New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics

@Seraphim73 said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:

I think this has potential. I like the idea of having to take a loss to gain points.

There's also a substantial pitfall. Who polices what qualifies as a point-gaining loss?

In the TT system, points are tracked visually for all to see. The point-gain losses originate by agreement from GM to the player playing out the loss.

The initial MU* idea is players have story points that act as environment that are used to give to players that take losses, like a +vote system in a way. Player can give points to each other which can be used to buy successes. Edit: Its a resource management system of limited points to give each other, that have other things to spend it on (conflicts between PCs, factions, territory gain, whatever resources it is that is at the heart of whatever theme/genre is chosen).

So, basically, the simple heart of the system is, your character can do what it can do (period). Randomization is removed, the exchange is in asking that player RP some form of loss to net a gain (an extra step above your character can do what it can do by saying go take a loss). It comes down to honor system really. Everyone can lie and swap points with friends or at frivolous tea parties in exchange for the fight they have later with other players. Which goes right to the games that inspired my want for such a system, Diplomacy and Mafia. More Mafia (Werewolf) as the stories and enjoyment my children had with these in light of hard fast rules of fairness was more at storytelling fun than rules mechanics.

Its the value and qualifying of the point exchange that seems the issue. In games like Mafia, the psychology of lying gets out and players learn how to spot liars, especially the longer they stay in the same group (or in MU*, well, word gets out quickly enough through OOC); part of the observation by the creator of the game (the Russian psychologist who created it for his psychology students and teaching).

@Seraphim73 's proposal was a police of the point-gain loss (or organized plots and GM'ed events gain valid points for anything, points in private between players are fluff points). I'm curious how insistent policing of points would be necessary versus the social aspect of players interacting with players (player to player social interactions and politics versus the hard mechanics of the system).

ThatGuyThere

@Sunny said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:

@Lithium

'On point' means to take the lead.

Depends on the context for example I most often hear it used as:
on point:
to be perfect; to satisfy; whatever it was, it met the person's standards
I am scared this might be the only time my mind is in agreement with Urban Dictionary.

Sunny

@ThatGuyThere

Uh huh. And this was used as 'X takes point'.

Lithium

Ah, cool, misread it then since the discussion was talking about 'points' used to control scenes and such.

My bad.

Seraphim73

@Lotherio I'm responding to your response to my own proposal, but it seems that the rest of the thread is slightly derailed, so I'm just going to go with it.

I think that how much you police the system will depend on the players you have. If it's an invite-only game and you only bring onboard people you know and trust? I don't think you have to police it at all. If it's a wide-open game and anyone can join? I think you're going to get people who misuse the system pretty quickly if it's not policed from the start.

Then again, I recognize that as a game designer/runner I'm the type who would rather clamp down on all the things from the start, and allow looser restrictions as people prove they can handle them. That style isn't for everybody, I know.

Ganymede

@Lotherio said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:

So, basically, the simple heart of the system is, your character can do what it can do (period). Randomization is removed, the exchange is in asking that player RP some form of loss to net a gain (an extra step above your character can do what it can do by saying go take a loss). It comes down to honor system really. Everyone can lie and swap points with friends or at frivolous tea parties in exchange for the fight they have later with other players. Which goes right to the games that inspired my want for such a system, Diplomacy and Mafia.

I agree that this system would eliminate randomization, but it is dependent on an honor system. It can be easily broken.

A game like Diplomacy doesn't need an honor system because, well, it doesn't. Sure, there's no randomness in Diplomacy, but it is a game that rises and falls on the ability of people to convince others to do one thing or another. Although it is undoubtedly fair, Diplomacy favors the intelligent, cunning, and charismatic. (And it has been at least 20 years since I've fell out of the top 3 in any such game.)

I like a lot of what you're suggesting. In fact, this is what I was thinking about when considering my territory system. (Didn't we talk about it at some point too?) But I wouldn't want that system to replace the roleplaying system; I see it more as an add-on or mini-game.

Wouldn't mind seeing how the system works in practice.

Lotherio

@Seraphim73 & @Ganymede
I completely agree with this, it can be exploited for gains. I am not set with the flow of points mechanisms, and if some measure of policing/control of the points gain is a measure to be taken now to give some incentive as a buy-in for others to try the system later, it is definitely worth considering. I do want to give it some practices, its not code-heavy mechanics wise, just want to see more of the criticisms like that, the potential to be broken and exploited.

The bigger buy-in is the stat-lite near system less approach I imagine, and I don’t want to change that part. I’m taking like 20 steps back with the philosophy, MUSH is aimed at storytelling for me, I come from the time when MUSHes were mostly system less and used the honor system. If a player wanted more players to play with, they learned to take falls and let others shine around them, they took turns in the spotlight. Its just a slight step up from that by putting in a few easily shifting points.

