General Topic: Letting things happen to you, or not

[Jarak]

Welp, I’m agreeing with pretty much everything everyone has said since my last post.

It seems to me like one of the big things we’re all agreeing on is that abilities that affect other people are good, and resistances to those abilities are good, because they make the game more interesting, it’s just that neither should be too strong, either in terms of effect and/or amount of times they can be used before more resources must be spent to re-acquire usage of them. I think I personally prefer the former, e.g. [quote=“Viperion”]… - Alex uses a Charm effect on Brook, which would result in Brook revealing a secret. Brook has an ability which negates Charm which has a limited number of uses.

• Alex uses a Charm effect on Brook, which would result in Brook revealing a secret. Brook has an ability which could possibly negate the Charm (with some kind of test/contest) …[/quote]Both of those have comparative advantages and disadvantages, which in my mind basically boil down to the first option being really useful when one has the chance to prepare and anticipate, while the second is far better as a general ‘any-time’ protection, as some protection is much better than none. The second also arguably has the advantage from a design perspective in that it makes the game more unpredictable for the players and will give rise to a more ‘emergent’ game (for lack of a better description), as there’s always a chance of the usage of abilities going either way.

Personally I’d say that there is a place for significant abilities that significantly rob the target of agency in a game, but perhaps really only as ones in the hands of the GMs, or trusted and experienced crew who have been given clear and detailed briefings. Characters like Quendon in Teonn jump to mind for me with this. I suppose you could say that what I’m suggesting is that abilities with severe effects, or which are utterly irresistible, have a place in a game, but only in the hands of those participants who can be trusted to only use them in ways that enhance the game. Which sounds rather elitist and snobby when you think about it, and thus I think a good reason for them to be GM only, as it gives a clear and logical basis for defining who those chosen ones may be.

[quote=“Walter Hamer”]How do people feel about rules like mute? Has anyone found it ok to have cast on them during a heated debate? Or had a problem with it?[/quote]I think I’ve only had it used on me once, and only witnessed it used one other time, and in the end both of those were fairly inconsequential, so I can’t really say from experience. I would have thought however that if it were used in a social situation to silence someone from taking part in a debate or the like, it’s usage would surely draw negative consequences stemming from good roleplaying.

[Walter]

Had another thought in relation to this last night. So far we have been discussing resistances to a breadth of effects. What about a system which focused on a depth of effects instead?

What do I mean by that? This would involve a small set of ‘initiating’ abilities that have an effect. In response to each of these there may be one or more counter abilities that produce an effect in response, possibly stopping the initial one too. They can also have their own counter abilities in turn. In gaming I believe this is termed Play and Counterplay. Obviously a simple system of calling out an effect with no real input into it just becomes a chain of calls until someone runs out of ‘abilities,’ or resources driving those abilities, and has to submit, which is hardly fun.

So, for a simple run through of an ability chain that challenges an individual, you might have several phases of possible abilities. Lets call them Phase One (an attack or interference with another person or persons), Phase Two (their possible responses), Phase Three (the attacker’s responses to Phase Two), and so on. Of these we might have: Initiating effects (ones that start a chain of events going), Blocking effects, Counter-blocks, Transformative effects (change the effect targeting you to a lesser one), Feints, Traps (where the target has an effect that turns the tables on the initiator), and any more we can think of.

For example, an initiators Phase One might be jumping out at someone. The targets Phase Two might be a freeze/flight/fight response OR an ‘So you think you’re tough?’ special ability. If the first of these is given, the initiator can then make a ‘Fear’ effect call in Phase Three (if they have this ability and maybe the resources to use it). However, if the special ability is given, then a fear effect from the initiator in Phase Three could open them up to a Trap effect from the target in the targets Phase Four (a Ridicule call), or the initiator can use a Counter-block ability (if they have it) of ‘I’ll have you for dinner’ or a Feint ability (if they have it) of ‘No, but my friend is’. If the Counter-block is used, the target can respond in Phase Four with a freeze/flight/fight response, opening them up to a Fear effect again, or another Trap ability of ‘I’m not as small as I look,’ which if the initiator freeze or flights in response to can allow the target to use a Fear call themselves, or if they fight then a fight happens. If the Feint ability is used, the target responds with turning around to check if the initiator has allies, or uses a ‘This is MY turf’ ability if they have it. If the feint works (which it does if they don’t have the alternative ability), the target gets to use a Ridicule call on the initiator. If the ‘This is My turf’ ability is used, the initiator and the target do an eye staring contest until one breaks (or is made to break by a third party), at which point they Cower (and if the target is the one to Cower, they lose their ‘This is MY turf’ ability).

Or:
A Jumps out -> B panics -> A uses Fear call
A Jumps out -> B uses ‘So you think you’re tough?’ -> A uses Fear call -> B uses Ridicule
A Jumps out -> B uses ‘So you think you’re tough?’ -> A uses 'I’ll have you for dinner -> B freezes/doesn’t answer promptly -> A uses Fear
A Jumps out -> B uses ‘So you think you’re tough?’ -> A uses 'I’ll have you for dinner -> B uses ‘I’m not as small as I look’ -> A freezes -> B uses Fear on A
A Jumps out -> B uses ‘So you think you’re tough?’ -> A uses 'I’ll have you for dinner -> B uses ‘I’m not as small as I look’ -> A and B fight
A Jumps out -> B uses ‘So you think you’re tough?’ -> A uses ‘No, but my friend is’ -> B turns around -> A uses Ridicule
A Jumps out -> B uses ‘So you think you’re tough?’ -> A uses ‘No, but my friend is’ -> B uses ‘This is MY turf’ -> A and B eye contest -> loser Cowers (if B loses, they lose their ‘This is MY turf’ ability)

Obviously a system like this will get chaotic and impossible to learn if there is a breadth of initiating effects for everyone to memorize. In the example I worked in real world responses too, like freeze/flight/fight response, to limit the number of calls and to hopefully make the dynamic a bit more natural. For example, if you have the ‘So you think you’re so tough, aye?’ ability but still respond to someone jumping out at you by freezing, fleeing or fighting, you miss your chance to use that ability.

One advantage, if it is done right, is that most people won’t need to know the whole chain, just the bits of the chain that apply to them.

[Jared]

Interesting topic. And one I’ve often contemplated.
A lot of abilities in games frustrate me much more than they ever used to.

Fear is a big one. Mostly there is usually no engagement as to why I am afraid. And next, if I am afraid enough, why in the hell would I go back? And almost always used as crowd control far too frequently to take seriously. Ending up a colossal pain rather than having any storytelling value. Things I fear in games has nothing to do with an ability and all about character consequence.

Charm, somewhat similarly overused, is very jarring (particularly in campaign games, much less so in theatre-form) to immersive character play (for me). It’s a 4th wall breaker in a situation in which I’m already pretending and then pretending more with little character engagement (because of loss of agency).

The solution for me, at least in principle is to encourage characters to engage with the story telling rather than a win/loss scenario (which abilities seem to encourage). To encourage more play to lose friendly game environments. That the roleplay ends up very reactive and less rules driven because players trust that what is happening is about the in game journey and not about removing their agency (and they end up wanting to go with it because that way may be really cool even i it is negative for their "character’).

Implementing this is not something I know how to do. It’s a game culture change.

[Walter]

Excellent points, Jared.