to take a penalty or lose a "moral point" for successfully resisting the fear.

And you know what... I think you just hit on something else that's been bugging me about Segev's system, that hasn't been articulated. It seems like the character is being "fined" for successfully resisting... in these examples a "social attack". Successfully resist P-Q's attempt to seduce? You take a penalty / pay a cost. Okay, I see that problem and fully agree it would be one, were it the case.

Let me translate the "dragon's intimidating roar" thing into two systems: One where the mechanics are that you roll a "save vs. fear," and one where the mechanics are more like the system I'm proposing.

Save vs. fear: When the dragon roars, your PC rolls a saving throw. If he succeeds, the GM says, "Okay, you successfully resist the fear that seemed to be carried on that terrible sound." You have no penalties, and you fight normally (or flee normally, if your not-scared-but-still-intelligent assessment as the player is "well, staying and fighting is a bad idea").

Morale Point System: The dragon's roar constitutes some sort of check akin to the Pirate Queen's seduction efforts or any thug's intimidation efforts. If the dragon doesn't score well enough on his check to have any net morale point costs left, it's equivalent to the "you made the save" state above: you have no penalties, and you fight or flee or do whatever as well as if the dragon hadn't bothered to roar. If the dragon DOES score well enough to overcome whatever "I'm not scared"-ness you have in your mechanics (equivalent to you failing the save in the case above), the amount of success he has over the threshold determines how many morale points it will cost you to stay and fight.

If (given that the dragon did manage to do well enough of the check that in the save-vs-fear system you would have failed your save), you choose to flee in terror, you spend no morale points. You're obeying the sinking feeling of dread that's settled into your stomach. If you choose to stay and fight, that sinking feeling of dread manifests by the depletion of the requisite number of morale points. You, as the player, decided that this fight is too important and your character wouldn't flee no matter how weak-kneed and watery-boweled he felt (or at least, not at this specific level of watery bowels), but you can't change that he's as scared as the mechanics of the dragon's roar says he is. (Again: if the dragon didn't do well enough in being scary - equivalent to you making the save v. fear - you wouldn't have to make this choice. You could stay without losing morale.)

You're not being taxed for succeeding. You're being given a choice of costs for failure: "turn tail and run," or "spend morale points."

Does that make sense?

6, 7, and 8 also fall under the generally good writing advice of "show, don't tell". "Show" me the bread, the painting, or the history.While I agree that "show, don't tell" is laudible, not everybody is able to do so with sufficient skill.

"What you see before you is the most beautiful creature you've ever imagined. Whatever your tastes, she looks to be their epitome to you. Yes, Gaylord Flambeyonce, the creature is the most fabulous male you've ever seen, to you."

Not exactly evocative, but even if the GM had an inkling of just what each PC finds attractive, rare is the man who can describe with words alone something that alluring, so alluring that it really is an almost overwhelmingly desirable thing. Hence, mechanics to actually give a means of comparing its supernal nature to each individual character's other personal drives, convictions, etc.

jayem

2017-01-06, 02:37 PM

I agree this would be preferable to the first option. But again, it seems like this would rapidly be getting into the bloated and unwieldy territory. Sure, the gay man character can be declared to be unaffected by the Pirate Queen's wiles. But then everyone's clamoring for exceptions to everything and it devolves into arguing and players furiously pointing out their backstories.

Something like that would be built in, that's not an exception. It wouldn't be them declaring it, they would have chosen it at the start (possibly changing it following an appropriate situation), and by doing so signed up for it or signed up for not it by default. They wouldn't even have to parse the character sheet for ambiguous phrasings, it would be a simply box/number, chosen option.
There would be exceptions, both ways but if they can be handled in the normal game, the players haven't had a lobotomy. And the worst that happens is that they get their exception and it's as though they chose the other box.

To take the posh drunkard princess hovering in a common tavern having taken the 'feat' having previously spent a significant portion of the game in banquety settings and now on one trip out.
Princess "Hang on it's not exactly champagne, it's not hard to resist this muck, can I keep my will points"
GM a) fair enough, no morale cost (Yay player win, accurate roleplaying, game balance still pretty much intact)
b) they do do port, half damage? (accurate roleplaying, game balance still pretty much intact)
c) no, it's still booze (Player gets a bit ripped off by the meany GM, has to fluff a reason for the will loss, but got what they signed up for)
[outcomes mostly sensible]

To take the posh drunkard princess hovering in a common tavern having taken the 'feat' having previously spent 10 years pre-game on the run and in an RPG in the wilds.
Princess "Hang on it's not exactly champagne, it's not hard to resist this muck, can I keep my will points"
GM a) fair enough, no morale cost (bit of a fail on balance, character written and acted maybe not matching, player 'cheating')
b) they do do port, half damage? (ditto, but not as extreme)
c) you declared you were a boozer, (game balance intact, character written and acted maybe not matching)
[no outcome really great, but the bad decision there made at the start.]

[outcomes in the banqueting hall come out naturally]
Meanwhile without the feat (but drunkenness described in in the narration)
[outcomes in the tavern where resistible come out naturally, where in players view theory irresistible as below]

To take the posh drunkard princess at the banquet having not taken the 'feat'.
GM "Didn't you say you liked a drink" (if forgotten ends in situation a, anyway)
(after argument)
Player a) I think I'm ok thanks (Yay player mechanical win, game balance still pretty much intact, roleplaying slightly poor perhaps but not worse than without system, contract held)
b) 50-50, (somewhere inbetween)
c) I guess I take a will hit, like if I were a drunkard (game balance slightly rocked, but roleplaying fine, GM grateful)
[outcomes are mostly sensible, so there's no point the GM investing in the argument]

BRC

2017-01-06, 03:38 PM

Something like that would be built in, that's not an exception. It wouldn't be them declaring it, they would have chosen it at the start (possibly changing it following an appropriate situation), and by doing so signed up for it or signed up for not it by default. They wouldn't even have to parse the character sheet for ambiguous phrasings, it would be a simply box/number, chosen option.
There would be exceptions, both ways but if they can be handled in the normal game, the players haven't had a lobotomy. And the worst that happens is that they get their exception and it's as though they chose the other box.
I think the best way to do it would be to have some criteria for handling "No-Sell" situations, stuff like trying to seduce somebody who simply isn't attracted to your gender. Segev previously suggested that they just get a massive "Resist" Bonus, but I don't like that idea, since that requires a roll that has a 95% chance of doing nothing, and a 5% chance of, effectively, making them act out of character.

I mean, you're dealing with something as imprecise as desire here, so there would have to be some wiggle room. I too reject the idea of "Universal Attraction" being built into the system.

For example, Wealth is a pretty Universally Attractive. But a savage barbarian shouldn't need to make any rolls to turn down a pile of gold. Gold is useless, it's heavy to carry around, you can't eat it, you can't sharpen it, and it glints, giving you away if you're trying to hide in the underbrush.

But, they may take morale penalties if they choose to give up a really nice looking Steel Spear, or an especially warm Cloak.

Similarly, a celibate, straight male Knight might get a +10 bonus to resist the Pirate Queen's seduction, but for a straight woman, or anybody Asexual, I would say that's just a total no-sell. What she's offering simply doesn't appeal to them, and it's not worth rolling.

Depending on the nature of the setting, different standards of beauty could apply. The Pirate Queen may be the paragon of sex appeal for a HUMAN, but for a Dwarf? She's too tall, her nose isn't flat enough, her knuckles are both too small and totally devoid of hair, she's got narrow shoulders, a thin neck, thin eyebrows, a narrow waist, and she smells totally wrong.

If the Pirate Queen tries to throw a general "Come Hither" look at a party containing a straight male human, a gay male human, a straight dwarf female, a asexual elf male, and a gay lizardfolk female, she should probably just make one roll with no penalty. She shouldn't make a roll with no penalty, a Roll with a -10 penalty for wrong gender, a roll with a -20 penalty for wrong race and gender, a roll with a -40 penalty for trying to tempt him with something he doesn't want from anybody, and a roll with a -60 penalty for being warm blooded and covered in that weird hair stuff.

Even if you want to argue that the Pirate Queen is just so sexy that maybe she can tempt the lizardfolk regardless, it's a waste of time to make her roll when she has such a miniscule chance of success.

If the situation was reversed, and you had a human PC trying to seduce a dwarf NPC, I'd say let them roll with the -20 penalty. Let the RNG of the dice account for both how seductive the PC is being, and the chances of the Dwarf being into humans.

kyoryu

2017-01-06, 04:00 PM

jayem

2017-01-06, 04:30 PM

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-06, 04:32 PM

Segev

2017-01-06, 04:42 PM

I think the best way to do it would be to have some criteria for handling "No-Sell" situations, stuff like trying to seduce somebody who simply isn't attracted to your gender. Segev previously suggested that they just get a massive "Resist" Bonus, but I don't like that idea, since that requires a roll that has a 95% chance of doing nothing, and a 5% chance of, effectively, making them act out of character. Again, if she's managing to get past your "massive resist bonus," it's because she's using something that is, perhaps, outside her usual bag of tricks (hence the lower ultimate outcome) but which does key on something you DO find attractive/desirable. More on this in a moment.

If the Pirate Queen tries to throw a general "Come Hither" look at a party containing a straight male human, a gay male human, a straight dwarf female, a asexual elf male, and a gay lizardfolk female, she should probably just make one roll with no penalty. She shouldn't make a roll with no penalty, a Roll with a -10 penalty for wrong gender, a roll with a -20 penalty for wrong race and gender, a roll with a -40 penalty for trying to tempt him with something he doesn't want from anybody, and a roll with a -60 penalty for being warm blooded and covered in that weird hair stuff.
The way I see this, she's not doing it with different penalties. She's making a single roll, and each "target" has a different DC.

Let's pretend it's just one roll, for the moment. I'm thinking I'd like it to be more than that (the same way "combat" is rarely just "roll your melee skill; you win combat!"), but for now, let's go with it for simplicity.

The Pirate Queen rolls her "I'm so sexy that everybody in the room wants to bid for a night of debauchery with me" check, and gets, say, a 20. Bob the Celibate's DC is 15, Brad the Horny Bard's DC is 5, and Suzy the Straight's DC is 20.

The Pirate Queen now offers Bob 5 morale points if he tries to win her for the night, and will cost him 5 morale points if he refrains. Brad's getting 15 morale points, or losing those 15, with the same choices. Suzy can definitely see why the boys like the Pirate Queen, but she's not getting offered any morale points for taking the offer, and loses nothing if she refrains, because the Pirate Queen didn't quite push any of her buttons.

Let's say, though, that the Pirate Queen actually rolled a 21. Now, even Suzy's feeling at least 1 morale point's worth of temptation. What, precisely, it is that the Pirate Queen included in her sales pitch that actually tweaked Suzy's interest despite being Not Into Women is up to the players to figure out. Maybe it's "Men want me and women want to be me," and Suzy's angling to block the boys or to get tips from the Queen...even if it means getting first hand training. Maybe it's something else in her pitch that made Suzy feel something. It is an awfully small desire, after all.

More detailed mechanics might have a lengthier effort to find out what the target(s) like and invoke these things specifically, lowering or raising individuals' DCs based on the tailored approach the Queen takes. Or might reflavor for Suzy, specifically, what the appeal of the Queen really is, even altering what the morale points are for. That's beyond the scope of this post, though, I'm afraid, as I definitely don't have anything concrete enough to write out for how that might work.

Even if you want to argue that the Pirate Queen is just so sexy that maybe she can tempt the lizardfolk regardless, it's a waste of time to make her roll when she has such a miniscule chance of success.

Maybe! "Don't bother rolling, you can't succeed/can't fail" is a valid thing for the GM to decide if the chances are so small and that miniscule chance is not worth the drama.

Note, again, though, that the system I propose never has "you succeeded by 1, so they do what you ask" as a guarantee. In fact, succeeding by only 1 likely won't entice them at all unless they were waffling pretty hard over doing what you want or doing something else already. Or they're really low on morale, and any pick-me-up seems like a god-send (or any loss seems devastating).

Assuming we have a scale where 10s of points are normal. If we have a scale where each morale point is precious, that changes things, of course.

Generally, I'd only make the roll in a situation where what's happening in the game warrants it.Precisely. Good answer to the above. Thanks!

So if Ms. Hottie walks up to you, and you immediately walk away, no roll. Because you walked away.

"Seduce" is not a button you push. It's a series of interactions over time. If you're not in a situation to have those interactions, you're not seducing anyone, and there's no roll.This, too, is likely something to consider in designing a full-fledged system.

Cluedrew

2017-01-06, 04:47 PM

I do tend towards rules heaviness, whether intentionally or not.And that's fine. Maybe it would be better to say keep the volume of rules in mind as you go. A common flaw in design just seems to be "we will add a solution on top" and that gets bloated really fast. So I guess this is a warning of sorts.

Personally, I would probably not model "being on a diet" as a personality trait.I guess the personality trait isn't really that Jill is on a diet, but that she feels guilty for breaking a promise to herself. It was supposed to be as the knight's oath, just applied to a smaller thing. Defensive modifiers might be part of it but... there is something else underneath I can't quite put my finger on.

The best I have right now is that there seems to be some mixing of the ideas of willpower and morale. The diet is a matter of willpower and the taste cake a matter of morale. Willpower might effect how easy it is to turn down something "nice" that you intellectual don't want but I don't see it making it less nice to actually get.

1) Not my favorite, but willing to accept the premise if dragons have an actual supernatural fear affect attached to their roar in the setting, and my character had a real chance to resist.Why supernatural? It makes sense that something "above nature" would ignore people's natures. But I imagine most people would have a rather similar reaction to being attacked by a rhinoceros, freaking out. (I know of no study to back this up and I hope none exists.) Of course you got fight or flight and variations there of, but I doubt many people would just go "maybe I should get out of the way".

Generally, I'd only make the roll in a situation where what's happening in the game warrants it.I think this is always a good rule of thumb. If only one outcome makes sense, don't even bother turning to the rules to see what happens, just go with that.

2

Segev

2017-01-06, 04:51 PM

That's reflective of a larger discussion topic with regarding social skills in general.

It's been my experience that more than a few gamers seem to WANT these interaction skills to work as a "social pushbutton" -- want something -> succeed on die roll or spend "point" -> get that something.

I'd like it to be more involved than that, ideally. With efforts to get to know the other character, find out what they do and do not like, and even build up likes/dislikes (temporary or long-term, I'm fuzzy on this one as I see places for both and problems with both) to use in the final "push."

But the core of it is that, at the end, the player still has complete agency over what his character chooses. If his character values something else that he can't get an immediate emotional rush from right now badly enough to pay the morale cost of giving up the immediate emotional rush of the alternative, that's the player's choice to make. The system should never tell the player that his character chooses something, only what the emotional/mental costs or rewards for the different options are.

In so doing, it hopefully makes in-character "bad" decisions at least more enticing to the player, to reflect how enticing they are to the character despite offering nothing BUT the morale points/emotional rush.

jayem

2017-01-06, 05:01 PM

Generally, I'd only make the roll in a situation where what's happening in the game warrants it.

So if Ms. Hottie walks up to you, and you immediately walk away, no roll. Because you walked away.

"Seduce" is not a button you push. It's a series of interactions over time. If you're not in a situation to have those interactions, you're not seducing anyone, and there's no roll.

I think it's precisely with those series that make the interactions interesting. Just like when planning a combat there's the risk of failure, so it matters what you chose*. The I'm just going out for a beer, I'll be back soon. Can I persuade (using reason) him to give me the ship more than he can persuade (with sweet words) me to leave the party and marry him. If not I should cut and run now, (if I can). If so go for it. If I'm not sure, I should keep my eye on the door.

*By analogy if in combat you could say, 'all those arrows miss me' then there's no point in stealth (or even shopping for swords), you may as well walk up sure in the knowledge you can grab two of the arrows and use them**.

**Which of course is Cool if you can do that because you are that awesome and have earned it, but that's the last scene in the movie not the first.

BRC

2017-01-06, 05:31 PM

The way I see this, she's not doing it with different penalties. She's making a single roll, and each "target" has a different DC.

Let's pretend it's just one roll, for the moment. I'm thinking I'd like it to be more than that (the same way "combat" is rarely just "roll your melee skill; you win combat!"), but for now, let's go with it for simplicity.

The Pirate Queen rolls her "I'm so sexy that everybody in the room wants to bid for a night of debauchery with me" check, and gets, say, a 20. Bob the Celibate's DC is 15, Brad the Horny Bard's DC is 5, and Suzy the Straight's DC is 20.

The Pirate Queen now offers Bob 5 morale points if he tries to win her for the night, and will cost him 5 morale points if he refrains. Brad's getting 15 morale points, or losing those 15, with the same choices. Suzy can definitely see why the boys like the Pirate Queen, but she's not getting offered any morale points for taking the offer, and loses nothing if she refrains, because the Pirate Queen didn't quite push any of her buttons.

Let's say, though, that the Pirate Queen actually rolled a 21. Now, even Suzy's feeling at least 1 morale point's worth of temptation. What, precisely, it is that the Pirate Queen included in her sales pitch that actually tweaked Suzy's interest despite being Not Into Women is up to the players to figure out. Maybe it's "Men want me and women want to be me," and Suzy's angling to block the boys or to get tips from the Queen...even if it means getting first hand training. Maybe it's something else in her pitch that made Suzy feel something. It is an awfully small desire, after all.

More detailed mechanics might have a lengthier effort to find out what the target(s) like and invoke these things specifically, lowering or raising individuals' DCs based on the tailored approach the Queen takes. Or might reflavor for Suzy, specifically, what the appeal of the Queen really is, even altering what the morale points are for. That's beyond the scope of this post, though, I'm afraid, as I definitely don't have anything concrete enough to write out for how that might work.

Eh, even admitting that we're working with a half-formed system here, I'm not a fan. It seems like doing so would involve retconning things in an awkward manner.

If Suzy is straight, then she's not going to be sexually attracted to the Pirate Queen.
If PQ rolls high enough that Suzy will still lose morale by turning her down, and you explain it by "Well, while you're still not attracted to her, she's offering something else that DOES appeal to you", then PQ wasn't making a seduction role, she was making some other kind of tempting offer, which should have been resolved by a totally different set of numbers.

Plus, at least in this situation, it leads you down a whole different rabbit hole of arguing back and forth with the Player over what, exactly, their character is being tempted by.

"While you don't actually care about sleeping with her, you can see how excited the boys are, and the thought of stealing her from them is kind of fun" "No, my character wouldn't do that, she wants her teammates to be happy." "Okay, fine. While you don't care about sleeping with her, you're interested in learning her techniques so you can snag the man of your dreams in the future" "No, Suzy is confident to the point of arrogance, the idea that she COULDN'T snag the man of her dreams wouldn't even cross her mind". ect ect

And, as a GM, you can't even cut the argument off. Normally when such discussions come up about, say, how physics say something should act vs how the game mechanics resolve something, the GM, as the ultimate arbiter of the events of the game, can put their foot down and say "Look, we're here to have fun, not perfectly model how a magically flying castle would be affected by a hurricane", because the Player should always be the ultimate master of what their character does and wants. It's one thing to say "Your character is attracted to the Pirate Queen", it's another to say "Your character is always looking to pick up new seduction techniques".
And you can't shut down the debate as irrelevant detail, because it could very well be relevant whether Suzy and the Pirate Queen spend that night tearing each other's clothes off, or if they just drink rum and laugh at how the boys made fools of themselves earlier.

The Player is always going to be in the right to demand a reasonable explanation before they accept the penalty for refusal, and they will always be right to refuse any such explanation provided they can come up with a reason that doesn't contradict any established facts, and if you don't think a player will hold up a game with nitpicking over a minor mechanical bonus and/or their conception of their character, then I don't think you've met many players.

Segev

2017-01-06, 05:45 PM

Eh, even admitting that we're working with a half-formed system here, I'm not a fan. It seems like doing so would involve retconning things in an awkward manner.

If Suzy is straight, then she's not going to be sexually attracted to the Pirate Queen.
If PQ rolls high enough that Suzy will still lose morale by turning her down, and you explain it by "Well, while you're still not attracted to her, she's offering something else that DOES appeal to you", then PQ wasn't making a seduction role, she was making some other kind of tempting offer, which should have been resolved by a totally different set of numbers.

True. I am more inclined to say that, despite Suzy being straight, if the Pirate Queen rolled well enough, she creates what TV Tropes calls a "stupid sexy Flanders" moment. The Pirate Queen really HAS managed, despite Suzy's lack of interest in (or even revulsion at the idea of) sex with women, appealed somehow to Suzy enough that she feels the attraction. Whether she CONSIDERS it or not is up to the player, but there is that part of her which feels like it'd be desirable. Other parts of her may disagree violently, of course. That's why the ultimate choice remains with the player.

But something the Pirate Queen did in her efforts somehow enflamed some part of Suzy's desire to the extent indicated by the morale point offering/cost. Whether it's "she's just that hot" or some other factor, Suzy would get immediate satiation sufficient to net morale after all else is considered if she agreed, and would suffer immediate loss of morale (however miniscule) for rejecting it.

It doesn't make Suzy not straight (though agreeing to sleep with the Pirate Queen might, depending on whether your definition of "straight" is influenced by whether the person has ever willingly had homosexual sex); she's still straight and still, if she refuses, standing by the personality trait that she doesn't have sex with women. This one woman, with this one amazing seduction effort, found a way to make somebody who isn't attracted to women have at least some net sexual desire for her. Affirming her straightness by refusing is very much an option.

BRC

2017-01-06, 06:00 PM

It occurs to me that this spins into the whole issue of assigning numeric values to how tempting something would be.

Like, we've been using the Pirate Queen's seduction as an example, because that's relatively straightforward. If we assume Seduction is a skill (Or perhaps, a subskill of some sort), then we can assume that the Pirate Queen bonus to her roll accounts for both her considerable talents, and her considerable, ahem, "Talents". Her part of the Seduction roll will remain pretty constant every time she uses it it's the "target" that will change.

But, if you have a situation where somebody is trying to bribe the Knight with a magic sword, there are a lot of different factors at play. The obvious place to start is how persuasive the person making the offer is, but a bribe of a magic sword is going to be more tempting than a bribe with a normal sword, and a bribe with an a more powerful Magic Sword would be more tempting than a bribe of a less powerful magic sword. So you need to work out exactly how tempting this particular sword is. Then the Knight's player could start making arguments about how, while it may be a very nice magic sword, it's not the style of sword he prefers to use, and he just got a new magic sword ect ect.

And we've been approaching this from the assumption that the Player is intending to refuse, and will try to argue down the morale loss. The opposite will occur just as much. "You said the Pirate Queen was a redhead? Well my Bard has a thing for redheads, so I get +1 Morale Points. Plus, she's a powerful woman, and he's into that, so another +1 there" ect ect.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-06, 06:29 PM

True. I am more inclined to say that, despite Suzy being straight, if the Pirate Queen rolled well enough, she creates what TV Tropes calls a "stupid sexy Flanders" moment. The Pirate Queen really HAS managed, despite Suzy's lack of interest in (or even revulsion at the idea of) sex with women, appealed somehow to Suzy enough that she feels the attraction. Whether she CONSIDERS it or not is up to the player, but there is that part of her which feels like it'd be desirable. Other parts of her may disagree violently, of course. That's why the ultimate choice remains with the player.

But something the Pirate Queen did in her efforts somehow enflamed some part of Suzy's desire to the extent indicated by the morale point offering/cost. Whether it's "she's just that hot" or some other factor, Suzy would get immediate satiation sufficient to net morale after all else is considered if she agreed, and would suffer immediate loss of morale (however miniscule) for rejecting it.

It doesn't make Suzy not straight (though agreeing to sleep with the Pirate Queen might, depending on whether your definition of "straight" is influenced by whether the person has ever willingly had homosexual sex); she's still straight and still, if she refuses, standing by the personality trait that she doesn't have sex with women. This one woman, with this one amazing seduction effort, found a way to make somebody who isn't attracted to women have at least some net sexual desire for her. Affirming her straightness by refusing is very much an option.

Yeah... no.

You can stop right there.

This is getting into "fiction fails" silliness territory, and has nothing to do with "simulationism" unless you're trying to simulate bad Hollywood cliches.

AND, you're appealing to a false notion of human beings as quasi-mechanical entities with "buttons" that can be pushed to get a result no matter what they might think they want.

BRC

2017-01-06, 08:04 PM

Yeah... no.

You can stop right there.

This is getting into "fiction fails" silliness territory, and has nothing to do with "simulationism" unless you're trying to simulate bad Hollywood cliches.

AND, you're appealing to a false notion of human beings as quasi-mechanical entities with "buttons" that can be pushed to get a result no matter what they might think they want.

Yeah, kind of going to have to go with Max on this one.

The system needs to account for "No-Sell" situations, otherwise you're not modeling internal conflict. Some conflicts just don't have Internals.

Also, while there is a big gap between "Wanting" and "Doing", whether or not a character wants something IS a part of a character concept, and the player should have the final say on it regardless of how well the NPC rolls.

If Suzy's player says that Suzy is straight, the GM shouldn't be able to roll some dice and go "Well, according to these rules, not that straight".

Admittedly, outside the example of seduction, No-sell situations seem like they might be pretty rare. You can sell Refrigerators to Eskimos and all that, and outside one's choice of sexual partners, there are fairly few things that, as a matter of core character concept, you couldn't ever be talked into wanting.

Even a Monk with a vow of poverty could be bribed with wealth untold if the briber is convincing enough about the good they could do with that wealth.

That said, as a matter of GMing philosophy, I think these sort of "Extreme" situations should default to no-sell in the player's favor more often than not, just because I don't think it's particularly fun to be told that your tree-hugging absolute pacifist character is suffering emotional distress because they refused that charming man's offer to have all their enemies thrown into a pit of starving wolves. Even if, technically, yes, it makes sense that a sufficiently persuasive wolf-pit salesman could make a compelling case, I don't think rolling it out actually helps the game.

Edit: If you're playing a Celibate character in a game with such a system, then you're kind of signing up for having your character's will tested by sultry pirate queens. If you're playing a pacifist, being a pacifist is usually enough complication. Save the inner torment for the AtLA style situations where a character has good reason to consider betraying their principles, not because an especially charming NPC made a good argument.

"The Warlord threatened to burn down an orphanage, the only way to stop them was to kill them. My character stuck to their beliefs, and now hates themselves"- Engaging examination of the Character's Struggle.

"This guy made a lot of points about how Steve is a terrible person, but my character decided to spare him anyway, and is now miserable"- Technically a similar situation, much less fun.

Edit II: This actually brings up a lot of issues I've been having that I havn't figured out how to say before.

We've been framing this discussion largely in the scenario of an opposed roll by an NPC. The Pirate Queen seducing various party members. Segev, specifically has been putting basically all the action on the Pirate Queen, with the other party as a DC of some sort that she is rolling against.

But, if the purpose of the situation is to model desire and internal conflict, the "Seducer" usually isn't the most important part of the equation, and may in fact not even exist at all. What's usually more important is the situation and the person being tempted.

Like, with the whole Pirate Queen/Chaste Knight scenario, sure her skill at manipulation plays a role, but I think the fact that she's a beautiful woman offering a night of passion to a straight man plays a more crucial role. That scenario is going to be tempting even if you don't assume the Queen has mastered the art of seduction.

I think a better scenario here is the Warlord/Pacifist scenario. The Pacifist could kill the Warlord, and the Warlord has done terrible things in the past, and is likely to go kill who knows how many people if allowed to live.

The Warlord would very much like the Pacifist to NOT Kill them, so they can go on and kill all those people. If the Warlord's social skills come in at all, it would be trying to talk the Pacifist into sticking too their principles.

So, in this case you have the immediate desire: Kill the Warlord. On one side, you have the Warlord's past crimes and future plans. On the other, the Pacifist's principles and the Warlord's charm.

If the seduction scenario is calculated based on the Pirate Queen's Seduction skill vs the Knight's conviction, how would this one be calculated? The Warlords Charm+Pacifist's Conviction on one side surely, but where do the numbers come from on the other side? How are we quantifying the anger the Pacifist feels towards the Warlord for their past crimes, combined with the desire to stop whatever vile deeds they may do in the future?

The Warlord's victims are screaming for vengeance, but without another character to make a persuasion roll on their behalf, is it just "Kill the Warlord, lose 20 morale, spare the warlord, gain 20 morale"

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-07, 12:34 AM

Gonna also chime in here.

Mechanising sexuality will get weird. It will ALWAYS get weird. And has some chance of putting off some non-consensual vibes if not handled the right way.

Now, I'll bring up an alternative system that does something similar to what Segev is talking about, but does it differently:
Apocalypse World!
*cue the sacred cow*

In AW, seducing someone and just manipulating someone are the same move. Called (creatively) Seduce/Manipulate. Here's how it works:

When you try to seduce or manipulate someone, tell them what you want and roll+hot. For NPCs: on a hit, they ask you to promise something first, and do it if you promise. On a 10+, whether you keep your promise is up to you, later. On a 7–9, they need some concrete assurance right now. For PCs: on a 10+, both. On a 7–9, choose 1:
• if they do it, they mark experience
• if they refuse, it’s acting under fire
What they do then is up to them.

This is countered on the PC end by the PC making a Help or Interfere roll, which works like this:

When you help or interfere with someone who’s making a roll, roll+Hx. On a hit, they take +1 (help) or -2 (interfere) now. On a 7–9, you also expose yourself to fire, danger, retribution or cost.

so here's what this looks like in play:

Cutlass wants to hook up with Errant because Errant is a rampaging ball of violence and that is useful when you're in her position.

So she tells Errant what she wants. This part is still in fiction, but it should eventually come down to "I want sexy times." Now we determine if there is a fork in the road. Is this a hard Yes? (This is definitely happening because Errant would also like sexy times) Is this a hard No? (Errant's player is uncomfortable with this, Errant is flat-out not attracted to individuals of Cutlass's gender/sex, etc) If there's an element of Maybe, we roll. If it's even, maybe Errant will let the roll happen.
If it's a soft no, Errant will wait until the Seduce/Manipulate roll is done and then roll Help/interfere to affect the outcome.

So now we have a LOT of potential outcomes. 9 relatively distinct outcomes, though a few will overlap.

I've yet to have a seduction situation come up in my games that didnt just have an NPC involved, by that's a function of my group finding PC/PC romance weird, up until they make characters who are lovers SPECIFICALLY to both take advantage of their Special Moves. Which is 100% ok by me. Gives them more opportunities to create problems.

Talakeal

2017-01-07, 12:53 AM

kyoryu

2017-01-07, 12:59 AM

One useful concept is leverage. Leverage basically meaning that you have *something* the other side wants.

Without leverage, there's no engagement, and thus no chance for a roll in the first place.

Segev

2017-01-07, 01:17 AM

But, if you have a situation where somebody is trying to bribe the Knight with a magic sword, there are a lot of different factors at play. The obvious place to start is how persuasive the person making the offer is, but a bribe of a magic sword is going to be more tempting than a bribe with a normal sword, and a bribe with an a more powerful Magic Sword would be more tempting than a bribe of a less powerful magic sword. So you need to work out exactly how tempting this particular sword is. Then the Knight's player could start making arguments about how, while it may be a very nice magic sword, it's not the style of sword he prefers to use, and he just got a new magic sword ect ect. All good points. However... the magic sword is its own reward. Unless the knight has a deep-seated personalty trait that makes owning swords above and beyond his ability to use them something that fills him with glee (perhaps "collects rare swords" or something?), I don't think this actually needs modelling.

Once again, let me illustrate it by looking at both "what we have in most systems now" and "what it would be with my proposition in place:"

D&D and other systems with no social/emotional/RP mechanics would have you weigh whatever the guy is asking you for to buy the sword against the value the sword has to you(r character) in playing the game. If there is no cost attached at all, I doubt many would turn down a free magic sword. (Let's assume it's at least useful, if not ideal, for the knight, for this purpose.) If there's a cost attached that's something like, "take this sword with that gold that you promised to return to the widow of the traveler. I'm only asking for a third of it; two thirds will still keep her in great comfort for longer than any woman her age could possibly live. She'll never miss it," however, then the game-cost is still nothing, but there's an RP cost relating to the knight's honor and such.

Gameplay pressure is to take the sword, because honestly, the knight wasn't going to keep the gold before this temptation, and he's not keeping what's left over, and there's this lovely justification that nobody's being hurt by it. The salesman, for our purposes, is probably just a salesman who wants gold for a sword.

With this morale point system, the same considerations as above apply, but now, when the knight's honesty/honor come into play, his "dedication to honesty" trait (or his vows, if it's wrapped up in that) come into play. The salesman is offering not just the sword, but whatever morale points his sales pitch has put up for offer. And his pitch has made the knight feel some amount of yearning for the sword in general, so rejecting it becomes a little painful. It has nothing to do with the value of the sword, because the sword's value is its own reward. Meanwhile, the Knight's "honesty virtue" serves as an impediment to the salesman's pitch, because the salesman is asking him to do something dishonest. Reducing potential morale gains or penalties.

Still, a sufficiently skilled salesman could pitch so well that the knight actually wants the sword more than he otherwise would just based on its value. Such is marketing. He still can reject it, but it costs morale points.

Likely, in a more involved version that goes beyond just one roll, the salesman would be trying to pitch to specific traits of the knight. So what the sword can do would be relevant in regards to what the salesman can play on.

And we've been approaching this from the assumption that the Player is intending to refuse, and will try to argue down the morale loss. The opposite will occur just as much. "You said the Pirate Queen was a redhead? Well my Bard has a thing for redheads, so I get +1 Morale Points. Plus, she's a powerful woman, and he's into that, so another +1 there" ect ect.I don't really see a problem with this. Such things being advantages is fine. Remember: it's about reflecting the character's drives more than "always make sure the bad choice has a reward." If the persuader's persuasion should be even more effective and lift the persuaded's spirits all the more to give in, everybody goes home happy.

Yeah... no.

You can stop right there.

This is getting into "fiction fails" silliness territory, and has nothing to do with "simulationism" unless you're trying to simulate bad Hollywood cliches. It's also getting into what, precisely, you are trying to emulate. "Even the guys/girls want him/her" is a trope because it is, to some extent, believable. It's also about validating the skills and talents of those who build for them. No matter how much you have "immovable object" as a conceptual trait of your brawny strongman, there could always be somebody whose "irresistible force" concept has better mechanics behind it, and pushes him out of the way. And vice-versa.

No, emotions are not physical prowess, but the principle is the same: If the Pirate Queen is really that amazingly seductive, she can find ways to plant seeds of desire even in the most repulsed-by-women character's heart. She can't make her (or him) act on it, but she can at least cause them to feel something.

AND, you're appealing to a false notion of human beings as quasi-mechanical entities with "buttons" that can be pushed to get a result no matter what they might think they want.Asserting that it's a "false notion" doesn't make it so. People CAN be persuaded to do things they never thought they'd want to do. It happens fairly frequently. The mechanics I'm suggesting don't actually compel this; they take it a step short, saying only that characters can, by sufficiently skilled persuaders, be made to feel a yearning or urge to do something they would have never believed they'd feel anything but disgust over.

Again: not compelling behavior. Having a conceptual revulsion that you place over any short-term desire is still firmly in the player's hands. It just has short-term consequences, because yes, somebody skilled enough can "get to you." They can't compel you. But they can provoke feelings and yearnings you wouldn't have believed possible.

Segev

2017-01-07, 01:22 AM

I don't know Segev, in your system I think the optimal character choice (assuming I actually cared about my character instead of just going along with whatever the DM said would give me the most morale) would be to quickly adopt the philosophy or Aragorn approaching Saruman:

"Your bow Legolas! Bend it! Get ready! It is Sarumon, Do not let him speak or put a spell on us! We must shoot him first!"

In a game where anyone can make you feel strange compulsions which you neither desire nor understand and ignoring them makes you worse at everything you put your mind to, the best recourse is to never speak to anyone and become the murder hobo to end all murder hobos.

That is a danger, yes. But the thing is...that's not caring about your character being in character. That's wanting to play the guy who doesn't have any of those drives and yearnings other than to be the optimally best, and not being willing to build that.

Besides, if the system is balanced right, it would take a GM building something grossly unfair to make it more than a pittance of morale lost if it would be that amazingly weird - like Bisexual Pirate King seducing Straight Chaste Knight. Under most circumstances, being that far outside of Straight Chaste Knight's normal preferences would make Bisexual Pirate King doomed to failure. Even a smashing success would be but a whiff of morale points, so small that the slight disappointment could be rationalized away as the Knight made his almost reflexive refusal.

If it's trivial to build socialites who are overcoming that strong a deep-seated set of character traits, then the system is poorly designed. (I won't pretend I'll make it perfect if I every write it out. But that would be one of the things to play test for.)

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-07, 01:26 AM

That is a danger, yes. But the thing is...that's not caring about your character being in character. That's wanting to play the guy who doesn't have any of those drives and yearnings other than to be the optimally best, and not being willing to build that.

No, it's wanting to actually play the character you came to play, without constantly having to overcome negative modifiers imposed by someone else thinking they know more about your character than they do.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-07, 01:34 AM

It's also getting into what, precisely, you are trying to emulate. "Even the guys/girls want him/her" is a trope because it is, to some extent, believable.

Maybe you find it believable... but "saying it's so doesn't make it true".

Personally I find it another one of those tired cliches to be avoided if one is trying to make one's fiction or game even vaguely believable, and not a worn-thin joke at its own expense.

It's also about validating the skills and talents of those who build for them. No matter how much you have "immovable object" as a conceptual trait of your brawny strongman, there could always be somebody whose "irresistible force" concept has better mechanics behind it, and pushes him out of the way. And vice-versa.

No, emotions are not physical prowess, but the principle is the same: If the Pirate Queen is really that amazingly seductive, she can find ways to plant seeds of desire even in the most repulsed-by-women character's heart. She can't make her (or him) act on it, but she can at least cause them to feel something.

You're getting into the realm of the purely fictional, then -- mythical levels of prowess that have no place outside of a completely over-the-top game. These are deities, superhumans, and the like, taken to the level of self-parody.

This whole "if the character just rolls well enough, she can make anyone feel something" thing is equivalent to "if the character just rolls well enough, she can leap to the moon". Some things just aren't possible.

