New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics
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Over the summer, I watched as my daughters were introduced to Mafia (Werewolf) and fell in love with it. I know some folks enjoy the psychological aspects of the game (not knowing the 'enemy' or the sustainability of lying to avoid detection by the 'bad' side); but I noticed it was more the storytelling aspect that really drew them in. The addition of the game runner telling the story of something happening based on the mechanics really drew them in.
So, I sat down to ponder how to use some diceless mechanics over the summer months to emulate the social games such as Mafia or Diplomacy; funny enough, its been showing up in a few threads of late I noticed too, not related to MU*ing but its been showing up.
I also revisited a few diceless games, old and new, and settled on PACE.
In a nutshell, players take a 'fail' to gain points to use on 'successes' later. Deciding to take a fail leads to the RP and how they fail or what they do to fail to gain the points that they use later in the action parts. Simple balance mechanics. A few tweeks to emulate the GM pool of points for players to gain, putting it into the hands of players for self motivated PrP, or simple environmental challenges or NPCs. Coupled with a system of team/faction competition as a way to spend the points to gain achievements in theme; which goes right back to Mafia and Diplomacy. A social, interactive game, where one basically needs to convince others to let them fail or gain points somehow in which they then spend to gain those achievements.
At the heart of it, I'm a bit gamed out and am looking to put the 'socially interactive' and 'storytelling' back into MUSH. I enjoy mechanics and game play, I even still play MUDs from time to time.
In talking with another and describing this system, which includes optional buy-in for dice rolls for individual conflicts, it boiled down to social fluff games only for them. I wanted to poll for opinions and thoughts for this concept here.
Is a social interactive diceless style game of balances (fails during RP to get points to spend on wins in other situations) anything worth pursuing or a waste of my time?
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It sounds like it could have some great merit in social situations, but it would truly depend on how one fails and what the points are spent on. (Specifically)
It would also depend on the balance between fail:success. If big fails lead to big successes in the future, you might polarize the RP. Conversely, if big fails lead to moderate or minor successes, you may yet again polarize the RP.
It's always worth the effort to explore something like this. It could, honestly, become one of modules that many different games use for the social aspect of their RP.
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I should have been more specific, I just tend towards more words than ever needed. The fail to gain points to win later is the totality of the entire game, including physical, political, strategic fails and successes, not simply a social system. By social, I mean the 'MU' part of MU*, how players interact to tell stories and RP. Its similar to traditional diceless/systemless Comic Mu*s, everyone takes turns winning.
The system is intended as generic, suitable to multiple themes/genres. If others snag it for social only, that's fine, its in its infancy at the moment. This was my concern, I see it utilized for any situation and conflict; and not just social conflict. The other I was talking to only sees its utility for social fluff.
The system limits the level of fail to one static max, the max level of success depends on, simply enough, a couple numbers set during character generation. The balance between fail:success is standard or 1 point of success is equivalent to 1 point of fail in terms of scope, just bigger wins can be bought especially by groups of individuals (which plays back into faction/group conflicts and the necessity of spending points for wins).
I'll try to nutshell the overall system while trying to capitalize on space here (the basic system, not the more elaborate one I'm pondering as a MUSH mechanical system, for space purposes).
CG: players decide on two descriptive words for their character (dashing prince, daring rebel, lonesome pilot, zealot priest, reluctant scientist, etc. etc.). They have 7 points to distribute between these two words; dashing (3), prince (4).
Basis of play: if a player can apply one of their descriptive words to a situation, they gain 1 success. The Dashing Prince needs to incite the people to pay more taxes, he is rather Dashing and capable of convincing folks to pay a little more now for a tax break later. The story continues. How do they determine if it applies, they ask the other players in the scene; which is done on most places anyways, RP is going on, someone oocly asks 'hey, think I can roll X skill to see if I get anything from the Librarian' and consensus is reached somehow.
