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March 29, 2005
Dungeon Majesty: PTA Postmortem, Part I
Hey, we finished our Primetime Adventures campaign! It was an interesting experience, both because it was the most meta campaign I've ever played and because the system was so novel.
I have, oh, a whole passle of things to contemplate about the game. I dunno how many of them will make decent posts. (No, the answer is not "none," you there in the back. Hush now.) The thing that really hit me about halfway through, though, was a relevation about the whole "Primetime Adventures makes better friends" claim. I was skeptical about that one. I'd like to deskeptic.
The thing is, there's some powerful operant conditioning going on here. It goes like this: when a player does something that the other players like, their character becomes more effective. And not just a little more effective; fan mail dice are vital to winning conflicts. Please other players: become more effective. Mmm, good.
It's also the case that it's easy to like the guy across the table who just gave you something. Roleplaying sessions in general don't have that kind of quick positive feedback mechanism. So the positive feelings go both ways.
This is all probably pretty obvious, but I hadn't seen it spelled out; people tend to talk about PTA as if it were some sort of magical elixir. It's not; it's just got a good mechanic for bringing people together. Clever stuff.
Now, the interesting question for me: how to apply this to other games? I'm sorely tempted to put a fan mail pool in place for my D20 games, but I'm not sure a) how important it is to limit the fan mail pool size and b) how I'd limit it in D20.
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Comments
Ha ha, we're better friends now, neener neener, you didn't think we would be, but we are! :)
I'll probably end up posting about Dungeon Majesty also, but on the specific question of porting a Fan Mail-type mechanic to D20:
I think you make a key point when you say that Fan Mail dice are vital to winning conflicts in PTA. The idea of giving out some kind of meta-game bennie for amusing the rest of the group hardly originated with PTA, after all. (PTA is the first one I know of that -only- lets players (not the GM) give out the points, but there may be others out there.) But there are a lot of games where that bonus is, I dunno, kind of vestigial to the real engine of the system. A 5% XP bonus for "good roleplaying" or a handful of Inspiration Points in Adventure may be nice, but they don't have the central importance to resolution as Fan Mail in PTA. Remember, even in The Mountain Witch we thought the Trust Points (which have similarities to PTA's Fan Mail) needed to have a bit more mechanical oomph.
Which means you'll have to make a decision about how powerful you want this meta-game currency to be. If it's just a little bonus, well, that's fine, but some people are going to just see that as extra book-keeping. If it's powerful enough to determine the outcome of most conflicts, well, are you prepared for what that will do to the whole rest of the system mechanically?
Posted by: Rob at Mar 29, 2005 5:50:59 PM
Since in the specific case, I'm thinking about my pulp campaign... yeah.
I may swap them in to replace some functions currently served by Inspiration Points, which are clunkier than I would like. And make them bigger. +4 to a roll /after/ the roll, say. Add one to the pool whenever I roll a 20 or the players roll a 1.
Posted by: Bryant at Mar 29, 2005 6:34:02 PM
I'm thinking that your add rate would be way too small. Better to make it more often, and greater number, but with less effect.
I mean, do your players do cool things at a greater or lesser frequency than you roll 20s?
How about -- add one for each CR of challenge that they face, +1 for each 5 points of DC over 15 for skill checks, +1 for each 2 points of DC over 10 for attribute checks.
yrs--
--Ben
Posted by: Ben Lehman at Mar 29, 2005 7:46:05 PM
P.S. The key is that fan mail should be plentiful, yet not infinite. If you run out, ever, I think it's a problem.
Posted by: Ben Lehman at Mar 29, 2005 7:46:45 PM
Put me in the column of disbelievers in the whole "PTA makes betetr friends claims", our group didn't ebcome betetr friends because of PTA (most of us aren't even in the game), our group has staretd to become better friends ebcause we've been hanging around each other long enough that we're casual enough to just hang out, to oranize impromptu get togethers, and spend hours just talking. These are the things that make better friends.
For me the interesting thing about PTA has ben the game outside the game phenomena.
Posted by: Jere at Mar 29, 2005 7:48:19 PM
For d20 fan mail dice, why not just give - extra d20? If you choose to use one or more of your fan mail dice, combine them with the one you would have rolled anyway as follows:
1. Roll your regular d20 and your fan mail di(c)e.
2. Keep the one you like. Discard the rest.
Posted by: Jim Henley at Mar 29, 2005 10:05:19 PM
Ben: I'm not sure of that. The tricky psychological effect is that running out creates anticipation -- "Oooh, I wanna give out fan mail, but I can't." When demand is high but supply is limited, it reinforces the perceived value of fan mail.
Also I handwave CR a lot. I run an exceedingly loose game of D20 for reasons involving a) the genre (pulp) and b) the weakness of the ruleset (Adventure! D20). Might work really well for a straight Eberron game, though.
Jim: that's awesome.
Jere: you misunderstand. I don't think /we/ particularly became better friends via PTA; I think we were pretty good friends already. But the psychological effect is obvious. This isn't any wildly novel conjecture about how human beings relate.
Posted by: Bryant at Mar 30, 2005 8:10:08 AM
Bryant wrote: I don't think /we/ particularly became better friends via PTA; I think we were pretty good friends already. But the psychological effect is obvious. This isn't any wildly novel conjecture about how human beings relate.
Hmm. I'm not sure about this. It isn't clear to me, at least, that exchanging tokens in this way makes people better friends. It is, after all, a judgemental and competitive activity. Giving someone a token is a reward, but not giving someone tokens is then an indirect snub. I haven't played PtA, but I've had lots of games where we did rewards by voting -- though usually at the end of a session.
