This is the topic that I thought was at stake in the "Color as Rules" thread, but I'm going to start a new thread to discuss it directly.

There's a tendency in the design and understanding of games lately to try to quantify setting elements and adversity and character resources along a single general line. As some examples I would cite:

- The bad interpretation of CR in 3e (that it's a hard-coded description of monster toughness and that all encounters should have CRs roughly matching character levels) that some people seem naturally to drift to or assume even though not supported by the rulebooks shows that a lot of people tend naturally to drift their thinking this way.

- The Robin Laws game Rune tries to put point values on all adversity directly, restricting e.g. how terrain elements can be used in play to strict modifiers to specific types of roll. In Dying Earth Laws makes you pay full points for magic items you find after the adventure you get them is over (this fits the Cugel level, admittedly).

- Dogs in the Vineyard specifies all the NPC values and dice the GM can access in play, with one exception (posse sizes).

- Universalis makes you pay for setting elements etc. directly.

And there are many other examples. In some games this woks better than others; Universais for example is a game about setting/story creation from the ground up, without any GM, and so it makes sense to limit the currency for such things - it's way outside the realm of traditional RPGs.

Traditional RPGs do not restrict such currencies, and part of the role of the GM in a traditional RPG is to determine when a player action amounts to 'printing free money' in terms of the currency of the game and when it amounts to 'adding unpaid for adversity' on the GMs side.

You say "I jump off a cliff." The GM says, OK, take 20d6 damage, that's a big cliff. Doesn't need to pay 'adversity points' or whatever to deal the damage.

In a restricted currency game the GM might or might not be able to say that.

You say "I rewire the starship and fly it straight at the enemy soldiers." In a lot of games your character, if successful, will suddenly own a crazy-cool item, maybe way out of what he or she 'should' have at that level, with just one or two successful rolls. In a restricted currency game this might be denied ('just color if you didn't pay the points') or temporarily allowed in the name of realism (the Laws solution in DE) but then at the start of the next adventure you're mandated to have gambled it away or something.

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To me open currency is a big part of where the fun of gaming is, though not all. If you have open currency it's very likely that you need a GM to be your Ben Bernanke; this responsibility could be distributed among the group, but it would be hard to combine that with (a) immersion and (b) the sense of accomplishment that comes from overcoming challenges. Everything's possible of course, it just depends what you want to give up and how functional it is for a given gaming group.

However, if the GM has an unlimited license to print money for either side, he can't be in the game in the 'straight' way that the players might be. He does provide challenge, but he provides challenges that are interesting and appropriate for his players, for which the penalty for failure is only sometimes death, etc.

The main criticism of open currency games I've encountered is that they're 'unfair' or 'reduce everything to GM fiat'. One interesting point is that you often hear this criticism from self-professed 'narrativist' designers, but it's something that could only possibly be of any significance to someone with 'gamist' tendencies. Open currencies are surely a tool for story-building and for enabling player story-building as much as anything is. (Why have rules for when you can introduce the exotic love interest? Just introduce her if the player wants to start that kind of role-playing!)

There would be some validity to this criticism if GMs were 'in the game' like the other players are, but they're not. (Contrariwise, one selling point for Dogs in the Vineyard, which I think Vincent Baker rightly points out in the game, is that the GM can be 'all in' with the players when conflict time comes - she 'doesn't have to pull her punches- - just because of the restricted currency for adversity that the NPC rules set up. If that's something you want or want to try than restricted currency games like Rune or DitV make it more possible.)

So anyway, there's more to say, but that's enough to start the topic.

Neither restricted nor unlimited GM resources are the universal right way - it depends a lot on the priorities, goals and motivations of the participants.

