What are your thoughts on metacurrency, Veeky Forums? Do you like it is as a major mechanic, like FATE, or do you prefer games without it? Why?
I've been working on my own game lately and this has been a major stumbling block for me. I like the idea of players rewarding each other for good behavior, as per Golden Sky Stories or Tenra Bansho Zero, but I can't figure out how useful that currency should be. Should players use it to directly affect the game fiction (i.e. adding/removing elements from scenes)? Should it be usable as an in-character currency, to buy goods and services? Should it be a buffer against bad rolls? Used to heal wounds? "Tell the GM 'no'" chips?
I like Hero Points in Mutants and Masterminds 2e. You, the player, get a Hero Point for intentionally failing a save (and thus going along with the GM's story, though the rules clearly say you don't HAVE to), when an enemy rerolls an attack or save, or when the GM introduces one of your Complications, which are basically plot hook generation devices that let you the GM do things like throw old enemies at you.
You can use them for a bunch of things and you're better off reading them from the book.
Essentially, I like when metacurrency is something the GM gives for certain actions, and not something the players can give each other.
Leo Diaz
FATE is garbage, as is anyone who plays it.
If you're catering to that sort of audience, go for it. Make the currency super valuable and significant. You're playing utterly broken-ass games anyway, might as well have fun with it.
Ian Gutierrez
I think it's a superfluous immersion breaker.
I dislike attempts at bribing people to do roleplaying. I dislike players conjuring events, objects or people out of nothing. I dislike mounting doom or fortune points that try to impose a dramatic arc as if the game where a preplanned book. I dislike giving critique or praise through a layer of mechanics. I dislike introducing mechanical power differences because one person roleplays more pleasing. I don't like mechanically rewarding dishonest praise (because awarding points for bad roleplay can make the group stronger). I dislike managing a resource that has nothing to do with ingame reality. I dislike the zero sum game that can unfold between GMpoints and PCpoints. I dislike the incentive for controlled mitigated failures in order to gain success at a point that has been determined as critical by metagaming at a later point. I dislike the imposition of mechanics on narrative that was unrestrained before.
Overall one of my least favorite mechanics. And its inclusion in more recent rules lite games is like the one step backward to the forward steps.
Grayson Garcia
Do you have a single fact to back that up?
Logan Morris
+1 karma points to this guy, he gets it. Also upboat.
Jacob Clark
>Essentially, I like when metacurrency is something the GM gives for certain actions, and not something the players can give each other. Why do you feel this way? My original intent for the metacurrency was rewarding players who stay "on-tone" (this is a "play to see what happens" game so there is no "on-track"). Originally it was rewarded by the GM, but I realized that's at least in the campaigns I've played, the tone evolved over time - and I think most GMs (myself includedt) may not have as good a "feel" for that as the rest of the group together.
It's a careful balancing act between keeping everybody on-tone and letting the tone evolve naturally. I'm not even sure metacurrency is the best way to do it, it's just a thought. It's worth noting there is no XP in this game, so character advancement isn't an option for a reward.
>I dislike introducing mechanical power differences because one person roleplays more pleasing. Why is this bad? Shouldn't those who do better be rewarded for it? I understand some reasons it could be bad, but I want to hear your thoughts.
>I don't like mechanically rewarding dishonest praise (because awarding points for bad roleplay can make the group stronger). What if there were mechanics to guard against this? There is a limited pool of points, so if you reward too many of them there will be none left. When you spend them, they go to the GM to spend before returning to the pool (so players can't boom/bust).
>I dislike the zero sum game that can unfold between GMpoints and PCpoints. >I dislike the incentive for controlled mitigated failures in order to gain success at a point that has been determined as critical by metagaming at a later point. Can you elaborate on these?
Nicholas Williams
Different user, but- >Why is this bad? Imagine you have a player who struggles with roleplaying. Either they're newer, or it just doesn't come as easily to them as it does to someone else. This mechanic would mean that their characters are just arbitrarily worse, potentially making a player who already is struggling to now be struggling AND handicapped compared to other players.
>Limited pool If players are being dishonest, why not just immediately give all givable points?
Josiah Campbell
There's nothing wrong with it in concept, but it's easy to use it as a crutch or a generic addition to a system, rather than finding a way to customise it to the nature of the experience you want to provide. The best metacurrency systems are very tuned to the genre of the game they're attached to.
Eli Morgan
This basically boils down to 'I don't like it' rather than saying anything meaningful about the mechanic.
