draft/gns_and_players_rewards.txt
branchecjdr
changeset 92 bdef1afd1170
--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/draft/gns_and_players_rewards.txt	Wed Aug 30 21:32:44 2006 -0400
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+   [25]argology                                            05:56:13 AM)
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+   rewards                                                           >>
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+   Author     Topic: GNS and player rewards  (Read 1480 times)
+
+    [44]JMendes   [47][IMG]  [48]GNS and player rewards
+    Member                   << on: October 31, 2002, 01:21:08 PM >>
+
+    Posts: 187    ----------------------------------------------------
+
+    [45]View      Hi, all, :)
+    Profile
+    [46]Personal  Appols if this has been asked and answered (in which
+    Message       case check out this thread replies are appreciated).
+    (Offline)
+                  Anyway, how does one reward players in the various
+                  GNS modes?
+
+                  (Ex. would be: a gamist mode rewards a player by
+                  awarding character advancement; or, a gamist mode
+                  rewards a player by tallying problems successfully
+                  solved, thus allowing said player to bask under the
+                  glory of said tally; or something else entirely...)
+
+                  Cheers,
+
+                  J.
+                                                            [49]Logged
+
+                  ----------------------------------------------------
+
+                  João Mendes
+                  Lisbon, Portugal
+    [50]M. J.                 [59]GNS and player rewards
+    Young           [58][IMG] << Reply #1 on: October 31, 2002,
+    Member                    06:15:17 PM >>
+
+    Posts: 2123     --------------------------------------------------
+
+    [51]1735114     It's not so cut-and-dried as that, I think.
+    [52]MarkJYoung  There's a sense in which the rewards can be almost
+    [53]tiras1      anything and fit any type of play; it's more a
+    [54]View        matter of how they're earned than what they
+    Profile         are--although yes, there are some rewards that fit
+    [55]WWW         some kinds of play better. But maybe I can provide
+    [56]Email       an outrageous example.
+    [57]Personal
+    Message         Multiverser has no "reward system" at all; there
+    (Offline)       is a sense in which nothing is rewarded and
+                    nothing is given as a reward. Yet people play it,
+                    and find rewards, because the rewards are inherent
+                    to the experience.
+
+                      [*]To the Gamist, the ultimate reward is that
+                      feeling that you just won, that you beat the
+                      odds or overcame the enemy or solved the problem
+                      in a significant way. I'm currently playing in a
+                      Multiverser game in which I was engaged in a
+                      battle of magic (and my character was completely
+                      new to magic, making it up as he went along).
+                      The attacker fled; the attacker's conjured
+                      assassin was driven away. I had beaten the
+                      enemy, I had won the conflict. The gamist reward
+                      here is phenomenal.
+                      [*]To the Simulationist, reward is a lot more
+                      subtle. It involves feeling like you've entered
+                      another reality, in some sense, that you've
+                      explored a possibility and discovered something
+                      about it. In that same game world, my background
+                      in law convinced the local prince to assign me
+                      the rather complex task of organizing his
+                      judicial system and creating a legislature as a
+                      way to bring his medieval princedom toward a
+                      modern democratic citystate. I've spent quite a
+                      bit of time figuring out how to organize a dozen
+                      judges into a tiered judicial system with an
+                      emphasis on precedent, and more on devising a
+                      bicameral legislature in which one house
+                      represents the fading nobility and the other the
+                      mostly illiterate peasantry (how do you arrange
+                      elections for representatives when the
+                      electorate can't read and write?). I'm watching
+                      the world evolve, and I'm involved in the center
+                      of it. There is a great reward in being part of
+                      something like this.
