Thoughts on GM bargain reward mechanics?

[dbm]

Legend in the Mist has an interesting take on this sort of thing.

Each character has four ‘themes’ which define them. These can represent their skills, background, equipment, friends - all sorts of things. Each theme has three positive tags and one weakness tag. When the GM calls for a roll, tags are identified which are relevant based on the fiction, including both positive and negative ones. If a weakness comes into play, then the player may mark off an ‘improvement’ against that theme. Get a third ‘improvement’ and you can indeed improve the theme. So character progression is driven by overcoming your weaknesses.

This seems like an easy to use system as you would be considering weaknesses when toting up your ‘power’ for a specific action. The player has to explain why the tag is relevant to the fiction and action, and the table generally decides if that is reasonable or not.

That’s (as I understand it) the only mechanical impact of weaknesses, though you can of course use them to inform your roleplaying of your character.

 

[Campbell]

Quick Correction. Fabula Ultima traits are invoked only by the players (both positively and negatively). You can get a Fabula Point for opting to fail a roll if your trait would be relevant in a negative way, but the GM does not have the authority to compel you to act out the trait.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

As a GM, I keep a list of the characters' various Aspects pinned where I can see them on my GM's screen.

It may sound like this is an obvious idea, but it really does help to have this info right in your face as you play. It makes it much easier to improv a result when you have a set of characteristics that you can use to set up a scene -- and those characteristics are ones the players have said they are interested in featuring.

I also keep a shortlist of the major NPCs' and organizations' aspects.

If you do not do this for your campaign, I'd really suggest trying it.

 

[bsss]

There's a family of mechanics that all work like this: "The GM can invoke an aspect of your character to compel your character to do something. You can refuse (usually) but if you obey the compulsion, you get a reward; usually inspiration or xp." It was popularized by FATE, but it's used in all sorts of other systems too, like Cypher and Fabula Ultima.

I will add an important (I think, anyway) clarification on how it works in Cypher: the GM intrusion that you're referring to (where the GM gives a player XP, for reasons we'll get to in one second) is one where the GM interrupts the fiction and introduces something extra (usually to make things harder, or at least more exciting), and offers XP to the player not as a barter, but because the system favors surprise and discovery --- the GM is literally intruding on the PCs' version of events and that has caused more more drama, and drama and excitement beget XP. In 1e, the player could refuse the intrusion by spending an XP of their own (i.e. the player says "no"), but in 2e they changed the rule so that the intrusion definitely happens, but the player spending an XP can respond in some way beneficial to them (i.e. the player says more of a "yes, but") --- the intrusion and XP awarded is not even a barter at that point. (Reasons include that, in my observed experience, players never refuse an intrusion --- why spend 1 XP when you could gain 2 XP instead?)

Notably, this potentially (often, I would say, negative traits are not really much of a thing in Cypher) has nothing to do with character drawbacks. You can build a character with no drawbacks and no reasons or ways to be compelled, and still get intruded on to high heaven. An intrusion can be as simple as a twist of fortune unrelated to the character at all, or as mundane as "looks like you just stepped onto a pit trap!"

My goal wasn't to make this about Cypher per se, or how I think you have it a bit wrong, but actually point out something that I think is interesting about the general bargain/reward space even if Cypher isn't actually within that space:

It should be pointed out that you are the one who decided what your aspects were. If you have an aspect “frightened of loud noises” it’s because you wanted that. The GM is not coaxing you to play their way; they are finding ways to reward you for doing exactly what you have told them you want to do.

The thing about a player writing a compel or flaw into their character (I'm cowardly, I'm petrified of snakes, I have a nervous tick that upsets people) is that they should want that unexpected complication to be part of their character's existence in the game. This is essentially the ethos of Cypher, in my experience, as well --- drama and excitement are the keys to storytelling, not game dominance. Flaws and surprise both create complications, not commands to obey.

 

[Celebrim]

My biggest problem with them is that they are another mechanic that sets up a "writer's workshop" repeatedly in the middle of the scene, with the player and the GM hashing out and negotiating what they want from the scene rather than just RPing. That in general is my problem with most heavy metacurrency games where the metacurrency is say more prevalent and abstract than a D6 "Force Point". There is this bad thing that can happen in a game with a lots of statuses and conditional modifiers, where the player adopts a meta-strategy of wheedling for each possible +1 bonus. Well, games that have lots of calls and currencies and compels often come down to a ton of GM wheedling to maximize the roll. Can I get this? Can I negotiate on complication? Does my call apply here? How about this one? They are meant to empower the aesthetic of narrative, but so often they just seem like something people are power gaming.

 

[Umbran]

They are meant to empower the aesthetic of narrative, but so often they just seem like something people are power gaming.

I am sure that happens sometimes.

But those times are when you note that not all games are for all people. They should find a game that actually supports their needs as a player.

Also, I can't really speak to other systems, but for Fate, the best outcome the player can hope for is a Compel that has no net effect, and for that they get one whole Fate point. It isn't all that dangerous. Once you have a couple, the GM should stop compelling you, so it isn't a way to build a stockpile.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

My biggest problem with them is that they are another mechanic that sets up a "writer's workshop" repeatedly in the middle of the scene, with the player and the GM hashing out and negotiating what they want from the scene rather than just RPing

I think then it must be highly player-dependent as that has never occurred in decades of play with either my groups or the games I’ve played or run at cons. people who play Fate, in my experience, are generally supportive of others’ narrative suggestions and at most suggest extra details or fix minor details. To be honest, I can no more imagine running a Fate camping where one player disagrees with everyone’s narratives than I can running D&D with a rules lawyer.

