17 minutes ago, Teveshszat said:

So in this case when the crane does get to know the corrupt guard, the group can decide to go back to the lord where they can trade the information
about the corrupt servant against the passage into the shadowlands.
Here we havea classical win win situation as the lord got rid of a corrupt servant who endangers the reputation of his family and the group can
go through the gate and continue into the shadowlands.

Kind of reaching for that 2nd win there.

But if you want to stretch it that far I guess you can say it's a win/win.

17 minutes ago, Teveshszat said:

Yes these studies sho how cooperation effects learning in school. You can translate it into the business world if you exchange the working enviorment of the school for the working place
but I can see that this might be a bit stretched. For a direct intresting read http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/016726819190051X this document is probably the right start.
These strategies are applicable but need people who want to apply them and you only get these if you educate your children in thsi direction.
Also being trampled on and pushed down is not a practice that is an acceptable hbehavior towards a human being so while this defnietly is the case I suppoort any work that wants to change
this and makes the work enviorment a healthier one. So I actually see it as a service to our children to teach them fairness because thats the only way to establish it as a widespread practice
in the workplace.

A lot of ifs in there, but I can see the point.

The true issues here is while I don't disagree that this would be a good model. It would have to be implemented.

The problem with this is that most of the people who make policy are from the "Old Guard".

some examples.

1. It would be great if american Senators and Representatives had term limits, but it will never happen.

why, because they would have to set them on themselves, and I don't see that happening.

2. When digital TV came out the units would never sell.

why,

a). They where to expensive and the price was due to a lack of demand because they where to expensive.

b). Due to the lack of digital TV on the market there was no programming for them, so there was no need to own one.

It took an order pushed thru by congress to fix the issues.

This brings me to the issues at hand, and why I think a cooperative system will never really work.

As I stated above most if not all companies are controlled by the "Old Guard" of the business world.

They make the policies, and the ones in place have gotten then to where they are.

You can train children to believe in anything you like, but they are in for a culture shock when they get into the real world due to the above.

Know one is going to convince me that after wading through that mess that they will have the same ideals if they get to the top.

That why I don't think it will ever change.

Ideas like this tend to work in schools or small group due to the fact its a closed system, and can be reorganized from scratch.

Where the business world is open and any major changes of this magnitude could have disastrous effects in the short term, even if the end result was positive.

17 minutes ago, Teveshszat said:

Ok I agree my phrasing might be a bit off there. So yes in my eyes it is a bad system for the reasons I explained here in the thread.
That means I strongly disagree with it and woudl not apply it to any of my games adn go if a gm uses it.

Then enough said, you don't like and my group and I do.

2 minutes ago, tenchi2a said:

Kind of reaching for that 2nd win there.

But if you want to stretch it that far I guess you can say it's a win/win.

A lot of ifs in there, but I can see the point.

The true issues here is while I don't disagree that this would be a good model. It would have to be implemented.

The problem with this is that most of the people who make policy are from the "Old Guard".

The implementation works though a change in thought an generation. So the education of the youth is basicly the
basis of the change caus eas they climb up and get into the position the former old guard had they can change the
policies and make the difference. Thats why education plays an important part if you want to change anything in
our society

11 minutes ago, tenchi2a said:

This brings me to the issues at hand, and why I think a cooperative system will never really work.

As I stated above most if not all companies are controlled by the "Old Guard" of the business world.

They make the policies, and the ones in place have gotten then to where they are.

You can train children to believe in anything you like, but they are in for a culture shock when they get into the real world due to the above.

Know one is going to convince me that after wading through that mess that they will have the same ideals if they get to the top.

That why I don't think it will ever change.

Ideas like this tend to work in schools or small group due to the fact its a closed system, and can be reorganized from scratch.

Where the business world is open and any major changes of this magnitude could have disastrous effects in the short term, even if the end result was positive.

Change is a graudal and long term thing. It does not happen over night and requires hard work. Yes currently the system works like you describe it but
a cooperative system can work if enough people want to make it happen and work towards realizing it. Also there are companies who actually change their
systems toward it because, exspecially in the IT business, it reduces the stress of your workforce and gets better ressults and less burnouts.
Anyway I think that was enough so thank you for the discussion.

2 minutes ago, Teveshszat said:

The implementation works though a change in thought an generation. So the education of the youth is basicly the
basis of the change caus eas they climb up and get into the position the former old guard had they can change the
policies and make the difference. Thats why education plays an important part if you want to change anything in
our society

Change is a graudal and long term thing. It does not happen over night and requires hard work. Yes currently the system works like you describe it but
a cooperative system can work if enough people want to make it happen and work towards realizing it. Also there are companies who actually change their
systems toward it because, exspecially in the IT business, it reduces the stress of your workforce and gets better ressults and less burnouts.
Anyway I think that was enough so thank you for the discussion.

