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Barbed Tongues posted:This seems pretty boilerplate argumentum ad absurdum, Ferrinus. Do you actually believe this or are you just getting into the debate? Is your posit that any mechanics which require ST discretion to prevent abuse are inherently bad? Where is the absurdity in what I have described? In fact, wouldn’t you prefer that a seemingly combat-focused character try to use their weaker skills to engage with all parts of the game, and struggle with their resulting deficiencies, rather than just stand silently in the background until initiative is rolled? Isn’t what I describe a win for the beat system?
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Feb 8, 2019 21:56
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Ferrinus posted:No, I think you are badly in need of my advice. All mechanics “support and encourage playstyles” (this is like my indignantly telling you that I prefer dice rolls that produce random results within some range, thank you very much, hmmph, the nerve) but feeling the need to gamify roleplaying specifically to induce your PCs to act out of character or against their players’ interests probably speaks to problems that game mechanics aren’t going to solve. Wow, I'm impressed with your inability to understand the context of what I said. And how how highly you think of yourself compared to me. Or even the reasons I'm asking for any alternative mechanics in the first place. Whether a mechanics works against player self-interest (whatever that may be to a player) or not is something to consider, but as of yet you haven't given me an actual mechanic that fits what I was asking, so I can't say either way. And I don't know where you got the out-of-character thing. Never said anything about that. But if you don't actually have any ideas for alternatives to the Beat mechanics, feel free not to respond. Maybe someone else has an idea.
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Feb 8, 2019 22:10
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LimitedReagent posted:Wow, I'm impressed with your inability to understand the context of what I said. And how how highly you think of yourself compared to me. Or even the reasons I'm asking for any alternative mechanics in the first place. The alternative to listed Beat mechanics is to give each player between 1 and 3 XP per session. That way, characters will do stupid things as appropriate to the story and their players' concept, rather than as appropriate to the XP generation cooldown.
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Feb 8, 2019 22:17
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Ferrinus posted:Where is the absurdity in what I have described? In fact, wouldn’t you prefer that a seemingly combat-focused character try to use their weaker skills to engage with all parts of the game, and struggle with their resulting deficiencies, rather than just stand silently in the background until initiative is rolled? Isn’t what I describe a win for the beat system? I prefer proactive players, yes. But no, I reject your assertion that farming beats is the same as honestly engaging the story. Yes, if all the players love going down dramatic fail rabbit-holes scene to scene, I suppose I don't have much to complain about since everyone is having a blast. That's different than some agreement between players to wake up every night, torture their friend to the last health box (beat), before provoking them into frenzy (beat), so they feed on and bleed out a human, making a humanity check (beat) so they get a condition they can resolve (beat) before picking the combination bike-lock they keep in their pocket because 'pick a lock' is their aspiration (beat).
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Feb 8, 2019 22:17
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I think a lot of this boils down to whether or not you're looking for a horror experience in Chronicles of Darkness. Horror gaming tends to be very author stance because competence and success, generally speaking, have to occur extremely sparingly in order to maintain the mood. Experts excelling at the top of their game don't make for good horror - there's no sense of helplessness, no foreboding, no dread of what's happening that You Just Can't Stop. The option to take a dramatic failure forces conscious consideration of the question, "Do I want things to get worse, darker, more desperate and dire?" Horror play is all about leaning into those things, and while most of that is always in the hands of the GM I think it's a nice complement to let a player vote, during play, to push the narrative that way. I get that people here really seem to hate incentivizing mechanics for, well, as far as I can tell anything. Everyone has had too many encounters with tiresome grogs and every solid rule is just another argument waiting to happen and we're all sick of it. I generally tend to see mechanics like this as tools to guide communication by providing structure for the conversation, because sometimes "just talk about it with your GM" doesn't necessarily work and it doesn't mean that either side is some sort of failure of a roleplayer. Now all that said, there is a huge gap between the way people have played CoD\WoD games, the way they've mechanically written, and the way they've been pitched. That's part of what that awful Ron Edwards quote is harping on. But in this case I think they've actually got something where mechanics reinforces the developer's stated intent to facilitate a horror experience, and that not a bad thing. I don't see how it's a knock on the quality of the product that in this case it does what it says on the tin, even if lots of people aren't using it that way. If I run superheroes in Call of Cthulhu (including the Sanity system), I'm gonna get some weird mechanic/tone interactions but I should expect that.
