Your Rule Sucks: The Zak S Social Currency Edition

[Ancient History]

Okay, this is a new type of thread, like the OSSR or Anatomy of a Failed Design. Except in this case instead of evaluating a sourcebook, we'll try to dissect a specific rule that we think is broken, poorly worded, ambiguous, and/or basically sucks. This particular thread is brought on by the ongoing argumentation around Zak S. elsewhere on this board, but I want to emphasize that the purpose of this thread is to examine and attack the rule, not the individual.

Background

Ask me for a rule.

First, a little background: Zak S. asked for a challenge, and PhoneLobster suggested a social currency system.

Some people around here want a "Social Currency" system. A way of representing and recording gratitude, fear, and honorable debts.

Stated requirements include that in the event of gathering large amounts of "Fear Currency" by winning a war that a bunch of high level characters can give it to a 1st level Herald and he can go make the high level enemy generals surrender by cashing it in.

However at the same time it is important that you cannot accrue large amounts of incremental small pieces of currency like a gift of an apple a day and then cash them in for a kingdom.

Make THAT work. You have 1 Minute.

Lo, a few posts later, Zak posted the results, a very short rule.

The Rule

Assign a given transaction a bonus and an "expiration", like "This is worth +something on your next charisma rolls for a month. How's that sound, player?"

However, the baseline of these bonuses would only include the differences between bonuses of competing factions and interests. So, for example if you gave an apple (+1) and a competing interest gave 2 apples (+2) then that would be a +0 for you and a +1 for the competitor.

Also: only currencies whose continued supply that might be threatened by refusing a given request are considered. Like if somebody's sure they're gonna get more apples even if they refuse, that bonus doesn't count.

To help illustrate this (and answer some criticisms), Zak gave an example.

Superman altruistically saves someone. When does he not get a bonus to their reaction?

Well when the following conditions are all secured (not just one, ALL):

-Savee 100% certain s/he will never need help from Superman again (i.e. no effect on resource).

-Savee 100% certain no-one who provides important resources to savee will ever need help from Superman (if he saves the dentist down the street, your supply of dental care is uninterrupted).

(This one is huge, by the way--in the DC Universe, the entire universe is frequently threatened. This is why often even villains see the point in having Superman around.)

-Savee 100% certain s/he will never be in a position where Superman's positive judgment of him/her would be helpful in securing or maintaining a resource (For example: Superman saves Chuck. Chuck is ungrateful. If Chuck falls off a building again, Superman will still save him. However if anybody asks altruistic Superman "is Chuck a good guy?" for any reason of any importance Superman's negative evaluation of Chuck could affect Chucks access to resources. Also now Supes may be more suspicious of Chuck in any future Chuck-related resource-gathering enterprises.)

(i.e. savee regards "Superman's trust and/or goodwill" as a useless resource)

-Savee 100% certain nobody who could ever even indirectly control (pro or con) his access to resources will ever discover his/her ingratitude.
________

So:

In this fantastically unusual situation, Superman is at the mercy of a naked reaction roll, unmodified. (I think that's about right for modeling a morality I want in my game, you don't. If not: you could nicely ask for me to model the morality you want in your game instead of being a dick about it.)

Rule Evaluation
Okay, given that Zak S. was doing this on the fly and fairly quickly, we won't dwell on presentation. This is an example of a house rule, not a formal rule.

Further no specific system was named in the challenge, which makes things a bit difficult for evaluating the rule, but for the purposes of this review we'll assume a general AD&D ruleset with social skills and Charisma in play.

Let's look at the basic mechanic:

Assign a given transaction a bonus and an "expiration", like "This is worth +something on your next charisma rolls for a month.

This is functional. Do X, get Y bonus for Z period. It is somewhat ambiguous - does the Charisma bonus apply to an individual, or every individual in a group, etc.?

The rule is then modified.
Mod 1:

However, the baseline of these bonuses would only include the differences between bonuses of competing factions and interests. So, for example if you gave an apple (+1) and a competing interest gave 2 apples (+2) then that would be a +0 for you and a +1 for the competitor.

This is a bit hard to parse - obviously bonuses on "competing interests" cancel out, although it's not entirely clear what this means in play. D&D in any edition doesn't have good rules for handling a three-way skill contest where, for example, two parties are trying to vie for the interest of a third (like, say, two adventuring parties each trying to convince the town mayor to hire their team), but let's presume that the modifier only applies for Charisma (or CHA-skill-based) tests against the "grateful" party.

With this modification, the "high bidder"/"most generous"/etc. interest "wins" the bonus. This is a quick rule so there's no set list of what action/payment gives what sort of bonus, so this could be more along the lines of "The mayor is grateful you laid all the undead to rest in the cemetery, but he is more grateful that the Amazon Women returned his daughter to him safely and intact from the rapacious lizardmen." However, as it is currently phrased ("2 apples (+2)") it reads a bit more like rules for bribery than, say, a measure of good deeds, since you really do seem to be buying the result, more or less.

It also implies that bonuses stack - after all, 1 apple gave a +1 bonus and 2 apples gave a +2 bonus. That could be problematic in terms of CHA checks because a lot of actions could lead to an overwhelming bonus.

Mod 2:

Also: only currencies whose continued supply that might be threatened by refusing a given request are considered. Like if somebody's sure they're gonna get more apples even if they refuse, that bonus doesn't count.