The numbers behind the words. The players need to gain points they can spend, the number represents the limit of additional successes. The Dashing Prince can easily get more taxes, but what about asking for more food to prepare for a coming siege, that might need 2 successes. Convince more to join the militia, 3 successes. Or convince that the first born son of every family should enter service, maybe that's 4 successes (the max they can buy, 1 auto success, plus 3 more points for having put 3 as the number of dashing the prince had in CG).
How to gain points: Take a loss somehow. To gain some points, the Dashing Prince decides to fail at keeping the Merchants Guild in check. They want import tax relief, and argue that less tax on import will bring more merchants, which will bring more spenders to get goods in the city, which leads to increase on taxable merchandise, so it ends up gaining more money for the city. Its decided this is a 2 point loss, because others will see him as being lenient on the causes he stands on somehow, so broader affect then a 1 point fail. He has automatic 1 success as prince. 0 is just a basic fail, no one notices, this drops to -1, a noticeable failure. The effect lingers a bit for RP purposes, but the Prince gained 2 points to spend later.
Direct conflict (PvP etc.); the Dashing Prince is at the feast, and wants to dance with the Lovely Duchess. But wait, the Daring Rebel is also after the Duchess. Instead of talking out this issue, they draw swords (Dashing vs Daring). Daring Rebel has no points, but succeeds in looking all daring and no one is cut by his sword on the sidelines. The Prince decided to burn his two points, so he has 3 successes, he probably jumps up on the feast table, kicks the turkey at the Rebel, swings from the chandelier and wins the duel.
Caveat: the 'loser' of any conflict decides the outcome of the fail to the winners satisfaction (the good form Jack, so the loser isn't disgraced or compromised on the issue). Secondary to this, taking the loss outright instead of trying to spend points is just an exchange, the Rebel gains 2 points spent by the Prince for use later (for his Daring escape from the prison guards probably). If they both spend points, the loser only gains the difference, the other points are eaten up.
Points potential. The primary means of gaining is failing now to win later. A secondary way is taking the loan now and failing later. The Rebel could of decided to take a loan, to have three points to spend to assure a win, and take the Duchess with him as he swings out of the window via the tapestry there. This earns a Mark though. Anyone who sees a Mark can 'force a fail', the Mark is visible. The limit to gaining points is the max fail is -3 (or 4 points gained) or the lowest CG word used (so making the (6)/(1) char has potential, but the 1 is a limit to other aspects of the system). Once the fail is forces, the Mark is removed and they can take out a loan again, but not while they are Marked
Groups and teams can join to spend points; Two politicians running for office, highest wins. Players vote by spending points and RP'ing support; the union boss spends his union points to convince others in the union to vote for Joe, the heroic police-chief spends points based on his heroics to recommend Valerie gets it. After a set time or whatever, the highest tally of points contributed succeeds. Or group joint effort, The Adventuring Party of Mr. Pink fights the dragon and needs 10 points, the fighter fights (max of 3), the wizard spells (max of 4), the healer supports with heals (max of 2), and the thief sets a trap to trip the dragon (max of 3), they have enough points between them to defeat the dragon.
Its simple, the MU* version I'm pondering includes environmental points for players to PrP with or offer challenges and scenarios as one-shots so that points trickle to the players, for them to spend on other situations or conflicts. The overall balance is limit on points that can be stored from fails, as well as keeping some system of challenges or group conflicts to face so that points are spent, not just accumulated. Also, the other limit is the OOC social aspect of RP'ing to get into situations to gain, spend or trade points and convincing others to 'give' points when there is faction/team based conflict (Diplomacy-like)
Sorry if I'm too verbose there.
Edit for spelling, grammar and to make some sense.
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You should integrate this with an AP system, to determine some sort of stacking bonus that is relevant to the theme of the world you're attempting to create.
My little project has NPC holdings that the player can buy as he builds up 'Reputation' points on the grid via each scene, with a trio of benefits from that single mechanic: extra XP build in a split fashion depending on a secondary point system, control of NPC tokens on the grid, and the ability to have a higher statistic base for skill rolls, as a Gamemaster.