I’ve spent far more time hashing out and negotiating rules in resolution based games than aspects in narrative games. Like, WAY more. And that is far more disruptive to immersion. Nothing kills immersion like rules lawyering!

I’m also a bit surprised that you consider creating narratives not RP? Maybe you mean that you just dislike arguing, then yes, totally agree — but do you really prefer to argue over rules than the details of a scene?

I’m totally on board with disliking arguments, but as I mentioned, I’ve had way more people interested in arguing rules in a trad games than scene setting in a narrative game.

 

[GMMichael]

the GM intrusion that you're referring to (where the GM gives a player XP, for reasons we'll get to in one second) is one where the GM interrupts the fiction and introduces something extra (usually to make things harder, or at least more exciting), and offers XP to the player not as a barter, but because the system favors surprise and discovery --- the GM is literally intruding on the PCs' version of events and that has caused more more drama, and drama and excitement beget XP.

Would you dig into this a bit? My copy of Numenera doesn't say anything like "the players write the story," so I don't see how the GM can intrude on the story. Is it just an odd way of saying "when the GM introduces difficulty, there's XP at stake?"

Re: OP, the Modos 2 system works really well for me and my players. In most cases, it's "role-play your flaw, get a hero point." The more levels you have, the more hero points you can get. Hero points are themed, but open ended. Using one doesn't slow the game because I usually ask what the player wants to do with the hero point, and if the idea is too crazy, I temper it with my own idea or blame it on the roll. "You COULD dismember the titan, but your contest is a bit short, so..."

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm curious what everyone else thinks. Could the GMs you've played with keep track of all these invokable traits ok, or did they struggle to remember them all. Were the players who had their characters act out their flaws rewarded in the same ways as the others? Is there some obvious thing that my tables have been missing?

Referring to granting Inspiration when a character roleplays accordingly to their personality traits, I don't usually do that, because I do not require players to define personality traits, or flaws or other roleplay details... they are all optional, and I won't advantage players who define them versus players who don't. I also would never compel a player to roleplay accordingly to what they wrote on the character sheet: if they end up roleplaying in constrast to their character sheet, it is their problem alone as they aren't required to define anything at all, and at most I would recommend them to adjust the character sheet according to their behaviour and not viceversa.

In theory, I do say that if someone purposefully and openly makes a bad in-game decision because they believe their character would do so given their personality traits or flaws (whether defined on their sheet or not), then I would grant Inspiration as a sort of compensation for actively choosing to do something inconvenient, rather than as a reward. However this has happened very rarely.

 

[bsss]

Would you dig into this a bit? My copy of Numenera doesn't say anything like "the players write the story," so I don't see how the GM can intrude on the story. Is it just an odd way of saying "when the GM introduces difficulty, there's XP at stake?"

Perhaps I'd call it an odd way of saying "when the players think the story (everyone's, not theirs alone) is on a stable path, the GM interrupts them with something surprising, and that's worth XP":

"Since the players roll all the dice, GM intrusion is used to determine if and when something happens. For example, if the PCs are fighting a noble’s guards, and you (the GM) know that there are more guards nearby, you don’t need to roll dice to determine if the other guards hear the scuffle and intervene (unless you want to). You just decide when it would be best for the story—which is probably when it would be worst for the characters. In a way, GM intrusion replaces the GM’s die rolling.

"The mechanic is also one of the main ways that GMs award experience points to the PCs. This means that you use experience points as a narrative tool. Whenever it seems appropriate, you can introduce complications into the game that affect a specific player, but when you do so, you give that player 2 XP (they keep one and give the other to another player; see below)." (Cypher 2e GMG, but I believe the same or a very similar passage is in 1e.)

The XP is not really at stake, either, the interruption itself is what yields XP --- you can also kind of think of it as softening the blow of the GM exerting narrative authority over the game:

"A GM intrusion can be the result of a character’s mistake, but just as often it comes as an event on the winds of fate. It’s not a punishment. It’s a way to heighten the tension and make things more exciting." (Cypher 2e Character Rulebook, same note about 1e.)

How XP relates to drama and surprise is kind of embedded in Cypher's philosophy itself, the decision seen above to grant XP along with an intrusion acting as support for the philosophy as much as other places in the rules and guidances support the importance of drama and surprise, so I don't have a section off the top of my head to pin this philosophy down with. GM intrusions are one of the major ways XP is awarded, in any event.

I think the essence of drama x XP is not unique to Cypher, FWIW, maybe just more explicit in its abstractness in Cypher. In D&D, the straightest path to stopping a ritual is going to where the ritual is being cast or prepared and stopping it, or the straightest path to treasure is taking it, but the traps, combats, NPCs, skill checks, etc. on the way intrude on that straight path, yet are also where a lot of the XP-stuff lives (actual XP or, conceptually, milestone leveling, but more importantly, the exciting parts of the game). Completing goals is only part of the story --- the interesting and exciting bumps along the way are the other (majority) part. In Cypher, some of those bumps are treated as intrusions (and there's of course a lot more GM advice on how to use and not overuse intrusions).