Players choose what their PCs do . . .

[Campbell]

Your example plays into the point I was trying to make: sure in this case it's a difficult check, but a hot-rolling player who makes a series of these successful checks is going to bypass all the interesting stuff, regardless of whether it's pre-authored or made up as a failure consequence, and quickly end up on the throne. That really cool idea about the father's ghost in the crypt will never enter play, which is kind of sad.

That's all I was getting at.

Why is success not interesting? If Vertigan's player succeeds we get to play through warm embrace of blood brothers. Vertigan is still a fugitive, in the citadel of his enemy. He still needs to decide his next move. Is now the right time to stage another coup? Draven, his younger bastard brother, thinks so, but Draven always sees blood. Vertigan's forces are still in disarray. To add to all that Vertigan gets word that the Lady Saris, his lover, has escaped her husband's estate to the south a fortnight ago, but has not yet arrived to the citadel. Bandits are known to travel the path. What does Vertigan do?

Success should be just as interesting and consequential as failure.

 

[Tony Vargas]

What are great mechanical resources of a cooperative game?

Yeah, I did kinda undersell that, didn't I?

An example of 5e mechanical support for a cooperative game would be the hp mechanic & BA - together they make outnumbering the enemy and focusing fire a simple, winning strategy, and allowing yourselves to be outnumbered, even by inferior foes, a losing one. I would not call that a great, or strong, or good, or OK mechanical resource for a cooperative game … it might rise to the level of 'rudimentary' and is essentially accidental. In contrast, the 4e implementation of Roles would be an example of a mechanical resource that helps it function as a cooperative game, and, is even clearly intended as such. I might rate it "OK," or, to be fair, since there's actually kind of a lot to role-support, even "good."

Great? Not sure I've seen one in an RPG.

A RPG might be fully non-competitive and hence at the cooperative end of your spectrum, and yet not involve party play in the sense that D&D and Traveller traditionally do.

A game could be downright competitive, and still involve such play - the PCs could be cooperating for survival, but competing for an ultimate goal, or just the richest rewards, for instance.

I think I was just off-handedly pointing out a middle that seems to get excluded a lot. (I can't actually recall if I meant it as a counterpoint... looking back at the post, I was more or less agreeing, I think.)

For instance, my Dying Earth game had two players. I think three would also be fine, but five - my standard 4e group size - would be too many. I've done BW with four and I think even that is a bit crowded.

This is just me going off on a tangent, but, y'know, 4e's worked surprisingly well, IMX, with a party of 2. One stunning example: and adventure that had stymied a party of 5 for weeks was very successfully completed in one session, when only 2 players showed up.

 

[Campbell]

On the more character focused front both Masks and Scion 2e have strong support for cooperative game play.

In Masks every time you enter battle against a dangerous foe as a team you generate a Team pool that's based on team cohesion and unity of purpose in the fiction. You can spend Team from the pool to add +1 to another player's roll, but only if your character could legitimately help their character. This is a big deal in a system where labels/attributes top out at +3. There are also rules for defending another character from attacks. You can also comfort or support another character and if they open up they can choose to shift labels, clear a condition, or gain experience. There also other ways to shift labels (attributes) which can be helpful to help other players' characters succeed at what their trying to attempt. Finally, every playbook gets two Team moves to cover what happens when you share a celebration with someone or share a weakness or vulnerability with someone.

Scion is a game about a band of Scions, children of the gods, who are building their legend by accomplishing heroic deeds together to eventually maybe become gods themselves. Cooperative play is built directly into the experience system. Players get experience for accomplishing a set of player defined deeds. Short term deeds are meant to be something you can accomplish every session and are character specific goals, but there's experience bonus if all the player characters accomplish their short term deed in one session. Long term deeds are supposed to be something that becomes the focus of the game for a session or takes multiple sessions to achieve. These are character specific, but you can't get experience for another long term deed until every player character has accomplished theirs. Finally there's a band deed which represents a shared group goal that is supposed to represent a monumental task. This is shared by the entire band. Characters grow in Legend, the game's power stat when they have achieved one short term deed, one long term deed, and one band deed. So to progress individually it is to your advantage to help each other accomplish your individual goals.

Scion also uses a shared metacurrency, Momentum that is generated through failures and some other means. Spending it is a group decision. This can help to add group cohesion. Additionally one of the options you can spend extra successes on when you attack is to provide an Enhancement (bonus successes) to another player character's attack on the same opponent. It also has really strong defending rules.

