Quote from: tenbones on January 12, 2022, 04:11:51 PM
That's why you have the "Social Guy" in the group do the talking. Or you cultivate the Professional Murder Hobo image, and then people will know not to fuck with you. Intrigue is a civilized man's game. But everyone respects the sword.

So, basically, a player can only play an avatar of themselves and not just a character that interests them.
For example, to play a Wizard the player would need to be able to actually memorize their spells names and what they do. The time they take looking things up in real life is accounted for in game?

You can't play Bard unless you have real life social skills?

Quote from: Greentongue on January 13, 2022, 01:41:56 PM

Quote from: tenbones on January 12, 2022, 04:11:51 PM
That's why you have the "Social Guy" in the group do the talking. Or you cultivate the Professional Murder Hobo image, and then people will know not to fuck with you. Intrigue is a civilized man's game. But everyone respects the sword.

So, basically, a player can only play an avatar of themselves and not just a character that interests them.
For example, to play a Wizard the player would need to be able to actually memorize their spells names and what they do. The time they take looking things up in real life is accounted for in game?

You can't play Rogue unless you have real life social skills?

Pretty certain he means 'let the PC with 20 Charisma and max ranks in Diplomacy do the talking'.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on January 13, 2022, 03:48:54 PM
Pretty certain he means 'let the PC with 20 Charisma and max ranks in Diplomacy do the talking'.

Isn't that back to deciding by a mechanic when he is arguing against that? Though, could be just specific mechanics?

QuoteI'm not being specific because, as I said several times, Favors is just RPing for me regardless of setting/system.

Yeah, but that's not the point, because no one here is proposing using Favor as universal mechanics. So giving examples we're not advocating for is... pointless.
No one here is proposing direct favor mechanic for SW.

QuoteI'm all over the place because I'm literally making it up as I go for the purposes of discussion. I'm not strawmanning anything - I'm asking the question what is the value of Favor Mechanics over Roleplaying - and I'm giving you examples. My contention is that Favor Mechanics get in the way of roleplaying because it abstracts away deeper possibilities that basic roleplaying would give you, if you're so inclined to have actual roleplaying in your roleplaying games - which you may not. If so - not problem!

This is some weird manichean alternative... that's not real. You use various social markers and so on, as overt element of mechanics, if they are universal and somehow rigid for a setting. Favor among elven nobles, honor among samurai and so on. Precisely because it has objective or close to it value in given genre/setting, and as such players can have clear notion of it - just like they have clear notion sword in their hands strike for 3d6 damage, because it's in given situation as objective as sword, or at least as objective as characters Fortitude Defense Roll

It does not give you automatic victory or anything, and you can still botch whatever favor Favor is giving you.
Having more clearly defined social aspects in mechanics does not detter or diminish roleplay. Unless you allow it to because you're lady. But it gives players clear notion of their arsenal.

QuotePretty certain he means 'let the PC with 20 Charisma and max ranks in Diplomacy do the talking'.

And allow ranks in Diplomacy to abstract from deeper possiblities of roleplaying?

Quote from: Greentongue on January 13, 2022, 01:41:56 PM

Quote from: tenbones on January 12, 2022, 04:11:51 PM
That's why you have the "Social Guy" in the group do the talking. Or you cultivate the Professional Murder Hobo image, and then people will know not to fuck with you. Intrigue is a civilized man's game. But everyone respects the sword.

So, basically, a player can only play an avatar of themselves and not just a character that interests them.
For example, to play a Wizard the player would need to be able to actually memorize their spells names and what they do. The time they take looking things up in real life is accounted for in game?

You can't play Bard unless you have real life social skills?

If you have a bunch of players that do *not* like doing social-stuff - and one that does - and they're playing characters that *want* to do social stuff. Why wouldn't you let them?

It's only an example. If you have socially awkward players playing social characters in-game it's *assumed* that you as a GM understand the challenges of dancing around that. I do it all the time. At no point have I needed to use "Favor Mechanics" (whatever those are) in lieu of just roleplaying adjusted for PC Skills/circumstances etc.

Quote from: Wrath of God on January 13, 2022, 08:10:26 PM
Yeah, but that's not the point, because no one here is proposing using Favor as universal mechanics. So giving examples we're not advocating for is... pointless.
No one here is proposing direct favor mechanic for SW.

Since you're not offering up what "Favor" mechanics are - I'm literally left with making up scenarios with what I think you're talking about? I'm being pretty clear in that I'm LITERALLY asking you what are Favor Mechanics? And how are they more useful than roleplaying? I'm not trying to be argumentative - but I can't see this being a discussion without examples.