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Feb 8, 2019 22:20
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Incentivizing mechanics are fine, they just have to be for things you want players to do, instead of a situation where even the defenders of the system can name half a dozen completely incoherent (within the narrative) things that the XP system encourages you to do and their advice is "just don't do that, and slap your players down if they try!"
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Feb 8, 2019 22:22
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Ferrinus posted:The alternative to listed Beat mechanics is to give each player between 1 and 3 XP per session. That way, characters will do stupid things as appropriate to the story and their players' concept, rather than as appropriate to the XP generation cooldown. Doesn't encourage any behavior besides "show up to the session", maybe. Not what I was asking for. I don't want to limit ideas, but you could try something that doesn't involve xp!
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Feb 8, 2019 22:23
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Barbed Tongues posted:I prefer proactive players, yes. But no, I reject your assertion that farming beats is the same as honestly engaging the story. Yes, if all the players love going down dramatic fail rabbit-holes scene to scene, I suppose I don't have much to complain about since everyone is having a blast. Notice, though, that in your list there only the last entry would even be slightly hard to justify in a session about two vampire having a falling-out, or maybe extremely exciting sex. If it was, instead, the tortured vampire picking a lock to escape the dungeon they're in, what can you object to? I just don't see what you gain out of having to scan each beat-generating action to determine whether the player's heart is really in it. LimitedReagent posted:Doesn't encourage any behavior besides "show up to the session", maybe. Not what I was asking for. I don't want to limit ideas, but you could try something that doesn't involve xp! It may not be what you were asking for, but it is what you need. Virtues, vices, and the totally normal vicissitudes of a game story - stats, pre-existing character concepts, rivalries, challenges, alliances, whatever - are all enough to get player characters to take actions which look "stupid" from the outside.
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Feb 8, 2019 22:28
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If anyone has any advice on how to get your players to stop taking stupid actions, I'm all ears.
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Feb 8, 2019 22:30
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Ferrinus posted:I just don't see what you gain out of having to scan each beat-generating action to determine whether the player's heart is really in it. I don't gain or lose anything, because the ST is already directed to judge each beat grant and not give them out at inappropriate or non-dramatic moments.
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Feb 8, 2019 22:32
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Incentivizing mechanics are fine, they just have to be for things you want players to do, instead of a situation where even the defenders of the system can name half a dozen completely incoherent (within the narrative) things that the XP system encourages you to do and their advice is "just don't do that, and slap your players down if they try!" I still don't see the problem then. I want my players taking Dramatic Failures as a way of signaling to me, "This could be more hosed up, and I want it to be more hosed up. Please turn the screw a little more." If I don't see a way where a Dramatic Failure escalates things in either the short-term or the long-term, I tell them the option isn't available. If I had a player who took every Dramatic Failure possible and went from Prince of the City to bloodhunted in the course of an evening, great! That is literally what they were asking for! That is an entirely valid arc for a chapter and entirely in keeping with the mood of the CoD.
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Feb 8, 2019 22:34
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Ferrinus posted:It may not be what you were asking for, but it is what you need. Virtues, vices, and the totally normal vicissitudes of a game story - stats, pre-existing character concepts, rivalries, challenges, alliances, whatever - are all enough to get player characters to take actions which look "stupid" from the outside. Again you presume to know what I need, and again are extremely patronizing. You're good at that. But you're right, Virtue and Vice mechanics do pull some of the weight of what I was asking. I was looking for something more, obviously, since those mechanics already exist. But I guess you got nothing else to offer. I personally would've said to look at Storypath's Momentum mechanics, as a starting point. They do about the same thing but replace XP with something closer to WP.