Asserting that it's a "false notion" doesn't make it so. People CAN be persuaded to do things they never thought they'd want to do. It happens fairly frequently. The mechanics I'm suggesting don't actually compel this; they take it a step short, saying only that characters can, by sufficiently skilled persuaders, be made to feel a yearning or urge to do something they would have never believed they'd feel anything but disgust over.

Again: not compelling behavior. Having a conceptual revulsion that you place over any short-term desire is still firmly in the player's hands. It just has short-term consequences, because yes, somebody skilled enough can "get to you." They can't compel you. But they can provoke feelings and yearnings you wouldn't have believed possible.

Saying they can doesn't make that so, either. If you're going to keep blowing off my position as "asserting it doesn't make it so", then I guess I can do the same to yours.

Seriously, though... this entire notion of "they can make you feel things you don't want to feel, and want things don't want" runs entirely counter everything I've ever experienced in life. Maybe it happens to some people, but it's sure as hell never happened to me -- not in the way you're describing.

BRC

2017-01-07, 02:20 AM

All good points. However... the magic sword is its own reward. Unless the knight has a deep-seated personalty trait that makes owning swords above and beyond his ability to use them something that fills him with glee (perhaps "collects rare swords" or something?), I don't think this actually needs modelling.
Okay, you said a lot in that post.
But, it's late, so I'm going to limit myself to this one.

If your goal is really a Simulation, then why does this "Morale Point" System go away the moment the reward gained is practical, rather than purely pleasurable/emotional.

The Knight is a professional slayer of evil. That sword will help him slay evil better, it will bring him great pleasure to wield it's mighty blade in the pursuit of justice. Knowing that he could have gained such a sword, but chose not to, will haunt him.

He Wants The sword.

If you gain Morale Points for accepting something you Want, and lose morale points for refusing something you want, why should it matter whether what you "Want" in this case is a magic sword, or a night with the Pirate Queen. Getting it will make you happy, and the effort of will needed to turn it down mentally exhausts you.
From the Gamer's perspective a night with the pirate queen serves no real purpose, while a magic sword does serve a purpose. Abstracted RP reward systems (Fate Points, Bennies, ect), try to balance that out by encouraging the player to make RP decisions with no practical benefit.

But, your system isn't supposed to be that sort of meta reward/punishment system. It's supposed to model the Character's In-Universe struggle.

In-universe, both are things that make the Knight happy. Both are things the Knight wants. Getting either would make the Knight happy, and having to pass up either would require an exhausting effort of will. Your "System" should be based on what the CHARACTER cares about, not what the PLAYER cares about.

Otherwise, you're just blatantly trying to carrot/stick the player into making various decisions by offering them Morale Point bribes, and threatening them with penalties.

Or, how do you see it working?

GM: "The Pirate Queen invites you to her chamber for a night of pleasure..."
Player: "Sweet! Morale Points here I come"
GM: Let me finish. If you accept, she'll give you the map to the Lost City."
Player: "...and morale points?"
GM: "Well, the map to the Lost City is really it's own reward..."

jayem

2017-01-07, 03:19 AM

Okay, you said a lot in that post.
But, it's late, so I'm going to limit myself to this one.

If your goal is really a Simulation, then why does this "Morale Point" System go away the moment the reward gained is practical, rather than purely pleasurable/emotional.

The Knight is a professional slayer of evil. That sword will help him slay evil better, it will bring him great pleasure to wield it's mighty blade in the pursuit of justice. Knowing that he could have gained such a sword, but chose not to, will haunt him.

He Wants The sword.

That to some extent is already represented in the game. The player is well aware it will help him slay evil better, it already will bring him great pleasure. There would have to be morale buzz points given for actually slaying evil in that regard (or for it to be built into MP recovery) or progress the plot.

If it ever got to compulsion levels then it would definitely be needed to be taken into account at that point in time. Even indirectly so there would be work needed there, but if indirect I don't think it's the straight bonus.

If you gain Morale Points for accepting something you Want, and lose morale points for refusing something you want, why should it matter whether what you "Want" in this case is a magic sword, or a night with the Pirate Queen. Getting it will make you happy, and the effort of will needed to turn it down mentally exhausts you.

Or, how do you see it working?

GM: "The Pirate Queen invites you to her chamber for a night of pleasure..."
Player: "Sweet! Morale Points here I come"
GM: Let me finish. If you accept, she'll give you the map to the Lost City."
Player: "...and morale points?"
GM: "Well, the map to the Lost City is really it's own reward..."

It would be more like this at the least.

GM: "The Pirate Queen invites you to her chamber for a night of pleasure..."
Player: "Sweet! Morale Points here I come"
GM: Let me finish. If you accept, she'll give you the map to the Lost City."
Player: "...and MORE morale points?"
GM: "Well, the map to the Lost City is really it's own reward..."

Your argument still stands, and I'm not sure about how the map of the lost city should go [especially for Scrooge/Indie characters]. But it's not quite the position you were portraying.

Lorsa

2017-01-07, 06:30 AM

I can understand where you are comming from. But there is something that makes me think that this is not quite MaxKilljoys stance. He has also spoken quite adamently against Charm and Mind Control effects

At least as I see it there is an important difference between Charm etc. and stuff like social mechanics that dictate how your character feels towards other characters. Instances of the second kind do take away the authorship on your characters feelings because they model events that fall in the natural chain of causal relations regarding the feelings of your character. What your character feels when someone tries a seduction IS causaly related to the whole context of the seduction. But the decision on how the character actually feels should be completely on the player, following your position.
Rules in this context abstract the formation of the characters feelings but by doing so take away authorship.

With Charm/Mind Control the situation is different. While the effects are too described by rules, they are not an abstraction. They simply adjucate the effects from the definition of a Charm in game terms. And this is important: Charm/Mindcontrol is defined by being a violation of the natural chain of causal relations. That is what makes them supernatural. Being Charmed does not take away your authorship on your characters feelings. It prevents you from controling your characters feelings because your character is under a system agnoistic condition the character from being in control. You can substitute "Charmed" or "Mind Controled" with "Dead" or "In Temporal Stasis" for the same effect.

Now, what those effects DO take away is control. And I think this loss of control is what concerns MaxKilljoy far more then a loss of authorship.

I obviously can't speak for Max_killjoy, but for me supernatural mind control is less of an issue than other types of mechanics that would try to tell how my character feels.

It's rarely fun to be the subject of such control though, and if a GM uses it too heavily, I'd get warning signs of moving into railroading territory, but that is a different problem entirely.

I know the feeling. x_x

And yet you somehow manages to post stuff with extraordinary length. How do you do it? Did you make a clone of yourself? Drugs? Tell me your secret!

The problem is that this means that it's solely dependent on the GM's ability to be not merely an exquisite storyteller, but to do so in a way that makes you honestly feel like he's the hot seductress, the silver-tongued merchant, and that you, yourself, are suffering the pain of having your fingernails ripped off, or the indignity of being dragged through raw sewage. To so spectacularly describe the foulness of the odor that you, as a player, beg him to stop because you CAN practically smell it and it's so miserable that you truly share in your character's experience.

Games simply cannot expect this of their GMs. Nor of their players. That's WHY we have mechanics.

I'm not sure that this is the sole reason for having mechanics. As I said above, one could have mechanics because we want a slightly random neutral arbiter to judge on the outcome of attempted actions.

I think anyone who attempts GMing needs to work on their storytelling skills. While we certainly can't expect them to be awesome right away, it should be an ideal to strive for.

Simply dismissing it as "we can't expect people to do it so let's just forget it" isn't going to do actual games any good.

However, it's not ONLY about the GM's description ability, it's also about the player's ability to imagine the situation. Those two work together, and if one fails, the other may pick up the slack.

Ideally, the rules won't contradict the description. If they do, it's a failure of the mechanics, most likely. (If it isn't, it's a case of the describer ignoring the world the mechanics are trying to model. "No, I don't take 10d6 falling damage; I sprout wings and fly." "But...you can't do that." "Tough."

It doesn't necessarily has to be a failure of the mechanics. It could as well be a failure of the GM to describe the situation they themselves are envisioning (see your complaint above). I agree that ideally the rules shouldn't contradict the description. Which is why I would be hesitant of adding rules which have a higher probability of doing so compared to other rules.

If that's so, then I will repeat again: One thing the rules I propose never takes away is control of the character's choices and actions. The character's authorship - who he is (as defined by his build) and what he says (as authored in the moment) - remains the player's sole province. (Well, insofar as is reasonable. Given social mechanics, the fumble-tongued doofus isn't going to be saying eloquent soliloquies, even if his player gives them. But that's not even part of the system I'm proposing insofar as we've been discussing.) The characters ACTIONS - what the player-as-actor does - remain solely the province of the player (again, insofar as the character is capable of taking those actions; he can't sprout wings and fly if the game rules don't allow it). It is only the directorship that is placed in the hands of this system. "You're experiencing these urges and drives and desires to these various degrees." It remains solely the player's choice how the character acts in response to them. The system only applies emotional consequences based on the sated or thwarted yearnings involved.

I know this wasn't directed at me but in response to this I will again say:

Your proposed system is interesting enough that I would like to try it at the very least. I see some potential issues, but I usually prefer to try something first before dismissing it entirely. Had it try to dictate the character's actual actions however, I'm not sure I would've been much interested in trying it.

I try my best not to use pejorative terms or language towards people, especially for things as silly as different preferences in their elf-games.

And you usually succeed as well (with usually in this case meaning all instances that I have observed).

that said, I have some questions, how do you consider the following scenarios, concerning whether or not you find them acceptable, or if they're a violation along the lines of "Your character wants to sleep with the pirate queen":

1) The Dragon Roars, your character fails their check against fear. The Game's mechanics now tell you that your character is afraid of the Dragon.

2) The Dragon Roars, you make your save against fear. The GM says that , for a moment, you are frozen in place, terrified, but you shake it off and steady yourself once again. The GM has just told you how your character responded to the Roar.

3) The Dragon roars, there is no mechanical effect, but the GM describes the sounds as "Terrifying", and "Gripping your hearts with fear". Whether or not it affects your actions, the GM has just told you that your character is afraid of the Dragon.

4) You make an Insight check against an NPC. The GM says "They seem likable and trustworthy. You are convinced that, if they are lying, they are not doing so intentionally." You used a mechanic to simulate your character making a conclusion, and the GM has told you what your character concluded, complete with a value judgement.

5) You make an Insight check against an NPC, Rather then describing the NPC averting their eyes during key statements, fidgeting, or pausing to think before describing some over-elaborate detail, the GM simply says "You can tell that they are lying". The GM has told you your character's conclusion, rather than letting you work out the conclusion for yourself from the evidence your character noted.

6) The GM, while setting the scene, describes the "Delicious smell of freshly baked bread wafting from the Kitchen". The GM has just informed you that your character finds the scent of freshly baked bread (and this bread in particular) Delicious.

7) Similar to above. While setting the scene, the GM describes "A gorgeous painting of a knight riding through a snowy mountain pass". The GM has just told you that your character found this particular painting to be aesthetically pleasing.

8) You make a Knowledge History check about a historical figure. The GM replies "He was a cruel and evil King, who conscripted the peasants into his army and forced the nobility to finance his conquests by holding their families hostage in his palace". The GM has described some objective facts (Conscripted peasants, held noble families hostage), but prefaced it with your character's conclusion (A Cruel and Evil king)

I know the questions weren't directed at me, but can I answer them as well? Can I? Please? I like answering questions!

1) I've played in games which try to mimic natural fear. The execution was poor, so I have to imagine some better system. I guess it could technically work, but I'm not sure it adds anything to game that I'm interested in. While I could accept such mechanics, I'm not sure I would be interested in them.

For supernatural fear, I do accept that this can happen. There is magic that can impose feelings in my character. When that happens, I will try to accept the input, "feel" the feeling and act appropriately.

2) I usually find it more fun to get to decide on my character's actions myself. If the GM just wants to "describe quickly how frightening the dragon is" including some description of my panicked actions, I would question the usefulness. The GM doesn't want the fear to have an actual impact (therefore quickly skipping over to the part where I can act), but somehow still feels like it's important that my character was, for a moment, frozen in place. Why? What did it accomplish other than take away my agency for a second? One such event wouldn't be a big deal, but if it these kind of small things happened too often, it would irritate me a lot.

3) This is just poor description skill and nothing else. Sometimes the "gripping your hears with fear" metaphor IS applicable in a description, but "terrifying" rarely is. Usually, it is enough just describing a big-ass dragon, and let the players themselves conclude if it is terrifying or not.

4) I would question the need of the value judgement. Why not stop with "they seem trustworthy"? Or, alternatively, "they show no sign of deception"? Let me decide if my character trusts them or not. What is the use or need to hijack my character's thought processes, unless there's some supernatural stuff going on (which is what I might start suspecting if the GM tells me what I conclude.

5) I think this is okay-ish. Far better would be "they seem/appear to be lying" or "they show signs of deception". This is usually what I expect out of such a roll, whereas "you can TELL they are lying" are speaking of some objective truth. Ideally, the roll should just tell me what I see, not what I think. The description doesn't have to be detailed with all the averting of eyes or whatever, it can be abstracted to "show signs of deception". Which is really all that's needed (sometimes people show those signs even if they're telling the truth, because they don't feel the truth is all that believable, or they actually want you to think they're lying when they're telling the truth).

6) When I first read this, I actually felt hungry and craving for bread. So job well done, I think. I guess I find this okay, but overall there are better qualifiers than "delicious", as any textbook on description would tell you.

7) This is worse than above, unless the painting actually has a supernatural effect to it that makes observers finding it gorgeous. Just describe the painting. Doesn't even have to be all that detailed. If the player then asks "is it any good" the GM could respond with "well, if you're into those kind of paintings; the craftsmanship is excellent, the colors vivid" etc.

8) I find it poor form to make such objective statements. The GM could say "Many people at the time thought he was a cruel and evil king." or "Historical records typically lists him as a cruel and evil king.". This puts the judgement where it belongs; away from the character. Let the player decide if their character agrees with the historical notions based on the facts.

I feel you. You also said some good things about tastes and goals. I think that is an important point because there seems to be a lot of conflagrating of good/bad and like/dislike. Which is a really sticky thing to separate, but they are separate and we should not confuse the two.

Now comes the unexpected bit, I think we should actually be focusing on like/dislike. Why? Because we are talking about a game we play for fun. Any objective value of a game is a moot point (except as an guess of how much people will like it) because we do not directly experience that.

I totally agree. We should definitely be focusing on like/dislike. Which is why many of my posts is focusing on trying to go back to basic ideas and desires. Unless we understand what we like, where we are coming from and what we want out of the RPG, the discussing is easily doomed to go in circles.

Cluedrew

2017-01-07, 10:18 AM

We should definitely be focusing on like/dislike. Which is why many of my posts is focusing on trying to go back to basic ideas and desires. Unless we understand what we like, where we are coming from and what we want out of the RPG, the discussing is easily doomed to go in circles.We are in an odd position where arguing objectively could actually weaken your argument. But "objectivity" is held to such esteem people seem want to peruse it even when it doesn't matter.

On Highlights: I have been thinking it over and I realized that if I built a personality system right now I would probably go with a highlight system. Basically nothing that enforces/encourages behaviour unless you add it to the character sheet. In other words if you (as the knight's player) don't want to have to deal with the pirate queens wiles that's fine, it is actually default. Especially if you put down "Upholds the knightly code." and nothing about sexuality. The bard with "Party Animal" might (depending on how you expand party animal). And if the knight has "Has trouble upholding the knightly code" instead, then maybe the pirate queen can start to pull on his "heart" strings.

In other words, it is an opt. in system. If you are playing a system with personality mechanics than you are probably interested in expressing parts of your character's personality mechanically. This takes it a step further and lets you pick out exactly which ones and letting you ignore the others. Actually I think you could built a system entirely from this if you were clever about it. ... ... I've lost some time thinking about that system. Maybe I'll actually say it once I got it worked out.

However for personality alone it also offers you a dial for how much you want to play that part of the game, if characters have no restrictions on how many of these highlights they can have. Then Max_Killjoy (not wanting interference) could make a character with 0 and Segev (or someone who likes the through encoding of his system) could have 10 on their character. It might cause build points, or give build points depending on how good/bad the highlight is. If you can make it so they can go either way (as both a hook for others and tool for the character) maybe they are free.

That is the best personality system I have yet. Obviously it has lots of gaps, such as defining how highlights can be used, but it is a start.

0

jayem

2017-01-07, 10:43 AM

I've opened a thread to begin a draft pretend system.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?511344-You-ve-got-personality
I think a concrete example for people to play with, makes a degree of sense. And to see if they can play the character they want.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-07, 10:52 AM

We are in an odd position where arguing objectively could actually weaken your argument. But "objectivity" is held to such esteem people seem want to peruse it even when it doesn't matter.

On Highlights: I have been thinking it over and I realized that if I built a personality system right now I would probably go with a highlight system. Basically nothing that enforces/encourages behaviour unless you add it to the character sheet. In other words if you (as the knight's player) don't want to have to deal with the pirate queens wiles that's fine, it is actually default. Especially if you put down "Upholds the knightly code." and nothing about sexuality. The bard with "Party Animal" might (depending on how you expand party animal). And if the knight has "Has trouble upholding the knightly code" instead, then maybe the pirate queen can start to pull on his "heart" strings.

In other words, it is an opt. in system. If you are playing a system with personality mechanics than you are probably interested in expressing parts of your character's personality mechanically. This takes it a step further and lets you pick out exactly which ones and letting you ignore the others. Actually I think you could built a system entirely from this if you were clever about it. ... ... I've lost some time thinking about that system. Maybe I'll actually say it once I got it worked out.

However for personality alone it also offers you a dial for how much you want to play that part of the game, if characters have no restrictions on how many of these highlights they can have. Then Max_Killjoy (not wanting interference) could make a character with 0 and Segev (or someone who likes the through encoding of his system) could have 10 on their character. It might cause build points, or give build points depending on how good/bad the highlight is. If you can make it so they can go either way (as both a hook for others and tool for the character) maybe they are free.

That is the best personality system I have yet. Obviously it has lots of gaps, such as defining how highlights can be used, but it is a start.

0

As long as it's voluntary and based on character specifics, I have no problem with it as a theoretical approach.

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-07, 01:14 PM

The voluntary part is in choosing to play the game, probably.

jayem

2017-01-07, 01:30 PM

The voluntary part is in choosing to play the game, probably.

Sometimes.
But if a game can allow everyone to get what they want (which they won't entirely), in this case in particular not needing to experience some parts of the game then that's all the good. (though in fairness and balance, you might be limited in (functional) character choices, and they'll have to work round a little too, so it is still a compromise).

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-07, 01:58 PM

"Hey, we're having pizza, cool. Anyone want the anchovies off my slice? I'm going to pick them off."

"NO, you'll either eat the pizza with the anchovies, or not eat pizza at all!"

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-07, 02:08 PM

Sometimes.
But if a game can allow everyone to get what they want (which they won't entirely), in this case in particular not needing to experience some parts of the game then that's all the good. (though in fairness and balance, you might be limited in (functional) character choices, and they'll have to work round a little too, so it is still a compromise).

Yeah, I'm referring to the stated goal of having a system that explicitly runs on such personality traits. You'd probably not have the option to opt out of the core mechanic of the game any more than a D&D character can opt out of having a level or hit dice.

If it's an add-on mechanic where you get mechanical stuff for expressing important personality parts, then you have a modified version of the Belief, Instinct, and Goal system discussed earlier, inasmuch as its choosing some personality-related stuff that is important to your character right now so that you get a bit extra out of it since you're going to be doing it anyways, or gives you a reason to engage with that layer if you normally don't. (And if your players just want to powergame, don't bother introducing it because it won't be helpful.)

The thing about all these systems is that when played by someone with radically different goals, they may break down in their function because they're not built for that. Yeah, a lot of RP-reinforcement systems break down when presented to optimizers. But it's not really the system's job to reign in every possible kind of player, appeal to all of them, and make sure they all get what they want out of all doing the same thing. That's not how it works, and that's not the system's job. The system's job is to appeal to the sorts of players that will enjoy it and be good at fulfillimg THAT need.

Though I suppose I can give a shoutout to Apocalypse World for turning one of my players most interested in tactics and powergaming into the player most heavily invested in the fiction layer of the game out of them all. Which is 100% a fluke and I'm sure isn't a thing it regularly does. (I'm pretty sure it just happened to resonate with his creative preferences.) I bring this up as an example of it being POSSIBLE to dramatically change player behavior with a system, but I wouldn't make it a goal of the system to do so.

It should focus on rewarding things that people already enjoy doing.

Cluedrew

2017-01-07, 02:15 PM

Well I think the issue is a lot of pizzas have all the toppings backed into the cheese and so are harder to remove from a single slice. Although it would be great if you could customize every slice even if someone would gladly take your anchovies (why is it always anchovies?) removing them might not be worth the effort. At which point you should see if you can order a pizza without anchovies.

It isn't always to add or remove aspects of a rule system. This system does (for one mechanic) but often they are two interdependent to do so. So even if no one minds that you aren't playing with them directly, the fact you are leaving out one part of the system could dramatically effect other parts of the system. It might take a lot of work to get everything working again. So usually, you just try to find a system that everyone at the table wants to play.

1

jayem

2017-01-07, 02:20 PM

(Edited as the above says it much better on the Pizza).
But to add, that's still a pretty good outcome.

kyoryu

2017-01-07, 06:57 PM

(Edited as the above says it much better on the Pizza).
But to add, that's still a pretty good outcome.

Or you just don't play together.

I mean "we all want to see a movie" is a reasonable thing to start with, but if half of the group wants a horror movie and the other half wants a rom-com, and there's nothing everybody all wants to see, then maybe you just don't see it as a group.

Segev

2017-01-07, 08:34 PM

No, it's wanting to actually play the character you came to play, without constantly having to overcome negative modifiers imposed by someone else thinking they know more about your character than they do.If you came to play a specific character, why did you build one that would not be that person? You're assuming at least one of two things to make this objection:

1) The system is designed such that you CANNOT make the character you want to;
2) You have chosen to build a character in the system that is not the character you want to play.

I contend that (1) is not inherently untrue; it is possible to build a system which accommodates nearly any personality type one might wish to play. So far, you've shown no evidence that it is impossible other than getting increasingly acerbic in your insistence that it must be.

As for (2), that's like complaining that you can't play a mysterious spellcaster in D&D because you chose to build a power-attacking fighter.

Maybe you find it believable... but "saying it's so doesn't make it true". I roll my eyes at your efforts to throw my "assertion doesn't make it so" back at me, since I've only ever brought it up when you (or anybody else) has continued to assert something repeatedly with no backup. I said this once.

As for back up: Generally speaking, I don't hear people groaning and throwing their metaphorical popcorn at the screen every time such a character shows up. Even if it is hyperbole, it is generally accepted hyperbole. I don't doubt that some find it eye-roll-worthy in its own right. You are, obviously, one of them. But we ARE talking about a game, here, and one of the dangers I find in any (lack of) social mechanics is the ability to no-sell them entirely and thus invalidating such character concepts. "Sure, you can play the cunning courtesan, but nobody will ever believe her nor like her because you can't RP cunning social likability in a way we believe our characters - including the NPCs, since the GM is the one you have to persuade you're being that charming for them - so you suck for having wasted all the resources you spent trying to build her social skills up."

Of course, if she didn't waste resources because they just weren't even options, then it's just the game telling you that you can't play that kind of character at all. Nor can the GM have NPCs of that sort, because hey, everybody can no-sell any social skills the characters are purported to have.

You're getting into the realm of the purely fictional, then -- mythical levels of prowess that have no place outside of a completely over-the-top game. These are deities, superhumans, and the like, taken to the level of self-parody. I disagree with the "self-parody" bit, but find nothing objectionable about the rest. We're playing characters who can hold their breath for far longer than nearly any real person, who can swing swords in battle for hours on end (if the combat lasts that long) without tiring, who can shake off poisons with their martial arts mastery over their own bodies, and, of course, use outright magic.

This whole "if the character just rolls well enough, she can make anyone feel something" thing is equivalent to "if the character just rolls well enough, she can leap to the moon". Some things just aren't possible. Let's discuss this a bit more. Specifically, at what point do you say, "That's impossible!"? Let's look at jumping to the moon: what is the 100% maximum height you would ever allow a character to jump (without magic, let's say). How about with magic, but it's just "adds to your skill check" sorts of magic?

Usaine Bolt is the world record holder as the fastest runner alive (amongst humans). When I was a kid, the 4-minute mile was thought to be an impossible-for-humans feat, until somebody actually did it. Now his record's been broken a couple of times.

I'm sure that we could all find extrema where we'd agree that the speed is impossible for a human. The Flash routinely goes hundreds of miles an hour, and we absolutely agree that's a "superspeed" power, not something a non-super human could achieve with sufficient training.

However, Kid Flash can't go as fast as the Flash. But we still recognize that his speeds - also in the triple digit miles per hour - are a superpower.

Let's say that we have, as well, "Would-be Flash," a character who WANTS to be superhuman fast, and trains for it. Trains hard. Ultimately, she manages to take every record for speed in the book. Has she obtained a superpower? At what speeds would she have to be able to run before we say, "That is not humanly possible?"

Every day, she runs just a little bit faster. Let's say her top speed increases by 1 foot per hour every day. At what point do you say, "She's moved beyond human capability; she must have a superpower?"

The spoiler block contains a thought experiment I have wrestled with for fun many times. I still don't have a satisfactory answer. But it also illustrates the point I want to make, here: no, we don't think jumping to the moon is "humanly possible." Not without magic or somesuch. And a system which allowed a normal human character to do so would obviously be failing. Whether it's due to hard caps, soft caps of a "you just can't get enough bonuses" sort, or soft caps of a logarithmic sort ("it gets more expensive to get higher until you just can't afford that next inch of height"), a good system modeling jumping will not allow sheer impossibility...unless it's meant to simulate demigods and physical gods.

Likewise, while I say that the Pirate Queen might be Just That Good at seduction, yes, we are potentially getting into near-supernatural (and almost certainly "legendary") skill levels. Though it would take play testing to calibrate, my goal would be that somebody who was sufficiently uninterested or opposed to her seduction would be beyond her ability to reach...and that if you're building her so that she CAN, you're building her probably with literally supernatural aid. Whether it's merely "adds magical competence to your skill" or outright "glamour that muddles the resistance of any mortal mind," it's out of "mortal seductiveness" and into "magical seductiveness."

Saying they can doesn't make that so, either. If you're going to keep blowing off my position as "asserting it doesn't make it so", then I guess I can do the same to yours.See, the difference is that I actually attempt to justify my positions. Sadly, due to how I'm multiquoting, I no longer recall to what you said this, so I can't defend it right now. My apologies.

If you would actually do more than repeat your assertions, and would back them up with something other than "it's so," I would stop telling you that asserting it doesn't make it so. I do so only because I've worn out my vocabulary trying to discuss the points with you and you just keep repeating "Welcome to Corneria." I feel like I keep bringing out more and more evidence that the earth is round, from historical greek mathematical proofs to modern globes to images of the earth from space, and you just keep saying, louder and louder, "The Earth is FLAT," as if that proves everything I'm bringing up is wrong (or worse, morally repugnant).

Seriously, though... this entire notion of "they can make you feel things you don't want to feel, and want things don't want" runs entirely counter everything I've ever experienced in life. Maybe it happens to some people, but it's sure as hell never happened to me -- not in the way you're describing.Seriously?

Again, you've NEVER wanted something and wished you didn't? Something you knew was bad or wrong, and you have a larger part of you that abhores or rejects it, and you feel a little bad about wanting? I know it might be getting a little twisty and complicated to bring up the concept of "wanting to want" something, but have you truly never wanted something you wish you didn't, or not wanted something you wish you did?

I mean, I WANT to want healthy foods, and not to want unhealthy ones, as an example. I'd love it if I didn't find rich, calorically-dense foods (especially soda) so darned delicious. It'd make things a lot easier.

Okay, you said a lot in that post.
But, it's late, so I'm going to limit myself to this one.

If your goal is really a Simulation, then why does this "Morale Point" System go away the moment the reward gained is practical, rather than purely pleasurable/emotional. Because the morale points are not about the practical side of it. They're about the immediate pleasure or displeasure of something.

The Knight is a professional slayer of evil. That sword will help him slay evil better, it will bring him great pleasure to wield it's mighty blade in the pursuit of justice. Knowing that he could have gained such a sword, but chose not to, will haunt him. Future pleasure, anticipated pleasure, are not what the morale points are really meant to reflect.

He Wants The sword.And if he's really got something in his personality traits that say he likes having that sword and that getting it - not anticipating using it but getting it right now - would fill him with immediate emotional joy, then he could get some morale points from the act of obtaining it.

If you gain Morale Points for accepting something you Want, and lose morale points for refusing something you want, why should it matter whether what you "Want" in this case is a magic sword, or a night with the Pirate Queen. Getting it will make you happy, and the effort of will needed to turn it down mentally exhausts you.
From the Gamer's perspective a night with the pirate queen serves no real purpose, while a magic sword does serve a purpose. Abstracted RP reward systems (Fate Points, Bennies, ect), try to balance that out by encouraging the player to make RP decisions with no practical benefit.

But, your system isn't supposed to be that sort of meta reward/punishment system. It's supposed to model the Character's In-Universe struggle. Correct.

Your "System" should be based on what the CHARACTER cares about, not what the PLAYER cares about. Agreed.

Or, how do you see it working?

GM: "The Pirate Queen invites you to her chamber for a night of pleasure..."
Player: "Sweet! Morale Points here I come"
GM: Let me finish. If you accept, she'll give you the map to the Lost City."
Player: "...and morale points?"
GM: "Well, the map to the Lost City is really it's own reward..."
I see it more like this:

GM: "The Pirate Queen invites you to her chamber for a night of pleasure..."
Player: "Sweet! My bard is straight and has "romancing the pants off pretty ladies" as a trait worth X morale points. Is she actively seducing? How many morale points is she offering?"
GM: "Let me finish. If you accept, she'll give you the map to the Lost City."
Player: "So...she's just trying to buy a night of sex like I'm a prostitute? *sigh* She's not WRONG; he's a bit of a man-slut. Would've been nice if she put more effort into the seduction, though."
GM: "Well, the map to the Lost City is really its own reward..."
Player: "Yeah, it is, and my bard still does rock her pants off, so it's at least as many morale points as the wenching he does during downtime."

And yet you somehow manages to post stuff with extraordinary length. How do you do it? Did you make a clone of yourself? Drugs? Tell me your secret!Having a lot to catch up on, and then coming back to the post periodically over time as I get an opportunity, really.

Er, I mean, undead minions. Yeah.

I'm not sure that this is the sole reason for having mechanics. As I said above, one could have mechanics because we want a slightly random neutral arbiter to judge on the outcome of attempted actions. That's...kind of what I mean by that. The neutral arbiter tells us how good/bad/skilled/lucky/whatever things really are in the game world. Independently of the player's ability to act it out or talk people IRL into believing his character should be able to do it.

I think anyone who attempts GMing needs to work on their storytelling skills. While we certainly can't expect them to be awesome right away, it should be an ideal to strive for.The problem is that, without mechanics, we are expecting him to be awesome right away. Mechanics let him tell the story to the best of his ability, and then assign numbers/rules/etc. to back it up so that players and the GM really do know just how scary what the GM tried to describe is.

Simply dismissing it as "we can't expect people to do it so let's just forget it" isn't going to do actual games any good.That's not what I said. I said it's unreasonable to expect it, so saying that only when the GM can do it should we expect for characters to have responses that aren't "ooh. eeek. i. am. so. scared. Now I kill it!" levels of response.

If the GM really can't manage to scare the ex-marine sitting at his table, he should still be able to tell that ex-marine that his school marm that got dragged into this war zone is experiencing X amount of fear (however the system represents that) so that the ex-marine, whose personal calibration for what constitutes "scary" in a war zone is probably very different than the rest of the players', has a common basis to work from. (As an example.)

However, it's not ONLY about the GM's description ability, it's also about the player's ability to imagine the situation. Those two work together, and if one fails, the other may pick up the slack.In part, what I'm proposing is an aid to communicate to the player what he SHOULD be imagining. Should he be imagining something so scary his PC wets himself and collapses in a heap, or something moderately startling but ultimately just worthy of an adrenaline-fueled action scene?

Your proposed system is interesting enough that I would like to try it at the very least. I see some potential issues, but I usually prefer to try something first before dismissing it entirely. Had it try to dictate the character's actual actions however, I'm not sure I would've been much interested in trying it.Thanks! And I agree: systems which dictate character actions are definitely more frustrating. At best.

I totally agree. We should definitely be focusing on like/dislike. Which is why many of my posts is focusing on trying to go back to basic ideas and desires. Unless we understand what we like, where we are coming from and what we want out of the RPG, the discussing is easily doomed to go in circles.That really is what I'm trying to do here.

"Hey, we're having pizza, cool. Anyone want the anchovies off my slice? I'm going to pick them off."

"NO, you'll either eat the pizza with the anchovies, or not eat pizza at all!"
How well does that work with other aspects of systems, when you tell the rest of the table you don't want them to affect your character?

Not trying to say "you're a bad person for not liking what I propose" or anything, here. I'm asking as a practical matter. "I don't like that I lose control of a country in Risk if I lose all my guys, so that part of the game doesn't apply to me." "I don't like poison in games, so poison rules shouldn't apply to my character." "Hit points and dying are opt-in, right? I can just narrate how my character reacts to wounds while those who want hp can use them."

Cluedrew

2017-01-07, 09:08 PM

To jayem: Thanks.

To kyoryu: Some times you just have to order different pizzas. Still I would try to find a pizza that everyone likes first.

1) The system is designed such that you CANNOT make the character you want to;Actually I think one of the strongest arguments "for" this actually came from Lorsa a ways back. And I say for in quotation marks because it isn't actually for this but it does show another major obstacle. And that is that most people don't know exactly who their character is when the game starts. They have the major ideas worked out, but the details might be decided later, either as they come up or in reaction to play in the early game, playing off other characters and the situation.

In other words, even if you can make the character you want, you may not actually know exactly what that character is right away. Now this is not an impossible to overcome problem, I can think of a few possible solutions:
Stay at a high level so the details don't have to be encoded.
Build changing characters. Not only for character growth but also for fixes.
Let character creation continue into early play.
I mean it is not a simple design challenge. That is why no one has really "solved" it yet.
Usaine Bolt is the world record holder as the fastest runner alive (amongst humans). When I was a kid, the 4-minute mile was thought to be an impossible-for-humans feat, until somebody actually did it. Now his record's been broken a couple of times.

I'm sure that we could all find extrema where we'd agree that the speed is impossible for a human. The Flash routinely goes hundreds of miles an hour, and we absolutely agree that's a "superspeed" power, not something a non-super human could achieve with sufficient training.

However, Kid Flash can't go as fast as the Flash. But we still recognize that his speeds - also in the triple digit miles per hour - are a superpower.

Let's say that we have, as well, "Would-be Flash," a character who WANTS to be superhuman fast, and trains for it. Trains hard. Ultimately, she manages to take every record for speed in the book. Has she obtained a superpower? At what speeds would she have to be able to run before we say, "That is not humanly possible?"

Every day, she runs just a little bit faster. Let's say her top speed increases by 1 foot per hour every day. At what point do you say, "She's moved beyond human capability; she must have a superpower?"When she is a superhero. OK this isn't quite about superpowers as "beyond human" but superpowers as the source of power. But did you know Iron Man and Batman actually have a common superpower: Money. There is nothing superhuman about having money, but in a practical sense it does give both characters some of their strength to fight crime. This is really tangential but I just wanted to say it anyways.

Segev

2017-01-07, 10:15 PM

Actually I think one of the strongest arguments "for" this actually came from Lorsa a ways back. And I say for in quotation marks because it isn't actually for this but it does show another major obstacle. And that is that most people don't know exactly who their character is when the game starts. They have the major ideas worked out, but the details might be decided later, either as they come up or in reaction to play in the early game, playing off other characters and the situation.Sure. The same is true of anything mechanical, I've found, in real play. Adjust the build when you realize it's not working how you wanted.

When she is a superhero. OK this isn't quite about superpowers as "beyond human" but superpowers as the source of power. But did you know Iron Man and Batman actually have a common superpower: Money. There is nothing superhuman about having money, but in a practical sense it does give both characters some of their strength to fight crime. This is really tangential but I just wanted to say it anyways.

Dodging the question. To demonstrate this, I'll point out that Batman and Iron Man don't do anything that we are not expected to believe that an ordinary human could do. Batman's in tip-top physical shape and both are geniuses in their own ways. They have super-gadgets. But, in theory, we're expected to believe that anybody trained appropriately and given their gear could do similar feats to what they perform. Not identical (everybody's different), but similar.

In fact, Terry McGuinness in Batman:Beyond puts on the bat suit and is 85% of the way to being Batman just from that (due to all the gadgetry in that suit).

Nobody would say, "They have superpowers. So things you talk about them doing are unrealistic for non-super humans."

The point of the thought exercise is precisely to identify what the cut-off is. Batman can't jump to the moon. Batman can't even jump to the third story from a standing jump on the ground, at least, not unassisted by tech. If Batman were shown to be doing that, we'd either acknowledge that this is supposed to be something normal people can do in that setting, or we'd call B.S. on it. The point of the question, then, is just how high CAN Batman jump before we say, "wait a minute...?"

A system which lets Batman, from pure skill/stats/whatever, stay a "normal man" (albeit highly trained) and jump from the ground to the top of the Hall of Justice with no gadget-based assistance is a system we'd probably all agree is giving him too many bonuses to that jump check. But where is the line? Once we identify our line of believability, we can calibrate our system to avoid crossing it.

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-07, 10:33 PM

Interestingly, Segev has managed to bring in the "Paradox of the Heap" that philosophers were arguing about in ancient greece, but has applied it to superheroes. Neat.

For those who don't know, here's the paradox:

Let us suppose you have a heap of sand. From this heap of sand you begin to pull individual grains of sand. At what point does it stop being a heap of sand?

