I love the Mythic GME, but what irks me the most with the Fate Chart is that the chaos factor makes the phrasing of your questions so very important.
I'm not talking about loaded questions ("will I find a +5 magic sword under this pillow"), but rather the polarity -- or positive vs negative.
Example: I'm talking to an NPC and want to convince her to do something for me. I can ask a yes/no question in two ways: "will she accept" or "will she refuse".
The likeliness is not a problem, because I can designate a 'likely' to question 1 or an 'unlikely' to question 2. Same thing.
But the chaos factor stays the same for either question, meaning a completely different distribution of the answers for both.
Now the problem is not the abuse of the system -- there's no point in " cheating against yourself", right? -- but rather breaking the flow of the story. Each time I pose a question, I have to think how I phrase it so that it makes sense with the current chaos factor.
How do you deal with this? Do you even use Chaos in your games? Or would you say that chaos can be either good or bad, so whichever way you ask the question is fine?
I include Chaos in my games. It has a good idea. The game assumes you're asking the obvious so that when it's like, at Chaos Factor 9, you could have rock bottom situations where you're literally invoking "can this get any worse?!"
ReplyDeleteBut there's a downside. A low enough Chaos factor will practically have the GME go "Nope" to everything and potentially leave you with Writer's Block.
This is a big reason why I created CRGE. I found that, for myself, continually "fact-checking" myself on a "fair" probability was really getting in the way of my gaming. What really got to me were the "somewhats", those gray areas in between.
ReplyDeleteI will definitely admit there's no right or wrong. Some of my core playtesters for CRGE preferred the Mythic way as opposed to the CRGE way (50/50 with answer erosion). They wanted to see an "extremely unlikely" thing come true, and that's cool.
So for Mythic what I did was basically if my gut didn't immediately tell me the probability, if I was even taking a few seconds to ponder between say somewhat likely and very likely, I would go 50/50. The game sped up, and I never saw a loss of "surprise".
I had a post on my blog about the "power of questions" but it mysteriously disappeared, though the few comments I got are still there.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, since the chaos factor is supposed to increase the chances of things happening, your framing of the question will be influenced by things like:
- whether you're at a point where you feel like you want to wrap the adventure or the relevant threads up because you're bored with them (or will soon be if they keep going much longer)
- whether you generally want to help your PC or make things harder
If you are not ready to wrap things up, I think that it would make sense to frame questions in a way that facilitates that in the case of a positive answer. Otherwise, you'd try to do the opposite. To this, you would also factor in how much you want to help your PC, and let that guide you as well.
If you're neutral to these considerations, I think that more obstacles is more interesting, but you don't necessarily want to kill your PC. :)
I always used to frame questions in such a way that a "yes" would indicate either the more interesting thing, or the more inconvenient thing, whichever made the most sense.
ReplyDeleteI almost feel like one could almost have a rule of thumb that the most interesting is assumed to happen unless it not happening is sufficiently interesting as well. I have a comment along these lines buried somewhere in the group...
ReplyDeleteWhen I use Mythic, I actually don't use the Chaos factor. IMO, it tends to make the story spiral out uncontrollably. Personally, I like to use random tables to add variation in gameplay.
ReplyDeleteI respect Mythic GME but I seldom use it, when I do it I apply the Reversed Chaos Factor because it's better IMO
ReplyDeleteRecently I've also been in the favor of not assigning odds at all for any type of oracle questions. 50/50 is all I ever need!
ReplyDeletelino pang
ReplyDeleteReversed Chaos Factor?
I've used Mythic GME and had a lot of fun. I can definitely see your point, and I tend to agree with James Smith about the potential for writer's block, but I also tend to just go with it. If I spend the time to think about how to phrase a question, I feel like I'm not doing it right. The dice are there to surprise you anyway, and odds are it'll all even out in the end - unless you always ask your questions the same way, the Chaos will show through fairly honestly. I love Chaos but, honestly, there are times when I sort of skip it and go with something off of the Random Event tables. It depends on your style of storytelling though, and the pacing of the story itself.
ReplyDeleteJames Smith it works this way:
ReplyDeleteEvaluate the scene - did it end chaotically? lower Chaos Factor. No? raise it.
this seems illogical (it is) but makes stories more interesting, it avoids the "boredom spiral" if things are too controlled from the beginning. Perhaps a different name like "Climax Factor" is more appropriate.
