Sorry…Yes we are!
I see what you’re saying.
That’s a problematic cycle, at least to me. You’re going to slap players with conditions to encourage them to take risks, but the result of taking risks is an increased chance of failure, the consequences of which are often yet more conditions, which they need more checks to recover from, and so on and so on. That’s a hamster wheel of pain, all stick and no carrot. I can see why it would work, but I can’t see why a player would want to engage in it – it doesn’t make failure more interesting, just more punishing (especially considering the relatively high Obs of recovery tests).
Is there a hidden carrot that I’m missing?
I should say that not all the players are freeform system-hating types. In fact, I’d say there are two that are “damn the dice, full drama ahead!”, two that are neutral/turtles/don’t- get-it-don’t-care and three that like to crunch the numbers and engage in the systems.
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Conditions aren’t that punishing. Certainly Hungry/Thirsty, Angry and Tired are negligible. Even Injured and Sick together are not that bad. And it’s easy to get additional dice from Wises , Help, Traits and Tapping.
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When you get a Condition, you also succeed at what you were attempting to do. My players generally breathe a sigh of relief when I give them a Condition rather than a Twist.
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With Mouse Guard we made Call of Cthulhu Done Right.
There’s a lot to consider in these last few posts, but . . .
Do you all track passes/fails for advancement purposes? Has anyone used a Trait against himself to get a necessary fail to raise a skill?
Yes, that has occasionally happened. I’ve done it a lot, anyway. I don’t think it’s happening enough to be a driving motivator, though.
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A 1-2 die or Ob penalty when an average skill is a 4 isn’t that punishing? Are you nuts? Also, recovery is very hard. My tenderpaw started with a Will of 2 and his -wise is “Spider-wise”. Where is he supposed to pull the six extra dice from to have even a 50/50 chance to make his Sick recovery test?
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Just to clarify: Success when a players meets/beats the Ob should mean a player achieves his intent without condition, right? And failure means you don’t meet the Ob, and you either throw a Twist or you make the player pay for his failure with a “yes, you achieve your intent, but”. “OK, you lift the rock, but you twisted your ankle and now you’re Injured.”
So I think we’re on the same page, but that’s still a downwards spiral. I’m paying for recovery checks with losing dice which causes failure which causes conditions that require me to get more recovery checks, etc.
- With Mouse Guard we made Call of Cthulhu Done Right.
I will remember that the next time my group goes up against a giant octopus.
-2D is about on par with +1 Ob (to put it in BW terms). It’s really not that bad. And considering you can use traits and gear to add +2D, not to mention Help, Wises and Tapping your Nature (which can provide anywhere for +1D to +7D at the drop of a hat by itself), no I’m not nuts.
You don’t need a giant octopus. Everything from squirrels to snakes to hawks to bears only want to eat you and care nothing about your wants or desires. You are the bottom of the food chain. Being a Mouse Guard is HARD. It’s way more perilous than being a human adventurer.
It just ain’t Lovecraftian to me without tentacles, or at least pseudopods.
Thanks, I’m just kind of poking around here. Do the characters help each other often? When a helped test is failed, is there usually a twist or do the tester and the helpers receive conditions?
Not too many other games out there give you everything you wanted on a failed roll. That should encourage risk taking at least
Eh, there seems to be an obsessive focus on mechanics and what we are doing incorrectly.
To be honest the game is going really well, everyone is having a blast. I added the additional action rule to give the players another option, and to give me another toy to fiddle with.
Systems to me are not set in stone, what works for one group might not be right for the next. I like fine tuning games to better fit the dynamics of my group rather than try to coerce my players into some other mold.
Mouse Guard is no different, it needs some adjustments to better fit our style.
These are what I’d like to know, as well.
Brian, gathering and analyzing data about your play is not intended to benefit you and your group solely. You never know who might lurk on the forum and read the answer they are looking for in a thread.
-B
Yes, there’s almost always help if there’s skill overlap.
I haven’t really tracked how often there’s a twist versus how often it’s a condition, however is isn’t overwhelmingly one or the other. Typically the helper does not get the Condition.
This is something to watch out for in the future. As per You Reap What You sow, page 94, the helpers should receive conditions (albeit lesser ones). Giving the tester Tired and the helpers Hungry would be acceptable for a number of failed physical tasks.
Leaving aside everything else that’s been said for the moment . . .
I kept forgetting that this was a hack and not a clinic post. You’re saying a character tests as normal, but the GM decides when he is at -1D because of a Trait, in which case he also earns a check for the Players’ Turn, as if the player had used the Trait against his own character.
So the economy is the same, but it’s the GM who decides when the Trait works against the character, rather than the player.
They still have the option of earning checks as per the rules as well.
I have been giving all this alot of thought, especially in light of all the comments and suggestions and I think I will be sticking with my additions. I could increase the number of conditions I hand out thus increasing pressure on my players to earn checks but upon reflection I think that is exactly the wrong way to do things. Recovery checks are boring. My players will be spending checks to burn off the debts incurred on my turn, seems like a wash and a waste of play time. Instead they could be getting checks and using them to do things THEY want to do, cool things, fun things and then work off that debt by facing unexpected reversals on their turn.
I’ll retain the use of conditions because defeat should sting but I will maintain, or decrease, the frequency of them.
It’s cool. Hack away as you see fit. Just my thoughts on what you’re doing. Take or leave as you like.
They really don’t have to. Why bother? They’ve each got two checks for just sitting back and watching you do all the work.
Recovery checks are boring.
Doesn’t the GM set the failure results on recovery test just like any other test? Hmmm…yeah…Page 75. “The GM can apply conditions and twists as
per the normal rules in the Players’ Turn.” So, recovery tests are only as boring as you want them to be.
My players will be spending checks to burn off the debts incurred on my turn, seems like a wash and a waste of play time.
But, those are debts they chose to incur by roleplaying their character traits to their own detriment, rather than debts delegated upon them by another.
Instead they could be getting checks and using them to do things THEY want to do, cool things, fun things and then work off that debt by facing unexpected reversals on their turn.
The rules alread should be encouraging them to get checks to spend during the players turn through playing true to their character’s flaws, and then dealing with unexpected twists of fate when they make tests.
Giving two free checks at the same time that you are decreasing the amount of conditions you’re handing out would effectively remove conditions from the game entirely. They would in effect cease to function.
I’ll retain the use of conditions because defeat should sting but I will maintain, or decrease, the frequency of them.
It’s not defeat. It’s persevering and winning at great personal cost.
I have no idea how I would preset end results for a test. I usually have to roll with the story and adlib my response. Also, what’s a DoW?
DoW is Duel of Wits. It’s a Burning Wheel term. For MG the equivalent is an Argument conflict.
If you look at how Luke has created the sample missions in the text, you’ll see that he often lists obstacles along with a suggested twist(s) if the mice fail the test.