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Talakeal
2019-01-01, 11:03 AM
I am a big fan of the Games Workshop skirmish line of games (Necromunda, Mordheim, Gorkamorka, Lord of the Rings Battle Companies, etc.) and in all of those games after the battle you play a bunch of mini-games (mostly involving dice and tables or allocating abstract resources) to handle downtime activities such as shopping, crafting, managing territories, training, or determining the long term consequences of being injured in combat.

All of these are fairly quick and abstract, typically based on what happened during the game but fairly random.

I am told that some RPGs, for example Pendragon and Ars Magica iirc, use similar mechanics.

I really like these mechanics as it lets you minimize book keeping and get right back into the action as soon as possible.


I tend to run fairly simulationist games during the session, but several times I have tried to implement more abstract gamist rules for resource management during the downtime between adventures, both as house rules for existing games or as base mechanics in a game of my own development. Every time I do it meets with a chill reaction from my players, and then I typically come to the forums for ideas on how to improve the system or how to better sell it to my players.

Invariably, the forumites rip the idea to shreds, and say that the very concept of such mechanics should absolutely destroy all sense of immersion and agency in the players and the players should be fleeing the table in droves.

But, some games seem to do it well, so I don't know how the very concept can be so flawed.


Anyone have any ideas about why some people are so against the idea? How to sell it to people who are more on the fence? Any examples of games that use abstract and / or gamist downtime systems and how and why they work well (or poorly?)

Quellian-dyrae
2019-01-01, 02:02 PM
I mainly play M&M, and for a while now I've been using a homebrew Downtime Actions systems for doing things between episodes. They've always been positively received by my players, so I can't really say much as to why people don't like them. The system I use is below:

Between episodes, each PC has the opportunity to take Downtime Actions. They'll generally receive between two and four each episode.

Downtime actions will generally require some sort of check, depending on what you are trying to achieve. How much you accomplish will depend on the degrees of success on the check. Powers and Advantages may also open up possibilities for Downtime Actions that other characters might not be able to take (Quickness, for example, wouldn't let a character take more Downtime Actions, but would allow it to take actions that would normally be a process of months or years rather than days; similarly, a Postcognition or Mind Reading power may allow someone to learn the answers to questions that other PCs couldn't).

There are three main types of Downtime Actions:

Immediate Actions: Things like learning the answer to a specific question, accomplishing a specific task, and other short-term, one-time things are immediate actions. They are generally similar to Edit Scene and Inspiration uses of Hero Points. You make a check to determine if you succeed. In some cases, where enough persistence will lead to eventual success, you can spend one additional Downtime Action per degree of failure to treat the attempt as a success. With additional degrees of success, you will receive some additional benefit as called by the GM.

Special Immediate Actions: You may spend one Downtime Action to use the Inventor, Artificer, or Ritualist Advantages without bothering with the exact time. You may still only use one such temporary power in any given scene. However, you may "stockpile" such options, and select one at the start of a later scene, expending its free use. If you wish to select from your stockpile in the midst of a scene it costs a Hero Point.

You may spend one Downtime Action to retrain up to five PP worth of traits, shifting them to something else. There is no check required.

Extended Actions: Extended actions are those that will take prolonged amounts of time working towards the goal. Extended actions will require a specific number of total degrees of success before they are complete. Some may also include milestones that provide a partial benefit before the task has been fully accomplished. Degrees of failure past the first will deduct from accumulated degrees of success.

Indefinite Actions: Indefinite actions don't have a set endpoint; they provide some manner of benefit which constantly accumulates. A running tally of degrees of success is kept, and those degrees can potentially be spent to gain some benefit or offset some complication. Some indefinite actions will provide more immediate, concrete benefits for their degrees of success.

Special Indefinite Actions: You can spend your Downtime to improve an NPC; training them, building them devices, etc. Once you do this, I'll get an official stat block made for the NPC if I don't have one already. The DC will generally be 5 + 2 * the NPC's PL, and each degree of success will give them one PP. You can't bring an NPC's PL or PP total above your own. This doesn't make the NPC a Sidekick, Minion, or the like, but if circumstances come up where they're involved in a scene, they'll be better able to assist or defend themselves. If the NPCs PL is at least two lower than yours, you can spend two degrees of success to raise it by 1 directly, up to a maximum equal to the average of its original PL and your PL. This won't provide more PP or immediately increased stats; those still have to be trained up normally. This will increase the DC of further training.

You can use your Downtime to improve an Installation. The DC will generally be 10 + the Installation's current effective EP. Each degree of success grants the Installation 1 EP. You don't have to spend your own PP buying Equipment ranks to do this, even if you own the Installation.

