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Author Topic: My thoughts about reward mechanics  (Read 6296 times)

John Morrow

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My thoughts about reward mechanics
« Reply #30 on: November 23, 2007, 10:18:21 AM »
Quote from: Kyle Aaron
I can't decide whether his "nobody gets anything" is worse than that, "but why don't we all just get the same xp?" nonsense.

It's bloody communism, is what it is.


So you actually wants your players competing with each other and the GM for experience points rewarded at the game level and some players losing out because their idea of a fun game doesn't match what the GM rewards?
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John Morrow

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My thoughts about reward mechanics
« Reply #31 on: November 23, 2007, 10:19:49 AM »
Quote from: Kyle Aaron
Lots of gamers speak against xp. I've never seen anyone yet refuse it.


One of the people that I play with generally creates the character that he wants to play from the beginning and isn't eager to apply XP to his characters.  He often winds up sitting on a large pile of them by the end of the campaign because he usually only spends them when other players encourage him to.
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alexandro

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My thoughts about reward mechanics
« Reply #32 on: November 25, 2007, 11:45:03 AM »
Quote from: Skyrock
While I'm not entirely agreeing with Geezer, I don't think his XP rewards _have_ to be for things in the past - it _might_ also be that he gives XP on the spot rather than bundled on the end of the adventure.

This is also the past (as the action already happened).

I agree with Greg Costikyan in the respect, that a player must be able to judge to some degree what he is rewarded for and to base his decisions on it, or it doesn't really affect his behavior. The player has to know to some degree what assumptions the GM is basing his decisions upon.

Quote
Information
[...]
Say you've got a computer wargame in which weather affects movement and defense. If you don't tell the player that weather has an effect, what good is it? It won't affect the player's behavior; it won't affect his decisions.

Or maybe you tell him weather has an effect, but the player has no way of telling whether it's raining or snowing or what at any given time. Again, what good is that?

Or maybe he can tell, and he does know, but he has no idea what effect weather has -- maybe it cuts everyone's movement in half, or maybe it slows movement across fields to a crawl but does nothing to units moving along roads. This is better, but not a whole lot.

The interface must provide the player with relevant information. And he must have enough information to be able to make a sensible decision.

That isn't to say a player must know everything; hiding information can be very useful. It's quite reasonable to say, "you don't know just how strong your units are until they enter combat," but in this case, the player must have some idea of the range of possibilities. It's reasonable to say, "you don't know what card you'll get if you draw to an inside straight," but only if the player has some idea what the odds are. If I might draw the Queen of Hearts and might draw Death and might draw the Battleship Potemkin, I have absoutely no basis on which to make a decision.
[/SIZE]

Otherwise its like you scribbling some random words on a paper during an essay in class and you get an A+ and you're like "Kinda cool, I wish I knew how to do that again.", but can't because the next time you are judged by completely different criteria.

Getting XP is well and nice and no player is going to refuse those, but what the really like is not just stumbling into a situation where they get them, but knowing which direction to take to the reward.
Why do they call them "Random encounter tables" when there's nothing random about them? It's just the same stupid monsters over and over. You want random? Fine, make it really random. A hampstersaurus. A mucus salesman. A toenail golem. A troupe of fornicating clowns. David Hasselhoff. If your players don't start crying the moment you pick up the percent die, you're just babying them.

flyingmice

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My thoughts about reward mechanics
« Reply #33 on: November 25, 2007, 04:32:28 PM »
Quote from: Kyle Aaron
Games without xp: Amber, Traveller - by an amazing coincidence, these are games which, in comparison to games with xp, are much-admired but rarely-played.

Add StarCluster, Sweet Chariot, Cold Space, FTL Now, Book of Jalan, and Blood Games. By a strange coincidence, all games I write and publish. My In Harm's Way series has something resembling XP - notice points - but these are given in character, have no rigid protocol for giving, and do not affect the character's skills, HP, or abilities in any way, as they are applied to promotion within a military organization only. Again games which are rarely played, but I wouldn't say they are widely admired. They aren't widely anything. Now you know my opinion of reward mechanics.

