Is the Doom point mechanic  and economy explicitly In setting, out of setting or "It depends"?

Quote from: Nexus;940729Is the Doom point mechanic  and economy explicitly In setting, out of setting or "It depends"?

Define explicitly.  "This is an OOC mechanic." is a line I doubt you'll ever see, even in games filled with them.

Quote from: Robert E. Howard's Conan, page 261, quoted under Fair Use, bolding mineThe Doom pool grows and shrinks as the player characters take action and the gamemaster responds. Doom is a means of building tension— the larger the Doom pool, the greater the likelihood that something will endanger or imperil the player characters. Strictly speaking, the player characters don’t know that their actions further imperil them as they push their luck — at least they should not know in any fashion they can measure — but the players understand this. Eventually, in a final encounter, all of the Doom generated in the session is spent, usually in a final confrontation.

In this way, Doom mimics the increasing tension which builds over the course of a Conan story. Each story is comprised of cycles of building and releasing tension. This rollercoaster series of highs and lows eventually culminates in an action-heavy ending which tops all the previous cycles.

The gamemaster collects Doom. The players see it, and they know that the more they push their luck, the worse the eventual reprisal will be. The gamemaster should encourage and assist the players as they ride those ups and downs, and channel these highs and lows through the reactions of their player characters.

That bolded part is about as explicit as you'll see I think.

Now, they DO throw you a bone or two for rationalizing this:

Quote from: Robert E. Howard's Conan, page 262, quoted under Fair UseThe heroes push their luck, and Fate pushes back.

and

Quote from: Robert E. Howard's Conan, page 262, quoted under Fair UseIn the setting, Doom is an abstract thing, but something ever-present in the minds of those caught up in the intrigue and danger of the Hyborian Age: Doom is everything that could go wrong, every problem that could arise, the pressure applied by the conspiracies of evildoers and the machinations of malevolent gods, and represented in the power of foul sorcerers and vile abominations. It is seeped into the earth in some places, redolent of ancient and terrible deeds done in ages long forgotten by history. While at times the universe seems a vast and indifferent place, it inevitably reeks of evil and maliciousness, and the hearts of men and beast alike, when left to their own devices, will turn malign and baneful.

So, in this case, they're making the argument that it's not an Uncaring Universe, but some kind of Malevolent force, an embodiment of the evils in the world.

How you'll interpret all this is up to you, seems pretty clear it's meant to be a completely OOC player-facing, player-aware mechanic, that maybe the characters have some sense of.  Narrative players who like dwelling in both Story and Character can probably make it seem seamless.  

If you wanted to, you could hide the Doom Pool, so the players can't see it, they simply state their actions and get dice, they don't actually put counters into the Doom Pool themselves, or see the GM do it, so they don't literally see the bowl filling up with red counters or whatever.  The GM can adjust his descriptions accordingly to ratchet up the tension, etc.

In the end though, it's putting the players in charge of the pacing, their hand is on the throttle.  If they decide to starve the GM of Doom, not much he can do except gain them through his own Momentum, which means he has NPCs rolling great, but not doing anything, storing Doom for later.

So the players have to buy in to not game the system and starve the GM, and he kind of has to play into not being a Doom Whore and storing up enough Doom to have a big bad vaporize the characters.  It is competitive, but definitely works better when people agree to Not Be A Dick.

BTW some other headings from the GM chapter...
Let the Players Be Extraordinary
Framing Scenes
Scene Framing Tricks
Just Say "Yes"
Failing Forward and Success at a Cost

So, you may want to stay out of the GM Chapter unless you like your teeth itching.
Either that or have a good bottle by your side.

Also, the adventure Vultures of Shem looks to be pretty cool, but, like the other adventure, it's very In Media Res.

The problem with In Media Res adventures is, because they are focused and drop you right into the story, they are perfect for one-shots or starting adventures, where it is assumed the campaign continues from here.  The problem is stringing them together, especially if they are all over the place.  It forces a meta-construct of "Wandering Heroes" which again, fits the genre if you're concerned with the current Story aspect only and handwave everything in between..."Your characters just drank, fought and fucked their way from Aquilonia to Turan...as you get to the outskirts of Agrahpur..." but doesn't fit a logical, coherent setting too well if the players have motivations in the Hyborian World other than "Roaming S&S Hero".  Most of these books are supposed to have adventures in them, hopefully they're not just hyper-focused and will contain information usable in a broader context.