If you're really, just, super boring, you can spend two Downtime Actions to gain one Hero Point.

Common Expenditures: Some Downtime Actions allow you to spend successes on certain benefits. Some of these benefits, particularly the more mechanically-focused ones, will use one of the following templates:

Provide Hero Points: You can spend successes to serve as Hero Points for certain NPCs, when they are present in the scene.
-For 2 successes, you may spend one of your own Hero Points (or Luck Rerolls) on the NPC's behalf.
-For 5 successes, you may directly provide a defensive Hero Point benefit to the NPC (such as rerolling a resistance check, removing the Stunned condition, buying off fatigue for Extra Efforting a Recover action, etc).
-For 5 successes, you may request a utility Hero Point benefit for the NPC (such as Inspiration, Edit Scene, fueling one of their powers that uses a Hero Point, buying off fatigue for a Power Stunt, etc). If the GM refuses the request, the successes are refunded.
-For 10 successes, you may directly provide an offensive Hero Point benefit to the NPC (such as rerolling an attack roll, buying off fatigue for an extra action, etc).

Request Assistance: You can request direct assistance from certain NPCs. It generally takes some time to get in contact with them and get them into position, so this can generally only be done between scenes or when you have some prep time. Most favors that get accomplished off-screen in the background cost 1 success, although particularly involved favors or those that are outside the NPC's comfort zone will cost more. More mechanically-oriented favors, however, have higher costs:
-For 3 successes, you can get the NPC to take a time-consuming, skill-based action (not counting Inventing and the like; see below) on your behalf, such as conducting an investigation, repairing a damaged object, etc. The NPC spends the time and makes the necessary skill checks. Alternately, you can perform the action as well and the NPC will provide a Team Check.
-For 3 successes, you can get the NPC to perform a Downtime Action for you. You still spend the Downtime Action, but the NPC rolls the skill check rather than you. Alternately, you can perform the action normally and the NPC will provide a Team Check.
-For a number of successes equal to half the NPC's Power Level, you may call the NPC into a scene that it wouldn't otherwise be involved in. The GM controls the NPC, and it is generally unable to successfully contribute to major actions during the scene, such as combat - the GM may choose a less favorable result for any roll the NPC makes or that gets made against it, at will. The NPC can, however, successfully perform one background task involved in the scene. For example, it can keep watch, rescue civilians, evacuate a collaterally damaged building, secure a perimeter, or the like. As long as it is keeping to a background task, it functions and rolls normally.
-For a number of successes equal to half the NPC's Power Level, you may control an allied NPC called into the scene for one round or action. During this time, the NPC is able to make rolls normally and perform normal actions, even in combat. It cannot use Extra Effort. If a called NPC participates in combat, it doubles any points of failure on its resistance checks and is subject to lethal damage. This penalty applies for the rest of the scene, so be careful before you summon NPCs who mean a lot to your character to fight for you! Note also that especially powerful opponents may treat called NPCs as Minions.
-In most cases, you can only call or control NPCs of your own Power Level or lower. In the rare cases that the GM allows you to summon assistance from a higher-PL NPC, the number of successes required is increased by 50% per PL the NPC is above your own.
-Some Downtime Actions let you request assistance from a specific NPC, others from a broad group. In general, with groups, you get assistance from basic members. For an additional 50% of the successes required to call them into the scene (rounded up) you can specify some specialty or powerset appropriate to them.

Acquire Item: You can acquire a useful object, often from an allied inventor or the like. You can't do this mid-scene; you need some prep-time or time between scenes to acquire the item. You can make use of the item for one scene, after which it breaks down, runs out of fuel, has to be returned, or so on.
-A stand-alone item that has items own independent function, not stacking with any of your traits or powers, costs 2 successes per 5 PP. You can have a maximum total PP value in stand-alone items from a given Downtime Action in a given scene equal to the DC of the Downtime Action minus 10.
-An augmentative item that improves your existing traits or powers costs 1 success per PP. PP for augmentative items count against the same maximum as standalone items. Augmentative items that augment an arrayed trait do not augment the entire array, just the one power.
-A custom weapon costs 3 successes, and is built as an alternate power of one of your existing offensive powers, with the same PP value. This option is only available for purely offensive powers. You may have multiple custom weapons from the same Downtime Action in the same scene. Augmentative items can augment custom weapons.

Darth Ultron
2019-01-01, 02:11 PM
Anyone have any ideas about why some people are so against the idea? How to sell it to people who are more on the fence? Any examples of games that use abstract and / or gamist downtime systems and how and why they work well (or poorly?)

