thread: 2006-10-05 : Reward systems
On 2006-10-07, Ben Lehman wrote:
I'd argue that PTA's screen presence repeats on an episode-to-episode basis, but that's arguable. What's strange to me is this: if we play a second season of a show, does that then mean that all the fan-mail we awarded is, retroactively, not a reward?
'cause that would be strange.
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Sorcerer's reward system is threefold.
1) When you resolve a kicker, you get some stupid piddling humanity check which might raise one of your ratings by one. Sometimes.
2) You get humanity gain rolls for doing pro-humanity stuff.
3) You get significant bonus dice all the time for doing things that are awesome—in multiple respects (in-character, just cool, plot-appropriate, whatever.) These dice constitute a significant portion of your roll (sometimes all of it.)
Note that the power of the reward mechanic is inversely proportional to the timescale. Hey, Ron, if you're reading, is this by design?
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I'd like to propose an alternate definition of "reward" wrt RPGs. "Reward" is simply the satisfaction ("Fun" or otherwise) from playing the game. A reward system is a system in place specifically and solely for the purpose of noting and respecting moments of high reward. All functional games have a reward system, though it might be totally social-level.
yrs—
—Ben