I use SW examples simply by whipping up something out of my ass that everyone would be familiar with. That should be pretty obvious since Han owes a debt to Jabba (spoiler alert?). If you prefer some other example I'd be happy to toss one out there. I'm on the record that the very game that exemplifies the only Favor Mechanic I'm aware of - FFG's Star Wars Obligation system is the *exact* example of Favor Mechanics that gets in the way of roleplaying. Most Players worth their salt can juke that system with *ease*. It exists primarily to justify something other than it's stated intent: it's there to justify players getting more starting points for Chargen. So do you have any other examples of Favor Mechanics? Toss them out there.

Quote from: Wrath of God on January 13, 2022, 08:10:26 PMThis is some weird manichean alternative... that's not real. You use various social markers and so on, as overt element of mechanics, if they are universal and somehow rigid for a setting. Favor among elven nobles, honor among samurai and so on. Precisely because it has objective or close to it value in given genre/setting, and as such players can have clear notion of it - just like they have clear notion sword in their hands strike for 3d6 damage, because it's in given situation as objective as sword, or at least as objective as characters Fortitude Defense Roll

Really? Not real? Do you hand out Markers to people in real life that owe you favors? What social markers do you receive from people you know that tell you that you own them? Seriously, this is silly. Roleplaying is just that. Now nothing prevents you from doing these things, my entire question is WHY? That's all I'm asking. What is the value of it? I'm not judging you or anyone as people for liking it - I'm only asking why?

If you say: Because we like it, and it has nothing to do with anything - cool! No problem. If there is something deeper of value - I want to know what it is (you know, I might be missing something here? Maybe. Maybe not.)

Quote from: Wrath of God on January 13, 2022, 08:10:26 PM
It does not give you automatic victory or anything, and you can still botch whatever favor Favor is giving you.
Having more clearly defined social aspects in mechanics does not detter or diminish roleplay. Unless you allow it to because you're lady. But it gives players clear notion of their arsenal.

Heh well you can't know this about me... but *no one* gets an automatic *anything* in my social encounters (or any encounters). Any encounter in my games, social or otherwise, are going to matter. If your PC is good at what they do, and the player is competent, then you're probably going to be okay. But nothing is ever guaranteed when it matters. I'm as oldschool as it gets - I'll kill a motherfucker. I'm always chuckling at getting new-school players from 5e, shocked at my games. But they're really nothing different than you'd have found in Basic or 1e.

But if we're gonna talk about what it means to Roleplay - that would be probably better for a different thread. I'm down for that too.

I do think talking about Game Skills used in Social interactions are pertinent about this.

Since I run really open-world fare, anyone that dumped 20-points into Diplomacy over other pertinent skills required for adventuring in my campaigns - would probably be dead, unless they were high-level already. Diplomacy is good for when you're doing just that - Diplomacy. It doesn't lower the intelligence of ones adversary, but it does let you get negotiation advantage over them. That requires a player with *some* understanding of what could be attained beyond the obvious (since the player probably doesn't have a Diplomacy of +20). Nothing prevents me or the other players from offering up possibilities to SHOOT for before the roll is made. Nothing prevents the player from asking. Nothing prevents the player from gaining that understanding for future interactions so they become closer to their PC and their capabilities. That's the job of a good GM to help their players get into their PC's contextually.

If you just let your players buy up skills (of whatever type) and not contextualize it, you're doing sub-optimally as a GM. That becomes a gap between a player and their PC. That's how people come to be confused about how your world actually operates.

I believe Hero Games' Valdorian Age sourcebook has a favor-economy-based magic system.

Any mechanic at all can be gamed and get in the way of pure drama roleplay.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 14, 2022, 10:45:45 AM
Any mechanic at all can be gamed and get in the way of pure drama roleplay.

This is a good point. I would say any mechanic has the potential to hinder gameplay depending on group preferences.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on January 14, 2022, 10:30:07 AM
I believe Hero Games' Valdorian Age sourcebook has a favor-economy-based magic system.

Interesting. What's the game about and how does it work? EDIT: actually I've just found a review on RPGnet describing it..

https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11199.phtml

QuoteThus, when, not if, a sorcerer fails his Skill Roll, he doesn't actually fail to make his spirit appear; rather the spirit appears but is now in position to make demands of the caster. In game terms this is handled through a system of Favor Points, similar to how the basic system handles Contacts and Favors, with each point a Sorcery Roll is failed by equaling 1 Favor Point. You can buy Favor Points to get more of an edge with spirits, or to cancel negative Favor. Enough negative Favor will lead to the caster owing debts to the spirits he calls upon. Leaving this debt for too long, or refusing to pay a price for sorcery, causes all kinds of bad luck and problems. There are several methods for gaining more Favor Points or working off Favor debt. A sorcerer could summon a spirit and ask it to give him some task, with completion of the task earning a certain number of Favor Points. More deviously, the sorcerer could invest some of his negative Favor Points into a token and have someone accept it; this person then becomes a 'scapegoat' and takes those points. A sorcerer cannot coerce someone into accepting the token but might deceive him into picking it up. This is, of course, a classic Swords & Sorcery plot device. "We've had rotten luck ever since you stole that stupid idol!!"