Going to take more then one generation IMHO.

But yes I think we have hijacked this thread long enough.

Your welcome and thank you.

Wait !

No duel to know who's right, then ?

On the underlying reinforcement theory - If you want proof of the commercial benefits - look at the increased income from randomized boosters vs fixed set boosters in card games - there's a reason the LCG format is rare, and the CCG model is not. Likewise, collector cards - Sports cards and TV/Movie collector cards. Likewise, all the randomized micropayment rewards in now literally thousands of videogames.

Now, not every decision is made on the finances alone - LCG's are usually better balanced games, and FFG is driven by a combination of artistic vision and finances. And some game designers don't give in to greed and thus avoid micropayments...

There's even a humorous bit from the RPG sphere: in early versions of Savage Worlds, unspent Bennies got turned into 1/6 chance each of experience points... which lead to most groups not spending their bennies... after many complaints from GMs and players about bennies not working because most players were saving them for gambling for XP... Shane altered the rules to eliminate using unspent bennies for experience.

There's plenty of evidence out there for those with eyes to see that randomized rewards are a powerful tool. Perhaps too powerful for comfort.

As for educational outcomes, the prosocial emphasis and the social promotion have not improved the studied important outcomes (job readiness and standardized test scores) significantly in US schools; minor improvements in low-performance schools, and declines in high performance schools (based upon data released to districts by US Dept of Ed)... there's one other outcome that hasn't been carefully tracked - criminality post-education - and that's one of the oft-claimed benefits of the strong prosocial indoctrination mandate in public education. NCLB = Every child suffers from promotion above ability. Coop learning has limited reward, and requires students be relatively on par to work; in 15 years in public schools, I've noticed that in almost every group of 4, one student is not pulling their weight. Coop also makes individual assessment harder, and frustrates students who do want to have fair and equitable grades. Even in the upper elementary grades, students complain about group work being unfair... And proper assessment suffers with group work, as well. It's inherently unfair and unequal...

And bring this back to games - unfair and unequal is rewarding everyone the same for differential effort. It has negative prosocial benefits for the lazy player - it reinforces that they have no need to make efforts to RP or accomplish goals. You still have a few who resist... but I've seen differential rewards drive lazy players to both engage more and RP better, and even rewards lead to some lazy players going to mechanical-only play. Myself included. Which is why I quit playing and switched to GMing D&D locally 2 years ago; the GM didn't reward in-character play at all, and so there was no value to doing so; D&D returned to character scale wargame.

9 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

And bring this back to games - unfair and unequal is rewarding everyone the same for differential effort. It has negative prosocial benefits for the lazy player - it reinforces that they have no need to make efforts to RP or accomplish goals.

I believe you remarked on the role of void points snowballing on success earlier, and that as a result, it's better game design to have void points bring parties to the middle. It sounds like this isn't your experience with xp for players who fail to engage. I'm surprised there's no feedback loop from getting less xp to being less involved in the gameplay.

3 hours ago, ubik2 said:

I believe you remarked on the role of void points snowballing on success earlier, and that as a result, it's better game design to have void points bring parties to the middle. It sounds like this isn't your experience with xp for players who fail to engage. I'm surprised there's no feedback loop from getting less xp to being less involved in the gameplay.

I mentioned that rewarding success with metacurrency points is a positive reinforcement loop that works very poorly in 2d20 because it snowballs badly

Void points, few as they, in the current mode are work to counter the snowball effect and encourage using disads only when they matter. There is no reward if it doesn't cause a failure, so it works to center the result tendencies.

If, however, diads give void on success or failure, they become too easy to recover, especially on rolls involving higher skills. It's a case of the feedback loop rewarding using the disads when they don't make a significant impact, because the odds are already in your favor.

here are my thoughts on exp

1 current system is to fast 4 hour session (most normal session) is 8 exp you get at least 1 challenge or conflict you over come in that time(meaning minimum of 3 more exp) that's 11 exp minimum a session so every 2 sessions your going to see a rank marker hit then there going to want to go train if they can not train some how they will just save the exp till they can train spend exp then train again so you will see jumps in character development that has little to do with rp

2 following a set road map = carbon copy characters or cookie cutter characters not a lot of diversity I think the tables could be adjusted to be more open some how maybe by having blank spaces for skills under skill group headings that are close to the school like for a courtier spending on Social , Artisan, Trade groups Shuji, Rituals, and rings for them. A Bushi could spend on Martial skills, Social, and Artisan groups, Kata, Rituals and rings.