Joseph Hernandez
It's true that that user's post is basically one big opinion piece with no argument. However, each of (or at least most of) the listed points have associated downsides for a game.
>Attempts at bribing people to do roleplaying People should roleplay because they want to, not because they feel it's a requirement to play the game >Conjuring events, objects and people out of nothing Unless it's a very rules-lite game or one of the ones where players are kind of pseudo-GMs in their own right, the ability to alter events like this can really mess up a GM with a specific plan prepared. >Mounting doom/fortune points Weirdly restrictive method of making an arc, when the GM could instead plot it out themselves, how they want to. It just doesn't need a mechanic. >Critique or praise through mechanics Makes it all feel disingenuous, due to the mechanic effect associated with each and weirdly turns players into praise-whores as they try to get praise-points off of other players. What if I just want to say that was a cool description?
etc. etc.
Luis Gutierrez
Largely because I agree with most of the points made, but like the ability to give my bad guys rerolls in the event that they just instantly go down in one shot without getting to show off their gimmick but not just cheat the players out of feeling rewarded. It means a natural one won't *totally* fuck over six hours of prep time (and in M&M it totally can), and the players get a pat on the back for it. It's not "lel bad GM u can't let go of ur narrative" or anything - I make it a policy that after round 1 I don't reroll natural 1s - but it gives me a single turn to show off what the bad guy can do and give the players a chance to figure out how to beat him. I don't ever reroll if the players beat him through being clever on the first turn, though; that's just asinine.
It's mostly separate from "you roleplayed well" or "you're a good player," which never ends well because my table has guys who are kind of shy alongside me (when I'm a player) and another guy who are veteran DMs and can get really into things.
Plus, M&M2e averts the "lel players go along with story" meme of metacurrency because it's never the GM's choice - it's the player's choice if they want to fail the save, which can and has thrown my games into a loop and a half just by a player deciding "you know I think it's more interesting if I don't win." More games should reward people for deciding that kind of thing, and anybody who thinks they shouldn't is some kind of moron; failure drives stories forward, especially in developing stories. You remember the time an amazing shot happened in X-COM but you also remember the incredible wipes where you tried your damnedest and still failed and learned a lesson about next time.
On-tone is a fucking terrible idea and giving players metacurrency they control is a terrible idea for all the reasons everybody else in the thread said, though.
Joseph Bell
>. You're playing utterly broken-ass games anyway But that's not Pathfinder
Eli Ramirez
I should note that it's never the GM's choice to offer Hero Points in exchange for failing a save, although I admit I could be wrong, I've never ever played it that way - I just let my players decide if they want to fail the save for a Hero Point.
I don't always offer one, though. Depends on the power.
"Depends on the situation" pretty much is the answer to every metacurrency. It's probably great with the right group of players! I've never had that group.
Andrew Foster
>This mechanic would mean that their characters are just arbitrarily worse, potentially making a player who already is struggling to now be struggling AND handicapped compared to other players. Devil's advocate: then they gonna learn how to play. That said I do agree with you to a point.
>If players are being dishonest, why not just immediately give all givable points? Then they will only encourage the GM to siphon them off to himself by presenting increasingly dire circumstances that require metacurrency, I suppose.
At some point you might as well ask, "What if the players cheat? What if they fudge their rolls? What if they hold the GM at gunpoint?" If there's no trust the game will be shit no matter what rules you put in place, as 3.PF proves.
>The best metacurrency systems are very tuned to the genre of the game they're attached to. The game is Bronze Age fantasy, kind of like Glorantha. And while it includes a minimal default setting, it has an entire chapter devoted to making your own Bronze Age, together, as a group (or tweaking the one included).
Each player makes one god for their tribe (or maybe two, haven't decided yet), and during character creation each PC chooses one of the gods made by someone else to follow. When that PC does something aligned with their god, the player who made that god rewards them.
>inb4 what if the players make a god of breathing then the PCs always breath so they get infinite points >inb4 what if one of the players is a bad guy and doesn't give nobody points Again, no trust no game anyway.
Colton Miller
>Then they gonna learn how to play But why not just have the group be supportive of the player and encourage them to push themselves a little at a time, instead of punishing them for not performing at the level of the other players?
>What if the players cheat? The point was that if the players are going to be dishonest, they'll find a way around whatever restriction you place. The point of these systems is that they operate off of the honor system.