Let me take my homebrew, as it is traditional and provides limited GM resources.
My reasoining behind that isn't that I hate dictatoric omnipotent GMs. (OK, I do, but a.) as I would end up most of the time as the GM as it is my own game and b.) no sane GM who sees unlimited resources as vital would pick up such a system in the first place, it isn't really part of the reasoning behind this design choice.)
The reasons I have are more these ones:
a.) I'm the most lazy GM between Tessin and Hamburg. I don't want to spend hours and hours of prep time while thinking about whether this dungeon should have 5, 10 or 50 orcs to provide a good challenge - I'll just take the points for the whole dungeon, buy as tough opposition as my budget allows and be happy with that. If there's a TPK my hasty prep doesn't carry part of the guilt, it's the system alone that carries part of the guilt.
b.) I'm a proud powergamer and tactician. In most games, players get only limited resources and are therefore allowed to go to the wall with them to win the session. GM has got unlimited resources and has to hold back, because it would be trivial to smash the PCs if he unleashed his full powers. That isn't satisfying for me with my preferences.
'kay, you can work around this problem by doing rocksteady prep and sticking absolutely to it, but to come up with your own limits for the prep is unnecessary additional work-load.
With limited resources, I can throw my whole weight into the ring and concentrate on my job of providing opposition and managing my resources, without additional house-ruling and without feeling guilty for abusing my power.

Does this work out for the world simulator or any other GM who isn't like me? Of course not. It isn't thought to work for them  in the first place - it is only thought to work for me, and is better tailored to fit my style of GMing.

I think that discussing this in terms of open or closed currency may lead down the wrong path, as the very concept of currency implies that things can be quantified, which they often cant. If you'd like to use the term I'd suggest referring to games that have a pervasive or universal currency, versus games that have limited or local currencies. E.g. GURPS has a currency in character generation and advancement. There's a completely separate (and much more vaguely visible) "currency" in a combat encounter, made up of opponents, hit points, etc.

So much for semantics. I do understand what you're saying, I'm just concerned about the mischief that will arise from of people overweighting the word "currency".

What do I have to say about the topic itself?

The idea of a universal or pervasive currency, however attractive in some quarters, is an illusion. You can't quantify everything. Dogs in the Vineyard may limit dice, but it doesn't quantify the situation or the allowable Raises. If you can consistently come up with Raises where Taking the Blow will be unacceptable not in terms of the Fallout Dice it will impose, but in terms of the effect it has on the narrative, you'll win every conflict. Conversely it's tempting to think that you "should" win every conflict on your terms if you have the dice, but in a conflict with lots of dice on both sides, the narration of the players can run out before dice do, especially if they're reluctant to do much more than "just talking". When this happens, the weaker side should probably just Give, but the rules don't arbitrate the decision--it gets pushed out to the social level.

I agree entirely that GM discretion (having the GM be the Chairman of the Fed) is key to my enjoyment of RPGs. Overemphasis on mechanical limitations to the GM, combined with an apparent assumption that the GM will go "all out" at all levels of the game (not just advocating for the monsters in a tactical encounter, but calling in every monster and trap in an effort to win) simply raises the question for me: why not a board game?

QuoteHowever, if the GM has an unlimited license to print money for either side, he can't be in the game in the 'straight' way that the players might be. He does provide challenge, but he provides challenges that are interesting and appropriate for his players, for which the penalty for failure is only sometimes death, etc.

In a broad sense this is true. If the GM has it in for you from the get-go, your character is doomed. But at a given scale the same no longer applies: once a challenge or conflict is "framed", the GM can go all-in. The trick then is who frames the conflicts, and what responsibilities they assume in framing. For example the GM may be responsible for creating a setting (or scenario) that's "tractable" to the PCs' capabilities, but that doesn't mean the GM has to pull punches in a particular encounter. Also, what mechanisms exist to "buffer" framing decisions from resolution? I doubt that CRs can precisely gauge the difficulty of an encounter if for no other reason than the variation in "special powers" across PC groups. Given this incalculability, as well as randomness and player skill, a "GM with a plan", who tries to stack the deck in favor of some preferred outcome, will be foiled a significant portion of the time. In order for the GM to enforce intentions, depending on the game, either the deck has to be stacked very heavily (basically, player agency has be nullified as they have no real informed choices about what they're getting themselves into), OR the GM has to fudge in the midst of a situation. In a nutshell, if the GM doesn't change the rules mid-game, and the players have access to information and real choices, the GM can be fairly unrestricted in setting up "the map".

