A mechanic swiped from Nine Worlds: Goals

[Vaxalon]

Some people already put traits on their character sheet that are goals.  "I want to kill my brother, Gold."  "I want to become a shaman."  "I want to rule the world."

What happens to those traits when they are achieved?  Do they become worthless?

It's my contention that they should not.

Since we won't be spending HP to increase traits in my game (see http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=19969.0 )  goal traits could be used and increased a lot by play.

In Nine Worlds, when a "Muse" (goal trait) is resolved (that is, either declared unachievable, or achieved) the character gets some points for it, that he can use to build up his character or win conflicts, much like HP.

Here's the proposed house rule:

When a conflict is resolved, a player can declare that a goal trait used as an augment in the conflict has been resolved.  It doesn't matter whether the goal was actually achieved or not.  The goal trait can immediately be turned in for another trait of equal level.  This can be a new goal, or a trait that represents the fruits of achieving the goal, or something totallyl extraneous.

For example: A player has the trait, "Rescue my sister from the plague-ridden city of Horemshar."  In the course of several adventures and many separate conflicts, it gets raised to a value of 5W.  Then, the sister dies of the plague.  The player declares the trait resolved, and takes a new goal: "Get revenge on Ybaldo, who prevented me from saving my sister's life 5W"

Later, after hounding Ybaldo for a while, the revenge trait has been raised to 15W, and Ybaldo is finally killed in a messy, painful way, and the player decides that his character finally feels vindicated, and the goal is resolved.  He takes the personality trait "Knows that revenge is empty 15W" and starts working on other goals he picked up along the way.

[Latreya Sena]

Sweet. I like the idea a lot. In your example, the goals are thematically linked:

      "Rescue my sister from the plague-ridden city of Horemshar."
      "Get revenge on Ybaldo, who prevented me from saving my sister's life 5W"
      "Knows that revenge is empty 15W"

It's this that makes me wonder:

This can be a new goal, or a trait that represents the fruits of achieving the goal, or something totally extraneous.

Totally extraneous? Would you allow a Character to pick up any new Ability at the 15W rating?

[Vaxalon]

I have a fairly laissez-faire attitude towards character development.  If a player says that resolving the goal "Become Queen of Terre d'Ange 15W2" should result in the attribute "Hole in my head 15W2" then who am i to argue?

I might ask them to narrate it, for entertainment value...

[Mike Holmes]

It's already by the book to allow the nature of relationships to change (though there's some question as to what the intended lattitude is there). It's not a huge extension to see goals as a sort of relationship (with oneself or the world in some cases), and not much further a stretch to say that these abilities can morph into other sorts of abilities.

Generally I think it's a good idea.

The big question I can think of is...does this apply to any ability you want to aim it at, or is there some limit on how many abilities are covered by this? Is there a way to start up a goal that doesn't require ending another? What if I transform all of my goal abilities into non-goals...no more play like this for me?

Mike

[Vaxalon]

Currently there are some abilities that are only available when the PC has access to certain sources of knowledge.  If you aren't studying with a wizard, you can't get Assemble Crystal Apparatus.  This applies here too.

There is a way to start up a new goal without ending another; you simply take it as a new trait when you win or lose a conflict.

Let's say Lukirawa loses the conflict where the stakes are "Prevent the mortals from stealing the crystal pylon."  He could immediately take the trait, "Recover the crystal pylon (goal) 17" and get +2 on any conflicts where he's working on that goal.

[Mike Holmes]

So you can have as many goals as you like, right? See, one of two problems occurs, then. Either players try to wedge every new ability into some goal statement (Strong becomes "Push harder" or something). Or you're basically saying that any ability can be changed to any other when appropriate.

The latter works, actually. In fact you can just make switching the name of an ability one of the options that one selects from the list.

If you want to keep it limited, however, and give people a reason to have non-goal abilities, then you could simply cap it at three abilities at most at a time, or something. Otherwise I can see characters becoming tottering piles of goal statements.

Mike

[Vaxalon]

Nine Worlds had a limit of nine muses total.  Noone ever got past five in the game we played.

If you limit goal statements to things  that can concievably be achieved, then I don't think you're right, but as anywhere else, eventually the "Don't be a dick" rule applies.

[nichughes]

Some people already put traits on their character sheet that are goals.  "I want to kill my brother, Gold."  "I want to become a shaman."  "I want to rule the world."

What happens to those traits when they are achieved?  Do they become worthless?

It's my contention that they should not.

I agree and I like the way you allow a lot of leeway in deciding what should happen to goals when they are resolved one way or another.

Another idea is to have ratings for things which the story drives a character towards even though the character would not particularly want it - which the one time I used this with a character I wrote up as "Fated to ...". I then also had a goal for the character (although not as clearly marked out as you do here) which was at odds with fate just to make things interesting.

