Opening Presents
Apr. 26th, 2006 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mneme posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
labcatsRemember the "pep talk?" It goes kind of like this: Buffy fights with a vamp, and gets hurt. Not amazingly badly hurt, but she loses her confidence. So, she has a talk with Giles. Giles says...somethihg. I'd say it doesn't matter what, but it does matter -- because if it doesn't resonate with the audience, it's not successful. Later that episode, Buffy gets into another fight. This time, at a crucial moment, she makes a statement that resonates with Giles's pep talk, and that makes all the difference. Until she that moment, she's maybe losing, maybe winning but not so much. But after, it's can of whup-ass time -- like her drawing on Giles's advice causes hish ancient Watcher Buttkicking knowledge to get downloaded right into her brain.
I want a mechanic like that.
Now, there are a few parts to this. The first is the pep talk. Clearly, what Giles's player says is important -- and that it resonates with the other players is also important (I could see a judgement factor here). But it's also important that this sets up for what will happen later -- on a mechanical level, Giles is giving Buffy some mechanical juice that she can consume (by saying or doing something that resonates with his speech) at a later point.
The second is the fight -- it starts off with an initial result -- then Buffy takes a stand, and hits back not just by herself, but with the (thematic) help of her friends. And maybe it's not enough...but likely, it is.
Now, one point here -- the entire final scene loses some dramatic punch if we know in advance how much of an omph Buffy is getting. We might think we know -- but knowing is kinda like flipping to the last five pages of a book; it's just more interesting to see it develop.
I see two good ways to hide how much of a gift Buffy's been handled. The first is the ultra-traditional "roll dice" one. The advantage to this is, well, it's simple; it's easy: you just delay the "helper" roll to right before it's needed. The disadvantage is that it doesn't have the right emotional resonance, really -- the question of how useful the advice is -- how much of a gift one player is giving another -- is too important to be handled as the result of a die roll.
Instead, let's say that you model secrecy with secrecy. When you want to make a delayed handoff like this, take an envelope or box, have the player giving the pep talk load it up, and hand it over. When it's opened, you get to find out how much was in it.
This is a pretty cool mechanic. I could probably play with it. But that said, it does have one flaw: There's no relationship between what I said was important above -- how cool the speech was (and how resonating the reference to it was later) and what the result is. Even if the speach, frankly, sucks, the player delivering it is usually going to load up the box. And that's another thing -- that by and large, you can count on the box being loaded. Which isn't -that- much of a problem -- after all, you can rely on a loved one's presents to be pretty rocking too -- but it would be nice to have some mystery.
So how about, instead, after Giles gives his pep talk, you pass the box around. Giles can put a bennie in the box, so can Buffy, but nobody can put in more than one bennie, and anyone can put one in. After Buffy gives her own speach, you can handle that with a more usual open bennie mechanic. But more importantly, after she opens the box, and only then, you get to find out how much of a boost she gets...and it's exactly as much of a boost as people thought the pep talk -should- have given...they just don't find out how much that actually was until it becomes relevant.
That sounds fun. I could play that.
I want a mechanic like that.
Now, there are a few parts to this. The first is the pep talk. Clearly, what Giles's player says is important -- and that it resonates with the other players is also important (I could see a judgement factor here). But it's also important that this sets up for what will happen later -- on a mechanical level, Giles is giving Buffy some mechanical juice that she can consume (by saying or doing something that resonates with his speech) at a later point.
The second is the fight -- it starts off with an initial result -- then Buffy takes a stand, and hits back not just by herself, but with the (thematic) help of her friends. And maybe it's not enough...but likely, it is.
Now, one point here -- the entire final scene loses some dramatic punch if we know in advance how much of an omph Buffy is getting. We might think we know -- but knowing is kinda like flipping to the last five pages of a book; it's just more interesting to see it develop.
I see two good ways to hide how much of a gift Buffy's been handled. The first is the ultra-traditional "roll dice" one. The advantage to this is, well, it's simple; it's easy: you just delay the "helper" roll to right before it's needed. The disadvantage is that it doesn't have the right emotional resonance, really -- the question of how useful the advice is -- how much of a gift one player is giving another -- is too important to be handled as the result of a die roll.
Instead, let's say that you model secrecy with secrecy. When you want to make a delayed handoff like this, take an envelope or box, have the player giving the pep talk load it up, and hand it over. When it's opened, you get to find out how much was in it.
This is a pretty cool mechanic. I could probably play with it. But that said, it does have one flaw: There's no relationship between what I said was important above -- how cool the speech was (and how resonating the reference to it was later) and what the result is. Even if the speach, frankly, sucks, the player delivering it is usually going to load up the box. And that's another thing -- that by and large, you can count on the box being loaded. Which isn't -that- much of a problem -- after all, you can rely on a loved one's presents to be pretty rocking too -- but it would be nice to have some mystery.
So how about, instead, after Giles gives his pep talk, you pass the box around. Giles can put a bennie in the box, so can Buffy, but nobody can put in more than one bennie, and anyone can put one in. After Buffy gives her own speach, you can handle that with a more usual open bennie mechanic. But more importantly, after she opens the box, and only then, you get to find out how much of a boost she gets...and it's exactly as much of a boost as people thought the pep talk -should- have given...they just don't find out how much that actually was until it becomes relevant.
That sounds fun. I could play that.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 04:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 12:19 pm (UTC)It would help if the pools were secret (not a bad mod in any case).
It does seem to be a fairly extreme effect, as stated -- even if everyone's dumping, you'll tend to get +(# of players in the game).
It enables die dumping.
Also, stylistically Dicepool doesn't have a "winning by fanmail" feel, so bolting it on for this one mechanic doesn't feel right to me.
By contrast, I think my second effect (the pep talk giver loads the box secretly, probably with one die) would work well in dicepool with just the secret pools mod.