Narrative Control Forums

Just thought I'd mention. A method of ammo abstraction that I've always been fond of is to have it be tested when used. A success means you haven't already significantly depleted your ammo, a failure means you have and lowers your ammo stat by one notch. If you fail and it drops to zero, then you didn't have a bullet/arrow/whatever for this round (the classic scene where the hero pulls the trigger and the gun just clicks). With this kind of setup I like to just assume that the character reloads while in town and just reset the value of it. This could be handled in FATE rather well as a new stress track I suppose, though I've not tried that before.

Also wanted to mention Exalted. Resources are handled as abstractly as possible (if the value is below your resources stat, then you can buy an infinite number, if not then you have to test against it, if it's above you can't buy it), but ammo for the guns is measured one by one. That sucks. :P Had a Fire Aspected Dragon Blood using the Righteous something-or-other martial arts tree (basically it's gun-fu) and because I hadn't been there for the session we were in town (and had kind of assumed all resources were created equal) was down to 8 bullets during combat before I knew we were keeping track. Ended up dying because the GM had "enemies that stretch to the horizon" facing us. I had to switch to sorcery to keep the door cleared, and when I was about out of mana I spent a point to ignite myself and the nearby area with my essence flair (nothing else to do). This would have been a really cool way to go, but it was my second session with that character. (still annoys me that such a fun character was wasted like that).

Some cool stuff. It should go without saying that the mechanic is abstracted, but the fiction shouldn't be. But, sometimes folks don't realize that. The haggling example in the book is particularly bad for talking about reducing or increasing by "steps." The example would have been better if it translated that into in-game fictional amounts.

I was confused by the haggling discussion. I thought you were playing Burning Wheel, but the comment that there's no mechanic to prevent the character from just haggling and haggling makes no sense. BW suggests only allowing three haggling rolls per Resource test (page 88). After that, Let it Ride is in play.

Dragon Master: The ammo system you mention sounds a lot like the ammo system in Burning Empires. It's been a while since I've played, but I recall that different weapons have different reload types, which force ammo checks at different intervals or different difficulties or possibly both. Sean's got the book, he can tell you which it is. An interesting mechanic is that you can spend a fate artha to force your enemy to make an ammo check. It's a pretty cool system.

Noclue: The example in question was from Burning Wheel, and you're right, the haggling mini-duel of wits is only supposed to go to a maximum of three rolls. Also, I realized in listening that my character haggled the npc down from an obstacle 4 test to an obstacle 1 test, and I think you're not supposed to be able to go below half the starting price. So that was us flubbing some rules.

Heya The Dragon Master: I like it. So long as either there aren't too many combat rounds and/or the ammo check is very fast, I'm very down with never knowing exactly when you'll run out of ammo. Another fun twist for that in a FATE game is the GM compelling a character that has an appropriate aspect (like: always forgetting important things, or threadbare) to run out of ammo just as he was going to blow someone away. In crunchier games like Shadowrun, you might run into the trouble of it making combat take even longer.

As for the Exalted bit, that's a strange peculiarity of the system you found. For the most part, as you said, resources are sort of below the concern of an Exalted. They either have something or they don't and they never really worry about running out... except for Fire Dust. It's really rare, really dangerous to collect, and is controlled by Gem, which is a very savvy merchant city-nation that is only neutral with the Dragon Blood. So... while I totally think the GM should have given you more warning on this, I can see why he or she would want to make Flame Pieces and their ammo pretty precious. From the simulationist perspective, it's sound. From every other angle though, it's just lame... unless running out of ammo made for some cool situations like the ones we're talking about.

Hi noclue,

Yep, like Fattig said we were using the mini-DoW rules for haggling. The problem is that Lateef was rolling beginners luck Will of 4, vs. Atreus rolling his haggling of 5 plus FoRKs. Lateef never stood a chance and I knew that... what I forgot you scheming bastard (this is going to Fattig mind you) was that you couldn't go below half. Lateef's going to get a new instinct "Open negotiations with a knife in the groin!"

First of all I would like to thank Sean and Eric for taking the time to put our email conversation into a full blown episode, that was very cool guys. I'm about to get long-winded, I am very passionate about this topic, sorry in advance.

Concerning some reservations you guys brought up in the pocast:

1. Sean, you mentioned that there are times when it is still very important that money & resources be measured in fixed amounts. I totally agree. I can't imagine a game that currency should be removed entirely. You used the example that a reward in your game needed to be measurable against the cost of several human lives. Therefore, you were able to put a fixed amount of Shekels on the task, and the players knew then what was at stake in the task. This is all perfect, I think the GM and the players should be able to talk competently about sums of money in a game, but at the same time, I think that to keep everyone role-playing, and stop them all from mere "bean counting," there needs to be a greater abstraction or goal than the fixed reward amount for this one task. This probably makes no sense at face value, let me un-pack this idea further using the same example you began with:

There was some greater goal that your gladiators were after (ie: we need to kill the Iron Bound... If we had 150 Shekels we would be able to pay Leteef to kill him for us). It is because of the greater goal (killing the Iron Bound) that the gladiators would pay such an high fee. Obviously they didn't have the money, thus the haggling occurred. Just as noclue mentioned above, the amount probably shouldn't have been lowered below half, especially on something as critical and dangerous as this. Furthermore, since the amount was lowered to a range that fell into the characters budget, you (as the GM) lost a great opportunity to side-quest the players and make them raise the money to pay Lateef. In this example the amount of money is fixed, but the players resources become abstracted. The abstraction takes the form of side-questing (or an extended skill challenge) in which the players will chip away at acquiring the funds. Haggling still can take place, which might reduce the fee, and thus reduce the amount of side-questing (or difficulty of the extended skill challenge).