It also works in inverse: You start with a grain of sand and begin adding more grains of sand. At what point do you have a heap of sand?

So yeah. This thread about how people prefer their Magic Elf Games has managed to get back to greek philosophical arguments.

10/10

kyoryu

2017-01-07, 10:59 PM

To kyoryu: Some times you just have to order different pizzas. Still I would try to find a pizza that everyone likes first.

Of course. But in the analogy, everyone has to eat the same pizza, and sometimes that just isn't going to happen. So, yeah, try to find a compromise that makes everyone happy, or at least happy most of the time. You can *usually* do that. But sometimes you can't, and that's okay, too. And sometimes everyone in your group except one person wants to try something weird, and it's not really fair to *everyone* to not do it, so the holdout can either deal with it or sit one out.

The biggest trick, in RPGs, is realizing that not everybody likes the same pizza. Doubly so when the only language we have is incredibly vague like "traditional" or "californian" pizza, which really tells me nothing about the pizza itself.

Talakeal

2017-01-07, 11:28 PM

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-07, 11:47 PM

Of course. But in the analogy, everyone has to eat the same pizza, and sometimes that just isn't going to happen. So, yeah, try to find a compromise that makes everyone happy, or at least happy most of the time. You can *usually* do that. But sometimes you can't, and that's okay, too. And sometimes everyone in your group except one person wants to try something weird, and it's not really fair to *everyone* to not do it, so the holdout can either deal with it or sit one out.

The biggest trick, in RPGs, is realizing that not everybody likes the same pizza. Doubly so when the only language we have is incredibly vague like "traditional" or "californian" pizza, which really tells me nothing about the pizza itself.

When it comes to actual pizza, the "pick off the parts I don't like" thing is usually the result of me trying to not make a bid deal out of it and let everyone else get all the stuff they want. Mushrooms being the actual #1 culprit.

It's an unspoken "I'd like the pizza better without this thing on it, but go ahead and get it since you like it, and I'll be the one to put in the extra effort to get my enjoyment out of the pizza".

I'd find it pretty rude if someone gave me grief for not eating the pizza "as is", when I'd be the one going the extra step, and me doing so doesn't remove anything from his enjoyment of the pizza... unless his enjoyment of the pizza somehow bizarrely hinged on everyone else experience the same pizza he did...

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-08, 02:01 AM

Let's not needlessly overanalyze the specifics of the example and miss the forest for the trees.

Game mechanics are often far more interwoven into the whole than a mushroom is to a pizza. Taking off the mushroom won't make the pizza function incorrectly or oddly, but an rpg might get weird if one player gets to outright ignore an entire mechanic without good reason beyond they don't like the mechanic. That DOES affect everyone else.

Cluedrew

2017-01-08, 08:09 AM

Dodging the question.I was not trying to answer "the question", rather I went of on a tangent about what is a superpower. I'm going to skip going into detail because it is really a tangent to a tangent all ready. You can ask for detail if you want and then I'll give it more time. As for "the question" I don't have an answer.

Of course. But in the analogy, everyone has to eat the same pizza, and sometimes that just isn't going to happen.I had "eating the same pizza" as "playing the same game" so by getting different pizzas we are playing different games. (I'm not suggesting half the group uses Eclipse Phase and the other half uses Monster Hearts... I have no idea how that word work.) I'll also admit that talking about pizza is not quite as effective as talking about role-playing games directly, but I'm having more fun this way.

The biggest trick, in RPGs, is realizing that not everybody likes the same pizza. Doubly so when the only language we have is incredibly vague like "traditional" or "californian" pizza, which really tells me nothing about the pizza itself.But we can be more precise than that, talking about the toppings. For instance I can say "a pizza with pepperoni, ham, peppers, garlic and tomatoes"*. In fact a large way we this conversations are about us trying to pin down the exact role of pepper in a pizza.

*I'm not sure how such a pizza would taste.

But in Floret's case it seems that she looks at "equal" from a different perspective than I do; the DM has the final say over how social rolls affect characters regardless of whether they are PC or NPC.I'm not Floret (you may have already noticed that) but I think she was talking about the lack of PC immunity. That is the GM should have similar influence over the PCs as the other players to have over the NPCs. In other words "if you want the right to free speech, you occasionally have to put up with other people saying annoying things" (and that is accounting for exceptions for hate speech and similar).

use a Playgrounder's Fallacy, a But Dragons! Fallacy, and then a Continuum FallacyI'm not entirely sure what you mean by this because, but what I know of these three fallacies, none of them actually apply here. I see no assumption of system, no blind acceptance of the impossible because of something else impossible and the ends of the continuum are stated to be different. I think that's what all of those mean.

Game mechanics are often far more interwoven you the whole than a mushroom is to a pizza.That was supposed to be the cheese.

0

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-08, 10:24 AM

That was supposed to be the cheese.

Yes, but it's rude to cut that at the gaming table.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-08, 11:17 AM

I roll my eyes at your efforts to throw my "assertion doesn't make it so" back at me, since I've only ever brought it up when you (or anybody else) has continued to assert something repeatedly with no backup. I said this once.

See, the difference is that I actually attempt to justify my positions. Sadly, due to how I'm multiquoting, I no longer recall to what you said this, so I can't defend it right now. My apologies.

I don't think you realize how much in your posts comes across like you're taking it as an "of course" element, a presumed given.

And every time I do try to give the basis of my statement, you just say "but why?" again about the basis instead.

Seriously?

Again, you've NEVER wanted something and wished you didn't? Something you knew was bad or wrong, and you have a larger part of you that abhores or rejects it, and you feel a little bad about wanting? I know it might be getting a little twisty and complicated to bring up the concept of "wanting to want" something, but have you truly never wanted something you wish you didn't, or not wanted something you wish you did?

I mean, I WANT to want healthy foods, and not to want unhealthy ones, as an example. I'd love it if I didn't find rich, calorically-dense foods (especially soda) so darned delicious. It'd make things a lot easier.

How many times do I have to say "no"? I've never experienced that sort of thing.

I don't experience "want" for things I find abhorrent, repulsive, etc -- and I find the notion of wanting something and finding it abhorent/repulsive at the same time bizarre. Without oversharing personal details, that's not how my mind works. At all. And I only say that because it's double-linked to the thread -- to your apparent unspoken assumption that all minds work alike. Using the food example, I won't "wish I wanted" broccoli, that would be silly. My aversion to broccoli is caused by having the smell receptors to pick up certain chemicals in the plant that give it sulfurous, vaguely rotty kind of smell and taste. I could no more want to eat broccoli than someone else might want to eat run-ripened roadkill.

Going to the seduction example, my first reaction wouldn't be "interest", it would be suspicion. What's going on here? We barely know each other. What does she actually want? When is the "joke" going to happen? What am I misunderstanding? When does the other shoe drop?

Also, you're committing a bit of a "scale error" here. You're lumping tastes in food, "shameful longing" for things you "shouldn't want", and outright "if I do this, I'm betraying everyone" issues into one thing. You're conflating moral issues ("I shouldn't want to cheat on my SO with that other person") with practical issues ("if I want to lose weight, I need to eat less of these foods"). And you're leaving out the possibility of simple moderation ("I can have one cookie instead of ten cookies, so I get what I want AND don't ruin my diet".)

How well does that work with other aspects of systems, when you tell the rest of the table you don't want them to affect your character?

Not trying to say "you're a bad person for not liking what I propose" or anything, here. I'm asking as a practical matter. "I don't like that I lose control of a country in Risk if I lose all my guys, so that part of the game doesn't apply to me." "I don't like poison in games, so poison rules shouldn't apply to my character." "Hit points and dying are opt-in, right? I can just narrate how my character reacts to wounds while those who want hp can use them."

AGAIN, as stated MULTIPLE times, those are different -- in each case, those are about physical interactions with the "world" of the game, not about what's going on inside the character's mind.

kyoryu

2017-01-08, 12:42 PM

But we can be more precise than that, talking about the toppings. For instance I can say "a pizza with pepperoni, ham, peppers, garlic and tomatoes"*. In fact a large way we this conversations are about us trying to pin down the exact role of pepper in a pizza.

And I wish most conversations were at that level! Sadly, I find that most people don't talk about their gaming preferences *nearly* that precisely. At best, they'll say that they like "simulationist" games or some other such GNS drek.

*I'm not sure how such a pizza would taste.

I'd try it.

Segev

2017-01-08, 03:26 PM

So a few days ago Floret said that she prefers for the PCs and NPCs to use the same rules, and this has been bouncing around in my head ever since when I realized something; she is using a different definition of play by the same rules than I am.

At my table when the controller of the acting character wants to use a social roll they present their argument, roll a test, and then the controlling player looks at the result, compares it to their defenses, and then plays their character as they see appropriate based on the results of the roll and their character's established personality. To me this is fair.

But in Floret's case it seems that she looks at "equal" from a different perspective than I do; the DM has the final say over how social rolls affect characters regardless of whether they are PC or NPC.Also not Floret, but as I have expressed a similar fondness for "NPCs use the same rules as PCs," I will elaborate on what I mean.

I mean that you build NPCs with the same rules you build PCs. You don't change the mechanics for how use of opposed skills, traits, or whatever apply depending on whether you're targeting PCs or NPCs. If, for instance, you decide to attack another character, the same mechanics get invoked regardless of whether that character is an NPC, a monster, or a PC. To use D&D as an example, you roll a d20, add your to hit bonuses, and compare it to the target's AC. It doesn't matter whether the controller of that target is the GM or not.

I also prefer scales remain the same (which means I get a little irked by systems which copy Final Fantasy's tendency to have heroes do way more damage than they could take because monsters have way more hp than heroes do, while monsters do so little damage they couldn't even give each other paper cuts).

In terms of social mechanics, I want the same thing to be the case: if I am playing a system with social mechanics, it shouldn't matter (from a mechanical perspective) whether the character(s) I am trying to persuade is(/are) NPCs or PCs. Similarly, it shouldn't matter whether the character trying to persuade mine is an NPC or a PC. The same rules should be invoked.

Segev, I would like to say that I like you and think you are one of the more reasonable people on this forum,Thanks!

however I must say that reading this post hurts my brain. You use a Playgrounder's Fallacy, a But Dragons! Fallacy, and then a Continuum Fallacy in quick succession and it is just too much for me to handle.Eh, I disagree. I am not referencing D&D as if it's the only game out there; I'm using it as a common benchmark with which most of us in the Playground are familiar. I don't see the "but dragons!" fallacy in my post. That fallacy suggests that you throw out all verisimilitude over what, say, an ordinary human can achieve and all expectation that things might work in a believable fashion because somewhere in the setting there exists a magical dragon wizard. That isn't what I said at all: what I said was that there is room for the supernatural in this, and I asked the paradox-of-the-heap question regarding at what point you draw the line between "what a person can do" and "what takes magic/superpowers to do." The line has to be drawn somewhere.

When you have drawn that line, you can calibrate your system to ensure that non-magic-enhanced, ordinary people can't cross it. That was the point I was trying to get at.

I'm guessing the "Continuum Fallacy" refers to my paradox of the heap examination of "what measure a superpower." Given that you call it a fallacy, I am further presuming that it relies on "just one more" being perpetually applied to get to ludicrous places as a justification for the out-of-proportion scale. I am not invoking that. Quite the opposite. I am asking, instead, for the line to be drawn so we can say "this is the absolute farthest we want to allow this to go." While pointing out that it's not a trivial thing to do, due to the broad range of "maybe okay, maybe not" between "definitely okay" and "definitely not."

Also, the moment you bring magical charm effects into seduction it goes from "rapey" to "rape", and for most gamers that is a huge X card. I would personally allow it, although it is going to take the game into a dark place which neither of us are probably going to have fun with that will end with murder and or suicide like something out of a 70s exploitation film.This is an entirely different discussion, actually. I would personally contend that there's a difference between "magical competence" and "magical interference with others' competence." The former probably isn't "rape-y," but again, that's another discussion.

Although it doesn't really address or counter the point you are trying to make, the ex-marine is probably better able to portray the fear of combat than the random person in the group, he has actually experienced the horrors of war and can personal recall how scared he was the first time he went into combat.Perhaps. Not really going to argue this, as I am not an ex-soldier of any sort, nor am I a soldier, nor do I ever wish to be. (I have tremendous respect for them in no small part because they do something vitally necessary which I would never have a desire to do, myself. And I am grateful to them for doing it.)

One reason I find myself standing up for the notion that you CAN be persuaded to something you had previously had your back so far up about that you thought it could never happen is exemplified in one episode of Futurama. There is a new kind of robot out, and most older robots are utterly furious about it. They hate it. There's an "upgrade" they can receive which makes them "compatible" with it, however, so Professor Farnsworth sends Bender to get this upgrade after Bender tries to destroy the new robot.

At the upgrade facility, we see the stabby-bot (whose name I never remember) right ahead of Bender in line. The stabby-bot is screaming about how much he hates the stupid robot, and how he knows the upgrade won't work on him because he hates it so much that nothing could change his mind.

We see the robot go in, saying how much he hates them, and electricity arcs around him, and then the upgrade is done and the stabby-bot exclaims, "I love the new robot! The new robot is my friend!"

Bender, quite reasonably, looks horrified. "It's like he's not even him anymore!" he says with worried wonder. He vows that he's not going to let that happen to him even as the machine clamps down on him to perform the upgrade. As the electricity starts, Bender breaks free and runs away.

The rest of the episode involves Bender going through all sorts of shenanigans which are besides the point here, but wind up with him leading a luddite invasion fleet (it makes SOME sense in context) to destroy all technology everywhere. As he's attacking Planet Express, where all his friends are, his friends get put into dire straits, and he's pinned beneath the collapsed ship and so can't save them. He realizes that he can use the new robot as a tool to help him, and that thus the robot's actions make HIM awesome (which, given Bender's narcissistic character, also makes sense). After the robot follows his instructions and saves his friends, he throws his arms in the air and exclaims, "I love the new robot! The new robot is my friend!" and the camera zooms out to reveal he's just being unclamped from the upgrade machine.

The majority of the episode WAS the upgrade process taking place inside Bender's mind. A situation was contrived to cause him to come to see the robot - for which he had expressed undying hatred of the sort he never, ever thought he could overcome - as a good thing.

This is the kind of supernal "so good that they can tempt you even when you have an enormous hatred/disapproval" that I'm saying should be feasible, though not terribly likely unless we get beyond "normal" skill at persuasion.

I don't think you realize how much in your posts comes across like you're taking it as an "of course" element, a presumed given.

And every time I do try to give the basis of my statement, you just say "but why?" again about the basis instead. "But why?" is a valid question to ask, though I admit I have not seen a connection between your assertion and your explanation, so I don't know what your explanation/basis is relative to the assertions. Can you more explicitly tie them together for me, please?

How many times do I have to say "no"? I've never experienced that sort of thing.

I don't experience "want" for things I find abhorrent, repulsive, etc -- and I find the notion of wanting something and finding it abhorent/repulsive at the same time bizarre.Wow. Must be nice to never have conflicting opinions about anything, then. I mean, to be able to drop all commitment to a promise the moment something you want that would violate it comes up, or to never even want something that would violate the promise? That's... I am literally having trouble imagining how that even works, to be that binary in your value judgments.

To use the "faithful to romantic partner" angle again, to not even think "she's hot and would be a pleasurable sexual companion" because that would be unfaithful is...amazing. To literally not think a dessert looks good because you're on a diet must be very nice.

To never be torn over any decision, ever, because you always want exactly one and only one of the options, with absolutely no desire for any of the others, that must be very liberating.

Using the food example, I won't "wish I wanted" broccoli, that would be silly. My aversion to broccoli is caused by having the smell receptors to pick up certain chemicals in the plant that give it sulfurous, vaguely rotty kind of smell and taste. I could no more want to eat broccoli than someone else might want to eat run-ripened roadkill. That's...irrelevant, though. Of course you don't like broccoli. That was assumed in my example (and if you did, I'd have to come up with something you didn't like). But, given that broccoli is good for you, wouldn't it be nice if your smell receptors detected it and told you it smelled delicious, and your taste buds agreed when you ate it? Wouldn't it be nice if you liked it better than you liked, say, your current favorite dessert? Or other things which are not healthy for you?

I don't know if you're doing your dream job, but assuming you're stuck with a job you don't want, wouldn't it be nice if you DID want to do it? If it excited you to go to work each day? Do you not want to WANT to do your job?

Also, you're committing a bit of a "scale error" here. You're lumping tastes in food, "shameful longing" for things you "shouldn't want", and outright "if I do this, I'm betraying everyone" issues into one thing. You're conflating moral issues ("I shouldn't want to cheat on my SO with that other person") with practical issues ("if I want to lose weight, I need to eat less of these foods"). And you're leaving out the possibility of simple moderation ("I can have one cookie instead of ten cookies, so I get what I want AND don't ruin my diet".)Not really. I'm going all over the scale, certainly, but only to hit as many examples as possible.

Of course you may not wish to "betray everyone" for something you want only a little. I'm not suggesting that this system even SHOULD model you craving a bowl of ice cream when the bad guy offers that in exchange for you personally murdering all of your friends. The sheer emotional "hell no" of betraying your friends would grotesquely outweigh the ice cream. (A villain with enough social chutzpah to push through that would, just like the overpoweringly seductive Pirate Queen, probably be edging into supernatural territory.) And, of course, you still can say "no," no matter how over-the-top tempting the villain can make that one bowl of ice cream. Because, again, the system is modeling short-term emotional costs and gains, and leaving the rest of the mechanics and the player to provide long-term weights to consider against them. "Actually killing my friends would cost me their support and friendship. It might also cost future short-term morale as they implore me not to. Not to mention that they might kill me instead for my treason." All of that's long-term consideration (unless you have a unique ability to murder them all right that second, I suppose). And already present (with the possible exception of "they'll morale-hit me by pleading with me to stop") in most systems, since the consequences of betraying your friends are largely mechanics-independent.

Now, I don't think the bowl of ice cream should be tempting enough to make you even consider it. So it probably shouldn't have a morale cost at all to refuse. But again, if the bad guy is THAT persuasive... (And please, again, note that I think being THAT persuasive should be in the same realm as "jumping from the ground to the top of a skyscraper," at the least, in terms of skill/talent/ability required.)

AGAIN, as stated MULTIPLE times, those are different -- in each case, those are about physical interactions with the "world" of the game, not about what's going on inside the character's mind.Utterly irrelevant to the question I was asking, which wasn't about justifying mental mechanics.

I was asking how well saying "I don't want this subsystem to apply to my PC" works in most games. Whether it's modeling mental or physical things is irrelevant to that question. If the mechanics are part of the game, saying "I don't want those mechanics to apply to me" is generally not going to allow the system to work fairly wrt your character.

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-08, 03:36 PM

AGAIN, as stated MULTIPLE times, those are different -- in each case, those are about physical interactions with the "world" of the game, not about what's going on inside the character's mind.

Lets not get too caught up in the specific examples listed to see what the point is. (Yes, I'm ignored, but I'll still point out what I see.)

Opting out of a core system in an RPG that everyone else has to deal with is major BS. That's the point.

At that point, you opt out of the system as a whole. Just like you can't opt out of having a Class in D&D. (Which is an abstraction like social mechanics and has only passing resemblance to real world skillsets) or opting out on skill rolls or having an Intelligence score/Wisdom score/Charisma score. At that point you're stripping out enough that you might as well play a different game.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-08, 04:05 PM

Wow. Must be nice to never have conflicting opinions about anything, then. I mean, to be able to drop all commitment to a promise the moment something you want that would violate it comes up, or to never even want something that would violate the promise? That's... I am literally having trouble imagining how that even works, to be that binary in your value judgments.

To use the "faithful to romantic partner" angle again, to not even think "she's hot and would be a pleasurable sexual companion" because that would be unfaithful is...amazing. To literally not think a dessert looks good because you're on a diet must be very nice.

To never be torn over any decision, ever, because you always want exactly one and only one of the options, with absolutely no desire for any of the others, that must be very liberating.

That's...irrelevant, though. Of course you don't like broccoli. That was assumed in my example (and if you did, I'd have to come up with something you didn't like). But, given that broccoli is good for you, wouldn't it be nice if your smell receptors detected it and told you it smelled delicious, and your taste buds agreed when you ate it? Wouldn't it be nice if you liked it better than you liked, say, your current favorite dessert? Or other things which are not healthy for you?

I don't know if you're doing your dream job, but assuming you're stuck with a job you don't want, wouldn't it be nice if you DID want to do it? If it excited you to go to work each day? Do you not want to WANT to do your job?

Not really. I'm going all over the scale, certainly, but only to hit as many examples as possible.

Of course you may not wish to "betray everyone" for something you want only a little. I'm not suggesting that this system even SHOULD model you craving a bowl of ice cream when the bad guy offers that in exchange for you personally murdering all of your friends. The sheer emotional "hell no" of betraying your friends would grotesquely outweigh the ice cream. (A villain with enough social chutzpah to push through that would, just like the overpoweringly seductive Pirate Queen, probably be edging into supernatural territory.) And, of course, you still can say "no," no matter how over-the-top tempting the villain can make that one bowl of ice cream. Because, again, the system is modeling short-term emotional costs and gains, and leaving the rest of the mechanics and the player to provide long-term weights to consider against them. "Actually killing my friends would cost me their support and friendship. It might also cost future short-term morale as they implore me not to. Not to mention that they might kill me instead for my treason." All of that's long-term consideration (unless you have a unique ability to murder them all right that second, I suppose). And already present (with the possible exception of "they'll morale-hit me by pleading with me to stop") in most systems, since the consequences of betraying your friends are largely mechanics-independent.

Now, I don't think the bowl of ice cream should be tempting enough to make you even consider it. So it probably shouldn't have a morale cost at all to refuse. But again, if the bad guy is THAT persuasive... (And please, again, note that I think being THAT persuasive should be in the same realm as "jumping from the ground to the top of a skyscraper," at the least, in terms of skill/talent/ability required.)

Utterly irrelevant to the question I was asking, which wasn't about justifying mental mechanics.

I was asking how well saying "I don't want this subsystem to apply to my PC" works in most games. Whether it's modeling mental or physical things is irrelevant to that question. If the mechanics are part of the game, saying "I don't want those mechanics to apply to me" is generally not going to allow the system to work fairly wrt your character.

I'm not going to even bother responding in detail, you're moving the goalposts like crazy here, repeatedly. You ask a question, and then when you don't get the answer you want, you rephrase so that you're actually asking a far broader or even entirely different question, and doing so in a manner that's clearly intended to cast doubt on the first (unwanted) answer.

And as I noted before, you're asking questions about a lot of unrelated things as if they were all examples of the same thing. You're conflating "I'd like a second bowl of icecream even though I'm trying to lose weight" with "I want to not want this bowl of icecream" / "I don't want to want this...", and then conflating a damn bowl of icecream with being tempted to break a solumn vow, apparently in hopes that getting the answer you want on the icecream will validate your position on the seduction.

You're also conflating conflicting priorities/motives with unwanted desires, and trying to get a "yes" answer to one so as to cast doubt on a "no" answer to the other.

As for your last objection of "irrelevant" -- why should someone answer your question when they don't even accept the basic premise, in this case that rules about the character interacting with the setting are good examples when discussing rules about what goes on INSIDE the character's MIND.

E: Still irked by the thing with asking questions over and over in different ways, hoping to get a different answer. However, the disconnect on that issue may have dawned on me a moment ago.

I do not wish that I liked the taste of broccoli... why would I want to like broccoli when it smells and tastes like fettid decay? It would be nice, however -- since every other vegetable dish has effing broccoli in it these days -- if broccoli didn't smell and taste like fetid decay in the first place, if it instead tasted like carrots or some other vegetable I like. If I were going to make a broccoli wish, it wouldn't be for me to change, it would be for the broccoli to change. When it comes to stuff like this, I don't wish I were a different person, I wish the world were a different place. I wouldn't wish that I liked to eat healthier foods, I'd wish that the foods I like were healthier.

Not that I'd waste a wish on broccoli. And if I were going to make a food-related wish about myself, it would be bigger, like "I wish I could eat as much or as little of whatever I want, and still be perfectly healthy."

But that's all this is... wishes. Might as well wish for immortality or endless money or whatever.

Talakeal

2017-01-08, 04:52 PM

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this because, but what I know of these three fallacies, none of them actually apply here. I see no assumption of system, no blind acceptance of the impossible because of something else impossible and the ends of the continuum are stated to be different. I think that's what all of those mean.

He said we are playing people who can breathe for longer than any real human, fight for hours on end without tiring, and cast spells. That is a generic statement that doesn't apply to many RPGs and seems to be a specific argument for D&D.

He uses "we can cast spells" as evidence that we don't need to model realistic human behavior.

Then he asks at what point a runner goes from being "the best normal human" to "the worst super hero".

All three of those are pretty much textbook examples of the three fallacies I listed.

Also not Floret, but as I have expressed a similar fondness for "NPCs use the same rules as PCs," I will elaborate on what I mean.

I mean that you build NPCs with the same rules you build PCs. You don't change the mechanics for how use of opposed skills, traits, or whatever apply depending on whether you're targeting PCs or NPCs. If, for instance, you decide to attack another character, the same mechanics get invoked regardless of whether that character is an NPC, a monster, or a PC. To use D&D as an example, you roll a d20, add your to hit bonuses, and compare it to the target's AC. It doesn't matter whether the controller of that target is the GM or not.

I prefer everyone to play by the same rules as well. But, if you are letting the DM set all the difficulties (or make the call on which listed difficulty modifiers apply), determine when and how many morale are at stake, and have the final say about whether something is impossible or exactly how the situation plays out then you have a system that is "equally unfair," the characters follow the same rules, but the controlling players most certainly do not.

I prefer a system that gives the "controlling player" equal authority over the characters regardless of whether is as a GM controlling an NPC or a player controlling a PC.

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-08, 10:48 PM

He said we are playing people who can breathe for longer than any real human, fight for hours on end without tiring, and cast spells. That is a generic statement that doesn't apply to many RPGs and seems to be a specific argument for D&D.

He's making a generic statement that applies to many RPGs. You're inferring that he means D&D.

He uses "we can cast spells" as evidence that we don't need to model realistic human behavior.

That's not his argument. As a read his argument, I figured this would come up anyways, but he's not being fallacious. The argument was that in the example, the PQ would be nearly mythical in her ability.
He agreed that such would be the case, and that it would likely be in a game where larger-than-life things occur, not one focused on gritty realism.

Then he asks at what point a runner goes from being "the best normal human" to "the worst super hero".

Asking to define points on a continuum (or rather, pointing out that some kind of line exists) is not the continuum fallacy. I'd recommend re-reading on that one. If he used the existence of the continuum to argue that there is no difference between regular people and superhoes, THAT would be the continuum fallacy. Or if he asserted that the continuum means that one state can never truly become the other. He did neither of those things.

He just asked where along the continuum of achievement we start saying things are Supernatural. One state can become another, both states still exist. He is just pointing out the continuum. That's not fallacious.

All three of those are pretty much textbook examples of the three fallacies I listed.

Not really. Especially the last one.
Speaking about a continuum =/= continuum fallacy.
Continuum fallacy is using a continuum between two states to assert that either:
1. There is no difference between the two states (nope)
2. Assert that a thing in one state can never be said to actually reach the other state. (Also nope.)

I prefer everyone to play by the same rules as well. But, if you are letting the DM set all the difficulties (or make the call on which listed difficulty modifiers apply), determine when and how many morale are at stake, and have the final say about whether something is impossible or exactly how the situation plays out then you have a system that is "equally unfair," the characters follow the same rules, but the controlling players most certainly do not.

I prefer a system that gives the "controlling player" equal authority over the characters regardless of whether is as a GM controlling an NPC or a player controlling a PC.

That's a matter of good guidelines and a certain amount of risk-acceptance. Yup. The system can be risky if played fast and loose. There can be winners and losers.
If you don't like that, don't play.
It's not universally a problem to have PCs in uneven status. (Apocalypse World is a-ok with that being the case, as is Stars Without Number and Burning Wheel. Many systems, actually.)

So this is a preference issue.

Talakeal

2017-01-08, 11:14 PM

That's a matter of good guidelines and a certain amount of risk-acceptance. Yup. The system can be risky if played fast and loose. There can be winners and losers.
If you don't like that, don't play.
It's not universally a problem to have PCs in uneven status. (Apocalypse World is a-ok with that being the case, as is Stars Without Number and Burning Wheel. Many systems, actually.)

So this is a preference issue.

I don't necessarily think it is a problem either. Floret was saying that it IS a problem for the DM to not be able to use social skills to force PC behavior because not doing so creates an uneven environment.

To which I was replying that if the DM has all the power then even and uneven are not so clear cut.

Segev

2017-01-09, 12:37 AM

I wouldn't wish that I liked to eat healthier foods, I'd wish that the foods I like were healthier.

Not that I'd waste a wish on broccoli. And if I were going to make a food-related wish about myself, it would be bigger, like "I wish I could eat as much or as little of whatever I want, and still be perfectly healthy."

But that's all this is... wishes. Might as well wish for immortality or endless money or whatever."Wishes" and "wants" are, in this case, synonymous.

Let's look at this another way. There are people who genuinely enjoy exercise. Exercise is good for the human body, as a general rule. Exercising more would definitely be good for me. (As it is, I AM exercising more, but probably not enough, yet.) I do not enjoy exercise. I wish I did enjoy exercise. It would be a LOT easier to get enough exercise if I wasn't constantly forcing myself to do it and fighting my antipathy for the activity. To put the bolded statement another way: I want to want to exercise. As it is, I want the RESULTS of exercising, and therefore sometimes can put that want sufficiently in the forefront that I can force myself to do it despite, at any given opportunity to exercise, wanting to do just about anything else (sleep in, play on the computer, read a book, whatever).

I keep repeating the question because I am not certain I'm communicating it to you, given the manner in which you express your "nope."

Assuming, however, that you are getting it, and that you genuinely never, ever have even the slightest desire for something you turn down, because you 100% want what you go for and only what you go for in any situation, that puts you as a very unique individual insofar as my experience goes. Everybody I have ever met has demonstrated some manner of conflicting desires and a need to make choices between things they want, and many have done so with "things I want RIGHT NOW" vs. "long-term priorities and goals." Whether it's just a lament that they have to get back to work rather than hang out for a few more minutes or an expression of desire for food that they "shouldn't" because of dietary concerns or something else. Nearly every fictional character with serious development faces such situations, as well, and pretty much everybody I've talked to (except you) finds such internal conflicts to be believable and even relatable. (Not all, obviously; like anything, they can be written well or poorly.)

Therefore, yes, I do feel confident in asserting that you are such a strange (no pejorative meant by "strange") individual in terms of the way your mind works that you are not a sufficient counter-example to make what I'm proposing fail to be a way of modeling something that is an issue for most real people. I struggle to take your word for it, in fact; I am unwilling to accuse you of lying (to us or yourself), because I do NOT know what's going on in your head and I have no reason to believe you'd engage in willful deception on this. So please don't take it as a veiled accusation when I say that it's so alien a mindset to me that I find myself having to work very hard to take your word for it. I mean, I can IMAGINE such a mindset, but I can't name a single person I've ever met who seems to demonstrate it. You're the only person I've ever heard claim it, and sadly, this medium is a very bad one for judging how you act compared to your claims.

In short, I am not trying to insult you, but I have quite the failure of credulity when the mental processes you describe are held up as a counter-example that I don't feel persuaded. The mental struggles I aim to model seem, in everybody I've interacted with save you, to exist. This is part of why I keep trying to probe, because I'm not yet certain I've gotten the question I'm really asking across.

He said we are playing people who can breathe for longer than any real human, fight for hours on end without tiring, and cast spells. That is a generic statement that doesn't apply to many RPGs and seems to be a specific argument for D&D.

He uses "we can cast spells" as evidence that we don't need to model realistic human behavior.

Then he asks at what point a runner goes from being "the best normal human" to "the worst super hero".

All three of those are pretty much textbook examples of the three fallacies I listed.See my earlier reply to you to outline what I was doing and why I don't think those fallacies apply. Though ImNotTrevor's reply covers the definitional objections to those fallacies being applied quite thoroughly, too.

I prefer everyone to play by the same rules as well. But, if you are letting the DM set all the difficulties (or make the call on which listed difficulty modifiers apply), determine when and how many morale are at stake, and have the final say about whether something is impossible or exactly how the situation plays out then you have a system that is "equally unfair," the characters follow the same rules, but the controlling players most certainly do not.I...don't follow. Are you saying that players should be able to set, say, the Climb DC of a wall based on how they think their PC would be able to climb it? Or that they should arbitrarily declare their AC against each attack based on how they think their character is defending?

Because that's the level of "Players have control over their characters" that I'm hearing you ask for, if it's to be different from what I'm proposing.

Talakeal

2017-01-09, 01:11 AM

I...don't follow. Are you saying that players should be able to set, say, the Climb DC of a wall based on how they think their PC would be able to climb it? Or that they should arbitrarily declare their AC against each attack based on how they think their character is defending?

Because that's the level of "Players have control over their characters" that I'm hearing you ask for, if it's to be different from what I'm proposing.

Not at all.

When a PC makes a social test against an NPC the DM has the final say on how it plays out. They may use the dice as a neutral arbiter, but they still set the DC.

Floret was saying that a "fair" system where PCs and NPCs follow the same rules would ALSO mean that the DM gets the final say in how the PCs react to social skills used by NPCs.

I said that this might look fair, but it is actually anything but, as you aren't actually making the PCs and the DM equal, you are just giving all the power to the DM.

A "fair" system would be to give the "controlling player" of the character an equal say in the outcome regardless of whether that "controlling player" was a DM controlling an NPC or a player controlling a PC.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-09, 09:39 AM

Segev

2017-01-09, 11:52 AM

Not at all.

When a PC makes a social test against an NPC the DM has the final say on how it plays out. They may use the dice as a neutral arbiter, but they still set the DC.

Floret was saying that a "fair" system where PCs and NPCs follow the same rules would ALSO mean that the DM gets the final say in how the PCs react to social skills used by NPCs.

I said that this might look fair, but it is actually anything but, as you aren't actually making the PCs and the DM equal, you are just giving all the power to the DM.

A "fair" system would be to give the "controlling player" of the character an equal say in the outcome regardless of whether that "controlling player" was a DM controlling an NPC or a player controlling a PC.Ah. That isn't what I got from Floret's statements, and certainly isn't what I mean.

I mean for the fair system to have the rules establish the DCs, whether for PCs or NPCs. Much the same way (much as Max_Killjoy hates me referencing any extant mechanics that deal with "external" traits) AC is determined in D&D not by a DM arbitrarily assigning it, but by looking at the creature's dex, armor, natural armor, size modifier, and any other things that go into calculating it.

The players, at least, control the AC of their characters to the degree that they pick and choose items, feats, abilities, etc., to add to it (or subtract from it, in some relatively rare cases).

Similarly, players (GM or otherwise) would control social target numbers by how they build the characters in question. Or, rather, social target numbers would be fairly calculated by the same rules (for PCs and NPCs) from the character's traits and the choices made in terms of "social tactics." The Pirate Queen, for instance, has a much harder time persuading Dame Chastity the Straight (who has both a vow of celibacy and an incompatible orientation) to sleep with her than she does to convince Dame Chastity the Straight to go clothes shopping with her (since Dame Chastity has no particular aversion to shopping for clothes, at least for this example). She'll have a harder time convincing Dame Chastity to try on sexy, revealing clothes, due to her vow of chastity and its importance to her, but probably not nearly as hard a time as to convince her to have sex with the Pirate Queen (since sexual orientation isn't getting in the way).

Whether she has as hard a time getting her to try on sexy clothes as the Pirate King would to seduce her is a good question I just thought of, of course: does her vow of chastity have mechanical means of kicking in at different levels based on severity of challenge to it? Technically, it's probably a lesser sin (if it's a sin at all) to "dress sexy" than it is to actually sleep with somebody. So it would be closer to an aversion to putting oneself in a situation where one is tempted than it is to an aversion to actively violating the oath.

A simpler system wouldn't allow for the gradation. A more complex one might. Worth thinking about in designing any candidate system.

And, I could actually see a "personality traits system" along the lines being discussed as MORE useful as a tool fleshing out NPCs, especially minor NPCs where the GM might not be able to put a great deal of "how to play this character" work into the presentation.

I agree. It would work well for NPCs. I just favor things which work equally for NPCs and PCs; it improves my verisimilitude and immersion.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-09, 12:08 PM

Ah. That isn't what I got from Floret's statements, and certainly isn't what I mean.

I mean for the fair system to have the rules establish the DCs, whether for PCs or NPCs. Much the same way (much as Max_Killjoy hates me referencing any extant mechanics that deal with "external" traits) AC is determined in D&D not by a DM arbitrarily assigning it, but by looking at the creature's dex, armor, natural armor, size modifier, and any other things that go into calculating it.

The players, at least, control the AC of their characters to the degree that they pick and choose items, feats, abilities, etc., to add to it (or subtract from it, in some relatively rare cases).

Similarly, players (GM or otherwise) would control social target numbers by how they build the characters in question. Or, rather, social target numbers would be fairly calculated by the same rules (for PCs and NPCs) from the character's traits and the choices made in terms of "social tactics." The Pirate Queen, for instance, has a much harder time persuading Dame Chastity the Straight (who has both a vow of celibacy and an incompatible orientation) to sleep with her than she does to convince Dame Chastity the Straight to go clothes shopping with her (since Dame Chastity has no particular aversion to shopping for clothes, at least for this example). She'll have a harder time convincing Dame Chastity to try on sexy, revealing clothes, due to her vow of chastity and its importance to her, but probably not nearly as hard a time as to convince her to have sex with the Pirate Queen (since sexual orientation isn't getting in the way).

Whether she has as hard a time getting her to try on sexy clothes as the Pirate King would to seduce her is a good question I just thought of, of course: does her vow of chastity have mechanical means of kicking in at different levels based on severity of challenge to it? Technically, it's probably a lesser sin (if it's a sin at all) to "dress sexy" than it is to actually sleep with somebody. So it would be closer to an aversion to putting oneself in a situation where one is tempted than it is to an aversion to actively violating the oath.