Nice. 

Quote from: TenbonesI'm on the record that the very game that exemplifies the only Favor Mechanic I'm aware of - FFG's Star Wars Obligation system is the *exact* example of Favor Mechanics that gets in the way of roleplaying.

How Star Wars' Obligation gets in the way of roleplaying exactly? From my reading of it, it's just a hook that players pick to bring elements they're interested into the game like, say, having a bounty on ones's head. It's similar to ye ol' Gurps disadvantages really. I struggle to see how that gets in the way of roleplaying.

Quote from: TenbonesSo do you have any other examples of Favor Mechanics? Toss them out there.

Here goes an example from Sagas of the Icelanders (emphasis on uses of Favor mechanic as specific to that game):


_ _ _

Ari and Sven are neighbours in 1000 AD Iceland.
Ari is a generous person and so has accrued 3 Bonds on Sven (you gain Bonds with someone by being generous to him/her: giving gifts, helping them out, etc).
Ari had it's cows stolen while he was out fishing. Sven saw the culprit, but stayed mounth-shut for fear of retaliation from the thief, a renowned holmganga duelist.
Ari visits Sven's home the next afternoon.

Ari asks Sven if he saw who stole his cows.
Sven answers that he didn't see anything.
Ari reminds Sven that he always treated him with generosity and kindness, and that he would do well to retribute it in case he knows who the thief is.
At the same time Ari's player spends 1 Bond to ask a question that Sven's player must answer truthfully, as per the game rules: "Is Sven telling the truth?"
By the rules, Sven's player can only deny telling the truth if he spends a Bond of his own. But since he has no Bond on Ari, he goes ahead and answers it truthfully:
"Sven is lying, as you can read by his nervous body language. What do you do?"
Ari's player: "Since I know Sven is lying, I'll push - Ari questions his honor in a loud and serious tone, and he's doing it outside in front of Sven's own family and passers by. I'm using my remaning 2 Bonds with Sven to hinder his rebuke - I'll remember the inumerous times I've showed him and his family generosity". By the rules, one can spend bonds on a 1 for 1 basis to give the target -1 on apropriate rolls.

Now Sven is in a tight situation...

_ _ _

So, there it is. Notice it doesn't substitute roleplaying whatsoever. In fact, by that game's rules, the use of any mechanic (eg: Bonds) must be preceded by a coherent in-fiction description, under GM adjudication.

Quote from: tenbones on January 14, 2022, 09:58:24 AM
It's only an example. If you have socially awkward players playing social characters in-game it's *assumed* that you as a GM understand the challenges of dancing around that. I do it all the time. At no point have I needed to use "Favor Mechanics" (whatever those are) in lieu of just roleplaying adjusted for PC Skills/circumstances etc.

Well, we were talking about game mechanics so that people other than you can do that "dancing around" in a consistent way.
As you have just stated, it does take some dancing around. Wouldn't it be helpful to have some codified method to handle this?

In Fate this would be very easy to do: just have the favor be an Aspect that the other person can compel against you (so you get a Fate point if you follow through with his/her demands).

Cortex would follow a similar concept, only with condition/tag dice instead of Aspects. So in apropriate conflicts against you, the other person gain those dice to roll against you, increasing their chances of success.

Quote from: Itachi on January 14, 2022, 01:11:05 PM

Quote from: TenbonesI'm on the record that the very game that exemplifies the only Favor Mechanic I'm aware of - FFG's Star Wars Obligation system is the *exact* example of Favor Mechanics that gets in the way of roleplaying.

How Star Wars' Obligation gets in the way of roleplaying exactly? From my reading of it, it's just a hook that players pick to bring elements they're interested into the game like, say, having a bounty on ones's head. It's similar to ye ol' Gurps disadvantages really. I struggle to see how that gets in the way of roleplaying.

Because if you're a halfway decent GM a "hook" is literally anything you're creative enough to make meaningful. I literally have no need to artificially create a hood or enforce it in play in my games. The problem I see with it, is depending on these kinds of artificial mechanics which denote implied and overt assumptions and proscribed behaviors by the PC's/NPCs directly affects actual player agency via roleplaying.

In other words a HOOK is inert unless the PC decides its meaningful for them. The GM's side of the equation is simply to make meaningful content for the players to consume. The mechanic intercedes in that dynamic since there is no requirement for roleplaying purposes to to *need* the mechanic to induce meaning. Han owed Jabba in Episode IV - at no point after the Greedo incident - which was handled through roleplaying and Han deciding to kill that Rodian bastard (he shot first). At no point does the Obligation mechanics require use that any GM worth his salt couldn't induce via simple game logic.