+                      [*]To the Narrativist--well, there are a lot of
+                      ways to say it that will lead someone to object
+                      to the terminology, but let me suggest that the
+                      reward for narrativists is the creation of
+                      something of a morality play; that is, we've
+                      created a story which is about an issue. In that
+                      same world, the man who appointed me his head
+                      justice required that I "swear fealty" to him,
+                      and I in essence did so: I told him that I
+                      didn't promise not to argue with him, but in the
+                      end I would recognize he had the right to decide
+                      what the law was. But this man has closed all
+                      the churches in the princedom. It was his
+                      opinion that the religious people were fighting
+                      with each other to the detriment of the
+                      community, so he made public religious ceremony
+                      illegal. My character is very religious; and
+                      since he has taken his position he has
+                      discovered that one of the major religious
+                      groups which have been "shut down" is
+                      essentially agreed with his own faith. He is now
+                      in a position in which he has sworn obligations
+                      to uphold a law that could easily be used to
+                      persecute people who share his religious
+                      beliefs, which indeed could be used to accuse
+                      his self of treason. The tension here is a
+                      wonderful narrativist premise, as the character
+                      must wrestle with whether he can serve as the
+                      chief jurist in a legal system that oppresses
+                      his own faith, or whether he can from his
+                      position of limited authority make it possible
+                      for that faith (and others?) to continue to be
+                      practiced and encouraged in the city despite the
+                      strictures placed upon it. The reward here comes
+                      from resolving those tensions in one direction
+                      or another. Narrativist rewards can in some ways
+                      be the most interesting. My character could be
+                      the deliverer who puts the crack in the wall
+                      that ultimately admits the flood, such that the
+                      prince is forced to permit faith again to be
+                      expressed and practiced openly. He could instead
+                      be the martyr whose death galvinizes the people
+                      to stand up for their freedom. There are great
+                      story possibilities here, and the realization of
+                      those story possibilities is itself the
+                      reward.[/list:u]
+
+                      Now, there's a lot of talk about how mechanical
+                      reward systems can be gamist, narrativist, or
+                      simulationist; but what that means ultimately is
+                      that the rewards encourage one kind of
+                      play--they are given for actions of a particular
+                      type, and/or they are in a currency which can be
+                      used for actions of a particular type.
+
+                         [*]A character earns experience points for
+                         beating the odds, whether that's for killing
+                         monsters, solving riddles, capturing enemy
+                         spies, disarming explosives, or any other
+                         in-game challenge. That experience is then
+                         spent to make him better at killing monsters,
+                         solving riddles, capturing enemy spies,
+                         disarming explosives, or some other in-game
+                         challenge. This is a palpably gamist reward
+                         system, because rewards are given to
+                         reinforce the inherent reward of winning, and
+                         are a type which help the character win over
+                         greater odds in the future.
+                         [*]A player recognizes that his character has
+                         values which could easily be brought into
+                         conflict. He moves that character into a
+                         place where the conflict will be forced upon
+                         the character, where he will have to choose
+                         between one value and another, and in doing
+                         so is given a credit. He may then use the
+                         credit to purchase something to add to play
+                         that will help resolve this conflict one way
+                         or the other, such as bringing another
+                         character into the scene, or placing a
+                         previously unmentioned object within reach.
+                         This is an arguably narrativist reward
+                         system, because it gives rewards for the
+                         creation of premise-enhancing situations
+                         which are of a type which helps the player
+                         advance the core of the story. (This is more
+                         difficult, as a very similar reward system
+                         could be used in a simulationist exploration
+                         of character/situation game; it's just the
+                         best I could produce at the moment.)
+                         [*]A character in a new city takes a job as a
+                         stablehand. The player puts effort into
+                         describing the life and activities of a
+                         stablehand, and his character's feelings
+                         about this; he controls the character to be a
+                         good stablehand. A tally is kept of the time
+                         he spends at this activity, with extra
+                         credits for doing it well. When a
+                         predetermined score is reached, the owner of
+                         the stable approaches the character and
+                         offers to promote him to work as a groom.
+                         This is arguably a simulationist reward
+                         system, as the rewards are given for playing
+                         appropriately in the context of the setting
+                         and lead to new opportunities to explore
+                         other aspects of the setting.
+                         [/list:u]
+                         There are countless ways to do reward systems
+                         for each sort of play. I suspect that the way
+                         to get at it, though, is to begin with an
+                         idea of how the game works without any reward
+                         system at all, to determine what sort of play
+                         you want to encourage, and then create a
+                         reward system which gives the players
+                         currency in response to the sort of actions
+                         desired which can be spent to make possible
+                         more of that sort of actions.
+
+                         Does that make sense?
