Interactive Stuff system

[Sojiro]

Hi there, I posted something over at RPGnet, and someone directed me to your place.

I wasn't really satisfied with the Stuff system in Amber Diceless; or to be accurate I was slightly lost at first, so I set a few firm rule to go by for my campaign. As time and games went by, I refined my system more and more until it clearly diverged from the one presented in the book, and one of my player suggested me to post it, since it might interest some o you.

First, I defined the Stuff as affecting mainly 3 areas : random events, "rolls", and charisma. The first one is the fact that good stuff characters often recieve windfalls, while bad stuff ones have a tendency to get into trouble. The second one is how the book suggest to look at the character's stuff when you'd have made a roll in another game. The last one represent the fact that bad stuff characters tend to be creepy or dodgy, while good stuff ones will seem trustworthy.
Next I immediately allowed players to specialise, so that you could have a unlucky nice guy for example, basically raising you effective Stuff level for one use and lowering it by the same amount for another (requires GM approval).

I quickly realised that a single point of good stuff would allow you to succeed at all your rolls, and be well accepted by everyone, while nothing but good things happen to you. That needed to change, so I made a "count" for each character in the campaign, each time he would recieve the effect of Good Stuff, he would recieve a Good mark, and each time I inflicted the effect of Bad Stuff on him, he would recieve a Bad mark, and I tried to keep the marks at a given ratio, depending on the amount of stuff.
Neutral Stuff were 50/50, while the one ranked 1st in Good Stuff would have 100/0 and the reverse for the one ranked first in Bad Stuff. I had Jurt ranked first at 10 Bad Stuff and a player ranked first at 10 good, so it was pretty easy to compute for everyone, Jurt would get 20 Bad marks straight while Angelus (the player I mentioned) 20 good, a neutral character 10 of each, and for each point of Stuff in one direction, I switch a mark from one column to the other. When this "goal" is reached, I erase all the marks and start over.
Of course you don't have to track this precisely for every character, doing it just for the PC and their direct rivals could be enough.

Now, I have evolved this system a little bit further, instead of having "marks goals" for the haracter, I give the player Stuff Tokens, the number being the same as above, a neutral would recieve half Good half Bad and the other character would recieve more of the Stuff they are leaning toward. Each time I would check their Stuff on their sheet, I ask them to spend a token instead. If they give me a Good one, they get the good outcome, if they give me a bad one, they get the bad outcome. This give the players a way to affect the way their Stuff works, makes it clearer to them, and also, it give them nice tokens to play with (go stones work great).

I've been toying with two variations on this system. First the ability to let the player control the rate of spending, by letting him optional use of tokens, or spending several at once to get bigger lucky breaks (representing the fact that depending on the amount of Good Stuff the good thing that happen to you are more or less significant), but I fear to have abuses, because for example the first ranked character would be able to spend the maximum amount every time.

Another thing I'm seriously considering is to set the basic token spending at 2 at a time. 2 Good would be good and inversly for bad, but one of each would mean neutral karma (ie : "no thanks, no stuff effect for me right now"). Basically some neutral characters don't want to constantly between lucky and unlucky but prefer to stay on the hedge (is that the correct expression ? or is it fence ?).

And since I'm on the subject, a friend GM of mine use another system : Good Stuff and Bad Stuff are two different and (almost) unrelated atrributes. So you've got the high/high combo which is overall neutral but very different from the tradional Neutral Stuff (ie : low/low) : he always get in all kind of troubles but his luck and winning smile usualy see him getting away. An interesting concept very represented in fiction.

That's it basically, I'm not sure I've been entirely clear, though.

[Schattensturm]

Another approach yet I used in my last campaign:

Good Stuff and Bad Stuff points are lost when used.
A player may decide on when to use Good Stuff / unspent points for good fortune. The gamemaster decides when Bad Stuff / excess spent points are used up and ill fortune applies to a character.

This way Bad Stuff becomes a points machine and Good Stuff actually hinders your character's forthcoming. Why is this? In my interpretation people should get rewarded for shit happening to them and should be willing to pay for not taking risks. The rationale behind it could be: You learn best from bad stuff happening to you, when you don't see a reason to excert yourself.

I don't know what you think about it, but I rather found that it is an ideal approach. The typical good stuff players tend to hate it, but it actually makes it worth it being the black sheep, and increases overall drama. Which is in my eyes a pretty important point.

[Croaker]

Well, I separated stuff too, allowing players to have up to +/- 5 in appearance and good looks, +/-5 in good/bad impression, and +/- anything in "pure luck"

[RPGPundit]

Welcome to the Amber Forums and theRPGsite, Sojiro!

RPGPundit

[gabriel_ss4u]

I like the idea of categorizing the 3 parts of stuff, but as far as 'using up' your stuff, or keeping track of if, when, when-not.... etc, I don't like.
I'm so used to the 'never runs out', and it is good that way IMO as it keeps those from overspending, and less PCs end up w/ bad stuff. Not that I care how many have it, but I agree; "How bad is bad? Really Bad" It is like this IMC.
But I may switch to the 3 part idea, but I'm calling one 'Chance' not 'roll'.

[RPGPundit]

Yeah, its too much bean-counting, contrary to the spirit of the rules.

RPGPundit

[jibbajibba]

I wouldn't worry about looks. All Amberites are suposed to be good looking, Dworkin drew them that way
the idea of spliting Stuff into Presence and Luck might have some legs though but I tend to think of Bad luck in Stuff as being of a higher scale. In my games its not so much do any of the random arows from the battlements hit you as it is about why the Hierophant of the Church of the Serpent has selected you for this suicide mission into the Abyss.

[gabriel_ss4u]

Luv what I'm hearin' Jibba...

[Croaker]

I had stuff act as probability manipulation. Low stuff would get little effects, like bad luck on die roll.
The greater the stuff, the greater this effect.

But then, in the extremes, you had reality-shaping effects. I remember a player who accumulated an awfull lot of bad stuff, he became a kind of cancer of reality, warping shadows around him, living in a entirely fasle bubble of his worst fears, until Shadow just teared appart and he fell in undershadow.

[moritheil]

Welcome!  It's an interesting idea.  Insofar as the problem of 1 stuff leading to good stuff too often, I'd just ignore low Stuff values, or make them have an effect only when interacting with other peoples' Stuff.

[gabriel_ss4u]

ignore low stuff values?
to me it is more the bell curve of stuff, what degree between the high 'good stuff and the high bad stuff'.
If a player has 2 good and another has 6 good, the IMC, I would have the 2 pt happen less often and to a lesser degree, due to the fact there is one 'much luckier'.
I refer to stuff often as it is the decriptive tint and the random chance that so often colors a scene. 1 pt. saved is important to that character/player, so I never ignore the fact that they 'paid' for that luck.

[jibbajibba]

well to rationalise. I have stuff limit od +/- 10 points. If I were applying to localised luck I woudl say a +1 stuff character wins a game based purely on chance 55% of the time a guy with +10 stuff wins 100% of the time.
Apply that logic consistently and its pretty workable. You can even use this as a 'reaction modifer' from -50%% up to +50% but it does sound a bit dice-y now I read it back

[gabriel_ss4u]

LOL!
a good equation for understanding it though jibba, yes, this is how I do it and am glad yours is similar, Lemme know if you make it to Baltimore anytime, we need to have an 'Amber-day' face to face in your travels.