A simpler system wouldn't allow for the gradation. A more complex one might. Worth thinking about in designing any candidate system.

This is coming across as if players would have to meticulous foresee and think out all the personality traits and quirks of their character before play started, in order to make sure they had all the appropriate modifiers -- as opposed to coming to a situation and reacting organically and in fine detail.

I don't think a player should have to point to the character being so far into a personality trait that they'd be justified in the character having "The _________" as an known appellation or written on the character sheet, for that trait to impact or restrict the social actions that other characters direct against them.

The whole thing has a very "I'm Bob the Half-Elven Fighter" or "Bob's The Tough Guy, Jack's The Sneaky Guy, Randall's The Smart Guy, and Marrisa's The Female Character!" vibe to it... characters defined by a handful of convenient cardboard "traits".

I agree. It would work well for NPCs. I just favor things which work equally for NPCs and PCs; it improves my verisimilitude and immersion.

Is there such a thing as a minor PC?

Segev

2017-01-09, 02:21 PM

This is coming across as if players would have to meticulous foresee and think out all the personality traits and quirks of their character before play started, in order to make sure they had all the appropriate modifiers -- as opposed to coming to a situation and reacting organically and in fine detail.

I don't think a player should have to point to the character being so far into a personality trait that they'd be justified in the character having "The _________" as an known appellation or written on the character sheet, for that trait to impact or restrict the social actions that other characters direct against them.

The whole thing has a very "I'm Bob the Half-Elven Fighter" or "Bob's The Tough Guy, Jack's The Sneaky Guy, Randall's The Smart Guy, and Marrisa's The Female Character!" vibe to it... characters defined by a handful of convenient cardboard "traits". No, of course not. I've repeatedly spoken of multiple traits that would be assigned by the characters, and less frequently but still repeatedly suggested they should be fairly broad-strokes descriptors.

I've also spoken of adjusting it if it doesn't work, at least early on. If you've been playing a character consistently as a person for a while, then when you say, "I think my PC would have a deep-seated objection to that based on ______," people will probably agree with you. Either you'll have something in your traits to which you can point, or you can discuss adding something appropriate right then and there.

What prevents this from being "new powers as the plot demands" is that you'll a) have to have a pretty good history of playing that character that way to justify it, and b) have to stick with it, for better or ill, unless and until you get it removed through character development.

You dismiss broad strokes as "cardboard," but they really aren't if you work with them purposefully. They need to be fairly broad to work properly, and you absolutely can discuss nuances of how they apply to your character, whether you write it down or just have an understanding with the rest of the table over it.

I'm using "Lady Chastity the Chaste" for character names in examples not to say that this should be their only trait, but because I'm having to throw out names and I want to capture the relevant trait for the singular example we're dealing with at the time.

The chaste Knight may have "Traditional Christian Values" as a trait, "Chivalry" as a trait, "Romantic Heart" as a trait (tying close to chivalry, but gives a clear angle tangent to it...would also potentially undermine his "Traditional Christian Values" a bit when the Pirate Queen tries to seduce him, as the idea that she might be "the one" would appeal). He might also have a trait or two relating to his love of (or abhorrence for needless) fighting, and "highly cultured in ______-region's ways," which could cover things like the kinds of foods he likes and dislikes and the kinds of manners he demonstrates.

Fewer is better, so broad but nuanced is ideal.

Is there such a thing as a minor PC?Do you really want a different set of rules applying based on how major an NPC is? Should an NPC go from useless in political maneuvering and a social pushover to being a powerhouse of willpower and determination because he is using a different rule set when he becomes "major?" Or worse, the other way?

If you can use this for minor NPCs, you can use it for all NPCs.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-09, 02:48 PM

Do you really want a different set of rules applying based on how major an NPC is? Should an NPC go from useless in political maneuvering and a social pushover to being a powerhouse of willpower and determination because he is using a different rule set when he becomes "major?" Or worse, the other way?

If you can use this for minor NPCs, you can use it for all NPCs.

Frankly, just as I can do a better job playing my own PC than set of broad-brush numerical abstractions and tags could ever do... I can do a better job with the major NPCs in my game when I'm the GM.

Segev

2017-01-09, 03:17 PM

Frankly, just as I can do a better job playing my own PC than set of broad-brush numerical abstractions and tags could ever do... I can do a better job with the major NPCs in my game when I'm the GM.

That's nice. You're better at RPing your PC than I am.

You also apparently are better at guessing just how good a GM's NPCs are SUPPOSED to be at socializing with no social mechanics, even if the GM isn't very good at it. And how good a player's PC is supposed to be, even if the player isn't very good at it.

Sadly, not everybody is as good at these things as you are.

I'm sure there are those with superior judgment of environmental traits and the skills of their own PCs and other characters who could do a better job writing out a fight scene than could the dice, as well. Yes, I know, you're going to reject my daring to bring a physical combat example into it, because it's "totally different." Even though somebody who knows combat very well could know better than the dice just how a fight between a man with a spear and a goblin with a waraxe is going to turn out, given the training he knows both have had and what their fighting styles are. And, frankly, many combat systems do a pitiful job of incorporating terrain objects into the fight except as static obstacles, rather than empowering combatants to use the terrain in dynamic ways that somebody who knows combat better than the designer of the game could describe.

The fact that most people are not that good at getting into the head of a fictional character and fully appreciating every pressure he's feeling (but which they are not) is akin to the fact that most people do NOT know RL combat well enough to do the above. We benefit from mechanics that help us simulate things we lack the personal talent and skill to do free-hand in a believable fashion.

Cluedrew

2017-01-09, 03:24 PM

Do you really want a different set of rules applying based on how major an NPC is?{Raises Hand} I actually built this idea into my system. Although it is supposed to work more like the minion rules in 4e, that is it is just supposed to reduce the amount of information we have to worry about for minor characters. That being said, I am on the look out for all those problems you mentioned.

Frankly, just as I can do a better job playing my own PC than set of broad-brush numerical abstractions and tags could ever do... I can do a better job with the major NPCs in my game when I'm the GM.But the numbers and tags are just the starting point, or at least have been in every system I have ever seen. If you stop there yes that is an issue, but that is like defining my character as Chaotic Good, sure she is chaotic good. But that exclude the fact she has a fear of being trapped or is more comfortable when she can look at the threat in the "eye" (see it clearly). Those were both personality traits that were encoded on a previous character sheet of mine and actually had mechanical effects.

Did they prevent me from playing my character? No. Nor did they make the character magically super easy to play, but I'm glad they were there because they gave me a starting point.

These are not supposed to replace the player, they are supposed to be tools for the player. You can continue to reject them, or even reject them, but that doesn't change the fact I have found them useful. Am I don't something wrong? Am I incapable of playing a complex and nuanced character?

I don't think so. We can go into analysis if you are unsure but if we accept I am at least competent (if not highly skilled) at role-playing than they can benefit some competent... actually why does it even matter if I'm competent? I am a role-player who has benefited from role-playing mechanics. Hence role-playing mechanics have some value. Therefore we should not simply reject role-playing mechanics.

We can discuss cases and implementations (there are some bad implementations for sure), but of the whole we can't just say that all role-playing mechanics in all situations.

1

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-09, 03:36 PM

Frankly, just as I can do a better job playing my own PC than set of broad-brush numerical abstractions and tags could ever do... I can do a better job with the major NPCs in my game when I'm the GM.

I was gonna say that the tags are for description rather than prescription, but with Segev's system as I've seen it that's probably not a distinction that applies very well here.

It seems to be wanting to straddle a weird line between "I only need broad-brush descriptions" and "everything needs a fair numerical value that can be referenced and applies equally always."

Which increasingly makes me wonder how on earth one would try to be in both those worlds without effectively being a normal man trying to pull the moon and the earth closer together.

The reason for this is a pretty basic principal that actually is almost like entropy of thoughts.

You can have the following three:
Broad Input --> Broad Output (Apocalypse World Moves)
Narrow Input --> Narrow Output (D&D Combat Rules)
Narrow Input --> Broad Output (Descriptions of what dealing 14 damage looks like)

We can't reasonably have a system that does this:
Broad Input --> Narrow Output
This would be like a system that somehow goes from:
"Sir Peter Sutton Finch III loves swords"
To
"Knight Finch has a -2 to defend against being convinced to look at neat swords, but only a -1 against daggers or axes because they're only tangentially related. Blunt or piercing weapons he gets a +2 to resist because they aren't very swordslike at all. When it comes to being OFFERED a sword then blah blah blah...."

And how you plan to make a consistent, stable path from Step 1 to Step 2 that will give the same balanced results no matter who gives it a shot and no matter what goes into slot 1 is something I'd want to see. Because you've talked a lot about where we start and where it ends up and nothing about the middle. If you're familiar with Southpark, this might be an apt description of what it sounds like to me:
Step 1: Characters have broad but nuanced descriptive tags.
Step 2: ????
Step 3: Fine details of motivation and social interaction have consistent numbers attached now.

I'm really curious as to what the hell Step 2 is going to be, because I've seen nothing about it. Just that "it should be possible."

I'm not really sold on the idea until I hear how exactly Step 2 works.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-09, 03:39 PM

That's nice. You're better at RPing your PC than I am.

You also apparently are better at guessing just how good a GM's NPCs are SUPPOSED to be at socializing with no social mechanics, even if the GM isn't very good at it. And how good a player's PC is supposed to be, even if the player isn't very good at it.

Sadly, not everybody is as good at these things as you are.

I'm sure there are those with superior judgment of environmental traits and the skills of their own PCs and other characters who could do a better job writing out a fight scene than could the dice, as well. Yes, I know, you're going to reject my daring to bring a physical combat example into it, because it's "totally different." Even though somebody who knows combat very well could know better than the dice just how a fight between a man with a spear and a goblin with a waraxe is going to turn out, given the training he knows both have had and what their fighting styles are. And, frankly, many combat systems do a pitiful job of incorporating terrain objects into the fight except as static obstacles, rather than empowering combatants to use the terrain in dynamic ways that somebody who knows combat better than the designer of the game could describe.

The fact that most people are not that good at getting into the head of a fictional character and fully appreciating every pressure he's feeling (but which they are not) is akin to the fact that most people do NOT know RL combat well enough to do the above. We benefit from mechanics that help us simulate things we lack the personal talent and skill to do free-hand in a believable fashion.

Again, different issues.

Combat is contested between characters, and (outside of very special circumstances) requires a neutral arbiter of some kind between the players of those characters. Working from that requirement, there's a balance between verisimilitude, simulation/accuracy, utility as a mechanic, and enjoyable gameplay, that has to be found in the mechanics created to serve that role. Some abstraction is necessary to prevent the system from taking an entire weekend to resolve 30 seconds of 1-vs-1 combat.

What's going on inside a player character's head (mind/heart/soul/whatever) is not contested. There's only one individual with standing to make any assertions about it. There is no need for a neutral arbiter, there's nothing to arbitrate.

But the numbers and tags are just the starting point, or at least have been in every system I have ever seen. If you stop there yes that is an issue, but that is like defining my character as Chaotic Good, sure she is chaotic good. But that exclude the fact she has a fear of being trapped or is more comfortable when she can look at the threat in the "eye" (see it clearly). Those were both personality traits that were encoded on a previous character sheet of mine and actually had mechanical effects.

Did they prevent me from playing my character? No. Nor did they make the character magically super easy to play, but I'm glad they were there because they gave me a starting point.

These are not supposed to replace the player, they are supposed to be tools for the player. You can continue to reject them, or even reject them, but that doesn't change the fact I have found them useful. Am I don't something wrong? Am I incapable of playing a complex and nuanced character?

I don't think so. We can go into analysis if you are unsure but if we accept I am at least competent (if not highly skilled) at role-playing than they can benefit some competent... actually why does it even matter if I'm competent? I am a role-player who has benefited from role-playing mechanics. Hence role-playing mechanics have some value. Therefore we should not simply reject role-playing mechanics.

We can discuss cases and implementations (there are some bad implementations for sure), but of the whole we can't just say that all role-playing mechanics in all situations.

There's a difference between "here are the character's traits" as a set of things to keep in mind when playing the character, and a system that tells you what the character thinks or does even when you disagree as the player.

Cluedrew

2017-01-09, 06:27 PM

What's going on inside a player character's head (mind/heart/soul/whatever) is not contested. There's only one individual with standing to make any assertions about it. There is no need for a neutral arbiter, there's nothing to arbitrate.It can be contested. If you ever want to effect another's character mood, if you want to fool them, make them like you, scare them or surprise them. In all those cases you are trying to effect the other characters ... yeah, lets just say internals. Yes you can use a gentlemen's (lady's) agreement to arbitrate it, but do you really want to?

And then there are things like hacking. The knowledge to hack is entirely in my character's head, the only external part of that ability is equipment and the ability to type on a keyboard*. So that we have another internal matter. But the idea of just setting your character's ability to hack computers strikes me as absurd. How about you? Is it part of the untouchable internals? Why or why not?

* Assuming of course keyboards are still used. They aren't always.

There's a difference between "here are the character's traits" as a set of things to keep in mind when playing the character, and a system that tells you what the character thinks or does even when you disagree as the player.Yes, there is a difference. However both could be made into personality mechanics (maybe not good mechanics) and things that don't really match either description. So I don't see why it is important enough to point out. Why did you point it out?

0

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-09, 08:35 PM

It can be contested. If you ever want to effect another's character mood, if you want to fool them, make them like you, scare them or surprise them. In all those cases you are trying to effect the other characters ... yeah, lets just say internals.

And the player decides what the PC thinks/feels about what the other character does or says.

And then there are things like hacking. The knowledge to hack is entirely in my character's head, the only external part of that ability is equipment and the ability to type on a keyboard*. So that we have another internal matter. But the idea of just setting your character's ability to hack computers strikes me as absurd. How about you? Is it part of the untouchable internals? Why or why not?

* Assuming of course keyboards are still used. They aren't always.

The internal part is what the character wants to do -- the external part is attempting to get the computer, a part of the environment, to respond as they want.

The only blurry part there is pure knowledge skills.

Yes, there is a difference. However both could be made into personality mechanics (maybe not good mechanics) and things that don't really match either description. So I don't see why it is important enough to point out. Why did you point it out?

Because one is descriptive and informative, the other is prescriptive and controlling.

flond

2017-01-09, 11:10 PM

And the player decides what the PC thinks/feels about what the other character does or says.

Leading of course to a lot of unrealistic choices, because it's easy to think you won't fall for something if it's not happening to you the player.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-09, 11:33 PM

Leading of course to a lot of unrealistic choices, because it's easy to think you won't fall for something if it's not happening to you the player.

Untrue, and meaningless.

( This "you don't know what your character would do" and the implied or explicit "but we do know, and now we're going to tell you and make it happen" nonsense has been repeated in the thread so often that the above is all it's going to get in response at this point. )

flond

2017-01-09, 11:47 PM

Untrue, and meaningless.

( This "you don't know what your character would do" and the implied or explicit "but we do know, and now we're going to tell you and make it happen" nonsense has been repeated in the thread so often that the above is all it's going to get in response at this point. )

But in the long term, it's largely true. People in certain situations can, if people are given enough time, be made to act in certain ways. And yes, most of these are not good things but they're still things. Put two people in an argument they don't feel they can leave, and at some point one of them is going to give in to the other, at least in the moment. (This may not change their mindset, but it will change their actions. Even if it's not one of the cases where it's something abhorrent like a cult, but instead "we can't stay here forever, we need to go left or right.")

Cluedrew

2017-01-10, 08:30 AM

We can't reasonably have a system that does this:
Broad Input --> Narrow Output
[...]
I'm not really sold on the idea until I hear how exactly Step 2 works.I some how completely missed this post last time. Anyways although I don't think you can get it to quite the same level as given in your example I think you can allow the outcomes to be more general than the rules deciding it (which is what I think you mean). Where I have seen this and it has works is that only the magnitude of the outcome and then leaves its actual form to the players.

Other systems do allow the players to control some of the magnitude, but in very simple ways. Usually in the case of yes/no, does this modifier apply in this situation. Actually almost every system uses this. There is nothing stopping you from applying "-3 for being underwater" to a character who is on dry land except that everyone know that is not what that means.

How does that compare to what you were talking about?

The internal part is what the character wants to do -- the external part is attempting to get the computer, a part of the environment, to respond as they want.

The only blurry part there is pure knowledge skills.Some questions:
What if the computer belongs to another player character?
What if the computer was made by another player character?
Pure knowledge skills you mean rolling to see what a character knows?
These may seem like little things, but I'm just trying to figure out what exactly the line is.

Because one is descriptive and informative, the other is prescriptive and controlling.But what was the point of saying that right under my post?

Leading of course to a lot of unrealistic choices, because it's easy to think you won't fall for something if it's not happening to you the player.
Untrue, and meaningless.It may not be true in all cases but it is hardly meaningless. I can extract meaning from that sentence. Furthermore it is true in some cases as well.

Once we had a player who was angry because another character saved his life because she talked the enemy down. Turns out the reason he was angry was that he thought he still could of won the fight. To which everyone's response was "No". If he even tried to attack the enemy would have gotten an attack first which was guarantied to hit and deal more damage than his character had health. So yeah, no way. But he was so convinced in his characters strength that he believed he could of won.

For other more... reflective players it can also be helpful. And not because the game designers know your character better or something. No because it allows you to decide before the fact, when you are calm (not facing the pressures of that particular situation) and have more time to think about it.

And of course there are other things you might want to do with them as well.

Floret

2017-01-10, 09:03 AM

After being back from the bunkers of Hellvetica and regaining the sleep lost to sirens ringing in the night (Also known as Degenesis LARP), I am finally back... and see that the thread has progressed about 3 pages without me. Much to catch up to. Just assume I roughly agree with Segev, Not!Trevor, and especially Cluedrew, since most of what I wanted to respond to has been quite aptly responded by them. And probably some other's statements that I am missing.
I will focus on the thread focussing on a statement I made - and what I see as a misinterpretation of that statement.

So a few days ago Floret said that she prefers for the PCs and NPCs to use the same rules, and this has been bouncing around in my head ever since when I realized something; she is using a different definition of play by the same rules than I am.

At my table when the controller of the acting character wants to use a social roll they present their argument, roll a test, and then the controlling player looks at the result, compares it to their defenses, and then plays their character as they see appropriate based on the results of the roll and their character's established personality. To me this is fair.

But in Floret's case it seems that she looks at "equal" from a different perspective than I do; the DM has the final say over how social rolls affect characters regardless of whether they are PC or NPC.

Its a bit like if the Kingpriest of Istar conquered Krynn and then outlawed all religions but Paladine. Then one of his advisors said "Your majesty, are you sure that is a good move? We are LG! Surely that means that all people should have equal freedoms under the law!" To which the Kingpriest replies "Everyone does have equal freedom under the law! Everyone is equally free to worship Paladine!"

I don't necessarily think that is true. Or at least a heavy (And I feel uncharitable) reframing of my perspective. Because I want both to be equal in the way of "equally affectable by social mechanics". Ultimately, that means, if you failed a social roll, there will be consequences. Be they in a morale system like the one proposed, some form of "succeed at a cost"; or by all players, including the GM agreeing to accept that their character has lost the roll, and will act accordingly.

Does this mean that the GM then puppeteers the character? No. Absolutely not. The player is still, even in the second case, in charge of the details of HOW they act according to the result of the roll. What has been taken is the option of "No, I ignore that result and do the thing my character was talked out of anyways".
At least taking your writing literally, I act according to the same rules you do, or you act according to the same rules I do. I do not "take over" the players characters after the roll, maybe besides from a comment along the lines of "what he's saying seems really plausible. You feel like you should probably do it." or, in the case of L5Rs rules-laden society "You can't manage to bring up anything to deny his request." How the player acts in accordance with these is still their own choice.

(I want to note that I have never at my table even had an argument about these things, and that includes people much older than me, and with much more experience with RPGs. It is also mostly they themselves that "enforce" this rule - people I play with actively like their characters being affectable in this way. Or at the very least don't mind.)

I'm not Floret (you may have already noticed that) but I think she was talking about the lack of PC immunity. That is the GM should have similar influence over the PCs as the other players to have over the NPCs. In other words "if you want the right to free speech, you occasionally have to put up with other people saying annoying things" (and that is accounting for exceptions for hate speech and similar).

I am actually Floret (Who knew?), and this is pretty much my reasoning for the answer given above.

Also not Floret, but as I have expressed a similar fondness for "NPCs use the same rules as PCs," I will elaborate on what I mean.

I mean that you build NPCs with the same rules you build PCs. You don't change the mechanics for how use of opposed skills, traits, or whatever apply depending on whether you're targeting PCs or NPCs. If, for instance, you decide to attack another character, the same mechanics get invoked regardless of whether that character is an NPC, a monster, or a PC. To use D&D as an example, you roll a d20, add your to hit bonuses, and compare it to the target's AC. It doesn't matter whether the controller of that target is the GM or not.

I also prefer scales remain the same (which means I get a little irked by systems which copy Final Fantasy's tendency to have heroes do way more damage than they could take because monsters have way more hp than heroes do, while monsters do so little damage they couldn't even give each other paper cuts).

In terms of social mechanics, I want the same thing to be the case: if I am playing a system with social mechanics, it shouldn't matter (from a mechanical perspective) whether the character(s) I am trying to persuade is(/are) NPCs or PCs. Similarly, it shouldn't matter whether the character trying to persuade mine is an NPC or a PC. The same rules should be invoked.

This is solid reasoning as well. Though, to go back on my earlier statements, I am not above systems that use different mechanics for PCs and NPCs. I guess my statement was somewhat semi-factual. I am heavily interested in playing Symbaroum, for example, where NPC action is purely narrated (They do have set stats, though), and PCs are the only ones that roll dice.
Also, in my own game system at the moment the mechanic for attacking people in combat is "The player rolls, if they defend or attack." So there it works somewhat differently - this is a somewhat debated mechanics amongst my playtesters, and I might change it to "only the attacker" if I get the major kink it introduces in combat stance rules ironed out somehow.

In absence of such a clear design-statement as in Symbaroum (and my own thing which I am thinking about changing), I like the rules to work similarly in the ways described above.

I prefer everyone to play by the same rules as well. But, if you are letting the DM set all the difficulties (or make the call on which listed difficulty modifiers apply), determine when and how many morale are at stake, and have the final say about whether something is impossible or exactly how the situation plays out then you have a system that is "equally unfair," the characters follow the same rules, but the controlling players most certainly do not.

I prefer a system that gives the "controlling player" equal authority over the characters regardless of whether is as a GM controlling an NPC or a player controlling a PC.

...so what? The controlling players NEVER follow the same rules. Aside from GM-less systems, where it doesn't apply for obvious reasons, the GM always has more power than the players. Any attempt to sugarcoat this fact I find strange...
Of course, as the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibilty. If everyone is supposed to have fun, the GM has to use their power in moderation. But that doesn't change it is THERE. Any GM that is only ever restrained by the rules, and not by their own moral compass and good value judgement, or even player consensus I wouldn't want to play with. Teach GMs how to use their power responsibly, don't just restrain them and hope the problem goes away by that.

I don't necessarily think it is a problem either. Floret was saying that it IS a problem for the DM to not be able to use social skills to force PC behavior because not doing so creates an uneven environment.

To which I was replying that if the DM has all the power then even and uneven are not so clear cut.

And i stand by that statement. It, for me, introduces player skill into a game that I want as free as possible from it. (Btw, I like to go with a variation of the "two rules" (From Larp, I mentioned them before somewhere) here: Show some plausible reaction; don't expect any definitive reaction. But, if the dice say "you were convinced", this of course limits "plausible" somwhat.)

Not at all.

When a PC makes a social test against an NPC the DM has the final say on how it plays out. They may use the dice as a neutral arbiter, but they still set the DC.

Floret was saying that a "fair" system where PCs and NPCs follow the same rules would ALSO mean that the DM gets the final say in how the PCs react to social skills used by NPCs.

I said that this might look fair, but it is actually anything but, as you aren't actually making the PCs and the DM equal, you are just giving all the power to the DM.

A "fair" system would be to give the "controlling player" of the character an equal say in the outcome regardless of whether that "controlling player" was a DM controlling an NPC or a player controlling a PC.

And as pointed out above, I do that. Only that the equal say is, in both cases, limited by the general statement of "you lost the roll, and what the opposing character wanted to achieve has been achieved" (In absence of "I spent morale to "succeed at a cost"" mechanics.)

Frankly, just as I can do a better job playing my own PC than set of broad-brush numerical abstractions and tags could ever do... I can do a better job with the major NPCs in my game when I'm the GM.

...This is again assuming that a player who is able to describe their character with broad-strokes descriptors will always stop at that.
Which, in my experience as a person who starts every single character concept off with broad-strokes descriptors, and regularly plays and enjoys FATE, is just patently untrue.
Setting broad-strokes descriptors does NOTHING to take away the depth of a character. It only puts the shallows and semi-shallows into words.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-10, 09:44 AM

But in the long term, it's largely true. People in certain situations can, if people are given enough time, be made to act in certain ways. And yes, most of these are not good things but they're still things. Put two people in an argument they don't feel they can leave, and at some point one of them is going to give in to the other, at least in the moment. (This may not change their mindset, but it will change their actions. Even if it's not one of the cases where it's something abhorrent like a cult, but instead "we can't stay here forever, we need to go left or right.")

This is barely, if at all, related to the original point between Segev and I. It's odd that this question keeps getting expanded and expanded and expanded again, maybe in hopes of getting a different answer or whatever, I'm not sure. Segev did it, and now you've done it.

The original issue was whether people can be made to want things they don't want to want -- such as the Pirate Queen being able to make the Knight of Vows want her even though he doesn't want to want her.

All this other stuff about arguments and conflicting priorities and wishing things could be different is tangential to that question, at best.

Frankly, just as I can do a better job playing my own PC than set of broad-brush numerical abstractions and tags could ever do... I can do a better job with the major NPCs in my game when I'm the GM.

...This is again assuming that a player who is able to describe their character with broad-strokes descriptors will always stop at that.
Which, in my experience as a person who starts every single character concept off with broad-strokes descriptors, and regularly plays and enjoys FATE, is just patently untrue.

Setting broad-strokes descriptors does NOTHING to take away the depth of a character. It only puts the shallows and semi-shallows into words.

Context, and detail -- I was referring to the numerical "carrot and stick" system that's been proposed.

There's nothing wrong with descriptive tags or phrase. It's the prescriptive part that I reject... the part that arrogantly presumes to know the PC better than the player does.

And as pointed out above, I do that. Only that the equal say is, in both cases, limited by the general statement of "you lost the roll, and what the opposing character wanted to achieve has been achieved" (In absence of "I spent morale to "succeed at a cost"" mechanics.)

And where we run into problems is when what the other character wants is for the player's character to believe, think, or feel something.

I see that as something to tread very, very lightly with. When I GMed Vampire, for example, I restricted use of things like the blood bond or Dominate against PCs to situations where they completely set themselves up for it and had every opportunity to see it coming. I always gave the players multiple chances to avoid it leading up to the actual thing.

Segev

2017-01-10, 11:05 AM

I was gonna say that the tags are for description rather than prescription, but with Segev's system as I've seen it that's probably not a distinction that applies very well here.It is description via numbers of how the other characters and environmental events impact your character's emotional state, in the same fashion that exhaustion rules describe the impact of whatever triggers them on your character's energy, and environmental rules describe the impact of, say, extreme heat and dryness on your need for water.

There is an inherent assumption that there is a disconnect between what the player is personally experiencing and what the character is personally experiencing. The numbers give the player a firmer indication of just how impactful something is to the character.

Telling somebody "you get a gash in your arm from his dagger" is descriptive, and there's a certain amount of imagining what that feels like that can be done, but telling them "you get a gash in your arm from his dagger, and it puts you in the -1 wound category for anything using that arm" gives a more solid indication of just how hindering that is. If it put you at the -3 wound category, that would be a notably worse wound, and if it didn't put you in any wound category, it would be a fairly superficial wound.

The numbers, in the hypothetical damage-to-parts with wound categories system in the prior paragraph, gives a common reference.

"No, how dare you tell me how my character reacts to that pain? Unless you're saying the tendons are literally severed in a life-crippling way, only I, the player, know how he handles the pain, and I say he forces his way through it without any impact to his skill or performance with that arm," is, to me, identical to the "only the player knows how his character feels about something" argument. Pain is, after all, subjective, and 90% of wound-induced failure to perform is due to pain responses trying to discourage the victim from causing further damage. Typically, human pain response is overzealous about this; one can do a lot more than pain would have us do without real risk of further injury. (But it's still not advisable to test it in most situations that modern humans find themselves.)

This would be like a system that somehow goes from:
"Sir Peter Sutton Finch III loves swords"
To
"Knight Finch has a -2 to defend against being convinced to look at neat swords, but only a -1 against daggers or axes because they're only tangentially related. Blunt or piercing weapons he gets a +2 to resist because they aren't very swordslike at all. When it comes to being OFFERED a sword then blah blah blah...."I don't think so. I'm looking more for "Sir Peter Sutton Finch III loves swords" being something which the player could bring up to argue that getting that new +5 sword isn't just giving him a future opportunity to be cooler in combat, but satisfying his emotional love as a collector, so he gets its rating in morale points. But it also could be used to enhance the salesman's pitch when he tries to sell Sir Finch the sword.

Whether it extends to daggers or axes would be highly dependent on how it's been played, but by default probably wouldn't apply at all. If the player wanted it to, he'd probably discuss it briefly with the DM: "You know, I said 'swords,' but he really seems to me, upon examination of how I play him, to be into bladed melee weapons of all sorts." Assuming the DM doesn't look at how Sir Finch has been played up to this point and see a distinct disregard for things other than swords, he probably agrees and the edit is made. That's part of it being "broad strokes," to me: understanding WHAT the traits mean based on how he's played is more important than the specific wording, so editing the wording to be more accurate is fine. (What isn't fine is editing the wording to change it as whimsy and optimal opportunity arises.)

Sir Finch's love of swords and Dame Sparrow's love of swords may in fact be distinct in their differing nuances. Sir Finch is an avid fan of bladed weapons (but particularly swords) and is almost a "car guy" with them - babying them, taking great pride in caring for them, and using them well but always being careful to properly treat them afterwards. Dame Sparrow, on the other hand, may be more SPECIFICALLY about swords, and be an avid collector who has her "for use" swords, but most are display pieces whose history (both legendary use and ownership lineage and who made them) is of utmost interest. These things should come out both in play and, potentially, in description if somebody asks their players what the broad "likes swords" trait means to them.

If you're familiar with Southpark, this might be an apt description of what it sounds like to me:
Step 1: Characters have broad but nuanced descriptive tags.
Step 2: ????
Step 3: Fine details of motivation and social interaction have consistent numbers attached now.

I'm really curious as to what the hell Step 2 is going to be, because I've seen nothing about it. Just that "it should be possible."

I'm not really sold on the idea until I hear how exactly Step 2 works.In my mind, "step 2" is "determine if Trait ABC of rating X applies; if it does, appropriately apply its rating to the mechanical calculations determining ultimate morale offering/cost."

The "appropriate" bit is about whether it's helping enhance a temptation or make something less tempting. "Likes swords" might enhance a salesman's efforts to get you to buy a nice sword; it might help defend against a noble's efforts to get you to give it up.

Again, different issues.

Combat is contested between characters, and (outside of very special circumstances) requires a neutral arbiter of some kind between the players of those characters. Working from that requirement, there's a balance between verisimilitude, simulation/accuracy, utility as a mechanic, and enjoyable gameplay, that has to be found in the mechanics created to serve that role. Some abstraction is necessary to prevent the system from taking an entire weekend to resolve 30 seconds of 1-vs-1 combat. Why, though, is it that this requires a neutral arbiter for THIS conflict between characters, but not for the conflict between "I want to convince you to buy my product" and "You want to save your money?"

Actually, that hits on part of where I find it hard to grasp your position on this whole thing, Max_Killjoy. To me, it seems like you're saying that marketing and advertisements literally never work unless the people would have bought the product just as avidly if they'd just happened to hear about it in a non-hyped, dry description.

But marketing - even non-deceptive marketing that still relies on hyping up the excitement without lying about what the product is or does - clearly works, or it wouldn't be the multi-billion dollar industry that it is.

What's going on inside a player character's head (mind/heart/soul/whatever) is not contested. There's only one individual with standing to make any assertions about it. There is no need for a neutral arbiter, there's nothing to arbitrate.It's the bolded statement with which I disagree. If a neutral arbiter can tell us how much pain a character feels and how much that hinders him (when that's a purely psychological effect, since the body's machinery is capable of far more than what the pain is convincing the voluntary control structure in the brain it should do), then a neutral arbiter can tell us that, yes, the bard's performance of "The Tragedy of the Fickle Fellow" did evoke sadness and sorrow, even if the DM (or the player of the PC bard) neither bothered to get out a lute and play nor managed to give a description of the sadness of the ballad sufficient to make the player feel it.

Or, perhaps, the neutral arbiter tells us that, no, his performance did NOT evoke that on a particular character, despite the player of the bard's ability to cajole and guilt-trip people over their being unfair and invalidating his concept by "no-selling" his performance. Or the bard's player's ability to pull out an armonica and pick out a heart-wrenchingly sweet tune IRL and weave a story that really does make every player at the table weep...but his character didn't roll well enough to break Stoneheart's reserve, despite Stoneheart's player (perhaps the GM) being in tears over it.

There's a difference between "here are the character's traits" as a set of things to keep in mind when playing the character, and a system that tells you what the character thinks or does even when you disagree as the player.Again, nothing I've proposed tells you what the character does. It doesn't even tell you what he thinks in a "conscious thought" sort of sense. Only what urges he feels and how strongly.

This is barely, if at all, related to the original point between Segev and I. It's odd that this question keeps getting expanded and expanded and expanded again, maybe in hopes of getting a different answer or whatever, I'm not sure. Segev did it, and now you've done it. I really haven't expanded it. I wonder if the reason you think I have is because you're still not really getting what I'm asking. I've asked the same question repeatedly with different examples, because you do give answers that seem nonsensical or otherwise indicate, to me, that you're not getting what I'm saying.

It's not that you're saying "no." It's that you're saying "No, I would milk the cow" when the question was "Do you wear leather armor when playing a rogue?" It's close enough that I can almost see the connection of your answer to my question, but veers so far off that it leaves me wondering if you really understood, or if I am to infer that you wouldn't wear leather armor as a rogue because your rogue would prefer milk to having even one cow be slaughtered for her leather hide.

I'm not exaggerating, nor trying to be insulting. This is the level of disconnect I feel between your answers and the question I'm asking. "No, I think leather armor is cruel to animals and would never have a PC who wore it" would be a valid and direct answer. One I disagree with and would even scoff at a bit due to the vehemence of my disagreement, but still an answer I am sure is directly addressing the actual thing I'm asking.

The original issue was whether people can be made to want things they don't want to want -- such as the Pirate Queen being able to make the Knight of Vows want her even though he doesn't want to want her. This is accurate. Glad we're on the same page here!

All this other stuff about arguments and conflicting priorities and wishing things could be different is tangential to that question, at best.Er...not really? "I don't want to want to have sex with her, because wanting to have sex with her makes rejecting her harder/more emotionally painful. Every time it comes up, I have to force myself to say 'no.' If I didn't want her, saying 'no' would be easy. I do wish it was easier."

But the argument you seem to be making is that, because the knight ultimately will choose not to have sex with her, he doesn't want to have sex with her on any level and experiences no emotional struggle to reject her. Nothing she does can make him want her in the slightest, because if she could, he would have sex with her.

The answers you've given to the questions I've asked seem to indicate to me that you literally feel no lust for her at all unless you ultimately choose to have sex with her. Nothing she can do will influence your decision to have sex with her, and nothing she can do will even influence whether you experience lust for her, nor the strength of that lust. Literally nothing she does, from wearing sackcloth and smearing her hair with dung to wearing the perfect outfit for your personal sexual taste and performing the most alluring display of her body and charms possible, exquisitely tailored, again, to your sexual taste, evokes any difference in your level of sexual desire for her. If you choose not to, you have no desire at all, and if you choose to, you do. It doesn't matter what she does to try to convince you (or to try turn you off).

My assertion is that it is quite realistic and believable that a straight but sworn-to-chastity man can, in fact, feel unwanted desire for a woman, and that the woman can, in fact, do things to enflame that desire more than it otherwise would be, so that he actually considers rejecting her advances more difficult due to his conflicting desires.

Your response to this assertion seems to me to be, "Nonsense. He has no conflicting desires. If he doesn't choose to have sex with her, he had no amount of desire for her at all. If he does, he had no amount of regard for his vow of chastity at all."

If that's NOT what you're saying, please clarify. Because I've been trying to figure out what you're saying and how it's different from that, since I have a very hard time believing anybody would actually assert that position. I find that position ludicrous. I feel like I'm attacking a straw man, but every effort I've made to figure out where I'm hitting a straw man and not the real argument has been met with what seems to me to be an affirmation: "That's not a straw man. Asking about it again won't make it not one. How could you possibly think that argument isn't perfect?"

There's nothing wrong with descriptive tags or phrase. It's the prescriptive part that I reject... the part that arrogantly presumes to know the PC better than the player does.

The player built the PC. But the player is not the PC. Heck, I think 99.99999% of mankind doesn't know THEMSELVES well enough that, when asked what they would do in a hypothetical situation while they're in a much more comfortable situation and not experiencing what the hypothetical asks, they could always perfectly predict what they'd do.

The sheer number of people who, when asked how long they could fast, will predict wrong (giving up before their prescribed time is over, especially if put in a situation where breaking the fast is as easy as picking up the delicious smelling donuts on the tray in the room with them), backs this up. Studies have been done on this demonstrating just how BAD we are, as human beings, at predicting realistically what we'd do in the heat of the moment when we're NOT in that heat of the moment.

The alcoholic who says, at the AA meeting, that he intends to never drink again still may find himself drinking...and later using the AA support structure to call and confess it and regret it. But ask him at the AA meeting, and he'll swear up and down that he intends to resist all temptation. He may even assert, while not tempted and not experiencing withdrawal, that he thinks he can do it. Ask him to RP "himself" in a tabletop-gaming-sort-of-scene where he's faced with temptation, and he may triumphantly resist any and all temptation, because that's what he WANTS to be able to do...right then. When he, himself, faces the temptations, however...his desire to give in can overwhelm his desire to be free of the addiction.