--
Nic

[Mike Holmes]

The rule about dicks in question is at the social level. It says that one should not abuse the rules, etc. I'm personally of the belief, however, that it's not a closure for actual rules loopholes. That is, if you put a loophole in the game, and I exploit it, I'm not a dick, I'm actually playing by the rules as presented.

"Yeah, the rules don't really limit you, but you should just find a limit anyhow" is, to me, the height of negligent design.

That said, it's very simple to create limits. If you don't like a hard limit on numbers, then a very simple rule is just to say that the narrator gets to veto any such idea he doesn't like. I don't prefer that method myself, because I don't like to have to make any such judgments when they come up if I'm narrator, but it is effective.

And since, in this practical case, you are the narrator, if you don't mind it then we're fine.

"But the GM always has the right to say no" is not correct, if you're tempted to say that this is what you meant all along. That's a RPG tradition, but narrow construction of rules says that any power not expressly given is not had. There's more than one way to skin this cat, and if the answer is that it's GM fiat, then that should be made clear.

It could even be "all players agree" or "the player chooses whatever he likes" and we hope that it doesn't get out of hand. Lots of choices, each with their own benefits and drawbacks. But the purpose of RPG systems is to determine who has authority when.

Mike

[Vaxalon]

I disagree that any rule that is left to the social level is negligent design.  You can't make a rule for everything!  The "Don't be a dick" rule is ALWAYS in force.  At ANY point, even when a player is acting fully within the rules, another participant can say, "Dude... don't be a dick."  The game designer HAS to leave BROAD swathes of play to the social level, because to attempt otherwise leads to Waiting/Tea or KKKKK.... or Clue.

The "don't be a dick" rule essentially devolves to the following explicit rule:

"Any participant may veto the action of any other participant.  If they cannot come to a compromise, then the participant making the veto must either leave the game or withdraw his veto."

I would argue that this rule is ALWAYS in force, whether it's in the rule text or not, and to leave it out is not negligent design.

But that's all really beside the point.

I think the best limit on goal attributes is to make them things which can concievably be achieved.  "Push harder" isn't a goal.  It's ... kind of a statement of style.

[Mike Holmes]

You're entirely missing my point Fred. Of course the basic social contract is always in play. It's simply that conflicts of opinion can occur when neither party is being a dick. For instance:

I think the best limit on goal attributes is to make them things which can concievably be achieved.  "Push harder" isn't a goal.  It's ... kind of a statement of style.

OK, who decides that? You put the limit out there like it's obvious what constitutes an "achievable goal" and what is not. But I put out the example you shot down as an honest example of something I might do in play using this sort of criteria.

If I did say that I had a goal of "Push Harder" and felt that it was a goal, and you felt it wasn't, would it be best if your only recourse were to leave the game (or kick me out)? Wouldn't it be better if you as narrator had the right to simply say, "That's not a goal."

Let's give another example of this. There is always a question as to how well any ability pertains to any contest. It's the narrator's duty to send a message to the player to say, "I don't think that's quite completely appropriate" by assigning an improv penalty when he feels it's merited. Should that, too, be left instead to the "dickhead" rule? Why, if it's the right thing for the narrator to enforce community standards in the case of appropriateness of ability use in contests, isn't it the right thing to do in this case?

I do understand the reticence to have Narrator judgement - hence why I think a numerical limit might be superior and we can let the player be the judge. But, sans that, I think that giving this duty to the narrator is the soundest thing to do.

It's best if there's some court of appeal that happens with simple disagreements before we have to resort to the dickhead rule to resolve disagreements between reasonable people.

Mike

[Vaxalon]

As a narrator, I almost never say, "That's not a goal."

Too dead-endy.  One or the other of us has to be wrong.

I'm much more likely to say:

"Hm, that doesn't sound much like a goal.  Can you describe how that would be achieved?"
or
"Hm, that doesn't sound much like a goal.  How about 'Prove that I'm stronger than <character>'?"
or
"Isn't that more like a personality trait?"

A player who's completely and totally unwilling to compromise in every situation... I probably shouldn't be gaming with him.

[Web_Weaver]

Hi,
Just trying to intervene and pull this interesting discussion back on track.

Mike is not trying to judge your style of play

As a narrator, I almost never say, "That's not a goal."

He is trying to help you define your idea.

It is a given that your rules idea works for you, but in order to make it a workable proposition that other people can playtest it may need a tighter definition. Hence Mike's concerns.

----
Jamie

[Vaxalon]

Ah, I see what you mean, Jamie.

Evaluating whether or not a particular instance of play follows the rules isn't usually something that RPG rules cover.  Generally, it's assumed to be a role given over to the gamemaster.

In Dungeons and Dragons, if you have a +3 to hit, and you're trying to hit an armor class of 14, and you roll a seven and say, "Ten, I hit!" whose responsibility is it to tell you that no, you didn't?  The rules don't really tell you.

Are you saying that for this rule, I need to not only list the rule, but also its method of enforcement?

[Web_Weaver]

Sorry I know nothing about D&D