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

[iwatt]

Now this would be a very good thing for True20 to borrow from FATE -- the current rules for nature are more vague than I would like, and this is a good clean approach.

I would as well. The way I used to assign conviction (and that my players use when they assign it amongst them) is basically that you gain conviction when you play up your vice/virtue in a manner that significantly affects the story.

For someone with he Honest Vice Virtue, we won't grant conviction every time he tells the truth, but only when his honesty somehow increases the tension or makes things more intersting.

Actually my biggest beef with the Conviction system is that not all natures were created equal. Some are naturally easier to detect/reward than others, IME.

 

[iwatt]

The GM can be being very straightforward on his part and tell you right up front that he's not seeing the characterization the way you do. Now what? In the end, there's no intrinsic way for that to be resolved if there's a conflict, and this sort of mechanic virtually requires him to make judgement calls on it.

That's were the GM not been an ass comes into play. You explain your point of view, he gives you his, and you compromise on something you both can live with.

 

[Thomas5251212]

Two years experience has taught you that a dying condition is instantly a dead condition?

No, its taught me that bad die rolls on Toughness saves are too frequent and severe to be blown off.

What about a game where a single die roll can kill a character? Like a failed Fortitude save from Slay Living in D&D? That game doesn't assume Action Points at all.

Not a virtue there, either, but at least you don't run into Slay Living all the time, and at the levels where you expect to run into it with any frequency, there's recourse after the fact, since Raise Dead is trivial. But the fact the parent game for an overly linear sudden-death system has some degree of the same problems shouldn't be a suprise, and doesn't make the one at hand any less problematic.

But you also said, "Treasure is normally a non-issue, since who among a group gets treasure is not normally in the GM's bailiwick..." My point is that he doesn't even have to load treasure

And promptly followed it with "(I suppose you could stack the deck by choosing the kind of treasure you give out)". Reading the whole paragraph does help, you know.

to favor a certain character to be manipulating events as he also has the option of just not dishing out treasure to anybody at all.

That's at least even handed, and doesn't actually pressure the players in any direction. What it will do at some point in D&D at least is make it impossible and unfun for people to play, but its not the problem I'm discussing.

If it is okay for GMs to determine what kinds of encounters to send, when to provide treasure, and what the weather is like, why is the awarding of Conviction any different? You seem to think there is some great difference, but there isn't.

Yes, I do. One turns on characterization, the others don't. If you don't get that, you don't.

 

[Thomas5251212]

That's were the GM not been an ass comes into play. You explain your point of view, he gives you his, and you compromise on something you both can live with.

I don't see functional comprimise as often possible, since the GM is going to keep running it through his filter and the player through his. Roleplaying a character is not a committee process.

 

[Thomas5251212]

Given that the GM represents the entire game universe, unless just about everything is reduced to die rolls, they are going to have to make large amounts of judgement calls about how the character's actions are going to be interpreted and reacted to, anyway. There are some players and GMs out there that seem to believe an absolutely

I kind of don't think I agree in the sense I think you mean; at least I don't think most things in the game universe react to non-mechanical parts of the character. Other characters do out of necessity, but whether someone climbs a cliff successfully doesn't turn on whether the player and I see eye to eye on his characterization.

mechanical system where everything is solved by rolling dice or some other completely impartial mechanism would be the perfect RPG (IE, like a computer game). I happen to like the quirks of a game run by an actual human being. Nature (virtues and vices) is just one more such judgement call. The unavoidable differences of opinion involving these calls, are,

But not, in my opinion, a necessary one, unlike the above. As I noted, using that mechanism serves no purpose _but_ a social engineering one that I can see. If you can tell me what it serves that wouldn't be handled by a purely mechanistic process, and isn't there to influence player behavior, I'd be happy to hear it.

 

[Thomas5251212]

If FATE states, "The GM is the final arbiter of when an aspect is or is not appropriate" how is that not totally up to the whim of the GM? This is even more powerful, actually, than what we're discussing here. As I understand it, to deny the use of an aspect is to deny a characters ability to do anything (if I'm correct that aspects roughly equate to skills).

Try this once more: I don't care about arbitrariness in this context. That's not the issue; the issue is that the conviction reward mechanic in its current form exists to influence the characterization of the character. It serves no other purpose I can see in its current form, since there's no necessity to connect it to the personality of the character. Its handing the GM a hammer to influence I'm objecting to, nothing more. As long as you keep going off on tangents that don't have anything to do with that, you're wasting both our time.

