thread: 2006-03-06 : Unpopular Idea #2: Punish the Loser
On 2006-03-06, Ninja Monkey J wrote:
Uh, before everybody's all, "Oh, Vincent, I love your ass, pleas, please, let me kiss it!!!"* I want to bring up a counterpoint:
In Shock: the loser gains a Feature (or a Credit, when the Antag loses) while the winner accomplishes hir Intent. You have to choose between the fictional gains and mechanical ones. That is, adversity builds character in quantifiable ways.
This happens because the Protagonist is supposed to eventually be able to confront the Antagonist in a finale, where secrets are revealed and final fights are fought. The Protag has to have a decent shot at getting what you want for hir. Your stats are never decisive, though; bad luck can put you down even if you've got great numbers; the key is that you, the player, get to say what you want either way, by having the Protag get more and more refined as the story continues.
Even more appropriate than this is a game fully about "adversity building character". When I play a game about heroes, I want my scars to be what terrifies my enemies, I want my wounded soul to be what shows all I've done for my beliefs, and when the guy goes down, I want the story about the dude's many exploits, not his cowering in a corner because he got a whuppin' one time too many and couldn't get the dice to throw down against the dragon.
Now, you say, "Well, don't build it with a death spiral!" But that's what positive feedback loops do. Either that, or the resources you gain don't help you win future conflicts, which... I dunno, that's not really a resource, is it?
Oh, I suppose those "winnings" could go toward something else, like scene framing responsibilities, or some sort of tournament score, where they're tallied for who gets to tell the ending, or whatever, but you're just feeding into a larger-scale conflict and reward cycle; the guy who starts to win first is most likely to win later.
* This should be said in a falsetto voice while rolling your eyes up into your head and flapping your hands in front of your shoulders like they're dead fish.
This makes MSW go "We love Vincent.!"
But nobody loves you, J, because you hate our freedom, just like the terrorists.
This makes NinJ go "Oh, yeah? Well I think you're a Terrorist provocateur traitor communist!"
This makes MSW go "ha!"
You're the one with the commie wiccan pronoun neologisms!
This makes NinJ go "They're not Commiewiccan!..."
... they're Buckminsterfullerian!