+
+                         (And anyone who wants to suggest a better
+                         example of a narrativist reward system--or
+                         any other--please do so.)
+
+                         --M. J. Young
+                                                            [60]Logged
+
+                    --------------------------------------------------
+
+                    Check out [61]Multiverser
+                    [62]M. J. Young Net
+    [63]Cassidy             [67]GNS and player rewards
+    Member        [66][IMG] << Reply #2 on: November 02, 2002,
+                            11:04:29 AM >>
+    Posts: 165
+                  ----------------------------------------------------
+    [64]View
+    Profile       Quote from: M. J. Young
+    [65]Personal  Does that make sense?
+    Message
+    (Offline)     Absolutely.
+
+                  For me, the key to rewarding players is essentially
+                  knowing what their premise is and making sure that
+                  it's fulfilled.
+
+                  I can only relate my own experiences but for players
+                  with a narrative slant I very often let them assume
+                  the role of significant NPCs in the game.
+
+                  Mercenary Leader, Religious Zealot, Cowardly
+                  Nobleman, you name it, I've had them play it.
+
+                  It obviously takes a lot of setting up and
+                  discussion one-on-one with the player concerned
+                  prior to play which in itself is rewarding for the
+                  players concerned.
+
+                  For players coming from a simulationist angle, if
+                  the setting, characters, conflicts and situations
+                  within the game are engaging enough and really grab
+                  their interest then playing becomes it's own reward.
+
+                  The players like that in my group really don't give
+                  a hoot about experience points, story points or
+                  whatever in fact I never use experience points as
+                  such.
+
+                  The odd ad-hoc change in an ability from time to
+                  time as a consequence of a characters experiences in
+                  the game works well enough. It makes sense to me and
+                  more importantly it makes sense to the players. It's
+                  never a player initiated thing, it's just something
+                  that I mention to the player in passing when I feel
+                  the change is warranted. The player  modifies their
+                  character sheet and thats all there is to it.
+
+                  The problem I have most is satisfying players with a
+                  gamist premise.
+
+                  Winning and losing in RPGs is something that I've
+                  never been able to get my head around. Maybe it's
+                  just my own experience but the players in my group
+                  who play the the game from a gamist standpoint only
+                  seem to come alive when there is something to hit.
+
+                  They really appear to have little interest in
+                  exploring the setting or involving themselves in
+                  situations that don't have an element of combat
+                  associated to them.
+
+                  The only reward they are interested in is
+                  "improvement" of their characters abilities and a
+                  desire for more combat in the game.
+
+                  Combat for combat's sake bores me. Unless the
+                  characters are in a truly threatening situation and
+                  they stand a real chance of dying then it appears to
+                  be a real waste of time. I can't do that every
+                  session.
+
+                  Conversely, a session without combat is often seen
+                  as boring or unrewarding certain players in my
+                  group.
+
+                  I do run my games primarily from a
+                  simulation/narrative angle and I do introduce combat
+                  intensive scenes as a means of presenting the group
+                  with a dramatic life or death situation.
+
+                  I just feel that I can't satisfy the players in my
+                  group who play from an apparently gamist standpoint
+                  because I think the type of game they want to play
+                  isn't really the type of game I want to run.
+                                                            [68]Logged
+    [69]MK                  [73]GNS and player rewards
+    Snyder        [72][IMG] << Reply #3 on: November 02, 2002,
+    Member                  07:32:32 PM >>
+
+    Posts: 116    ----------------------------------------------------
+
+    [70]View      I think that given an awareness of what style of
+    Profile       play is most satisfying to the player, and having
+    [71]Personal  the play tailored to that style by the GM or group
+    Message       or at least respectfully ackowledged as a desire and
+    (Offline)     given a share of the session form and focus (turns),
+                  that players are rewarded by play itself.
+
+                  Conflict and frustration are lessened as players are
+                  not attempting to force/encourage one another into
+                  playing to misunderstood and possibly conflicting
+                  standards.
+
+                  It enhances the process of play. Mechanical/ design
+                  changes may not be necessary.
+
+                  In other words... if the players are having more fun
+                  because what they like to happen is happening, they
+                  don't need no steenkin XP's to sweeten it.
+                                                            [74]Logged
+
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