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Feb 8, 2019 22:35
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Barbed Tongues posted:I don't gain or lose anything, because the ST is already directed to judge each beat grant and not give them out at inappropriate or non-dramatic moments. Yes you did - you lost the attention, focus, and baseline trust it costs you to judge whether each and every beat is sufficiently appropriate, dramatic, or correctly-motivated enough. What if the rules weren't set up under the assumption that something that happens multiple times per scene might represent some kind of dishonest rules abuse such that it needs to be scrutinized? kaynorr posted:I still don't see the problem then. I want my players taking Dramatic Failures as a way of signaling to me, "This could be more hosed up, and I want it to be more hosed up. Please turn the screw a little more." If I don't see a way where a Dramatic Failure escalates things in either the short-term or the long-term, I tell them the option isn't available. If I had a player who took every Dramatic Failure possible and went from Prince of the City to bloodhunted in the course of an evening, great! That is literally what they were asking for! That is an entirely valid arc for a chapter and entirely in keeping with the mood of the CoD. That would be true if it were just a rule that a player could elect, at any time, to turn a failure into a dramatic failure. But, under the current rules, your player might be signaling one or both of two things: A) I want my character to get into trouble and B) I want XP. In some cases, they might actually be unhappy and annoyed that their character's increasingly inconvenienced and the story's becoming increasingly convoluted (as might you be, if it's bogging things down with problems and details you didn't really care to turn into the focus of the session), but, well, they got the XP. LimitedReagent posted:Again you presume to know what I need, and again are extremely patronizing. You're good at that. I'd have to look at Storypath again to be sure, but I'm pretty sure you're wrong. Momentum builds up as a consolation when you fail rolls, but the effect is to save you from long strings of failures, not to bribe you into taking long shots or otherwise making your situation worse. So if you've come to the conclusion that your players or player characters are too smart (?) and need to be incentivized to get into more trouble I don't think that's the way you want to go. But rather than trying to come up with increasingly weird and ephemeral bribes, you should examine your initial premises: what exactly is wrong with the way people are already playing? Sometimes it's sufficient to just remove something bad. If I propose to cure your cancer, you shouldn't immediately ask me what I'm going to replace it with.
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Feb 8, 2019 22:46
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Ferrinus posted:No, I think you are badly in need of my advice. FTFY. That's the most condescending attitude I've seen in awhile. Your arguments may be valid--and I say may, because I don't personally care what you think enough to read your posts all the way through at this point to find out what they are--but my god your approach to discussing them is absolutely toxic.
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Feb 8, 2019 23:05
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Ferrinus posted:I'd have to look at Storypath again to be sure, but I'm pretty sure you're wrong. Momentum builds up as a consolation when you fail rolls, but the effect is to save you from long strings of failures, not to bribe you into taking long shots or otherwise making your situation worse. So if you've come to the conclusion that your players or player characters are too smart (?) and need to be incentivized to get into more trouble I don't think that's the way you want to go. But rather than trying to come up with increasingly weird and ephemeral bribes, you should examine your initial premises: what exactly is wrong with the way people are already playing? Bad analogy, and you're analysing my supposed situation way too much, and again thinking you know anything about it or why I'm asking. It's amazing how you keep doing that. And Storypath as a starting point, not as a direct port over. Lots of similarities. Momentum is what you get when you resolve conditions, for example.
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Feb 8, 2019 23:12
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Ferrinus posted:Yes you did - you lost the attention, focus, and baseline trust it costs you to judge whether each and every beat is sufficiently appropriate, dramatic, or correctly-motivated enough. I don't see how it costs me any of that, and certainly not to any amount that would be noticeable among all the other plates an ST is expected to keep spinning, while still attending to the players.
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Feb 8, 2019 23:36
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Ferrinus posted:That would be true if it were just a rule that a player could elect, at any time, to turn a failure into a dramatic failure. But, under the current rules, your player might be signaling one or both of two things: A) I want my character to get into trouble and B) I want XP. In some cases, they might actually be unhappy and annoyed that their character's increasingly inconvenienced and the story's becoming increasingly convoluted (as might you be, if it's bogging things down with problems and details you didn't really care to turn into the focus of the session), but, well, they got the XP. Given that it's very clear and unambiguous what that Experience is costing you at the moment of the decision, I don't have a lot of sympathy for someone who is unhappy when they keep hitting the button that shocks them while it produces a treat. You do the thing, you get the consequence. Risk/reward mechanisms aren't for everyone (partially because the part of brain tasked with handling those decisions is such a little stinker), but from a design perspective they're extremely appropriate in a genre which includes numerous stories about people sacrificing things for power and said power was of surprisingly little help of getting them out of the hole they dug.