QuoteThe main criticism of open currency games I've encountered is that they're 'unfair' or 'reduce everything to GM fiat'. One interesting point is that you often hear this criticism from self-professed 'narrativist' designers, but it's something that could only possibly be of any significance to someone with 'gamist' tendencies.

I think the reason for this is that "narrativists" are unable to restrain their impulse to "tell a story", and they project this tendency onto everyone else. Since "telling a story" is a form of power over the fiction, the narrativist school sees a need to regulate and apportion power by means of clear rules.

QuoteOpen currencies are surely a tool for story-building and for enabling player story-building as much as anything is. (Why have rules for when you can introduce the exotic love interest? Just introduce her if the player wants to start that kind of role-playing!)

In response to this, I think another reason in the narrativist school for wanting a "pervasive currency" is a residual need for a kind of immersion. Not necessarily character perspective/experiential immersion, but a sense of the fiction as an independent entity. While the craving for an interactive fictional dialog might in theory be achieved simply by having multiple players, it might be weakened by groupthink and social domination of the group by one individual.

QuoteThere would be some validity to this criticism if GMs were 'in the game' like the other players are, but they're not.

Certainly not universally, and as long as there's an asymmetric structure of responsibility, they can't be. Not even in Dogs. (E.g., the advice/responsibility to Escalate! Escalate! Escalate! falls on the GM, as does the role of tailoring towns and conflicts to the "issues" raised by how players respond in play.) But it's true that the game, by a reasonable reading, takes a lot of the burden of responsibility off the GM. (By e.g. having strict controls over the mechanical challenges--similar to what you'd have in D&D if the GM must design "scenarios" with fixed entry/exit points and an absolute limit on the total internal encounter level.)

Hey Calithena,

The two games that come to mind when you talk bout this kinda thing are Burning Wheel and Agon.

Burning Wheel's GM doesn't have to pay any kind of points to make a Troll Warlord attack the PC's.  It comes out of play or comes from the players' Beliefs.

Agon's rules are tight and strict concerning what a GM can throw out there and they make the island the PC's are doing their great deeds and earning glory on with points.  Looking at it, it is a whole lot like making a character.

And sometimes I feel like a nut and sometimes I don't.  I have had a whole lotta fun GMing both systems.

I'm not sure where Dogs fits into all of this and I've made and run a bunch of towns; I'd have to think about that, I reckon.

In my pet project Amoriste, all points in the game are ultimately part of the same currency, divided for the moment being between the attributes of the PCs, the environmental factors in the current situation and the hostile forces of the adversary. As far as the mechanics are concerned, all actions with any kind of a tangible effect somehow involve transferring those points ("roses") from one pool ("bouquets" for characters, "gardens" for scenes) to another. Everything else is mood and flavour.

Quote from: Skyrocka.) I'm the most lazy GM between Tessin and Hamburg. I don't want to spend hours and hours of prep time while thinking about whether this dungeon should have 5, 10 or 50 orcs to provide a good challenge - I'll just take the points for the whole dungeon, buy as tough opposition as my budget allows and be happy with that. If there's a TPK my hasty prep doesn't carry part of the guilt, it's the system alone that carries part of the guilt.

This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about in my last paragraph above. My only concern in terms of delivering an enjoyable game (i.e., divorced from any preconceived notions of an "RPG") is that having gone down this path, it would be most fun for me if all other details were equally sewn up, turning the whole thing into straight up competition: no responsibility on the part of the "dungeon/monster player" other than to try to win, and no question whatsoever on points of rules, sequence of play, or the legal moves available to a player on his turn. In short, a board game with a kind of point-buy scenario creation system, combined with character continuity. I have games that are in the ball park, but nothing exactly like that, so it'd be very welcome. (Agon? Rune? I'll take a look at them if I get a chance.)

My other reaction though might seem to come from the "world simulator" impulse, but that's not quite all of it. In a way it points up a divergence in approach to "challenge". You, Skyrock, are interested in providing appropriate challenges. I like the idea of "throwing something out there" (within reason) and then testing whether the player-characters can deal with it. Or how they deal with it. (They might bypass it.) As long as failure isn't disastrous on the social level--meaning it kills the campaign one way or another--I don't think the GM needs to worry all that much about scaling scenarios precisely to the PCs. The situation's too tough? Run away. Or die and make up new characters. Or don't go there in the first place.