Mostly, it's boring.

If your doing a game where the players have an army or country, then it's part of the game. But any RPG where the player has a character, it's just boring.

The average player in an RPG with a character does not want to keep track of taxes, trade, weather and all the other 'dowtime' stuff. That player wants to have a character fight a red dragon on the side of a volcano while on fire, not roll on table B7 to discover the crop growth amount.

Talakeal
2019-01-01, 02:17 PM
Mostly, it's boring.

If your doing a game where the players have an army or country, then it's part of the game. But any RPG where the player has a character, it's just boring.

The average player in an RPG with a character does not want to keep track of taxes, trade, weather and all the other 'dowtime' stuff. That player wants to have a character fight a red dragon on the side of a volcano while on fire, not roll on table B7 to discover the crop growth amount.

Exactly. Couldn't agree more.

Which is why it is resolved with a few quick dice rolls rather than actually playing it out over the course of an entire session.

Nobody has ever complained that I am spending to much time on downtime activities, quite the opposite, they claim that doing it quickly and abstractly robs them of agency and / or immersion.

Max_Killjoy
2019-01-01, 02:52 PM
It might help if the distinctions were less orthogonal to the terminology.

You want something quick, but that doesn't make it "gamist" or "sim". Either one could be quick.

Do you want it to be about mastering the rules of the mini-game and using them to best advantage to win the mini-game?

Or do you want the mini-game to reflect the PC's efforts and abilities, and return results reflective of the in-setting outcomes?

Talakeal
2019-01-01, 03:07 PM
It might help if the distinctions were less orthogonal to the terminology.

You want something quick, but that doesn't make it "gamist" or "sim". Either one could be quick.

Do you want it to be about mastering the rules of the mini-game and using them to best advantage to win the mini-game?

Or do you want the mini-game to reflect the PC's efforts and abilities, and return results reflective of the in-setting outcomes?

For example, some RPGs like Dark Heresy or Atlantis: The Second Age don't keep track of wealth, instead they allow a certain number of requisition roles each session. Typically the number of rolls is based on some aspect of the characters and the difficulty is based on the rarity of the items.

Now, it is obviously necessary to limit the number of acquisition roles per session to avoid the monotonous task of the players simply rolling to acquire every item in the book.

Anytime I have tried something similar I get a deluge of complaints asking why players don't get unlimited rolls, why can't they save up for big purchases, what happens to their money if they fail all of the rolls, why can't they just steal the items they want, etc. etc. etc.

Max_Killjoy
2019-01-01, 03:21 PM
For example, some RPGs like Dark Heresy or Atlantis: The Second Age don't keep track of wealth, instead they allow a certain number of requisition roles each session. Typically the number of rolls is based on some aspect of the characters and the difficulty is based on the rarity of the items.

Now, it is obviously necessary to limit the number of acquisition roles per session to avoid the monotonous task of the players simply rolling to acquire every item in the book.

Anytime I have tried something similar I get a deluge of complaints asking why players don't get unlimited rolls, why can't they save up for big purchases, what happens to their money if they fail all of the rolls, why can't they just steal the items they want, etc. etc. etc.

I think what they're objecting to there is the level of abstraction and/or the lost opportunities they feel they'd otherwise get with a more detailed system of actually tracking wealth and directly interacting with the tasks.

Darth Ultron
2019-01-01, 07:52 PM
Nobody has ever complained that I am spending to much time on downtime activities, quite the opposite, they claim that doing it quickly and abstractly robs them of agency and / or immersion.

It's not about the time, it that it's boring.

For a RPG action/adventure player to make 1d4-1 rolls to trade and make 1-10 x 10 gold, is boring. To kill a dragon and loot it's hoard is fun.

A RPG action/adventure player wants that first hand, first person, real time focused fun adventure. Not really anything else. To take even a couple minutes to earn a handful of gold doing some downtime rolls seems a bit of a waste....why just role play the adventure a bit longer and kill another dragon?

The two game types don't mix well.

Florian
2019-01-01, 08:05 PM
Nobody has ever complained that I am spending to much time on downtime activities, quite the opposite, they claim that doing it quickly and abstractly robs them of agency and / or immersion.

In a certain sense, they are right about it. Systems in the vain of D&D offer a huge truckload full of options to affect things or bend luck to your favor. Quite a lot of downtime or similar sub-systems that use a high(er) level of abstraction are more or less designed to be self-contained, which rubs people the wrong way when you're using to be able to influence stuff more or less at will.

