nWoD 2.0 inter-sphere balance and mechanics
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This might not fall directly under "balance" mechanics but I'd rather not keep making nWoD 2.0 threads, so I'll stick this here.
I had some conversations lately about Beats and Conditions, and how far (or if) they've adopted by MU* cultures so far. It's a fair question as several existent games are using them at this point and even more upcoming ones are planning to.
Now, I'm less interested in whether it's a good system and more in how far the average player has been using it frequently. My limited perspective suggests, based on just those I hang out with, that relatively few people file for Beats - but it's entirely possibly many others do.
So that's my question - do you update your PCs' Conditions frequently? Do you file for Beats? If you happen to be staff, do you care to share a rough estimate of how many people are doing this compared to the rest of your playerbase?
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It's too soon to tell on Eldritch, to be fair. I hope people take an interest and allow Beats and Conditions to help drive their RP instead of seeing them as a hassle.
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Well, in all honesty, we see many more people fulfilling Aspirations than Conditions on Reno. I know in my personal RP, I tend to give out and take on conditions whenever I can, but I don't know how frequently folks are resolving them.
I'm a rodeo clown.
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Now, I think on SHH the XP policies have sold the Conditions/Beats system short since XP 'income' from +votes and PrP participation tends to be sufficient to cap one's advancement (due to its delayed spends) and thus ... well, there's no great need to resolve Conditions if you don't really want to. I can see a MUSH like Eldritch where advancement makes it mandatory to participate in Beats generation ending up with more people using it.
The question though is, is either approach superior to the other ? In other words, is it better to essentially make the system largely optional or is 'forcing' players to opt-in a good idea due to Conditions' integration in 2.0 in general? I'm wondering what y'all think about this.
The underlying issue is whether the playerbase's resistance to adopt this mechanic stems from game-culture inertia given the time frames we're discussing here or if it's something deeper than that.
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If you are playing 2nd Edition World of Darkness, you should be using beats, if not as the sole XP source then at least as a significant factor. They are an important part of the system, and so much of it is built around the reward of obtaining them.
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I think anything that fosters activity is better than anything that doesn't. I don't mean to say passive XP doesn't have a place in a large, presistant setting like a MU, or we wouldn't have it at Eldritch, but the more XP you're actually getting based on actions and RP, the better, IMO.
I dislike voting because it's just a bad way to make people actually RP and a great way to make people have large scenes where nothing happens. And the way SHH does it, with votes being a monthly-allotted thing, is just straight up bad bean counting. If it were weekly, for example, it would make more sense, since you wouldn't have run out of votes two weeks into the month and have to spend two weeks without any votes to give.
Then again, I am currently still super-duper vexed with the XP and XP spending policies on SHH, since no matter what I do, I won't be able to advance my character the way I want even though I have the XP already. But I've already discussed it with them, and they know my views on it.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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I'm of two minds on this.
For one yes, Beats, Conditions etc are all over the place in 2.0 so it seems like a good idea for something so deeply ingrained into the system to not be bypassed or used as a pure opt-in, or a lot of powers and their effects lose a lot of their utility. Plus I like the idea of being rewarded to lose or fail, since it seems to lead into a more collaborative kind of storytelling where fewer people will need to be the perfect snowflake who always comes back on top.
On the other hand... can we really call a system good if players don't like it? And I measure that by how they are actually making it part of their routine, not just liking it on general principle and on paper. Now, it might be because of the implementation (being too complex to apply for a Condition, taking too long for staff to handle its resolution, etc) but it could also indicate a more fundamental issue. Maybe it's too complex, or it could be the nWoD crowd just isn't willing to learn new things? I don't pretend to have the answer, but it's something to consider.
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If you desire a catch up mechanism, why not have a temporary Beat multiplier? That way passivity is not rewarded, but you can catch up,
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@RDC said:
I've yet to encounter people who just straight up don't like Conditions. I've had people not like specific conditions - in particular the Obsessed condition - but in general when STing and playing, I've had people be rather pleased at how Conditions work. Aspirations I think require some coaching to get people to understand how they work - too many people put too much into their Aspirations for them to be meaningful contributors of Beats, and a very very small minority make their so vague and meaningless that they can't help but be fulfilled by whatever you do next scene or so which defeats the point of using Aspirations as a way to drive cool, fun, goal-oriented RP.
I do think Conditions and Aspirations are under-utilized by a vast majority of players, but I think this is a lack of education and engagement, not lack of it being a good/enjoyable system. It's a teaching problem, and we gotta work on it.
The biggest complaints I have seen about some conditions are related to the name. And how some of the conditions designed to be imparted by specific supernatural powers have fairly generic names. That and the lack of variable Breaking Point conditions.
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I think that Beats and Conditions are awesome. They are so awesome that I am building them into my homebrew Mass Effect system. In fact, in that system, the best and easiest way to advance quickly is to resolve Conditions inflicted on you in battles or in scenes.
I really like them. However, I recognize that limiting XP gain or incentivizing resolving Conditions slants XP gain towards an activity-based system, to which I am ardently opposed.
Let people play how they wish. It's far more important to have storytellers entertaining the players than to get bogged down in whether or not a particular area of the system is underutilized or underappreciated.
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A hybrid system might work well though, @Ganymede. For example I'm optimistic about Eldritch's system where you get (for the first few months) half your XP automatically and the other half through activity-generated Beats.