This is harder to parse, and again the unfortunate "apple" terminology is used, but the idea is that bonus only applies to the Charisma (or CHA-based skill test) under certain circumstances. The given example is that if the individual you would gain the bonus against is sure they can continue to enjoy the benefit of your action(s) - then the bonus does not in fact apply.

This is obviously a very subjective part of the rule, and you'd probably have to argue it out for any given event. A police officer that captures the thief picking your pocket is just doing her job, paid for by your taxes - would you feel grateful enough to grant a CHA-bonus in that circumstance? Outlier arguments are regular do-gooders who can generally be counted on to do "good deeds" as a matter of course, like Superman and paladins

From a straight mechanical viewpoint, you have a basically functional mechanic (action X gives bonus Y for Z period), which as written might be open for exploitation (if bonus Y is sufficiently huge).

Subjectively, the rules do not necessarily accurately emulate social interactions; and also has some very subjective possible restrictions in whether or not someone gets a bonus, all of which would have to be ruled on by the gamemaster or argued out with the players.

So, it's a rule. It's not an unworkable rule, though it requires quite a bit of adjudication and interpretation.

Finally though, we have to consider: did it meet the design criteria? No it did not.

The intention was a social currency system "representing and recording gratitude, fear, and honorable debts," with a specific scenario in mind, and the restriction "that you cannot accrue large amounts of incremental small pieces of currency like a gift of an apple a day and then cash them in for a kingdom."

The action that results in a bonus to CHA or CHA-based skills is never quite specified, though the mods, example, and complaints all focus on gratitude, so you could make a case that acts of intimation or honor might also fall under the same system. Still, fear and honorable debt seem to be omitted.

The given scenario of the Herald carrying the bonus would require some part of the rule to address transmission of the bonus, or its application to a group as a whole instead of an individual; this is also not addressed in the rule at all.

The issue of incremental bonuses adding up to a larger bonus is, likewise, not directly addressed...but it is implied to occur, because 2 apples gets you twice the bonus as 1 apple. So either that's another failure to address the design criteria (if you think apple-stacking is not implied), or a straight violation of it (if you think apple-stacking is implied). Reading could go either way.

So, Zak S.' social currency rule is potentially gamebreaking if abused, requires a good amount of adjudication even when it works, and fails to address or satisfy at least two of the design criteria. Sorry Zak; you get a bit of slack because you were trying to do something difficult under a time limit, but:

Your Rule Sucks

[Zak S]

You asked for it, Shit-for-Brains:

did it meet the design criteria? No it did not.

How so?

The intention was a social currency system "representing and recording gratitude, fear, and honorable debts," with a specific scenario in mind, and the restriction "that you cannot accrue large amounts of incremental small pieces of currency like a gift of an apple a day and then cash them in for a kingdom."

True.

The action that results in a bonus to CHA or CHA-based skills is never quite specified,

Ask for the kinds of actions that receive a bonus at the table and ye shall receive. Is this a test of the rule or how bad the Gaming Den was asking about parts of it they didn't understand and how fast I could type?

It also wasn't a challenge of how many of the implications of my system you failed to grasp. Like "gold for xp" is a simple rule that works, but explaining all the implications to skeptics is the work of years.

The challenge put to me was to come up with a rule--not to come up with a rule and then give an example of every single time it could ever be used ever.

Still, fear and honorable debt seem to be omitted.

Not at all, they follow the same pattern described:

"
Assign a given transaction a bonus and an "expiration", like "This is worth +something on your next charisma rolls for a month. How's that sound, player?"
"

Fear: "Killing his family members will be worth +3 on your intimidation rolls for a year." (Fear of loss of further resources--more family members and loved ones)

Honorable debt: "Since you saved his family, this is worth +3 on your next charisma rolls for 3 years." Someone who would save your family has the following benefits is….
A provider of helpful deeds
Someone resourceful enough you'd want to be in their good graces (i.e. they are an asset in themselves)
Someone who, if they did not reward, that would be seen as disrespectful by onlookers (who are usually resources)

…and so you'd be nice to them--which looks, from the outside just like someone being nice to them because they're paying an Honorable Debt.

"The given scenario of the Herald carrying the bonus would require some part of the rule to address transmission of the bonus, or its application to a group as a whole instead of an individual; this is also not addressed in the rule at all. "

Again: do I have to spell out the obvious? Was this secretly a test of typing skill? The bonus transfers to anyone who the target NPC perceives as an agent of the PC with the bonus.

"The issue of incremental bonuses adding up to a larger bonus is, likewise, not directly addressed...but it is implied to occur, because 2 apples gets you twice the bonus as 1 apple. So either that's another failure to address the design criteria (if you think apple-stacking is not implied), or a straight violation of it (if you think apple-stacking is implied). Reading could go either way. "

You mangled the remit. It was:

"you cannot accrue large amounts of incremental small pieces of currency like a gift of an apple a day and then cash them in for a kingdom."

You forget out the problem I was instructed to solve was not that you couldn't accrue merely incremental but small and incremental gifts. Also the remit was you couldn't use them to trade in for large rewards (like kingdoms) not that you couldn't trade them in for any reward (like a bonus to a charisma check).

You missed it: only currencies whose continued supply that might be threatened by refusing a given request are considered. and the baseline of these bonuses would only include the differences between bonuses of competing factions and interests.

