H all!
So, our DM came up with a Motivation System. At the Start of the Session you start with 0 Motivation and gain or loose it at a rate of 1d6 if something good or bad happens in the fiction. Every +/- 5 points of Motivation you gain a re-roll token if you have positive points, or the gm gets one to force a re roll if on the negative scale.
To say the truth, im a bit skeptical, i said ok, lets just give it a try and see how it works.
What do you think about re-rolls in DW ( or this Motivationsys I outlined)?
Positive feedback loops are generally something that should be added with care, especially on the “per roll” basis as opposed to things like character advancement.
Yeah, I agree, this is awkward. You succeed (or fail), thereby getting points that help you succeed (or fail) more, causing you to succeed (or fail) more, causing you to get more points, and so on. I’m not a fan of the system as outlined. Especially since the average conversion rate is here is one re-roll token for every two success/failures. That’s way too high for this kind of loop.
As for re-rolls in general, I don’t really think having a lot of them is good for Dungeon World; DW becomes much less entertaining if everyone is rolling 10+ all the time.
Initial thought is: instead of re-rolling, how about you can bump up or down a roll with one of those tokens? You know, boost a 7-9 to a 10+, or a 10+ down to a 7-9, in the GM’s case.
It sounds like your GM may want a little more granularity in his DW game. There are plenty of systems just as simple as DW with a little more mechanical weight, maybe he should consider a one-shot or something with one of those games. Cypher system, in particular, is a great game to “graduate” to. Archmage system (13th Age) might be more up his alley, as well.
As a DM, I’d rather use a fate-point sort of system. Up the risk to earn them, embrace the risk as a core part of what makes the games interesting and fun.
Yes, Fate Core might be another alternative.
As others have said, there might be a positive feedback problem. But I’d also be curious what player behavior this drives. Do you make any new or different choices as a result of this? (Is the intent that PCs withdraw when their characters are demoralized? Can you cheer one another’s characters up?) Or is it just a fiddly bit of simulation?
Also.. it’s odd that the GM is making mechanics to track how the PCs feel.
Michael Prescott I think the GM doesn’t mean to track the PCs “feelings,” I think he’s just mislabeled this system as “motivation” when in reality its more like “momentum.”
As I said before, I don’t think it’s player behavior driving this idea; it’s GM behavior, specifically in that he wants more dice to get thrown and have more dials to tweak in a game that’s fundamentally not about throwing dice or tweaking dials. It might be the most common issue I see with DW here; everybody loves the idea of it, but nobody actually wants to play it. They want D&D but don’t want three big-ass corebooks to flip through, or math that needs doing. Hence my recommendation of other systems.
I dunno, Dungeon World is pretty exactly what I want from “D&D” these days. 😉
But yeah, it’s weird. People say “I don’t want all that stuff!” and then you give them a game without all that stuff and the first thing they do is start adding it back.
I’ve said it before – gamers secrete mechanics.
I’m not a fan. Seeing as how you “gain or loose it at a rate of 1d6 if something good or bad happens in the fiction” seems very arbitrary to me. Who’s deciding if the results are good or bad?
Did Gary Gygax start playing DW? Arbitrary and random elements like these remind me of the 1st Edition AD&D DM Guide!
At any rate I think you have your answer already from others, and honestly the fact that you wondered enough to post about it here tells me that your DW spidey sense is tingling!
Yeah, thx everyone for the input. In fact, he wanted to give 2 fatepoints per positive step which i vetoed, and proposed a +1 token like the bolster mechanik, but of course the other players liked the brighter lollipop better 😀 and so we setteled fo 1 fatepoint for the first and +1’s afterwards.
but yeah, we ll see how it works, he already knows how the original DW engine works too, the other players a lot longer from when i were GMing and we ll see if it adds to the game -‘and if not ditch it for good 😉
(hell, what have i already fought preventing half backed playbooks from entering the game 😉
Michael Prescott “_gamers secrete mechanics._”
Haha, gross! 😛
…Just like this reroll idea! (I am great at segways). Really, though, any mechanic that exists solely to take away player agency and undermine awesome character moments is a terrible mechanic. Having that mechanic be fueled by this being the first awesome character moment you’ve had all session is even worse.
I’m not really a fan of porting over Fate points either, personally, though I’ll admit that’s more of a personal game-style preference. One of the coolest things about PbtA games is that the dice can surprise you and push the game in unexpected directions when you’re forced to make a move because of a bad or middling roll–or when a player rolls high and maybe gets to declare something about the fiction that the GM wasn’t expecting. It keeps everyone on their toes, and that’s a lot of fun! Adding in fate points puts more control on both sides of the table, which kind of takes away some of the blanks on the maps, ya know? /2¢
I think the d6 nature is pretty weirdly random and a lot to keep track of, like the others who have piped in.
I can actually comment on re-rolls after trying to port them into my DW game after hearing how it (kinda) worked in Tenra Bansho Zero. Basically I gave everyone a poker chip that they could only give to someone else, when they thought that player had done something awesome.
The receiving player could then use it for a re-roll.
I think one or maybe two were given ever and only one was used. I dropped it pretty quickly. The reasons, as near as I can figure were:
– one more thing to keep track of
– DW, especially at higher levels, tends towards a lot of success anyways
– The bell curve of 2d6 makes rerolls less critical than the swinginess of a d20
– Players found failure interesting when it did occur.
Overall, I don’t think rerolls add much to DW or * World games in general. They also take away a lot of the drama when those dice land on snake eyes or boxcars, which is part of the fun of rolling dice in the first place.