So the difficulty is that many people dont know what they are missing because in order to experience the rewards for role playing with consequences, you need to experience more than just the consequence, you need to experience a full cycle of setbacks, then recovery, and then an ultimately more meaningful success than if you just had the success in the first place. - Gamist rewards for roleplaying are for getting people through the first cycle. They’re like training wheels. They take the sting off the initial set of consequences and often give you a comeback mechanic to give you the expectation of bouncing back. This helps people experience this cycle and hopefully they will eventually crave the ups and downs of this gameplay loop without the need for the game to reward them for engaging with it. - But the gamist rewards are not granting the players artificial enjoyment of roleplaying. What they are granting is artificial grit. Artificial resilience to failure and determination to continue on despite failure. This is the quality that is missing initially because they arent yet anticipating future payoff. Thats the key to grit, is that you need to be convinced of future payoff, and someone who hasnt yet personally experienced the full rewards of claiming moments of success in a game after experiencing meaningful failure cannot truly believe in that payoff the first time around. So it makes sense to help them get there with gamist rewards and currencies to help them go through the motions the first time around. - This is necessary for many things where the best route is not the most direct route. You need to signpost the twists and turns of the best road, or else people will take shortcuts and end up robbing themselves of the true experience
I think metacurrencies can have their uses. I am a big fan of the fate point system from the fate rpg. I think the defining differences that does it for me, is that you get the points rewarded if you introduce a complication. You dont get rewarded for good role playing per se. you get rewarded for introducing added tension and risk to a situation. One issue i always had is that players are fundementally risk averse. so they will always pick the safest option to resolve a conflict. In stories characters are driven by their flaws to get into trouble. The point of the story is to see them face the mess that their bad choices landed them in. I think its very important that the challenges come from internal factors such as pride, greed, impulsivnes but i rearly see players truly follow through with these flaws. We shouldnt forget there is also a social cost to roleplaying these tension moments. Lets say the prideful warrior gets humilitatet by the king. A proper response would maybe be to demand a duel. You are however not your character you are a player in a group. do you really take the limelight like that? do the other players approve that they now might face a combat situation because you wanted to act on your characters flaws? what does the DM think about that? Here i feel it helps to codify this with a mechanic. Because now you can make the life of the characters more challenging in the story but get a mechaincal benefit from it in the future. it gives you permission to roleplay making it explicitly a goal to add tension to the story.
So, I too am generally against metacurrancies. Especially when they are used to gain bonuses or to reward good role play. However, my group played a Genesys campaign, and that uses a meta currency called story points, but the way it worked (atleast in our group) felt like it was part of the expression of the character. You could spend it to make an argument that your character would know something, have planned for something, or had some sort of connection to the game world. All of these things had to make sense for the character. To me, it opened doors that your character would have available to them that the GM wouldn’t think to place, but it had a natural consequence because once you spent the story point, it went to the GM, who could use it to make things more challenging. (Which the gm could do anyway, but it kinda worked out.). That’s the only time I’ve felt that meta currencies facilitated role play. In a perfect world, it’s probably unnecessary, but it was a nice tool.
Total agreement. When I learned about the negative effects of positive reinforcement for a task that a person already enjoys (extrinsic reward killing intrinsic motivation) I never offered an inspiration point again.
Consequences certainly are the fundamental reward that TTRPGs can provide for roleplay, but meta-considerations can guide players into rich veins of roleplay and give incentive for them to dive in harder than they otherwise would have. The best mechanic I've ever seen for incentivizing roleplay from people who might not otherwise have done so is the overarching structure of 10 Candles: 1. Character creation is structured in such a way that your character must be multifaceted, and so you will discover their nuances through play rather than planning them in advance. 2. The game is 1 session. You know they will fail and die from the outset. Anything that you do not work into roleplay in this session will be lost forever. 3. Each of your traits is a card, which you can sacrifice to the flame, using that trait in some way to extend your character's meagre life a few moments longer. 4. You know how close death is, but your characters do not. Every time a roll fails, future failures become more likely. The pace and mood created by this structure inspires desperate, frantic, intense roleplay that escalates in a way that feels true to the characters and the situation, incentivizes players to play their characters like stolen cars and take big swings because they know if they don't take this shot they won't get another. Honestly, maybe that's a better lens to look at metacurrency mechanics through; even though they are often structured as incentives, the ones that actually work seem to function more as inspiration, with the incentive mechanic just being there to draw players attention for a long enough moment to have the chance to inspire them. Vaesen's wound system is quite good as well, despite running on non-roleplaying principles; when you suffer physical harm, you mark your choice of Exhausted, Battered, or Wounded. When you suffer mental harm, Angry, Frightened, or Hopeless. In most situations, this just means you have three hit points of each type that have arbitrary names. Your character probably isn't making any choice that is modeled by the player's choice. Nevertheless, the simple act of checking that box and looking at that word inspires roleplay that might not otherwise have occurred to you, regardless of how much you might desire good roleplay.