So you can only stack apples with someone (like a horse) who sees apples as not small incremental but significant currency. Thus fitting my remit:

However at the same time it is important that you cannot accrue large amounts of incremental small pieces of currency like a gift of an apple a day and then cash them in for a kingdom.

Because:
1. Horses don't have kingdoms to give (nor does anyone who'd regard an apple as a significant gift).

2. To the horse, the apple may not even count as a "small" piece of currency. It might be large if there were no other source of apples. (Which is part of training an animal--you get bonuses to charisma with them by providing gifts which are small to you but large to them and in exchange they give you…totally not a kingdom)

So, no, you can't trade an apple a day for a kingdom.

So, Zak S.' social currency rule is potentially gamebreaking if abused

Even if you had the maximum bonus (+10) how could that break the game? You ask for stuff and usually get it. I have a thief that has a barony--the game hasn't broken.

Effectively the player has (by doing quests--favors) acquired a magic item that (at best) allows him/her to charm a given NPC. More quests more items. That isn't much in the way of breaking.

Charm is a first level spell. If this breaks your game then Charm must positively crack it open and eat it for lunch.

requires a good amount of adjudication even when it works,

By that reasoning, all RPG rules ever suck.

and fails to address or satisfy at least two of the design criteria.

Nope: addressed.

So that's every single point you made refutes.

So that's the end of you. Never darken my doorstep again.

[virgil]

Even if you had the maximum bonus (+10)

Your rule has no limit to the size of the bonus.

[Zak S]

Even if you had the maximum bonus (+10)

Your rule has no limit to the size of the bonus.

I did not know that you (the audience) did not assume +10 is the upper limit to all bonuses from any lone source outside stuff integral to the PC (to-hit, etc). It's such a common practice in games I play it didn't occur to me to spell it out, but I accept that this may not be the practice for you.

If you don't do that and want to use the rule, you should look at it again and balance the max for whatever system you do use, however I'd reiterate: Charm is effectively a +infinity not just to a person you impressed/intimidated but to anybody and it isn't game-breaking.

So if you are actually arguing the ability is game-breaking (and not trolling) you'd have to address it in relation to Charm.

[infected slut princess]

Any minute now, I am certain you will all start blowing each other.

[Kaelik]

Since there is a thread about it, I will repeat my criticism from way back in the original thread.

It is worth mentioning, when Zak S elaborates on his totally for real social system says all these things, this is what he actually wrote as the rules for his social system:

Assign a given transaction a bonus and an "expiration", like "This is worth +something on your next charisma rolls for a month. How's that sound, player?"

However, the baseline of these bonuses would only include the differences between bonuses of competing factions and interests. So, for example if you gave an apple (+1) and a competing interest gave 2 apples (+2) then that would be a +0 for you and a +1 for the competitor.

Also: only currencies whose continued supply that might be threatened by refusing a given request are considered. Like if somebody's sure they're gonna get more apples even if they refuse, that bonus doesn't count.

So for example, what bonus does something get? Totally made up by him on the spot. How long does the bonus last? Totally made up by him on the spot. What about competing factions and interests that subtract from your role, what are they and how much do they subtract and do you know about them? That is made up by him on the spot. What about NPCs who are sure superman is going to keep saving them, how do you decide if an NPC is sure of that? He makes that up on the spot.

So in reality, there aren't actually any rules. It is literally just MTP, but he says a bonus you get on a roll instead of telling you what the NPC does. And then after you roll, he makes up on the spot the effect of your roll.

The summary is, Zak S did not in fact make a rule, he made a promise to make future rules every single time you ever did anything ever. Note that promises of future rules that will be made at a later date are not actually rules.

[Dean]

Regardless of whatever Zak S just blathered I do think the initial subject is worth discussing because there is a lesson in it.

The biggest problem with the "rule" is that it's impossible to parse and incomplete. It seems like there is a causal link between people who play in rules-careless environments having very low ability to present rules with clarity when they are forced to write them. That's not a Zak S specific thing by any stretch.

If you wanted to even call this a "rule" you would have to write it in such a way that someone could use it and know how it worked by reading it. Otherwise it's more like a note. I think if you tried to write it better it might look something like this:

When you perform a task or give an object to someone without charging them you gain social bonuses with that person. Any time you perform a free service or give free objects to the target that they consider valuable you gain an untyped +1 bonus to any charisma based checks made on that person within 1 month.

There, that's much clearer. And since it's clearer you can more easily read it and see where the fail points are. It is obvious that apple stacking would be a problem, it is obvious that it doesn't succeed at the stated request of being able to give those points to a Herald, and that it's just generally shit. It is not accomplishing the goal you would want it to which means you would go back and re-write it. This rule could be considered a perfectly acceptable first draft idea to be hammered out over a series of dramatic revisions but as it stand alone rule it is a massive failure.

Basically I'm saying that something that can be taken away from this is that if you don't write like shit then you can identify when your rules suck and then you can re-write them to be less shit.

[virgil]

Charm is effectively a +infinity not just to a person you impressed/intimidated but to anybody and it isn't game-breaking.

No it's not. The charm spell DC 11+(Int/Cha) mod, which is less than infinity.

[Zak S]

Regardless of whatever Zak S just blathered I do think the initial subject is worth discussing.