I always phrase my questions so that 'yes' is always the positive (good) answer and 'no' is always the negative (bad) answer. Stops me from involuntarily loading the questions!
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteI don't even think about the phrasing. I just ask whatever question needs answering. If I do load the questions, it is almost certainly to the PCs' detriment. My game notes are full of questions like "Does X freak out?" and "Do things deteriorate?"
ReplyDeleteI was using Chaos factor a lot, but at the moment I've slipped back to doing without it, probably because I haven't been using threads or scenes either. I realy like how Chaos factor causes Altered scenes and Interrupts, but I think the increased chance of Yes answers gets too high too fast.
I had an idea to redo the numbers on the Fate Chart, in-/decreasing them by only 5 per column for the regular yes/no, but leaving the Exceptional yes/no numbers as is. Has anyone tried something like this?
Gerard Nerval Interesting idea. I never thought to alter the ranges like that.
ReplyDeleteThis is precisely the reason I substitute FU for the yes/no rolls. I also prefer to change the focus table to d20 as I hate all the d100 rolls. Although you could just ignore the CF too.
ReplyDeleteWhile I personally have no problem with the CF, I don't find it necessary as long as things move along. So as Steven Lincoln said: things like FU work fine even without a CF and if you'd like a twist, check out the system by Tiny Solitary Soldiers, as he incorporates some random factor.
ReplyDeletehttp://tinysolitarysoldiers.blogspot.de/2012/04/solo-rpg.html
A thought I mentioned on one of my old blogs is to use a different size polyhedral, requiring a 1 for a random event, to simulate CF. It works quite well, with more events happening as the CF increases (smaller polyhedrals). The post's here: http://thatswhatyougetforlivinginaculdesac.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/solo-and-thanks-for-fish.html
ReplyDeleteSteven Lincoln, Sophia Brandt
ReplyDeleteNoob question: what table/system does FU stand for?
It stands for Freeform Universal RPG, you can snag a free copy (it was originally called the Free Universal), on RPGNow/Drivethru. If you've been to Tiny Solitary Soldiers or my blog entry above the Yes, and... entries are all there, and that is the absolute meat of the system.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great blog, Steven Lincoln . Thanks for sharing! I'm currently (always?) in the process of setting up a solo game using Mythic but since my system is GURPS 3e, or parts of it, I may rig things a bit differently.
ReplyDeleteTiny Solitary Soldiers is my solo rpg system of choice when I don''t use my house rules
ReplyDeleteTurns out my old blog post wasn't deleted, but just that my template was all messed up. Here is the original post from 2011. Might be of use:
ReplyDeletehttp://solorpggamer.blogspot.com/2011/09/solosaurus-solo-gaming-set-up.html
Thanks for digging that up, Alex Yari.
ReplyDeleteI have thought about this some more, and I was wondering if it would help if the system doesn't give answers that are relative to the question, but rather relative to the situation.
To give an example, instead of getting "yes"/"no" for an answer, I would expect to get "positive"/"negative", which signifies a positive or negative outcome for the character -- but this answer is then still interpreted by the player ("How exactly is it negative?") This introduces another level of interpretation, with its answer either clear from the context or rolled for on a table (Mythic's action/subject for example). As a result, these can introduce even more surprises to the story line.
For Mythic's Fate chart or MCSV it would require the odds to be renamed from 'likely' and 'unlikely' to quantifiers like 'safe' and 'dangerous' or something similar.
This system, as far as I can tell, is not subject to the polarization of the question and I wouldn't need to worry about how I phrase it. I'll try this out and see how it works.
If you come up with something you like, you should consider creating a hack and sharing. :) The idea sounds interesting.
ReplyDeleteI would suggest using abstract ranks instead of the CF if that provides too much chaos/confusion to your objectives.
ReplyDeleteYou can use your character's Charisma (-2RS on Willpower if they do not have a "set" Charisma ability) as the AR (acting rank) vs the NPC's +2RS on IQ as the abstract rank (implying that they are smart/dumb enough to trust you.*). So, Charisma vs +2RS IQ, include appropriate penalties for both characters and boom. : )
*Keep in mind too that the NPC is suppose to be "thinking and weighting choices" in their heads about whether they should trust you or not. Your smooth talking or logical articulation could convince them, confuse, or surprisingly anger them.