3 Individual exp rewards can be given out fairly and yet still look like favoritism it should be avoided everyone should stay even not just for balance sake but so none feels like there being punished or disliked for not being the best also Individual rewards can be abused some times (I know I accidentally did it once after telling a gm that the using individual exp rewards without an exp cap was a bad idea in a second edition AD&D game and made level 10 from level 1 in 1 session cause he put to much gold value of stuff in a safe at the inn)

4 The advancement tables them selves give no reward till your rank 6 this makes people wan to strive to get to rank 6 quickly With out enjoying the other ranks so rank 1 you get your basic School ability then you get at rank 6 your mastery ability what is in between to let them enjoy there climb and not see this development as a waist of time whats the point of the school ranks at all. What uses school ranks? (other than air stance) Why dose my shugenja not learn how to control the elements better as he advances to handle the emotional turmoil from casting? (maybe at School ranks 3 and 6 he can handle generating 1 more strife so it goes form 3 to 4 to 5 strife generated before a back lash) (maybe a bushi should get +5 fatigue bonus and 3 and 6 and maybe a courtier could get +5 composure at 3 and 6 , ninjas maybe get +2 vigilance at 3 and 6) something so they understand that raising in the school rank is more than just another number to be tracked for the sake of tracking it or make each rank have an ability that fits in with the school.

To see how fast this is the current exp requirements for exp totals 16 20 24 32 48 22 exp(min for 4 hour session and 1 goal or obstetrical/conflict )

week 2 22 exp -16 leaves 6

week 4 gained 22 more exp that's 28 total left -20=8

week 6 gain another 22 +8=30-24=6 your now rank 4

week 8 you get 22 exp your at 28 so ya save head to week 9 get 11 your at 39 -32=7 (2 months+ 1 week once per week your at rank 5) (for people that plat D&D that's like your 18-19th level out of 20)

Week 13 your at 29 exp

Week 15 you have made 51 exp and ready to go to rank 6

That's 3 months and 3 weeks and your in the end game of your character now in game time unless you have a ton of down time this could be done in about 1 year of game time

So your 15 years old no experience under you outside of school your given a job that lasts a year and now you have the same skills as a 50 year old man that's a master in his field not sure but that seems fast

now it could even be faster if you have good experienced players they might over come more challenges and conflicts per session or if the challenges are in the GMS view are worth more than 3 exp this will happen even faster

lets say a group can over come 2 a week and the gm thinks the challenges are worth 4 exp each that's a 4 hour session 8 exp +another 8 for challenges that's 16 exp a session you might end up cutting the time to 3 months even or less

and game time might be about the same about 1 year or so game time and your a master in your school at 16 (true there a lot of personal development ya can do not having to bother with a chart for advancement)

but something that should take one their whole life to do has been done in a year maybe 2 if you force training only at a specific place or make training take a ton of down time.

I find generally agreement with the XP rates, though it's easy to control how much is given out during a session.

The cost for raising rings needs to be increased and either capped on how much they apply for the advancement charts and/or the Cost to advance on the charge need to be increased. I think this will extend the life of a campaign quite a bit while not making player advancement feel too stagnant.

On 11/20/2017 at 9:35 AM, AK_Aramis said:

I mentioned that rewarding success with metacurrency points is a positive reinforcement loop that works very poorly in 2d20 because it snowballs badly

Void points, few as they, in the current mode are work to counter the snowball effect and encourage using disads only when they matter. There is no reward if it doesn't cause a failure, so it works to center the result tendencies.

If, however, diads give void on success or failure, they become too easy to recover, especially on rolls involving higher skills. It's a case of the feedback loop rewarding using the disads when they don't make a significant impact, because the odds are already in your favor.

Exactly so.

Whilst in theory a party is a group of character with their own backstories, goals and desires, in a lot of cases what you actually have is "the talky one, the two fighty ones and the one who does magic" or some variation on such a theme.

Sooner or later, there's a good chance (for example) that the party ends up in a court intrigue scene. What you don't want is the talky one doing everything whilst the players for the two fighty ones sit at the other end of the table on youtube saying "yeah, no point trying" and waiting for someone to start a fight, because that's ruining the player's engagement.

Which is why L5R has two very positive features compared to Dark Heresy (the first RPG I had any real involvement in):

• There is no such thing as an 'advanced skill'. Any player can try any skill check, from using courtesy to charm the Daimyo to using medicine to apply first aid to their injured comrade.
• Disadvantages give you fields you're likely to fail at - but it's easy on a fail to provide yourself assistance (one opportunity) for another try and if you're handed a void point at the same time you can spend that to effectively increase your ring rank by 1 as well - two extra dice rolled + kept is a big shift in capability, so whilst a player might not be able to contribute quickly to something they're not good at, they definitely can contribute.

For what it's worth on the XP debate; I'm somewhere between the two.