One of the biggest problems with the "rule" is, as you said, that it's basically impossible to parse.

Again, Shit -For -Brains the challenge was to write a rule that worked, not make it publishable.

If you don't understand it what you do is ask me to clarify what you failed to grasp, not do this shit….

When you perform a task or give an object to someone without charging them you gain social bonuses with that person. Any time you perform a free service or give free objects to the target that they consider valuable you gain an untyped +1 bonus to any charisma based checks made on that person within 1 month (wait, you forgot to weight them against other people .

There, that's much clearer. And since it's clearer you can more easily read it and see where the fail points are. It is obvious that apple stacking would be a problem, it is obvious that it doesn't succeed at the stated request of being able to give those points to a Herald, and that it's just generally shit. It is not accomplishing the goal you would want it to which means you would go back and re-write it.

You just re-wrote it so it was worse and then decided that new strawman rule was shit.

Of course not "any time", many services are insignificant to given NPCs.

And you don't even deal with competing pressures in your rule.

It doesn't include any of the features that make trading incremental apples for kingdoms impossible that I built into my rule. This is the most egregious strawman you could ever pull.

[Zak S]

Charm is effectively a +infinity not just to a person you impressed/intimidated but to anybody and it isn't game-breaking.

No it's not. The charm spell DC 11+(Int/Cha) mod, which is less than infinity.

…in an edition I don't play and was not asked to make a rule specific-to. Again because you're stupid: Re-read-- I wasn't asked to give an edition-specific rule. Either way: address the issue--the rule, assuming it tops out with a maximum, doesn't have the problem of being game breaking.

[virgil]

Charm is effectively a +infinity not just to a person you impressed/intimidated but to anybody and it isn't game-breaking.

No it's not. The charm spell DC 11+(Int/Cha) mod, which is less than infinity.

…in an edition I don't play and was not asked to make a rule specific-to. Again because you're stupid: Re-read-- I wasn't asked to give an edition-specific rule. Either way: address the issue--the rule, assuming it tops out with a maximum, doesn't have the problem of being game breaking.

Charm is not infinite in any edition of D&D. Saving throws and their DC (or whatever) is quite finite in every incarnation. And again, the rule you provided had no maximum and gave no indication that there was one. Including a maximum now makes it a different rule.

Regardless of whatever Zak S just blathered I do think the initial subject is worth discussing.

One of the biggest problems with the "rule" is, as you said, that it's basically impossible to parse.

Again, Shit -For -Brains the challenge was to write a rule that worked, not make it publishable.

Rules don't work for people if they can't understand them.

[Zak S]

Charm is not infinite in any edition of D&D. Saving throws and their DC is quite finite in every incarnation.

I said "effectively". Here is AD&D:
" This spell will affect any single person or mammal it is cast upon. The creature then will regard the druid who cast the spell as a trusted friend and ally to be heeded and protected. The spell does not enable the druid to control the charmed creature as if it were an automaton, but any word or action of the druid will be viewed in its most favourable way. "

I didn't say you don't have to save, I am saying the overall effect of Charm is as or more powerful than the worst case scenario of the supposedly "game breaking" situation of a player getting a really big charisma bonus with someone.

Rules don't work for people if they can't understand them.

Then your response to the rule should have been

"I'm sorry good sir, while that rule may or may not serve its purpose (i.e. work at the game table) we do not understand it the way you wrote it, perhaps due to our innate deficiencies or perhaps due to the language, please dumb it down or answer these questions we have"

not

"derrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp I'm gone' make uppa rool and pertand thas' thuh rool yoo dun rote an' than cumplayne 'bout thayut"

[TiaC]

This seemed relevant. (not quite the same emotion, but the same sentiment.)

[virgil]

I didn't say you don't have to save, I am saying the overall effect of Charm is as or more powerful than the worst case scenario of the supposedly "game breaking" situation of a player getting a really big charisma bonus with someone.

The effect of Charm includes a save to resist. "Saving Throw: Neg" and the numbers associated with the mechanic are not infinite or even extremely large.

[DSMatticus]

Charm is effectively a +infinity not just to a person you impressed/intimidated but to anybody and it isn't game-breaking.

No it's not. The charm spell DC 11+(Int/Cha) mod, which is less than infinity.

…in an edition I don't play and was not asked to make a rule specific-to. Again because you're stupid: Re-read-- I wasn't asked to give an edition-specific rule. Either way: address the issue--the rule, assuming it tops out with a maximum, doesn't have the problem of being game breaking.

Charm allows a saving throw in every edition. Similarly, no edition allows you to give people apples/piles of money/whatever for a +10/+infinity/+whatever bonus to the required saving throw result to resist charm. There are also numerous other downsides to charm varying somehwat over the years (overtly magical, target is aware when they succeed the saving throw, detectable by other magic users, dispellable by other magic users, allows checks to break control in certain circumstances on which the caster also does not +10/+infinity/+whatever bonuses) that your mechanic does not have equivalents for.

In the case of your mechanic, the defense is the attacker failing his charisma check. But the attacker can grab a +10/+infinity/+whatever bonuses on that check for apples/piles of money/whatever, making that a very one-sided check. This is not something a caster can do with their charm spell.

[Prak]

...I never thought I'd long for Paizo and GiTP's kiddy gloves sandbox cultures, but the conduct of all parties involved any time people start bitching about Zak certainly does it for me.

