True 20 - Who here has played it, and what was your experience?

[The_Gut]

I cannot help but notice in the example that the one who might feel punished is a young child that still has to be told to keep his room clean.

Oh hush you, its just the easiest example - it could be told in the context of a rpg session. Attack the substance of the argument/post, but don't take cheap shots - your better than that.


(And, one of my guilty pleasures as an adult is that I no longer have to keep my *%#@ room clean..... well, at least not until a girlfriend tells me to clean it up..... but thats a bit different)

 

[Pbartender]

Don't forget that True20 has a failsafe for regaining Conviction...

Even if you never bother playing to your Virtues or Vices... Even if the Narrator never gives you a cookie when you do play to your Virtues or Vices...

You always gain one Conviction back every day in-game, regardless of whatever else you do with your character.


I like the way Conviction works. On one hand, it's an "Action Point" system the recovers at its own at speed fast enough so that the players aren't compelled to hoard them, but not so fast that they are meaningless. On the other hand, it also provides a good way to occasionally reward players for playing their character in an appropriate manner, or for coming up with neat idea in-game.


So, to use the analogy above, its more like giving a child a standard weekly allowance, and then offering bonus allowance money in addition to that for doing extra chores.

 

[The_Gut]

Ah, but you fail to grasp the important bit - making the bed is part of the agreement, implicitly. One party didn't do that, therefore, no reward. Again - lack of reward is not punishment. You're arguing that a lack of something is a punishment in of itself; it isn't. Punishment requires a punitive element missing from your argument.

Now, extending this to True20 - if the player played their Virtue and Vice, and the GM withheld Conviction, that isn't punishment - it's a lack of reward, and a mistake on the GM's part. If the GM did it as a punitive measure, then you're talking punishment. Huge difference.

Likewise, the Conviction reward is for playing your character. Play well, gain Conviction to do cool stuff. Be boring, no reward...but that in of itself isn't a punishment, since it lacks the punitive element. Do something the GM doesn't like and the GM takes away Conviction (something not supported by the rules, by the way), then that's punitive, therefore punishment.

Hmm - your specification there seems arbitrary to me - You are arguing that one side gets to decide what is the punitive part. An RPG is a group project, for the purpose of having fun within a certain set of parameters. The parameters have some flex, which is decided by the group. While the GM has more power than the players, its a fragile base, decided by mutual consent. (And usually it boils down to the GM being the one willing to do the extra work inherent in his role).

So, a player, or players, who thinks that they put forth the honest effort required by their virtue or vice, could indeed see the lack of conviction granted by the GM as a punishment. While I haven't played it, Primetime adventures recognizes this, and grants something (I think called story points(?)) that players can reward to other players for doing something cool. That, to me, fits the definition of a reward much better. It doesn't involve an explicit agreement, but instead is a general encouragement to continue to do something that the rest of the group thinks is fun.

(Mind you, I'm far more inclined to agree that a lack of reward isn't a punishment - but I don't think its as cut and dried as you are saying).

And, unfortunately clarity and conciseness of thought are not my strongpoints.

 

[buzz]

Wow. Uh, no. Lack of reward does not equal punishment. That's a logical fallacy.

In game mechanic terms, it can be if that reward is a common resource necessary to play the game fully. It's definitely true in SotC and Serenity that the game gets much harder if, respectively, Fate and Plot points are not flowing freely.

Thing is, it's typically not an issue in SotC, because the mechanics are set up so that the methods of earning more Fate are very clear, and very overt. Serenity, otoh, can rapidly fall into "Plot Suck" because you only earn points when the GM feels like doling them out, based on fairly vague guidelines... assuming they are remembering to give them out at all.

Tue20 seems to mitigate the latter to some degree by having the one-point refresh each in-game morning, and also not relying as heavily on the use of Conviction to actually play. I'm just saying that a more SotC-like (or even SC2.0-like) approach would have been even better, IMO.

 

[buzz]

IMO, FATE doesn't so much remove GM arbitrariness from character nature as provide a clean and above board mechanism for it.

Right! Exactly what I love about it.

...I've been wondering about porting aspects to True20 to replace virtues and vices. Maybe one of these days.

The Aspect concept is very portable (my HERO group was thinking of using it), and I think it'd be easy to apply to True20.

But, to address Hjorimir's point, I'm not as big a fan of modifying RPGs from the get-go as I used to be. I lean more towards choosing rules that I like as-is and seeing how they run.