 

[Sadras]

Yeah, I did kinda undersell that, didn't I?

An example of 5e mechanical support for a cooperative game would be the hp mechanic & BA - together they make outnumbering the enemy and focusing fire a simple, winning strategy, and allowing yourselves to be outnumbered, even by inferior foes, a losing one. I would not call that a great, or strong, or good, or OK mechanical resource for a cooperative game … it might rise to the level of 'rudimentary' and is essentially accidental. In contrast, the 4e implementation of Roles would be an example of a mechanical resource that helps it function as a cooperative game, and, is even clearly intended as such. I might rate it "OK," or, to be fair, since there's actually kind of a lot to role-support, even "good."

Great? Not sure I've seen one in an RPG.

Interesting. My immediate understanding for cooperative mechanics were resources such as Spells (Bless, Cure Wounds, Featherfall, Haste...etc), Bardic Inspiration, Flanking, Help action, Paladin Auras...etc

 

[Tony Vargas]

Interesting. My immediate understanding for cooperative mechanics were resources such as Spells (Bless, Cure Wounds, Featherfall, Haste...etc)

Spells are very flexible resources. Regardless of class, any given caster could go his whole career without expending a single slot on a buff, healing, or other obviously-cooperative spell.

Bardic Inspiration, Paladin Auras

Those are decent examples of class features that primarily help someone else, yes, and they can't be readily diverted to other uses (the Aura can be under-developed by not devoting points to the right stat, but it'd be inefficient considering how good the aura can be). And they're even on classes that, on examination of the mechanics, can be effective support characters if intentionally built & used that way.

But support-orientation of some classes is only an element of what might make a game (/with classes/) cooperative. Do other classes 'need' that support or synergize with it? Together, with those synergies, what can they accomplish?
For instance, the most basic form of support in D&D is healing. With healing, you can get through a longer 'day,' which put more pressure on the daily-resource classes to conserve their resources, and thus contribute less to each encounter...
...using spells or class abilities to enable more frequent recharges would be much more synergistic, and leads, in D&D, to balance-wrecking 5MWDs. OTOH, healing can help keep a specific ally active in a specific encounter, and thus continue making all his per-round contributions through the whole thing, which at least shores up that character's contribution when it might otherwise drop.

Flanking, Help action

Optional rule & questionable efficiency, respectively, so more poor-to-OK support for cooperation, if you work at achieving it.

But, still, even taken all together, nothing I could credit as "great mechanical resources" as a functional cooperative game.
The system mastery and favorable rulings (because nothing works without the DM) involved in unlocking and interlinking the potential cooperative synergies (and avoiding dissynergies and pitfalls like the 5MWD) in 5e, could be seen as a challenging cooperative game, in itself, though.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So in regard to cooperative mechanics....I don't know if this will qualify exactly as what [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] is describing, but Blades in the Dark has some good examples.

The most basic is the option to assist another player with any action roll. You simply state how you help them, and then spend 1 stress, and they get an additional d6 to roll for their action. Every action roll in Blades is a dice pool of d6s, with a full success on 6, partial on 4-5, and failure on 1-3. So it's a pretty meaningful element in the game, and can really swing things toward success. As mechanics go, it's pretty straightforward, so I don't know how "great" this would be considered.

Players also have the option to have their characters suffer the consequences of a failed action by another character. So if my character failed his Skirmish roll, and was about to take Harm by getting stabbed in the gut by his opponent, another character can step in and take the hit for me. So they would suffer the Harm instead of my character, although they could attempt to reduce the Harm by making a resistance roll, and/or applying armor.

You can also take Group Actions. So let's say the whole team wants to sneak across a courtyard toward a manor. You choose one Leader for the group action, and then everyone rolls the relevant Action (in this case Prowl) and everyone shares the best result of all the group rolls. The Leader has to take 1 stress for each failed roll. This really increases the chance for everyone to succeed, but at risk to the leader of the group action.

Beyond those methods, there are several playbook abilities that are very much designed around assisting other crew members. Some are tweaks to the above actions, others are more focused on helping the group overall through downtime or Crew Advancement.

One of the biggest cooperative aspects of the game is the Crew. The group has its own character sheet, means of gaining XP, and cool options or abilities when the Crew advances. I'd have to say this is likely the most compelling group mechanic I've seen in a RPG. It really pushes the idea of the team working toward mutual goals and mutual benefit.