For example, the whole Hell´s Rebels AP makes use of a heavily modified Downtime system to simulate the PCs building up and running a fully-fledged rebellion in a metropolis. Part of it is sending out teams to deal with tasks that are normally associated with specialist classes, builds and roles in a more traditional game, like sending out a team ahead to scout a location or another one to bribe/distract the guards or poison the guard dogs.

It´s a solid system, but as a high-level abstraction, it specifically ignores most kinds of magic, magic item effects or class features. When I gm´ed that campaign for a mix of veterans and newbies, it was actually the veteran that had trouble getting out of their habits and into using the system as intended.

Malifice
2019-01-02, 01:48 AM
It's not about the time, it that it's boring.

For a RPG action/adventure player to make 1d4-1 rolls to trade and make 1-10 x 10 gold, is boring. To kill a dragon and loot it's hoard is fun.

A RPG action/adventure player wants that first hand, first person, real time focused fun adventure. Not really anything else. To take even a couple minutes to earn a handful of gold doing some downtime rolls seems a bit of a waste....why just role play the adventure a bit longer and kill another dragon?

The two game types don't mix well.

Yup. Pretty much this.

I run 5E and have 'downtime activity' as an option for those that want it. Making a magic item or training a new skill, or working a job in town or whatever. They can email me during the week between adventures and sessions what they want to do during downtime.

For those that dont want to mess with it, they just pick up the next adventure when it happens at the next session and skip that stuff.

Satinavian
2019-01-02, 03:02 AM
Exactly. Couldn't agree more.

Which is why it is resolved with a few quick dice rolls rather than actually playing it out over the course of an entire session.

Nobody has ever complained that I am spending to much time on downtime activities, quite the opposite, they claim that doing it quickly and abstractly robs them of agency and / or immersion.
Either they don't like the abstraction or they don't like the randomness.

Considering the other stuff you wrote about your players, i actually suspect the latter.

See, there is a certain appeal to gambling mechanics. The thrill and anticipation of the unknown outcome, the rush of good feelings after a success, the impulse to try again after a failure ... many people are very succeptible to that. But many other people are very much not. Not everyone is a gambler. Not everyone likes to have their longterm strategies in games (which is what most of the downtime stuff is about) rely on random chance. They want stuff influencable, predictable, certain. And that is not wrong.

It is not what every system provides. But not every system is for every player. Shoehorning mechanic resolution systems your players hate into your homebrew games will only lead to disappointment all around, no matter how much you like those systems and no matter what you read on certain sites/blogs/articles about the merits of random tables and how those can enrich your games.

geppetto
2019-01-02, 06:26 AM
Random tables for stuff like downtime are a stupid relic of the early days of gaming. Dont import bad mechanics just because they happened to get published.

If you want something interesting to happen your the GM. Just say it happens. Want a famine to hit the town? Okay it does. Dont roll anything. Just tell them theres a famine. You dont need permission from a random table or dice roll. Nor do you need tables to tell you how to tell an interesting story.

And the reason most players dont like these systems is because it takes them out of the game. Players who want to deal with downtime stuff want to actually deal with it. IE roleplay it. Not ditch it for some gamist system. And players who dont want to deal with it just dont want to deal with it at all. The system wont help.

Take the time and play it out. For instance in my campaign setting I loosely track calendar time and there are adventuring seasons. Winters are brutal and people pretty much stay in towns and actually inside as much as possible. So when late fall comes I remind the players that and ask what their plans are for the winter then we usually spend a fair bit of a session actually playing it out. Using non weapon skills, spells outside of combat, plans and RP with NPC's, research and practice times, yada yada yada. And no one ever complains.

It creates fun little interludes, a sense of time passing, excuses for PC's to take non adventure skills and even to occasionally develop actually meaningful places in the world with regards to the local culture. No gamist system needed or wanted.

Oh and wealth abstraction systems just suck. They totally suck. No one likes them. Its not fun at all. Just dont.

Pelle
2019-01-02, 06:45 AM
I think what they're objecting to there is the level of abstraction and/or the lost opportunities they feel they'd otherwise get with a more detailed system of actually tracking wealth and directly interacting with the tasks.

Yeah. Going up an abstraction level is cool if you don't want to deal with it. But usually players like to at least have the option to go back down to normal abstraction level and deal with it in detail if they care about it. For example, IME players tend to resist switching from normal combat rules to chase mechanics when the nature of a fight change. They don't want to give up the control they get from using the more detailed combat mechanics. Same with downtime and return-to-base-from-the-dungeon rolls.

For them to work I think you need to get buy-in to what is important enough to spend table time on.