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RPGPundit

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My thoughts about reward mechanics
« Reply #34 on: November 28, 2007, 10:42:49 PM »
Amber has probably got to be the most-played "small press" (or "Indie" if you like) game in the history of RPGs. Hell, as far as I know, only D&D has more game-specific Cons dedicated to it than Amber does. Check out how many campaign-log websites there are about Amber. Its stunning, particularly when you consider that there hasn't been a new product for the game in well over ten years.

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Kyle Aaron

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My thoughts about reward mechanics
« Reply #35 on: November 28, 2007, 11:17:07 PM »
Quote from: John Morrow
When I work at a company, generally the more structured, inflexible, and required the mechanism for rewards (e.g., awards, bonuses, raises), the less enjoyable the company is to work for and the more problems it has motivating employees.  
Roleplaying is a hobby, not a job. The reasons to do it are different, so the things which motivate a player during play will also be different.

Nor have I said that xp rewards ought to be structured and inflexible. I do think they should be structured rather than arbitrary and whimsical, to give the players some predictability in things, but they should not be structured and inflexible.
Quote from: John Morrow
So you actually wants your players competing with each other and the GM for experience points rewarded at the game level and some players losing out because their idea of a fun game doesn't match what the GM rewards?
The players aren't competing with each-other. Competitions are for games where one loses and another wins. There aren't a fixed pool of xp to be spread amongst the players which they have to fight for; it's quite possible for everyone to get lots, or everyone to get nothing.

If the players' idea of a fun game does not match the GM's, then that should be discussed within the group. When players get zero xp after a session, be sure that they will then start a discussion with the GM on what they enjoy. I don't see how the absence of xp, or the uniform awarding of them, would help this conversation along - if anything, it'd hinder it.
Quote from: John Morrow
One of the people that I play with generally creates the character that he wants to play from the beginning and isn't eager to apply XP to his characters. He often winds up sitting on a large pile of them by the end of the campaign because he usually only spends them when other players encourage him to.
That player is not refusing xp, they're simply not spending it. Have the GM say, "since you don't spend it, I won't give it to you anymore" and watch what happens. My instinct is that the player won't be content with that.

Lots of gamers speak against xp. I've never seen anyone yet refuse it.
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arminius

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My thoughts about reward mechanics
« Reply #36 on: November 29, 2007, 08:06:17 AM »
The entire family of BRP games, including Runequest and Call of Cthulhu, also have no XP. Same goes for Harnmaster. Characters in those games do improve, but the mechanic is entirely objective and and in-game.

I'm not finding Kyle very persuasive in this thread.

Melinglor

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My thoughts about reward mechanics
« Reply #37 on: December 03, 2007, 09:52:23 PM »
Ok, it seems like I should weigh in here as it's my thread and all, but I honestly feel like the thread's run away from me a bit. it dipped a bit into "the GM is law!" posturing, which is causing a lot of folks to miss the forest for one particular tree. To wit:

It's not all about the GM. The conversation here feels like this to me:

Me: "Hey, what different ways could you implement a reward mechanic?"

Some others: "Well, the GM could award points based on this, or reward them based on that. . ."

Me (and at least one other): ". . .uh, what about the GM not being the gatekeeper of rewards at all?"

GM-awarded EXP is one way to go, but not the only way. the game I originally references, The Shadow of Yesterday, has players award themselves EXP. So it's not "give me XP when you feel I've fulfilled this requirement," it's "I'll be taking XP when *I* feel I've fulfilled this requirement." Totally different dynamic. In Primetime Adventures, the players reward each other. In Dogs in the Vineyard, players are rewarded entirely systemically based on their choices. The same in, as Elliot points out, in the BRP system. And yet GM as XP-giver is being adopted in this thread as a default.

I guess I don't have much more to add. . .aside from highlighting that disconnect, I'm pretty much done unless someone has any insight to add, orcan, as the OP asked,point me to a reward system besides TSoY's that provides the goal-pursuing flexibility I like (BRP goes partway toward this--use a skill,see improvement, reinforcing that skill use in the future--but doesn't have much to do with non-skill based goals).

Peace,
-Joel
 

Spike

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My thoughts about reward mechanics
« Reply #38 on: December 05, 2007, 02:31:36 PM »
Melingor: I'm going to just skip over all the responses in this thread. Okay, I skimmed them but that's my business.

