As described in the mechanics on this thread - there may be others out there, I don't know, those values are locked.

I can't, for example, roleplay my way out of whatever the value of a "Favor" currency demands. IF we can - then we're not talking about the same thing necessarily. And I further submit, if we can indeed change that value based on roleplaying, it immediately implies the value of such a currency is lessened. Which is what I'm really asking - why not just stop using it and roleplay it?

If the response is "Because it's fun" - great. I could ask why - but it appears that gets into murky territory of subjective interests and potential vitriol (apparently). I'm not telling anyone to not do what is fun for them, because I see no value *for myself* in what they were doing.

Quote from: tenbones on January 22, 2022, 04:43:44 PMWhy not just stop using it and roleplay it?

This is getting into repitition. That argument can be made for ANY level of abstraction. Why have a defined STR score despite STR fluctuating for the avarage person during the same hour even? The classic 'Gun to head of a bound guy not killing' thing.

Quote from: tenbones on January 22, 2022, 04:43:44 PM
... And I further submit, if we can indeed change that value based on roleplaying, it immediately implies the value of such a currency is lessened. Which is what I'm really asking - why not just stop using it and roleplay it?

Gold in games doesn't seem to devalue even though "adventurers" return from dungeons with loads of it. Nobody talks about "stop using" gold. True silver is almost valueless and platinum was added to the coinage but the fact that value can fluctuate has not stopped people from using coins.
Even in our times, when paper is given an assumed value, it can be seen that having a method of quantifying value is useful.  Yes, the value of a "Favor" can change but, that doesn't make it not worth tracking.

Holy freaking crap, people! Gold and strength are concrete measurable things. Favor is a completely subjective ephemeral quantity that people in real life often just forget about after all the crap you've done for them, while money is MONEY and always gets accepted at the store. Even to the degree that you might argue that monetary value is subjective, it is still based around a scarce, measurable and quantifiable resource, which Favor isn't. How are these things even close enough to 1 on 1 analogous to be comparable?

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 22, 2022, 05:44:12 PM
Holy freaking crap, people! Gold and strength are concrete measurable things.

Not in a way thats comprable to the stats we have in the real world (maybe gold). Or are you saying there is a 100% accurate measure of 'Wisdom' or 'Spirit'.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 22, 2022, 05:47:28 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 22, 2022, 05:44:12 PM
Holy freaking crap, people! Gold and strength are concrete measurable things.

Not in a way thats comprable to the stats we have in the real world (maybe gold).

And?

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 22, 2022, 05:47:28 PMOr are you saying there is a 100% accurate measure of 'Wisdom' or 'Spirit'.

It's a good thing that isn't anywhere in my post. Not that it changes anything, cuz attributes not being 100% consistently measurable in RPG terms doesn't mean that they aren't measurable. People's strength in real life doesn't fluctuate wildly. They have an average lifting capacity and upper limit that tends to be fairly consistent, even if it may technically change slightly based on their activity that day or any "status conditions" type of things they might be suffering, which would just be handled as status conditions in a RPG. But some people being better at some things than others is a demonstrable thing. It isn't based on opinion or people's good will.

Just because a concrete quantifiable thing isn't measurable with 100% accuracy that doesn't make it comparable to another thing that is 100% subjective and subject other people's whims and memory.

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 22, 2022, 07:27:48 PMAnd?

Health points or wounds or whatever the fuck is a VASTLY abstracted and pared down version of the real deal. Its just as ephemeral as an abstract notation of some peoples general view towards you.

For those who are all roleplay all the time, let's turn this conversation around.  Do you really roleplay out every interaction in real time? Even the dull ones? Or are you abstracting or ignoring interactions that you think may not be interesting enough?

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 22, 2022, 08:16:11 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 22, 2022, 07:27:48 PMAnd?

Health points or wounds or whatever the fuck is a VASTLY abstracted and pared down version of the real deal. Its just as ephemeral as an abstract notation of some peoples general view towards you.

I already addressed this to some extend or another in the part of my post that you left out. Just because you can't have perfect 100% accurate 1 on 1 emulation of real life that doesn't mean that the thing you're trying to emulate isn't a quantifiable concrete thing. It just means that we're limited in how accurately we can emulate it.

But no, Wound mechanics aren't as ephemeral as Favor mechanics, because wounds are actually physical things we can observe and see their effects, while the idea of "Favor" is something that's up in the air and hard to quantify in any meaningful way. And Wound mechanics (however you handle them) are also vital to keep track of your character's health state and ability to survive. That's something that you kinda need to have in a game 100% of the time if you want to play any type of action adventure.

But you don't need a Favor mechanic to RP or keep a mental note that the PCs did right by a certain NPC, which means that NPC might treat them favorably next time they see them. So these two things are not by any means 1 on 1 on a comparison scale. One deals with concrete things and is 100% necessary in SOME form or another in an action adventure game, while the other one is subjective and isn't even necessary at all for handling RP. It's just an extra element added on top of the thing that you could already do without game mechanics before you added it.

Quote from: Bren on January 23, 2022, 02:21:42 AM
For those who are all roleplay all the time, let's turn this conversation around.  Do you really roleplay out every interaction in real time? Even the dull ones? Or are you abstracting or ignoring interactions that you think may not be interesting enough?

I actually used to RP the dull ones back in the day. It was a drag so I tend to skip them now. Though, I wouldn't say I'm "all role-play", but I can see the case for how certain mechanics can interfere with RP or force certain outcomes. In the Favor example given earlier in this thread, for example, certain uses of favor can force a player to tell if they're lying, which has a direct effect on the direction the interaction can take.