GloatingSwine
2019-01-02, 08:31 AM
I am a big fan of the Games Workshop skirmish line of games (Necromunda, Mordheim, Gorkamorka, Lord of the Rings Battle Companies, etc.) and in all of those games after the battle you play a bunch of mini-games (mostly involving dice and tables or allocating abstract resources) to handle downtime activities such as shopping, crafting, managing territories, training, or determining the long term consequences of being injured in combat.

The noticable element of this is that those games are all squad based skirmish games where the individual model or piece of equipment is far less significant than an RPG character where they are individual to the player, and there's a far smaller delta of power in the outcomes available.

Knaight
2019-01-02, 10:32 AM
These work fine when implemented well; this sounds like it's fundamentally an implementation issue.


Oh and wealth abstraction systems just suck. They totally suck. No one likes them. Its not fun at all. Just dont.

You don't like them. That's not remotely the same thing as nobody liking them, and I will take them any day over coin counting, especially for settings where the coin counting gets messy (if there's anything that can be reasonably called financial markets, I definitely don't want to coin count).

Particle_Man
2019-01-02, 11:32 AM
Maybe make it optional for players? Those that want to play it safe get a neutral option. Those that want to maybe have something better or worse than the default can roll.

Aneurin
2019-01-02, 11:40 AM
I am a big fan of the Games Workshop skirmish line of games (Necromunda, Mordheim, Gorkamorka, Lord of the Rings Battle Companies, etc.) and in all of those games after the battle you play a bunch of mini-games (mostly involving dice and tables or allocating abstract resources) to handle downtime activities such as shopping, crafting, managing territories, training, or determining the long term consequences of being injured in combat.

All of these are fairly quick and abstract, typically based on what happened during the game but fairly random.

I am told that some RPGs, for example Pendragon and Ars Magica iirc, use similar mechanics.

I really like these mechanics as it lets you minimize book keeping and get right back into the action as soon as possible.


I tend to run fairly simulationist games during the session, but several times I have tried to implement more abstract gamist rules for resource management during the downtime between adventures, both as house rules for existing games or as base mechanics in a game of my own development. Every time I do it meets with a chill reaction from my players, and then I typically come to the forums for ideas on how to improve the system or how to better sell it to my players.

Invariably, the forumites rip the idea to shreds, and say that the very concept of such mechanics should absolutely destroy all sense of immersion and agency in the players and the players should be fleeing the table in droves.

But, some games seem to do it well, so I don't know how the very concept can be so flawed.


Anyone have any ideas about why some people are so against the idea? How to sell it to people who are more on the fence? Any examples of games that use abstract and / or gamist downtime systems and how and why they work well (or poorly?)

Adeptus Evangelion 2e and 2.5e have some fairly crude downtime rules, which might make for an easier initial sell than some very complex rules. Just enough to get the idea tested with the group without obliging anyone to think too much on anything - from there you can start sneaking more in and seeing how they go over with the group.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4e and The One Ring have significantly more developed down-time mechanics (the former mostly lifted from the latter), which seem perfectly functional. I'm going to be lifting them for the Only War game that I run when I have a bit of time to tinker with them. You might want to take a look at how they work; it's relatively simple and straightforward.

I suspect a lot of the issue that this forums have with the idea is that it's not a feature of any edition of Dungeons and Dragons and possibly doesn't work well for Dungeons and Dragons-style games (I couldn't really comment), and the forum membership is often very, very biased towards D&D - especially 3.5. Attitude and expectation are going to affect your reception; someone who likes, and expects, a magic-mart shopping trip and coin counting after a dungeon crawl isn't going to take well to the idea of making that more complex. Someone who thinks magic-mart shopping sprees are silly and wants to feel like they're progressing even in the down-time between adventures is going to approve of the idea - though not necessarily the execution.


For example, some RPGs like Dark Heresy or Atlantis: The Second Age don't keep track of wealth, instead they allow a certain number of requisition roles each session. Typically the number of rolls is based on some aspect of the characters and the difficulty is based on the rarity of the items.

Now, it is obviously necessary to limit the number of acquisition roles per session to avoid the monotonous task of the players simply rolling to acquire every item in the book.

Anytime I have tried something similar I get a deluge of complaints asking why players don't get unlimited rolls, why can't they save up for big purchases, what happens to their money if they fail all of the rolls, why can't they just steal the items they want, etc. etc. etc.

Why do you need to limit them more than they already are? It already takes time to find things (check the time tables), which is the biggest limit on making the rolls. At least, they do in the 40k RPGs that use abstract wealth - I don't know anything about Atlantis. The players can make as many acquisition tests as they like, but if they spend all their time shopping then they aren't investigating or defeating the machinations of their rivals.