That's just my abstract system, that plays into the traditional dice rolls. The basis of the mechanic is actually Dishonored, which this system in no way resembles past a basic set of statistics. So you take your basic stat set, and you morph it into something appropriate for your theme, MUSH purpose, and player dynamic. Mine are sci-fi crime saga, world building, and intrigue, respectively.
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I've just spent some time working on a mechanic that might help you, if you'd like I'm open to discussing it with you privately to see if it's something you're going for?
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I think this has potential. I like the idea of having to take a loss to gain points.
That said, let me get into this with my playtester's mentality: there are going to be players who want to take a fail in a private scene (tripping while dancing in private with their lover, say) in order to save up points to be awesome in public (defeating the dragon single-handed). This is a similar issue with noms--you can have tea parties until you're a combat badass.
To "solve" this, you might require that all points be gained and lost in GMed Events (player-run, Staff-run, all of the above). Then you could still have players picking up fails in "minor" player-run events to use wins in "major" staff-run events, but they would still at least all be public(ish). I think that the reason that a system like this works in TT, but not as well in a MU* is that everything in TT is 'public' in that all the players see it, while on a MU*, most things are only seen by a small fraction of the playerbase, so they have less impact.
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@NightAngel12 You're welcome to send it on PM, I think my e-mail is listed on my profile too.
@Seraphim73 :
That is a consideration that I've been pondering. It would be easy to code up a balance/ledger system of points exchange. But as you noted, what's to stop players from swapping out points in private to make gains. What I'm looking at is tracking two pools of points, the first is personal to the character, they fail to gain these. The second is story points, used as player-run challenges. A small gain here (1 a week, and 1 is a big number in the system), meant to feed to players through personal/player based RP for use in spending later.I completely agree, the balance in TT is everything is public. In the PACE system, there is a community pool of points to give out either way (to players, to GM even for the story side of things). The story points would be the compromise for a MU system, giving players the ability to utilize the environment or NPCs for other players. And it comes down to integrity, how many players would sit around just giving their story points away to help friends make gains. Not something anyone wants to monitor or require like logs for, that makes more work for something meant to be simple. Which leads to limits, allowing players to only keep up to X points (10?). Now the system is equipped to stop one person wins, those two numbers chosen at the beginning is the limit one can commit to a challenge or conflict; codewise, any 'conflict' started would manage overall contributions to limit how much one chips into victory.
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@Lotherio If you're looking at two pools anyhow, how about Storypoints and Plotpoints? Other players can give you Storypoints (or fractions of Storypoints, or however you want to handle the math) for taking a failure in any scene (they're given sort of like noms) and can be spent in any non-plot scene to gain a success. They can be used to effortlessly leap across to the balcony to kiss your lady love, but they can't be used to slay the dragon. Plotpoints, on the other hand, are given by GMs (player GMs provide a fraction of a point, Staff GMs provide whole points? Any GM provides whole points? Any GM provides a fractional point?) for failures during plot scenes, and can be spent on successes during plot-scenes.
That keeps all gains based on character actions, not sitting semi-active and gaining points weekly (I have no problem with weekly XP systems, because your character is theoretically training during that down-time, but weekly Wins are a little more troublesome to me), but also provides a divide between teatime losses (and wins) and chips-are-down-swords-are-up losses (and wins).
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@Seraphim73 said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:
They can be used to effortlessly leap across to the balcony to kiss your lady love, but they can't be used to slay the dragon.
Does anybody really need points to use in private scenes to jump across a balcony to kiss their love? I mean, this sort of thing is typically just RPed anyway 99% of the time. I would also worry about people taking a dive when it doesn't even matter to save up points for when they want to do something important.
But as a general idea I like the idea of a diceless sort of tradeoff system. I explored something like that for FS3 at one point. The devil's in the details.
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I came up with the following system concept and thought hey, might be cool to get some other points of view on it.
