Revising Conflicts, Stage 2

Summary:

The front-runners

Revising Conflicts, Stage 2

Colin_Fredericks 1253548267|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Here are my front-runners for revising the conflict system.

Minor Alterations

1. Rolls are still multiplication.
2. Every point of difference in Force score changes Reserve damage by one. Old-Worlders no longer harm Mechanicans; Mechanicans trounce Old-Worlders on the first or second shot.
3. Extra damage for double or triple rolls still in effect. Two points of damage for each multiple.
4. Each roll needs a description. Your description should not include accomplishing your goal until after everything's over.
5. To have a shorter conflict, restrict it to a best-of-three setup.

Everything's A Theme

1. No more rolls. Diceless system.
2. Capability scores now go 0-4.
3. Your Professions provide you with Reserve. Capabilities do not.
4. You normally act at your Capability level, and can use them as much as you like. Spending a Reserve adds +1 to your score.
5. When facing off against another person…
   1. If you're over by 2 points, you win without question. Describe your victory.
   2. If you're over by 1 point, you win with some trouble. Lose a Reserve and describe your victory. Your opponent can give you a level 1 Complication.
   3. If you're tied, both of you lose a Reserve and take a level 2 Complication. You can both narrate the stalemate.
   4. If you're under by 1 point, you lose, but not terribly. Lose two Reserve and narrate your loss. Your opponent can give you a level 3 Complication.
   5. If you're under by 2 points, you completely fail. Lose two Reserve and narrate your loss. Your opponent can give you a level 4 Complication.
6. All Complications should be appropriate to the type of conflict. Examples will be given, but this is a group judgement call.
7. To go down a timescale, spend a point of Reserve from the conflict type you're going to.

The Game Is Your Enemy

1. Basic rolls work as before.
2. Each session starts with a Holy Crap point total (this name will change) that is like your opponent's reserve.
3. Pick a type of conflict for the session as a whole. This will be in the briefing.
4. You are always in one type of conflict or another.
5. Most of your time should be spent roleplaying.
6. Themes can be used to get you into a position to make a roll when you aren't, or to win a roll. This is a mechanical description of their narrative power, not a replacement of it.
7. You can only roll once per timeslice in any given conflict. Get into position to take advantage of some modifiers and roll well.

Side Note

1. There should be a good way to spontaneously generate a conflict type through a little negotiation and maybe a little Reserve expenditure to tweak the timescale. Guidelines for this strike me as pretty easy to write.

Comments are welcome, especially comments along the lines of "Colin, idea X is crap and here's why."

Re: Revising Conflicts, Stage 2

QHudspeth 1253635246|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hmmm…
Possible full overhaul in the pipes, eh?
You've posted a whole bag of goodness, which I suspect you'll end up combining into the final product. So let me try to group the ideas into melikeys, mehs, and gaaaahs.

Me Likey

Everything's a Theme — thematically, this is a great path to pursue.
Minor Alterations, points 2–4
Everything, point 6 — oh hell yeah.
Enemy, point 5 — Well, duh! 8^>
Enemy, point 7 — Actually, I think this idea ties in well with the concept of Reserve and it's use as HP. One wide-focus conflict per timeslice, where you decide how much oomph you want to put into it and go for it. Is there a possiblity for a mulligan if things don't go the way you want them to?

Meh

Diceless — Lofty goal, but I haven't played diceless games, so I'm not sure how I stand on that one.
Minor Alterations, points 1 & 5

Gaaaah!

The Game Is Your Enemy — that seems like a complete reversal of game themes (er…motifs? Not to be confused with Themes).
Enemy, points 2–4 — On the surface, this makes SA seem like a board game. On the other hand, a mission is like a high timeslice conflict, so maybe… And what of multi-session missions?

Query

Enemy, point 6 — Not sure I see the distinction you are making…
Everything's a Theme — do we lose the traditional Themes. They aren't mentioned.
Everything, point 4 — How are the Capabilities used?
Everything, point 5 — what numbers are being compared? Cap + Prof?

Re: Revising Conflicts, Stage 2

Colin_Fredericks 1253650232|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Response to queries:
Enemy, #6:
Everything, general: The previous Themes are still around and work as before. They beat Capabilities, but cannot be used as often without incurring substantial Complications.
Everything, #4: Capabilities get used the way Themes do right now: activate and you get an effect. You either have a high enough level to do it or you don't.
Everything, #5: Only Capability is compared. Profession now provides Reserve, and Capabilities on their own do not. Training is the key to the full use of your abilities.