As for the honor system, it can be easily broken, but is it broken? Ultimately I’m looking at the end result of point spends and rewards. There was a quick mention of resource gain/loss system that we had @Ganymede, a few broad areas of resources. I loved the simplicity of it, it boiled down to Catan in a way for me. While most people will look at PvP potential and how points are gained and used, I’m looking at faction and group conflict overall as the bigger spends and collection of the points that go out, a way to bring them in for balance. Between players, its an agreement to exchange points, the spend for those gains is faction conflicts and group challenges for the rewards those bring.

I’ll use an example to maybe help a little. Lets say its Vampire Politics setting, nearly the same concept as WoD. Clan 1 and Clan 2 want a certain parcel of land for their private use. New zoning laws have increased herd potentials here, or some misty artifact lures in gnomes who have the bestest blood ever, has happened. Both Clans intend to compete for it. So there is a big faction conflict here, some time limit is chosen (4 weeks), at the end of that time, the side with the most points spent on the goal wins. Each side now has to figure out: 1) How to get the most points to their clan from other players so each member can contribute; 2) How to convince other allies and groups to contribute as well if possible; 3) How to harangue the opposition to get them to not have points to contribute; or 4) Just give up cause too much work and they don’t want to play.

While in the end, its having the points gained from playing at the system, all that politicking is very much a Diplomacy game to me and will require trust and interaction OOCly. Yes, it comes down to honor system for how points are gained, but the secondary affect would hopefully be the story creation that is generated from it for RP potential. If they get support from politicians in approving their members for buying businesses or partnerships in the area, it should be played out and then politician Y chips in their Charming (4) points once they have those 4 points to the conflict resolution. Or if Vampire Brute is intimidating folks so they don’t support the other side, there is some RP (and log cause I enjoy reading, its why I play MU*s) relating to him kicking squatters in the pants to incite the somehow. Could easily be various spends in direct combat at various locations, the players are working to make the story more than some planned event I think in this case.

The points are sort of ephemeral for the point of reasoning out a story to explain the flow and use of them in some context, less in defining the RP. It comes with the potential for abuse, a group of players doing everything OOCly or through tea-party private RP (but sustainability of lies and cover, other players will realize and avoid, and staff can police this more easily as its sustained).

All that said, sorry again for verbose, if it can be better policed and tracked to ensure quality and merit in the way points are gained, which would help ensure more buy-in to what basically amounts to a point driven story telling system of play, I’m all for it. I am enjoying the suggestions so far too, just offering explanations and reasoning’s for going towards such a system. And indeed @Ganymede’s territory system is in part inspiration for looking abstractly at points to help spur some creativity, hopefully, two thumbs up to that system. I like @Seraphim73’s original ideas of GM generated points vs fluffy PC points that could be swapped at tea parties, I even more like the idea of the building of the trust, harder to net points to give around earlier but as trust is built, the flow increases. In the end max points would be very limited, much like the description points, to keep it locked down, but hopefully spending would be enough that its hard to keep up with where to spend them so no one is sitting and banking points.

Ganymede

@Lotherio said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:

I’ll use an example to maybe help a little. Lets say its Vampire Politics setting, nearly the same concept as WoD. Clan 1 and Clan 2 want a certain parcel of land for their private use. New zoning laws have increased herd potentials here, or some misty artifact lures in gnomes who have the bestest blood ever, has happened. Both Clans intend to compete for it. So there is a big faction conflict here, some time limit is chosen (4 weeks), at the end of that time, the side with the most points spent on the goal wins. Each side now has to figure out: 1) How to get the most points to their clan from other players so each member can contribute; 2) How to convince other allies and groups to contribute as well if possible; 3) How to harangue the opposition to get them to not have points to contribute; or 4) Just give up cause too much work and they don’t want to play.

I'm going to focus here for just a second.

In real life, yes, you would worry about the location of territory. This is important. But we're in a virtual world when we MU*, so we can think outside of that. Further, territory is kind of ephemeral: even if the administrative staff at a school doesn't have physical boundaries for it, there is no doubt that their "territory" is the school office, where they reign supreme. But their authority only extends as there is a need for what they provide.

Similarly, politics is only necessary because of resource scarcity -- or need. If everyone had the ability to take care of everything they wanted to with their resources, there would be no logical need for conflict (even if there might be some sort of metaphysical or emotional need for conflict). So, everything, systemically boils down to resources.

The same goes for vampire politics. In oWoD, the Nosferatu have power despite having few territorial holdings because they have secrets and information. In the politics of truth, they reign supreme. But they may not have the sort of territory that we commonly associated with turf wars; in those situations, the Nosferatu may be at a disadvantage, but they have a resource everyone wants.

Enough preamble. Your questions.

(1) How do you get make it so each member can contribute?