And where we run into problems is when what the other character wants is for the player's character to believe, think, or feel something.Oh, definitely. But this is why a neutral arbiter is so important. "I want to make that character enjoy my character's company," is a valid RP goal. With no social mechanics, the GM (or player) of the target character has to guess not just how susceptible the character is to particular social approaches, but how adept the acting character is with said tactics. With no numbers, it's pure guesswork, occluded further by the skill of the acting character's player (whether he's better or worse at socializing than his character would be).

With numbers, it's easy to tell how likable the acting character is compared to the reasons why the target character might not like him. (Ideally, this'd still be RP'd, just like combat and other areas we have mechanics still get narrated and described evocatively. The numbers just guide how effective the RP'd scene is.)

I see that as something to tread very, very lightly with. When I GMed Vampire, for example, I restricted use of things like the blood bond or Dominate against PCs to situations where they completely set themselves up for it and had every opportunity to see it coming. I always gave the players multiple chances to avoid it leading up to the actual thing.I agree that it's something to tread lightly with. However, Dominate and Blood Bonding are actually rather different (in mechanical effect) from anything I've outlined in this system.

Nothing I've advocated has had a player lose control of his character's actions. At no point does the neutral arbiter or any other player get to tell the character's player what the character does.

That Pirate Queen could roll ten thousand morale points to offer or cost, and the Knight's player can say "no." That might make the knight so ache with thwarted desire that he's useless for a while, but he hasn't violated his vow of chastity. He's suffering for it, as befits rejecting so powerful a likely-supernatural allure. It might take a while (and some magic, given the depths of his ache), but he can recover, and his player still didn't ever have action dictated.

(Maybe a floor for how negative morale points can go would also be appropriate. Or a way to "reset to zero" with a specified form of recovery.)

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-10, 01:08 PM

Why, though, is it that this requires a neutral arbiter for THIS conflict between characters, but not for the conflict between "I want to convince you to buy my product" and "You want to save your money?"

Actually, that hits on part of where I find it hard to grasp your position on this whole thing, Max_Killjoy. To me, it seems like you're saying that marketing and advertisements literally never work unless the people would have bought the product just as avidly if they'd just happened to hear about it in a non-hyped, dry description.

But marketing - even non-deceptive marketing that still relies on hyping up the excitement without lying about what the product is or does - clearly works, or it wouldn't be the multi-billion dollar industry that it is.

The mistake that's made by many people involved in marketing (and I base this on actual discussions with many) is to let the macro-scale indications that advertising can drive sales, create in them a belief that advertising works on the micro scale. They don't say "effective advertising statistically increases interest in and sales of the product", they say "advertising works on you as an individual". Given the number of times I've purchased the most-advertised beers (literally zero), versus the number of times I've purchased completely unadvertised beers, as just one example, that latter claim is clearly nonsense. Hell, there are beers commercials that I find entertaining, and I've never bought the beer being pushed. There are commercials I find entertaining and I couldn't even tell you what brand/company they were for. There are clearly people for whom advertising is a non-factor, or even a nuisance and active negative.

But the "one size fits all" approach to understanding the human mind leaves absolutely no space or consideration for that sort of variance.

It's the bolded statement with which I disagree. If a neutral arbiter can tell us how much pain a character feels and how much that hinders him (when that's a purely psychological effect, since the body's machinery is capable of far more than what the pain is convincing the voluntary control structure in the brain it should do), then a neutral arbiter can tell us that, yes, the bard's performance of "The Tragedy of the Fickle Fellow" did evoke sadness and sorrow, even if the DM (or the player of the PC bard) neither bothered to get out a lute and play nor managed to give a description of the sadness of the ballad sufficient to make the player feel it.

Or, perhaps, the neutral arbiter tells us that, no, his performance did NOT evoke that on a particular character, despite the player of the bard's ability to cajole and guilt-trip people over their being unfair and invalidating his concept by "no-selling" his performance. Or the bard's player's ability to pull out an armonica and pick out a heart-wrenchingly sweet tune IRL and weave a story that really does make every player at the table weep...but his character didn't roll well enough to break Stoneheart's reserve, despite Stoneheart's player (perhaps the GM) being in tears over it.

You can't ignore having your muscles and tendons severed or your bones broken and just go on doing whatever with the body part affected. It's a raw physical affect that has little variation.

How a song or poem affects each person is far more variable and is not an objective matter at all. It's not some switch that has to be tripped or scalar that has to have a certain value exceeded and "click", sad song makes person sad.

And actual people "no sell" artistic works (song or otherwise) that by all indications should deeply affect them, all the time in real life -- people can just choose to shut things out completely on the emotional level. People can make the decision that they're just not going to believe what some person is trying to get them to believe, no matter what. Knight of Vows can just tell the Pirate Queen "get off me, it's not happening" and that's it.

Again, nothing I've proposed tells you what the character does. It doesn't even tell you what he thinks in a "conscious thought" sort of sense. Only what urges he feels and how strongly.

If there's any difference, it's actually worse to seize control of what the character feels, thinks, believes, etc.

I really haven't expanded it. I wonder if the reason you think I have is because you're still not really getting what I'm asking. I've asked the same question repeatedly with different examples, because you do give answers that seem nonsensical or otherwise indicate, to me, that you're not getting what I'm saying.

It's not that you're saying "no." It's that you're saying "No, I would milk the cow" when the question was "Do you wear leather armor when playing a rogue?" It's close enough that I can almost see the connection of your answer to my question, but veers so far off that it leaves me wondering if you really understood, or if I am to infer that you wouldn't wear leather armor as a rogue because your rogue would prefer milk to having even one cow be slaughtered for her leather hide.

I'm not exaggerating, nor trying to be insulting. This is the level of disconnect I feel between your answers and the question I'm asking. "No, I think leather armor is cruel to animals and would never have a PC who wore it" would be a valid and direct answer. One I disagree with and would even scoff at a bit due to the vehemence of my disagreement, but still an answer I am sure is directly addressing the actual thing I'm asking.

The assertion was that any person can be made to want something that they don't want to want, regardless of what that is, if you just find the right buttons/levers, unless there is an extreme situation.

I directly rejected this assertion, on the basis that this is clearly not true for all people, and certainly not true for all people all the time.

The assertion was then expanded to include tangential issues such as conflicting priorities, later regrets, wanting things one knows are impossible, etc -- which are not the same thing.

Er...not really? "I don't want to want to have sex with her, because wanting to have sex with her makes rejecting her harder/more emotionally painful. Every time it comes up, I have to force myself to say 'no.' If I didn't want her, saying 'no' would be easy. I do wish it was easier."

But the argument you seem to be making is that, because the knight ultimately will choose not to have sex with her, he doesn't want to have sex with her on any level and experiences no emotional struggle to reject her. Nothing she does can make him want her in the slightest, because if she could, he would have sex with her.

The answers you've given to the questions I've asked seem to indicate to me that you literally feel no lust for her at all unless you ultimately choose to have sex with her. Nothing she can do will influence your decision to have sex with her, and nothing she can do will even influence whether you experience lust for her, nor the strength of that lust. Literally nothing she does, from wearing sackcloth and smearing her hair with dung to wearing the perfect outfit for your personal sexual taste and performing the most alluring display of her body and charms possible, exquisitely tailored, again, to your sexual taste, evokes any difference in your level of sexual desire for her. If you choose not to, you have no desire at all, and if you choose to, you do. It doesn't matter what she does to try to convince you (or to try turn you off).

My assertion is that it is quite realistic and believable that a straight but sworn-to-chastity man can, in fact, feel unwanted desire for a woman, and that the woman can, in fact, do things to enflame that desire more than it otherwise would be, so that he actually considers rejecting her advances more difficult due to his conflicting desires.

Your response to this assertion seems to me to be, "Nonsense. He has no conflicting desires. If he doesn't choose to have sex with her, he had no amount of desire for her at all. If he does, he had no amount of regard for his vow of chastity at all."

If that's NOT what you're saying, please clarify. Because I've been trying to figure out what you're saying and how it's different from that, since I have a very hard time believing anybody would actually assert that position. I find that position ludicrous. I feel like I'm attacking a straw man, but every effort I've made to figure out where I'm hitting a straw man and not the real argument has been met with what seems to me to be an affirmation: "That's not a straw man. Asking about it again won't make it not one. How could you possibly think that argument isn't perfect?"

My assertion has never been that there are no knights that will feel unwanted attraction, or that any particular knight played by any particular player won't feel unwanted attraction.

My assertion is that there ARE some characters (knights or otherwise) who will NOT feel unwanted attraction to the PQ, and that whether any one particular character feels any attraction to the PQ is up to the player -- not the GM, not the dice, not the mechanics, not a game designer or theorist somewhere, and not someone making blanket statements about how they believe the all human minds work.

Further, it is also my assertion that the PQ does not have ultimate control over whether any particular "target" character feels attraction to her, unwanted or otherwise, and that for some characters -- even some male straight unattached un-vowed characters -- there is absolutely nothing she can do to change that. Perhaps she lacks the understanding or the time or the attributes necessary, or perhaps the target character inherently mistrusts her specifically or people in general too much for her to overcome, or something else.

And trying to encompass all that in a set of traits and/or ratings, and interwoven mechanics, and model so as to never have disconnect between the player's conception of their character and what the rules are trying to say, is beyond any line of worthwhile returns.

SOME characters will feel conflicting or unwanted desires. SOME characters won't. My assertion is that said choice should be left with the player. And if in your opinion some players does a "worse" job of roleplaying their character because that choice is left the hands of each individual player, then so be it, that's the cost of players retaining their rightful control over their characters thoughts and feelings and beliefs.

Your position appears to be the gaming equivalent of technocratic, while mine appears to be the gaming equivalent of libertarian. I am not going to be put in a position where I have to argue to retain control of my character every time a situation like this comes up. You appear to be suggesting that I should have to argue to avoid losing control.

Nothing I've advocated has had a player lose control of his character's actions. At no point does the neutral arbiter or any other player get to tell the character's player what the character does.

That Pirate Queen could roll ten thousand morale points to offer or cost, and the Knight's player can say "no." That might make the knight so ache with thwarted desire that he's useless for a while, but he hasn't violated his vow of chastity. He's suffering for it, as befits rejecting so powerful a likely-supernatural allure. It might take a while (and some magic, given the depths of his ache), but he can recover, and his player still didn't ever have action dictated.

(Maybe a floor for how negative morale points can go would also be appropriate. Or a way to "reset to zero" with a specified form of recovery.)

No, not the actions, but even worse -- the player had the character's thoughts and feelings and beliefs dictated.

Segev

2017-01-10, 01:30 PM

The mistake that's made by many people involved in marketing (and I base this on actual discussions with many) is to let the macro-scale indications that advertising can drive sales, create a belief that advertising works on the micro scale. They don't say "effective advertising statistically increases interest in and sales of the product", they say "advertising works on you as an individual". Given the number of times I've purchased the most-advertised beers (literally zero), versus the number of times I've purchased completely unadvertised beers, as just one example, that latter claim is clearly nonsense. There are clearly people for whom advertising is a non-factor, or even a nuisance and active negative. There exist people who are influenced by commercials and marketing. They exist as a sufficient plurality of the population (if not the majority) that these statistical improvements in sales can be demonstrated.

I contend that, just because you happen to lie outside the norm for what will appeal to a mass market, that doesn't mean you are immune to all marketing. A marketer of sufficient skill could tailor a campaign to specifically entice you. Even if you had zero interest in Brand Zig Beer, the right marketing campaign could get you to potentially buy some for reasons other than to drink it. Perhaps a stealth, reverse-psychology approach of buying it for a "protest" to show how much you hate it. Or maybe a contest with something you really want. Or maybe by marketing it as a gift idea. (I don't know you and I'm not in marketing, so for all I know, none of those appeal.)

Personally, I am largely unaffected by beer commercials because they aren't marketing to me. I don't like sports, I'm not a partier, and I don't drink alcohol. I do buy beer, but I look for honey beers and dark beers and ask my brother which ones sound good, because I bake bread with the stuff and those are the flavors I like in beer bread.

But unless you're saying you cannot ever be persuaded to do something you didn't previously think you'd do, it CAN be done.

You can't ignore having your muscles and tendons severed or your bones broken and just go on doing whatever with the body part affected. It's a raw physical affect that has little variation. I spent a fair number of words specifying that this was explicitly not what I was talking about wrt pain. It's not that your body can't do it; it's that your pain response is trying to protect you from doing more harm, so it's limiting you from things your body could do. Purely psychological, as evidenced by the fact that pain killers and even sufficient mental focus can override it. But it does take training to make that focus work. It's not effortless.

If there's any difference, it's actually worse to seize control of what the character feels, thinks, believes, etc. Why? "That tyrant lizard screaming in your face and closing his jaws over your head is terrifying!" "No, it isn't. I'm sitting here in my comfy chair, and I say I would personally never be scared by that." Let's say the second speaker even believes that. Are you telling me that, since he honestly believes that while he's sitting comfortably in his chair, he is right and it would never scare him should it happen to him IRL?

Or is there some horribly malign force that is stealing control of himself away from himself because he can feel fears he didn't think he would?

Or, "Oh, I don't see what's so scary about heights. I would never be afraid to bungee jump." Is that guy, who's never tested himself in this way, 100% right because he believes it, so that later there's zero chance that he'll turn out to be afraid of heights? If he does turn out to be wrong, and the heights to freeze him so he doesn't want to jump (but still theoretically could), is that an evil mind-controlling force that's worse than if it actually compelled his behavior so he was unable to do it?

The assertion was that any person can be made to want something that they don't want to want, regardless of what that is, if you just find the right buttons/levers, unless there is an extreme situation.

I directly rejected this assertion, on the basis that this is clearly not true for all people, and certainly not true for all people all the time. And for those for whom it's not true, a well-designed system would allow them to set up their traits to be unaffected by things they absolutely could not be made to want. (Barring, perhaps, beyond-real-life levels of skill. I.e. magic/legends.)

The assertion was then expanded to include tangential issues such as conflicting priorities, later regrets, wanting things one knows are impossible, etc -- which are not the same thing. They absolutely are.

Conflicting priorities and conflicting desires are the same thing. That is literally how I've been using them.

Sir Knight may not like some priorities suggested by his desires, but he still has them. He can reject them, but that doesn't mean they're not there.

My assertion has never been that there are no knights that will feel unwanted attraction, or that any particular knight played by any particular player won't feel unwanted attraction. Except that saying the system is flawed because any knights might feel unwanted attraction IS asserting that NO knights would feel unwanted attraction.

If you want to build a knight who wouldn't, build a knight who wouldn't. That should be possible with such a system.

My assertion is that there ARE some characters (knights or otherwise) who will NOT feel unwanted attraction to the PQ, and that whether any one particular character feels any attraction to the PQ is up to the player -- not the GM, not the dice, not the mechanics, not a game designer or theorist somewhere, and not someone making blanket statements about how they believe the all human minds work. It is up to the player insofar as he designs the character. There is no reason why the mechanics can't tell him, if he didn't design him not to, that he does.

Further, it is also my assertion that the PQ does not have ultimate control over whether any particular "target" character feels attraction to her, unwanted or otherwise, and that for some characters -- even some male straight unattached unvowed characters -- there is absolutely nothing she can do to change that.Of course she doesn't. The mechanics do. She is just trying to invoke them one way, and whether she has the ability to do so is determined by the interaction of her mechanics with those of the target.

Perhaps she lacks the understanding or the time or the attributes necessary, or perhaps the target character inherently mistrusts her specifically or people in general too much for her to overcome, or something else. All of which are represented by whether or not she manages to create a pool of morale points to offer (or cost) somebody for giving in to the desire she seeks to evoke. If she lacks these things, she won't manage to build up that pool and, lo and behold, the knight won't feel that unwanted desire!

And trying to encompas all that in a set of traits and/or ratings, and interwoven mechanics, and model so as to never have disconnect between the player's conception of their character and what the rules are trying to say, is beyond any line of worthwhile returns.Obviously, I strongly disagree.

No, not the actions, but even worse -- the player had the character's thoughts and feelings and beliefs dictated.Less "thoughts" or "beliefs" and more "urges and desires." "Feelings" is accurate. Though not even 100% of those are dictated. Merely that certain feelings are present with specified intensity. If there are others, that's up to the player; they may not offer solace at the moment, but that doesn't mean they're NOT there. Only that they're not offering solace right then. The fact that the player retains ultimate control over the character's actions and choices means that the character's full net emotional state is still the player's to determine. He just doesn't get to say "and he doesn't feel bad/good about it at all, either." He can say he'll get over it, or that it won't last (which is true), and that he values what he held to or gave up more (which will be reflected in his actual enjoyment going forward, and is indicated by the choice to endure the immediate pain or indulge in the immediate pleasure, as well).

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-10, 01:37 PM

There exist people who are influenced by commercials and marketing. They exist as a sufficient plurality of the population (if not the majority) that these statistical improvements in sales can be demonstrated.

Where did I contest that? Advertising to some degree works, on a macro, statistical level.

I contend that, just because you happen to lie outside the norm for what will appeal to a mass market, that doesn't mean you are immune to all marketing. A marketer of sufficient skill could tailor a campaign to specifically entice you. Even if you had zero interest in Brand Zig Beer, the right marketing campaign could get you to potentially buy some for reasons other than to drink it. Perhaps a stealth, reverse-psychology approach of buying it for a "protest" to show how much you hate it. Or maybe a contest with something you really want. Or maybe by marketing it as a gift idea. (I don't know you and I'm not in marketing, so for all I know, none of those appeal.)

Personally, I am largely unaffected by beer commercials because they aren't marketing to me. I don't like sports, I'm not a partier, and I don't drink alcohol. I do buy beer, but I look for honey beers and dark beers and ask my brother which ones sound good, because I bake bread with the stuff and those are the flavors I like in beer bread.

But unless you're saying you cannot ever be persuaded to do something you didn't previously think you'd do, it CAN be done.

I'm saying that some people aren't moved by advertising for the specific reason that it's advertising, and they realize that the intent of it is to get them to buy something or do something.

What perplexes me is that advertising works at all -- how is anyone ever fooled?

If you want to build a knight who wouldn't, build a knight who wouldn't. That should be possible with such a system.

It is up to the player insofar as he designs the character. There is no reason why the mechanics can't tell him, if he didn't design him not to, that he does.

I have no interest in a system that requires me to foresee every possible social situation and "contest", every possible internal conflict, every pirate queen and Faustian devil, every least-bad-option choice, on and on and on, and build the character in exacting painful detail to make sure the character will always react in accord with my understanding of that character six months or a year from now, with the correct balance of consistency and nuance.

Segev

2017-01-10, 02:12 PM

Where did I contest that? Advertising to some degree works, on a macro, statistical level. When you hold up people who do not as a reason why characters who do shouldn't be modeled, you imply they do not exist. I hold up their existence as validation for a system that models them.

I'm saying that some people aren't moved by advertising for the specific reason that it's advertising, and they realize that the intent of it is to get them to buy something or do something. Which is fine. When it's "for the specific reason that it's advertising," that becomes a focused preference against ads. A trait, whether stand-alone or as a component of something larger ("Hates obvious attempts to manipulate his emotions," perhaps).

What perplexes me is that advertising works at all -- how is anyone ever fooled? Hope. Wanting to believe.

And it doesn't take being fooled, all the time. One commercial that was surprisingly effective on me was a recent one for chevy trucks, where they demonstrated the difference of their steel truck beds compared to aluminum truck beds. Assuming they're not engaging in blatant false advertising, the demonstrated durability between the two was quite the selling point. (Didn't work as well as they'd like, in that I don't have the money nor need for a pickup, but if I buy a pickup in the near future, I'll probably look into Chevy/GMC trucks because of that feature.) No "fooling," here: they advertised a discriminating factor, and I thought it meritorious.

I have no interest in a system that requires me to foresee every possible social situation and "contest", every possible internal conflict, every pirate queen and Faustian devil, every least-bad-option choice, on and on and on, and build the character in exacting painful detail to make sure the character will also react in accord with my understanding of that character six months or a year from now.That's not necessary with the system I've outlined. If you're building a character who is that dedicated to chastity AND you want him to not even be TEMPTED, you can build towards that. You don't have to predict every possible avenue of seduction that might be used against your PC; you're building to bolster this specific aspect of your character that you want inviolate.

The system requires nothing of you in terms of predicting temptations. It asks you to define your character and how firmly dedicated to his various principles he is. The "defense" against things which violate the inviolable arises naturally.

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-10, 02:52 PM

It is description via numbers of how the other characters and environmental events impact your character's emotional state, in the same fashion that exhaustion rules describe the impact of whatever triggers them on your character's energy, and environmental rules describe the impact of, say, extreme heat and dryness on your need for water.

Here's the problem: We've magically gone from Descriptive Words to Hard Numbers again without any explanation of the road between (except the one below which I will address.)

There is an inherent assumption that there is a disconnect between what the player is personally experiencing and what the character is personally experiencing. The numbers give the player a firmer indication of just how impactful something is to the character.

Telling somebody "you get a gash in your arm from his dagger" is descriptive, and there's a certain amount of imagining what that feels like that can be done, but telling them "you get a gash in your arm from his dagger, and it puts you in the -1 wound category for anything using that arm" gives a more solid indication of just how hindering that is. If it put you at the -3 wound category, that would be a notably worse wound, and if it didn't put you in any wound category, it would be a fairly superficial wound.

The numbers, in the hypothetical damage-to-parts with wound categories system in the prior paragraph, gives a common reference.

"No, how dare you tell me how my character reacts to that pain? Unless you're saying the tendons are literally severed in a life-crippling way, only I, the player, know how he handles the pain, and I say he forces his way through it without any impact to his skill or performance with that arm," is, to me, identical to the "only the player knows how his character feels about something" argument. Pain is, after all, subjective, and 90% of wound-induced failure to perform is due to pain responses trying to discourage the victim from causing further damage. Typically, human pain response is overzealous about this; one can do a lot more than pain would have us do without real risk of further injury. (But it's still not advisable to test it in most situations that modern humans find themselves.)

I've got a pretty firm understanding of the What. I'm more concerned with the How.

I don't think so. I'm looking more for "Sir Peter Sutton Finch III loves swords" being something which the player could bring up to argue that getting that new +5 sword isn't just giving him a future opportunity to be cooler in combat, but satisfying his emotional love as a collector, so he gets its rating in morale points. But it also could be used to enhance the salesman's pitch when he tries to sell Sir Finch the sword.

Whether it extends to daggers or axes would be highly dependent on how it's been played, but by default probably wouldn't apply at all. If the player wanted it to, he'd probably discuss it briefly with the DM: "You know, I said 'swords,' but he really seems to me, upon examination of how I play him, to be into bladed melee weapons of all sorts." Assuming the DM doesn't look at how Sir Finch has been played up to this point and see a distinct disregard for things other than swords, he probably agrees and the edit is made. That's part of it being "broad strokes," to me: understanding WHAT the traits mean based on how he's played is more important than the specific wording, so editing the wording to be more accurate is fine. (What isn't fine is editing the wording to change it as whimsy and optimal opportunity arises.)

Sir Finch's love of swords and Dame Sparrow's love of swords may in fact be distinct in their differing nuances. Sir Finch is an avid fan of bladed weapons (but particularly swords) and is almost a "car guy" with them - babying them, taking great pride in caring for them, and using them well but always being careful to properly treat them afterwards. Dame Sparrow, on the other hand, may be more SPECIFICALLY about swords, and be an avid collector who has her "for use" swords, but most are display pieces whose history (both legendary use and ownership lineage and who made them) is of utmost interest. These things should come out both in play and, potentially, in description if somebody asks their players what the broad "likes swords" trait means to them.
You essentially described a more complicated version of what I described.

In my mind, "step 2" is "determine if Trait ABC of rating X applies; if it does, appropriately apply its rating to the mechanical calculations determining ultimate morale offering/cost."

Nope nope nope missing the point. You're skippimg the transition into "Do we turn the number on now." I'm asking where the numbers COME FROM. I can think of ways to do this, but they're rather limiting. (Dogs in the Vineyard gives you slots with attached numerical meaning and you decide what each one IS, though the numerical values will always be the same and the number of traits will always be the same. So if you decide to put your "I will cast the demons out!" Trait into the D10's slot, you add d10's to your pool for the resolution minigame. Every time it is invoked. No matter the specifics.)
Where does its rating come from?
How do we attain a meaningful, consistent, numerical rating from the vagueries of language?
Since you don't describe a Dogs in the Vineyard-like system, I have to assume that Consistency is not a concern for the system. Different GMs reaching wildly different conclusions would need to be acceptable. Because that's what would happen.

Just the realities of the thing.

Is it consistent and specific or broad and changeable? Because you're gonna need to come down on one end. Even DitV opts for consistent, even when it works against the system.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-10, 03:18 PM

Here's a situation, I'll try to balance brevity and needed detail. Spoilered for those who don't care.

I played a character for a long time once, in a "Celtic-based myth/history/tales mashup fantasy" setting. The character was a "bipedal human-sized draconic species" (but this was well before D&D introduced "dragonborn" and their typical football-lineman build with D&D dragon ornamentation all over wouldn't fit the species at all, think of a more upright raptor instead, maybe).

He had a chilly, refined personality, and spoke in a dry, precise, deadpan voice. His idea of a joke was to say something like "At least he's suffering for it" when one of the PCs was courting another PC and being put through the wringer by the other PC -- and when the being-courted PC overheard this and said "I had no idea you were a such sadomasochist", his response to her was a flat "I'm not a masochist".

He did not suffer fools lightly.. if at all. He spoke his mind and lived by hard truths.

I got into this character and would spend most of the sessions in-character, doing his voice and mannerisms. I didn't have to stop and think about what he'd say or do, I just knew it and said it and "did" it.

In one arc, we were dealing with a magical disease that spread by touch, and had no cure once caught. One of the NPCs was a "gold-hearted fool" and kinda an ignorant doof who kept trying to help and screwing it up, and decided that my character was a great hero and he (the NPC) was his destined to be his squire and herald. My character did his level best to stop this nonsense -- his culture is uneasy about fame and glory -- but the GM was a master of creative misinterpretation and played the NPC this way to the hilt. BUT, as much by accident as by design, this fool was also heroic, and did his best, and made a difference, and earned some respect.

At the very end, we found a way to stop the disease from spreading, but anyone who caught it before this was going to die. We'd succeeded, and we were about to head out, and my character hears (something like) "Shouldn't we clean up this stuff?" and turns to see the fool standing there holding a giant pile of disease-ridden rags in his arms with a big smile on his face.

He was doomed.

The other players had watched this play out over weeks and my character getting and more fed up, and at this point they all kinda slid their chairs away as representation of their characters taking a step back.

My character just looked at the fool for a long moment, took a deep breath, and said "I need you to stay here and help take care of the dying."

"We did good, right? We saved the day, and I'm hero like you?"

"Yes. You're a hero. A great hero." And maybe this wasn't a total lie... the NPC was going to die because he'd tried to help others.

My character just didn't have the heart to hammer home the truth and shatter the NPC's self-respect... he was a dead man walking and nothing was going to change that. He decided in that moment to let the NPC die with some dignity and esteem, and yet hated having to lie to him.

I felt a spark of my character's pain, and anger, and disgust, and pity, and sympathy, and conflict, and... all of it. It still gets to me when I think about it.

There are more than a few who would have an expectation that he'd remain true and consistent to a "Doesn't Suffer Fools" tag, and would have been cruelly truthful in that moment. They'd call what happened instead "bad roleplaying" and "inconsistent". They'd reject nuance in favor of a caricature.

In a descriptive or prescriptive system of "personality tags", I'd have to foresee that situation and also give the character a tag to represent that other side of his personality, to avoid being accused of "not playing my character correctly" or having to fight the mechanics to do what I felt deep down with no doubt that the character would do in that moment. And no, I would not have hesitated to do it, no matter the intrusive, invasive, micromanaging "morale loss" that a GM might try to impose for it.

And do you really think I needed a point system to tell me that my character was torn up, when in the moment I could absolutely feel it on his behalf?

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-10, 03:32 PM

In a descriptive or prescriptive system of "personality tags", I'd have to foresee that situation and also give the character a tag to represent that other side of his personality, to avoid being accused of "not playing my character correctly" or having to fight the mechanics to do what I felt deep down with no doubt that the character would do in that moment. And no, I would not have hesitated to do it, no matter the intrusive, invasive, micromanaging "morale loss" that a GM might try to impose for it.
I've never had a moment like is described here met with hostility in any of my groups. What typically happens is (if anyone actually notices) someome will say "Hey. That was unusual. What prompted that different response this time?" Which can be deferred for later or addressed then if it seems like a good conversation to have at the time.

I also don't see why a personality tag must either be not present or 100% enforced. If I'm cheerful 90% of the time, I'd probably still merit a Cheerful tag.

And do you really think I needed a point system to tell me that my character was torn up, when in the moment I could absolutely feel it on his behalf?
Not really. But I'd definitely think that as worthy of a bit of extra goodies going your way for your efforts.

kyoryu

2017-01-10, 03:43 PM

In a descriptive or prescriptive system of "personality tags", I'd have to foresee that situation and also give the character a tag to represent that other side of his personality, to avoid being accused of "not playing my character correctly" or having to fight the mechanics to do what I felt deep down with no doubt that the character would do in that moment. And no, I would not have hesitated to do it, no matter the intrusive, invasive, micromanaging "morale loss" that a GM might try to impose for it.

So, here's how that would work in Fate. As an example, since I know it.

Well, Fate wouldn't care. Compels in Fate are only used to generate *complications*. No complication would be generated in that situation, so no mechanics would be involved.

Even in a situation where Fate *would* generate a mechanical result for that, it is explicitly part of the system that you can say "no, that's not what that means," and that's pretty much the end of that.

(Yes, that could theoretically result in a player saying that for *every* time the game tries to Compel them, but the system assumes people are acting in good faith on all sides of the table).

I can't imagine a descriptive system where you couldn't say "no, that's not what that really means." That would be pretty awful to game under.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-10, 05:06 PM

So, here's how that would work in Fate. As an example, since I know it.

Well, Fate wouldn't care. Compels in Fate are only used to generate *complications*. No complication would be generated in that situation, so no mechanics would be involved.

Even in a situation where Fate *would* generate a mechanical result for that, it is explicitly part of the system that you can say "no, that's not what that means," and that's pretty much the end of that.

(Yes, that could theoretically result in a player saying that for *every* time the game tries to Compel them, but the system assumes people are acting in good faith on all sides of the table).

I can't imagine a descriptive system where you couldn't say "no, that's not what that really means." That would be pretty awful to game under.

Perhaps, but the proposed system is prescriptive in nature.

It really feels like the sort of gaming I enjoy would need a "personality mechanics system" like a fish needs a bicycle... never mind the problem of forcing the fish to actually carry the bike around.

kyoryu

2017-01-10, 05:24 PM

Perhaps, but the proposed system is prescriptive in nature.

It really feels like the sort of gaming I enjoy would need a "personality mechanics system" like a fish needs a bicycle... never mind the problem of forcing the fish to actually carry the bike around.

Yeah. I've pretty much come to that conclusion about you.

Different things for different folks.

Lorsa

2017-01-10, 05:28 PM

I will see if I have time to write, or at least start with, a post I've been thinking about for a long time now.

This thread has only tangentially touched social mechanics, which is surprising as it seems to be the reason many people want some of the proposed "RP mechanics" in the first place (for example the morale points).

Therefore, I think it's important to think about how the typical "social skills" usually functions in terms of externals/internals and object/subject dependence (to just name a few).

Before that I want to mention that I find the idea of making things more "even" between GM and players by letting players set the "DC" for how hard it would be for NPC (or other players) to convince them of things very intriguing. It is something I have sometimes seen players suggest themselves when they've been uncertain what direction their character would lean towards. However, as a rule, it has some drawbacks; the main one being that even if everyone acts in good faith, there could be subjective differences in how they view the DC scale, which means it would be rather unfair on a "player-vs.-player" basis. At least with a GM setting the difficulty, it is easier that it remains consistent over many interactions. Anyway, still an idea worth considering.

So, social skills are often divided into categories of "Bluff" (and detect bluff), "Intimidate", "Persuade" and sometimes "Seduce". These are all very different though, as they interact with the target (the object) in different ways.

Bluff is usually considered something only related to the subject (the one doing the bluffing) itself. How good can you control your "ticks" and look like you're telling the truth. This is often opposed with the target's skill in reading said ticks. It feels quite natural and well in tune with how we think of lying in the real world. It is not, or at least usually not, 'I roll Bluff to change your beliefs to whatever I am saying'. That would be silly, and I think that sort of forced change in a character's internal act contrary to how we think of lying. In that case, someone being good at Bluffing could convince someone that they're really a chicken and not a human. In this sense, Bluff is more akin to a normal physical action, in fact, it IS a 'normal' physical skill like Climb or Hide or whatever. It reflects how good you are at masking your lying tells.

Obviously, one could make Bluff bigger, and I am sure some systems do, in the sense that it could ALSO be your skill at "coming up with the right lie". This is a bit more esoteric, as it is obviously contextual and the GM has to provide the actual lie if the roll is good enough. Done this way, it involves not only a physical skill but also a knowledge skill of sorts. It can (and probably should) still be contested with some form of bluff detection, but it would make a player able to play a smooth snake-tongued character even though they can never think of any decent lies themselves. It depends how much decision you want players to have in a social interaction (analogy would be to let the fight skill dictate whom is best to attack in a fight, and which attack to use).

If we move to Intimidate, it is a bit more tricky skill to describe. Is it how good you are at provoking fear in your target, or is it how good you are at appearing to be more dangerous than you actually are? For the latter, the skill might as well be included in Bluff really. Or maybe bundle them into "acting" or somesuch. For the former, ideally, if we want to follow "how it feels in the real world", then Intimidate should also be contested with something. Like willpower or fighting strength or a combination. Chances are that a 10th level adventurer in D&D can't really BE intimidated in that sense; they've just been through too much. Unfortunately I think this skill often fails to take into account that someone who is simply good at fighting can be pretty scary by themselves, or that just holding a gun makes you pretty scary to most folks, or that you should probably get a lot of bonus/penalties depending on the character's appearance. In any case, I think we've all experienced times when people or situations have frightened us a deep level, even though we logically don't want to feel that way, so if a, potentially resist able, Intimidation attempt causes our character to freeze with fear; that matches up pretty well with reality.

Seduction is a bit of a weird one, and I really don't quite know how to write rules that matches with our everyday experience. It is obvious that some people are generally more seductive than others, that is either they can provoke some kind of romantic or physical desire in the object. It's not a safe bet though, and their skill should also be resisted with some roll from the target character, which depend heavily on their personality (and thus hard to codify). It is also quite evident from our everyday experience that even IF someone makes us really horny, we still feel in control of our actions. Seduction should never lead to forced action; that's just not how it works. Fear on the other hand, like in the intimidation case, definitely CAN lead to actions we wouldn't logically choose to take (even though I still want to leave it up to the player to decide if they're frozen in place or runs away or attacks screaming or whatever).

I am not sure how it is with the rest of you, but I have never felt such a strong sexual or romantic desire for someone that I couldn't control my actions. If I logically really don't want to do them, I don't. Does this match up with your experience as well?

My thought here is that seduction is very hard to codify, and even if you do all it boils down to is "you feel a large measure of desire", which is kind of lackluster for a mechanic. In this case, I would simply go the free-form way, but I can understand why someone might want something like a "morale system" to help determine just how much desire the character feels.

If we then get to Persuasion, which is the really tricky one, my first thought is that the target (or object of the persuasion attempt) matters to a much larger degree than the persuader's skill. In fact, Persuasion is really not the best of terms either; as some people are much much better at one kind (say emotion-inducing speeches) than another (logical argumentation). Some people are much more receptive to the former whereas almost everyone in this thread is probably more receptive to the latter. Even so, noone, and I mean noone, is ever convinced of anything unless they're actively willing to change their mind.

Just take this thread for example; how many people here have honestly changed their initial position? Well, I have, but most people haven't (I think). So are we all really crappy persuaders? I don't think so. It's just that it's a very tricky interaction, which makes it hard to narrow down into a satisfactory mechanic.

Yes, it is true that some people are better at making logical arguments than others, obviously the subject's skill DOES matter to some extent, but even the worst persuader can sometimes convince others to change their mind.

I think the idea that "subject rolls Persuade, object rolls some resistance" with resistance failure meaning the character has now suddenly changed their mind is rather unsatisfactory on a "matches up with our real world experience" level. Persuading people is REALLY HARD, and downright impossible if someone is set in their ways.

So what would a Persuade skill entail? The ability of the subject to hold a good speech and provoke emotion (this is actually something that would match up fairly well with Intimidate and Seduction then), or the ability to make clear and rational arguments (which is more of a knowledge skill than anything)? How DOES people change their minds? How do we incorporate our everyday feeling of being in control of our beliefs and only really changing them when we weigh the subject to be convincing? It's really tricky I think, and figuring out a good mechanic for that is a lot harder than "roll Climb to get up the tree".

Segev

2017-01-10, 05:47 PM

Nope nope nope missing the point. You're skippimg the transition into "Do we turn the number on now." I'm asking where the numbers COME FROM. I can think of ways to do this, but they're rather limiting. (Dogs in the Vineyard gives you slots with attached numerical meaning and you decide what each one IS, though the numerical values will always be the same and the number of traits will always be the same. So if you decide to put your "I will cast the demons out!" Trait into the D10's slot, you add d10's to your pool for the resolution minigame. Every time it is invoked. No matter the specifics.)
Where does its rating come from?
Okay. The answer to this is a little fuzzy, because I have not written nor come up with a precise "here's how you define your traits, down to the numbers" bit, yet. I've been trying to discuss how you'd use them, once numbers were assigned.

In my head, the initial place those numbers come from is character generation. I am conflicted on whether to have them be arbitrary - assign as many as you like with whatever values you like (possibly between 0 and a maximum value) - or having it be something you have a limited resource for. The latter leads to more gameplay choices to make; the former lets you get as detailed as you like (but risks inviting overcomplication of the system and overspecificity of the traits).