Regardless, I still intend to fully examine the True20 rulebook, and I apologize if I've derailed the thread too much.

 

[Hjorimir]

Oh hush you, its just the easiest example - it could be told in the context of a rpg session. Attack the substance of the argument/post, but don't take cheap shots - your better than that.

But I was attacking the substance of the argument. Any adult should be able to understand that when a deal is struck (e.g. "Clean your room and we will go to the lake") that they have to meet the requirements of the deal to benefit. For the most part, you can break down any mechanic in an RPG to pass or fail; either you were successful or you were not. When you fail a saving throw have you been punished? Does it matter if the failed save means your character died?

This reminds me of youth sports versus adult sports. It is a very common practice for young children playing a sport to receive a trophy...irrespective of where their team placed ("We're all winners, Jimmy!"). On the other hand, once one gets to high school (if not earlier) in order for your team to get a trophy they need to place. If they didn't place, are they being punished?

Conviction would be a punishing system if it cost player characters a point if they played against their nature, which it doesn't.

(And, one of my guilty pleasures as an adult is that I no longer have to keep my *%#@ room clean..... well, at least not until a girlfriend tells me to clean it up..... but thats a bit different)

=P

 

[iwatt]

Try it this way around then (to play the devils advocate)

Mom: Keep your room clean for a week and we will go to the lake on Saturday.
Child: Okay!

(Child keeps toys in toybox, books on shelf, etc, but fails to make the bed a couple of times during the week)

Mom: Nope, we aren't going to the lake - you didn't make your bed tues or thurs! (Or, in an extreme case - "You didn't pick up the dirty towels in the bathroom" which doesn't have a thing to do with keeping your room clean)

So, was it a punishment, or a reward?

(One could argue its a salary, I suppose)

If criteria are set to gain something, I'm not sure it counts as a reward, or carrot. A reward should be something that is received for going above and beyond mere criteria. Getting X for meeting Y criteria seems like a salary.

Well, were I grew up it would probably have meant a scolding for what I'd agreed to do and then hadn't. If I'd been particularly messy (drawing on the walls, tracking in mud) it probably would have earned me a spanking. That is punishment.

Or from what I could quickly find in an online dictionary:

punishment: a penalty inflicted for an offense, fault, etc.

As pointed out by others, not handing out the reward for not fulfilling a contract isn't punitive. You'd probably be laughed out of court if you tried arguing that.

In your example, punishment would have been if the mother had said. "No lake for you. And you know what else, you aren't getting any desert tonight either."

 

[Hjorimir]

Regardless, I still intend to fully examine the True20 rulebook, and I apologize if I've derailed the thread too much.

Pfft, truths are often revealed through dialectic. From wher I'm standing, you've got nothing to apologize for.

 

[iwatt]

Tue20 seems to mitigate the latter to some degree by having the one-point refresh each in-game morning, and also not relying as heavily on the use of Conviction to actually play. I'm just saying that a more SotC-like (or even SC2.0-like) approach would have been even better, IMO.

Personally, I got tired of deciding when to award conviction for roleplaying*, so I handed over that to the players. If one of the other players deems that something another did is conviction worthy, and someone else seconds it, they get the conviction. It helps that my players are generally mature enough not to abuse this system.

* The reason I got tired is that I kept questioning myself if it was warranted, if I wasn't been biased to some and not others, etc.. It distracted me from running the games, specifically at the moments of dramatic tension, were we tend to award conviction in my games.

 

[Jim Hague]

In game mechanic terms, it can be if that reward is a common resource necessary to play the game fully. It's definitely true in SotC and Serenity that the game gets much harder if, respectively, Fate and Plot points are not flowing freely.

Thing is, it's typically not an issue in SotC, because the mechanics are set up so that the methods of earning more Fate are very clear, and very overt. Serenity, otoh, can rapidly fall into "Plot Suck" because you only earn points when the GM feels like doling them out, based on fairly vague guidelines... assuming they are remembering to give them out at all.

Tue20 seems to mitigate the latter to some degree by having the one-point refresh each in-game morning, and also not relying as heavily on the use of Conviction to actually play. I'm just saying that a more SotC-like (or even SC2.0-like) approach would have been even better, IMO.

Oh, I don't disagree - and I find SotC's Fate mechanics do rock. Hmmm. Maybe I should crack out my copy and see if'n they could be adapted...