Quote from: PakaBurning Wheel's GM doesn't have to pay any kind of points to make a Troll Warlord attack the PC's.  It comes out of play or comes from the players' Beliefs.[...]
I'm not sure where Dogs fits into all of this[...]

Which reminds me of something I wanted to bring up about buffering mechanisms. Dogs has very strong buffering mechanisms, something I'd like to see used in other games. Or at least available as a tool for the GM. The classic case is the "proactive NPC ambush". I'm sure we've all seen it: the PCs get into some sort of plot, and at some point the bad guys decide they're a threat and must be rubbed out.

At this point the GM with unlimited framing power has no guidance on how to handle the attack. In some games you might ask, why shouldn't the mob boss hire an assassin who's an expert sniper? Typically the best the GM can do is produce a set-piece ambush in the PCs base or somewhere "around town"--it gives the impression of an active NPC strategy, but it gives up most of the advantages of surprise.

What Dogs does, instead, is to allow the assassination attempt (there's an example of a dude sneaking up on a sleeping PC with an axe), but the situation is rolled into the normal conflict resolution mechanics so that the player has resources to expend to deflect the attack and segue into the aftermath. It's a metagame approach, of course, but I think it's preferable to either "make a perception roll or die" or the "set-piece melee as ambush".

Quote from: Elliot WilenI think that discussing this in terms of open or closed currency may lead down the wrong path,

Ding, winner!

If I understand you correctly, Cali, to my mind, to think of setting broadly conceived as "currency," which would then belong to one or two parties to varying degree, is already to slide down the gamey slope. It makes the setting the property of subjects, when the setting is actually an object that's no one's property.

Quote from: Elliot WilenThis is a perfect example of what I'm talking about in my last paragraph above. My only concern in terms of delivering an enjoyable game (i.e., divorced from any preconceived notions of an "RPG") is that having gone down this path, it would be most fun for me if all other details were equally sewn up, turning the whole thing into straight up competition: no responsibility on the part of the "dungeon/monster player" other than to try to win, and no question whatsoever on points of rules, sequence of play, or the legal moves available to a player on his turn. In short, a board game with a kind of point-buy scenario creation system, combined with character continuity.

This is about the approach my game tackles. Everything that is important for the mission of the week will get clear-cut and well defined options, difficulties and results, from information-gathering to reconnaissance to stealth to side-quests to obtain the needed IDs, keycards and badges for infiltration.
Still, there're some unavoidable or only with insane amounts of rules avoidable degrees of freedom challenge-wise (like exact dungeon layout or the dumbed down adventure design process for spontanous side-quests), and there'll certainly be the occasional ad-hoc decision as it comes up in traditional RPGs, and the tactical abilities of the GM would (and should!) play a significant role in the difficulty level. But otherwise I hope to achieve a system that provides a sufficiently neutral playground for pure opposition clash, without feeling as untraditional and abstract as Donjon or Rune.

Quote from: Elliot WilenI have games that are in the ball park, but nothing exactly like that, so it'd be very welcome.

Not in the near future. It's still alpha alpha alpha stage, and it's hard enough to come up with something like that when I write in my native tongue. I wouldn't make much progress in this stage if I had to maintain different language versions.
However, I might be able to come up with a rough translation for theRPGsite as soon as playtests and criticisms indicate a working and playable beta version. (I won't go to the Forge and TBP with that - I don't suppose there'll be much useful response for such a tactical game.)

Quote from: Elliot WilenMy other reaction though might seem to come from the "world simulator" impulse, but that's not quite all of it. In a way it points up a divergence in approach to "challenge". You, Skyrock, are interested in providing appropriate challenges. I like the idea of "throwing something out there" (within reason) and then testing whether the player-characters can deal with it. Or how they deal with it. (They might bypass it.)

