MGuy wrote:Group negotiation of the value of social actions
And you still are. Which is a big reason why I told you your posts have been useless.
Then seriously, I know you are melting down and apparently have become allergic to elaborating on a point but do please explain what this was all about...
One thing that I'm sure is going to be a part of every response is context. Well then I just leave it at that. I don't need to figure out myself. I pass the job of determining what that means to the groups.
What I think my job is from there is to decide how likely 'I' think someone telling a believable lie is to succeed in fooling their mark (sans other modifiers). This might be a little trickier. When I assign a number, a percentage chance, that a believable lie is accepted I am making a decision that has to work for everyone. This will then be compared to every other contextual factor I add. Now maybe, that isn't so bad. If someone thinks a lie is believable, and the table more or less agrees, then having that work often isn't so bad.
... because as little as that was it seemed like a striking development, the only remotely positive development to latch onto and evaluate.
If that isn't group negotiation of modifier values... what is it? If it doesn't look like every other creative group negotiation at the table, what DOES it look like? Is it the panel of judges plan? Is it you just doing GM fiat and having them explicitly re-affirming group approval of your GM fiat each time for no reason? What IS this in reference to.
All you've given is angry denials. What is this about?
Demonstrate how it is shit or don't say anything.
So much for offering you a chance to explain anything then, THAT went well.
Lets grab the only text you deign to provide...
I made a sample list for Charm a few years ago (2 I think, I lose track of when I started some of the documents) and that list is actually just 4 conditions with differing degrees within them to apply to a roll/TN. The target's disposition toward the player, apparent personal benefit/cost of the request, apparent personal risk, and apparent personal effort. I do not think I need much more than that and even if I go bonkers and come up with maybe 5 (or 6 if I decide to split benefit from cost) more things I want considered on an individual roll then that's well below 'infinite'.
Lets try and be excessively thorough since this has become well over hyped by now.
We don't have any numbers. We can forgive this... a bit... I mean, the broader claim here is that this is achievable at design, so... it kinda doesn't help to lack numbers... but this is sorta hypothetical too we can get around the lack of actual numbers.
However we also don't know basically anything else about how the "differing degrees" are going to be represented.
We do know this, the biggest value of the differing degrees for at least some categories, and maybe not all categories, and we don't know which ones COULD be enough to "make context king" and trump the entire rest of all the game mechanics. Trumping bonuses like that are a problem in and of itself, but it's also now mildly worse because we don't know when or where it is happening. Lets just assume that it could be any of the categories. But that also any of them could be suddenly retroactively excluded.
The OTHER important thing about the structure of the descriptions of these "differing degrees". Which is problem, because there is a good way and a bad way of describing them for basic utility. The
bad way would be attempting to put together "examples" for a series of values. The good way would be to ignore examples and give game mechanical impacts basically "big bonus/small bonus" sort of stuff.
The lack of information on differing degrees also leaves us in the dark on important possible interactions with the
Group Negotiation of modifier values "...passing the job of determining what that means to the groups." whatever that means er... means.
Lets skip over the categories themselves for a little bit and assess the basic claim that this is a small finite number of entries on a list, and ideally not something that needs to keep on growing or IS already showing signs of keeping on growing.
Lets start with the claim that it's just 4 "conditions" (nitpick, categories is a much more naturalistic term here). Actually... did you not use the term categories and say "categories of modifier" because it would have made it more obvious that the "differing degrees" were a bunch of individual modifiers in 4 groups? No... wait you did remove that question mark, while quoting a question I asked and accusing me of not asking questions, on a quoted question from a paragraph of questions, followed by two more paragraphs of questions... can I be that generous in my reading of this anymore... look, no this CAN'T have been deliberate.
Either way, it's less a list and more a two dimensional table, one axis is 4 categories, the other is an unknown number of modifier values broken up by ? and described by ? that go to "enough to trump the other game mechanics". So the table is possible short but very wide, or who even knows.
Also it might not be 4 categories, or maybe 5, probably only 5, surely not more than five, six, six and most... and I mean that's almost comedy there. But point is, eh, 4 is not yet committed to.
But also while the broader social system proposed explicitly claims not to "do everything" it also claims to do "enough of everything" and we know it has several categories that all use this same methodology and that Charm is just one sub category of this mechanic in play...
... and so a more honest representation of the full size of the "its really a very short list" is that also it adds a bunch more entries for Deception, and for Intimidate and maybe other things but at least them. We can hope that maybe they are the same number of categories of modifiers each, so now our table of modifiers is probably at least 12, if not up to 18 categories of modifiers wide.
And maybe generously a modifier category might overlap, and also hopefully not need any changed text or values (hrm...iffy but possible) and apply to more than one, well I guess they are subtables? So lets say it adds up to like 10 to 15 categories of modifiers split to 3 subtables that are also unknowably wide.