Failing a test doesn't mean "you can't afford this" it means "you can't find it at a price you're willing to pay" or even "someone else purchased it while you were going to the bank for some extra cash to make up the shortfall". And since RT, at least, lets you burn points of Profit Factor for a bonus to your test the party can, in fact, 'save up' as it were. I forget whether that's possible in Black Crusade, Only War and Dark Heresy 2e.

Talakeal
2019-01-02, 12:59 PM
Why do you need to limit them more than they already are? It already takes time to find things (check the time tables), which is the biggest limit on making the rolls. At least, they do in the 40k RPGs that use abstract wealth - I don't know anything about Atlantis. The players can make as many acquisition tests as they like, but if they spend all their time shopping then they aren't investigating or defeating the machinations of their rivals.

Failing a test doesn't mean "you can't afford this" it means "you can't find it at a price you're willing to pay" or even "someone else purchased it while you were going to the bank for some extra cash to make up the shortfall". And since RT, at least, lets you burn points of Profit Factor for a bonus to your test the party can, in fact, 'save up' as it were. I forget whether that's possible in Black Crusade, Only War and Dark Heresy 2e.

It wasnt that I limited them more, it was that I used what is more or less an identical mechanic in a home-brew system.

What really cheesed my players was that they could burn resources for a bonus on their aquisition test and then still fail their test; they felt that the merchants were literally robbing them as they burned resources to shop but got nothimg of value in return.

Jay R
2019-01-02, 02:35 PM
My preference is to play out downtime between adventures, by email.

People will only enjoy an abstract system under two conditions:
1. It allows them to do what they could do otherwise.
and
2. It's a fun and interesting subgame.

You once described an abstract system for wealth in which somebody tried several times to buy something and, having failed, wasn't able to buy something else with the money. This does not meet condition 1. If they haven't bought one thing, then they should have enough money to buy something else.

Whether you intended it that way or not, they wound up not being able to do what they could have done normally, so it felt to them like it took away their options.

2D8HP
2019-01-03, 12:22 PM
Pendragon


The "Winter Phase" rules for Pendragon seem to work well, basically the idea is that your "Player Knight" holes up in their manor in the winter waiting for spring time to go adventure, so you do the equivalent of XP and take care of the like.

Here is a link to a synopsis (http://www.gspendragon.com/winterphasesynopsis.html)

geppetto
2019-01-04, 12:00 AM
These work fine when implemented well; this sounds like it's fundamentally an implementation issue.



You don't like them. That's not remotely the same thing as nobody liking them, and I will take them any day over coin counting, especially for settings where the coin counting gets messy (if there's anything that can be reasonably called financial markets, I definitely don't want to coin count).

You have defeated the ancient dragon, your FICA score goes up 50 pts. But you missed your credit card payment while you were in the dungeon. Lose 25 pts.

Oh and customer service is calling to ask how you intend to take care of the balance.

Yeah thats exciting, lets play pencils and paychecks.

Knaight
2019-01-04, 03:57 AM
You have defeated the ancient dragon, your FICA score goes up 50 pts. But you missed your credit card payment while you were in the dungeon. Lose 25 pts.

Oh and customer service is calling to ask how you intend to take care of the balance.

Yeah thats exciting, lets play pencils and paychecks.
This would be exactly why you abstract wealth systems, yes. When you sabotage a space pirate station, steal their cargo, blow up the fleet they send after you, and capture the captain and first mate to collect bounties you could choose to go through and handle the specifics of each of those individual transactions, which in setting only make sense if there's a great deal of mess attached. Or you bump up their abstract wealth rating and move to the interesting parts of the game, like the hornet's nest of furious space pirates that the PCs have poked with every stick they could find that are coming for revenge.

Talakeal
2019-01-04, 12:45 PM
The "Winter Phase" rules for Pendragon seem to work well, basically the idea is that your "Player Knight" holes up in their manor in the winter waiting for spring time to go adventure, so you do the equivalent of XP and take care of the like.

Here is a link to a synopsis (http://www.gspendragon.com/winterphasesynopsis.html)

That's pretty much what I would be going for, except not quite so disassociated from what happened during the game session; so for example finding a huge treasure during your adventure would give you bonuses on some of these rolls and being injured would give you a penalty.


As I said, people seem to like these sort of mechanics in other games, but when I try and implement them they never work out, and when I go to the forums people tell me that the whole concept is a bunch of garbage.