But, you'd assign those numbers and traits at character generation, through a prescribed means. The system would also ideally include mechanical means of adjusting those numbers, whether through the character's own actions reinforcing or undermining his traits (whether on purpose - breaking bad habits or getting over bad traits - or not - overcoming or gaining prejudices just through experience, for example), or through others' actions and social interactions (trying to win him as a friend, or convince him that orcs are (not) the worst scum of the earth when he thinks otherwise to start with, or whatever). This would allow for character growth and change to be represented in the mechanics.

I also envision some amount of flexibility, especially early in a campaign, for simply re-adjusting it. Probably nothing hard-coded in the rules, but I would hope that most GMs would let you adjust a PC's combat style or skill loadout if you discovered in play that your "Caravan guard trained by the sand monks of Qualoompoh" doesn't have the "Desert Navigation" skill (because you didn't know it existed, perhaps) but really should because you'd THOUGHT the "wilderness lore: desert" skill would cover it (even though it doesn't), he'd let you reassign skills to get your character in line with what he's supposed to be. Similarly, if it turns out that "Despises Bandits" isn't quite right, as in the first couple sessions you discovered through play that he's rather okay with bandits who aren't attacking his charges, you can perhaps adjust it to "Despises those who prey on his charges." Or even to broaden it to "Violently loyal to his duty."

(Hey, who said internals had to be non-hypocritical and non-subjective? Double standards are totally legitimate things for a character to have.)

So the numbers are there. Sorry I was unclear that they get assigned initially by the player, and adjust through the mechanics of the game. Largely, if not exclusively, through choices the player makes.

Did that answer your question?

How do we attain a meaningful, consistent, numerical rating from the vagueries of language?
Since you don't describe a Dogs in the Vineyard-like system, I have to assume that Consistency is not a concern for the system. Different GMs reaching wildly different conclusions would need to be acceptable. Because that's what would happen.

Just the realities of the thing. Not really. The numbers are meant to be within a scale that is reasonable for the core system (maybe 1-20ish for a d20-based one, or 1-5ish for a white wolf-based one). They're written down ahead of time. Nowhere have I suggested that the DM makes up the trait numbers for anybody, at least other than in generating his NPCs (whose numbers he assigns by the same rules the players assign their characters').

Is it consistent and specific or broad and changeable? Because you're gonna need to come down on one end. Even DitV opts for consistent, even when it works against the system.The consistent specificity is in the numbers. The broadness comes in determining which traits apply.

Once you determine which traits apply, you take those traits' numbers and throw them into the mix of the resolution system to contribute to determining the final morale point offering/cost.

Here's a situation, I'll try to balance brevity and needed detail. Spoilered for those who don't care.

I played a character for a long time once, in a "Celtic-based myth/history/tales mashup fantasy" setting. The character was a "bipedal human-sized draconic species" (but this was well before D&D introduced "dragonborn" and their typical football-lineman build with D&D dragon ornamentation all over wouldn't fit the species at all, think of a more upright raptor instead, maybe).

He had a chilly, refined personality, and spoke in a dry, precise, deadpan voice. His idea of a joke was to say something like "At least he's suffering for it" when one of the PCs was courting another PC and being put through the wringer by the other PC -- and when the being-courted PC overheard this and said "I had no idea you were a such sadomasochist", his response to her was a flat "I'm not a masochist".

He did not suffer fools lightly.. if at all. He spoke his mind and lived by hard truths.

I got into this character and would spend most of the sessions in-character, doing his voice and mannerisms. I didn't have to stop and think about what he'd say or do, I just knew it and said it and "did" it.

In one arc, we were dealing with a magical disease that spread by touch, and had no cure once caught. One of the NPCs was a "gold-hearted fool" and kinda an ignorant doof who kept trying to help and screwing it up, and decided that my character was a great hero and he (the NPC) was his destined to be his squire and herald. My character did his level best to stop this nonsense -- his culture is uneasy about fame and glory -- but the GM was a master of creative misinterpretation and played the NPC this way to the hilt. BUT, as much by accident as by design, this fool was also heroic, and did his best, and made a difference, and earned some respect.

At the very end, we found a way to stop the disease from spreading, but anyone who caught it before this was going to die. We'd succeeded, and we were about to head out, and my character hears (something like) "Shouldn't we clean up this stuff?" and turns to see the fool standing there holding a giant pile of disease-ridden rags in his arms with a big smile on his face.

He was doomed.

The other players had watched this play out over weeks and my character getting and more fed up, and at this point they all kinda slid their chairs away as representation of their characters taking a step back.

My character just looked at the fool for a long moment, took a deep breath, and said "I need you to stay here and help take care of the dying."

"We did good, right? We saved the day, and I'm hero like you?"

"Yes. You're a hero. A great hero." And maybe this wasn't a total lie... the NPC was going to die because he'd tried to help others.

My character just didn't have the heart to hammer home the truth and shatter the NPC's self-respect... he was a dead man walking and nothing was going to change that. He decided in that moment to let the NPC die with some dignity and esteem, and yet hated having to lie to him.

I felt a spark of my character's pain, and anger, and disgust, and pity, and sympathy, and conflict, and... all of it. It still gets to me when I think about it.

There are more than a few who would have an expectation that he'd remain true and consistent to a "Doesn't Suffer Fools" tag, and would have been cruelly truthful in that moment. They'd call what happened instead "bad roleplaying" and "inconsistent". They'd reject nuance in favor of a caricature.

In a descriptive or prescriptive system of "personality tags", I'd have to foresee that situation and also give the character a tag to represent that other side of his personality, to avoid being accused of "not playing my character correctly" or having to fight the mechanics to do what I felt deep down with no doubt that the character would do in that moment. And no, I would not have hesitated to do it, no matter the intrusive, invasive, micromanaging "morale loss" that a GM might try to impose for it.
First off, awesome story.

Secondly, I don't really see the system I am proposing coming up in that particular scene, unless you invoked it. And I don't see any traits described for your character you likely would have. (Motives for invocation might've included wanting morale points for the rush of cheer you got from some aspect of it, or even to highlight that you're undermining or strengthening one of your extant traits as part of your efforts to grow the character in a particular direction.)

But there's no "positive" for your character, here, emotionally or materially, in making one choice or the other. No urge to attempt to represent.

Frankly, from how you described him, I immediately saw roughly how your character would react. I suppose I can see why he might act with vehement glee at the guy's impending doom, but I wouldn't have expected it, given the character's clear underlying motives for his surface behavior.

That you see this as a place the system I propose might try to reach out and offer morale points for a particular behavior reveals to me that it might need to be very carefully explained when and how to use it. Because frankly, this doesn't seem a place for it, any more than the choice of wearing the red blouse or the blue blouse to the park today should invoke this system under normal circumstances.

Side note: That was also a well-done emotional scene. I can see why you'd feel your PC's pain, there. This is a scene the medium is GOOD at putting the player into the same place the character is. One of tragedy built up by scene after scene of description.

Heck, I'd argue that this scene is probably moving even for players who might prefer it not to be. :smallwink:

Maybe - maybe - it would be appropriate to invoke this system if you had a particular trait that clearly related to the NPC, and some choice you could make would definitely impact how you feel about him.

Maybe it could be invoked to offer you a chance to build or erode some trait(s) related to that NPC or to the situation. I mean, as an example, I could see you building a trait of fondness for noble fools. Or undermining "doesn't suffer fools" or adding an admiration for earnest, hard-working honesty. Not that you'd have to, but that it might be an option; this certainly could be a place for character growth.

And do you really think I needed a point system to tell me that my character was torn up, when in the moment I could absolutely feel it on his behalf?There? No. As I said, this isn't quite the kind of scene the system I propose is meant to influence. If anything, it's the kind of scene the system is meant to be influenced by.

jayem

2017-01-10, 05:55 PM

Here's a situation, I'll try to balance brevity and needed detail. Spoilered for those who don't care.
My character just didn't have the heart to hammer home the truth and shatter the NPC's self-respect... he was a dead man walking and nothing was going to change that. He decided in that moment to let the NPC die with some dignity and esteem, and yet hated having to lie to him.

I felt a spark of my character's pain, and anger, and disgust, and pity, and sympathy, and conflict, and... all of it. It still gets to me when I think about it.

And do you really think I needed a point system to tell me that my character was torn up, when in the moment I could absolutely feel it on his behalf?

That's a cool story, thanks for sharing it.

I can't imagine many people calling it bad RP. Although of course it's not the only outcome (blasting away in a furious disappointment would also have been good role play).

It's clear these are exceptional circumstances so you might well find the GM quite happy to catch on, and go through the whole scene without even needing to question.

Even if he's slow, mean or unable to bend the rules, and you need to argue it beyond what you've just said, there might well already be opposite points explicitly on the sheet without specific pre-meditiation, if nothing else it's the last time he gives you unwanted fame and glory.

And failing that, even in the most compulsive of compulsion games it would still after all be a possible outcome. Heck even on a failed roll I think you'd probably get away for "You bleeping mor...on, you've...missed a towel and these people need your help, they can't have you doing a half a job." **.
Or in a more points system you might take the hit points, and then face being fragile afterwards.

But you might well even find the DM taking this as a chance for character growth maybe this is the time your character, begins to learn self control (I mean the DM clearly knew what he was doing with the NPC*, he may have meant it to be somehow (depending on the reaction) anyway). Or maybe a chance for the party understand you more.

*or if he didn't, then he'll be on the back foot anyway.
**If you've ever read Jenning's, it's reminding me of Mr Wilson.

Cluedrew

2017-01-10, 06:13 PM

Setting broad-strokes descriptors does NOTHING to take away the depth of a character. It only puts the shallows and semi-shallows into words.I think this is an important one archetypes and simple descriptions are only a problem if there is nothing beyond that in a character. There usually is, at least in many of the character we enjoy.

Still I have been thinking about it and I have been thinking about why most systems stop there, at those broad strokes. Despite Max_Killjoy's worries I don't think it is because that is as deep as they are supposed to go. In fact one is the main reasons is actually to address his other main problem. That is these board archetypes are at the right "width" that you can both say something meaningful about the character ("virtuous knight" does not say a lot but it does say more than "character") but at the same time it is broad enough that you can fit the entire character, including all the nuisances, into that band. (And if a large part of the character doesn't fit, just don't use virtuous knight.)

Plus, most systems assume you will have those nuisances and call out exceptions pretty much at will.

It really feels like the sort of gaming I enjoy would need a "personality mechanics system" like a fish needs a bicycle... never mind the problem of forcing the fish to actually carry the bike around.... I asked this once before. But why are you here talking about bicycles? I'm just wondering because you seem to dislike everything about bicycles but you have been here talking about them a lot. What do you want to get out of this thread?

4

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-10, 06:26 PM

Okay. The answer to this is a little fuzzy, because I have not written nor come up with a precise "here's how you define your traits, down to the numbers" bit, yet. I've been trying to discuss how you'd use them, once numbers were assigned.

In my head, the initial place those numbers come from is character generation. I am conflicted on whether to have them be arbitrary - assign as many as you like with whatever values you like (possibly between 0 and a maximum value) - or having it be something you have a limited resource for. The latter leads to more gameplay choices to make; the former lets you get as detailed as you like (but risks inviting overcomplication of the system and overspecificity of the traits).

But, you'd assign those numbers and traits at character generation, through a prescribed means. The system would also ideally include mechanical means of adjusting those numbers, whether through the character's own actions reinforcing or undermining his traits (whether on purpose - breaking bad habits or getting over bad traits - or not - overcoming or gaining prejudices just through experience, for example), or through others' actions and social interactions (trying to win him as a friend, or convince him that orcs are (not) the worst scum of the earth when he thinks otherwise to start with, or whatever). This would allow for character growth and change to be represented in the mechanics.

I also envision some amount of flexibility, especially early in a campaign, for simply re-adjusting it. Probably nothing hard-coded in the rules, but I would hope that most GMs would let you adjust a PC's combat style or skill loadout if you discovered in play that your "Caravan guard trained by the sand monks of Qualoompoh" doesn't have the "Desert Navigation" skill (because you didn't know it existed, perhaps) but really should because you'd THOUGHT the "wilderness lore: desert" skill would cover it (even though it doesn't), he'd let you reassign skills to get your character in line with what he's supposed to be. Similarly, if it turns out that "Despises Bandits" isn't quite right, as in the first couple sessions you discovered through play that he's rather okay with bandits who aren't attacking his charges, you can perhaps adjust it to "Despises those who prey on his charges." Or even to broaden it to "Violently loyal to his duty."

(Hey, who said internals had to be non-hypocritical and non-subjective? Double standards are totally legitimate things for a character to have.)

So the numbers are there. Sorry I was unclear that they get assigned initially by the player, and adjust through the mechanics of the game. Largely, if not exclusively, through choices the player makes.

Did that answer your question?

Sort of, but it still has some holes. The first option will butcher any sense of consistency with the system. (That they can just put any number on any of them within a range)

I would also strongly suggest NOT making this as an add-on system. I would strongly recommend looking at Dogs in the Vineyard and how it handles a similar idea, and how central that system is.

This is a good basis for its own system. It would be a very clunky add-on. (Like the Sega CD, but worse) Mostly because the effects on different systems will be wildly different.

Not really. The numbers are meant to be within a scale that is reasonable for the core system (maybe 1-20ish for a d20-based one, or 1-5ish for a white wolf-based one). They're written down ahead of time. Nowhere have I suggested that the DM makes up the trait numbers for anybody, at least other than in generating his NPCs (whose numbers he assigns by the same rules the players assign their characters').

Let me rephrase that so that you don't go down the wrong rabbit hole:
With your system as you currently describe it, you need to be willing to accept that different players, GMs, and groups will have radically different experiences coming out of this system, and notions of having things be clockwork-precise need to be chucked.

The consistent specificity is in the numbers. The broadness comes in determining which traits apply.

You just gave two descriptions, one indicating wildly inconsistent numbers will come out, the other indicating that somewhat inconsistent numbers will come out.

There's not a lot of hard-coding going on. It's arbitrarily attaching number values to words. Which means it's gonna be broad input and broad output.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-10, 08:46 PM

I think this is an important one archetypes and simple descriptions are only a problem if there is nothing beyond that in a character. There usually is, at least in many of the character we enjoy.

Still I have been thinking about it and I have been thinking about why most systems stop there, at those broad strokes. Despite Max_Killjoy's worries I don't think it is because that is as deep as they are supposed to go. In fact one is the main reasons is actually to address his other main problem. That is these board archetypes are at the right "width" that you can both say something meaningful about the character ("virtuous knight" does not say a lot but it does say more than "character") but at the same time it is broad enough that you can fit the entire character, including all the nuisances, into that band. (And if a large part of the character doesn't fit, just don't use virtuous knight.)

Plus, most systems assume you will have those nuisances and call out exceptions pretty much at will.

My concern is not so much that players will stop there on their own, but rather that encoding those things into the system will make it harder for players to go beyond that point.

... I asked this once before. But why are you here talking about bicycles? I'm just wondering because you seem to dislike everything about bicycles but you have been here talking about them a lot. What do you want to get out of this thread?

I'm here because I feel like there's an effort to weld a bicycle to my fish.

And because "personality mechanics" strike me as running a risk of drifting into "narrative role" characterization (the big guy, the smart one, the funny one, the moody one, whatever) and/or getting into a personality version of character classes... and classes are one of my least favorite RPG mechanics.

And because I've spent much of my life reading or hearing "this is how human minds work" from people who are supposed to know, and sitting there thinking "what the hell are these people talking about, have they been studying aliens?" as most or all of it sounds absolutely foreign to my own internal experience.

GungHo

2017-01-11, 09:19 AM

And it doesn't take being fooled, all the time. One commercial that was surprisingly effective on me was a recent one for chevy trucks, where they demonstrated the difference of their steel truck beds compared to aluminum truck beds. Assuming they're not engaging in blatant false advertising, the demonstrated durability between the two was quite the selling point. (Didn't work as well as they'd like, in that I don't have the money nor need for a pickup, but if I buy a pickup in the near future, I'll probably look into Chevy/GMC trucks because of that feature.) No "fooling," here: they advertised a discriminating factor, and I thought it meritorious.
1) Always put in a bed liner.
2) They didn't show the times where the Chevy actually did get punctured by the tool box.
3) The 2018 Silverado will be aluminum.
4) I agree it's a better sell than Ford's intimation that they're "battlefield tested" when we all know the Toyota Hilux is the paramilitary vehicle of choice.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-11, 09:22 AM

1) Always put in a bed liner.
2) They didn't show the times where the Chevy actually did get punctured by the tool box.
3) The 2018 Silverado will be aluminum.
4) I agree it's a better sell than Ford's intimation that they're "battlefield tested" when we all know the Toyota Hilux is the paramilitary vehicle of choice.

So they have this whole ad campaign based on denigrating their competition for making a change, that they're going to make this fall... talk about short-term thinking, hah.

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-11, 10:44 AM

So they have this whole ad campaign based on denigrating their competition for making a change, that they're going to make this fall... talk about short-term thinking, hah.

That's because they want to sell this truck now. They'll deal with selling the next truck later. (Also, Chevy probably didn't make the Ad. And the guys who make the Ads and the guys who make the products work in radically different departments.)

Advertising isn't about deception. There's explicit laws against false advertising. Very well enforced laws, that end up being enforced much more often than the media portrays.

Hell, I worked in advertising for a little while. The point is to sell Benefits, not Features.

For instance: When Disneyland Advertises, who do they market to?
You'd think it would be kids. Nope. They market to parents.
What is the Benefit (positive impact on your life) that Disneyland gives parents?
Disney did a lot of research. And what they found out is this:
Parents go to disneyland so that they can have memories/pictures/stories of their kids being at disneyland.
It's 100% selfish. That's why parents get unusually mad if their kid is mad at Disneyland. Because the kid is ruining it by not making the happy memories the parents want out of the trip.

Bear that in mind and watch a commercial for Disneyland. Do they try to sell the rides? Nope.
Do they tell kids to ask their parents? Nope.
Do they appeal to parents? Yup.
Do they use phrases like "make memories that will last a lifetime?" Yup.

They aren't tricking anybody. They found out why people are already going and they appeal to that to make more people see the Benefit of going.

That's what advertising is. It's applied consumer psychology.

Segev

2017-01-11, 11:11 AM

Sort of, but it still has some holes. The first option will butcher any sense of consistency with the system. (That they can just put any number on any of them within a range)A minimum bar for any such system, to me, would be to at least have guidelines connecting example levels of devotion/importance to the numbers. It will never be perfect (as it isn't in any system for any hard numbers), but it will let people figure out a rough ballpark of expectations to share.

That said, the option with more controlled resource expenditure would address this a bit, if play-tested and calibrated correctly.

I would also strongly suggest NOT making this as an add-on system. I would strongly recommend looking at Dogs in the Vineyard and how it handles a similar idea, and how central that system is. Oh, sure, putting it into the core of a new system would make it better integrated. And existing system to which it's added would require it to be re-calibrated and possibly have the means of connecting it strongly adjusted. It also would more than likely start weaving its tentacles into other aspects of the system, so it's more a modification to rather than an add-on.

For example, I would consider in designing this for D&D having charm-based magics work with this system. Instead of a charisma check to see if you can brow-beat your charmed "friend" into doing your will, you'd have means of using the fact he's charmed to offer/charge morale points to do (or not do) something you specify. And morale costs for actively harming you could be made enormous, because magic.

This is a good basis for its own system. It would be a very clunky add-on. (Like the Sega CD, but worse) Mostly because the effects on different systems will be wildly different. I agree. Again, even as an "add-on," the system would have to be individually adapted and calibrated for each system to which it was to be added. Building a system with it integral to the core would be superior overall.

Let me rephrase that so that you don't go down the wrong rabbit hole:
With your system as you currently describe it, you need to be willing to accept that different players, GMs, and groups will have radically different experiences coming out of this system, and notions of having things be clockwork-precise need to be chucked.I'm not sure I follow you, here. I can read this a number of ways, and I'm not sure which one you mean. Can you give an example or two to illustrate your point, please?

You just gave two descriptions, one indicating wildly inconsistent numbers will come out, the other indicating that somewhat inconsistent numbers will come out. They'll be about as inconsistent as the numbers you'd assign to the strength score of "a barbarian who can throw fully-armored men over his head." Depending on how well the examples are spelled out, or the system specifically models that behavior, you will have more or less consistent assignment of Strength scores to such a character. Similar considerations apply to what I'm suggesting. At a minimum, some solid examples of what each rating means in terms of strength of devotion should be given. Ideally, the mechanics can also be examined to calculate meaning. For instance, "I want my guy to be so straight that he's never even slightly tempted by Akio the Pirate King." In that case, the mechanics should be examined for the maximum possible value of "Akio tries to seduce you" in terms of morale points, and your traits should be set up to make Akio having morale points to offer/cost your PC for having sex with him as near impossible as the system allows.

There's not a lot of hard-coding going on. It's arbitrarily attaching number values to words. Which means it's gonna be broad input and broad output.I'm not sure why you say there's not a lot of hard-coding. The arbitrariness exists to a degree at chargen, but again, system mastery should make the calculation of odds a lot less arbitrary. And, when given a well-understood scale with examples, humans are actually pretty good fuzzy inference engines.

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-11, 11:55 AM

A minimum bar for any such system, to me, would be to at least have guidelines connecting example levels of devotion/importance to the numbers. It will never be perfect (as it isn't in any system for any hard numbers), but it will let people figure out a rough ballpark of expectations to share.

That said, the option with more controlled resource expenditure would address this a bit, if play-tested and calibrated correctly.

Guidelines are great. And will still leave a lot up to interpretation. D&D gives guidelines for DC's and you can still get a good argument going about an appropriate DC for some things.

Oh, sure, putting it into the core of a new system would make it better integrated. And existing system to which it's added would require it to be re-calibrated and possibly have the means of connecting it strongly adjusted. It also would more than likely start weaving its tentacles into other aspects of the system, so it's more a modification to rather than an add-on.

For example, I would consider in designing this for D&D having charm-based magics work with this system. Instead of a charisma check to see if you can brow-beat your charmed "friend" into doing your will, you'd have means of using the fact he's charmed to offer/charge morale points to do (or not do) something you specify. And morale costs for actively harming you could be made enormous, because magic.

This would not be one system at that point. It would be a consistently themed set of hacks that try to do the same thing.

I agree. Again, even as an "add-on," the system would have to be individually adapted and calibrated for each system to which it was to be added. Building a system with it integral to the core would be superior overall.

I'm not sure I follow you, here. I can read this a number of ways, and I'm not sure which one you mean. Can you give an example or two to illustrate your point, please?

Group 1 will have an experience where this system has minimal effect on play.
Group 2 will have an experience where the system becomes a big part of play.
Group 3 finds that their social interactions become very complicated with lots of tags flying.
Group 4 has a straightforward experience with few tags coming up.

They'll be about as inconsistent as the numbers you'd assign to the strength score of "a barbarian who can throw fully-armored men over his head." Depending on how well the examples are spelled out, or the system specifically models that behavior, you will have more or less consistent assignment of Strength scores to such a character. Similar considerations apply to what I'm suggesting. At a minimum, some solid examples of what each rating means in terms of strength of devotion should be given. Ideally, the mechanics can also be examined to calculate meaning. For instance, "I want my guy to be so straight that he's never even slightly tempted by Akio the Pirate King." In that case, the mechanics should be examined for the maximum possible value of "Akio tries to seduce you" in terms of morale points, and your traits should be set up to make Akio having morale points to offer/cost your PC for having sex with him as near impossible as the system allows.

Or don't make people have to optimize to give a hard no when uncomfortable with something.

[QUOTE)
I'm not sure why you say there's not a lot of hard-coding. The arbitrariness exists to a degree at chargen, but again, system mastery should make the calculation of odds a lot less arbitrary. And, when given a well-understood scale with examples, humans are actually pretty good fuzzy inference engines.[/QUOTE]

What system mastery? The system is giving you fuzzy guidelines but expecting balanced, consistent outputs of math based on these fuzzy guidelines.

In games where things are always fuzzy (AW) or games where these sorts of fuzzy decisions should come up rarely (D&D) this system works fine.

When the system needs to be engaged constantly, fuzzy guidelines will quickly become a liability rather than a boon.

Segev

2017-01-11, 12:37 PM

Guidelines are great. And will still leave a lot up to interpretation. D&D gives guidelines for DC's and you can still get a good argument going about an appropriate DC for some things. True. Hence "minimum bar."

Note that the numbers are not arbitrary when we get to the point of actually using the system in play. They were only any degree of arbitrary when assigning them during character generation.

This would not be one system at that point. It would be a consistently themed set of hacks that try to do the same thing.Absolutely.

Group 1 will have an experience where this system has minimal effect on play.
Group 2 will have an experience where the system becomes a big part of play.
Group 3 finds that their social interactions become very complicated with lots of tags flying.
Group 4 has a straightforward experience with few tags coming up. How is this not true for any subsystem in any game? Combat, skills, crafting...anything?

Some groups will use those subsystems all the time. Some will hardly use them at all. Some will free-form their way past a lot of it (so the system has no impact); others will get bogged down in the minutest of details over whether 10 really minor things constitutes a +1 circumstance bonus in aggregate.

Or don't make people have to optimize to give a hard no when uncomfortable with something. If it's "player comfort," then it's probably better to handle it without using the system. Such things are best done with a spoken or unspoken contract of what's going to happen in the game.

As an example, if Sir Chaste's player is uncomfortable with homosexuality, he's probably not trying to no-sell any and all seduction efforts with that. A GM aware of this player's discomfort could simply be sure that, if he is posing such a challenge to Sir Chaste, he uses a female seductress. If, on the other hand, Sir Chaste's player is uncomfortable with any such things at all, he's closing off avenues of mechanical challenge, so should probably have to spend some character-building resources (or make some give-and-take style choices) to build a character who's resilient against it.

A less esoteric example might be "I hate the idea of mind control. I never want it to happen to my characters." There are two ways to handle that: get the GM to agree never to use it on your character (either removing it from the game, or granting your character de facto immunity...which isn't fair to the other players who lack it), or building your character to be as immune to it as the rules will allow (satisfying you and being fair to everyone else).

I'm not sure why you say there's not a lot of hard-coding. The arbitrariness exists to a degree at chargen, but again, system mastery should make the calculation of odds a lot less arbitrary. And, when given a well-understood scale with examples, humans are actually pretty good fuzzy inference engines.

What system mastery? The system is giving you fuzzy guidelines but expecting balanced, consistent outputs of math based on these fuzzy guidelines. Okay. Again, the fuzziness has been resolved to hard numbers by the time we actually are rolling dice. Long before that, really. The fuzziness is there when you say "I want my character to be moderately sexy," and you decide that means he has a 7 appearance on the scale of 0-10 that is available. (Not using my system, here, but just making something up on the spot.) By the time you get to a point where how sexy your PC is matters in the game, you have the hard-defined "7" to use in any necessary calculations. No arbitrary values are being made up in the middle of the session.

The system mastery comment comes in from the difference between a player who just reads the guidelines and one who actually examines how the system works. Ideally, the guidelines are close enough, but I've seen plenty of systems where this simply isn't true once you really examine how the numbers work in real play.

System mastery would allow you to look at what various "appearance" values mean in play, and determine whether that "7" is going to give you the odds you want to have that your "sexiness" is going to be advantageous.

Similarly, system mastery of the proposed system would let you know how various numbers assigned to traits would compare to what you can expect to encounter. How heavily those numbers impact your ability to regain morale, and how influential they are when somebody tries to use them to influence you. As well as how likely it is that something you can use those traits to oppose would even leave you being offered/charged any morale at all.

If, for instance, you know that nothing short of near-mind-control magics can generate more than a 30, you know that getting your combination of traits which you'd use to oppose a given influence up to 30 would make your character unmovable by even the best mundane persuaders who use the methods you're set up to oppose.

So not only do you have the guidelines (which may or may not be accurate), but with system mastery you can estimate quite well the odds that a given number will cause you to be influenced (or prevent you from being influenced) by various amounts, as well as how much influence you're willing to accept as "costs I'll pay." Maybe you're okay with Akio stirring a touch of lust in your straight male knight, but know you'll just pay the morale cost to resist and have your knight be a little creeped out by it. Or maybe you don't want even an inkling of such lust, so you build to strive to have your morale cost by 0 for refusing that.

When the system needs to be engaged constantly, fuzzy guidelines will quickly become a liability rather than a boon.
The fuzzy part of it is engaged only at chargen. So "rarely."

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-11, 12:48 PM

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-11, 12:55 PM

Segev

2017-01-11, 01:34 PM

So the number to which all traits have an effect is determined at Chargen?

So basically, if Sir Finch's love of swords is rated at 5, it will have an effect of +/- 5 REGARDLESS of context?

Because that is the only way we don't continue to have fuzziness. That is, in fact, what I'm proposing. Well, mostly. It isn't "regardless of context." But it is contextually binary. Does "Sir Finch Loves Swords" apply to a given thing? It probably doesn't apply to the Pirate Queen's seduction check unless she deliberately tries to invoke it (perhaps by showing him her sword collection, similar to how a guy might show a woman his garden in an effort to impress her into his bed).

As for discomfort, that's a group thing.
If one player is uncomfortable with mind control happening, it needs to be removed from the campaign so long as that player is there. They don't get a special exemption. It just doesn't come up. Same as if someone is really uncomfortable with having their character being seduced away from their stated sexuality. You'd just not engage that potential fictional avenue.

That's not bad GMing. It's also not being a ****. Win/win.I agree. In fact, that's what I was trying to get at. It goes beyond the scope of any particular system. If you just don't want it ever, then it's best to get it out of the game entirely than try to create special exceptions for you. The only feasible compromise is building your PC to be immune; if you're not able to do this, then the OOC agreement is all that remains.

Exactly -- it's far more complicated than some people, and some published games, seem to want to make it out to be. I am hardly pretending it's less complicated IRL than it is. I'm abstracting it to a usable level for gameplay. Or at least attempting to.

In general, I've found this belief winding its way around through the gaming "idea space" that social skills should be like like a set of controls -- push the right lever just far enough, flip the right switch, push the right button, and you get what you wanted out of the other person. That you can get people to change their minds, or agree to anything, or believe anything, or feel anything you want, if you just find the right "inputs" to send them. You'll see someone say "you don't agree with me yet, so obviously either you don't understand what I'm saying, or I haven't expressed it with sufficient skill". In terms of gameplay? For "social skills" to do anything, they have to somehow have an ability to tell, via the neutral arbiter of the rules, how effective the socialite's persuasive efforts are.

Otherwise, there is no way to have social mechanics. Which does seem to be your preference, and that's fine. But your preference doesn't mean that others are unreasonable for wanting a system for it. Because, as generally gets brought up when this subject arises, some people want to be able to play characters more persuasive than they personally are, IRL.

Thing is... people just don't work that way. As you say, before you can change someone's mind, they have to be willing to have their mind changed.But you CAN sometimes get people to a state where they are willing to have their mind changed, when they weren't before.

King Frogchair is blindly (but coldly) furious with Mario, believing Mario to have murdered his daughter, the princess. He will not hear any argument whatsoever asking him to help Mario; in fact, he wouldn't hear any argument against having Mario immediately killed if Mario fell into King Frogchair's power. But if somebody could convince King Calvin that the princess is alive, just in another castle, King Frogchair suddenly might not be so unwilling to be talked out of his rage. He still might be angry; he might even still have his rage make him believe Mario is behind it. But he might also be more willing to be persuaded that Mario is, in fact, trying to rescue the princess from the great turtle dragon king.

So actually, you're probably right: there should be some ways to model "totally unwilling to be persuaded," but the supports for that state should, themselves, be at least theoretically targetable with a good social system. This does a nice job of adding realistic depth to a social mechanic system. No, you can't convince King Frogchair to forgive Mario and send his legions of Spotted-Helm Warriors to aid Mario's quest. He's too angry. No D&D Diplomacy roll, no matter how high, is going to change that.

But you can instead attack the reason for his anger. The princess is dead. He believes Mario did it. Knock out the first of those, and his unbendable refusal to be persuaded to do aught but hate Mario is more weakly supported. Maybe you also have to convince him Mario didn't do it, or maybe it's weak enough now to allow other persuasions.

You can also go around it. "No, my King, we aren't asking you to help Mario. We're telling you where he is, and that he is engaged in battle with the turtle troops. You could send your men to clean up whoever wins, or even take advantage of the distraction." Now you might persuade him to at least send his troops. And then you could try working on the troops' commander to convince him that Mario didn't kill the princess, even though the king believes it so. So maybe helping Mario NOW and just arresting him after would be better.

Obviously, I don't have a solid idea how to model the "unwilling to be persuaded" state just yet, because it needs some underpinnings that can potentially be targeted, but...it's a good point.

Floret

2017-01-11, 02:59 PM

I'm here because I feel like there's an effort to weld a bicycle to my fish.

And because "personality mechanics" strike me as running a risk of drifting into "narrative role" characterization (the big guy, the smart one, the funny one, the moody one, whatever) and/or getting into a personality version of character classes... and classes are one of my least favorite RPG mechanics.

And because I've spent much of my life reading or hearing "this is how human minds work" from people who are supposed to know, and sitting there thinking "what the hell are these people talking about, have they been studying aliens?" as most or all of it sounds absolutely foreign to my own internal experience.

And as has been pointed out to you: Noone is trying to weld a bicycle to YOUR fish. Some of us are trying to craft bikes for ourselves. But your fish shall be left untouched, unless you go ahead and specifically play the systems we try to build (Which I agree would be a bad idea for you).

If you do not like Narrative roles, that is fine, but if we like them, that would have to be fine by necessity as well. I personally don't see how personality mechanics would possibly drift off to the point you describe, though. Because, again: I have used descriptive, broad-strokes traits to create my characters for ages. It makes it easier to get into character for me, actually.
But I have yet to notice any negative effect on the characters level of details in-play. My own, lived experience, speaks heavily against the concers you write out. Especially against the concern that it will be hard to go beyond these phrases. Because even if I intentionally restrict myself to such phrases at character creation, this does not influence the level of detail of the actual character.

As for how the human mind works... I have the same problem as Segev to understand you. Because, just like for him, what you describe goes against every single other human I have ever encountered, heard of, interacted with. And this includes people with varying mental stuff that makes their brain, as per diagnosis, work differently from normal humans, sometimes on a fundamental level. (Mind you, every single SPECIFIC thing you say about yourself is completely within the realm of the possible, even in my eyes. It is just the general assertions that I find... weird and incompatible with my lived experience)

I have a different suspicion as him, though: You are using words somewhat differently from us. When you say "charm" and we do it, we actually mean different things. When you say "temptation" and when we do it, we mean different things.
My guess would be that you are just avidly against any attempt to manipulate you, and, out of principle or something else immidiately shut off as soon as you notice anyone even trying to influence you. This, by necessity, means that people aren't able to influence you, right? But no. Of course not. It will make it harder, because doing something without seeming to be doing something isn't the easiest thing in the world, but if someone tried to manipulate you and you didn't notice that, they could pull it off without you ever knowing you were manipulated. All the while leaving intact your assumption that you were immune to manipulation because any attempt you notice you shut out immidiately, right?

(Please note that I am doing this primarily because I want to understand you and make sense of the situation. I want to know if your selfperception or my worldview is "wrong" here, because the two seem to be incompatible. Assessing potential ways in which one might be wrong seems to me to be the only way out of this.
My assertion is: All people can be manipulated, and moved to do things they didn't (originally) intend to do, by virtue of clever argument, reframing, dire situations or thinking they are in dire situations, appealing to their desires (or maybe other things I am currently forgetting). Not necessarily every person is equally difficult to get with any of the methods. What seems to back up that perspective is my lived experience, reactions of people I know, being a somewhat social person, playing socialites in RPGs and especially Larp for years, including utterly amoral characters through which I have some idea of what CAN be done if you have no morale to hinder you from dismantling people mentally.)

This thread has only tangentially touched social mechanics, which is surprising as it seems to be the reason many people want some of the proposed "RP mechanics" in the first place (for example the morale points).

Therefore, I think it's important to think about how the typical "social skills" usually functions in terms of externals/internals and object/subject dependence (to just name a few).

Before that I want to mention that I find the idea of making things more "even" between GM and players by letting players set the "DC" for how hard it would be for NPC (or other players) to convince them of things very intriguing. It is something I have sometimes seen players suggest themselves when they've been uncertain what direction their character would lean towards. However, as a rule, it has some drawbacks; the main one being that even if everyone acts in good faith, there could be subjective differences in how they view the DC scale, which means it would be rather unfair on a "player-vs.-player" basis. At least with a GM setting the difficulty, it is easier that it remains consistent over many interactions. Anyway, still an idea worth considering.

So, social skills are often divided into categories of "Bluff" (and detect bluff), "Intimidate", "Persuade" and sometimes "Seduce". These are all very different though, as they interact with the target (the object) in different ways.

Great start and idea. I think the problem why we haven't gotten to discussing it is in part at least that the discussion still revolves mostly around if such mechanics should exist at all.
Now, as for your list: While it is generally rather well-made, there are some systems I know that have stuff that falls (somewhat) outside of it. (Current editions only): The Dark Eye splits off "Persuasion" (Short term "get you to do sth for me") from "Conversion & Convincing" (Long term "change your beliefs"). (As well as some other social skills that aren't really related to influencing other people).
L5R has, by virtue of the setting, "Sincerity" ("I am saying the truth", also used as Bluff), and Etiquette (Sort of Willpower? The thing you roll to not be swayed by people, but more on a "This would be improper to do" base than "I can resist the temptation"). It reframes Persuasion as "Courtier" ("It would be proper for you to do this", as well as "manouver society to do things") accordingly.
Shadowrun comes along with (Translated from german, and the translations INTO German can get... creative), "Leadership" (Get people to accept your commands (As well as giving morale boosts)); and "Negotiation" (Get people to agree to better (for you) deals).
Note that this is the most detailed systems I play, there are others that go down to just "Social stuff" as a single skill which encompasses all of this.