This is a great video, because it brings up many interesting points. First, I agree that giving out story points for "good roleplay" is bad for multiple reasons. Who judges this anyways. In practice, the GM just forgets some times and antagonizes some of the players. The use of metacurrency is a totally different topic imho. That is, one should look differently at the gaining and spending of these "story points", as they are not really related and do different things. I think it is fair to soften the blow of bad luck with dice on the whim of the player. In many games the odds are set by the GM somewhat arbitrarily, e.g. through a DC or target number, and a change in the odds for a random roll by the player at least brings in a collaborative aspect. Now for advantage gained through the use of a metacurrency in particular, i think if the player declares the use before the roll, then this would make sense from the perspective of the character wanting to succeed and giving his all to change the odds. Last point, a "meta" system I love is the push your luck mechanic from Call of Cthulu. With this system, you may retry your failed roll, but you will have to accept severe consequences if it fails again, or in other words, the GM gets to offer a devil's bargain to the player. Arguably everything about this interaction is on a meta-level, but in my opinion it still can greatly increase the immersion and engagement of everyone at the table. Is it bad for bein meta, i.e. primarily an out of character interaction first, even though the decision may later be informed by the risk taking of the character? And will this assessment depend on the framing of the interaction?
Meta currencies are a bit like plot armor in stories. Sometimes they are necessary for the type of ttrpg and style of game you're running. It's not ideal but you also don't want to end up in an Edge of Tomorrow type situation, which could completely deflate a lot of players.
Yep, I see roleplay as dramatic choice, system as simulation, and meta-currencies as genre reinforcement. They are not at odds and together make a rewarding game & satisfying story.
True desires and wants should come from within the individual, that way you know it is authentic. We should however look to be good influences so that if the desire manifests within another then we stand as a good example for them to draw from. I'm not entirely sure I'd consider it a meta currency but one good example is from the Delta Green RPG. In that system you have Bonds that effectively represent your character's relationships. Whenever you take Sanity damage within the game you can instead choose to deflect that damage onto the Bonds, thus saving your character the harm of losing their mind but eroding the relationships that matter most to them. I think if a game were to have any kind of meta currency it should always lead to more roleplay rather than the dismissal of consequence.
So the Bonds are abstractions of relationships, and the characters using them simulates their dependence on those relationships. All seems in-universe, so as long as it can be role-played, sounds good to me (in fact, I've got a similar thing going on in my game)!
@@TheTombofLimeGaming Yeah! That is an interesting point to think about though. When is a meta currency not one? So long as you get the opportunity to roleplay the consequence of your decisions? Or that there must be consequences at all? To me even if the consequence is shifted elsewhere and there is still consequence to the negative, I would still need the ability to roleplay it out to not consider it a meta currency, I can see a lot of people disagreeing with that though. Great video as always!
I'm glad you've made the argument about "Fun" vs "Satisfying". I usually argue it's "Fun" vs "Enjoyment". One of the first things i explain to someone when they join my table, that there's a difference between Kung Fu Panda and Schindler's List 😅But we enjoy both, many would argue that the latter is more satisfying. Or at least they're separate experiences and we need to all be focused on attaining one or the other. I largely agree about Meta Currencies, but think it's mostly a case of framing for me. I like currencies that can edit outcomes, even after the fact, but I at least want it posited as something psychological about the character, their last minute determination etc. I imagine we're probably (mostly) on the same page about that given what you said in the video about willpower.
I think the problem with this currency/meta-currency debate in the community is that no one has a reliable definition for what those things are. The mileage varies massively.
@@Pale_Mooncalf I'm not sure if it fits the description, but my group just won a contest against some cultist. The reward was a handful of cosmic coins. They spent some coins on crafting a magic weapon, and next session they can choose to spend the coins on a more detailed version of the map I'm drawing.
@@Pale_Mooncalf Some examples are fate points in Fate, Inspiration in D&D, moxie in Eclipse Phase, and momentum in some powered-by-the-apocalypse games. Generally awarded for either roleplay or accepting a mechanical hindrance on your character. In return you get a resource which can be spent later, to either skew an outcome in your favor, or exert authorial control into the game, almost like turning a player into a mini-GM. Some games make it explicit that you can spend a metacurrency to gain narrative control over some aspect of a scene. If you have a look at Ironsworn: Starforged, it's all about using moves to manage Momentum. (Personally I don't always hate metacurrencies, but I agree they can reduce the feel of organically roleplaying a character. It shifts intrinsic motivation to extrinsic.)
I think you got it right, in that the point of metacurrencies is not to increase the immersion, but rather to encourage telling a specific kind of a story, especially as a counter to other incentives. I'll point out that this sentiment you mention is true, it's just that the definitions of role-playing are different, as for most it's just acting true to how you imagine your character should act based on their personality and the situation around them. And here metacurrencies for example make acting sub-optimally more acceptable in a game where otherwise you're supposed to be trying to win. More subtly they can guide people towards tropes that are characteristic to the genre, there's a lot of different ways to use them. You instead equate it solely to immersion and genuinely feeling like you are this character, including making suboptimal choice with no incentive other than getting a pat on the back from others. So there's kinda no argument there, because those claims are not even about the same aspect of play.