Robert Cooper
What kind of bronze age, though? Realistic and gritty? Heroic and pulpy? Strange and mythical? What kinds of characters do you see your players making, what kind of stories do you see them telling?
Brody Miller
didn't make any points, he just listed his personal preferences. Can you explain WHY you agree?
>but it gives me a single turn to show off what the bad guy can do and give the players a chance to figure out how to beat him I don't think what you're doing is railroad but maybe you should read this:
>inb4 le DUNGeon World memery I don't care for DW either but this really changed my perspective on difficulty in games. That is to say, consider making your villains into fictional puzzles as opposed to numberical/mechanical puzzles.
>my table has guys who are kind of shy alongside me Why? You're already a bunch of fags sitting around talking about elves and shit, why be shy about it? You're on Veeky Forums for Christ's sake, you're past the point of no return. Embrace it. Have some fun.
>Plus, M&M2e averts the "lel players go along with story" meme of metacurrency Not sure what you mean here but
>it's the player's choice if they want to fail the save, which can and has thrown my games into a loop and a half just by a player deciding "you know I think it's more interesting if I don't win." this is a great thing to think about.
>But why not just have the group be supportive of the player and encourage them to push themselves a little at a time, instead of punishing them for not performing at the level of the other players? I don't know, why not try it? That's the point of the thread.
>The point of these systems is that they operate off of the honor system. And my point is that all roleplaying games operate on the honor system, so it's a moot point altogether.
>What kinds of characters do you see your players making, what kind of stories do you see them telling? Strange and mythic, but not as fantastical as Glorantha: humans only, no dinos. More of a focus on gods, myth, magic. I'm very interested in ideas about the monomyth and how cultures shape gods - and vice versa.
KoDP is the template. Players are leaders of their small community and must explore, trade, negotiate and war with their neighbors to ensure their own prosperity while appeasing the gods by who they are blessed with extraordinary abilities. I expect them to reflect what they want to see in play in the gods they make together, and telling stories about their community struggling to survive at first, but triumphing over the other clans under their godly leadership - or dying out.
Samuel Smith
I think you could do some interesting things by tying the metacurrency directly to myths, rooted in the gods but expanding out from them.
Initially, you might have a few small benefits to spend the currency on, boons of gods or echoes of heroes, whether mechanical boost or forms of narrative influence.
However, large amounts of the currency, or other forms of in game achievement, could let you define a Myth or Legend based on your activities, creating a new element that could be drawn upon. It likely wouldn't be hard to have a number of example mechanics that GMs and players can adapt to fit a particular mythic deed or legendary act to let it carry forward and influence the game.
Of course, there's plenty of room for downsides too. Mythic heroes often suffer catastrophic failures, laid low by their own hubris or by hidden, insidious dangers. Having the opportunity to define those too, from initial divine foibles to your greatest losses becoming permanent, indelible parts of the mythology of the game world of the campaign.
Logan Clark
>he didn't make any points I agree with his preferences, largely.
>blog link None of that is relevant in M&M, where a character can, in fact, simply fail a single save and go down in one round, though it's vanishingly unlikely due to the way failure works. Hero Points are the mechanic by which a GM can keep a villain in the fight without giving it 2500 HP and a slog battle.
>dungeon world memery At no point did I say shit about Dungeon World.
>just blatantly insulting my table after asking for advice Man, fuck off. I'm active and eager and outgoing, and other people are not. It takes all kinds. They're still nice people and my friends, just because they aren't good at getting into a character's head and talking doesn't mean I don't enjoy playing with them. It means I don't want to reward one group for RPing and one group for not. You want help, this is not how you go about getting it.
>lel players go along with story meme The idea that a GM only gives out metacurrency to force players to go along with the story.
Jack Murphy
I've been mulling over having some mechanic for myths along the lines of, pay X meta to do some extraordinary deed, write it down, and at the end of the session tell us the tale of your god that you were imitating when you did this.
So say the player wants to succeed, no strings attached, at a tough battle. Okay, pay up. Later, tell us about the time your god triumphed in some mythic battle.
Living by your god gets you meta, doing as your god costs you meta.
Ah, I'm not really familiar with M&M. I just really like that article and Dungeon World gets a bad rap on Veeky Forums.
Not sure what you're on about with your table, I wasn't aware "fag" was now considered an insult on this board.
Veeky Forums stuff is probably one of the least endearing hobbies from an outside perspective and if you're at the table (as are we all, myself included) you fall into the category of "fags who talk about orcs and elves and shit." At that point, why be shy?