Re: Revising Conflicts, Stage 2

Pilgrim 1253810956|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Minor Alterations

1. Rolls are still multiplication.
2. Every point of difference in Force score changes Reserve damage by one. Old-Worlders no longer harm Mechanicans; Mechanicans trounce Old-Worlders on the first or second shot.
3. Extra damage for double or triple rolls still in effect. Two points of damage for each multiple.
4. Each roll needs a description. Your description should not include accomplishing your goal until after everything's over.
5. To have a shorter conflict, restrict it to a best-of-three setup.

Ok, I like this, even though it makes low Capability characters have a much tougher time of things. Is there a way around this?

Everything's A Theme

1. No more rolls. Diceless system.
2. Capability scores now go 0-4.
3. Your Professions provide you with Reserve. Capabilities do not.
4. You normally act at your Capability level, and can use them as much as you like. Spending a Reserve adds +1 to your score.
5. When facing off against another person…
   1. If you're over by 2 points, you win without question. Describe your victory.
   2. If you're over by 1 point, you win with some trouble. Lose a Reserve and describe your victory. Your opponent can give you a level 1 Complication.
   3. If you're tied, both of you lose a Reserve and take a level 2 Complication. You can both narrate the stalemate.
   4. If you're under by 1 point, you lose, but not terribly. Lose two Reserve and narrate your loss. Your opponent can give you a level 3 Complication.
   5. If you're under by 2 points, you completely fail. Lose two Reserve and narrate your loss. Your opponent can give you a level 4 Complication.
6. All Complications should be appropriate to the type of conflict. Examples will be given, but this is a group judgement call.
7. To go down a timescale, spend a point of Reserve from the conflict type you're going to.

This I like as well, but I think the values for the Themes may be too compressed if you go this route. Still, I can see using it and having good fun. Could there be a way to combine element 5 with the Minor Alterations above?

The Game Is Your Enemy

1. Basic rolls work as before.
2. Each session starts with a Holy Crap point total (this name will change) that is like your opponent's reserve.
3. Pick a type of conflict for the session as a whole. This will be in the briefing.
4. You are always in one type of conflict or another.
5. Most of your time should be spent roleplaying.
6. Themes can be used to get you into a position to make a roll when you aren't, or to win a roll. This is a mechanical description of their narrative power, not a replacement of it.
7. You can only roll once per timeslice in any given conflict. Get into position to take advantage of some modifiers and roll well.

Side Note

There should be a good way to spontaneously generate a conflict type through a little negotiation and maybe a little Reserve expenditure to tweak the timescale. Guidelines for this strike me as pretty easy to write.
Comments are welcome, especially comments along the lines of "Colin, idea X is crap and here's why."

Sorry, I'm not sure its crap. But I do have a few thoughts - the game as your enemy strikes me as a very good way to try to run a solo or GM less game, but might drive more traditionally minded gamers straight out of their gourds.

last edited on 1253811033|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by Pilgrim + show more

Re: Revising Conflicts, Stage 2

Aikanaro 1253792267|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I have some new observations which our group has been making of late:

The conflict system drives towards consensus, given how we've drifted things. Here's how it's working at the moment:
Before every roll there is a narration where the player states what action their character is taking. They then make their attack roll, and the person attacked rolls defence. If the attacker wins, the defender has to concede the point to a degree in their next narration (well - get blasted by lightning, thrown over the cliff … whatever - normally it's conceding the point) - the outcome of the attacker's specific attack within the extended conflict is reflected after the dice roll. This works very well, and generally gets rid of a lot of the problems complained about.

The problem is that this doesn't escalate conflicts - it de-escalates them. If we're in a furious argument and I'm forced to concede your point - my goals for the conflict might change entirely based on that. That's actually pretty great - the flow of the conflict works best when your goals can change halfway through. But because you just conceded, they tend to change to arguing for somewhat less intense things.

So at the moment we're working on a hack to introduce compels into conflicts, based on CVs. Our thinking at the moment is that you compel your enemy to do something that's in keeping with their CV, and they can refuse that compel by spending one reserve, which gives incentive for you to compel things that they don't want to happen. To tie it in with CV strength, we're thinking a 1d10 roll vs your CV, if you roll over your CV number you can dismiss it. This makes compels against stronger beliefs harder to dismiss.

Uh, anyway - the point of this post isn't the hack, but the 'problem' of the system driving towards consensus rather than greater conflicts when each roll strongly affects the fiction (the consensus thing isn't /that/ big a problem - it can actually be really cool. But it does kinda suck the life out of things when it happens every time).

I'm kinda in a 'major minor alterations' camp, I think - there are a lot of small things that could be changed to make the game better, and I don't think it would look like a complete overhaul at the end.