Risk In RPGs

[robin_d_laws]

I am less interested in categorical distinctions between RPG game designs than I am in those that describe what actually happens during play. This is part because, as a designer, I’m more interested in providing tools that work than in adhering to an aesthetically or theoretically coherent framework. It also goes to the old saw about the rules not

Comments

I've found

[luagha]

A good way to reward characters for risk-taking behaviors is not necessarily with in-game mechanics, but with in-game/out-of-game social rewards

Re: I've found

[haganegiri]

"but with in-game/out-of-game social rewards."

No offense, but I thought that was a given for any player-taken risk. They advance the story and make a bigger name for themselves. The difficutly is getting them to take risks they otherwise wouldn't because they don't want to set their characters back.

[lead_sponge]

Risk in a game is a tough thing. You want to have that common sense aspect that keeps the game from feeling silly, but at the same time you also want players to be able to be the stars of story. I have to admit, I find it incredibly frustrating when my cool action movie suddenly becomes no better than a Monty Python skit because the system creates the level of failure it does. Sometimes if feels like my Star Wars game needs the soundtrack to Benny Hill rather than Star Wars

[verlaine]

Needed: better tools to help players embrace the judicious risk-seeking necessary for success in narrative game environments

Or just: better players. Combined with better GMs, who will reward risk-unaverse players, rather than smiting them with a "er, right, so you fail your die roll and are knocked unconscious by the bad guys... you don't mind sitting out the rest of the session, do you?"

As a player I've never been interested in the six-hour tactical planning sessions, I always just wanted to get out there and poke the gameworld and see how it pokes back. And while in theory the GMs have been acceptant of cinematic play style, in practice I've always been penalised to a greater or lesser extent for incautious play, because it's actually really difficult for a GM to know how to actively reward devil-may-care spontaneity.

[anonymous]

It occurs to me that Call of Cthulhu subverts the standard risk scenario by assuming the default outcome is character death (or worse). As the popularity of CoC can attest, it encourages a very strong narrative game. If the players do nothing, or refuse to risk their lives at some point, then it's assumed they die in some gruesome manner, or the elder gods win, or the world is destroyed, and so forth

[richardthinks]

I'm not sure whatg to make of this, but some years ago I had a very risk-averse, tight-planning group of players. I'd tried James Bond hero points and Star Wars fate points on them and, to a person, they'd hoard them. So I introduced a 'gambler's die'- they could add a die to their roll, representing special effort they were taking: if the roll succeeded the gambler's die could be added to the result, if it failed it could be taken away - a sort of elective critical.

I don't know if they were just bad at math, but every single player loved it, and maxed it out. The system was built on d6s: they all went for the d20 gambler's die, every time. On the plus side, more unpredictable things happened and they spent more time reacting to crazy stuff they'd set in motion. On the minus side, my cerebral investigative game pretty much went out the window. They became more willing to barge in and take the risk, perhaps because I'd given them a formal explanation of how they could make the game more cinematic.

On another issue entirely: you