Yes, but I haven't played a game for money with someone like that! I really want to meet these people. (EDIT: As long as they aren't the murderin' type.)

Quote from: Arminius;895007Yes, but I haven't played a game for money with someone like that! I really want to meet these people. (EDIT: As long as they aren't the murderin' type.)

Instead of charging $15 per session*, you could try charging players a dime*  ever time they roll the dice.


* I may be posting in the wrong thread.

** That's $0.10 for anyone who doesn't already know.

Quote from: Arminius;895007Yes, but I haven't played a game for money with someone like that! I really want to meet these people. (EDIT: As long as they aren't the murderin' type.)

I can't recommend it, saw enough of that bs in Reno and Vegas; and yes, 100% gamblers can be murdering and violent. The amount of crime in those cities is off the hook, but if you are looking for a real life analogy to the in game mechanic, it's there.

I think you're missing the point: there's no real life analogy. In real life, people who believe they have luck points are suckers.

In games, if you have magic charms or prayers that really do stuff, then that's because those things really, really exist in the setting.

I will grant you that it could be an interesting conceit to give bonuses for subjective beliefs even where I think those beliefs are mistaken, in order to capture the mentalités of the characters. I should even say where the mentalités of different characters clash. To an extent that seems to be a theme of Runequest--although the way things were explained at least in RQ3 was that believers in shamanism, theism, and sorcery didn't so much disagree about the reality of each other's "magic" as they did about the nature of each other's sources of power. Maybe WoD Mage is closer to the concept.

A starker example would be to run an arguably "100% historically accurate" Roman game while giving bonuses to Romans for performing sacrifices and auguries, and also bonuses of other sorts to Christians, Jews, and barbarians.

It's an idea worth playing around with perhaps, as long as you don't go off the deep end claiming that post-modern subjectivity is an accurate model not only of values but also of causality. Because that sort of thing ends in hilarity at best; all too often it ends in tragedy.

EDIT: Anyway, once you assert that the thing really, truly exists in the setting, they're no longer plot points.

The situation is analogous, if someone is a sucker or not, is irrelevant to the question you asked. Even you are providing examples where it is.

/shrug

It's quite the opposite of analogous. In an RPG, using luck points is rational and will have an actual effect on your success and survival. In real life, "using your luck points" is irrational and while it may encourage you to take chances, it won't affect your likelihood of success once you decide to take a particular action.

Oh, and also has no analog because as we've been saying all along, if it's a known quantity to the character, it's no longer a "metagame resource". The subject of the thread isn't magic or appeals to the gods, it's explicitly resources that are used by players to do things of which the characters are unaware. The very argument deconstructs itself.

EDIT: If  you want to make the player's thought process analogous to the character's, you should tell the player how to gain and spend "luck points", but secretly have them do nothing.

No, you aren't using the definition right, it means "similar in some way", which by the original question you asked for IC actions. Now to say if it is precisely real, no, of course not. Then again saying you got your pretend in my make believe, isn't a very good statement either.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/analogous

I understand, because I have to look up words all the time.

Quote from: Arminius;895028The subject of the thread isn't magic or appeals to the gods, it's explicitly resources that are used by players to do things of which the characters are unaware.

Sorry, I'm not seeing that in the original post at all.

Maybe it wasn't clear in the thread, but to back up a bit, the theme of the wider RPG discussion (past threads here, Justin's "disassociation" concept, etc.) is the narrow sense: not kinda-sorta similar, but similar in that there's an structural correspondence in both perception and action, between the player and the PC.

Truly, I apologize if that wasn't clear.

I think the act of the ritual might fulfill that requirement, if talking simple luck, if talking retconning the game play back to some other fork, I agree totally that there is not structural correspondence between that, unless talking to a God or something else that extreme.

Quote from: Arminius;895045Maybe it wasn't clear in the thread, but to back up a bit, the theme of the wider RPG discussion (past threads here, Justin's "disassociation" concept, etc.) is the narrow sense: not kinda-sorta similar, but similar in that there's an structural correspondence in both perception and action, between the player and the PC.

I've read that three times and it still doesn't make sense to me.

Quote from: Arminius;895045Truly, I apologize if that wasn't clear.

Ha, the irony!

