Talk:Rules

From Tourmaline

Cookies for meta-stuff

(moved from the actual Rules page) I'd like to get players involved in adding/updating pages once things get going, because one, it's less fun to do it all myself, and two, I think it'll be a lot better if everyone is invested in it. So, is it sufficient to state that as a Goal, or should there be Incentives? For example, "People who write up summaries of their puttering, or flesh out the pages for NPCs, or draw maps, or whatever, earn Cookies by doing so. Cookies may be spent on similarly meta things from the GM, like spending a cookie to get me to write up the Prophecies, or explain how the northern barbarian culture works, etc." Good idea, or insulting to the players? :)

(Jerry) I mostly think that being able to write the paragraph on something is its own reward.

(Laura) Well, there's two sorts of things that people would be writing. One is creative, things that you're getting to define because they're not defined yet. The other is descriptive; puttering logs, descriptions of NPCs you're interacting with, that sort of thing. Writing the definitive essay on brine wool is fair game; making up stuff for Shaddam's character sheet isn't so much. I get the feeling that people think that the first sort is its own reward; the second, I'm less sure of. :)

(Mike) Playing is always its own reward. However, this has never diminished the need for loot, XP, or cookies. I'm always in favor of stuff in exchange for other stuff. Especially if cookies come in complicated flavors. Interest is probably not a great idea though.

• But by the same token Not-Playing is its own penalty (both because not-playing is less fun than playing, and because playing is a positive feedback loop that generates all sorts of resources for making it easier and more rewarding to play in the future. Loot/XP/Cookies rewards for playing intensify that feedback loop a lot. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. :) ) On the other hand, writing logs isn't really Playing, which I think is why Laura thinks it might need extrinsic rewards. :)

Over in Needs Sorting Out, I decided that it doesn't seem right to charge people for things like "Tell me about the Northern Barbarian Culture" - if someone wants to find out, and goes to poke at it and asks, then I can't see not answering. Boojum 23:32, 10 May 2008 (EDT)

Specialties

(Mike) Might I suggest the Push Pull stats get a small specialty boost? (like Push Social 5 (+1 Sex appeal)) or should those sorts of things be shticks.

(Andrea) Aha, I have figured out how to give myself an account! I think it makes more sense to have meta-cookies for meta-deeds, rather than to have things you would otherwise spend EPs on be cookies you can get for writing logs. (Laura's suggestion seemed to be about meta-cookies; Mike's, if I'm understanding it, is about modifying stats as a reward for meta-favors.)

I think specializations was meant to be a separate non-cookie suggestion (so I added headings), which sounds reasonable. (Does the Conflux concentration/specialization method work? I don't think anyone still has specializations there, which suggests that it's not the right solution. So yeah, maybe specializations as something that comes built into stats; maybe having a specialty suggests there should be an anti-specialty as well... Boojum 23:30, 10 May 2008 (EDT)