[Zak S]

This seemed relevant. (not quite the same emotion, but the same sentiment.)

The charge leveled against me (which I was responding to) resulting in the challenge was not "Oh Zak, you're so bad at explaining things to people who are completely hostile to you, know each other better than you, and very stupid" the charge was that I couldn't design a rule that worked quickly.

I claimed at the time, and I re-claim now that I was not pretending to write a rule for publication. Folks are focusing on their real or pretended incomprehension because it is the only way to explain their previous incredulity at the rule that doesn't make them sound as stupid as they are.

Since I can--and have--countered all the objections to the actual rule itself (that is: the actual behavior at the table I describe) and people are sitting there going …."Ok, wait, that does make sense now you explain it…." the only way to save face is say their earlier scorn was based on "Oh I didn't understand because you're so bad at writing" (not because insane rancor and stupidity blinded me to a perfectly usable rule).

While this does shift the fault for their not knowing what they're on about back to me, it asks me to defend a position I have not taken up--that I am great at communicating with bad morons. I am not that thing, by a long shot, and have never pretended to be. I simply am a guy who--like nearly every GM I have ever played with--can makeup a rule that works, and clarify it when asked.

That is the thing I was asked to do. That is the thing I did. That is the thing I can defend.

[Dean]

You just re-wrote it so it was worse and then decided that new strawman rule was shit.
Of course not "any time", many services are insignificant to given NPCs.
And you don't even deal with competing pressures in your rule.

Now Zak this is an adult conversation so my post wasn't really directed at you but I'll take the bait this once. In fact I do all of those things more clearly than your original but you should remember it's not my job to write the rule for you. The line "That they consider valuable" eliminates gains from insignificant services. If I were writing the rule to my own standards I would clarify lots of things that it desperately needs but my job was to try to best translate your flailings into something concrete, not design the rule to a degree you couldn't.

If you would like to try to write your rule completely and think you can do better then please do! You are welcome to do it yourself. I think it would be a good learning experience for you actually and is something I recommend you try.

[Zak S]

In the case of your mechanic, the defense is the attacker failing his charisma check. But the attacker can grab a +10/+infinity/+whatever bonuses on that check for apples/piles of money/whatever, making that a very one-sided check..

You left out important things:
In addition there's the outlay of resources involved in acquiring a commodity that the target considers significant enough to grant a bonus.

PLUS the request is only one-sided if there are no other parties competing for the same resource. So you missed both of those things.

Again: considering the worst case scenario is a maxxed-out bonus to some charisma checks against one target which you get for doing quests or giving someone the fruits of said quests, that isn't more game-breaking than a Charm spell (which you get much easier). It's, at best, in the ballpark.

[Zak S]

If you would like to try to write your rule completely and think you can do better then please do! You are welcome to do it yourself. I think it would be a good learning experience for you actually and is something I recommend you try.

I will re-post this comment which I guess you missed:

The charge leveled against me (which I was responding to) resulting in the challenge was not "Oh Zak, you're so bad at explaining things to people who are completely hostile to you, know each other better than you, and very stupid" the charge was that I couldn't design a rule that worked quickly.

I claimed at the time, and I re-claim now that I was not pretending to write a rule for publication. Folks are focusing on their real or pretended incomprehension because it is the only way to explain their previous incredulity at the rule that doesn't make them sound as stupid as they are.

Since I can--and have--countered all the objections to the actual rule itself (that is: the actual behavior at the table I describe) and people are sitting there going …."Ok, wait, that does make sense now you explain it…." the only way to save face is say their earlier scorn was based on "Oh I didn't understand because you're so bad at writing" (not because insane rancor and stupidity blinded me to a perfectly usable rule).

While this does shift the fault for their not knowing what they're on about back to me, it asks me to defend a position I have not taken up--that I am great at communicating with bad morons. I am not that thing, by a long shot, and have never pretended to be. I simply am a guy who--like nearly every GM I have ever played with--can make up a rule that works, and clarify it when asked.

That is the thing I was asked to do. That is the thing I did. That is the thing I can defend.

[PhoneLobster]

I think if you tried to write it better it might look something like this:

When you perform a task or give an object to someone without charging them you gain social bonuses with that person. Any time you perform a free service or give free objects to the target that they consider valuable you gain an untyped +1 bonus to any charisma based checks made on that person within 1 month.

There, that's much clearer.

I think one of the problems is that attempting to parse the gibberish Zak S presented even if you charitably interpret it and rewrite it into something sensible like that... the best you can say is indeed that it might look something like that.

I'll draw your attention again to...

This is worth +something on your next charisma rolls for a month.

And while AH chooses to rate this as "fine and functional" I cannot help but not.

It hasn't got much criticism. And I can see why, while it is easy to make a (nasty) non-charitable reading (grants +X on all charisma rolls against everyone in the universe for a month), it is also easy to make a charitable reading of it.

The problem is that there are at least two differing charitable readings and potentially further questions raised depending on the charitable reading. All largely because a single stray plural that doesn't grammatically belong leaves us in a limbo where it looks like half way through writing the rule Zak S couldn't decide between.