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Feb 8, 2019 23:55
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MollyMetroid posted:Thanks for all your help, Ferrinus! Don't mention it, buddy. LimitedReagent posted:Bad analogy, and you're analysing my supposed situation way too much, and again thinking you know anything about it or why I'm asking. It's amazing how you keep doing that. I mean, you're obviously being coy for the purpose of having an evergreen out of any concrete suggestion, but it's a fatal mistake on your part to imagine that concerns me. I know what you don't need, and a replacement for - rather than a flat deletion of - the behavior-gamifying aspect of the beat rules. Barbed Tongues posted:I don't see how it costs me any of that, and certainly not to any amount that would be noticeable among all the other plates an ST is expected to keep spinning, while still attending to the players. The very fact that you've already got a lot of plates spinning means that each further imposition on your time and judgment needs to be ruthlessly critiqued and strongly justified. Several times already you've pointed to or given examples of bad/abusive play that is definitely what you don't want and have to be on the lookout for... but it keeps turning out is that those could easily be examples of perfectly acceptable play instead. Imagine if that happened in-game, rather than in a hypothetical in this thread! It could lead to lost playtime, hurt feelings, etc. And over what? Some fractional XP? kaynorr posted:Given that it's very clear and unambiguous what that Experience is costing you at the moment of the decision, I don't have a lot of sympathy for someone who is unhappy when they keep hitting the button that shocks them while it produces a treat. You do the thing, you get the consequence. Well, no. But then, when your players end up unhappy, should anyone have sympathy for you, who actually sat them down and attached the electrodes to their wrists? It's all well and good to take a steely-eyed, conservative stance replete with They Knew What They Were Signing Up Fors and Shouldn't Of Been Standing Theres, but it doesn't really fly when we're discussing whether a system should include certain rules rather than how a player should interact with rules that just mandatorily exist for some reason. Either way, this really gives the lie to your "well, my player is asking for trouble so it's okay" stance from before - now it turns out that sometimes, players just deserve to have the game go a way they don't like because of their bad choices! As well, this isn't actually a risk/reward mechanism. Risk/reward mechanisms are like the ability to Ride the Wave in Vampire or add Reach and Factors to a spell in Mage - and they're replete across WoD game lines because, as you say, they're very thematically appropriate. But a player risks nothing if they're paid XP for putting their character in danger.
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Feb 9, 2019 00:13
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Storypath has conditions? Aww gently caress. Hope it’s better than CoD’s implementation. I’m so looking forward to Trinity and I want it to be good so bad.
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Feb 9, 2019 00:24
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MonsieurChoc posted:Storypath has conditions? Aww gently caress. Hope it’s better than CoD’s implementation. I’m so looking forward to Trinity and I want it to be good so bad. It's basically the same except you get Momentum for resolving them instead of anything to do with XP. They usually (iirc) put the condition right where the mechanics invoke it. In Scion at least, they're used for some status effects like blinded or grappled, representing injuries, as well as long term stuff like geasa or fated dooms.
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Feb 9, 2019 00:39
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Ferrinus posted:The very fact that you've already got a lot of plates spinning means that each further imposition on your time and judgment needs to be ruthlessly critiqued and strongly justified. Several times already you've pointed to or given examples of bad/abusive play that is definitely what you don't want and have to be on the lookout for... but it keeps turning out is that those could easily be examples of perfectly acceptable play instead. Imagine if that happened in-game, rather than in a hypothetical in this thread! It could lead to lost playtime, hurt feelings, etc. And over what? Some fractional XP? And I still think you are blowing things over to an absurd level. When I learned about redlining and trigger warnings, I incorporated those ideas into STing. I didn't immediately trip over myself and forgot how to spread the spotlight between players because my brain was too full. Yes, I'm going to take a few seconds to actually consider the question, when a character asks if they'd earned a beat, or if they'd resolved a condition, or whether a recent action fits under their Vice so can they get some willpower back. Most of the times it will be obvious immediately. Sometimes it will take a few beats to decide, or consulting the text. Rarely, but sometimes, it might be able to go both ways. In those cases if you don't want to spend more time on it, you go to your default, which for me sides with the player. And yes, context matters, dude, I really don't see how you can argue the opposite. An action in one circumstance might be okay, while that very same action in a different circumstance may not be okay at all. Like, have you heard of BDSM? Self Defense?