There are supposed to be some mini-campaigns coming, so that should be interesting to see.

Quote from: CRKrueger;940732If they decide to starve the GM of Doom, not much he can do except gain them through his own Momentum, which means he has NPCs rolling great, but not doing anything, storing Doom for later.

So the players have to buy in to not game the system and starve the GM...

That's one thing I've wondered about with 2D20: would it be an effective strategy for the players to starve the GM of Doom/Dark Synergy Points, basically emasculating any NPCs/monsters that they face? What would happen if they cooperated? Would the opposition be a pushover for the characters throughout an adventure, because the antagonists would rarely be able to leverage any special abilities? Or would it be a fail-fest across the board for the characters and the opposition, because the level of competence for everyone would be in the shitter? I'd bet that it would result in some pretty uninspiring and uncinematic play.

Quote from: CRKrueger;940733BTW some other headings from the GM chapter...
Let the Players Be Extraordinary
Framing Scenes
Scene Framing Tricks
Just Say “Yes”
Failing Forward and Success at a Cost

So, you may want to stay out of the GM Chapter unless you like your teeth itching.
Either that or have a good bottle by your side.

I just bought Captain Morgan Gold spiced today, and just made some tea that goes with it:p. I'm all set, though I've got The Nightmares Underneath to read, instead.

Quote from: K Peterson;940736That's one thing I've wondered about with 2D20: would it be an effective strategy for the players to starve the GM of Doom/Dark Synergy Points, basically emasculating any NPCs/monsters that they face? What would happen if they cooperated? Would the opposition be a pushover for the characters throughout an adventure, because the antagonists would rarely be able to leverage any special abilities? Or would it be a fail-fest across the board for the characters and the opposition, because the level of competence for everyone would be in the shitter? I'd bet that it would result in some pretty uninspiring and uncinematic play.

It would probably result in the kind of Warhammer fights where people hack at each other until they score a critical;).

Quote from: K Peterson;940736I'd bet that it would result in some pretty uninspiring and uncinematic play.

That hasn't happened in four sessions of MC (Dark Symmetry early period) with my group, they just add dice all over the place and i not-so discreetly add the red glass beads to my pile.

They've been known to utter an 'oh crap look at that pile....' once in a while....

Quote from: AaronBrown99;940738That hasn't happened in four sessions of MC (Dark Symmetry early period) with my group, they just add dice all over the place...

Oh, sure. I played around 5 sessions in a friend's MC3 campaign, and the GM never had a shortage of DSP. Getting all of the players to work together to starve the GM would be a challenge in itself, and probably be like herding cats. Not very damn likely.

Quote from: CRKrueger;940732Define explicitly.

Is there any attempt to connect it with some in setting force or justification like "Force Points" or "Possibilites" which are some that nominally exist in the setting's metaphysics though not in the quantifiable mechanical form detailed form they're present as in the mechanics and the characters may or may not be aware of them.

Quote from: K Peterson;940736That's one thing I've wondered about with 2D20: would it be an effective strategy for the players to starve the GM of Doom/Dark Synergy Points, basically emasculating any NPCs/monsters that they face? What would happen if they cooperated? Would the opposition be a pushover for the characters throughout an adventure, because the antagonists would rarely be able to leverage any special abilities? Or would it be a fail-fest across the board for the characters and the opposition, because the level of competence for everyone would be in the shitter? I'd bet that it would result in some pretty uninspiring and uncinematic play.

If you played the published adventures so far with a 100% no-dice buying policy, it would be slower-paced, definitely lower-octane, but due to the overuse of Mobs, the PCs would still have a pretty decent advantage.  A GM needs to use Doom to even make them worthy of being placed on the table, really, they are far, far weaker than SW non-Wild Cards for a comparison.

The problem is, once you do that, you're going to be focused more on the details of combat itself, range, positioning, tactics, etc... and with the Zone system, you may as well not bother on that front.  Which is why I don't think the game is worth modifying.  Play it for what it is, if you can do that, it's very fun.  If you can't - don't.  You'll never make it Mythras, you'll never even get it to Savage Worlds or 5e, so why bother?