Grant's +X on your next charisma roll within one month [vs relevant targets]
or
Grant's +X on all your charisma rolls within one month [vs relevant targets]

And basically because of that gibberish ambiguity at it's most basic level, even beyond all the other failures of the mechanic about the actual terrible anti-altruism motivations etc... when we say "fine your gratitude bonus applies super-fucking-man are you happy now?" the player playing super man can only say "yes, but what the fuck does it apply to?"... and we don't have a firm answer on how many charisma rolls are involved.

Further, both charitable readings introduce potential unfortunate "come back to bite you on the arse" issues.

One month long gold fish memories are pretty bad and encourage some fairly serious "cash in now while supplies last!" issues, and NOT having the "next charisma rolls" expend your gratitude resource, which they don't if the plural end of the statement "rolls for one month" applies, means that gratitude lets you drain everything of < Gratitude bonus value from your new friends as long as you do it within a month.

But the depleting resource alternative, the front end of "next charisma roll" depletes your ENTIRE gratitude bonus on the SINGLE "next" charisma roll. Which motivates all sorts of other emergent bullshit where you save the kingdom and stay totally fucking silent until you can ask for the princesses hand in marriage, because for some fucking stupid reason you totally have the gratitude bonus to get the princess, BUT if you stupidly say "caw, saving the kingdom is thirsty work, I could use a beer thanks buddy, now, about that princess..." then the king hands you a fucking beer and tells you to fuck off because you used all your gratitude up on one fucking beer.


Also... AH has been very charitable on a number of fronts, and it's worth noting that some of Zak S's own previous replies actually contradict some of AH's more charitable moments in his assessment of the rule presented.

Notable I think is the apple stacking business, which while perhaps implied, when Zak S was originally confronted with "you have explicit apple stacking!" his answers largely amounted to "yeah so, functioning as intended!".

And to this days his defenses of apple stacking in his system are not defenses that it isn't there but rather defenses that it IS there but isn't a problem because everyone stacks apples and sometimes minimum incremental apple size is horse sized instead (as if either does anything much but make things worse).

But I'd also like to point out that the "I'm assessing this as a house rule not a formal rule" is also too charitable. The whole point of the initial disagreement was that Zak S was, whatever his blue faced denials now may be, very clearly at the time stating he had a system of formalized precedent based rules that were generated on the spot in total perfection and NEVER came back to bite him on the ass, even though once generated directly from his ass his formal precedent based bullshit meant they were basically cast in stone forever after.

As I see it his claim clearly required evidence significantly more extra-ordinary than something you would assess as a half assed on the spot house ruling. It needs to be up to at least the standard of a house rule given long term out of game consideration. Because the problem with Zak S's entire claim was that he was claiming the on the spot ruling he was going to provide would be BETTER than a mere out of game planned and considered permanent house rule.

Oh. And also, he took in excess of 7 hours after (inadvertently) confirming he had read the rule request to generate the rule. He not only failed the "on the spot ruling" challenge that he set himself by a huge margin by even the most charitable standards, 7 hours is enough to consider it a "permanent out of game time house rule" rather than an on the spot house rule. I don't even care if his "I totally thought of it straight away but kept it secret for seven hours for no reason" thing is true. Even then he had 7 hours + to consider, refine, and just plain reword and correct the damn thing before posting it as supposedly "perfect and unassailable" evidence of his awesome precedence based rules approach.

[Zak S]

Phonelobster says…

(first, a bunch of stuff about the strawman rule) then...

altruism

Already discussed:

Superman altruistically saves someone. When does he not get a bonus to their reaction?

Well when the following conditions are all secured (not just one, ALL):

-Savee 100% certain s/he will never need help from Superman again (i.e. no effect on resource).

-Savee 100% certain no-one who provides important resources to savee will ever need help from Superman (if he saves the dentist down the street, your supply of dental care is uninterrupted).

(This one is huge, by the way--in the DC Universe, the entire universe is frequently threatened. This is why often even villains see the point in having Superman around.)

-Savee 100% certain s/he will never be in a position where Superman's positive judgment of him/her would be helpful in securing or maintaining a resource (For example: Superman saves Chuck. Chuck is ungrateful. If Chuck falls off a building again, Superman will still save him. However if anybody asks altruistic Superman "is Chuck a good guy?" for any reason of any importance Superman's negative evaluation of Chuck could affect Chucks access to resources. Also now Supes may be more suspicious of Chuck in any future Chuck-related resource-gathering enterprises.)

(i.e. savee regards "Superman's trust and/or goodwill" as a useless resource)

-Savee 100% certain nobody who could ever even indirectly control (pro or con) his access to resources will ever discover his/her ingratitude.
________

So:

In this fantastically unusual situation, Superman is at the mercy of a naked reaction roll, unmodified. (I think that's about right for modeling a morality I want in my game, you don't. If not: you could nicely ask for me to model the morality you want in your game instead of being a dick about it.)

One might well ask why PhoneLobster is so stupid he missed this a…fourth time now? How does PhoneLobster get to his computer? Much less type?

when we say "fine your gratitude bonus applies super-fucking-man are you happy now?" the player playing super man can only say "yes, but what the fuck does it apply to?"... and we don't have a firm answer on how many charisma rolls are involved.

All within a period of time. that's in the rule:

Assign a given transaction a bonus and an "expiration", like "This is worth +something on your next charisma rolls for a month. How's that sound, player?"

But the depleting resource alternative...