It's not fool proof (but then what system truly is?) but it might work well for the concept and can be modular for other games to use along with a dice based system for other things in their game.Gain, Loss, Pass
"Skills" are set by the game, they represent things your character can do. (Like those definition words mentioned above)
"Points" are the amount of a skill one has (chosen at chargen). Players have a pool of X points to spend on skills in chargen, and those are the skills set unless they spend time learning a new one.The above everyone likely understands already.
Gain - Actively choosing to fail at something compared to someone/thing else. Gains points up to the total of the skill + 1. (Sword skill is 5, cannot gain more than 6 total points during a scene even if more are spent by the winner)
Loss - Actively choosing to win at something compared to someone/thing else. Looses points spent to win, determined by difficulty of action prior to the action taking place. (Difficulty is 3, Sword skill is 6, only spend 3 to win.)
Pass - No action taken at all. Player's total points do not change compared to someone/thing else. Pass actions allow players to allocate points earned into skills or to improve a skill by 1. (Like spending xp, or preparing for battle)
cookie - RP reward for a good scene from other players. Players can give out 1 cookie per person per week. 1 cookie = 1 point for the player. Top cookie earners receive bonus points (optional)
Players then spend points and receive points during gameplay, but not all scenes need points to be spent. This system gives an incentive to still RP, even without using comparative scenarios, without unbalancing the game entirely. There will likely still be point hogs, but this should help keep them at a minimum.
Players can only Pass once before needing to Gain or Loss. So you can only use a Pass scene once, then you need to Gain or Loss at least once, before you can Pass again. This way, there's some merit to prep scenes the day or two before a big staff run scene (like killing a dragon).
GMs can set difficulties as needed and spent points disappear from players. So some players might work all week to earn up full skills to take on this weeks monster (or whatever big plot) and then have no points that they need to regain through normal RP the rest of the week after it. There's still advancement (GMs can decide on an appropriate amount of points to spend to go up by 1 in a skill), and there's a limit built in on how many points low skill players can earn from scenes with high skill players. (Sword 6 can only give at most 3 points to Sword 2, even if all 6 points are spent during the scene.) -
@faraday said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:
Does anybody really need points to use in private scenes to jump across a balcony to kiss their love?
Nope! Doesn't stop some people from rolling to see if they can (usually when they have a ton of dice and want to look schmoove with dice as well as pose, but occasionally because they have very few dice and want to see if the scene is going to change into 'tending the wounds of the overconfident idiot). (also, that would be jump across -to- a balcony... because yeah... jumping across a balcony is way underwhelming)
Totally get where you're coming from though. I just wanted to have some use for voluntary failures in non-plot scenes. Theoretically, these Storypoints could also be used in larger "social" scenes too, although I would stop short of them being used in any sort of PvP (again, the whole "tea parties to become a badass" problem).
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@Seraphim73 said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:
@faraday said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:
Does anybody really need points to use in private scenes to jump across a balcony to kiss their love?
Nope! Doesn't stop some people from rolling to see if they can (usually when they have a ton of dice and want to look schmoove with dice as well as pose, but occasionally because they have very few dice and want to see if the scene is going to change into 'tending the wounds of the overconfident idiot). (also, that would be jump across -to- a balcony... because yeah... jumping across a balcony is way underwhelming)
Totally get where you're coming from though. I just wanted to have some use for voluntary failures in non-plot scenes. Theoretically, these Storypoints could also be used in larger "social" scenes too, although I would stop short of them being used in any sort of PvP (again, the whole "tea parties to become a badass" problem).
This exactly is the one catch. In the system as proposed, what's to stop Rogue and Gambit from sitting in a private room, and just using the slowly gained story points to convert to character points to go out and be badass later?
One is the limit on how much they can spend (based on points assigned in CG, the max is 7 points between the two words, 6/1 is min max split, but the 1 creates other pitfalls and limits later), at any one time, a player may only spend up to 6 total points on a conflict, so 10 point dragon, they still need assistance either in direct fighting or support role characters.
The second is the sustained lie mentality, if the rest of the player base knows Rogue and Gambit TS and just give each other points, are they going to bring them into other plots? The OOC arranging of stories and plots to earn points from other players is part of the interactive play. An alternative is to require logs related to the points gained as evidence if the fails validate the successes to come or not, but paperwork nightmare potential.