Now, granted, after that the focus would increasingly lean toward the latter and that might become an issue for people who can't afford to play a lot, as they'll be outpaced more and more over time, but I think the system's heart is in the right place. Give something to everyone and a bonus to those who can be more involved.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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From my experience on Reno and Kingsmouth, beats, aspirations and conditions are all around awesome. I absolutely hate votes, for all the reasons that @Coin supplied. It's marginally better than 'activity' code that measure lines and post frequency, and definitively better than those systems that rely on reccs alone (which is just one big circle jerk of we're all awesome), but still a horrible mechanic. I will say that Aspirations need to be fluid; you're going to have to allow people to change them as circumstances dictate.
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The rule on Eldritch is basically that if within a week you haven't been able to fulfill an Aspiration, you can drop it and replace it, if you want.
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@Arkandel said:
Now, granted, after that the focus would increasingly lean toward the latter and that might become an issue for people who can't afford to play a lot, as they'll be outpaced more and more over time, but I think the system's heart is in the right place.
The system's heart is in providing a benefit to those who can plug more time into the game, regardless of what they bring to the game other than activity. I am sure the objective will be met.
Don't try to sell me on the idea that this is equitable for people who provide the sort of support to the player base that every game needs, but cannot sit around and RP for 7 to 8 hours a day.
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I'm a nerd and I listen to TT podcasts and one thing I've learned is that taking a beat for a dramatic failure is HILARIOUS!
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A +vote system is a false democracy that rewards people who can crank out RP even when that RP contains absolutely nothing of narrative value. Yay, your werewolf went to the MALL, +votes!
XP-by-pose was supposed to solve that conundrum, but really only shifts it, because it's still measuring quantity, not progress. Its only benefit is that it requires less processing by staff, and some would say that's no benefit at all.
These systems all reward the person who is more active, regardless of the type of system used.
However, if it is not possible to create a system that is fairer to people who have jobs or children or a simple love of taking long walks, at least beats reward taking risks and being progressive and proactive.
Honestly? I would do away with all automatic XP, and I mean all of it, except possibly nominations. All XP awards should be directly bestowed by the storytellers or disbursed through the beats system.
“Real magic can never be made by offering someone else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back.”
― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn -
There are many ways to implement XP systems and 'the best' approach always depends on the beholder's eye, for obvious reasons.
@Ganymede, I'm agreeing with you here, a system which scales the rewards with activity would be tilted toward people who have the luxury of investing a lot of hours into the game, and that's not right. A MU*'s lifeblood is in its casual players who log on a few times a week to have a scene, not those few who practically live there.
What I'm arguing is that a the hybrid system (such as, but IMHO not quite the one described here) does ensure that. Consider the following please?
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The amount of XP you earn through activity is capped. A player who logs on for 5 hours a day and one who gets to play for a couple of hours 2-3 times in a week would still hit the same weekly ceiling; what it incentivizes is consistency, not mere time investment.
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The advantage of Beats over automated pose counters (which I'm still fond of due to their impartiality and not adding to staff's workload) is that it's not how much but what you do that matters. Go to a bar to chat about the weather and it's going to be hard to justify resolving a Condition or the such. Someone would eventually make a frownie face at you.
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If done right, it places the emphasis on story; quite literally stories are where the game's carrots are, they're the best ways for mechanical advancement - which is exactly where they should be. Figure out a way to draw Storytellers and you're gold - which helps players without a ton of time immensely. I work a lot of hours so when I'm home in the evening the very worse thing I need is have to scavenge RP out of the blue, asking on channels and waiting to see who bites, possibly ending up in some pointless scene; compare that to an +event that starts at 20:30 which is guaranteed to come with a plot attached and man, I'm so there.
If I disagree with Eldritch's approach it's in the exact distribution of numbers but there's nothing to say I'm right and those guys are wrong. I think past the six months due to the XP cap versus the reduced automatic gains people with extra time would indeed begin to outpace the rest significantly - but that's not an issue with the system's philosophy overall, it's just figuring out the right figures to attach.
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@The-Tree-of-Woe said:
All XP awards should be directly bestowed by the storytellers or disbursed through the beats system.
The beats system is also shifted in favor of activity that has absolutely nothing of narrative value insofar as a meta-narrative is concerned. The beats system inures to the benefit of a given PC only.
It is more than possible to create a system that is fairer to people who have lives away from the game. It's simple, actually.
Staff becomes responsible for "chapters" or "episodes" in the game's life, wherein there are goals that must be met, by no one in particular. Once the goals are achieved, or the "chapter" completed, XP is awarded to the player base as a whole. There needs to be no particular mechanism for accomplishing the goals, but the mechanism may affect the amount of XP delivered. This system would work better on a smaller game.
If you don't want to get involved? That's fine -- no harm. If you do? That's great -- all the more power to you. At the end of the day, everyone gets the same reward, if not the same recognition for their role.
Notice how this is strangely similar to how XP Is doled out in a TT setting.
I have reviewed your system, and it still benefits the active over the casual. There's no avoiding that where you reward for beats and/or activity at any point.
This is not to say that your idea is a bad one, and I'm not saying that it should not be implemented. The admitted goal of Eldritch's system, if you'll recall the discussion in that thread, is to reward activity. Your system ameliorates that to an extent, but it still does the same at a slower rate.
And, in a dreadful stroke of irony, the system I'm brewing up also rewards activity. It has to because it implements a beats system too.
I appreciate the thought put into the hybrid, and the spirit in the effort. It's still not equitable, in my world of absolutes.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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Other than for the recognition factor, how is that different from simply automating gains, however? I.e. what's the difference between this approach and say, TR's when it comes to advancing through XP?
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