I mean it's finite, apart from the part where we don't seem to be decided if it has stopped growing yet, but it's increasingly not all that small.
Ok, now lets assess the utility of the actual categories.
They were...
The target's disposition toward the player
apparent personal benefit/cost of the request
apparent personal risk
apparent personal effort
Let's start this section with a very very basic point on why the fuck this wasn't ready for prime time criticism and why very very basic elaboration was REALLY required.
One entry. ONE category on that list. That's how many "categories" TELL US WHO IS WHO.
The rest just raise questions. WHO is it apparent to? WHO is the benefit/cost applicable to? WHO is taking the risk? WHO is making the effort.
These aren't minor technical quibbles. Social mechanics are complex they incorporate numerous fictional and real individuals there actually ARE reasons why they could be talking about the active character, the target character, or even third parties. There are damn good reasons to believe that some of them could actually be referring to the actual PLAYERS not the characters.
Now lets move to another broadly shared criticism of the categories. What are they in practice? I would largely contend, they are pretty much bullshit. By which I mean the completely arbitrary and not really rational or justified decisions of the GM (or maybe the players too, but maybe not...FFS) on both value and what fits what category.
To the point that I feel what we basically have here is "AND ANOTHER fairy tea party modifier" written down 4 times. If they ARE that, this isn't a system it's fairy tea party again. And fairy tea party is always bad, almost exclusively when it pretends it isn't fairy tea party. I mean "just add a FTP modifier" while bad, would be better than this IF it really is just fairy tea party pretending to be real rules.
But, the contention is they are more than that. That the, very few, very vague words, about things apparent to... someone about something about someone else... are communicating categories of contextual element that are easily identified and then (somehow if we knew about the differing degrees) evaluated by the GM (or maybe the players, god damn it) to a degree that if not Objective, is at least, close enough that hey. Everyone will definitely agree and also it won't do stupid shit.
Which is especially difficult, because I would contend that even if you, fuck knows how, achieved genuinely objective categories and ratings people would still disagree and it would still generate stupid shit. But I think we get the idea, or perhaps the better word is the "ideal".
And we really need to look at each of these categories of modifiers individually for a bit.
The target's disposition toward the player
The first one might be the odd one out. It is of course impossible to say. We don't really have the information.
But lets start with the obvious "this wasn't ready for prime time" flaw.
The target's disposition toward
the player the ONE god damn category that tells us who is who, and it picks almost the ONE pair of who is who that is CLEARLY a fucking error. So lets assume that meant "character" or better yet "active character" and move on. But not before remembering, the author was given REPEATED CHANCES TO POLISH THIS TURD.
But anyway, back to the other odd one out aspects of this, to me, the assumption I have been invited to make is that this entry is a failed reference to what will inevitably be the usual trash "Reputation" mechanic. Or at least incorporate that, and who knows maybe a "Fame" and/or "honor"mechanic or who knows what pretty sure MGuy dropped more than one synonym for these things and I've lost track of which and how many but know there were several. I don't know if it was just coincidental common use language, one Reputation mechanic with "name pending" or several distinct actual planned things. I think it will probably end up being one Reputation mechanic, but we don't know if it's going to be one of those bad ones where a million NPCs all track the Reputation they feel towards the PCs, or one of those bad reputation systems where the PCs track the million Reputations that NPCs feel towards them, or one one of those other bad ones where the PCs just have one single reputation based on a global intantaneous kharmic gossip network. Or what.
Meanwhile. This is on the list for Charm. That might be friendship, that might be seduction. From what I would remember on MGuy's preferences, it is probably both. And if it's "also" seduction, that predisposition could be "romantic predisposition".
Also. Knowing the vague mess this almost certainly really is. It probably actually is, or incorporates, "the past history between/current feelings between" the target and the active character and EVEN if it incorporates a Reputation or similar mechanic almost certainly FURTHER accommodates for history/feelings between them and that MIGHT be why this isn't just called "Reputation".
So. For a start. This could be like easily three DIFFERENT modifier categories. Based on prior trends and my assumptions based on MGuys other material... I'm assuming it is pretty much ALL THREE. I lay a god damn bet that this "single category" on the list of 4 is actually like THREE things and represents the character's broader reputation (as known to the target) AND the target's romantic preference for the target or not (when it's being seduction charm) AND further feelings and past history between them (when its being friendship charm AND when it's being seduction charm).
If so, that small list continues to grow. Also if so, it's sort of a mess. But lets face it, it opened with a character having feelings about one of the players, it wasn't going to be well thought out.
apparent personal benefit/cost of the request
OK. So first thing on this one. This is for the CHARM social action. The, CHARM, social action has a cost benefit analysis on the list of kinda only 4 things that can modify it. Yes. That's a cost benefit analysis on Friendship, and maybe Seduction.