The in-scene Story Points as votes mentioned above is a good point, if one sees something point gain worthy, and even if a player doesn't ask, they can be optional voted over to help the other player for the enjoyment of the RP and the pose.
In the original idea, the Story Points gained are intended to transfer to Character Points to fuel successes and spends for bigger challenges, does the transfer need to be legitimized plot-wise to validate it, or leave the fun of the transfer in the hands of the players. Even if they do awkward social failures to gain points to spend later on bad-assay, the actual 'training' could be assumed to be between the scenes; that and other players will elect not to play with character or condone the behavior?
The duality of PrP points vs GM Plot points is worth considering too. I'm enjoying reading the responses and definitely looking at the potential of tweaks recommended so far, thanks for input.
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I think the solution to the issue of people gaming the system in private is that the system can only be used in public scenes. Preferably all scenes would be logged so there is transparency in how points were earned.
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Since we're tossing around ideas (might be useful for the OP, or not)... When I explored a system like this for Diceless FS3, it went something like this:
Chargen works as normal, getting skills and attributes.
Your base performance is based on your
attr + skill +/- modifiers +/- a small random factor. The random factor introduces a tiny bit of variability without the "OMG I just rolled 11 dice and botched!" groan factor.So let's say Cate's 7 points in Pyramid entitles her to 1-2 auto successes, whereas Tavo's 11 points in Pyramid entitles him to 2-3 auto successes. Barring any special situational modifiers, Tavo will win or draw against Cate 100% of the time based solely on the auto successes.
You can buy additional successes with luck points. Say, 1 success per luck point, up to a max of your skill rating.
In combat, you could just run with your defaults, or you could spend a luck point to get, say, 3 points to split between attack, defense, and initiative. For example:
combat/luck 2=attack:3 defense:2 initiative:1would spend 2 luck points and give you 6 points to spread around. Luck points go further in combat just because there are so many dang rolls.To make it fair, luck points would just refresh for everyone evenly. Say, 10 per week or something. You might earn a couple extra bonus points as OOC rewards for cookies or running plots or whatever, but not enough to really tip the scales unfairly.
I hadn't worked in a mechanic to deliberately 'take a fall' because it seemed like it would be too easily abused in trivial situations. "I'm going to miss this Raider because I know 3 other people are shooting at it" or "I'm going to trip on the balcony because it's funny and I know there are no real consequences".
All of those numbers need to be balanced of course - they were just a first draft. But I do find the idea of making skill performance less variable appealing.
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@faraday said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:
All of those numbers need to be balanced of course - they were just a first draft. But I do find the idea of making skill performance less variable appealing.
That is useful @faraday, and FS3 always had that feel of some roots in Fudge to me.
Going right here to skills less variable. Is that a bad thing? The PACE system limit is the two descriptive words. Max is 7 points split between them. Shouldn't 6 win more than 4? The only requirement is negotiating with other player to have those points to spend (stemming from my initial interest of games like Mafia and Diplomacy which are fun, story driven, but oocly dependent on player to player interaction and collaboration vs numbers, stats, and randomizing effects). Through rp fail to gain points to spend on success is the basis. My biggest question/concern is, does it matter if two players just oocly transfer there vote points directly, do it in silly fails, or do it in combat fails? In the end the 6 should beat the 4 most of the time. There are ways to monitor as noted, from distinguishing PrP points vs GM points or auto loggers. But in the end social fluff vs combat fluff vs OOCly working the system, does the difference limit new player buy-in to such a system? Weighting the system to social vs combat vs GM involvement is tweeks that add complexity but gets away from simplicity of the initial concept too? Or does it?
I'm just a surge protector doing my job, sir.
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@Lotherio said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:
Going right here to skills less variable. Is that a bad thing?