Quote from: rawma;895001Your game system does not allow for the existence of loyal allies or reputation or for an NPC to owe a PC a favor that can be called in once but not twice? Or you can't imagine obtaining any of those except by looking in a dead orc's boots?

Oh, pardon me while I slap my knee!
It's not really my game system, but most in most games I've played the existence of allies and favours to be called in are direct results of characters' backgrounds and deeds, not the contents of a dead orc's boots or metamechanics.

Quote from: soltakss;895211I've read that three times and it still doesn't make sense to me.

Are you familiar with the idea of an isomorphism in math? It's like that.

A mechanical element, let's say hit points in the BRP family, corresponds to a fictional element, in this case, physical well-being.

The player's perception of hit points corresponds to the character's perception of well-being, both absolute and relative. I.e., if I don't have many HP to begin with, my character knows he's not very tough. If I've lost most of my hit points, my character knows he's badly wounded. If I only have a few hit points left, my character knows he's likely to be incapacitated by any more mishaps.

Another mechanical element, let's say the damage roll of a combatant in BRP (weapon damage + strength/size bonus), corresponds to the in-world deadliness of the weapon and the strength of its wielder. If I know the numerical damage possible based on the dice is small, my character knows the person holding the weapon isn't likely to cause much physical damage--assuming equality in other factors such as attack skill, which also have a correspondence between the mechanical and the fictional. In fact while it's pretty easy suss out the threat of a weapon just by looking (a big muscular guy with a big weapon can be seen at a glance), it's not as easy to determine the skill of an opponent you don't know until you've seen them in action. Both characters and players will eventually infer this based on the flow of the combat, or in some cases the GM will provide a chance that the character will sense it and the info will be transmitted back to the player.

Furthermore the mechanical elements relate to each other in the same manner that the fictional elements do.

On the purely mechanical level, I know that an opponent with lots of damage potential has a high chance of exhausting my hit points. On the fictional level, my character knows that a big, strong opponent has a high chance of killing him with 1-2 hits. Armor of course factors into things in exactly the same way, with mechanical damage absorption corresponding to fictional efficacy and reduction of physical effect from hits.

When I decide to engage in a mechanical attack, the at-table events are: "I decide to make an attack -> I roll the dice -> a hit results or not -> effect of the hit if any is determined". The fictional events are: "My character tries to hit some opponent -> complex neuromuscular effort is exerted against a chaotic temporospatial situation, such that we abstract it as a stochastic event -> a wallop or a whiff occurs -> if it's a wallop, it may ricochet off armor, or cut, bruise, etc."

If you'd like to suggest some other interaction, I can try to map it the same way.

But let's look at the luck point example, in a way that's pertinent to the OP. Someone shoots at me, the dice say I'm hit, but I spend a luck point and turn it into a miss.

Mechanically: The opponent declares an attack, they roll the dice, they beat the target number, I decide to spend my luck point and declare a miss.
Fictionally: Somebody shoots at me and they miss.

Can you see the difference? The step where I decide to spend the luck point doesn't correspond to anything that my character does.

Let's suppose we say: fictionally somebody shoots at me, I see I will surely be hit unless I use my cat-like reflexes, so of course I dodge out of the way. Realistically, this is kinda suspect. I mean, I have never been in the situation thank goodness, but at close ranges there's no time to react to a flash or a bang, while at long ranges you're going to have trouble telling that you've been targeted.

However that's not really the point at all. Let's say that in the game world, my character can dodge bullets that he sees coming towards him. But because this ability is connected to luck points, there's an in-game structural relationship corresponding to the mechanical structures surrounding luck points. Mechanically, I only have so many luck points to spend on dodging. Ergo when I spend one of my X points, my character knows that he has only X-1 dodges remaining. If luck points have diverse uses, then my characters knows that by dodging, he's reduced the number of discrete, finite number of times he'll be able to get a sure-shot, automatic hit (for example).

Maybe that's the case--maybe that's how the world works. But if so, then we can and should stipulate it, and it's no longer a "dissociated" effect. On the other hand if we want to say that characters don't really know those things, and the in-fiction event is just something that happens, then the structural relationship of cause and effect, combined with the player's knowledge, is not reproduced in the cause & effect of the game world, nor in the mind of the character.

