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Post by Arcanet on Sept 3, 2014 16:07:50 GMT -8
Perseverance Engine
● Every time a player fails an attempt, give them a counter (this could be a small coin, a pebble, a cardboard chit, etc.)
● On their third failed attempt, the player turns in the three counters they have received in exchange for a hero point.
Very interesting addition, makes the low level gameplay of missing a lot feel less boring, and simultaneously speeds up the XP gain at lower levels.
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Post by Dashing Inventor on Sept 3, 2014 16:14:07 GMT -8
Thanks for the feedback! I hadn't even thought about how it speeds up progression at lower levels, good observation! The main motivation behind it was to offset frequent failures at lower levels (as you mention) and to add a way to gain experience from your failures as well as your successes, sort of a 'learn from your mistakes' mechanic.
I've also changed character creation so players choose 1 yellow ability, 2 green, and the rest blue (0). This gives players a chance to have a minor specialization even in the first play session and a greater chance to succeed.
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Post by aetesaki on Sept 4, 2014 15:56:28 GMT -8
You know what, I'm not a fan of that perseverance engine either. It adds unnecessary complexity to the Simple System. Better let the GM have the option to allow such an unlucky player to turn up their attempt.
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Post by SirManCub on Sept 7, 2014 18:06:10 GMT -8
agreed about the perseverance engine. I intend to mostly ignore it in games.
That said, i really like the change to character creation.
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Post by Dashing Inventor on Sept 7, 2014 19:11:20 GMT -8
I hope you'll at least give it a try.
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Post by SirManCub on Sept 7, 2014 19:25:36 GMT -8
Well, I'll try anything once (twice if I like it. three times, if it hurts)
I'm curious what the intention was? Simply to give unlucky players a chance to turn their luck around? Game balance?
Also, is it ever difficult to keep track of where people are in the perseverance count? Part of the appeal for SS is that it requires less tracking of complicated data. Maybe it's only because I haven't tried it out, yet, but I feel like the PE is a little out of character for SS.
I'm quite willing, however, to be proven wrong.
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Post by Dashing Inventor on Sept 7, 2014 21:06:55 GMT -8
Sometimes players just have rotten flips, more often they make poor decisions in character creation and start off with poor odds of success. As their character advances their odds of success will improve, and I will let players swap their skills after the first session for more appropriate ones (especially if its their first time using Simple System). However, if they don't enjoy that first session they may never be back, and nothing saps the fun more than failing over and over again. The perseverance engine offsets this by giving a player who has had a lot of failures an extra chance to pull off something awesome, and hopefully be back for the next game.
You can easily keep track with some simple counters (which most gamers have lying around, and if not they could use pennies or bits of paper).
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Post by aetesaki on Sept 8, 2014 5:01:22 GMT -8
It's better to just tell them to shuffle the deck.
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Ziphion
Full Member
Resident Mathematician
Posts: 132
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Post by Ziphion on Sept 8, 2014 5:29:42 GMT -8
But... if they've gotten a lot of failures, reshuffling will hurt their chances. They'll be putting failures back into their deck. I think the Perseverance mechanic sounds interesting as another tool GMs can use to maximize fun for their groups. You can always choose to add/remove mechanics to your own game, but I'm all for giving more options to GMs.
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Post by SirManCub on Sept 8, 2014 6:49:07 GMT -8
I think I see how the perseverance engine could be really important, especially for new-to-SS players.
That said, I think I'd prefer it to be more focused on players who may be frustrated. Obviously there's no way to control for players who enjoy a good story, even if it means their character failing a lot (those players are good Roleplayers, and should be rewarded with Hero Points, anyway). But let's say that I play a character, and in 12 flips, I fail every fourth one. Those seem like pretty good odds, and as a player, I wouldn't feel discouraged at all. But I'd still receive a Hero Point for my three failures, even though I'm not really demonstrating any particular level of perseverance. In some campaigns, especially if there's a lot of plot unfolding, 12 flips in a half hour doesn't seem unreasonable. If the trend continues, I could earn a handful of HPs while still making 3/4 of my flips succeed.
My first thought was that the PE could be altered to three-in-a-row, but then we're resetting the count every success, and literally doubling the work of tracking the engine.
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Post by Arcanet on Sept 8, 2014 7:04:07 GMT -8
Experimenting with varying amounts of PePo would be in order, to find a good fail-to-bonus-hero point rate. Tracking it in Roll20 would be easy: Bar 1 HitP, Bar 2 PowerP, Bar 3 PerseveranceP.
...Although, making Hero and Power points just a single token visible only to you and the GM would be easier, and use their Bar 1=PP, Bar 3=HeP.
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Post by directedbyme on Sept 8, 2014 9:37:16 GMT -8
I like the idea of Hero Points being counters!
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Post by SirManCub on Sept 8, 2014 11:12:13 GMT -8
I haven't run the module, yet, but in my very brief mock-combat, I used the Red bar for Life Points, the Green Bar for Dying points, and the Blue bar for Hero Points.
Haven't seen how that works long-term, but the more cards I can eliminate from player hands, the better for screen real estate.
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Post by paulooshun on Sept 8, 2014 12:59:45 GMT -8
My concern is that it could encourage players to participate in unnecessary checks against skills which suck.
For example, suddenly the deaf-blind monk is making perception checks all over the place, confident his failure is going to earn XP pretty fast.
How about making them only when a significant fail occurs, which puts people in greater danger (combat could still work like this)?
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Post by SirManCub on Sept 8, 2014 18:28:32 GMT -8
what deaf-blind monk has low perception?
Obviously you didn't grow up watching Kung Fu like I did.
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