Easy: allow everyone to have territory. Feasibly, a vampire cannot hold anything but a single block or two alone, but they could do that, and, maybe, there's something on that block that everyone needs. Example, a city that relies on a single power plant sitting in Mary Malkavian's block; don't get on her bad side, or she'll drop your entire power grid long enough to ruin your annual fundraiser at your art museum, Tilly Toreador.

(2) How to convince other allies and groups to contribute as well if possible?

Because sometimes holding your little territory isn't good enough. Maybe Mikey Malkavian decides to join Mary, and help her patrol her block or expand it. By contributing time and effort towards it, maybe he can improve its defenses, its amenities, etc. Or maybe Mary needs Gary Gangrel to tend to the mortal population in her area, so that they have enough resources to live and expand, thus keeping the "herd" together for Mary and her minions to feed on.

There are roles in every territory to be delegated.

(3) How to harangue the opposition?

If you want to encourage PvP conflict, then this should be a simple process that isn't so deleterious so as to make someone lose a massive amount of investment. For example, let's say that Tilly Toreador's art museum throws off a point of Art Influence every week, but she pisses off Victor Ventrue. Victor might take an action to "tap" the art museum, and cut off that flow for a week. Tilly doesn't lose the art museum, which she probably took a long time to build up, but it is useless as long as Victor taking actions to keep it under thumb.

(4) Just give up cause too much work and they don’t want to play.

It's impossible to force people to play when they are stressed. But maybe people don't want to play the political game, or maybe they just want to be like Mikey Malkavian, supporting others. Make sure your "Action Points" can be devoted to other things.

Just some thoughts here, really. Yeah, I've been thinking about this.

Lotherio

@Ganymede

Exactly all this, sans a mechanic to control each. Sorry, it was less questions vs offering options, the more options and creativity the better I'd hope. Its in the hands of the players to decide any approach they find feasible. Its up to them to role-play that out and, in the end, take their gained character points and spend them by contributing to a resource pool in which the biggest spender wins and sets the rules of territory and such.

Determining the nature of the reward and the context of a big conflict or challenge plays at the genre selected.

If its Space Opera game, and two players want to race for the rare Quantonium, how do they hire crew or helpers (basically convince others to support their side)? Racer 1 wants a faster ship, RP's with mechanic Joe on Planet X, Joe throws some points up to his mechanic (3) description. Racer 2 is more a corporation, so he has to figure out the price to buy the contract on Buck Solo, the Ace (2) Pilot (5), so that Ace can kick in 5 points to his side by piloting the ship, doing some fun asteroid navigation scenes at some point (heck, even taking a few bangs to the ship in 'fails' to gain the points to spend, and their on-board mechanic risks their neck to repair the quantom drive, one point the air hose being bumped off by debris (a loss to gain repair points for that moment)).

What if its Horse Opera high noon showdown come next monday. The kid needs to take some punches from Biff O'Bannon, to spend his points on spiffy duds to help for his part, Doc McSmith is awkward with the lady, but it nets him some points, he comes up with using an iron boiler plate as armor against Biff's weapons. Biff steals the guns from the snake oil merchant.

These conflicts are where points are ultimately spent in direct roles or in support roles. All the politics (OOCly, the social interactive part of the social interactive medium) is used to convince players to play out parts and story on one side or the other that leads to the points being spent on winning or losing.

Edit: This leads to the exploitation or abuse side as noted though, what's to stop OOC group Y from manipulating enough to just transfer points and try to buy the win (GM control of points, public listing of points gained/lost, log requirements, etc), and how much police'ing should be done before potential exploitation vs afterwards (hey staff, Rogue and Gambit never RP, but everytime there is an X-men Team throw down, they are always full of points ...)

Seraphim73

@Lotherio said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:

hey staff, Rogue and Gambit never RP, but everytime there is an X-men Team throw down, they are always full of points ...

Yeah, this is exactly what my concerns/suggestions have been working on. I think there are great ways to let everyone contribute something toward a group effort (you've shown several of them neatly), but my concern (because I'm a wary staffer when I staff) is that when you announce that everyone has 4 weeks to get their points in to secure X Territory or to run the Space Race, both sides then just splinter up into their little groups and run lots of microfailures to gain points, and slap them down to let their side win. Or, if you're watching out for masses of new points showing up, they pad their ledgers between challenges with "Oh no, I spilled tea -all- over myself at this tea party" (yes, I'm purposefully being hyperbolic, it could even be "I got sucker punched at this random bar fight" for a less ridiculous example), and then, as you noted, slap down a metric boatload of points when the challenge comes up.

Unfortunately, the easiest ways to police that behavior (if you decide to do so) in my opinion are to either separate point pools (plot and fluff), or to only allow the "plot" type points. Certainly, you could have Staffers going over every "fail" report and allowing it (and probably posting it somewhere public as a result, so that everyone on-grid can react to it and the failure can actually have teeth) or disallowing it for not being "fail-y enough."