It's not exactly like that. Look, one of my few beefs with D&D is the way how CRs work - not that there're CRs (it's always useful to know how tough a monster is without having to experience it first on the actual table), not that CRs keep way too tough opposition out (bad experiences with pet NPC wankery), but the fact that it's cancelling character improvement. All of a sudden, all the cannon fodder orcs gain a fighter level or come in higher numbers, meaning that your new level is meaningless and you're back to square one.

Difficulty pacing in my homebrew isn't tied to character improvement - it's tied to reputation and therefore the success streaks of the players, as they get more and more known for their capabilities and get more and more difficult (and well-paid) missions assigned. As they settle on a certain reputation level as they improve further, there might be piece of the cake adventures where they comfortably loot the whole dungeon. And then again there might come the sudden jump on the next reputation level, and they have to deal with a "run in, do the job and get the fuck out afterwards"-mission in the hope to survive long enough to improve far enough to stand a better chance. If it works how I imagine, there should be a regular up and down of difficulty in relativity to PC competence.

In addition, I mainly look on the whole adventure and how the little pieces interact with the adventure as a whole. The important thing is that there's at least one reasonable way to fulfill the primary objective and get away living. A red dragon in the introduction adventure for the lvl1 PCs is completely acceptable - if it's in a dungeon branch they don't have to visit, if they can avoid it by clever reconnaissance and search for an alternative route and if there is a manageable alternative route at all. They're still free to pull out the guns and assault it, but the resulting YASD is their fault.
I think it's a the way how every sane GM handles overpowered adversaries, but what I'll do is to hardcode it into the rules so I don't have to swap the referee hat and the villain hat all of the time.

To sum up, it's less the "level-appropriate difficulty level" I aim for - it's more the "externally determined difficulty level" I seek.

Cali:  I get what you're saying about letting people make things up without charging them for it.  After all, making things up is supposed to be a big part of the game, right?

There are strengths to both styles.  One of the values that I get from charging people to make stuff up is that it can help separate whim from desire.

My six year old (I'm not calling anyone a child, just pulling up an example that I deal with frequently) will often, often, often point at something in a store and say "I want that!"

He has an allowance, plus other sources of income (e.g. he's cute enough to charm ludicrous amounts of money out of people in exchange for clumsily pouring them lemonade), and so the answer to many of those requests is "If you want to spend your money for it then we'll come back."

Some times he insists we go get his money and come back.  Some times he does not.  This gives me (and him!) an easy way to distinguish how much he wants what he's asking for.

To reiterate:  There are other strengths to just giving people something without charging them for it.  Neither is better or worse, but they're different.  I point out this strength to the style of charging, simply because I've had several experiences with people who, never having tried a charge-for-fun system, hadn't thought about how it would refine the stuff added into the game to only the stuff people really want.  I hope it lights a light-bulb for someone.

Yeah, OK, fair enough about the terminology. The issue is about whether the introduction of play elements is subject to a currency or otherwise, I guess.

The thing that makes one want to call it all 'currency' is that any element introduced has some weight relative to other elements ('it's just color' is a decision to explicitly zero out its weight). On that model the GM is just printing money. But if you want to say, well, the money metaphor actually just breaks down for a significant level of open-ended make believe, that's fine too.

Tony - I totally agree that both approaches have strengths and weaknesses.

My two cents:

In world-simulation campaigns, the GM is also limited by the inner workings of the fantast-o-verse. Although there is no currency, there´s still no "license to print money".

Verisimilitude and Fantast-o-verse logic act as the Federal Reserve Bank, if you will.

Regarding standardized story-currency:

In some Thematic Games, there is meta-currency. I´m not sure if this is a bug or a feature, maybe someone can explain that to me.

Example:
In Spione, the conflict resolution phase is totally random. Power is dealt out at chance, without any modifiers. So, in the resolution phase, the guy(s) with the best poker cards decide. What you have to do, is meta-play the other players: You introduce elements and stage conflicts in a way, the other PLAYERS think are so awesome or inspiring, that they will let you have your way. This is not in the book, but it follows directly from the rules and setup of the game, it was an emergent feature in gameplay.
As it´s not codified, it´s sort of a black-market for currency.