Anyway, to address your OP directly:

I think this is a mistaken perspective in the current state of Gaming. My library is huge, I've many games from many eras of gaming and I can tell you that awarding XP for kills on an individual basis is a dying, if not actually dead, model.  Some archeologists looking for 'old skool' flavor may be trying to assemble museum peice games that still do that, but damnit all if even D&D didn't drop it like a hot rock with the 3E stuff.

Your OP sounds like something dug out of an archive from the early nineties on some LAN server or something.  

More: I have never seen any GM... EVER... take the time to compute xp on a per character basis. The 'Party' kills a dozen goblins, the party splits a dozen goblins worth of xp. I don't doubt that there were GMs who were anal beancounter assholes who DID do it on a swing by swing basis, but... ugh.

Maybe I gamed in some sort of utopian bubble of group XP, and played doomed games that handed out XP under any number of systems that were NOT based off of dead carcasses left to rot under a merciless sun.
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flyingmice

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My thoughts about reward mechanics
« Reply #39 on: December 05, 2007, 02:53:35 PM »
Quote from: Spike

Maybe I gamed in some sort of utopian bubble of group XP, and played doomed games that handed out XP under any number of systems that were NOT based off of dead carcasses left to rot under a merciless sun.


You make that sound so appealing, Spike! We never left our dead carcasses to rot! We ate them. :O

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Melinglor

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My thoughts about reward mechanics
« Reply #40 on: December 05, 2007, 03:40:37 PM »
Hi, Spike!

Quote from: Spike
Your OP sounds like something dug out of an archive from the early nineties on some LAN server or something.

How about dug out the "archive" of my Jr High MERP playing days, circa 1988-89? I wasn't speaking hypothetically in my example. That really is a way that I played with my friends. And while it does veer close to the two-decade mark, compared to the late 70s experiences that Geezer, Calithena, and others have been talking about lately, it doesn't feel all that "old-skool" to me. Christ, am I really that old?

Anyway, I picked that example because it was particularly stark and easily described, but I think that general phenomenon continues forward to my present play. The details are different, sure; it's certainly not always about merely "killing", but the fact remains that i haven't seen a lot of games that support a diversity of play goals through their reward mechanics the way that i'd like them to. Doesn't mean they suck, or that they don't work for someone else, but they don't work for me. Things havew been improved, sure--my poor little MERP Scout would thrive much better as a 3.5 Rogue with Bluff and Diplomacy--but it still doesn't quite get there for a number of reasons, like for instance, the focus on "encounters" for rewards.

Also, you seem to be hanging up on the "kills on a per character basis" bit, which ain't the point. That's mainly an  artifact of the example and the system used (we marked down our own kills and crits for the GM, by the way). But I think I've clearly explained why lump goals dont' do it for me--it's not really a reward for what *I* want to do with my character, it's just a reward for hangin' around chipping in. The flexibility of something like TSoY means that I can get rewards for specific things that I work into the game through my contributions, so if I can hit my vengeance issues, or protective feelings, or lust for fame, into the goblin fight, I'll get lots o' bonus points and everyone's had a more entertaining time than if the fight was "y'know, just a fight." And that flexibility means I don't even have to stick with the "party moves everywhere in one big lump, has mostly the same experiences and faces the same challenges" model at all if I don't want to.

Does that clarify what I'm getting at?

Peace,
-Joel
 

Spike

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« Reply #41 on: December 05, 2007, 05:18:23 PM »
If ya ate all yer kills, ya weren't kill'n enough... I'm just sayin'.

Mel:

Yeah, that is old skool. There seemed to be a real explosion in RPGs in the 90's, and I bought and/or played most of 'em and very damn few seemed to involve any sort of xp per kill basis.

You talk about rewards for 'your' play style.  Sounds greedy to me, when I look around and see a wealth of xp systems, up to and including D&D 3e, where the rewards are set to 'open ended'.

Let me put it this way: There is this guy who is 'in your way'. You can kill him and be rewarded for it.

You can sneak past him and get the exact same reward for it.

You can magic him to sleep and just walk past him and get the exact same reward for it.

You can strike up a long and exciting (for you) conversation with him, converting him to your side and convincing him to join you in the purging of the evil overlord/cult/whatever past him and... wait for it... wait for it... get the. Exact. Same. Reward. For. It.