Someone doing something awesome - especially if they've been creative, got the party involved, and come up with and executed a plan that everyone will be talking about for ages after that ludicrous string of explosive successes......they do, in my view deserve some sort of reward.

BUT

It needn't necessarily be XP. There are essentially four 'how awesome you are' scores in the game:

• XP spent on the character (of which school rank is a subset since all school advances cost XP but not all XP spent is on a school advance)
• Honour
• Glory
• Status

Doing something awesome in-game should clearly be rewarded with lavish quantities of Honour and Glory. Because that's what Honour and Glory is . And it does have a (relatively minor) mechanical effect in game - from those actions and techniques which use your Honour or Glory ranks as a trigger, to the possiblity of bonus fame and virtue advantages.

I'm less bothered about giving bonus XP - especially if it's rewarding 'success in game' because that can produce a positive feedback loop for players who've done well, and leave those who haven't unable to ever really catch up. People who've been 'at large' in the world for the same time, have the same opportunities to acquire new talents and techniques.

This is pretty much what we did in Black Crusade - you got a flat chunk of XP for a session, even to some extent if you couldn't make it. But Infamy was driven by a "okay, what did you actually do that you think you should get infamy for?" discussion.

I don’t really have a problem with individual XP rewards, particularly in games with variable advancement like L5R. My players rarely stay close in Insight for long in any edition prior to this beta and I imagine if we get a group going for this new edition I’ll see School Ranks go up unevenly too.

Two things about individual XP though. First, I never hand it out for something the character achieves. It’s only for things like very good roleplaying, helping out another player (player, not character), things that make the session more fun, more interesting, more engaging. Getting stuff done in the game is covered by the overall XP everyone gets (regardless of the party splitting up; it’s part of my responsibility as the GM to make sure everyone gets more or less equal spotlight time). Second, I don’t hand out a lot of it. I hand it out so the player knows I appreciate their efforts, not so their character advances in higher gear than others.

5 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

It needn't necessarily be XP. There are essentially four 'how awesome you are' scores in the game:

• XP spent on the character (of which school rank is a subset since all school advances cost XP but not all XP spent is on a school advance)
• Honour
• Glory
• Status

Doing something awesome in-game should clearly be rewarded with lavish quantities of Honour and Glory. Because that's what Honour and Glory is . And it does have a (relatively minor) mechanical effect in game - from those actions and techniques which use your Honour or Glory ranks as a trigger, to the possiblity of bonus fame and virtue advantages.

Honor is based upon the intent, not the flashiness nor the appropriateness. Many times, the appropriate action is one that costs honor - at least for the character. Often, duty requires dishonorable deeds.

Glory is based upon those who witnessed or heard about it. The Scorpion Saboteur being awesome should NEVER gain glory for it - because what he does should bring infamy. Likewise, the storyteller telling the story of Josusan's triumph over the Oni that Ate Sheboyigan should get glory, and so should Josusan, even if Josusan isn't present.

Status is not a flex-attribute. It's only supposed to change when you're given (or have taken away) a new job with attendant Giri...

you missed one: Void Points

So, we have two possible reward channels that are not already highly limited all to **** thematically - Void points and XP.

Void points are still somewhat constrained, as their flow is the motivator for invoking disads.

Which leaves XP. XP are a good motivator, in moderation, for better RP.

Way too high. I tried to stick with it for the sake of playtesting, but after three weeks, I had to cut it in half, or else my game would collapse too quickly. My bushi will hit rank 6 in 24 sessions.

20 minutes ago, defendi said:

Way too high. I tried to stick with it for the sake of playtesting, but after three weeks, I had to cut it in half, or else my game would collapse too quickly. My bushi will hit rank 6 in 24 sessions.

I think that is done on purpose. Otherwise how do you get as many eyes on the high xp edge cases?

2 hours ago, Daeglan said:

I think that is done on purpose. Otherwise how do you get as many eyes on the high xp edge cases?

So you think it will be different in the final rules?

31 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

So you think it will be different in the final rules?

Almost positive. XP rate can extremely easily be changed. what cant be changed is what abilities do. So in a beta test companies make XP earn rates high. Kind of like how in game betas the cost of things is cheap. so that everything is easy to get and play with.

5 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Almost positive. XP rate can extremely easily be changed. what cant be changed is what abilities do. So in a beta test companies make XP earn rates high. Kind of like how in game betas the cost of things is cheap. so that everything is easy to get and play with.

It’s equally easy to just hand out XP as needed without using a set rate in beta if advancement or high-level abilities are to be tested.

20 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

It’s equally easy to just hand out XP as needed without using a set rate in beta if advancement or high-level abilities are to be tested.

Sure. They picked a method. That is what we have. I dont think it is important. I am sure the final numbers will be different.