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Feb 9, 2019 00:41
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MonsieurChoc posted:Having to choose between XP and in-character goals IS NOT A GOOD CHOICE TO FORCE. This isn't what's happening; what's happening is that i am being rewarded for playing in a fun, engaging and dramatic way.
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Feb 9, 2019 00:43
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Barbed Tongues posted:And I still think you are blowing things over to an absurd level. When I learned about redlining and trigger warnings, I incorporated those ideas into STing. I didn't immediately trip over myself and forgot how to spread the spotlight between players because my brain was too full. Yes, I'm going to take a few seconds to actually consider the question, when a character asks if they'd earned a beat, or if they'd resolved a condition, or whether a recent action fits under their Vice so can they get some willpower back. Most of the times it will be obvious immediately. Sometimes it will take a few beats to decide, or consulting the text. Rarely, but sometimes, it might be able to go both ways. In those cases if you don't want to spend more time on it, you go to your default, which for me sides with the player. The reason you incorporated those into your STing is that they improve your game, and more specifically, they improve the level of trust your players have for you. On the other hand, defending the beat rules requires us to start jumping at shadows and shutting down "abusive" behavior, because people are supposed to want XP, but if they want it too much that's bad somehow. Magnusth posted:This isn't what's happening; what's happening is that i am being rewarded for playing in a fun, engaging and dramatic way. That's not really true, since you aren't rewarded for doing fun, engaging, and dramatic things which don't involve your character failing or being somehow inconvenienced or harmed.
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Feb 9, 2019 00:47
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Ferrinus posted:Well, no. But then, when your players end up unhappy, should anyone have sympathy for you, who actually sat them down and attached the electrodes to their wrists? It's all well and good to take a steely-eyed, conservative stance replete with They Knew What They Were Signing Up Fors and Shouldn't Of Been Standing Theres, but it doesn't really fly when we're discussing whether a system should include certain rules rather than how a player should interact with rules that just mandatorily exist for some reason. Part of a horror game is that you literally (metaphorically) want the electrodes on your wrists because that's where the emotional charge comes from! It's a genre convention that I don't think you're grokking in the context of the mechanic we're discussing. Ferrinus posted:Either way, this really gives the lie to your "well, my player is asking for trouble so it's okay" stance from before - now it turns out that sometimes, players just deserve to have the game go a way they don't like because of their bad choices! This entirely misses the player/character divide which stands out in horror. The game is going exactly the way the player wants, in the sense of added complications and desperation. It may not be how the character wants things to go, but author stance is pretty much required for horror gaming or you're going to have a bad time. If what you're looking for is the player's emotional track and beats to follow the character's, horror is not going to work because you're going to feel lovely and powerless much of the time - that's fine, there a huge number of games that cater to that experience! In wanting to be a horror game, Chronicles of Darkness is shooting for a different kind of experience where the character is going to have some real, real bad days and a certain amount of distance is necessary between the two for it to work. Dramatic Failure Beats reinforces that nicely.
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Feb 9, 2019 00:51
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Ferrinus posted:The reason you incorporated those into your STing is that they improve your game, and more specifically, they improve the level of trust your players have for you. So does the way I handle beats in my game, sir. We have talked about this very issue, and they like the system as we have been doing it, and do not want to do it the way you suggest. Though I admit I do not have telepathy, and they might just be lying to me. I suppose I have no way to judge. Ferrinus posted:On the other hand, defending the beat rules requires us to start jumping at shadows and shutting down "abusive" behavior, because people are supposed to want XP, but if they want it too much that's bad somehow. Please go to a bar, where people are encouraged to drink and spend, but not to the point of killing themselves or pissing away their rent money.