I realize in some respects I am breaking my own rules, and that you truly can't have abstracted resources and fixed resources at the same time. Never-the-less I do believe that for the sake of realism you can mix the two in certain games and with certain gaming styles for a more enjoyable experience. The ultimate goal here is to create tension in the game, and make it more fun. If a situation is EASY, don't roll, skip the resources bit, and give the player what they want, but when it MATTERS, roll the dice, and abstract the resource so that it's never so simple as paying fixed amounts from the character sheet gold stash.

2. Fattig, you mentioned a situation about ammo rolls as a resource check. In response to the scenario where the archer perches himself on the cliff against the troll army and botches his roll I have this to say: The roll to check your ammo is intended to determine the length of the character's ability to fend off his assailants (not necessarily an ammo count). Of course any archer crazy enough to stand up to a troll army would come prepared to the fight, but that isn't the point. The point is to raise the stakes of the fight through tension. Let's say that the archer gets to his post, and he has brought his quiver (or many quivers for that matter), he still rolls at the outset of the battle to determine his how long he will be able to last. If he rolls well then the invasion force is as expected, and he will be able to hold, but on the other hand if his roll is unsuccessful it is possible that the invasion force is several times larger than expected, there is a huge headwind causing bad shoots and wasted ammo, or perhaps he realizes they are flanking him unexpectedly and even though he has arrows enough to kill them all, he will be forced from his position before he can dispatch them. He is not defeated, he simply must change tactics.

It is very fun to have those moments where the archer reaches for the next arrow and finds that there are none left, or when the hero squeezes the trigger only to hear the click of an empty clip, but the best part of abstracting your resources is that failure can take any shape. Not every resource failure means that the resource wasn't there, it just means the resource couldn't be used. This causes the player & the GM to be on their toes all the time. The result should be better role-playing, and more engaging scenarios. The Dragon Master brought up how his GM killed his character because of a shortage of ammo, and I totally feel your pain. I think that was a bad call on the GM, not that you ran out of ammo, but that it resulted in your death. Instead you should have been allowed to escape, with your tail between your legs and licking your wounds, but still alive and ready to fight back another day to retake what was lost. The situation should have served as a warning to you and the rest of the players to be aware of your resources, it should have enhanced the game and thickened the plot, but instead it sounds like it just frustrated (Sean makes this point above).

--A final thought--

I think that abstracted resources requires more trust between the players and the GM than your traditional game system. There was a definite break in trust between The Dragon Master and his GM I'm sure. I think when trust exists, or when a GM can establish trust, by letting his players narrowly off the hook from time to time, that playing with abstracted resources is the most fun way to play. When dealing in abstractions there will always be gray areas, but to me, the gray areas are always the most fun places to be, that's when ingenuity kicks in and things become interesting.

Awesome post Adam. I think we're both moving to this point where we the game if filled with a beautiful narrative and we come to the dice and the mechanics when that narrative hits a moment of tension or uncertainty.

The skill as both GMs and players then is to keep pushing for those moments when they matter and to recognize which ones aren't interesting and shouldn't be a conflict in the first place. Unless you're playing a game like Freemarket where the mechanics of the game exist inside the fiction (and so therefor can be discussed in the fiction as well) I think this is a skill that we have to keep honing as gamers through play and this kind of analysis.

Once again, thanks for the original email that kicked this off!

I personally like resources as a stat, as resource availability is a foundational "condition" that is as important to determining who a character is as something like "how strong is he" or "How agile he is." Harry Desden wouldn't be Harry Dresden if he wasn't perpetually broke and in need of clients. If he was independantly wealthy, he could be a hermit-y white council wizard and never have to worry about where his meal is coming from. That would fundamentally alter his personality (though I'm sure he'd still be an epic wiseass).

However, I do like resources tests to determine the immediate on hand liquidity of your assests in addition to your "upper limit" on your resources. I'm sure everyone has encountered the most abundant real world example of a failed resources set of "Does anyone have change for a dollar?" In a fantasy setting, that character carry around thousands of gold pieces that technically weigh hundreds of pounds breaks the suspension of disbelief in the other direction. Even if they have their wealth in more portable forms (gems and platnium), the resource test shoudl reflect they liklihood of their being someone around who can "break a 5,000 gp gem" into change. This means that circumstantial modifers, both positive and negative, could be used (up to and including GM fiat auto-success or auto-failure).
Ammuntion, as in the archer of Gun-fu example is a bit different. Bullets or arrows aren't particularly expensive, but "acquiring" them takes too much time to be effectively done in combat. So, if the archer says he's taking 3 dozen quivers (or clips for modern) with him, he should only begin to run low at an appropriate time scale. If they are ambushing a single group on a hill, he should have plenty. If it is a day-long epic battle between the forces of light and darkness, he should have to start worrying about ammo as time progresses.
As a movie buff, the Gun-fu doesn't bug me on the first couple of guys. It's only when it begins to stretch the bounds of disbelief do we all roll our eyes and go "uh-huh".

Hey Joe,

I don't think we talked about it on the show but I agree, resources as a defining part of the character can be very cool. For Harry though, it seems like "perpetually broke" would be a better aspect then him just having a low resources skill. The reason being is that he's often compelled by that shortage (especially in the early books) and it's the kind of thing I'd love as a player to be yanked around by. Other characters on the other hand tend to have an amount of wealth that is suitable for them but not really important. The Carpenters have exactly as much money as they need to have, for instance (though that one could be because of a little manipulation from the Top).

Sean