I guess it's like being shy in the locker room, everyone else is there to get dressed so it's not like it's penis inspection day. Everyone is at the table to have a good time, they're not gonna record your funny voice and put it on Facebook or something.
And yes, I'm aware some people are naturally shy etc etc but I've never really seen them at my table so I have no idea how to prepare a game for them. That doesn't mean they're bad people or not your friends or whatever, Jesus dude.
Dominic Bennett
>blatantly insulting my table Fag is a term of endearment on Veeky Forums, fag.
Michael White
It's not the fag thing that insulted me. I'm on Veeky Forums, if that's all it took to insult me, I wouldn't be on Veeky Forums. It's the combination of assuming that I don't know what I'm doing and shoving an article about an unrelated game in my face, and generally having an air of smug assholery about my table having shy players. It comes off as pretty fucking self-righteous when I'm trying to give you advice.
I don't give a good goddamn about Dungeon World or whatever, but people shoving unrelated articles in my face with a "well *I* don't think you're railroading BUT here's this ARTICLE" make me want to punch them in the mouth for being smug.
Don't back out with a "Jesus dude" like I did something wrong; I'm here trying to help you out of the goodness of my heart instead of doing literally anything else. Just say "sorry, I didn't realize" and move the fuck on.
And try not to give advice to people you're asking for advice.
Eli Myers
Damnable fag, I was too slow! Your speedfagging was too much for me!
Benjamin Parker
Prevailing opinion seems to be that people don't like players handing out metacurrency because there's no way to control for player bias, and they don't like spending metacurrency for smaller, more practicable mechanical benefits because it:
>breaks the fiction >allows players to get ahead of those who may not be good roleplayers
This seem about right?
The article isn't about railroading, it's about preventing players from dropping enemies too quickly and I consider its advice pretty system agnostic. If you're going out of your way to share your thoughts on the topic, why wouldn't I share something cool I learned that is relevant to your problem in turn? Kinda you scratch my back, I scratch yours?
>And try not to give advice to people you're asking for advice. Is this a European thing or something? You're taking a Veeky Forums post way too personally.
Jason Evans
That appears to be the prevailing majority opinion in the thread, yes. Players handing out metacurrency is a recipe for disaster, even if it's a good idea on paper.
On paper a lot of things are good ideas.
Bear in mind that I don't think many people here are playing FATE. You might want to find a group that's heavily FATE-oriented and ask them their opinion on metacurrency in order to constructed a more nuanced idea of both sides of the fence. If you design leaning just towards one side's opinion, you'll miss out on whatever might be learned from the other side's opinion. There might be good reasons to have players hand out metacurrency and be encouraging, or houserules that ensure that no one player just dominates the show.
>everything else At this point I'm just moving past it, man.
Andrew Anderson
jesus christ who let the buttmad babby in here?
Jayden Carter
>I dislike
Yes, but what about the mechanic?
Ryder Turner
This.
I could have written >Some iterations of Metacurrency can lead to: Instead of >I dislike but I just assumed Veeky Forums is able to connect the dots.
Much of our interaction with mechanics is how we interpret and feel about them. A reaction of dislike is absolutely about the mechanics. The old martials vs casters is just a difference in numbers and options on its own. Could be a problem, could be working as intended from some point of view.
>Why is this bad? Shouldn't those who do better be rewarded for it? I understand some reasons it could be bad, but I want to hear your thoughts. There is always an element of subjectiveness to rating roleplay, so you are giving objective rewards for something subjective. You are again giving something ingame for something out of game (players ability to act). Ingame the murderhobo is just a crazy murderhobo, he is in the worlds logic the person he is because the world made him that. There is no in universe reason he should be weaker because an onlooker finds him less pleasing to look at. A irrationally acting character may eat at the worlds verisimilitude, but sacrificing more of the worlds internal logic to him isn't the answer to that problem. It is purely a player issue and should be solved between the people.
>What if there were mechanics to guard against this? There is a limited pool of points, so if you reward too many of them there will be none left. When you spend them, they go to the GM to spend before returning to the pool (so players can't boom/bust). I concede that you can specifically guard against some problems. Though we are talking about metacurrency in general, the reality is sometimes those guards are not in place. A mitigated form of the problem would, as a further example, still exist if points are caped in maximum volume held and in the number given. Say players always first maxed out the healer or the character that uses them best for nuking.