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Feb 9, 2019 01:00
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kaynorr posted:Part of a horror game is that you literally (metaphorically) want the electrodes on your wrists because that's where the emotional charge comes from! It's a genre convention that I don't think you're grokking in the context of the mechanic we're discussing. But now we loop back to your original mistake, where you tell me that if a player accepts a dramatic failure (or walks into some obviously avoidable condition by picking up a cursed weapon or drinking the sarcophagus juice or whatever), that's just them telling you that they want something terrible to happen to their character. But, they might actually be telling you that they want XP. They might, indeed, be unhappy that they have to subject their character to misfortune over and above what you and Storyteller have already set up - and which they've already bought into - to get that XP. And you tell me, what, they had it coming? It's good to treat them in this way in order to remold their stance as players? Barbed Tongues posted:So does the way I handle beats in my game, sir. We have talked about this very issue, and they like the system as we have been doing it, and do not want to do it the way you suggest. In fact, people are often encouraged to consume and spend to the point of ruining their own lives. That's how large chunks of our economy work. Anyway, I'm sure your group likes how beats work, or at least says it does. People frequently like, or at least take the path of least resistance vis-a-vis, poor mechanics. Obviously, though, there are other groups that seriously chafe at them. My guess is that your group would do fine just getting 2xp/sesh, but, like, who cares? You can find pretty much anyone who'll do anything for any reason and love every minute of it.
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Feb 9, 2019 01:09
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LimitedReagent posted:It's basically the same except you get Momentum for resolving them instead of anything to do with XP. They usually (iirc) put the condition right where the mechanics invoke it. I’ll see when my copies arrive. I didn’t get the pdf add-on so I’m stuck waiting for the hardcopies.
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Feb 9, 2019 01:15
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Ferrinus posted:In fact, people are often encouraged to consume and spend to the point of ruining their own lives. That's how large chunks of our economy work. Not by me, I think that's wrong. Ferrinus posted:Anyway, I'm sure your group likes how beats work, or at least says it does. People frequently like, or at least take the path of least resistance vis-a-vis, poor mechanics. Obviously, though, there are other groups that seriously chafe at them. My guess is that your group would do fine just getting 2xp/sesh, but, like, who cares? You can find pretty much anyone who'll do anything for any reason and love every minute of it. gently caress you.
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Feb 9, 2019 01:15
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Ferrinus posted:But now we loop back to your original mistake, where you tell me that if a player accepts a dramatic failure (or walks into some obviously avoidable condition by picking up a cursed weapon or drinking the sarcophagus juice or whatever), that's just them telling you that they want something terrible to happen to their character. There’s a lot of very smug posting about story games happening here. I’m glad I finally have someone to tell me what’s best for me in white wolf, because otherwise I’d have continued spending my time obliviously enjoying bad mechanics.
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Feb 9, 2019 01:46
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While we're all posting about how certain kinds of play or mechanics can potentially produce results nobody wants with degenerate interactions, Ferrinus is proving that forum discussion can do the same. e: Ultimately, I personally think a reasonable position might be to say that while Beats are not an ideal or perfect system, they do seem to be good enough at a number of things they are intended to do, and the players who like them think that removing them wholesale removes useful tools as well as removing certain potentially 'degenerate' outcomes. I personally find they work for my group, and do in fact do what they're supposed to do; it's not a question of the mechanical framework not producing the results it's intended to, or of us ignoring it. However, I can see how it could go wrong, and for that reason, it's imperfect and can be a problem for other groups. Assuming nobody invents a perfect solution to the imperfections of beats, and the choice is between yes-beats or no-beats, I am on the side of the system remaining but recognize why one could hold the opposite position. However, Ferrinus is being unbearably smug and advancing theories of play that ring hollow. Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Feb 9, 2019 |
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Feb 9, 2019 02:09
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Ferrinus posted:That's not really true, since you aren't rewarded for doing fun, engaging, and dramatic things which don't involve your character failing or being somehow inconvenienced or harmed. I mean, yes, you generally are? I'm most familiar with beats through mage where conditions, aspirations, obsessions all do just that?