(only relevant int he strawman rule--in the actual rule it's not depletable, merely situationally mitigatable)

Notable I think is the apple stacking business, which while perhaps implied, when Zak S was originally confronted with "you have explicit apple stacking!" his answers largely amounted to "yeah so, functioning as intended!".

FAIL. Here's the real thing, again, same page:

You mangled the remit. It was:

"you cannot accrue large amounts of incremental small pieces of currency like a gift of an apple a day and then cash them in for a kingdom."

You forget out the problem I was instructed to solve was not that you couldn't accrue merely incremental but small and incremental gifts. Also the remit was you couldn't use them to trade in for large rewards (like kingdoms) not that you couldn't trade them in for any reward (like a bonus to a charisma check).

You missed it: only currencies whose continued supply that might be threatened by refusing a given request are considered. and the baseline of these bonuses would only include the differences between bonuses of competing factions and interests.

So you can only stack apples with someone (like a horse) who sees apples as not small incremental but significant currency. Thus fitting my remit:

Quote:
However at the same time it is important that you cannot accrue large amounts of incremental small pieces of currency like a gift of an apple a day and then cash them in for a kingdom.


Because:
1. Horses don't have kingdoms to give (nor does anyone who'd regard an apple as a significant gift).

2. To the horse, the apple may not even count as a "small" piece of currency. It might be large if there were no other source of apples. (Which is part of training an animal--you get bonuses to charisma with them by providing gifts which are small to you but large to them and in exchange they give you…totally not a kingdom)

So, no, you can't trade an apple a day for a kingdom.

Again: this is on the page. How is it that PhoneLobsters so stupid he or she missed it? Could it be this complaint is disingenuous?

And to this days his defenses of apple stacking in his system are not defenses that it isn't there but rather defenses that it IS there but isn't a problem because everyone stacks apples and sometimes minimum incremental apple size is horse sized instead (as if either does anything much but make things worse).

I don't even know what you think this means. I addressed the thing you wrote not the thing you think you wrote.

You think you wrote about "apple stacking" what you wrote (again) was:

"However at the same time it is important that you cannot accrue large amounts of incremental small pieces of currency like a gift of an apple a day and then cash them in for a kingdom."

The whole point of the initial disagreement was that Zak S was, whatever his blue faced denials now may be, very clearly at the time stating he had a system of formalized precedent based rules that were generated on the spot in total perfection and NEVER came back to bite him on the ass, even though once generated directly from his ass his formal precedent based bullshit meant they were basically cast in stone forever after.

That's you straight up lying (and not making a mistake, because you've read this already) so here's the thing PhoneLobster is lying to everyone reading about right now. He says " they were basically cast in stone forever after"

NOPE! Here's my description, from the first page of the discussion of my rules:

You've misinterpreted my post and how I run my game, Archmage.

The answer is not always "Yes" and there are always times to make choices that matter.

For example:

Player: "Do I get a bonus from attacking with a sword from a horse?"
GM: "Yes, +2"
Player: "What if I want to grab the amulet?"
GM: "Well he's a short goblin running the other way so if you want the amulet this round you'll have to get off the horse. (And, of course, if you miss on your attack at +2, the goblin's probably going to go down the trap door and it'll take you longer to follow if you have to get off that horse--so how do you want to play it?)"

The keys here are:

-that +2 horse rule, once made, is like that forever. (Oh no! Is PL right? But wait…)
-the players generally have access to the rule before making a final decision, thus preserving tactical relevance of their decisions. There are (at least) two resolution mechanisms, 2 sets of odds--pick one.
-the players can appeal--and, in my local case--this never results in arguments or fights . If discussion of new rules does result in fights at your table, then maybe you need a heavier ruleset.
.

Again, ask yourself: How is it that PhoneLobster keeps missing these facts posted right in front of his face? In posts that he responds to and quotes? Is he dumb beyond any mortal yet known? Or is he just trying to cover his ass for having been so stupid and hoping that if he keeps ignoring facts they'll disappear? What is going on with PhoneLobster?

[PhoneLobster]

This is why you fail.

altruism

Already discussed:

...even beyond all the other failures of the mechanic about the actual terrible anti-altruism motivations...

I know the English language is not your first language (your first language apparently being self important gibberish noises that merely resemble words).

But you utter failed to understand that the ENTIRE post was not about your system's failures to do with altruism issues and that the reference was clearly and plainly to normal English readers intended to set those failures aside and talk about some even more basic failures instead.

So you, being a total fucking moron just see one word referring to an argument you have lost repeatedly and just jump right back cancerous spamming of your ongoing claim you totally refuted that issue. Expired rancid spam which dates back well before the last five or five thousand times that people have pointed out your refutation is a pile of shit and that your altruism issues are still a big pile of smelly smelly poop.

But hey, talk about that. Whatever. My discussion of the issue in your presented rule where it is ambiguous as to how many actual charisma rolls are effected wasn't for you. It was, in a stark reversal of affairs, for the critics.

[wotmaniac]

You asked for it, Shit-for-Brains:

Okay, I am a bit offended on behalf of Ancient History -- you just got a dissertation that almost passes GitP guidelines.
Perspective: you have none.
Also, you need to find a new name-calling insult -- this one is wearing out quick.

a bunch of bullshit about "it works if you pretend to make it work"

You need to get some thicker skin. AH even twice gave you honest credit for the effort ...... despite the fact that you simply fell victim to trolling by even taking up the "challenge" to begin with.