Bluff is usually considered something only related to the subject (the one doing the bluffing) itself. How good can you control your "ticks" and look like you're telling the truth. This is often opposed with the target's skill in reading said ticks. It feels quite natural and well in tune with how we think of lying in the real world. It is not, or at least usually not, 'I roll Bluff to change your beliefs to whatever I am saying'. That would be silly, and I think that sort of forced change in a character's internal act contrary to how we think of lying. In that case, someone being good at Bluffing could convince someone that they're really a chicken and not a human. In this sense, Bluff is more akin to a normal physical action, in fact, it IS a 'normal' physical skill like Climb or Hide or whatever. It reflects how good you are at masking your lying tells.

Obviously, one could make Bluff bigger, and I am sure some systems do, in the sense that it could ALSO be your skill at "coming up with the right lie". This is a bit more esoteric, as it is obviously contextual and the GM has to provide the actual lie if the roll is good enough. Done this way, it involves not only a physical skill but also a knowledge skill of sorts. It can (and probably should) still be contested with some form of bluff detection, but it would make a player able to play a smooth snake-tongued character even though they can never think of any decent lies themselves. It depends how much decision you want players to have in a social interaction (analogy would be to let the fight skill dictate whom is best to attack in a fight, and which attack to use).

I personally have never seen a "Bluff" skill that did not entail "coming up with the right lie", at least in potential, and have always played it as such, if the player decided not to act out the Lying in some way. But otherwise, I have little objection to your assessment.

If we move to Intimidate, it is a bit more tricky skill to describe. Is it how good you are at provoking fear in your target, or is it how good you are at appearing to be more dangerous than you actually are? For the latter, the skill might as well be included in Bluff really. Or maybe bundle them into "acting" or somesuch. For the former, ideally, if we want to follow "how it feels in the real world", then Intimidate should also be contested with something. Like willpower or fighting strength or a combination. Chances are that a 10th level adventurer in D&D can't really BE intimidated in that sense; they've just been through too much. Unfortunately I think this skill often fails to take into account that someone who is simply good at fighting can be pretty scary by themselves, or that just holding a gun makes you pretty scary to most folks, or that you should probably get a lot of bonus/penalties depending on the character's appearance. In any case, I think we've all experienced times when people or situations have frightened us a deep level, even though we logically don't want to feel that way, so if a, potentially resist able, Intimidation attempt causes our character to freeze with fear; that matches up pretty well with reality.

I would describe Intimidate as how good one is at making others believe that bad things (however specific) will happen if they don't do what you say. This is not necessarily Bluff - because you might well actually be able and willing to do these bad things, if the person doesn't do as you say.
Instead of rolling it into Bluff, it would work better rolled into something like the "Sincerity" from L5R (Though that system does have intimidate separately): Convince the other person that you fully stand behind what you are saying, whether you actually WOULD commit to the threat or not.

Of course circumstance has a large part in the equation whether or not that works. Off the top of my head the most important things:
1) Is the threat clear? The creativity of the threatened running wild can be effective, but sometimes it comes across as "yeah, you don't even know what you could threaten me with"
2) Is the threat immidiate? Is there an option to avoid it, if the person making it is serious? A gun to the head would be hardly avoidable, but from 10 meters distance psychologically it feels differently (Though it realistically can't be dodged, but it might not hit the head)
In the same vein would be a fighter being threatened with a fight. They might think "You can't beat me anyways".
3) Did the person go back on threats before? That will throw a spanner in likelyhoods.
4) How safe generally does the threatened person feel? Surrounded by a gang in the night is something different to being surrounded by guards.
I think your example is focussing too much on the threat of physical violence. Because there are very many ways that you can threaten someone without threatening to hurt them PHYSICALLY, and those would also be covered by Intimidate.

Seduction is a bit of a weird one, and I really don't quite know how to write rules that matches with our everyday experience. It is obvious that some people are generally more seductive than others, that is either they can provoke some kind of romantic or physical desire in the object. It's not a safe bet though, and their skill should also be resisted with some roll from the target character, which depend heavily on their personality (and thus hard to codify). It is also quite evident from our everyday experience that even IF someone makes us really horny, we still feel in control of our actions. Seduction should never lead to forced action; that's just not how it works. Fear on the other hand, like in the intimidation case, definitely CAN lead to actions we wouldn't logically choose to take (even though I still want to leave it up to the player to decide if they're frozen in place or runs away or attacks screaming or whatever).

I am not sure how it is with the rest of you, but I have never felt such a strong sexual or romantic desire for someone that I couldn't control my actions. If I logically really don't want to do them, I don't. Does this match up with your experience as well?

My thought here is that seduction is very hard to codify, and even if you do all it boils down to is "you feel a large measure of desire", which is kind of lackluster for a mechanic. In this case, I would simply go the free-form way, but I can understand why someone might want something like a "morale system" to help determine just how much desire the character feels.

I think this might be conflation something. Because, yes, ultimately I also have never felt such a strong desire that I couldn't control myself. (Just that I didn't WANT to control myself anymore. Which might be the same thing, and I'm just telling myself "Oh, I totally could have". I didn't, is the point, everything else is largely speculation.)
But that is not the seduction skill, but the result of the seduction skill. The skill itself is about making other people feel... well, more horny. And feel MORE inclined to say yes. And that is absolutely possible. While there are some people that from appearance alone can be quite "convincing", there are definitely also people who would not be, but through action have managed to make me come around. I could still have resisted, yes, but I didn't want to - where getting to know her (and a good bit after that) I had no inclination to do anything remotely sexual with her.
On the other hand I also have a situation where I have resisted "successfully", and still beat myself up over it a year later. It definitely wasn't an easy decision; I know why I made it the way I did, but I still on some level regret it. Had the person not "seduced" me, the decision to go to bed then would have been a much easier one.

I would enjoy a system to model this by loss of moral points. I do agree it is not a necessity, but I would enjoy it.
I also think that how to deal with this is a matter of how you frame it. Case 1 (I came around) might have been modeled with "argument, and the player was convinced", but it might also have been modeled by "argument, roll, offer of morale points, taken up the offer" or even "Rolled successfully". I DID agree, after all. If you model that by player decision or by a successfull diceroll is a matter of system and preferrence. She moved me sufficiently to make me agree. Not against much resistance on my part, granted. How you parse any given situation rules-wise is taste- and gamedependend.
(Accordingly, Case 2 (I resisted) could be either "argument, player not conviced", "argument, roll, offer of morale points, taken the morale hit" or "rolled slightly below the value needed")

If we then get to Persuasion, which is the really tricky one, my first thought is that the target (or object of the persuasion attempt) matters to a much larger degree than the persuader's skill. In fact, Persuasion is really not the best of terms either; as some people are much much better at one kind (say emotion-inducing speeches) than another (logical argumentation). Some people are much more receptive to the former whereas almost everyone in this thread is probably more receptive to the latter. Even so, noone, and I mean noone, is ever convinced of anything unless they're actively willing to change their mind.

Just take this thread for example; how many people here have honestly changed their initial position? Well, I have, but most people haven't (I think). So are we all really crappy persuaders? I don't think so. It's just that it's a very tricky interaction, which makes it hard to narrow down into a satisfactory mechanic.

Yes, it is true that some people are better at making logical arguments than others, obviously the subject's skill DOES matter to some extent, but even the worst persuader can sometimes convince others to change their mind.

I think the idea that "subject rolls Persuade, object rolls some resistance" with resistance failure meaning the character has now suddenly changed their mind is rather unsatisfactory on a "matches up with our real world experience" level. Persuading people is REALLY HARD, and downright impossible if someone is set in their ways.

So what would a Persuade skill entail? The ability of the subject to hold a good speech and provoke emotion (this is actually something that would match up fairly well with Intimidate and Seduction then), or the ability to make clear and rational arguments (which is more of a knowledge skill than anything)? How DOES people change their minds? How do we incorporate our everyday feeling of being in control of our beliefs and only really changing them when we weigh the subject to be convincing? It's really tricky I think, and figuring out a good mechanic for that is a lot harder than "roll Climb to get up the tree".

Ah, the big one. I think that because of the list of skills, there are two things conflated here, that get conflated very often, but are I feel more accurately modelled by two distinct skills - like the Dark Eye does.
I am, of course, talking about the difference between Short-term "C'mon, it'll be fun/No issue/Please?" persuasion that generally has to work only for a single scene (Move a person to make a decision beneficial to you, and more beneficial than they'd have done had you not said anything.)
And long-term Convincing, which in my experience (And in yours) is much more difficult. The problem with conflating the two, I feel, is that it applies the "changing someones opinion is difficult" of the second to the "Get people to do a one-off thing" of the former, which in my experience is much easier. And also the one that RPGs deal with far more often.

So what would I put in a Persuasion skill? Two options. Either, the short-term stuff - can I get the person to do something they don't necessarily want to do? (With varying difficulties; some of them maybe only really possible by intimidation. Maybe Persuasion only works for things that you know you shouldn't, but kinda want anyways; or things you are neutral on.)
Or, the second option, something else entirely (What FATE does, for example): Making people like you. Framing yourself in a positive light, and making yourself the friend of people. That would be the "make them emotional" example from above, I think. Or maybe both of those, even.
What I would not put in there is Long-term convincing effects. Those are hard, and should realistically not boild down to a single roll, yeah.
(But: Just because this is how it might work in reality, it is not necessary that the game has to be restricted in the same way.)

(Note: I for one think that should this discussion not be via written medium, and we all had the ability to use our voice, gestures, etc., and interrupt people with misunderstandings, it could be much more convincing. I know I am better at this sort of thing if not hindered by the medium in that way.)

So where do I see the areas social skills might be used?

1. Making people like you.
2. Making people dislike you.
3. Convincing people you are saying the truth.
4. Get people to do things for you.
5. Convince people.
6. Make people fear you.

One possible way to order this is to have 6. and 3. Rolled into one - it would fit with my view on Intimidation layed out above. Then make 5. a separate skill requiring much more time than the others to take effect; and probably some groundwork from the others. Skill 1 and 2 could be rolled into one "Elicit emotion and influence opinion" Skill; with 4. as a skill to reap the rewards from 1 and 2. Or roll it into them. Just some ideas.

Lorsa

2017-01-11, 04:53 PM

Trying to make a short reply, with a hopeful longer reply later on (possibly after the discussion has moved away from me again).

Great start and idea. I think the problem why we haven't gotten to discussing it is in part at least that the discussion still revolves mostly around if such mechanics should exist at all.
Now, as for your list: While it is generally rather well-made, there are some systems I know that have stuff that falls (somewhat) outside of it. (Current editions only): The Dark Eye splits off "Persuasion" (Short term "get you to do sth for me") from "Conversion & Convincing" (Long term "change your beliefs"). (As well as some other social skills that aren't really related to influencing other people).
L5R has, by virtue of the setting, "Sincerity" ("I am saying the truth", also used as Bluff), and Etiquette (Sort of Willpower? The thing you roll to not be swayed by people, but more on a "This would be improper to do" base than "I can resist the temptation"). It reframes Persuasion as "Courtier" ("It would be proper for you to do this", as well as "manouver society to do things") accordingly.
Shadowrun comes along with (Translated from german, and the translations INTO German can get... creative), "Leadership" (Get people to accept your commands (As well as giving morale boosts)); and "Negotiation" (Get people to agree to better (for you) deals).
Note that this is the most detailed systems I play, there are others that go down to just "Social stuff" as a single skill which encompasses all of this.

Yes, I do expect some systems to be more "unique" than others. I am merely using a regular pattern I have seen myself. Some of them do sort of fall into the categories I put forward though.

I personally have never seen a "Bluff" skill that did not entail "coming up with the right lie", at least in potential, and have always played it as such, if the player decided not to act out the Lying in some way. But otherwise, I have little objection to your assessment.

Wow, such quick agreement? Am I really on the internet? What's happening with the world?

As I said, the choice of having the skill also provide the lie is how much you want the player skill to matter in social interactions. While some interactions are simply glossed over in play, there are times when I want my choice of lie to matter. It's the same as being tactically responsible during combat, or for that matter, being able to decide on how to go about solving an adventure (rather than simply rolling my character's 'problem solving skill' and have the GM tell me what to do). I don't think there's a black and white answer to that one.

I would describe Intimidate as how good one is at making others believe that bad things (however specific) will happen if they don't do what you say. This is not necessarily Bluff - because you might well actually be able and willing to do these bad things, if the person doesn't do as you say.
Instead of rolling it into Bluff, it would work better rolled into something like the "Sincerity" from L5R (Though that system does have intimidate separately): Convince the other person that you fully stand behind what you are saying, whether you actually WOULD commit to the threat or not.

Of course circumstance has a large part in the equation whether or not that works. Off the top of my head the most important things:
1) Is the threat clear? The creativity of the threatened running wild can be effective, but sometimes it comes across as "yeah, you don't even know what you could threaten me with"
2) Is the threat immidiate? Is there an option to avoid it, if the person making it is serious? A gun to the head would be hardly avoidable, but from 10 meters distance psychologically it feels differently (Though it realistically can't be dodged, but it might not hit the head)
In the same vein would be a fighter being threatened with a fight. They might think "You can't beat me anyways".
3) Did the person go back on threats before? That will throw a spanner in likelyhoods.
4) How safe generally does the threatened person feel? Surrounded by a gang in the night is something different to being surrounded by guards.
I think your example is focussing too much on the threat of physical violence. Because there are very many ways that you can threaten someone without threatening to hurt them PHYSICALLY, and those would also be covered by Intimidate.

Yes, in a way I was focusing on the threat of physical violence. The reason is that, as you so nicely put it, more "subtle" types of intimidation are highly circumstance dependent. For example, the guy that sends someone a photograph of a person's loved ones as they're about to testify at an important trial doesn't really need the skill. It's kind of irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. What IS relevant is that they have enough power and infamy to make the recipient feel that there's a real threat. Without that, they can send as many photographs as they want, it won't scare the person a single bit.

Or do you think one needs the intimidation skill in order to make any sort of threats at all? I've sometimes seen players being confused if they're playing their character right when they say stuff like "move and I shoot" without having the skill, thinking they're not really playing their character properly.

I think this might be conflation something. Because, yes, ultimately I also have never felt such a strong desire that I couldn't control myself. (Just that I didn't WANT to control myself anymore. Which might be the same thing, and I'm just telling myself "Oh, I totally could have". I didn't, is the point, everything else is largely speculation.)
But that is not the seduction skill, but the result of the seduction skill. The skill itself is about making other people feel... well, more horny. And feel MORE inclined to say yes. And that is absolutely possible. While there are some people that from appearance alone can be quite "convincing", there are definitely also people who would not be, but through action have managed to make me come around. I could still have resisted, yes, but I didn't want to - where getting to know her (and a good bit after that) I had no inclination to do anything remotely sexual with her.
On the other hand I also have a situation where I have resisted "successfully", and still beat myself up over it a year later. It definitely wasn't an easy decision; I know why I made it the way I did, but I still on some level regret it. Had the person not "seduced" me, the decision to go to bed then would have been a much easier one.

I would enjoy a system to model this by loss of moral points. I do agree it is not a necessity, but I would enjoy it.
I also think that how to deal with this is a matter of how you frame it. Case 1 (I came around) might have been modeled with "argument, and the player was convinced", but it might also have been modeled by "argument, roll, offer of morale points, taken up the offer" or even "Rolled successfully". I DID agree, after all. If you model that by player decision or by a successfull diceroll is a matter of system and preferrence. She moved me sufficiently to make me agree. Not against much resistance on my part, granted. How you parse any given situation rules-wise is taste- and gamedependend.
(Accordingly, Case 2 (I resisted) could be either "argument, player not conviced", "argument, roll, offer of morale points, taken the morale hit" or "rolled slightly below the value needed")

Well, having a skill with the only result of "the GM tells you that your character is horny" is rather lackluster isn't it? Obviously, skills need not be really "balanced" as such, but it would be a very toothless skill. It is highly dependent on the recipient's desire to roleplay this horny-ness.

I do agree that there exist a skill which people can posses with the end result of making others (of the right sexual orientation) feel more horny. Whether or not it needs to be part of the skill list of a RPG is a different matter, as I really don't think the end result can be a forced action.

The problem with a morale point system is that, when all comes down to it, it is the player who will have to award or subtract morale from their own character. The GM can't really know, so it feels a bit pointless. Roll seduction, the GM says "you feel horny", the player then says "I will do X and get a morale point".

I put "X" in there as people are different. Some feel better by resisting urges, whereas some feel better giving in to them.

It could even be a case of "get 1 morale point temporarily but loose 3 for the guilt afterwards". So how would the system model this in a way that takes into account all potential character types?

Ah, the big one. I think that because of the list of skills, there are two things conflated here, that get conflated very often, but are I feel more accurately modelled by two distinct skills - like the Dark Eye does.
I am, of course, talking about the difference between Short-term "C'mon, it'll be fun/No issue/Please?" persuasion that generally has to work only for a single scene (Move a person to make a decision beneficial to you, and more beneficial than they'd have done had you not said anything.)
And long-term Convincing, which in my experience (And in yours) is much more difficult. The problem with conflating the two, I feel, is that it applies the "changing someones opinion is difficult" of the second to the "Get people to do a one-off thing" of the former, which in my experience is much easier. And also the one that RPGs deal with far more often.

So what would I put in a Persuasion skill? Two options. Either, the short-term stuff - can I get the person to do something they don't necessarily want to do? (With varying difficulties; some of them maybe only really possible by intimidation. Maybe Persuasion only works for things that you know you shouldn't, but kinda want anyways; or things you are neutral on.)
Or, the second option, something else entirely (What FATE does, for example): Making people like you. Framing yourself in a positive light, and making yourself the friend of people. That would be the "make them emotional" example from above, I think. Or maybe both of those, even.
What I would not put in there is Long-term convincing effects. Those are hard, and should realistically not boild down to a single roll, yeah.
(But: Just because this is how it might work in reality, it is not necessary that the game has to be restricted in the same way.)

(Note: I for one think that should this discussion not be via written medium, and we all had the ability to use our voice, gestures, etc., and interrupt people with misunderstandings, it could be much more convincing. I know I am better at this sort of thing if not hindered by the medium in that way.)

I am going to make a sort of sidetrack in the discussion, and ask if you would feel comfortable with a mechanic that had an NPC rolling against their "short time persuasion" with the result that you as player HAVE to go along with what they say?

Yes, I do agree, some people are certainly better at making you want to go along with their ideas than others, but it STILL isn't a sure deal. I never feel as my decision-machine is being 'hi-jacked' and I am a slave to this charming individual. This is sort of similar to the seduction case, the GM would tell you "you feel a strong urge to go along with this idea". Would you again bring in the morale points here? Offer 1 for going along with it, with the possibility of loosing even more should the action turn out to be really bad for you (maybe you really didn't like that roller coaster after all).

Again, this is also the kind of "skill" that is highly context dependent. If I have a friend that has established for decades that when they say "let's do this, it'll be FUN" it actually turns out to be fun, I'm going to go along with their ideas. Not because of their skill, which could be poor really, but because they've established a good judgement in these matters. Someone else might be far better at the skill but have yet to earn my trust (or might have lost it due). There's typically only so many "but THIS time it'll be different" one will listen to.

So, I will ask; is this really a skill that can be adequately put into mechanics? When it has more to do with established history than anything.

Yes, this is something people can be better at than others (I've often been told I can make most of my ideas sound really entertaining so people want to go along with it), but at the same time the end result can hardly be a "the dice told my character what to do".

Anyway, I will have to continue this later on.

So where do I see the areas social skills might be used?

1. Making people like you.
2. Making people dislike you.
3. Convincing people you are saying the truth.
4. Get people to do things for you.
5. Convince people.
6. Make people fear you.

One possible way to order this is to have 6. and 3. Rolled into one - it would fit with my view on Intimidation layed out above. Then make 5. a separate skill requiring much more time than the others to take effect; and probably some groundwork from the others. Skill 1 and 2 could be rolled into one "Elicit emotion and influence opinion" Skill; with 4. as a skill to reap the rewards from 1 and 2. Or roll it into them. Just some ideas.

I think there's one small thing we haven't really talked about. It's the "become the alpha male of the group" skill. Social domineering if you will. In social psychology, I think there's a term called "micro power" which is basically actions you make to get people to feel certain emotions (almost exclusively negative; usually shame, but also fear, anxiety and the like) in order to advance your social standing. I think it's related to 1. and 2. on your list, but isn't part of those really. Also, some people are much more receptive to this kind of behavior than others, but in either case, it really IS a skill some people have more of than others (and I'm going to make a moral argument and say that most decent people try to avoid using).

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-11, 05:42 PM

I find the Apocalypse World split and take on this current angle Floret and Lorsa are discussing to be informative and interesting. So here it is:

These are the moves in Apocalypse World with the most Social ties.

Go Aggro
Seduce/Manipulate
Read a Person
Help/Interfere

Some playbooks have specific other skills that augment, replace, or are added to these, such as:
Deep Brain Scan
In-Brain Puppet Strings
Artful & Gracious
Hypnotic
Dangerous & Sexy
Etc.

But I'll focus on the first 3 listed.

Go Aggro is essentially an Intimidation skill, but it comes with a caveat:
If the character is bluffing, you don't roll Go Aggro. You roll Seduce/Manipulate.

This is in large part because one of the potential outcomes of success is that the target receiving the Aggro must "suck it up and deal with the consequences." They might not actually cave, but they DO have to take the hit. Meaning that if you go Aggro on Dremmer and fully succeed, he can either say "Fine, I'll move, don't shoot me," OR he can choose to accept getting shot. Meaning that if the PC is bluffing and the receiving character chooses to take the hit, the PC suddenly fails. Which breaks one of the rules of the game. (Successes need to fundamentally be successes. That is literally spelled out.)

So when you're bluffing, a different rule is engaged even though you're doing essentially the same motions, in Go Aggro you are threatening violence and will follow through. You can threaten violence in a Seduce/Manipulate, but you may not actually be willing to follow through.

Cluedrew

2017-01-11, 06:01 PM

My concern is not so much that players will stop there on their own, but rather that encoding those things into the system will make it harder for players to go beyond that point.How so? Lots of systems give the player final say about whether it applies or not (In fact all of the ones I know do.) so it applying to often shouldn't be a problem. It applying too little essentially is the system reverting to "no personality mechanics" for a moment, which is what you are purposing. So how?

I'm here because I feel like there's an effort to weld a bicycle to my fish.I have not seen a blow torch all thread. I can't even remember the last time we went beyond the design (and validity) of bicycles.

And because "personality mechanics" strike me as running a risk of drifting into "narrative role" characterization (the big guy, the smart one, the funny one, the moody one, whatever) and/or getting into a personality version of character classes... and classes are one of my least favorite RPG mechanics.The only system I can think of that does something like this is Apocalypse World, where it assigns archetypes which include some personality aspects. You could ask ImNotTrevor for details but they tend to be both rather abstract and a very singular aspect. So not the smart one, not even is smart, but is good a thinking their way though problems. (I don't think there is an archetype like that, but that seems to be the level.)

The only feasible compromise is building your PC to be immune; if you're not able to do this, then the OOC agreement is all that remains.One think I like about the traits as "hooks" is it means that if you don't add in a trait that says it is a part of your character that says it can be poked at, it cannot be poked at.

So people are assumed to have reasonable control over their hormones and eating habits unless stated otherwise. It makes it very easy to built "immunities" and I think it is not an unfair view of self control. I'm not saying that people usually have perfect control, but usually by the time the stacks are high enough we would actually care on a mechanical level, I think most people can take a step back and control themselves. I got no numbers for that, but just by my instinct (which is subjective yes, but I don't have the background to act on much more).

1

Segev

2017-01-11, 06:28 PM

One think I like about the traits as "hooks" is it means that if you don't add in a trait that says it is a part of your character that says it can be poked at, it cannot be poked at.

So people are assumed to have reasonable control over their hormones and eating habits unless stated otherwise. It makes it very easy to built "immunities" and I think it is not an unfair view of self control. I'm not saying that people usually have perfect control, but usually by the time the stacks are high enough we would actually care on a mechanical level, I think most people can take a step back and control themselves. I got no numbers for that, but just by my instinct (which is subjective yes, but I don't have the background to act on much more).

1
The one thing I see wrong with this approach is that it means that, essentially, you can't offer somebody a nice meal when they've been starving in the cold for a week and expect that they are any more likely to accept it than if you offered them a bowl of dog poop just after they'd stuffed themselves to the point of illness.

I mean, of course the player can decide to pretend his character reacts differently, but there's no way of objectively determining it.

Therefore, the Devil's temptation of Christ after 40 days of fasting is no more impressive for Christ to have resisted than if the Devil had offered him a swift kick to the groin when Christ was otherwise comfortable and happy for the same thing.

Or maybe a week's too long; long enough that you'd expect a human to be "starving" in the colloquial, hyperbolic sense, but before the system starts to kick in actual starvation mechanics.

Heck, it might be worthwhile to frame it as "offers a food you like" as having a base value. Players can decide then and there what they do or do not like if they hadn't run into it before, and just be at least marginally consistent going forward. Or they can look to their traits if any have a suggestion. (Strong association with a culture or nation might suggest liking or disliking cultural foods or foods particularly alien to that culture. Or they might not, if the player wants to put a twist on it.)

Cluedrew

2017-01-11, 07:54 PM

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-11, 08:25 PM

@ Lorna -- I have much much less of an issue with social skills that work as you explain Bluff working; a test of one character's skill at hiding his "tells" that he's lying, versus the other character's skill at sussing out "tells" when someone is lying to them. It doesn't allow one character to make changes to the other character's "internals", it's only about skill and information. If the lied-to character knows that the lying character is saying something that's not true (maybe they're an eyewitness to the events in question and the lying character doesn't realize that), then the lied-to character isn't going to suddenly start believing a different version of events... at most he's going to think the lying character holds a sincere but mistaken belief about what happened, because the lying character was able to control his "tells".

@ Cluedrew -- an opt-in system is better, and IMO less onerous. With an opt-in system, the player is saying "here are hooks for my character; these are things I'd actively like to explore with this character, situations and story elements that I'd like to see come up in the campaign". With an opt-out system, the player has to meticulously anticipate potential situations and story elements, figure out which they want to avoid, and build the character to avoid them -- or worse, figure out which they want to avoid most, because the system only lets you opt-out of a few. An opt-in system lets the GM know "this player is OK with mind control, that player is OK with betrayal, that player is OK with a tragic romance arc, that player is OK with having their close NPCs threatened..." and so on. It avoids imposing things on players that are going to make the game less fun for them.

Floret

2017-01-11, 09:07 PM

Yes, I do expect some systems to be more "unique" than others. I am merely using a regular pattern I have seen myself. Some of them do sort of fall into the categories I put forward though.

Some do, sort of, sure. I was merely trying to point out some potential blind spots of your list.^^

Yes, in a way I was focusing on the threat of physical violence. The reason is that, as you so nicely put it, more "subtle" types of intimidation are highly circumstance dependent. For example, the guy that sends someone a photograph of a person's loved ones as they're about to testify at an important trial doesn't really need the skill. It's kind of irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. What IS relevant is that they have enough power and infamy to make the recipient feel that there's a real threat. Without that, they can send as many photographs as they want, it won't scare the person a single bit.

Or do you think one needs the intimidation skill in order to make any sort of threats at all? I've sometimes seen players being confused if they're playing their character right when they say stuff like "move and I shoot" without having the skill, thinking they're not really playing their character properly.

Actually, yes. I personally view the "Intimidation" skill, should it exist in this way, as the skill by which to make a credible threat. Now, of course, I wouldn't bar any player from actually rolling that skill, regardless of points invested in it or not, but I would require a roll.
For which the end result determines if the opponent feels sufficiently threatened to amend his actions. Like, you can have my family kidnapped, but if I don't believe you're actually gonna do something to them it's not gonna make me do what you want. If I don't buy you are gonna pull the trigger (Regardless of whether or not you would), I will not be moved.

Now, circumstance bonuses are a very real thing here. "Having a weapon" or "Proven to make good on threats" would be very hefty bonuses to a roll. But I would personally like it to take place, and not rely solely on description. Keep in mind, I like dice and play these games in part because of them.

Well, having a skill with the only result of "the GM tells you that your character is horny" is rather lackluster isn't it? Obviously, skills need not be really "balanced" as such, but it would be a very toothless skill. It is highly dependent on the recipient's desire to roleplay this horny-ness.

I do agree that there exist a skill which people can posses with the end result of making others (of the right sexual orientation) feel more horny. Whether or not it needs to be part of the skill list of a RPG is a different matter, as I really don't think the end result can be a forced action.

The problem with a morale point system is that, when all comes down to it, it is the player who will have to award or subtract morale from their own character. The GM can't really know, so it feels a bit pointless. Roll seduction, the GM says "you feel horny", the player then says "I will do X and get a morale point".

I put "X" in there as people are different. Some feel better by resisting urges, whereas some feel better giving in to them.

It could even be a case of "get 1 morale point temporarily but loose 3 for the guilt afterwards". So how would the system model this in a way that takes into account all potential character types?

I personally would roll it into the "Make people like you" skill; especially if you take that skill and "make people do things for you" as one. As a separate skill I agree it is somewhat toothless. Maybe "You feel horny, and can act upon it for X" (Where X is some for of meta-currency).
(Were I to rely on a morale system such as Segev proposed, I would take as "immediate moral hit", maybe in combination with a "second-guessing long-past decisions" trait that makes me randomly loose morale if I think of some decision that I could in one way regret. A rather special case.)

I am going to make a sort of sidetrack in the discussion, and ask if you would feel comfortable with a mechanic that had an NPC rolling against their "short time persuasion" with the result that you as player HAVE to go along with what they say?

Yes, I do agree, some people are certainly better at making you want to go along with their ideas than others, but it STILL isn't a sure deal. I never feel as my decision-machine is being 'hi-jacked' and I am a slave to this charming individual. This is sort of similar to the seduction case, the GM would tell you "you feel a strong urge to go along with this idea". Would you again bring in the morale points here? Offer 1 for going along with it, with the possibility of loosing even more should the action turn out to be really bad for you (maybe you really didn't like that roller coaster after all).

Again, this is also the kind of "skill" that is highly context dependent. If I have a friend that has established for decades that when they say "let's do this, it'll be FUN" it actually turns out to be fun, I'm going to go along with their ideas. Not because of their skill, which could be poor really, but because they've established a good judgement in these matters. Someone else might be far better at the skill but have yet to earn my trust (or might have lost it due). There's typically only so many "but THIS time it'll be different" one will listen to.

So, I will ask; is this really a skill that can be adequately put into mechanics? When it has more to do with established history than anything.

Yes, this is something people can be better at than others (I've often been told I can make most of my ideas sound really entertaining so people want to go along with it), but at the same time the end result can hardly be a "the dice told my character what to do".

As I have pointed out before: Yes. Yes I am comfortable with that. I reserve the right of how exactly I react (I don't want the GM to narrate HOW I fullfill the wish), but I will comply. Sure. Now, a system that wouldn't allow me to roll against it I wouldn't play, but if I lost a fair die roll, why not?

The thing is, that is somewhat the point. Noone that gets you to do anything will make you feel like you have to. If they do it the friendly, "non-coercive" way they will make you feel like you WANT to, or that you might as well. That difference is everything, and makes it much harder to notice when it happened.
Liking a person is a pretty good context modificator that should definitely add onto the roll. Which is where a social system becomes more fleshed out: You can roll to make a person like you more, and then later use that as a bonus on the second roll to get them to actually do things for you!
(Bonus points for using that same scale of Being liked by that NPC for things like Friendship/Charm spells)

I ask back: What do you mean by adequately? Realistically, perfectly modelling the workings of the real world? Maybe not. Give interesting options to player characters for bypassing obstacles? Model the real world sort-of? Those can be done.

Can it not? The end result is (or can be) that people go along. The end result of a successfull dieroll is, well, that people go along. The problem is, I think, in how much you equate the decision making of the character and that of the player. Now from your perspective, they might be the same. And any dieroll that takes it out of the player's hands is a poor model of something that involves a decision to be made by the character.
But other than "I like it that way", there is no technical reason for that. And if player and character decision making is separate, something that influences the character's decision might well take that decision out of the characters hand and put it up to the dieroll - the Willpower roll with which you contest the persuasion, for example. That might represent "Can I resist the urge", "Do his arguments touch me", on any scale from "Do I feel any urge" to "Did the character convince my character to go along".

I think there's one small thing we haven't really talked about. It's the "become the alpha male of the group" skill. Social domineering if you will. In social psychology, I think there's a term called "micro power" which is basically actions you make to get people to feel certain emotions (almost exclusively negative; usually shame, but also fear, anxiety and the like) in order to advance your social standing. I think it's related to 1. and 2. on your list, but isn't part of those really. Also, some people are much more receptive to this kind of behavior than others, but in either case, it really IS a skill some people have more of than others (and I'm going to make a moral argument and say that most decent people try to avoid using).

I think it would be similar to the "Leadership" skill from shadowrun. It is weird, because this again devolves into a separation of "Person carries out my orders this once" and "Person accepts me as the leader". What you describe is mostly (or maybe exclusively?) the second (And I would prefer not to have it called "Alpha MALE", because, really, being a controlling ****head is gender-neutral). I personally would roll that into an intimidate skill - after all, these things are based on "If I don't do what the person says, bad things will happen", only this time undermined by semi-official power structures.
I would agree that using such skills will not be a mark of the most decent people in the world though, yeah...

I find the Apocalypse World split and take on this current angle Floret and Lorsa are discussing to be informative and interesting. So here it is:

These are the moves in Apocalypse World with the most Social ties.

Go Aggro
Seduce/Manipulate
Read a Person
Help/Interfere

Some playbooks have specific other skills that augment, replace, or are added to these, such as:
Deep Brain Scan
In-Brain Puppet Strings
Artful & Gracious
Hypnotic
Dangerous & Sexy
Etc.

But I'll focus on the first 3 listed.

Go Aggro is essentially an Intimidation skill, but it comes with a caveat:
If the character is bluffing, you don't roll Go Aggro. You roll Seduce/Manipulate.

This is in large part because one of the potential outcomes of success is that the target receiving the Aggro must "suck it up and deal with the consequences." They might not actually cave, but they DO have to take the hit. Meaning that if you go Aggro on Dremmer and fully succeed, he can either say "Fine, I'll move, don't shoot me," OR he can choose to accept getting shot. Meaning that if the PC is bluffing and the receiving character chooses to take the hit, the PC suddenly fails. Which breaks one of the rules of the game. (Successes need to fundamentally be successes. That is literally spelled out.)

So when you're bluffing, a different rule is engaged even though you're doing essentially the same motions, in Go Aggro you are threatening violence and will follow through. You can threaten violence in a Seduce/Manipulate, but you may not actually be willing to follow through.

An interesting idea. It again separates out physical threats from Intimidate, which I don't like, but it is definitely an interesting different way to go from the "Convince the person you will go through with it, regardless if you will or won't" one I started preferring after thinking about it in this thread. Or from the default one of just having an unspecified "Intimidation" skill.
One other problem I can see, other then "I don't like this separation": To not become weird or take control from the player (Which I would generally be fine with) It requires you to know if your character would go through with it before the character has to know. I have personally experienced, in Larp as well as IRL (though rarer there thankfully) that one CAN make a threat without knowing if you will go through with it. Only when being put on the spot by the person no-selling your threat do you really know if you are gonna do it, in these cases. Which would be impossible to model under this system.

(And, hey, the thread continues to produce ideas on how to construct my own system(s). For some fekkin reason I am low-key working on a second one...)

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-12, 12:11 AM

If you do not like Narrative roles, that is fine, but if we like them, that would have to be fine by necessity as well. I personally don't see how personality mechanics would possibly drift off to the point you describe, though. Because, again: I have used descriptive, broad-strokes traits to create my characters for ages. It makes it easier to get into character for me, actually.

But I have yet to notice any negative effect on the characters level of details in-play. My own, lived experience, speaks heavily against the concers you write out. Especially against the concern that it will be hard to go beyond these phrases. Because even if I intentionally restrict myself to such phrases at character creation, this does not influence the level of detail of the actual character.

So you don't foresee players sticking to "playing the hooks" to keep getting "cookies", rather than going for more nuance?

That actually concerns me more than does the "weight from the mechanics" or "just go optimum every time" issues coming up enough to worry about.

As for how the human mind works... I have the same problem as Segev to understand you. Because, just like for him, what you describe goes against every single other human I have ever encountered, heard of, interacted with. And this includes people with varying mental stuff that makes their brain, as per diagnosis, work differently from normal humans, sometimes on a fundamental level. (Mind you, every single SPECIFIC thing you say about yourself is completely within the realm of the possible, even in my eyes. It is just the general assertions that I find... weird and incompatible with my lived experience)

I have a different suspicion as him, though: You are using words somewhat differently from us. When you say "charm" and we do it, we actually mean different things. When you say "temptation" and when we do it, we mean different things.
My guess would be that you are just avidly against any attempt to manipulate you, and, out of principle or something else immidiately shut off as soon as you notice anyone even trying to influence you. This, by necessity, means that people aren't able to influence you, right? But no. Of course not. It will make it harder, because doing something without seeming to be doing something isn't the easiest thing in the world, but if someone tried to manipulate you and you didn't notice that, they could pull it off without you ever knowing you were manipulated. All the while leaving intact your assumption that you were immune to manipulation because any attempt you notice you shut out immidiately, right?

(Please note that I am doing this primarily because I want to understand you and make sense of the situation. I want to know if your selfperception or my worldview is "wrong" here, because the two seem to be incompatible. Assessing potential ways in which one might be wrong seems to me to be the only way out of this.

My assertion is: All people can be manipulated, and moved to do things they didn't (originally) intend to do, by virtue of clever argument, reframing, dire situations or thinking they are in dire situations, appealing to their desires (or maybe other things I am currently forgetting). Not necessarily every person is equally difficult to get with any of the methods. What seems to back up that perspective is my lived experience, reactions of people I know, being a somewhat social person, playing socialites in RPGs and especially Larp for years, including utterly amoral characters through which I have some idea of what CAN be done if you have no morale to hinder you from dismantling people mentally.)