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Feb 9, 2019 02:15
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IPlayVideoGames posted:There’s a lot of very smug posting about story games happening here. I’m glad I finally have someone to tell me what’s best for me in white wolf, because otherwise I’d have continued spending my time obliviously enjoying bad mechanics. I don't personally like "story games" as you call them, but I think the actual problem with WoD 2E is the sprinkling of story game elements onto a game chassis that's still very much about measuring who's smarter or stronger or more popular than whom in a very straightforward and simulation-y way. The result is a tension between the impulse to make decisions as your character ("What would Vlad do here to best pursue his aims?") and for your character ("What would be the funniest, coolest, or most dramatic thing to happen to Vlad through no fault of his own here?") that straddles IC and OOC concerns in a way that makes the supposed risk vs. reward dichotomy it presents an illusory ones. The system should stick to either offering in-character risk vs. reward dichotomies ("Should Vlad spend a point of Vitae here, increasing his odds of victory but leaving him closer to frenzy?") or offer OOC dichotomies ("This session, do you guys want to get into trouble or just see to your various IC relationships in a more relaxed mode?") that don't conflict with and frustrate peoples' attempts to roleplay. Magnusth posted:I mean, yes, you generally are? I'm most familiar with beats through mage where conditions, aspirations, obsessions all do just that? Where's my option to turn my character's normal success into an exceptional success in exchange for getting a beat?
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Feb 9, 2019 02:21
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Are we still doing songs that sound like they're about Awakening? Because I think this album might literally be about Mage The Awakening.
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Feb 9, 2019 02:36
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Ferrinus posted:I don't personally like "story games" as you call them Then why should anyone listen to your opinion on how to play one?
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Feb 9, 2019 02:42
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Ferrinus posted:Where's my option to turn my character's normal success into an exceptional success in exchange for getting a beat? you know, i usually like you, but right now, you really must be just willfully dense. 'easily resolving conflict' is the opposite of drama. 'actively engaging with conflict' is where drama comes from, you fool, you buffoon.
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Feb 9, 2019 02:49
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Again: are STS really not awarding beats for behavior that advances the plot or encourages character interaction? My players earn most of their beats because of good role playing. I'm the one who says, "hey, you want to turn this failure into a df?" And there have been times where they didn't want to. Reward good behavior, you get more good behavior.
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Feb 9, 2019 02:56
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Most people are capable of two things at once, such as 'wanting to play as my character' and 'wanting to occasionally not play my character optimally.' The last time we had this 'it's incoherent to have to juggle story and character ambition, they clash and how are players supposed to choose between the two!' position, Hyphz was putting it forward.
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Feb 9, 2019 03:08
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Mulva posted:Then why should anyone listen to your opinion on how to play one? CoD isn’t one. It’s more of a weird hybrid.
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Feb 9, 2019 04:28
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Magnusth posted:you know, i usually like you, but right now, you really must be just willfully dense. 'easily resolving conflict' is the opposite of drama. 'actively engaging with conflict' is where drama comes from, you fool, you buffoon. You'd be more likely to actively engage in conflict if you had exceptional successes in your pocket, and striking telling blows or delivering heartfelt speeches or having flashes of genius insight are all great ways to cause resounding consequences, move the story forward, alter the views of nearby NPCs, and generally heighten drama. And this would by no means be exclusive with banana peel beats, remember; as the author of my character's experiences, I could have them gently caress up and terribly flub things early and then come back with an incredible powerhouse roll, or start out strong but then tragically lose it all or whatever. As it stands, though, most beats come from losing, failing, or getting owned - most conditions (certainly the easy to get conditions) are negative, aspirations/obsessions could as easily be neutral or negative for your character rather than positive, etc. That's because a whole slew of beat-generating mechanics are designed with the assumption, explicitly stated by several defenders here, that people want their characters to do nothing but win, and need to be mollified when their characters lose - indeed, need to be taught to allow their characters to lose, as some would have it. So the implication is still that your character winning at stuff or avoiding misfortune is still a hot commodity, carefully rationed out by XP and random chance... but you only get all that XP if you don't care about your character winning at stuff or avoiding misfortune? MonsieurChoc posted:CoD isn’t one. It’s more of a weird hybrid. It's hardly even a hybrid!
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Feb 9, 2019 06:09
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Yeah, I’d be pretty hesitant to call something where the vast majority of it is just a traditional RPG a hybrid.
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Feb 9, 2019 16:37
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