But this next piece of obliviousness really jumped out at me:

Because:
1. Horses don't have kingdoms to give (nor does anyone who'd regard an apple as a significant gift).

2. To the horse, the apple may not even count as a "small" piece of currency. It might be large if there were no other source of apples. (Which is part of training an animal--you get bonuses to charisma with them by providing gifts which are small to you but large to them and in exchange they give you…totally not a kingdom)

So, no, you can't trade an apple a day for a kingdom.

Dude, European settlers were able to procure huge swaths of land for literally nothing more than shiny beads and pox-laden blankets (which, btw, wouldn't be accepted back for much of anything). This is a RL example of "apple a day for a kingdom" (granted, it was incremental, and there's a whole lot more to the story; but the basic elements are still there).
Pro Tip: you can't have a rule who's premise is empirically and demonstrably false.

So, Zak S.' social currency rule is potentially gamebreaking if abused

Even if you had the maximum bonus (+10) how could that break the game? You ask for stuff and usually get it. I have a thief that has a barony--the game hasn't broken.

Diplomancer is a thing (and in multiple systems, no less) -- and it is well documented why that shit is undesirable. Are you really that oblivious?
Seriously, if your rule requires Peter Parker Ethics for implementation, this should be a giant red flag -- i.e., this is almost the definition of "objectively bad".

requires a good amount of adjudication even when it works,

By that reasoning, all RPG rules ever suck.

No, good rules give you a clear, objective input&#8594;output relationships (and, as such, require no adjudication ..... more to the point, they're self-adjudicating). There are PLENTY of rules that do this.

So that's the end of you. Never darken my doorstep again.

I don't even know WTF happened here. The same might be said of you.

---

Kaelik seems to be phoning it in right now.

I did not know that you (the audience) did not assume +10 is the upper limit to all bonuses from any lone source outside stuff integral to the PC (to-hit, etc). It's such a common practice in games I play it didn't occur to me to spell it out,

So, I guess this is the "I didn't know that not everybody else uses all of my house rules" defense? I'm unfamiliar with this one -- is this a corollary to the Chubaca Defense?
WTF?

Then your response to the rule should have been

"I'm sorry good sir, while that rule may or may not serve its purpose (i.e. work at the game table) we do not understand it the way you wrote it, perhaps due to our innate deficiencies or perhaps due to the language, please dumb it down or answer these questions we have"

not

"derrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp I'm gone' make uppa rool and pertand thas' thuh rool yoo dun rote an' than cumplayne 'bout thayut"

Fuck you, you fucked-up piece of fucking fuck.
And it is at this point that I'd rather be locked in a room with shadzar for all eternity than to read another single word you have to say.
I don't think that I've ever seen anyone so self-unaware and hypocritical.
We could lock Phone Lobster and Psychic Robot (are we allowed to mention his name?) in a room together, and it would be orders-of-magnitude more productive than anything you have to offer at this point.

[Zak S]

Dude, European settlers were able to procure huge swaths of land for literally nothing more than shiny beads and pox-laden blankets (which, btw, wouldn't be accepted back for much of anything). This is a RL example of "apple a day for a kingdom" (granted, it was incremental, and there's a whole lot more to the story; but the basic elements are still there).

That does not mean that in the presumed baseline D&D setting you regularly have people who have such a different concept of land ownership that this would be possible. If you want to shift baseline setting assumptions, then you could go "Gee why couldn't the first peasant the party meets at first level have so many hundreds of thousands of GP on them that they level up immediately and then use the excess GP to buy an army and use that to level up and…" or "OMG! What if in this setting low level monsters had lots of treasure and magic items and high level monsters had none!" or "WHAT IF THE MONSTERS HAD SUCH A DIFFERENT IDEA OF PROPERTY THAN YOU THAT THEY JUST GAVE YOU ALL THEIR GOLD IMMEDIATELY???" etc.

Not to mention…what you'd get for all your apple trouble in my system is…Charm.

I was instructed to make it impossible to receive a kingdom by giving small incremental gifts. I made one where small gifts don't count and if you want a kingdom you have to compete with everybody else who wants one or who wants a part of anything that might entail. So your historical precedent has little to do with "Does Zak's rule asked what dipshit asked him to do?"

So fuck off with that immediately.

Diplomancer is a thing (and in multiple systems, no less) -- and it is well documented why that shit is undesirable.

Appeal to absent authority. Try harder. Again: address the contrast with the Charm spell--which is generally more powerful.

(re: abusable rules)

No, good rules give you a clear, objective input&#8594;output relationships (and, as such, require no adjudication ..... more to the point, they're self-adjudicating). There are PLENTY of rules that do this.

How desperately vague. Give us a rule that can't be broken by stress as extreme as (your above example) "change the assumptions of the game so the people who distribute kingdoms are so generous with the xp-granting material in the game that it is any players' basically for the asking". Give us that rule now.

So, I guess this is the "I didn't know that not everybody else uses all of my house rules" defense?

This isn't my house rule, it's the rule in all games I play regularly. HOWEVER: If you don't use 10 as the max, I addressed that above.

If you use a different maximum: assign that maximum. Alleged problem solved.

Don't skip over clarifications I already made just because you're too stupid to remember them.