First, lets be clear that "manipulation" covers a lot of things, and they don't all relate to either the original "you can make someone want something that they don't want to want" issue, or to the wholly tangential issues of conflicting priorities, later regrets, etc. Threats and coercion, deception, enticement, emotional "blackmail", etc, are all very different things, and of those, only "enticement" actually connects firmly with that original "want what you don't want to want" issue.

Second, it warps the meaning of "manipulation" to the point of uselessness to include two people having a rational discussion, and one person changing the others' opinion on a topic by presenting facts and solid reasoning. To say that anyone who ever changed their conclusions on a subject when faced with new or better information had been "manipulated" is... wrong. Simply wrong. It reduces any hope for rational discourse to something base and crude.

Third, to say "advertising has little if any effect on me" is not the same as claiming that one cannot be ever manipulated in any circumstances, and to say "I don't experience this sensation of 'wishing I didn't want what I want or wishing I did want what I don't' is not the same as claiming that one cannot be ever manipulated in any circumstances.

In my specific case, it's more that my particular levers are way way off what most people's are, literally no one in the world can give me what I actually want most, there are things I just won't do (offer me a ten billion dollars, I'm still not going to go outside naked and walk down the street, sorry), I'm stubborn as hell and have a deep contrarian streak, I don't trust "positive" emotions much, and I do have a capacity to just turn an emotion the hell off if I have to -- I couldn't function if I didn't have that warped little skill, given that my memory is the emotional equivalent of photographic, and I experience any emotions associated with a memory pretty much as if it were happening again right now -- than it is that I'm simply "immune to manipulation" or some such nonsense. (And no, Segev, having to clamp down on an motion in order to be functional is not the same as "not wanting to feel what you feel".)

Fourth, I do think that both Segev and you are underestimating the effect of someone digging in their heals and refusing, no matter what, to budge.

Fifth, to say "any person can be manipulated" is a far cry from the basis of some of the examples given in this thread, which seem very much to be based on the assertion that almost anyone can be enticed to do almost anything if you just find the right buttons and dials and levers. No one is immune to all manipulation in all forms all the time, but almost everyone has lines they won't cross for anything, and the manipulator doesn't know what those are until he hits them. What I was rejecting at the start of all this was the idea that the PQ just needs to find the right buttons to push, and she can make anyone feel attraction to her even if they don't want to, and even if they normally wouldn't. Some people just won't be attracted to her, and in fact her attempts to get them attracted are only going to make her less attractive to them. Some people who might normally be attracted to her will be entirely put off by the situation that was originally laid out. And so on.

On the subject of "charm"... to use one example, and this isn't political at all, simply as an example of one individual. I've read and heard and been told countless times that Bill Clinton is a "charming person". I totally, 100% don't see it. He strikes me as smarmy, a sort of glad-handing snake-oil salesman.

Segev

2017-01-12, 12:29 AM

To Segev: Yes, that is true. However I'm not so concerned about that, not because it isn't a real and significant difference, but because I don't think will come up.

Has this ever happened in a game of yours? Where turning down food after starving for a week has been an important plot point? If it has, great you are building a system that suits your play style. Point is, it hasn't in mine and considering the games I enjoy, I don't think it is likely to. So why waste rules on it?Mainly because "food" was the first thing I could think of that wasn't just more sex as something relatively universally "liked."

My concern with "only if you specifically listed it" is that this makes those who don't have a complete and exhaustive list into automatons with no motivation except what's on their sheet.

So you don't foresee players sticking to "playing the hooks" to keep getting "cookies", rather than going for more nuance?

That actually concerns me more than does the "weight from the mechanics" or "just go optimum every time" issues coming up enough to worry about. I don't see "playing to hooks" as being directly opposed to "nuance," personally.

I've read and heard and been told countless times that Bill Clinton is a "charming person". I totally, 100% don't see it. He strikes me as smarmy, a sort of glad-handing snake-oil salesman.While I agree with you, I suspect part of it is that we've never actually met him, nor been the target of it.

That said, my personal dislike for...what he represents...may well get in the way. I am, shall we say, rather politically-minded.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-12, 12:39 AM

Mainly because "food" was the first thing I could think of that wasn't just more sex as something relatively universally "liked."

My concern with "only if you specifically listed it" is that this makes those who don't have a complete and exhaustive list into automatons with no motivation except what's on their sheet.

Potentially or definitively?

I don't think "definitively" can be justifiably claimed -- we see characters who are not automatons and do have motivations, in games using systems where the sheets are all entirely blank of explicit systematized motivations.

Segev

2017-01-12, 10:27 AM

Potentially or definitively?

I don't think "definitively" can be justifiably claimed -- we see characters who are not automatons and do have motivations, in games using systems where the sheets are all entirely blank of explicit systematized motivations.

Insofar as this system can interact with them, definitively. "Since I don't have 'dislikes bad smells' on my character sheet, my character obviously doesn't find the idea of doing so the least bit distasteful. No amount of influence related to avoiding the Bog of Eternal Stench can have the slightest impact on him." "Where on my sheet does it say that my character dislikes pain? He's not bothered by any amount of torture."

Admittedly, this is taking somewhat jerk-ish players as examples, here. But conversely, the player who WANTS to model how badly the Bog of Eternal Stench averts him, or how serious the torture is, also can't have the system give him a guiding benchmark, because he didn't write down a specific "doesn't like bad smells" or "averse to pain" trait with a rating, and with the proposed "opt-in only" system, it sounds to me like giving "the Bog of Eternal Stench" a universal "Unpleasantness" rating, or giving torture a numeric representation (other than zero) of how badly it damages morale as a baseline is not acceptable. Because we can't assume that most people dislike stenches and pain.

Sure, they could make up their own values for "hates bad smells," but that makes everything from a mildly unpleasant tinge of rotten fish on the sea air to skunk musk to the aforementioned bog have the same rating, and also means the player is once again having to make up an arbitrary number for himself in the heat of the moment.

If we leave ourselves free to assume that some things are nigh-universal, to the point that exceptions should be referenced by the broad traits provided (perhaps being able to treat ranks in Profession: Sewer Worker as mitigating the effects of a bad smell), we can have specific things, like the Bog of Eternal Stench, have their own ratings, which are then further modified by anything pertinent on the character page. Modified up by things like "Sheltered Luxurious Lifestyle" making a bad smell all the worse, or modified down by things like "enjoys working with corpses" (for a necromancer who finds relaxation in his work).

neonchameleon

2017-01-12, 11:58 AM

And because "personality mechanics" strike me as running a risk of drifting into "narrative role" characterization (the big guy, the smart one, the funny one, the moody one, whatever) and/or getting into a personality version of character classes... and classes are one of my least favorite RPG mechanics.

Oof. I'm going to say at this point that I am not aware of a single RPG between Arneson's D&D in 1974 and D. Vincent Baker's Apocalypse World in 2010 where replacing a class based system with a points based system wouldn't have had significant advantages (although it might have been the wrong choice for e.g. reasons round getting to the action fast as in Robin Laws' Feng Shui).

And because I've spent much of my life reading or hearing "this is how human minds work" from people who are supposed to know, and sitting there thinking "what the hell are these people talking about, have they been studying aliens?" as most or all of it sounds absolutely foreign to my own internal experience.

Anyone who says "This is how human minds work" is automatically wrong. Human minds are more complex than a single human mind can perceive and that's a lot more complex than makes for a good RPG.

As for discomfort, that's a group thing.
If one player is uncomfortable with mind control happening, it needs to be removed from the campaign so long as that player is there. They don't get a special exemption. It just doesn't come up. Same as if someone is really uncomfortable with having their character being seduced away from their stated sexuality. You'd just not engage that potential fictional avenue.

That's not bad GMing. It's also not being a ****. Win/win.

QFT

Segev

2017-01-12, 12:16 PM

Anyone who says "This is how human minds work" is automatically wrong. Human minds are more complex than a single human mind can perceive and that's a lot more complex than makes for a good RPG.

Ehhh... yes and no. Yes, they're extremely complex and all are unique. No, that doesn't mean there aren't common traits and behaviors and patterns which can be identified in human thought processes, motives, and drives.

Anybody who claims to fully understand it to the point of predicting everything about a person is wrong.

Anybody who claims it's entirely unknowable and that we know nothing because it's too complex is also wrong.

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-12, 12:36 PM

there was stuff in here from me!

An interesting idea. It again separates out physical threats from Intimidate, which I don't like, but it is definitely an interesting different way to go from the "Convince the person you will go through with it, regardless if you will or won't" one I started preferring after thinking about it in this thread. Or from the default one of just having an unspecified "Intimidation" skill.
One other problem I can see, other then "I don't like this separation": To not become weird or take control from the player (Which I would generally be fine with) It requires you to know if your character would go through with it before the character has to know. I have personally experienced, in Larp as well as IRL (though rarer there thankfully) that one CAN make a threat without knowing if you will go through with it. Only when being put on the spot by the person no-selling your threat do you really know if you are gonna do it, in these cases. Which would be impossible to model under this system.

(And, hey, the thread continues to produce ideas on how to construct my own system(s). For some fekkin reason I am low-key working on a second one...)

I suppose I worded it weirdly and only used Violence as my example, but Go Aggro can apply to any kind of overt, aggressive threat. (Hence "Go Aggro.")

The distinction between the two happens when, if the GM thinks such might be the case, he asks you "Are you bluffing?" He might inform you of some things such as: "Dremmer already has 1 harm. Your gun deals 2 harm, which would be enough to kill him. So if he sucks it up, he will probably die."

That's the point where you can decide if you're going to be bluffing or not. Sure, you can say that you're not bluffing and change your mind (turning your own success into a failure since you won't get what you want, but at that point it's your choice.)

Then again, Apocalypse World is about Hard Choices. It wants you to be put in a spot. A lot. So that's worth bearing in mind.

ImNotTrevor

2017-01-12, 01:02 PM

Oof. I'm going to say at this point that I am not aware of a single RPG between Arneson's D&D in 1974 and D. Vincent Baker's Apocalypse World in 2010 where replacing a class based system with a points based system wouldn't have had significant advantages (although it might have been the wrong choice for e.g. reasons round getting to the action fast as in Robin Laws' Feng Shui).

This is a pure preferences thing.

Anyone who says "This is how human minds work" is automatically wrong. Human minds are more complex than a single human mind can perceive and that's a lot more complex than makes for a good RPG.

So...
Neuroscience and Psychology just don't exist?
Because we know a lot about how human minds work, and about the general patterns. With research to back it up. Neurodiversity is a thing, yes.
That we're incapable of understanding how people generally work is just not supported.

QFT
Thank you. It's really not hard. If someone gives you a no-touchy zone, just don't touch it.

Segev

2017-01-12, 02:56 PM

I am quite late to replying to this, but I think there's some really interesting discussion points in it, so I'm going to. Sorry to those who've already done so; I hope to contribute to the conversation without stepping on your toes, but trying to reply to all the replies would be a bit prohibitive.

So, social skills are often divided into categories of "Bluff" (and detect bluff), "Intimidate", "Persuade" and sometimes "Seduce". These are all very different though, as they interact with the target (the object) in different ways.I think I'd categorize these a touch differently, but the only one that's really so far off as to not be nitpicking is "seduce." I think I'd replace it with "entice." It starts to cover any sort of "provoke a desire for X in somebody" activity, at that point. Seduction can denotatively mean that, but has a sexual connotation that makes it feel too narrow, to me.

Bluff is usually considered something only related to the subject (the one doing the bluffing) itself. ... It is not, or at least usually not, 'I roll Bluff to change your beliefs to whatever I am saying'. ... In this sense, Bluff is more akin to a normal physical action, in fact, it IS a 'normal' physical skill like Climb or Hide or whatever. It reflects how good you are at masking your lying tells.The way this shape of Bluff usually manifests, in my experience, is that it's a skill of convincing somebody of your sincerity. Making them believe that YOU honestly believe it, and, potentially, convincing them of your (in)sanity.

"I just saw the Emperor of Wherezistan walking naked down the street!"

With sufficiently good Bluffing, you can convince people that you honestly believe this. It may also be the purview of Bluff to control whether they think...

that you're crazy and saw nothing so ridiculous, but hallucinated it or blew something else out of proportion,
that you might've seen a naked man walking down the street, but doubt that you really would know the Emperor of Wherezistan from a travelling peddler, or
that you are an earnest fellow who believes it and may actually be right.

How much control you have over that will depend on the system.

Obviously, one could make Bluff bigger, and I am sure some systems do, in the sense that it could ALSO be your skill at "coming up with the right lie". This is a bit more esoteric, as it is obviously contextual and the GM has to provide the actual lie if the roll is good enough. Done this way, it involves not only a physical skill but also a knowledge skill of sorts. It can (and probably should) still be contested with some form of bluff detection, but it would make a player able to play a smooth snake-tongued character even though they can never think of any decent lies themselves. It depends how much decision you want players to have in a social interaction (analogy would be to let the fight skill dictate whom is best to attack in a fight, and which attack to use).Here we get into where a "social subsystem" could be made into more than just singular rolls covering huge swaths of RP. Rather than it being "bluff" that covers all these things, the social encounter involves reading marks to see what they believe or want to believe (or fear might be true), creating new things they might find believable, and eventually discerning or directing them into the "right" lie.

A player who isn't good at coming up with "the right lie" on his own would thus invoke mechanics to get a solid read on people, and have what his character can pick up about them (possibly including, but not limited to, personality traits he can use as hooks, and their numeric ratings) spelled out for him. From there, he can start to construct his well-tailored lie, whether in outright prose or by saying something like, "I want to convince him that this thing he fears is true." In this way, conversational RP becomes a multi-action thing, rather than a single roll summing up every aspect of "bluffing."

If we move to Intimidate, it is a bit more tricky skill to describe. Is it how good you are at provoking fear in your target, or is it how good you are at appearing to be more dangerous than you actually are? ... f we want to follow "how it feels in the real world", then Intimidate should [I]also be contested with something. Like willpower or fighting strength or a combination. ... In any case, I think we've all experienced times when people or situations have frightened us a deep level, even though we logically don't want to feel that way, so if a, potentially resist able, Intimidation attempt causes our character to freeze with fear; that matches up pretty well with reality.I think the key thing about "intimidation" is that it fills the target with worry/fear.

It is also something that is probably well-served by developing more involved social mechanics, because (for example) bluffing somebody into believing something is true can lead to intimidating them with that "truth." The key thing about Intimidation is that it undermines confidence and will to resist commands. It makes you easier to manipulate. It causes you to back down and comply.

In a sense, Intimidation is just building a short-term trait centered around being afraid of something. Relieving that fear feels good; enduring or intensifying it feels bad. It is usually used as a component in Persuasion.

Persuasion is slightly different than Bluff, in that it's about convincing somebody that something IS so, or that they want to DO something. It's interesting that I can't think of a set of words that means only one of those to things. Persuade, Convince, all the synonyms apply equally to "persuade that this is true" and "persuade to do X." But these are distinct things. Especially if one is building a social system; "persuade to do X" can use the morale points quite directly: in having persuaded them that they "should" or want to do X, you can offer them morale points for complying and cost them morale points for refusing.

Persuading somebody of something's truth, on the other hand, is more akin to Intimidate in that it's about shaping their worldview. This translates less well to morale points, because until it comes down to action, there's not really a choice being made. I guess a choice to "change your mind" is there.

On the other hand, Bluff kind of rolls into this form of Persuasion: you're persuading others that you believe what you're saying. You're also persuading them of how to take that belief - whether they also believe you to be a reliable source, or not. (One cool bluffing trick is to tell the truth...but in such a way that people think you're a liar or a loon and absolutely reject what you've said. So they're now convinced the truth is NOT true, which is what you wanted.)

Seduction is a bit of a weird one, and I really don't quite know how to write rules that matches with our everyday experience. It is obvious that some people are generally more seductive than others, that is either they can provoke some kind of romantic or physical desire in the object. ...[But,] even IF someone makes us really horny, we still feel in control of our actions. Seduction should never lead to forced action; that's just not how it works. Fear on the other hand, like in the intimidation case, definitely CAN lead to actions we wouldn't logically choose to take (even though I still want to leave it up to the player to decide if they're frozen in place or runs away or attacks screaming or whatever).True. I think we should reframe this to Entice because I think it should also apply to "seducing" somebody into trying a piece of cake, or accepting a fancy-looking sword, or keeping/spending the gold he was going to give to the widow and orphans of the traveler who gave it to him.

I am not sure how it is with the rest of you, but I have never felt such a strong sexual or romantic desire for someone that I couldn't control my actions. If I logically really don't want to do them, I don't. Does this match up with your experience as well?To be fair, most of us, I imagine, haven't been in a situation where somebody was really pouring on the effort to seduce. A lot of religious advice regarding chastity, for example, involves not putting yourself in a situation where your "willpower" is tested. So while I can't speak to it, I have seen and found believable in fiction situations where somebody "knew better" but their libido just made "do what I believe is right" just not so immediately pressing as "sate this sexual craving." And the nature of libido is apparently such that indulging "a little" can escalate.

Nobody is saying that "giving in to your lust" is not, ultimately, a choice you make. But the drives getting so strong as to make that choice truly enticing over and above long-held beliefs is something I find believable, just from situations involving, say, soda or snacks when I've been hungry or thirsty (and felt I needed the caffeine) even though I had promised myself I would refrain.

Which, again, is why THIS is the case for which the "morale points" I've been discussing are specifically designed. No, you're never COMPELLED to give in and have sex with the seductress, eat the taco, or spend the widow's gold on the fancy-looking sword, but you are enticed, and how enticed you are (and thus how much it will make you feel immediately good vs. how much it will immediately hurt to reject) is enumerated.

If we then get to Persuasion, which is the really tricky one, my first thought is that the target (or object of the persuasion attempt) matters to a much larger degree than the persuader's skill. In fact, Persuasion is really not the best of terms either; as some people are much much better at one kind (say emotion-inducing speeches) than another (logical argumentation). Some people are much more receptive to the former whereas almost everyone in this thread is probably more receptive to the latter. Even so, noone, and I mean noone, is ever convinced of anything unless they're actively willing to change their mind.
All of this may mean that persuasion is better broken into a few related but non-overlapping abilities/skills. The actual mechanics for it should reflect the process of undermining "unwilling to change my mind" into "willing to entertain the possibility, but not convinced yet."

Such unwillingness also shouldn't be as easy as "a really big number was rolled" to overcome. It should have requirements at least as sideways from the primary system as "you need a silver weapon to kill a werewolf" is from the notion that attacks deal hp damage which eventually kills the victim.

If King Frogchair is unwilling to be persuaded that Mario shouldn't be executed because he's convinced Mario killed his daughter, the Princess, then no amount of "but Mario's a hero" or other pleading for mercy is going to work. First, you must convince King Frogchair that Mario didn't kill the Princess. Then it might - depending on what King Frogchair believes about the Princess's fate and Mario's responsibility - be feasible to plead for clemency or even forgiveness (especially if one can convince the King that Mario had nothing to do with her predicament).

I think the idea that "subject rolls Persuade, object rolls some resistance" with resistance failure meaning the character has now suddenly changed their mind is rather unsatisfactory on a "matches up with our real world experience" level. Persuading people is REALLY HARD, and downright impossible if someone is set in their ways.

So what would a Persuade skill entail? The ability of the subject to hold a good speech and provoke emotion (this is actually something that would match up fairly well with Intimidate and Seduction then), or the ability to make clear and rational arguments (which is more of a knowledge skill than anything)? How DOES people change their minds? How do we incorporate our everyday feeling of being in control of our beliefs and only really changing them when we weigh the subject to be convincing? It's really tricky I think, and figuring out a good mechanic for that is a lot harder than "roll Climb to get up the tree".

Perhaps emotional appeals and logical arguments should be distinct skills.

Persuasion may be where "Intimidate" lies, or it might be broken up into enough distinct skills that "Intimidate" falls under one of those or is its own. The key for building a system, I think, is that persuasion that something is so should have effects which make evoking action based on those beliefs easier, but that it's persuasion to do something which is where the choice really lies.

Maybe that latter is more wrapped up in enticement. If the Pirate Queen entices you to have dinner with her, then she's attempting to persuade you to make a particular choice. Enticement is about influencing a final choice; the goal is to get the subject to make the choice with the enticement attached.

So from this, I think we see a very rough road map of how social systems might be more involved. Finding out what hooks exist in those with whom you wish to engage allows you to know what kinds of tactics to use. Convincing them of facts that you want them to believe are true (or convincing them of the falsehood of facts you want them to mistrust) enables you to shape a more favorable "terrain," causing people to have other hooks or to make relevant hooks they already have which would otherwise be inaccessible to you. Enticing them to make specific choices when those choices are presented.

kyoryu

2017-01-12, 03:13 PM

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-12, 03:20 PM

To be fair, most of us, I imagine, haven't been in a situation where somebody was really pouring on the effort to seduce.

I have.

The effect was not what she was hoping for. She was an aesthetically pretty and nice to talk to, but I had not known her long enough, I did not know her well enough, and the requisite trust and communication simply didn't exist. When my attempt to deflect with dignity intact for both involved wasn't taken up and she persisted, even any potential attraction to her was rendered utterly dead and cold. I was actively put off by her insistence -- and that was with no vows on stake, no other relationship threatened, no moral standard I hold that I'd have violated, nothing of the sort.

Can you now understand why I find the idea of "seduction uber alles" unbelievable?

Cluedrew

2017-01-12, 03:34 PM

(And, hey, the thread continues to produce ideas on how to construct my own system(s). For some fekkin reason I am low-key working on a second one...)I've been there. I mentioned my "motivation" mechanic, I created that almost a year ago and I still haven't gotten the chance to actually put it in the rules. Still trying to get some of the base mechanics worked out.

A don't have much to say about the various social interactions. It all looks good but it is not my focus right now.

because he didn't write down a specific "doesn't like bad smells" or "averse to pain" trait with a rating, and with the proposed "opt-in only" system, it sounds to me like giving "the Bog of Eternal Stench" a universal "Unpleasantness" rating, or giving torture a numeric representation (other than zero) of how badly it damages morale as a baseline is not acceptable. Because we can't assume that most people dislike stenches and pain.FATE (which isn't quite opt-in, but you don't have to choose anything in particular) handles this by slapping aspects onto the swamp.

Personally, although those things are still "RP" mechanics they aren't personality so much that they don't really need to be put on the character sheet. There might be a difference between a +2 and a +3 pain tolerance but (in most games at least*) it is unlikely to come up often enough to bother encoding. I wouldn't even if I'm not doing an opt.-in system, it all depends on what you are going for.

* Might fit right in if we are talking about a dark spy game.

Anyone who says "This is how human minds work" is automatically wrong. Human minds are more complex than a single human mind can perceive and that's a lot more complex than makes for a good RPG.I'm not disagreeing with you but I think we can create a rough model which does work in the context of a role-playing game. I have yet to see an accurate and precise representation of... almost everything in any system, but we can get close enough in other areas. It has reached the point that getting that for social interaction and personality right is almost a challenge for its own sake.

3

Segev

2017-01-12, 04:03 PM

I have.

The effect was not what she was hoping for. She was an aesthetically pretty and nice to talk to, but I had not known her long enough, I did not know her well enough, and the requisite trust and communication simply didn't exist. When my attempt to deflect with dignity intact for both involved wasn't taken up and she persisted, even any potential attraction to her was rendered utterly dead and cold. I was actively put off by her insistence -- and that was with no vows on stake, no other relationship threatened, no moral standard I hold that I'd have violated, nothing of the sort.

Can you now understand why I find the idea of "seduction uber alles" unbelievable?Yes and no. Frankly, you don't describe somebody who is actually very skilled at what she was attempting. She tried one tactic without knowing her target very well, and proceeded to do poorly and actively hit triggers/levers/buttons that turned you off. In essence, she either herself built, or aided you in building, an aversion specific to her over the course of her efforts, to the point that you actively gained morale by leaving.

Which is something I confess I hadn't really touched on in describing a social system, but a point to keep in mind as I (or we, for those interested in still exploring the notion) work on developing something that involves multiple "moves" (in the same way most combat mechanics do) rather than just a one-and-done roll for "seduction."

Her initial efforts ran up against a preference for romance growing with knowledge of others (represented, hopefully, by something broader than that) and she failed to provide you any morale offering to respond favorably to her seduction with her first effort. The second attempt without doing anything about the barrier she hit unintentionally triggered your dislike for being manipulated and having your likes disrespected, and actively served to build dislike for/aversion towards her. Making her seduction even harder to pull off, and possibly creating an enticement of morale points to more firmly reject her and end the encounter.

This obviously is a little specialized; I don't think these would be the precise terms, and the actual mechanics for building the aversion elude me at the moment as they need to arise a bit more organically, I think, from overall "build/erode preferences" type rules. Also, admittedly, building post-hoc to fit is never as convincing as having an extant system which can be shown to map.

FATE (which isn't quite opt-in, but you don't have to choose anything in particular) handles this by slapping aspects onto the swamp.Which is what I was suggesting doing by, say, giving the Bog of Eternal Stench an "unpleasantness" rating.

Personally, although those things are still "RP" mechanics they aren't personality so much that they don't really need to be put on the character sheet. There might be a difference between a +2 and a +3 pain tolerance but (in most games at least*) it is unlikely to come up often enough to bother encoding. I wouldn't even if I'm not doing an opt.-in system, it all depends on what you are going for.

* Might fit right in if we are talking about a dark spy game.I wouldn't expect to see "pain tolerance +3," but I might expect "Masochist +3," or "loyalty to _____ +3" (which comes in due to the torturer trying to get him to betray ____), or even a high constitution score or the Endurance feat having some mechanics for resisting pain-based enticements.

Max_Killjoy

2017-01-12, 04:48 PM

Yes and no. Frankly, you don't describe somebody who is actually very skilled at what she was attempting. She tried one tactic without knowing her target very well, and proceeded to do poorly and actively hit triggers/levers/buttons that turned you off. In essence, she either herself built, or aided you in building, an aversion specific to her over the course of her efforts, to the point that you actively gained morale by leaving.

Which is something I confess I hadn't really touched on in describing a social system, but a point to keep in mind as I (or we, for those interested in still exploring the notion) work on developing something that involves multiple "moves" (in the same way most combat mechanics do) rather than just a one-and-done roll for "seduction."

Her initial efforts ran up against a preference for romance growing with knowledge of others (represented, hopefully, by something broader than that) and she failed to provide you any morale offering to respond favorably to her seduction with her first effort. The second attempt without doing anything about the barrier she hit unintentionally triggered your dislike for being manipulated and having your likes disrespected, and actively served to build dislike for/aversion towards her. Making her seduction even harder to pull off, and possibly creating an enticement of morale points to more firmly reject her and end the encounter.

This obviously is a little specialized; I don't think these would be the precise terms, and the actual mechanics for building the aversion elude me at the moment as they need to arise a bit more organically, I think, from overall "build/erode preferences" type rules. Also, admittedly, building post-hoc to fit is never as convincing as having an extant system which can be shown to map.

Yes... the problem is, "the correct tactic" doesn't map to seduction, or enticement, or whatever you want to call it -- unless one wants to include "spend several months forming an actual relationship" under the heading of "seduction and enticement".

Talakeal

2017-01-12, 05:40 PM

@Floret:

You say that if a social roll succeeds the person doing the acting gets what they want. Can anyone veto this? For example, could I talk a guy into giving me everything he owns? Or killing himself?

It is possible, some people are manic and eager to please or depressed and suicidal, but it is ridiculous to think that an average person could be talked into something like that without physical / supernatural coercion or an epic buildup.

If there is a veto, who gets to do it, the DM or the controlling player?

If it is the DM, why are they allowed to make the final call on what a character whom they created and control will or will not do, while it would be unfair for a player to make the same call about a character whom they both created and control?

If you make someone do something they would never do under ordinary circumstances, you have fundamentally changed who they are as a person, at which point you are taking away both the control and the creative aspects from the player.

And yes, I believe that in extraordinary circumstances someone can change who they are and do something they would have thought impossible. But this is a BIG DEAL. You should actually have a set up where it makes sense, and you are going to need collaboration from the player.

Segev mentioned Futurama as an example that works because we (both Bender and the audience) so how the story played out, and ultimately Bender had, at least the illusion, of choice. But if that was just accomplished by a die roll it would be cheap and / or horrifying. It would feel like someone's master swordsman losing to a small child with a stick off screen because they rolled a 1.

Floret

2017-01-12, 09:06 PM

So you don't foresee players sticking to "playing the hooks" to keep getting "cookies", rather than going for more nuance?

That actually concerns me more than does the "weight from the mechanics" or "just go optimum every time" issues coming up enough to worry about.

I don't, no. Because ultimately, the people signed up to play an RPG that focusses on personalities having a tangible effect ingame. Or, at least the people I game with do. So they playing characters is somewhat expected.

See, as I have mentioned already, I play in free-form Larp where your character's power and knowledge are limited by whatever you find fitting (and other players believe you). This might raise the question: How do we protect against powergamers and metagamers? People just giving their character loads of skills and being generally the best?
The answer is, we don't need to. Because for people that tend to do these things, the way we play is utterly uninteresting. If they don't have some quantifiable power over others, some way of "i am better, and will get stronger, and can do things noone else can"... If everyone can do that, it kinda takes the fun out of it.

And this is how I view these mechanics. They are for people who generally want to play interesting characters, so no, I don't see those people suddenly looking for mechanical optimisation in their traits. Heck, in FATE, you can have however powerful aspects as you want. But people... don't. Because it's less fun that way.

And if people outside my group have fun with the rules in ways that I wouldn't like to play with myself... so what? They are not hurting me with it.
I am generally in favour of people playing their character as nuanced as they want, but have made the experience that as long as there is SOME character trait to cling to, characters are more fun to play and play with. I don't care about "realistic" characters, I care about memorable ones. Nuance is of minor importance at the most, and having interesting hooks does much more to make a character memorable than nuance. Nuance can be a nice cherry on top, but beyond that?

First, lets be clear that "manipulation" covers a lot of things, and they don't all relate to either the original "you can make someone want something that they don't want to want" issue, or to the wholly tangential issues of conflicting priorities, later regrets, etc. Threats and coercion, deception, enticement, emotional "blackmail", etc, are all very different things, and of those, only "enticement" actually connects firmly with that original "want what you don't want to want" issue.

Second, it warps the meaning of "manipulation" to the point of uselessness to include two people having a rational discussion, and one person changing the others' opinion on a topic by presenting facts and solid reasoning. To say that anyone who ever changed their conclusions on a subject when faced with new or better information had been "manipulated" is... wrong. Simply wrong. It reduces any hope for rational discourse to something base and crude.

Third, to say "advertising has little if any effect on me" is not the same as claiming that one cannot be ever manipulated in any circumstances, and to say "I don't experience this sensation of 'wishing I didn't want what I want or wishing I did want what I don't' is not the same as claiming that one cannot be ever manipulated in any circumstances.

In my specific case, it's more that my particular levers are way way off what most people's are, literally no one in the world can give me what I actually want most, there are things I just won't do (offer me a ten billion dollars, I'm still not going to go outside naked and walk down the street, sorry), I'm stubborn as hell and have a deep contrarian streak, I don't trust "positive" emotions much, and I do have a capacity to just turn an emotion the hell off if I have to -- I couldn't function if I didn't have that warped little skill, given that my memory is the emotional equivalent of photographic, and I experience any emotions associated with a memory pretty much as if it were happening again right now -- than it is that I'm simply "immune to manipulation" or some such nonsense. (And no, Segev, having to clamp down on an motion in order to be functional is not the same as "not wanting to feel what you feel".)

Fourth, I do think that both Segev and you are underestimating the effect of someone digging in their heals and refusing, no matter what, to budge.

Fifth, to say "any person can be manipulated" is a far cry from the basis of some of the examples given in this thread, which seem very much to be based on the assertion that almost anyone can be enticed to do almost anything if you just find the right buttons and dials and levers. No one is immune to all manipulation in all forms all the time, but almost everyone has lines they won't cross for anything, and the manipulator doesn't know what those are until he hits them. What I was rejecting at the start of all this was the idea that the PQ just needs to find the right buttons to push, and she can make anyone feel attraction to her even if they don't want to, and even if they normally wouldn't. Some people just won't be attracted to her, and in fact her attempts to get them attracted are only going to make her less attractive to them. Some people who might normally be attracted to her will be entirely put off by the situation that was originally laid out. And so on.

On the subject of "charm"... to use one example, and this isn't political at all, simply as an example of one individual. I've read and heard and been told countless times that Bill Clinton is a "charming person". I totally, 100% don't see it. He strikes me as smarmy, a sort of glad-handing snake-oil salesman.

To first: Yeah. This, I think folds in nicely to the discussion about different social skills that is going on.

To second: Why? It is using manipulate as "Get people to be or act (more) like you'd like them to", which I think most people would agree it means. Yes, manipulate has a certain negative connotation, but in describing social systems for RPGs, I tend to use it more neutral. Because other than morale, one can't really draw a clear line imho. Maybe I should have specified that.

To third:
"My levers are way off most people" is so far away from "noone can give me what I want" I don't even know what to say.
...Also, again: You not being faced with the temptation can make assessments and guesses, but never give a guarantee how you would react in any given situation, if you have no experienced it beforehand. You can say you wouldn't all you want, but that has little bearing on the question if you actually WOULD. For this example, ten billion is a nice and comfortable number - because humans can't really comprehend it. I believe that you THINK you wouldn't. I just don't believe that that has much to say on whether you actually WOULD.

(Also, dude. Don't turn your emotions of. That is... unhealthy as hell. It can work as a coping mechanism for some time, but seriously, it will backfire eventually. I mean, I might be wrong and this again a case of you using the same words as I would, but for something different, but let me tell you, from sad and unfortunate experience, that if what you are describing is in any way even close to what I understand, it is not sustainable for your mental health. And that I would recommend that you, if at all possible, go see a therapist about this.
...Sorry. Your description just kinda hits too close to home for bull**** I used to do. :smallwink: )

To fourth: I think you are overestimating the effect. Or rather, you are underestimating how easy it can be to work around that.

To fifth: I don't think your assertions are true. Because ultimately, yeah. But "the situation that was originally laid out" is in fact a lever that was pulled. And for some people, the levers to pull are extrodinarily difficult, amoral and time-consuming to pull. But I find this to be all the more reason for a fleshed-out social system; rather than just narrating it. Because I find "just narrating it" to be ultimately unsatisfactory in a game that for me, is about rolling dice and being able to do things you couldn't IRL.

I think I'd categorize these a touch differently, but the only one that's really so far off as to not be nitpicking is "seduce." I think I'd replace it with "entice." It starts to cover any sort of "provoke a desire for X in somebody" activity, at that point. Seduction can denotatively mean that, but has a sexual connotation that makes it feel too narrow, to me.

I am standing in awe of the fact of "How did I not come up with that". It is definitely a much better way to handle things, RPG-wise. ...I am running through new sortings in my head based on this right now. The rest of your post just serves to stress that. Maybe by my next post I will have sorted my thoughts enough to post a new sorting. I'll keep you updated^^

I have.

The effect was not what she was hoping for. She was an aesthetically pretty and nice to talk to, but I had not known her long enough, I did not know her well enough, and the requisite trust and communication simply didn't exist. When my attempt to deflect with dignity intact for both involved wasn't taken up and she persisted, even any potential attraction to her was rendered utterly dead and cold. I was actively put off by her insistence -- and that was with no vows on stake, no other relationship threatened, no moral standard I hold that I'd have violated, nothing of the sort.

Can you now understand why I find the idea of "seduction uber alles" unbelievable?

I can understand why you might, but find this quite presumptuous. Because ultimately it boils down to "someone tried this on me once, it didn't work, so it can never work". And you can probably see why this is a bad argument.
Now as I say, I have both successfully (and unsuccessfully) "seduced" people as well as been successfully (and unsuccessfully) been "seduced". Granted, I might be an easier target than you, Max (...Even with the little you shared about yourself there I actually know that I am), but I know from experience that it CAN work. And noone ever asserted that any and all seduction attempts must be successful.
A system such as the proposed would have to make it possible to build for the case of people working like both of us - "Not before I know you" as well as "Offer me and I will probably say yes". Though I do also know that some people can, if the exact right "buttons" are pressed suddenly forget much of the requirements they once thought fundamental. I've been there myself - more with enticing than with seduction in the literal sense (This is about smoking of waterpipes for me as an avid, AVID nonsmoker.) One can go about things a bit more intelligently than the girl in your example.

@Floret:

You say that if a social roll succeeds the person doing the acting gets what they want. Can anyone veto this? For example, could I talk a guy into giving me everything he owns? Or killing himself?

It is possible, some people are manic and eager to please or depressed and suicidal, but it is ridiculous to think that an average person could be talked into something like that without physical / supernatural coercion or an epic buildup.

If you make someone do something they would never do under ordinary circumstances, you have fundamentally changed who they are as a person, at which point you are taking away both the control and the creative aspects from the player.

And yes, I believe that in extraordinary circumstances someone can change who they are and do something they would have thought impossible. But this is a BIG DEAL. You should actually have a set up where it makes sense, and you are going to need collaboration from the player.

Segev mentioned Futurama as an example that works because we (both Bender and the audience) so how the story played out, and ultimately Bender had, at least the illusion, of choice. But if that was just accomplished by a die roll it would be cheap and / or horrifying. It would feel like someone's master swordsman losing to a small child with a stick off screen because they rolled a 1.

Well. Yes and no. If, for any given player, the thing coming up hits too close to home in whatever way to make them say "No, nope, never, nope", because the PLAYER is actively uncomfortable beyond just "I might loose my character", then that player, GM or not, has any right to veto.
If not, however, no. There is no veto. Not unless given a system such as Segevs morale system where the ultimate decision is up to the player (But the character still has to take the hit in morale points or the equivalent "currency"; FATEpoints, etc.) But: The target numbers for talking someone into handing you all their stuff or killing themselves out of the blue without any sort of groundwork would be so astronomical as to unreachable without magical influence.

And, the described "Making big changes requires extraordinary circumstances" is precisely why more fleshed out social systems and relaying the whole stuff onto multiple different rolls over a longer time, to make the target numbers actually feasible, would be my preference.