I keep harping on this, but I'm trying to work through to a solution that I like too, mostly because it's an interesting system, and I'm interested in seeing it work. I think that @Ganymede has had some very good suggestions too, particularly allowing points to be used for support/suppression/etc, other things than just direct influence.

bored

@Seraphim73 said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:

@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.

FWIW, there was a brief period where I was flirting with (and even wrote +sheets etc for) a FATE game (I know, I shit talk it to hell now, but I really loved the stress/consequence mechanic) and I had a plan to do exactly this with FATE points since they serve this same function. Basically there'd be an unmonitored FATE economy for any random interplayer storytelling, and then separate and a more staff-curated version for major metaplot usage and the like (maybe called Destiny or whatever).

They also had different time scales, because FATE assumes you getting refreshes fairly often, but also a consistent TT timetable of scenes, game sessions, and stories. The GM points were going to refresh more on the scale of weeks and months so that their usage wouldn't be frivolous and that compels (basically the mechanic by which you 'lose' to get more points in) in GM scenes would be really valuable and attractive to players.

So yeah, I highly endorse this kind of approach and think it would be necessary.

Lotherio

A few quick things from my perspective.

I'm looking at an opening up of control, harping back to earlier days in MUSH'ing specifically, not MU*ing in general. I'm reluctant on GM points for several reasons.

First, it mandates staff must run lots of plot to feed points to the players and run the secondary plots to take in the points in spends. Most places when staff starts running regular events, it tends to reduce non-staff RP and plots, or management code to track all of this, increasing complexity of knowing the code for players and staff monitoring in some context. It also encourage the sandbox mentality for players who can't get into staff plots for various reasons.

Two, it creates hurdles to RP by making official points staff only, and leaving player only as a sort of fluff. Is a player run bar scene with sucker punches less valid than a staff run bar scene.

Also on meta, I'm not a fan of heavily directed staff run meta. It leads directly to the complaints that we see on this; staff favorites, limited connectivity for player base to times staff run things, a finite beginning and end even with story arcs. I have never participated in staff meta plot, once this starts happening and the only value is staff run plot and meta, most players gravitate towards that. The staff plots and events attract players, who ignore Joe's plot even though Joe's plot could be a damn fun story.

Is there a compromise to validation of points entering the system without heavy handed staff involvement. The situations I provided, the space race, the shoot out, the territory control. I see those as easily player motivated and initiated without staff involvement. Are player votes just discouraged? It reads as staff shouldn't trust players, vs staff can trust players until proven otherwise (and then police)?

Lotherio

I'm leaning towards GM story points and separate PrP points, just curious if there is middle ground based on what I just wrote.

Sunny

@Lotherio

How about something for pre-approved PRPs? Like, if you run just a pick up scene or whatnot, it goes in the 'regular' pool. But like, allow for official GM points to be gained if either A- staff run as part of staff duties, or B- Pre-approved and meeting X and Y criteria. It's a little staff overhead, but a summary of a PRP (keep what you want short!) is way easier to review than a log is, and doing it this way keeps PRPs relevant.

ETA: Bonus, it encourages people to submit writeups WITHOUT requiring them.

ETA2: All the words are important.

Lotherio

What if points were weighted and monitored?

The plan already includes the automatic gossip from the points transfer that can be played out. Thus if someone takes a 1 point sucker punch in a bar before security jumps in, or a 1 point social disgrace at a party (more than ops I spilled my tea on my shirt reaching for the coffee cake; I imagine a social disgrace at a party for even just one point is like the cheerleader putting the nerd in their place for showing up at cool kid party and it going out on twitter), the act is listed in finger notes or some place visible. Just a one line blurb, 'At club eXtasy, Joe was knocked down by John and left stunned, black eye for one week.' And others can react to it to lengthen the effect of the fail; 1 points is one week of lingering affect. Everyone can say the usual stuff 'nice shiner' 'hate to see the other guy, har har' 'who cleaned your clock' 'etc', it should stimulate more RP (again the Gambit Rogue TS scenario can abuse this if they stay locked up for a week at a time; and this will require staff policing, but policing requires players reporting too). It, the failure, has to be shown that it quantified its value which plays into monitoring by both peer group and staff as police.

This can be furthered, PrP points can be of less value (4:1 max, 2:1 if being nice, but less value than a staff or event generated fail point). I like the idea of quick blurbs that can be submitted and coupled with @Sunny 's idea, the weight can be heavier, up to 1:1 with GM points for approved PrPs.

Secondary to this, the exchange of points can be monitored. Joe writes the blurb for points transfer, the system can calculate the weight, John has to appove it (the loser determines the outcome, to the winners satisfaction); once accepted by John, it needs a third approval from staff even when weighted?