This would be exactly why you abstract wealth systems, yes. When you sabotage a space pirate station, steal their cargo, blow up the fleet they send after you, and capture the captain and first mate to collect bounties you could choose to go through and handle the specifics of each of those individual transactions, which in setting only make sense if there's a great deal of mess attached. Or you bump up their abstract wealth rating and move to the interesting parts of the game, like the hornet's nest of furious space pirates that the PCs have poked with every stick they could find that are coming for revenge.

People always say that abstract wealth breaks their immersion, yet coin counting RPGs like D&D never actually take into account any of the factors that would also be realistic like fluctuations in markets, relationships with suppliers, or unexpected personal expenses. It also assumes (or at the very least rewards people for playing) perfect murder hobos who never spend any money on themselves or long term goals and put 100% of their funds right back into upgrading their equipment.

Max_Killjoy
2019-01-04, 12:54 PM
That's pretty much what I would be going for, except not quite so disassociated from what happened during the game session; so for example finding a huge treasure during your adventure would give you bonuses on some of these rolls and being injured would give you a penalty.


As I said, people seem to like these sort of mechanics in other games, but when I try and implement them they never work out, and when I go to the forums people tell me that the whole concept is a bunch of garbage.




People always say that abstract wealth breaks their immersion, yet coin counting RPGs like D&D never actually take into account any of the factors that would also be realistic like fluctuations in markets, relationships with suppliers, or unexpected personal expenses. It also assumes (or at the very least rewards people for playing) perfect murder hobos who never spend any money on themselves or long term goals and put 100% of their funds right back into upgrading their equipment.


I think the trick is to make the mechanics quicker and more abstract without making them feel disconnected or like they don't reflect the PC's skills, efforts, or expenditures.

A character who is smart, savvy, or skilled in trading should get better results from a "winter season trading" abstraction than a character is not any of those things, for example. A character who says they're focusing on something should have a better range of outcomes than a character who isn't. A character who recruits a trusted and clever NPC to be their "business manager" shouldn't get the same random spread of results as a guy who just leaves it all to chance. Etc.

Particle_Man
2019-01-04, 03:47 PM
I think that Mouseguard also has a winter phase "down time".

Koo Rehtorb
2019-01-04, 04:57 PM
Torchbearer Winter Phase:

1) Say a few words for any PCs that have died over the previous year.
2) If you sleep on the street you start out the next adventure Sick. No roll necessary.
3) Age your PC one year.
4) Take a new wise that reflects your experiences over the previous year. (basically an area you're mechanically knowledgeable about. for example goblin-wise)
5) Remove any trait which no longer reflects your character. The GM can also nominate a trait for removal, in which case it requires a unanimous vote from all the other players)
6) Tell a tale about something cool each PC did over the previous year, and reflect the story by giving them a new trait which represents it.
7) Advance on any two skills of your choice as you practise over the winter.
8) Increase the cost for everything you buy over the winter by 1, supplies are scarce and valuable.

johnbragg
2019-01-04, 05:02 PM
Anytime I have tried something similar I get a deluge of complaints asking why players don't get unlimited rolls, why can't they save up for big purchases, what happens to their money if they fail all of the rolls, why can't they just steal the items they want, etc. etc. etc.

"Because then it would be really boring, or horribly unbalanced, or maybe even both."

That said, maybe you could kludge a mechanic where if a character is Saving Up For A Thing, just figure out how many downtimes they need until the Thing happens.

Quertus
2019-01-04, 08:57 PM
So, everything I would say, has already been said, but better - mostly by Max. Take everything Max said, add in the comment about the difference between running a squad and running a character, and I think that that sums up my commentary.

The only thing I can add is that now I'm imagining playing Monopoly with an abstract "resources" system. Oh, you landed on Park Place, whose owner has Resources 20? Make a resources roll, DC 35 - for every 5 points you fail, reduce your resources by 1. The owner's Resources increases by 3.

I don't think that it would have the same appeal.

Satinavian
2019-01-05, 02:20 PM
People always say that abstract wealth breaks their immersion

Invariably, the forumites rip the idea to shreds, and say that the very concept of such mechanics should absolutely destroy all sense of immersion and agency in the players and the players should be fleeing the table in droves.

You should stop this "people always say" stuff. You come to the discussion with some idea about conventional wisdom and interact more with this idea than with the other posters.


Maybe your players don't like certain things you do like. Then you should invest time to know what exactly it is they don't like and why. The forum can't help you here.

Also. you have a homebrew that somehow doesn't seem to work for your group. Your players don't like it. That does not necessarily mean that they dislike the basic concept. They might as well dislike the implementation.


