Back in the time of yore, when one must colour his own D20 and Elf is a class in D&D, the assumed motivation for entering a dungeon is gold, treasure and magical power. More than 20 years later, this assumption has changed slightly, but it is still mostly centred on gold, magical items and experience points. Why not add something to this mix? Social status and recognition.
When What You Say is Judged by the Whole World
Recently I have joined StackOverflow, a site dedicated to programming. There you have a reputation score. Any question and answer you post can be voted up or down. If your answer is voted up as useful, you get a plus to your reputation. Moreso if your answer is accepted; likewise, if your question is up-voted, you get reputation. As your reputation grows, you gain admin access, ability to edit, introduce your own tags and so on.
Suddenly looking through list of unanswered questions, or popping in to help out a newbie, becomes addictive. I suppose this is a trait for some role-playing gamers – advancement, seeing increment in points and reaping in achievements. Then one day I take a step back and examine my action. Why isn’t there social reward in pen and paper role-playing games?
Why I Prefer a +3 Sword over being a Nobleman
Say what you like, when it comes down to pen and paper games, the main conflict is still combat. Magic, stealth, physical brute force and anything else that can bring down the enemy fast is more important than anything else. Some games recently, such as Weapons of the Gods, the new A Song of Ice and Fire and Artesia, introduces the concept of social rank. For other games, however, being a nobleman means nothing when in the 9th level of the Dungeon of Doom.
While I have my own views on what a social conflict should be like in a pen and paper game, it is understanding why social rewards in current role-playing games is still in its infancy. You need to come up with rules for it. Like it or not, formal rules always give assurance, proves to the player that it is worthwhile the trouble and explicitly states how being the Captain of the Guards help when you need to hunt down cultists in a shadowy forest (even in Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing 2nd, vague rules are given for leadership, and nothing is touched on what you gain if you become a noble).
Of course, there is always GM’s fiat, but that is an informal contract. Some gamers (many indeed) don’t like that, if the threads on the social aspects of Exalted on RPG.NET is anything to go by.
Yes, I like to Mention Fate Again
Fate 3.0 has the Aspect mechanics, and recently it has found its way into a number of upcoming games. Aspects are modifiers that you can tap into for extra help in times of need and they could represent anything from being a princess to having strength that rivals Hercules.
As Spirit of the Century (which uses Fate 3.0) starts the character as pulp fiction heroes, there is little room for advancement in stats and skills. However, there is Aspects. One of the forum posters at RPG.NET makes the suggestion of allowing a group of victorious heroes to put their own Aspects into the world. Suddenly, “Noble prize winner” is an attractive thing to get. You need funding to build your next prototype aircraft? Tap into that aspect and say that your reputation precedes you. You are the “Captain of the Guards”. Well, next time you need to intimidate some goons at a tavern, that’s a handy aspect to tap into, either to awe them by your authority or to psyche yourself by thinking of them as raw recurits.
Really Formal Social Achievements
However, Fate 3.0 walks the line of GM fiat and formal rules. Some people have issues with that. After all, whether an Aspect could do what you want is up to the GM to decide. For players accustomed to D20 and other high-crunch games where rules are formalised, something more concrete is needed.
Of course, this would mean that social conflict is another form of viable conflict for the game. The players must be assured that while they are climbing the social ladder, not all their games would take place in the dark depths where being allies with the Guild of the Alchemists means nothing.
(In Fate 3, if you have the Aspect “Ally of the Alchemists”, you can try to use it in a situation, say to naturalise a poison, by saying “Well I am an ally of the Alchemists; so they taught me something about this sort of stuff”. Of course, this requires a Fate Point and the GM to allow the player to do it).
Resolving this problem is going to be lengthy. For OGL D20, the GM may introduces ad hoc feats. “Hero of the Middlelands” feat, for example, may grant the character +2 to Diplomacy and Information Gathering in the correct region. The “Guard Captain” feat give a bonus to Intimidation and the like. Perhaps GM-designed feats could help. I am looking forward to what other ways this could be done.
Social Conflicts and its Nature
Pen and paper RPGs tends to be personal. One to one combat, spell duels, confronting a devious trap and navigating a dungeon. However, social conflicts are more than just debates, persuasion and bribery. I believe if we enlarge the scope of social conflict, social status becomes more important. I would like to explore this part more in detail.
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July 28th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
The online browser game Tanoth approaches this with its “Heroics”. You even get bonuses for having worked in the stables, and if you work there long enough, you stop doing the menial work and become somewhat of an overseer. Another is Heroic Deed Ranking – not only do you gain exp for the immediate deed, and additional bonuses when you level, you also are ranked against all other players, and gain bonuses there too. Pretty interesting, but I’m not sure how that would work in a normal p&p rpg.
In my world, which started out as a fairly vanilla tolkienic thing and quickly became much more than that due to the openness of the T&T rules and the people I was playing with at the time, and my general boredom
, I use a lot of history (some from old playing sessions with different people), things from books I’ve read which I modify enough so that there’s little chance players would suddenly go “aha!”, and I often just use illustrations to generate ideas – one of my most interesting races started out as a group of minor, unexplained figures in a single frame of a comic in Heavy Metal magazine.
I’m rereading Zelazny’s “Chronicles of Amber” for the first time in about 25 years, and I’m sure it will be reflected sooner or later in my world (actually it already is).