Setting your own Stakes
Jason Pitre:
I have been pondering a new design which would be focused on supporting adventurer-scientists, from victorian naturalists to pulp archaeologists, modern tenure track scientists or post-apocalyptic holders of knowledge. In any case, the central mechanic I was thinking about is one where each individual in a conflict (including a GM figure for the world) defines their own stakes. In the stakes setting games I have seen to date, the participants have identified what they wish to _gain_ if they are successful. This mechanic would flip it around and ask what each participant is willing to loose in order to be successful.
Now, there are a great many bugs in the central idea and it would require some deep thought. Does anyone know of any other games out there where players define what they are willing to lose during the stakes-setting portion of conflict resolution?
walruz:
I don't really know of any games that focus on what you're willing to loose to succeed, apart from stuff like Dogs in the Vineyard where you can choose to escalate a conflict in which you seem to be losing, so you can still win but have to pay steeper and steeper costs if you do end up losing. Since I've never given DitV a read-through this is just my impression of how it works based on what other people have told me.
I do think that if you're going this route for resolution (which could turn out to be incredibly rewarding in play), it seems like the only viable option is to have it work along the lines of
A: Loose the first round of conflict
B: Escalate
C1: Win conflict
C2: Lose the conflict and lose more stuff than if you'd lost in step A.
It'd be interesting to skip the above though, just to see how a system in which you simply set two losing-stakes against each other, though. Any thoughts on how you're going to handle the inherent difference in value between the stakes you're likely to be getting? What I'm getting to is: If Character A offers "If I lose this conflict, I don't get the girl" and Character B offers "If I lose this conflict, I die", it seems like Character B has a lot more to lose, and hence should get some kind of advantage.
Jason Pitre:
I was considering that this system would need very strongly defined resources. The severity of different bets would have to be tracked in a numerical fashion.
Minor stakes might simply be "I spend an hour of minor effort" or "I am out of breath" which might have a level 1 stake. "Spend a day of exhaustive effort", "Sprain" as a level 2. This may be tied into certain traits, so that someone could loose set amounts of "Professional Reputation" or "Funding" traits.
Both the loser and the winner suffer their stakes. Usually this means that the victors (with the high stakes) will suffer more to achieve their procedural goals then those goals are actually worth. There would have to be some kind of balancing measure and some kind of method of recovery, but I think it could be an intriguing idea.
Anyone else see similar approaches in existing games?
Daniel Davis:
Vincent Baker's Poison'd does something similar: fights have three levels of escalation, based on what kind of fight it is (e.g., swords, pistols, broadsides, ship pursuit). If you're losing after round 1, you can opt to take round 1 consequences (usually mild) and lose. Or you can escalate to round 2. Round 2 consequences are always worse if you lose. Or you can escalate to round 3, which is terrible if you lose.
Jason Pitre:
I suppose the key factor is that all of Vincent's designs (that I have seen to date) assume that the chance of victory was variable yet the cost of victory is zero. By contrast, the approach I am suggesting is that the chance of victory is 100, if you are willing to pay the cost. \
Any notable stake-setting games outside of Vincent's?
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