[Torg] metapower vs advancement, reconsolidation

[Travis James Hall]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com 
> [mailto:torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com] On Behalf Of 
> Benjamin Grant
> Sent: Thursday, 12 March 2009 11:48 PM
> To: torg at justintimeadventures.com
> Subject: [Torg] metapower vs advancement, reconsolidation
> 
> Ted really REALLY wants those three skill to go up - so he 
> spends NO possibilities.  However, he is NOT hanging back - 
> instead he is trying to "make up for that" by doing the 
> opposite - he also jumps into the fight without hesitation, 
> he plays even more carefully, trying to outthink every 
> challenge so as need fewer possibilities.  He takes some real 
> damage to his character that he does not buy off, and by the 
> end of the session, he has two Wounds.  In other words, he is 
> not coasting, he is doing everything *short* of possibility 
> expenditure.

>From your description, it sounds like Ted is outperforming Bob in almost
every way - the exception being that he doesn't spend Possibilities. I would
say that "everything short of Possibility expenditure" is an inaccurate
description. Possibility spending is not the ultimate expression of
roleplaying, of greater value than outthinking challenges and careful play.
"He is doing everything but spending Possibilities," would be a more
accurate description.

> Also, the failures that do occur as a result of 
> not being willing to spend the possies he utterly accepts, 
> and has the philosophy of "temporary failure = more story 
> drama, more roleplaying (as opposed to roll-playing) 
> possibilities (no pun intended) with the reward for be 
> willing to explore a storyline based on lack of success being 
> more story power later with greater skills.
> 
>  
> 
> At the end of the session Ted's the star, but Bob's story is 
> also compelling.  However, at the end of the session, Bob 
> raises all three skills he had been planning to, while Ted is 
> lucky to be able to raise one.

Did you reverse the names in this paragraph? It doesn't seem to fit with the
preceding tale. I'll assume, until you say otherwise, that you did switch
them.

> So right off, we can see that not spending ones possibilities 
> does not mean that one is coasting.

Of course not. I did already point that out.

> We know that before the awards are given out, that Bob spent 
> (and spent well) 10 more possibilities than  Ted did.  When 
> the GM hand out awards, assuming that Travis' point that Bob 
> will get more possibilities awarded to him is true (and we 
> will also ask later if it should be), the following are the 
> three ways it could go:
> 
> .         Bob gets *less than* ten possibilities more awarded 
> to him than Ted got.
> 
> .         Bob gets *exactly* ten possibilities more than Ted got.
> 
> .         Bob gets *more than* ten possibilities more than Ted got.
> 
>  
> 
> If it is the first option, then Ted still comes out ahead as 
> far as possibilities go.  That is, that Ted is getting more 
> advancement than Bob *because* he held back on spending them. 
>  And thus Ted will over time as this continue have a more 
> effective character to game with.  This outcome *proves* my 
> assertion that it *is* a dilemma in Torg - that you have to 
> *choose* between metapower and advancement.

So what? I don't think anybody ever contended that the choice between
benefits right now and advancement exists. What I have put forward is that
the game does not fail to rewards success with advancement.

(But note that there is no "metapower vs advancement" conflict in standard
Torg. I must repeat, Possibilities in standard Torg are not "metapower".
They are very much a part of the game reality. One could contend that cards
are a form of metapower, though.)

I don't dispute that Torg does not give the player who takes immediate
rewards more rewards later on.

> The only way to escape the dilemma is for the GM to always 
> make *certain* that when he awards possibilities, he make 
> sure that the result is option 2 or 3, that the GM makes sure 
> that well-spent possibilities always increase the award of 
> the spender by no less than that amount.

What dilemma? Look, all the GM has to do is give an appropriate reward for
the results that the characters achieve in the game. 10 Possibilities is
quite a lot - a typical entire adventure award, in fact. (Just adventure,
not adventure plus act awards.) Did Bob really play so well that it warrants
basically doubling his award - giving him what most players would earn over
two adventures? Even compared to Ted, given your description of what appears
to be excellent play by him? I mean, we're talking Indiana Jones vs Sallah
here.

Most likely the answer is no. However, if Bob good results from his use of
Possibilities, as you describe, so that his overall results were
significantly better than Ted's, he should get a larger award. So he will
fall behind somewhat less than 10 Possibilities.