Even social skills and OD&D CHA-based Reaction Rolls do this for the most part. Though, I've grown accustomed to accepting them because I think that social ability is definitely a factor in interaction in real life, so I'm more inclined to accept the idea that social skills and/or charisma should affect interaction. But even then I've seen them get in the way, or used in lieu of actual RP.

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 22, 2022, 05:44:12 PM
Holy freaking crap, people! Gold and strength are concrete measurable things. Favor is a completely subjective ephemeral quantity that people in real life often just forget about after all the crap you've done for them, while money is MONEY and always gets accepted at the store. Even to the degree that you might argue that monetary value is subjective, it is still based around a scarce, measurable and quantifiable resource, which Favor isn't. How are these things even close enough to 1 on 1 analogous to be comparable?

So credit and reputation have no perceived value and only "gold" matters?

You may find this interesting:
https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/print/volume-100-issue-6/pre-modern-credit-networks-and-the-limits-of-reputation/

I believe "Favor" can be considered a stand in for credit and reputation on a personal level.

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 23, 2022, 07:36:48 AM

Quote from: Bren on January 23, 2022, 02:21:42 AM
For those who are all roleplay all the time, let's turn this conversation around.  Do you really roleplay out every interaction in real time? Even the dull ones? Or are you abstracting or ignoring interactions that you think may not be interesting enough?

I actually used to RP the dull ones back in the day. It was a drag so I tend to skip them now. Though, I wouldn't say I'm "all role-play", but I can see the case for how certain mechanics can interfere with RP or force certain outcomes. In the Favor example given earlier in this thread, for example, certain uses of favor can force a player to tell if they're lying, which has a direct effect on the direction the interaction can take.

Even social skills and OD&D CHA-based Reaction Rolls do this for the most part. Though, I've grown accustomed to accepting them because I think that social ability is definitely a factor in interaction in real life, so I'm more inclined to accept the idea that social skills and/or charisma should affect interaction. But even then I've seen them get in the way, or used in lieu of actual RP.

Oh yeah, that. Using a Favor to tell when someone is lying isn't something I would do or could do in the systems I run or play. That use sounded like it was coming from a very different system (though I don't recall which system it was). So I kind of just mentally skimmed on past it.

One thing that's clear from this thread is that there is no universal way that mechanics that get called 'Favor' operate. Different systems have different mechanics for Favor that do different things. There may be some overlap, but there may be great differences.

Quote from: Bren on January 23, 2022, 02:21:42 AM
For those who are all roleplay all the time, let's turn this conversation around.  Do you really roleplay out every interaction in real time? Even the dull ones? Or are you abstracting or ignoring interactions that you think may not be interesting enough?

It's not absolutism. I've said I put my stake down on "maximal" roleplay where/when necessary. I roleplay whatever interaction I think can be made potentially meaningful - which for me, could literally be anything but it is in tension with the interest of the player and their PC. I don't require a "tracking" number to detail the possible reactions/interactions based on that number with any particular NPC.

I *get* having things like Contacts. Contacts immediately assumes something specific about the nature of a PC and specific NPC's in the game. But the nature of that relationship is established and maintained by roleplaying.

Example: Captain America has Nick Fury as a Contact. In my games if a player playing Cap wanted some intelligence on an NPC, they could do something as simple as "I call up Nick and ask him what he's got on 'Stegron'." By the rules - it's a Popularity Check just to see if Nick is available. Or I could just waive that - because I may want to use this interaction to give some exposition from another sub-plot that's going on in the game or whatever. And oh yeah, here's what SHIELD has on Stegron.

But maybe the PC has been doing some shenannigans with Cap - and he's on SHIELD's radar (but was dumb enough to call Nick anyhow) - Nick is still a Contact, he'll pick up the phone, but that interaction might be much more nuanced because Nick suspects the PC Cap of having done something that SHIELD frowns upon - thus what PC Cap requests may have different outcomes for more nuanced or different reasons.

Conversely - you have characters like Daredevil, whose Contacts for info on the streets are Turk and Grotto. He *KICKS THE SHIT* out them in order to extract information. It was an ongoing meme for decades - it even made its way into the Netflix show. But the nature of that relationship to get the same equivalence of value (information) has a radically more nuanced interaction. Which in this case is varying levels of violence and roleplay as part of it.

Yes, you could abstract this all with a number and rote mechanics to gloss over these interactions, but it loses the nuance I want and get routinely from my gaming that defines what I and my players generally want. And if you or anyone else likes those mechanics in lieu of this level of roleplaying - okay, that's fine.

Quote from: Greentongue on January 23, 2022, 02:11:54 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 22, 2022, 05:44:12 PM
Holy freaking crap, people! Gold and strength are concrete measurable things. Favor is a completely subjective ephemeral quantity that people in real life often just forget about after all the crap you've done for them, while money is MONEY and always gets accepted at the store. Even to the degree that you might argue that monetary value is subjective, it is still based around a scarce, measurable and quantifiable resource, which Favor isn't. How are these things even close enough to 1 on 1 analogous to be comparable?

So credit and reputation have no perceived value and only "gold" matters?

You may find this interesting:
https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/print/volume-100-issue-6/pre-modern-credit-networks-and-the-limits-of-reputation/

I believe "Favor" can be considered a stand in for credit and reputation on a personal level.

Yeah. That system SUUUUUCKS for roleplaying. Have you tried that system? They don't even use dice. It's like freeform Amber with calculators and surveys with interviews. Worst gaming mechanics ever.

Greetings!

Fuck "Favours". Roleplay or DIE.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I'm not gonna sift, but I guess we can start compiling systems that have some form of it by now after all these posts.

I got as a start L5R and WW WoD (Storyteller), e.g. Vampire prestation.

What else?