Yes, there are many working games with downtime rules. I even play some. Some rules are good, some are bad, some are a matter of taste. Even if the rules exist, they are not alays a good fit for the campaign. Or group. More generalisation is not really possible. You can't discuss downtime rules without details and context.



And yes, there are many systems with abstact wealth. I use some of them. If they work, they provide a short way to handle all the money stuff that is uninteresting while not stealing the attention or agency from equippment or weath-related stuff that is interesting.
It is extremely common to do this with rarity in addition to cost, letting all common items fade into background. Another common way is to couple general lifestyle costs out and fade into background while still tracking all unusual expenses. Also common are wealth- or tech-levels that dictate what kind of expense is automatically ignored.

A good abstact wealth level is about not tracking boring stuff. That also means you don't track if you have this stuff actually in your inventory and you don't need to roll for boring stuff or actually buy it.

A abstract wealth system is not for handling the exciting stuff. If you have abstract wealth you need some way to handle exciting stuff with it, but exciting stuff is exciting in itself. The game does not win by not focussing on it.
And exciting stuff need avenues of interaction with it. Player choices, not just random rolls.

GloatingSwine
2019-01-05, 02:26 PM
You should stop this "people always say" stuff. You come to the discussion with some idea about conventional wisdom and interact more with this idea than with the other posters.

I do vaguely recall we had a thread on Takaleal's abstract wealth system and it's broadly true that it got a lot of flak. (Primarily because, as I recall, it basically gave out points during the adventure that you spent in downtime to try and win things, but the points got spent whether you won or not, so it doesn't feel like getting a representation of wealth but instead getting tickets to the magic item lottery.)

Florian
2019-01-05, 03:02 PM
Dunno. I've actually played some of the systems that Takaleal mentioned and others brought up in this discussion, as well as others that are even stricter in that sense but don't deserve mentioning because they're not available in the english language, so we can´t really discuss them without someone going out and post a translation.

For example, the Acquisition system works great and makes a lot of sense, the Winter phase is even greater because it is deeply embedded in the Pendragon system, but they don't really mesh with D&D-style systems without going out and adapting the full premise of the original system to D&D (or vice versa).

PhoenixPhyre
2019-01-05, 03:08 PM
For example, the Acquisition system works great and makes a lot of sense, the Winter phase is even greater because it is deeply embedded in the Pendragon system, but they don't really mesh with D&D-style systems without going out and adapting the full premise of the original system to D&D (or vice versa).

And that's a key point, for me. Subsystems work best (or at all) when they're deeply embedded in the greater system. Porting them from one system to another often harms both the host system and the ported one. Not always, but often.

Satinavian
2019-01-05, 05:06 PM
I do vaguely recall we had a thread on Takaleal's abstract wealth system and it's broadly true that it got a lot of flak. (Primarily because, as I recall, it basically gave out points during the adventure that you spent in downtime to try and win things, but the points got spent whether you won or not, so it doesn't feel like getting a representation of wealth but instead getting tickets to the magic item lottery.)Yes, i remember vaguely.

I didn't like it either. But certainly not because "abstract wealth".

Spiritus
2019-01-06, 09:58 PM
I think something like Dark Heresy's requisition system works because it is just how the world works. As Interrogators you are literally trying to requisition new equipment and battling with the labyrynthine beauracracy to make it happen. Moreover, iirc, that system was in addition to being able to find stuff on missions; it supplemented looting rather than replacing it.

Maybe absracting walth works, butmfinding what you are looking for needs a gather information check. Regardless, I think that taking player resources away if they fail a requisition roll is a bad idea, because it means treasure is less valuable.

Pauly
2019-01-07, 02:35 AM
I think it also depends on the type of game you’re playing.

D&D and other resource management games need the players to control what type of potions and how many, what type of magic sword, blah blah blah. So in these games the players want to and need to micromanage their resources in the between adventures time.

In games where you don’t have puzzle monsters or specific vulnerabilities then all what matters is that you have a magic weapon that does [bonus] damage, and it doesn’t matter if the bonus damage is fire, ice, acid, holy, whatever. So in these systems wealth can be abstracted. The “you got enough gold to buy a magic sword or magic armor or pay someone to teach you a new skill” way of treating in game wealth.

If the game doesn’t require you to care about specific details then abstraction is fine. If the game does require you to care about specific details then a more controlled system is required.

Minigames for me always worked better with high abstraction games. I think it’s because players are more willing to let go of micromanagement and accept the winds of fortune. In D&D like games players object to potentially losing or being denied resources that they have worked so hard to acquire.