Robin D. Laws - RPG Resource Management, Your Insula, and You
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RPG Resource Management, Your Insula, and You
How We Decide, reviewed earlier, describes the cognitive mechanism that apparently governs our spending decisions. When we consider spending cash in hand, the insula, an area of the brain that reminds us to husband our resources, sends us a jolt of anxiety. (Author Jonah Lehrer then explores the way that credit card purchases do not trigger the insula, leaving the brain to follow its default preference for immediate gains over long-term consequences.)
When designing RPGs I often gravitate toward resource management mechanisms that require players to weight the trade-offs of immediate versus long-term need. Examples include hero points in HeroQuest, which can either be used to boost rolls in the moment, or to add to your ability ratings like experience points do in other systems. Dying Earth / Skulduggery and GUMSHOE both give you pools of points keyed to each ability, which you can spend to reroll failures or increase your chance of success, respectively.
These mechanisms elicit a certain degree of resistance during playtest. Compared to straight up rolls, resource management decisions make some players uncomfortable. Perhaps it’s because these decisions get their insulas firing. Pool or hero points are a resource in hand, like cash, which the miserly voice in the decision making process hates to part with. Spending makes us antsy. There’s even an element of gambling to many of these decisions, as they typically increase chances of success without ensuring it. (In the case of GUMSHOE general abilities, you can guarantee success by spending lots of points, if you have them. But you don’t necessarily know the difficulty you’re shooting to overcome and may overspend. Or may spend conservatively and then lose. That’s gotta piss off the insula.)
I value these moments of displeasure, and the corresponding micro-shot of dopamine that presumably accompanies success, because they emotionally cement players to important moments in the narrative. Strong drama is about tough choices. Dramatically resonant rules should mirror this essential narrative dictum by requiring tough choices from the players as well as the characters. These rules mechanisms require players to decide just how much they care about a given turning point. By spending a limited resource, they’re investing in the moment in both senses of the word. I can’t help thinking that these cognitive mechanisms are partnering with me, and the GMs, in bringing impact to that decision to care.
Tags: cognition, dying earth, gaming hut, gumshoe, heroquest, skulduggery
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I didn't find Hero Points to work well in HeroQuest with our group. As we were playing a long term campaign, people preferred to use them exclusively as XP. Maybe it's just our group, but I find that games that make any resource serve as both XP and something else tend to end up as being used as XP only when playing in campaign. The dynamic is different in one shots where they get spent. Maybe I should increase the value of spending those resources so there is an actual dilemma for the players.
As a GM one thing I don't like is that it penalize players that spend them, and such making the scene more epic/interesting, and rewards conservativeness. I think rules should reward desired behaviours,
Of course, YMMV.
This basically sums up my experience with that particular dilemma - Players getting frustrated because they don't get the reward of a more powerful character, or they do neat stuff. I've generally modified such rules to do something more fun with them. While I like making my players make agonizing choices, I generally find this particular choice - short-term survival vs long-term advancement to be more frustrating than agonizing.
Part of the fix could be when you let them spend Hero Points. If they can spend them AFTER the roll, then they tend to burn them to avoid disaster. If you get their backs against the wall, and only their Hero Points will save them, they'll spend 'em.
This is my prefered method as well... I've seen too many people spend lots of points before hand, then make the roll without needing them... I've also seen people not spend them (or not spend enough), then fail the roll by 1...
Both of these cases seem to reward not using them for play and instead saving them to make yourself better in the long run....
That's odd, I thought they were only supposed to be spent after the roll. Have I misread that all this time?
I agree completely...
This is one of the things I like about both Fate and GUMSHOE - your points refresh so you can use them again later...
The speed at which they refresh impacts how often you'll use them by letting you know how easy it is to earn more (exactly how much are you sacrificing each time?), but the fact that you get more, and if you don't use them, you eventually lose them, tends to ensure they get used during play...
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/18001948/4267) | | From: | ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ectropy |
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| Date: | October 13th, 2009 05:00 pm (UTC) |
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Hmm, I like this mechanic - regenerating Fate Points. I may have to check out those systems.
In Fate (or at least Spirit of the Century), you regain fate points, up to a certain limit, at the beginning of each scene... This seems a little too quick for me, but then again SotC is supposed to be over the top pulp...
GUMSHOE you get your pools refreshed at the beginning/end of the adventure, or when you hit certain milestones, if it's going to be a long adventure... This seemed a little too slow for me, but then again it's supposed to be more gritty...
Either way, I really like the idea and the style of play it promotes...
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/16201791/1295090) | | From: | thebenj |
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| Date: | October 14th, 2009 02:39 am (UTC) |
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My mileage, in this case, doesn't vary. I find this particular resource-management puzzle is to the active detriment of heroism. Making people choose between doing heroic stuff now or being better later is a bad dichotomy for a game that's meant to be promoting both.
I haven't played Hero Quest, but this sounds like the exact same problem I had with 7th Sea's Drama Dice.
I fixed the issue there by the simple expedient of flipping things around to an AND situation, so when you spent a Drama Die you are spending the XP that Drama represents on the abilities related to the roll you're influencing.
This retains the resource-management element but makes it not a question of whether to trade character growth for current success, but in what direction to take that growth and success. If you throw your Drama Dice at whatever task presents itself first, your character will be very different (both in development and performance) to that of someone who only spends theirs in the key areas where they want their character to shine.
I've used a version of this same system for my current GURPS campaign and I've found it works really well.
PS. Happy Birthday, Robin!
Thank you for putting a nice neat label on why I don't like having to make decisions about HP spends :)
If I'm roleplaying, I'm the character. My character has never heard of a hero-point, and does not understand that there's a choice to be made between immediate result and long-term advancement unless it's presented in in-game terms. Being forced out of roleplaying and into accounting is annoying: whether or not it's the insula that's being hurt I'm not sure.
Strong drama can suck it. I grew up poor in a way that makes guys who grew up poor go "holy shit, that's awful". Give me something I can gamble or hold, and I'm gonna hold it, period. My insula is a tiny, tyrranical god.
I have become very, very fond of "currency" in RPGs. Perhaps for the reasons you describe, perhaps because they help smooth out the rough edges where the dice fail to support one's character concept, maybe both.
However, I like them much better when the currency you spend to improve actions or get other effects is different from the currency one uses to build a character. It's still a limited resource, but doesn't clobber you long-term. Otherwise the hoarding impulse is strong, and even when you spend it and succeed, you still feel like you've failed in a way.
Currency that refreshes every so often seems optimal to me...to harp on Star Wars: Saga Edition again, I liked that Force Points refreshed every time you gained a level. You had to be a little careful with them, but there was no incentive to hoard them for forever...you had to use 'em or lose 'em eventually. Now Destiny Points, on the other hand...
Hmmm. Why do I suddenly feel like a shaved monkey with electrodes in its skull?
In my defense, I do occasionally reward you with a squirt of tasty juice.
I agree with the comments here - I put it this way: Characters who don't do risky things are the ones who advance the fastest.
I would split: Advancement points versus Action points (to make up terms) and have the Action Points be a renewable resource. But, I've got another wrinkle to toss in:
A character starts with one Action Point at the start of every session. They can get more when they play up their disadvantages. Your Barbarian Scrivner has a serious anger management problem? If he starts up one of those traditional bar fights, it makes sense that he'd be refreshed and energized afterward - ready to attack those books.
Maybe put a cap (no more than 3 AP at any one time?) and say you can use each flaw once per session. Players now have a game benefit for making flawed characters.
That's an idea, anyway.. |
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