Fuck knows there are problems right there.
But then again, this brings to light another oversight that ANY elaboration might have provided us here...
...um, we don't know what the Charm action IS.
Not the slightest fucking idea. Are we making friends and having people fall in romance? Or is this some idea where every single social action is boiled down to a transactional bargain and we just get differing flavors of how the social pressure is applied?
You want my personal bet? It's a fucking lazy cut and paste. MGuy has mentioned a few times his distaste for haggling, but has also mentioned a few times the topic of bargaining and favor trading. In ways that suggests he might want to do one or both, somehow, who the hell knows how, on top of all these other things.
So maybe we add another subtable of list to the definitely not growing forever list of "Bargain". Then he was looking for categories for the charm action and was like "this looks generic as fuck CUT PASTE job done nailed it".
Alternatively, though I'm not sure it's more charitably, he thought that he could just sprinkle this specific category all over several of his flavors of OTHER social action and it would make each one into a magical transform that could do the thing it does and then ALSO do bargaining!
Now lets try and figure out who is who. OK so it almost certainly means the cost benefit to the target, apparent to the target.
You could however readily rationalize that it actually means the cost benefit to the active character relevant to the GM/Panel of judges, dammit an answer there would be useful.
You could even make a line of argument that it could be the Cost/benefit to the on going campaign/game experience in general as apparent to the GM/dammit.
Now lets assume he is just doing designing "that bad mechanic they always do". So it's definitely the cost benefit to the target as apparent to the target, because of course it is, it always is.
And of course that means this alone means we are layering all the usual dependency on the deception/stealth system we also know nothing about, requiring that even without deception/stealth at all we have any idea how, both personally AND game mechanically, the target determines the value of ??? in terms of what? Currency, personal happiness, character levels, abstract final modifier?
We don't know those things, if this goes like the usual bad design then we might get an answer on stealth/deception but actually the rest of it tends to be answered with "you FTP it" IF you get an answer at all.
apparent personal risk
Yep. The Charm action. Apparent personal risk. WHAT IS THIS ACTION?
OK. Again. Probably this is risk to the target as apparent to the target. This is probably another generic as fuck cut and paste job.
I'm assuming there is no accommodation or even slight acknowledgement for targets that enjoy risk taking.
You could argue that risk to the active character as apparent to active character could be a negative modifier though. And risk to the character as apparent to the GM/three pigeons in a trenchcoat might also be usable as a modifier.
But it's risk to the target as seen by the target isn't it because we are writing that same fucking bad design again aren't we?
Lets just move on.
apparent personal effort
This one. This category. Just wow. Personal effort. This is a gold mine.
Why is this here?
Someone is befriending, MAYBE seducing me. Or, maybe they are simple trying to turn fuck knows what into a transactional risky bargain but are being super friendly or handsy about it.
Why the FUCK do I care about effort?
It can't be my, the target character's effort. THAT would be a cost.
This is almost certainly the effort of the active character. It is PROBABLY as apparent to the target. WHY DOES THE TARGET CARE?
But, fair enough it might not be the effort of the active character. It COULD be worse.
It could be personal effort put in by ANYONE. It could even be a GM/squad of labradoodles rating of the personal effort the PLAYER put in!
Lets just say its the personal effort put in either by or on behalf of, the active character and/or anyone assisting them.
So, for instance this is a charm action right. So putting on make up. I note that
presentation and
appearance are NOT categories of modifier. For Charm. But EFFORT is. So. Put that make up on SUPER damn hard. Put on ALL of it, and it helps if you have never done it before because that means it is more effort. And more effort is better.
And how adjacent or relative to the action does this effort have to be?
Do I get bonuses to my social actions if I hold them on a cliff face and hold on with my fingernails in order to talk?
Effort... FFS You god damn clown you asked me to rate this as is. Effort.
The missing categories
You know we can make these up all day. Lets not. Lets just point out that Charm, CHARM, had no accounting for "apparent personal appearance".
How many similarly sized oversights do you think we could find? I think just one that big is enough to call this iteration of the list a dismal failure. Especially WHEN "EFFORT" MADE THE LIST.
We can leave looking for other oversights for later, I fucking tripped over that one without trying and this is enough effort for one post about one fucking sentence of material.
I mean leave it for later assuming an actual elaboration or alteration to the list that was definitely ready to be criticized actually happens.
It can also have "specific scenarios" left for later, I have opinions on how to properly use them and how not to properly use them to critique or test this sort of thing. But this doesn't demonstrably doesn't need the additional step.
Did you think that was rhetorical?
I explained exactly what I thought of what you are posting.
That's not how you answer questions or elaborate on rules.
Oh and whee... posting it without a summary check and edit... spelling away!