 

[Father of Dragons]

I kind of don't think I agree in the sense I think you mean; at least I don't think most things in the game universe react to non-mechanical parts of the character. Other characters do out of necessity, but whether someone climbs a cliff successfully doesn't turn on whether the player and I see eye to eye on his characterization.

But everything with any self-awareness potentially does.

But not, in my opinion, a necessary one, unlike the above. As I noted, using that mechanism serves no purpose _but_ a social engineering one that I can see. If you can tell me what it serves that wouldn't be handled by a purely mechanistic process, and isn't there to influence player behavior, I'd be happy to hear it.

It is merely that since absolutely everything else in the game that the GM can do can also modify or affect the player's behavior, I don't see any particular problem with one more mechanism, particularly if the GM uses it with restraint and the player and the GM make an effort to communicate any differences in interpretation. I suppose to a large extent it all boils down to a matter of taste.

 

[Thomas5251212]

But everything with any self-awareness potentially does.

Even in their case, they're still restrained to some extent by the nature of what they want to do; unless the GM is _actively_ trying to be obnoxious, the fact that you ticked off the goblin doesn't make it any more dangerous.

Edit: And perhaps more to the point, it doesn't tell the player what his characterization is or should be; it just tells him how I've judged others will react to the characterization as I see it. Its more about how I see the NPCs than how I see the PC, and how I see the NPCs is my job. How the PC is is _his_ job.

It is merely that since absolutely everything else in the game that the GM can do can also modify or affect the player's behavior, I don't see any particular problem with one more mechanism, particularly if the GM uses it with restraint and the player and the GM make an effort to communicate any differences in interpretation. I suppose to a large extent it all boils down to a matter of taste.

Well, of course it is. I simply don't see any benign effect from extending it that way, as I consider most of the areas where a GM has to do that a necessary evil of the cooperative process. It _isn't_ necessary here, so why add to that evil?

 

[Hjorimir]

No, its taught me that bad die rolls on Toughness saves are too frequent and severe to be blown off.

If you should always have Conviction to spend on Toughenss, which is what you're insinuating here, why even have the roll? It's like you think PCs should be in no danger when in combat. That sounds pretty boring to me.

Not a virtue there, either, but at least you don't run into Slay Living all the time, and at the levels where you expect to run into it with any frequency, there's recourse after the fact, since Raise Dead is trivial. But the fact the parent game for an overly linear sudden-death system has some degree of the same problems shouldn't be a suprise, and doesn't make the one at hand any less problematic.

Imbue Life is pretty trivial as well (even moreso in that it doesn't require an expensive component).

And promptly followed it with "(I suppose you could stack the deck by choosing the kind of treasure you give out)". Reading the whole paragraph does help, you know.

I did read the entire paragraph, instead of chopping it apart as you've done here. If you're going to break from the common parlance the loss of communication is your fault, not mine.

That's at least even handed, and doesn't actually pressure the players in any direction. What it will do at some point in D&D at least is make it impossible and unfun for people to play, but its not the problem I'm discussing.

Yeah, you missed the point that there were other ways for the GM to arbitrarily effect how powerful the characters are at any given time. To argue the Conviction system is bad because it can influence a character's power is pointless if you're not addressing every other means by which the GM does just that.

Yes, I do. One turns on characterization, the others don't. If you don't get that, you don't.

In the same manner, it makes no difference from where the GM's power turns. To ignore the other means in which a GM can decide how things for for a PC is tantamount to putting your head in the sand.

 

[Hjorimir]

Try this once more: I don't care about arbitrariness in this context. That's not the issue; the issue is that the conviction reward mechanic in its current form exists to influence the characterization of the character. It serves no other purpose I can see in its current form, since there's no necessity to connect it to the personality of the character. Its handing the GM a hammer to influence I'm objecting to, nothing more. As long as you keep going off on tangents that don't have anything to do with that, you're wasting both our time.

Yes, Conviction influences the player to stay true to the character's conviction; you say that like it is a bad thing. It would only be a hammer if the system instruced the Narrator to remove conviction points when he feels the player character is going against his nature, which it doesn't. The only tangents I've commented on were those of your own creation. Your statement is ridiculous and you know it.