But he is falling behind. Is this a problem? No, I don't believe it is,
because while Bob has achieved most objectives a little better than did Ted,
Ted far outperformed Bob in the pursuit of one objective: conservation of
Possibilities. In Torg, conserving Possibilities is a very real objective
for both the player and the character.

And on that criteria, Bob has screwed up big-time. As big as 10
Possibilities is as an award, it's just as big as expenditure during play.

> It is conceivable that a 
> character could save up over time an amount of possibilities, 
> and then throughout an Arc, spend (in a very effective and 
> well chosen way) 40 possibilties or more.  It is unlikely 
> given Torg's guidelines that he will get everyone one of 
> those back - that his awards will be 30 possibilities more 
> than the other player who only spent 10 throughout the Arc.  
> That is, unless you abandon the Torg award guidelines completely.

If a GM is running an adventure that sees a single player spending 40
Possibilities *effectively*, the adventure itself is already well outside of
Torg adventure creation guidelines. (Or extremely long, but the Torg award
guidelines scale with the length of the adventure as well.)

> But let's say you *do* abandon them completely, because you 
> as a GM are *committed* to making sure that whatever award 
> Ted gets for spending *no* possibilities, Bob gets the amount 
> of possibilities he spent (at least) *more* than Ted back.  OK.

No, let's not say that. You haven't convinced me that there's any reason for
a GM to make that commitment. Bob failed in a significant objective of the
game. He can wear advancement a touch slower than Ted.

> A smaller, second, aside.  In the above example, I am not 
> sure that Ted deserves a lesser award than Bob in the first 
> place!  Sure, Ted refused to spend possibilities, but he 
> still threw himself into the game in all other respects.  He 
> thought through the session, probably more deeply than Bob.  
> He certainly got more wounded than Bob.  Are you so sure we 
> should reward his gung-ho, willingness to take his lumps in 
> game, and clever play with fewer rewards than Bob?

Getting hurt is not an objective. Don't reward it. Do reward the clever
play. Reward the clever play by rewarding commeasurate with the results
achieved.

If Bob has played very nearly as cleverly as Ted, plus spent 10
Possibilities in addition, then surely his results were somewhat better than
Ted's. Reward that. Just don't commit to rewarding so well that he gets the
full 10 Possibilities back, because like I said, in spending 10
Possibilities, Bob has thrown a significant objective out the window, while
Ted has not.

Let's be clear about something... When you give a reward for a behaviour, it
is that behaviour you are encouraging - no more, no less, and nothing else.
If you reward spending Possibilities, you encourage spending Possibilities -
not spending Possibilities wisely, just spending them, and you'll soon see
players attempting to burn all their Possibilities during an adventure. If
you reward thinking around problems, players will attempt to think around
problems. Reward combat, and players will start fights.

So if you want to encourage players to strive towards success, you reward
success. It's just that simple. If your reward for a certain success is
greater (on the average) than 1 Possibility, players will even spend 1
Possibility in order to achieve that success.

> THIS IS NOT ABOUT HOW "GOOD" OR "BAD" TORG'S EXISTING WAY OF 
> DOING THIS IS, IT IS INSTEAD ABOUT COMPARING AND CONTRASTING 
> DIFFERENT APPORACHES TO THIS ISSUE, WITHOUT MORAL JUDGEMENT.
> 
>  
> 
> Every single post since my original one (apart from possibly 
> ones that have come in since I starting writing this post 
> back in the '80s, grin - and of course apart from Andrew's 
> and Jeff's comments) has largely failed to embrace this.  
> Instead, mostly people's responses vary from "Torg isn't 
> bad/broken" to "If you change this about Torg, it stops being 
> Torg.", but none of those responses are on point.

Ben, you just wrote a huge post trying to prove that there is a problem with
how Torg handles Possibilities. If you don't want to hear the analysis,
don't put the subject on the table. You are free to talk about other
meta-game mechanics any time you like, if that's really what you want to do.

> As Torg is 
> one of the few RPGs to truly embrace metapower at all,

Seriously, Ben, you need to get out from under your rock. Check out
Masterbook, Star Wars RPG (West End version), Seventh Sea, The Babylon
Project, Mutants and Masterminds, Shadowrun, Hong Kong Action Theatre. These
are just a few off the top of my head, and certainly they are far from
obscure. Even D&D eventually came to this party, with Hero Points in the D20
Source Reference Document (originally appearing in D&D's Eberron setting,
then genericised in Unearthed Arcana and made available for free download).

Travis Hall