I don't think it's bad at all for 6 to beat 4 most of the time. My problem actually is that with the vast majority of RPG systems (including FS3) ... that's not what happens. My character with 7 dice beat freaking everyone in a marksmanship contest on BSGU even though most had better skills than her. And while such flukes do happen occasionally in RL (David vs Goliath type upsets) they happen entirely too often in RPGs/MUs for my liking. Over 1000 rolls the 6 will win most of the time, as it should. But over the 3-4 rolls that happen within the course of a single contest? The dice are just fickle. Some systems are less fickle than others (D20 is particularly awful that way) but they all suffer from the same basic problem.
The PACE system limit is the two descriptive words.
If simple and fast is your goal, that's great. I'm not knocking it, it's just not my personal taste. Even if you never rolled a single stat, I think it's important to pause and think about what skills your character has and why. That goes beyond two words for me.
My biggest question/concern is, does it matter if two players just oocly transfer there vote points directly, do it in silly fails, or do it in combat fails?
It matters to me. It feels like unfairly gaming the system and going against the spirit of what you're trying to accomplish. If the idea is to reward failures by increasing the success on meaningful rolls, it should reward failures that matter, not "ha ha I tripped and spilled my drink, go me." But that's just IMHO. YMMV obviously.
FS3 always had that feel of some roots in Fudge to me.
Anecdote - FS3 only exists because I found the chargen and dice mechanics in FUDGE not quite to my liking. The initial version of +combat came from BSG:Pacifica, which used FUDGE.
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Self follow up.
In the transfer part of the fail for points, I envision the person failing writes a blurb that the other accepts as part of the code. Then, dependent on the level of failure the blurb shows in like finger notes for X amount of weeks. Like making a gossip but it's right on the person in the gossip. It is like a rumor, anyone can play off it. Whether it's red slap mark or social disgrace, fails carry weight in lingering effects others can see, use, hear about.
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@faraday said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:
The PACE system limit is the two descriptive words.
If simple and fast is your goal, that's great. I'm not knocking it, it's just not my personal taste.
This I'm good with, fast and simple, and it won't suit everyone's taste.
My biggest question/concern is, does it matter if two players just oocly transfer there vote points directly, do it in silly fails, or do it in combat fails?
It matters to me. It feels like unfairly gaming the system and going against the spirit of what you're trying to accomplish. If the idea is to reward failures by increasing the success on meaningful rolls, it should reward failures that matter, not "ha ha I tripped and spilled my drink, go me." But that's just IMHO. YMMV obviously.
Exactly what I'm after, opinions. This doesn't change fast and simple above. This does change buy-in and validation more broadly I feel. And the suggestions above to manage this vs free for all points grabbing is something to consider more so. As noted by @Seraphim73 it's only a minor shift in points tracking.
Another more direct solution is using the shown fail to stimulate rp. The gossip that remains can only be removed by valid point spent successses vs time to wear off; lose in a fight to win a fight later, social faux pas only is removed after equivalent social win. Already planning to track the fails already, not much more to making a win/loss sheet, easier to balance the ledger. Balance of win and loss is at the meat of the simplicity ... Or the everyone gets a turn to sparkle philosophy that most systemless places aim for.
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A follow-up after reading and digesting.
I like @Chet’s AP system, knowing what can be ‘bought’ in the game to contribute, from theme changing (world building) and the crime saga. In effect, the idea of team/faction conflict and using shared points to buy something in this new system I’m envisioning (and in PACE) represents this. One could have political vampires vs savvy werewolves competing for a chunk of the city and they have a set amount of time for players to pick a side and kick in points for a faction victory. Each player contributes only once up to the value of their highest stat, so they have time to gain points then use them on the team conditions. They role-play out how, why, who they are supporting; Vampire Bill uses his charismatic charm to control someone on county commissioners board, Wolf Ted doesn’t want the rival wolves to gain control, he and his friend spend points on brute intimidation of some of the kin of his rival which actually supports Bill, Wolf Tom is opposing Bill so he incites a panic somehow in the community so they voice opinions against the board, while Vampires Jones doesn’t like Bill and has direct conflict on the street with supporters of Bil. Come the end of the month, the highest points total gains control of the Theatre District or whatever. Any theme and its GM/storyteller should know what the stakes are, and without something to compete over between players, could be some stagnancy; unless GM really pushes PvE and does run dragons or cultist factions of NPCs for players to constantly run against that takes points burning to resolve.