But, if you don't go out of your way to make an OOC production out of the buying of dice, then I noticed it wasn't this big OOC thing.  There were no meta-discussions like "Dude, we'd better not buy any more dice, we're gonna get Doomed." or anything like that.  If the player really wanted to do something, they grabbed for the extra dice, which I called "Effort Dice".  Yeah, the players remarked that the decision was in their heads, it was somewhat immersion breaking, which is why it's not considered a candidate for the weekly roleplaying system.

Quote from: AsenRG;940737It would probably result in the kind of Warhammer fights where people hack at each other until they score a critical;).

Hey, a drive-by snark line.  I thought you didn't like the Sommerjon comparison?  I know someone suggesting you can't just handwave and paper over all OOC mechanics gets you swallowing your tongue, but to paraphrase the philosopher Robert Downey Jr...

Never go Full.Sommerjon.  Beside we already have NeoJon in Driscoll, so you wouldn't even be an original imitator.

Quote from: Nexus;940742Is there any attempt to connect it with some in setting force or justification like "Force Points" or "Possibilites" which are some that nominally exist in the setting's metaphysics though not in the quantifiable mechanical form detailed form they're present as in the mechanics and the characters may or may not be aware of them.

No. The closest you have is that second excerpt from page 262 I quoted.  Doom is definitely not Dark Symmetry, which in Mutant Chronicles is a thing.

Which is why when this whole thing was announced way back when, I questioned the use of these mechanics for Conan.

Quote from: CRKrueger;940743Hey, a drive-by snark line.  I thought you didn't like the Sommerjon comparison?  I know someone suggesting you can't just handwave and paper over all OOC mechanics gets you swallowing your tongue, but to paraphrase the philosopher Robert Downey Jr...

Never go Full.Sommerjon.  Beside we already have NeoJon in Driscoll, so you wouldn't even be an original imitator.

Two:).
You need to learn something, Green One: if I have something to add, I do that. If it amounts to one sentence, I write one sentence.
Sommerjon writes single sentences (or used to, I stopped reading months ago). I recently reminded Rgrove that Heamingway wrote a whole short story in a single sentence, too.
That doesn't mean Sommerjon is anywhere near Heamingway.
And in the same vein, me writing a single sentence doesn't mean I'm immitating someone whose posts I don't even see until you quote them. Not anymore than it makes me Heamingway, it must be noted.

Also, there was no snark. It was system analysis...though admittedly, I haven't looked at the system for a while.
Still, if you only roll the basic 2d20, I'd expect you to need to gather Momentum to really take someone out. So you are going to hack at people for a while.
And that reminds me of Warhammer;).

Personally, Nexus, I don't know if you would like it.
1. It's Howard, so definitely going to be some dark stuff going on.  Vultures of Shem(the adventure in the book)  

Spoiler

has cannibalistic ghouls potentially eating or sacrificing dead NPCs and PCs alike.

2. It's arguable as to whether the Narrative Mechanics are there because that's the way the Hyborian World works, or that's the way a Howard Weird Tale from the 30's works.  There's magic, demons, gods, etc in Howard's Hyboria, so you might be able to square the circle the same way you can something like Pendragon, I don't know.

Quote from: CRKrueger;940744No. The closest you have is that second excerpt from page 262 I quoted.  Doom is definitely not Dark Symmetry, which in Mutant Chronicles is a thing.

Which is why when this whole thing was announced way back when, I questioned the use of these mechanics for Conan.

Thanks, some of the discussion made me wonder how it was presented in the game.

I wonder...

What would happen if you just say fuck it to shuffling around all those tokens. And instead say :

Here is Hero Points and here is Villains Points (Doom). Players start with X number of individual points and GM starts with Y number of points. They only refill at the end of a session or at the end of a adventure. Nothing you do in-game will refill anything. You use it or lose it. And Parry does not give GM any more Doom and you actually rolls initiative in combat. No Doom either way for any sensible standard actions. If new points generates by some circumstance you use it or lose it if applicable.

So you kill the moving meta-economic system, but dont change a lot of other underlying assumptions of the system. Except, also limit Doom to really be Villains Points. Only antagonists to the players can use them. No enviromental-cosmic effects manipulated by some backlash-reversed-Karma-force.
 
Question then is: What the hell would be the consequences? Would it still be playable?