What, exactly, do you need a special 'I talk my problems out' reward for?

ANd that's just D&D.

Looking at Shadowrun (a notoriously violent game dating to 1989) you get one karma for showing up. One karma for roleplaying well, one karma for completing the mission and a raft of random other 'one karma' rewards for a variety of things... amazingly enough... Not.One.Single.Reward.Is.Based.On.Number.Of.Kills.

And that, Mel, is pretty much standard for xp systems designed after 1990 or there abouts. Longer than many of my friends have been gaming, and longer than many of the gamers at my local gaming store seem to have been alive.

Dead topic. Unless you are a grognard. You are fighting a battle long since over. Guess what: Your side won.  Quit bitching and enjoy the spoils of victory.

(fer the record: I was never on the 'other side', I hand out xp entirely at random...)
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Melinglor

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« Reply #42 on: December 05, 2007, 09:26:08 PM »
Dude. . .you're not listening. I'm saying "XP per kill" is at best a side issue. I know that D&D gives you rewards for sneaking the same as negotiating the same as fighting the same as magicking. But it's still based more or less on "the encounter." It's rooted in the idea that the DM will prepare something to happen, you as a player will encounter it, negotiate it however you see fit, and get experience for overcoming it. There's nothing in there about players seeking out their own situations, driving the "stuff happens"through their character actions. Oh, sure, it happens all the time, in all kinds of games, and it's awesome. And a good and intuitive GM can certainly give XP awards for stuff the players do that's not on his encounter list. But it's not supported, bolstered, and supercharged in the rewards the way I like.

I'm not fighting any battle, man. I'm just here to say "Hey, I just had this cool new realization about this thing I like, what do people think of it, and are there any particular games that do this fun thing in an intriguing or different way?" If you're here for that conversation, great, otherwise,I'm fine with the conversation being dead.

Peace,
-Joel
 

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« Reply #43 on: December 07, 2007, 07:45:12 AM »
Playing a game "wrong", at least not like described in the rules, is probably an unfortunate starting point to complain about system.

With Mers/Rolemaster giving EP for all actions according to their difficulty, but unconnected to overcomming a hinderance it looks like a system that does civil characters comparativly well.
 

Spike

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« Reply #44 on: December 07, 2007, 04:20:30 PM »
Quote from: Melinglor
Dude. . .you're not listening.

I'm not fighting any battle, man. I'm just here to say "Hey, I just had this cool new realization about this thing I like, what do people think of it, and are there any particular games that do this fun thing in an intriguing or different way?" If you're here for that conversation, great, otherwise,I'm fine with the conversation being dead.

Peace,
-Joel


No. You aren't. I'm telling you that for the last 20 years or so there have been a veritable HOST, a LEGION of games that have come out that reward XP under an entirely different premise than encounters or what is planned out. Look again at my description of Shadowrun's Karma: you get points for being there, for roleplaying and for a host of 'cool stuff'.  Sure, you CAN straightjacket it down to  the point where you only get stuff for following the GM's breadcrumbs, but you'd actually have to work pretty hard at breaking it to do so.

D&D rewards on 'encounters' alone. IF you decide that an encounter has to be purely DM generated, that is between you and your GM, I,for one, am pretty damn sure the game itself doesn't declare that.  You seem to be equating poor GMing with poor rewards system.

Its that or you are some sort of asshole that thinks everything you do at the table is automatically cooler than anyone elses stuff and game designers should include a line like "melingor gets double XP 'cause he rules!", only you aren't bold enough to just declare it.  A more likely senario is you are attempting through some artifice, to remove the GM from the equation.  

I'll say it again: I play sandbox RPGing. My players do, or do not do, what they want. And If I ONLY gave XP according to what was prepared encounters for them, we'd be stuck at first level for a long motherfucking time. Luckily: I don't have to do that.  I can go: Hrm.. well, convincing Lady Arabella to meet you in the Grotto was a CR.. lets say.. 4... seduction. Cool, Mel gets 200 xp for his awesome seduction... anyone who helped him gets that too.

Or whatever. Not that I particularly would, or my players for that matter, but the point is I COULD... and that is, amazingly enough, what you seem so desperate to clamour for.

Its creating a drama where none is needed. To repeat myself: You are bitching because you won the battle already.
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