That said, the consensus seems to be the ultimately a fair balance is that points gained must come from similar arenas in which points are spent by characters. The eye for an eye vs social disgrace for an eye. This takes out the dumb fighter constantly being humiliated by the social scientist to gain points to be a fighting badass, or the social scientist constantly losing in fights to turn around and make genius gadgets that offer other solutions to problems.
Solutions: @Seraphim73 points can only be gained in group events (PrP/GM’ed) and generally public scenes, not just two people in private point swapping story to character points while doing nothing or having tea parties; seconded by @Ominous. This is doable, I still want more trust in the hands of players for running PrP and NPC and one-shots/plots on the fly.
I mentioned the system having a way to display the losses for all to see publically and react to; when character A takes a fail, and character B takes a point, there is a code of give and accept where the failing character writes a blurb (John and Joe start a fight, Joe punches John in the jaw, others jump in before fight continues, 1 point to Joe for his public loss in the fight). People can see this for up to a week or so ICly and comment on the gossip, ask how Joe’s jaw is publically to show he took a beating, he could have a bruise for that time, etc. etc.
What if, the points gained linger until another player chooses to accept the points in a transfer and they choose from which point gain situations the points are drawn from? A GM in an event selects if there are points to accept from the player trying to buy the win. It would be a simple system of each open points gain having a number assigned tot, and the other drawing dawn form the list of available points the other character has (command accept points joe=#points/#gain1 #points/#gain2 etc.). It keeps the social aspect of convincing each other to transfer points back and forth, and leaves the quality of the points to determination of players in various situations; if all Joe has is social disgrace and goofy silly things, John doesn’t have to accept any of them in a fist fight, another person may see them more equal. It keeps subjectivity in the value of the stories?
Sorry, verbose again. I’m seeing that the balance isn’t so much the linger and lasting effects of the fail, but half as much the quality of the pratfall to gain the points especially if they can be used for physical contests and in PvP situations.
The tracking and use is malleable, I'm open for more opinions and potential solutions as well, I want others to have a buy-in to a fast/easy system rather than view it most applicable to social fluff and my ideas are probably not the best given my history of MU*ing is for the most part different than the average persons.
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Well... there could be less 'points' and more of an RP basis for everything.
Consider:
Jake and Amir are working together on a skit. Jake wants to take point, but so does Amir. So they discuss it ICly (vs OOCly) and Amir makes a good compromise offer. He'll let Jake take point this time and for the next skit, Jake will not only allow Amir to take point but also have some additional creative freedoms with the script to which he'll agree to without knowing what those will be.
So, without points, Jake's +finger (or similar) will have a quick blarb about the compromise. It notes that he's on point for the skit with "TITLE" listed and what he's agreed to. This, however, is something that he sets with Amir during the scene using something like: (Can be more than two involved)
Jake > command <Jake> <Amir> [<NameN>] <Text>
Amir > command/accept <Yes|No>
NameN > command/accept <Y|N>Set it up so that there's some sort of global notice that those involved have set something. Leave it to players to handle the ICC and require something like a +consent[/accept] for anything involving aggressive PvP (including non-ic consent TS situations, to which FtB will always be allowed by either party)
Then in larger, GM'd events you can allow players to set their two descriptive words, allocate their 7 points, and then play accordingly for that scene only. When it is a temporary instance handled with GM involvement, there's no gaming the system via private RP. As well, the GM can set up which descriptive words fit the situation at hand and players choose from that pool of words. This allows some players to switch it up a little, one time they're the 'dashing host' and the next time they're the 'timid party-goer'. Might add a little spice to big scenes. (Next to handle who gets to choose and when, I'm open to suggestions for that)