I can completely see how new GM's might find novelty in them. But they are no replacement for actual good roleplaying in my opinion. They are so unnecessary that even in their Genesys system they don't use them in that manner.

Quote from: Itachi on January 14, 2022, 01:11:05 PM
Here goes an example from Sagas of the Icelanders (emphasis on uses of Favor mechanic as specific to that game):


_ _ _

Ari and Sven are neighbours in 1000 AD Iceland.
Ari is a generous person and so has accrued 3 Bonds on Sven (you gain Bonds with someone by being generous to him/her: giving gifts, helping them out, etc).
Ari had it's cows stolen while he was out fishing. Sven saw the culprit, but stayed mounth-shut for fear of retaliation from the thief, a renowned holmganga duelist.
Ari visits Sven's home the next afternoon.

Ari asks Sven if he saw who stole his cows.
Sven answers that he didn't see anything.
Ari reminds Sven that he always treated him with generosity and kindness, and that he would do well to retribute it in case he knows who the thief is.
At the same time Ari's player spends 1 Bond to ask a question that Sven's player must answer truthfully, as per the game rules: "Is Sven telling the truth?"
By the rules, Sven's player can only deny telling the truth if he spends a Bond of his own. But since he has no Bond on Ari, he goes ahead and answers it truthfully:
"Sven is lying, as you can read by his nervous body language. What do you do?"
Ari's player: "Since I know Sven is lying, I'll push - Ari questions his honor in a loud and serious tone, and he's doing it outside in front of Sven's own family and passers by. I'm using my remaning 2 Bonds with Sven to hinder his rebuke - I'll remember the inumerous times I've showed him and his family generosity". By the rules, one can spend bonds on a 1 for 1 basis to give the target -1 on apropriate rolls.

Now Sven is in a tight situation...

_ _ _

So, there it is. Notice it doesn't substitute roleplaying whatsoever. In fact, by that game's rules, the use of any mechanic (eg: Bonds) must be preceded by a coherent in-fiction description, under GM adjudication.

A global mechanic that overtly tells the player when and how they can interact? That isn't very pro-RP agency to me, that feels more board-gamey abstract. Look, we may have different views on what roleplaying is. I read these rules you've cited as replacements for "skill checks" at minimum (which are not required at all for roleplaying) or something else this game is trying to express. But it's very reductionist from actual roleplaying - where if my character wants to lie - I simply lie, and the GM/Player has to respond as their character would respond. The mechanic you're citing literally prevents agency without the currency. I'm assuming it's denoting numerically what the "value" of ones relationship is as well? If so, that is another abstraction that gets in the way of actual roleplaying for me. People don't walk around in real life with Bond ratings in their phones of their contacts (Although that would be a HILARIOUS and awesome roleplaying schtick for PC that actually did that and roleplayed it to the hilt - "Sorry Itachi, according to my spreadsheet your out of Bond Points with me.")

How could a mobster ever whack someone close to them using this kind of system? Again, to me these are rules for playing a very different kind of game than what I view as roleplaying games. And if it's your jam, cool. It looks very anti-roleplaying conceptually.

/shrug. Not my cuppa. Any other examples?

Quote from: Itachi on January 17, 2022, 03:39:24 PM
In Fate this would be very easy to do: just have the favor be an Aspect that the other person can compel against you (so you get a Fate point if you follow through with his/her demands).

Cortex would follow a similar concept, only with condition/tag dice instead of Aspects. So in apropriate conflicts against you, the other person gain those dice to roll against you, increasing their chances of success.

I'm very familiar with these mechanics. I find them hit-or-miss depending on the players. I have several players that are/were very RP-anxious that liked them conceptually - but never quite hooked them. Obviously this is anecdotal.

I've tried using Aspects in other other systems to promote PC agency. It's been hit or miss, mostly miss and I've largely dropped using them (and Fate as a system) entirely.

Edit: And I'd like to offer an apology to everyone that wants to talk about these kinds of mechanics with me digressing here, I really don't want to derail this thread any further. I was honestly interested whether or not I was missing something. I think I've got my answers. If anyone wants to discuss this track further with me - feel free to make another thread and I'll happily shoot the poop with ya'll on it.

@Tenbones, it seems to me you're shifting the goalposts. You said earlier that favor mechanics bypassed roleplaying or made it moot. I gave you an example showing this isn't the case, where every use of Favor mechanics is accompanied by, and intrinsically linked to, roleplaying. Sure, you may dislike how the system incentivizes certain behaviors. Sagas has a very specific agenda and it's use of Bonds reflects that, so it will displease lots of people (like any mechanics, really). But saying it substitutes roleplaying with some "roll-off of the dice", as you did, just isn't true.


*speaking of incentives, I always found it amusing when people get bothered by rules that give incentives to certain areas but not for others, no matter how subtle or blatant the case.