You wrote

QuoteYou clumsily block an attack with your shield, just managing to do it.

This is exactly the same. From my perspective, I spent a point. Maybe it's my last point. I know for a fact, 100% certitude, that my ability to block the next attack has gone from a sure thing to just my block skill. My character can only know that if luck points correspond to a real thing in the game world that the character perceives.

Quote from: Arminius;895242Mechanically, I only have so many luck points to spend on dodging. Ergo when I spend one of my X points, my character knows that he has only X-1 dodges remaining. If luck points have diverse uses, then my characters knows that by dodging, he's reduced the number of discrete, finite number of times he'll be able to get a sure-shot, automatic hit (for example).

Maybe that's the case--maybe that's how the world works. But if so, then we can and should stipulate it, and it's no longer a "dissociated" effect. On the other hand if we want to say that characters don't really know those things, and the in-fiction event is just something that happens, then the structural relationship of cause and effect, combined with the player's knowledge, is not reproduced in the cause & effect of the game world, nor in the mind of the character.

This same argument regarding the finite but known nature of luck points applies to finite but known hit points as well. The lack of a 1-to-1 relationship between hit points and health is psychologically less obvious because players rarely are able to choose to spend hit points (though there are exceptions). Loss of hit points usually is something that happens to characters rather than something they choose. So the discrepancy is somewhat concealed.

But the predictable exhaustion of a limited, but known resource has no real world analog. In fact in the real world people often think they are out of resources (life, health, vitality) even when they are not and sometimes think they possess more life, health, vitality than they actually do possess. In the real world, one does not know how many hit points one has. Which is true regardless of whether hit points are intended to be meat or some abstract representation of meat, fatigue, skill, and luck. Nor can anyone calculate thusly,

QuoteWell if he stabs me with that big knife in his belt that does 1d4+2 damage (max 6 pts) whereas if he hits me with that big poleaxe hanging on the wall that does 3d6 damage (max 18 pts). Now since I have 13 hit points, I know he can't kill me even with two hits with the dagger. Whereas if he hits me with the axe I know he can kill me. And in fact the odds are about 1 in 4 that he will kill me in a single blow.

On the other hand, if my hit points have decreased (via wear and tear etc.) to only 4 points I know that even one hit by the dagger will have a 100% chance to kill me, whereas (curiously) there is a very small, but real chance that one hit from the huge poleaxe will not kill my badly damaged self.

That level of specific, predictive knowledge is not available in any realistic world just like knowing exactly how many luck points one has, has no realistic world analog.

Overall, I agree with the notion that decisions by the player that don't correspond to a decision in the game world by the character and knowledge of PC status and resources known to the player that don't correspond closely to knowledge of the character status and resources known to the character in the game world are qualitatively different than decisions and knowledge that do correspond in (as you said) a 1-to-1 (and onto) fashion or as you said, isomorphically.

Quote from: baragei;895220It's not really my game system,

Your game system, as in the game that's played at your table.

Quotebut most in most games I've played the existence of allies and favours to be called in are direct results of characters' backgrounds and deeds, not the contents of a dead orc's boots or metamechanics.

So you persist in pretending that luck or fate points cannot be awarded for background or deeds, and must come from beyond the "4th wall" or as loot from a dead orc. Why? If you understand that allies and favors come from something in the game world other than a dead orc's boots, why did you pretend in your first reply to me that that was the only place fate points with an in-world interpretation could come from? If you are arguing against a particular implementation of luck and fate points, then you should explain how it works and what you object to, rather than persistently misrepresenting what I'm talking about. I'll be happy to explain my own thoughts further and give examples from games I've played, if you actually want a discussion.

Initial luck or fate points would in any case stem from the character's background, as with any initial player character resource. Subsequent ones could be awarded for outstanding accomplishments, or for advancing in reputation or skill, or whatever; but they might be fixed at character creation (like ability scores in D&D; when I first played, Constitution limited the number of times a character could be raised from the dead) with almost no way to change them, or arise entirely from the passage of game time. (Most of the resources I mentioned from D&D are recovered by resting, which I suppose is a character's deed. I would not add fate points to any D&D I've played, but I can think of settings and variant rules that might make them desirable.)