thread: 2005-03-11 : Love, Friendship, Romance, Sex
On 2005-03-11, xenopulse wrote:
Eric,
Interesting thoughts. It's tricky, really, because you know that these rewards push players into a certain direction, and you have to figure out how much you are dooming relationships when you reward cheating. I guess, however, that this would make a character who stays faithful someone who truly makes a point, as they are rejecting tangible rewards. Somehow that feels related to not escalating in Dogs. Actually, I like it, now that I think on it.
Also, relationships are hard to put your finger on because they're based on emotions, and those have historically been under the complete control of the player. My GM can tell me that an arrow shoots through my arm, but he can't tell me that I am jealous in a certain situation. So it all needs to be based on rewards, not control, in that way. I see a couple of ways to do this while avoiding the cardboard drudgery you experienced.
First, limit bonuses to relationships between player characters. This avoids the issue of the loved NPC being simply a tapped-into die pool. This works well in large-group freeform environments because there are always new attractions and temptations around, and the players and characters are not always playing with the same group. In small groups, however, this will make it harder to get the adversity you desire, because the number of potentially involved characters is so much smaller (and you need a well-mixed group to play).
Second, I am currently using a mechanic in my draft of torn in which a relationship rating is used for each character directly connected to the PC on the R-map. When the character wants to raise the rating, the player needs to write a couple of sentences on that related character's personality and background. Furthermore, when these characters appear in scenes, they are often played by fellow players in accordance with that background and personality information. This leads to the more important characters being automatically more fleshed out. (These related characters are also always in danger when the PC taps into his/her dark powers.) I see some potential in both the fleshing out and the player-control of NPCs in making them more meaningful and provide some more adversity.
Combine this with some reward system along the lines you are proposing, and I think we're getting somewhere.
I know. We'll give people melodrama points for showing strong emotions :) They can be handled like fan mail.
- Christian