Gabriel Gutierrez
cont. This strategic incentive can offset the intended use as roleplaying rewards.
>I dislike the zero sum game that can unfold between GMpoints and PCpoints. The mechanic can impose a predictable rhythm to the game that lowers suspense and enables metagaming (see next point). good thing happens - bad thing happens - good thing happens - bad thing happens - etc Or if the interval is very short it can even be that actions by one side immediately beget an equal counter use of points. Effects nullifying each others impact.
>I dislike the incentive for controlled mitigated failures in order to gain success at a point that has been determined as critical by metagaming at a later point. Assuming I'm a player it is beneficial for me to fail now, when my party can cushion me against the consequences of my failure in a controlled or lower risk environment. (I take the hit from the last enemy of the encounter, combat will be over next round and it is an early encounter, supplies are plenty, my friends are near to heal me) Or when I'm doing something that offers low benefits (I fail at this haggling or crafting attempt). I have now some points to spend. Later a critical situation arrives where I get more value out of my points then I paid for (I use my points to save PC lives from critical wounds or beat the mayor antagonist). A chain of events is incentivize where characters bumble around like idiots in low stakes situations and then turn super competent before adversity.
Sebastian Gray
I like them. I find they effectively amount to a codified system of fudging, and as such reducenter the tendency of players to cheat.
Juan Long
GURPS does it best Meta-abilities (luck, serendipity, fate, destiny) are hard baked into the game rules, but as always are in the section marked "not required but here's the guidelines"
And alongside that there is the meta-currency issue fixed: abilities have integral timers and Costs, but you can also use the Character Points earned in play as ingame Bennies. There's degrees of what the GM can allow, but you essentially fate point yourself up the scale of Critfail to fail to match/pass to crit success by spending CP.
The granularity available is the best thing.
Jayden Rogers
Yes, dislike is a valid reaction to game mechanics but it isn't what the thread is about; the thread is about WHY you feel that way, and "Some iterations of" doesn't answer that question either.
>There is always an element of subjectiveness to rating roleplay, so you are giving objective rewards for something subjective. You are again giving something ingame for something out of game (players ability to act). I think your first sentence is a great point, but roleplaying is so much more than just acting. Specifically, the way I describe it in my mock-up is:
>When one player has the spotlight and would make the other players laugh, cry or applaud with their in-character choices and behavior, the other players individually choose whether to award them one momentum.
I think this steers players away from focusing on "how good is their funny voice" and more toward "is their character doing things I like".
This is a good post that explains a lot of problems with some implementations of metacurrency. One avenue I've been looking at to mitigate these problems is allowing players to only gain points through roleplay (so no bumbling, unless that's what the group wants, at which point it is not bad) and only using them to thwart the GM's "extra moves", kind of like GM intrusions in Cypher or Devil's Bargains in Blades in the Dark. Meta doesn't make you better, it makes you better able to keep things from escalating in the GM's favor.
Which GURPS book goes into this? I'm not very familiar with the whole GURPS ecosystem.
Elijah Gutierrez
Well I feel negatively because patterns I deem not good are reinforced. How far into the nitty gritty am I supposed to go?
I think rewarding players is less important than the reward the elegance of a consistent game offers. I view it a bit as immediate reward versus long time reward. When handing out metagame rewards is needed to engage player, I take it as a hint that the game (or rather game world) itself isn't engaging enough or players and GM are not on the same page. And in a way you are double rewarding for no reason, when the players are entertained by the roleplaying, they are in a positive state of mind because of the roleplaying. I don't need to deploy the support structure of a token system in this situation. I rather build the connection that roleplaying is fun, than I get fun tokens for roleplaying. I even feel the concept of roleplay awards is a bit condescending. I'd prefer open conversation to an angle that is reminiscent of dog training.
Jeremiah Adams
As someone who has played through a couple of FATE campaigns, the metacurrency it uses works just fine in practice. Boosting or rerolling rolls, activating special stunts, and maybe changing some small detail of the story is pretty quick and painless.
FATE's real issues from my experience are that it doesn't work very well with groups that are inexperienced and/or try to run FATE exactly like other rpgs. I've seen people get really hung up on stunts and aspects, I've seen two separate GMs fuck up trying to implement magic into their settings, and I've seen one try to run FATE mostly Pathfinder style big old hour long combats. You need a good grasp on how to keep a story going and your players need to be both invested and also somewhat experienced or the whole thing falls apart.