What adds to that is the fact that a lot of the other game elements can really push for conflict among the group. It's a nice balance where you have people that are working together, but have conflict and difference of opinion that actually matters.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So in regard to cooperative mechanics....I don't know if this will qualify exactly as what [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] is describing, but Blades in the Dark has some good examples.

I guess on some level I'm defining a negative space or something.

One of the biggest cooperative aspects of the game is the Crew. The group has its own character sheet, means of gaining XP, and cool options or abilities when the Crew advances. I'd have to say this is likely the most compelling group mechanic I've seen in a RPG. It really pushes the idea of the team working toward mutual goals and mutual benefit.

Everything leading up to this, yes, it's stuff that works to cooperate, but that last ties it together.

What adds to that is the fact that a lot of the other game elements can really push for conflict among the group. It's a nice balance where you have people that are working together, but have conflict and difference of opinion that actually matters.

That's probably part of what separates a tense character-driven RPG that's cooperative from a solid cooperative boardgame, like Pandemic...

 

[pemerton]

So I read the following in the review of PF2 just posted on the front page:

You should also read the introductory chapter because it’s a great introduction to roleplaying games in general. It’s everything you’ve ever tried to describe about our favorite hobby condensed into an easy-to-digest single page. It's the culmination of all the wisdom our hobby has fumbled its way into since the dawn of TTRPGs.​

To my mind, this is the sort of thing that pushes against solid analysis of RPGs and the play experience they deliver. Rather than trying to explain what is distinctive or noteworthy about PF as a RPG, and the sort of play experience it seems likely to provide, it asssumes there is some single thing called RPGing that has a cumulated wisdom that the Paizo designers have summed up for us.

I'm guessing, for instance, that that 'culmination of all the wisdom" says nothing about how to place pressure on a character to reveal his/her true character in the way that has been discussed in this thread.

 

[Arilyn]

So I read the following in the review of PF2 just posted on the front page:

You should also read the introductory chapter because it’s a great introduction to roleplaying games in general. It’s everything you’ve ever tried to describe about our favorite hobby condensed into an easy-to-digest single page. It's the culmination of all the wisdom our hobby has fumbled its way into since the dawn of TTRPGs.​

To my mind, this is the sort of thing that pushes against solid analysis of RPGs and the play experience they deliver. Rather than trying to explain what is distinctive or noteworthy about PF as a RPG, and the sort of play experience it seems likely to provide, it asssumes there is some single thing called RPGing that has a cumulated wisdom that the Paizo designers have summed up for us.

I'm guessing, for instance, that that 'culmination of all the wisdom" says nothing about how to place pressure on a character to reveal his/her true character in the way that has been discussed in this thread.

Well, to be fair, it's an introduction to a F20 game. I know it's frustrating that it seems many F20 players aren't even aware of other styles of play, but I'm not sure that a one page introduction to PF2 is the place to get into all the rpging techniques out there. The truth is that the majority of players are going to be happy sticking to a more traditional style. I feel players that want more will hopefully look around and find Story Now, diceless games, Burning Wheel philosophies, etc. It's not really in Paizo's best interest to encourage players away from typical F20 play. You can do your style of putting pressure on the character in F20, but it's going to be a more awkward fit?

 

[pemerton]

Well, to be fair, it's an introduction to a F20 game. I know it's frustrating that it seems many F20 players aren't even aware of other styles of play, but I'm not sure that a one page introduction to PF2 is the place to get into all the rpging techniques out there.

I'm not commenting on what's in the PF2 book. I'm commenting on the review. It makes sense for the PF2 book to explain what sort of play experience one might expect from the game it presents. It is flat-out wrong, though, for a reviewer to characterise such an explanation as "the culmination of all the wisdom our hobby has fumbled its way into since the dawn of TTRPGs".

I mean, in the "how to play" parts of In a Wicked Age Vincent Baker suggests as one of the material requisites for play a bottle of wine, and at a certain point says words to the effect of if you're done building your character and others are still going, maybe it's time for you to pour the wine. No one would suppose that tthat is universal advice for all RPGing; and clearly Baker isn't suggesting that it is. PF2 and it's advice (which I suspect doesn't tell us when is a good time to pour the beverages) is no different in this respect.