You describe this as "operant conditioning", which seems accurate to me. The thing is, I can recognize operant conditioning being done to me, and usually dislike it. If I feel like I'm being conditioned, I will often deliberately do the opposite just out of contrariness. Now, I realize that PtA's fan mail is different than voted rewards. On the other hand, I wonder if you're really seeing the full picture if you're only playing with good friends to start with.
Posted by: John Kim at Mar 31, 2005 5:45:38 PM
John Kim: Are you honestly saying that if you and I play a game with a rule that says "give someone a bonus die if they say something you think is cool," then you will *deliberately* say things you know I won't like? Just to spite some sort of "conditioning" that you think is going on? Seriously? I find that very, very hard to believe.
The term I apply to that kind of behavior is "asshat." I wouldn't apply that term to you based on what I know of you from your posts. Or maybe your post is just you being contrary for contrariness sake. I find that easier to believe.
I think the thing that is going on with the Fan Mail system is "praise." As in, you do something someone likes, and they tell you so. *Maybe* you think that praise is some kind of horrible conditioning system used to manipulate people and is something to rail against, but again, I really, really doubt it.
People like it when others praise what they do. Positive reinforcement is a very good thing. If I receive a lot of positive reinforcement from my friends (especially in a creative endeavor), I am very likely to appreciate their friendship more. I don't think this is rocket science.
Fan Mail puts positive reinforcement into the resolution system. Simple as that.
Posted by: John Harper at Apr 4, 2005 12:07:57 AM
John Harper wrote: Are you honestly saying that if you and I play a game with a rule that says "give someone a bonus die if they say something you think is cool," then you will *deliberately* say things you know I won't like? Just to spite some sort of "conditioning" that you think is going on? Seriously? I find that very, very hard to believe.
Well, I think you're misreading this. If I don't think you're consciously attempting to condition me, then I won't have any resentment. I still might ignore your point spending, though. Let me give some more detailed examples:
1) In a campaign thus far, I find that I keep getting a lot of bonus dice from Rick and Tori, say. But I notice Michelle isn't getting any. I might deliberately downplay my own performance to get less dice, and instead subtlely try to encourage and support Michelle.
2) In a new group, Will has taken a high-status aristocrat as his PC, and I notice that he gives out bonus dice if and only if anyone bows down to his character. I find this grating, and pretty quickly am influenced in the opposite direction.
John Harper wrote: People like it when others praise what they do. Positive reinforcement is a very good thing. If I receive a lot of positive reinforcement from my friends (especially in a creative endeavor), I am very likely to appreciate their friendship more. I don't think this is rocket science.
To me, positive reinforcement is the same as negative reinforcement -- it can be a good thing or a bad thing. While there are some subtle differences, mostly anything done with one can be done with the other. i.e. I can insult someone by pointedly praising everyone else except her, for example. In the past, I have been put off from social circles where a bunch of people are maneuvering to maximize praise and attention to themselves. This was very common in theater groups I encountered, for example. There's nothing wrong with it, but I also don't think it is a universal good.
Posted by: John Kim at Apr 4, 2005 2:22:49 PM
Ah, I see what you're getting at, John. You're saying that positive reinforcement (and mechanics based on it) can be abused in order to treat people badly. Right?
I guess I can only agree. Poor social conduct is a bad thing, regardless of the tool being used. It could be argued that all forms of social interaction can be abused in order to hurt people, though. I'm not sure how this is a relevant argument to the system in question.
As to whether or not praise is a good thing... well, we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't believe that abuse of a tool ever makes the tool bad or wrong. It's the abuser that is the problem, not the tool.
Posted by: John Harper at Apr 4, 2005 2:54:37 PM
Hmm. I agree that positive feedback is a tool or technique -- it can have good effects or bad effects depending on how it is used. And yes, these effects are always done by people. So you can say that in case of bad results -- it is the user to blame, not the tool. But that means that conversely, if there are good results -- it is the user who should get the credit, not the tool. Nevertheless, the tool does make a difference. Even the exact same people will behave differently depending on what tools they are given.
My experience has been that adding greater positive feedback (in the form of player-voted rewards) has made games less enjoyable to me. I felt that it made the game more of a popularity contest, with players more focused on taking the spotlight for themselves. Obviously, different people's mileage may vary. For one, not all groups will behave the same way when asked to use the same mechanic. Also, some people might enjoy a more competitive social atmosphere.
Posted by: John Kim at Apr 4, 2005 10:46:57 PM
I know (I think) what you mean about player-voted rewards. I was very worried about that before we started playing PTA -- I don't like competing for good roleplaying kudos. In practice, for me, there was enough fan mail so that it was very rarely a zero-sum game. I almost never felt like giving a piece of fan mail to person X was going to keep me from getting a piece of fan mail later.
(Which means, yeah, it happened once or twice. But not often.)
Posted by: Bryant at Apr 4, 2005 11:13:06 PM
I understand, John. My experience with player-controlled rewards has been completely different from yours. They have all been very positive, in fact.
The lesson learned here is, of course: know your group! No mechanic is a magic wand to create goodwill and happiness for all. For many players, PTA's fan mail is a positive, constructive, friendship-nurturing system. But there are no guarantees that it will work that way with your players. Only actual play with tell.
Posted by: John Harper at Apr 5, 2005 3:57:35 PM