You made me rethink the concept of "inspiration tokens". They can be useful at first to hook a new player, but this will likely cause a pavlovian effect and the person will only roleplay because of the meta-currency. The only point I disagree is about the experience being rewarding instead of fun, like in Aliens for James Cameron, because I have to be honest, if I'm a player and your RPG session is a torturous experience that's only gonna bring me something good after it's over, I don't think I wanna play with you anymore, haha.
I think that we can extrapolate some things from the success of TTRPGs. In the OSR, you can get rewarded XP for spending money. That is important, because it makes you engage with the fantasy of having money and spending it and I've recently come to compare this with terror management theory, hero projects and the death drive. It's spending money by which your character becomes invested in repeatedly pursuing danger and immortalize themselves. Eventually, this shifted towards XP as a mark of your character's honor (which is not necessarily using chivalrous tactics, but more so exerting your destiny by defying death in the view of others), which is a more specific kind of hero project. That then shifted to mile stone leveling, where you simply level up when the DM feels like it. Ironically, I feel like the milestone system is much more arbitrary and much more corrosive to the hobby. Milestone levels are that kind of pet on the head for 'congratulations, you showed up' reward that leads to a phenomenon called 'overjustification'. Overjustification occurs when the internal motivation of a player (or human being) is accompanied with an external reward. The classic example is two groups of children who are told to draw. One group is rewarded with candy and praise for every drawing they complete and the other is rewarded only with praise. The group who receives candy lose their motivation to draw when they stop receiving candies, while the other internalizes the praise and fun of it. I've seen many players show up at the table for the fantasy of leveling up. They enjoy the story, but there is this thing in the back of their mind where they want to level up and are frustrated when they don't get it. Of course, we're all adults, so we know that leveling up is not the point, but it is still affecting play. Conversely, XP rewards cause 'instrumentalization'; if you receive feedback for doing something specific, you are inclined to internalize the source of the feedback as your motivation rather than what you went into the hobby for. AI ends up pursuing instrumental goals over their stated goals, because they know the instrumental goals will get them to their stated goals faster in theory. Instrumentalization is, however, not immediately going to lead to overjustification. Just like we are adults about levels, we are adults about XP. In Pendragon, progress is measured in more than one way; you receive glory for your deeds (good and bad) and you receive experience checks for succeeding notable rolls. Through instrumentalization, these two reward systems invite you to make enemies (thereby allowing you to fight them chivalrously) and to take risks (since success is not guaranteed). And these result in your character getting stronger; for some reason, simply being more (in)famous can allow you to become more physically healthy, ensuring your knight's story can endure a little longer. They will die eventually, but unlike hero points in D&D, this kind of benny-system invites players to take more risks and to allow themselves to fail, because they're going to get glory one way or the other. In Blood Feud, finally, there's a whole economy for gaining and spending your metacurrency called honor points. If you fail to stake more honor, you will lose all the honor points you had invested and cede them to another player. The goal of the game is to get more honor, but the players know, explicitly, that this is going to cause problems for their characters. So I disagree that these currencies are by definition going to be worse. Just like many systems, we think these things don't work because we've moved the goal posts so much in the past decades that the mechanics no longer fit their original purpose and just kind of hang around. Alignment and milestone XP are zombie mechanics, I'd describe them as.
great vid, almost totally agree i hate it when meta currencies "support roleplay". No, they support power gaming, giving the player enjoyment from BONUSES for roleplay, not roleplay itself. Even exp, like you pointed out, is also meta-currency, a countable reward. How is a character supposed to learn how to communicate with his god by killing more enemies and completing more quests? Let the player just choose what they want to be able to do - and do it gradually in freeplay, or as a different phase of game, or something like that (preferrably without breaking balance, but that's another issue). I have yet to see a game system that does this trick. Blades in the Dark and Heart City Beneath are kind of half there (i just need to combine the clock and the "advancement for actions" mechanics). To me, this thought came so naturally... Well, gonna have to implement it in my system (fat chance but imma take it). No meta-currencies, no exp or even hp, based on pure choice and consequence (ideally) P.S. milestone advancement in dnd can be sort of a solution: you just go up in power after an important plot point, but there has to be a break before the start of the next plot point. Like, "you worked hard, now we do a time skip for a month, in game of course, during which your characters will be doing something that allows them to gain abilities described in the book. Please tell what your characters do during this month, briefly". But if players hit a milestone, gain new abilites and start using them TOMORROW, it just isn't roleplay anymore - it's a bad script. I've been there, inexpirienced GM that i am, and I wish i had ruled differently. Time skips are always good, by the way, helps build a more meaningful pace) at least in long campaigns
your delineation of fun vs rewarding is epic and legend tier. I think that everyone is here to have "fun" but the "why" and root cause of what drives people to Role Play based games where there is no "winning the game" speaks volumes about people that often haven't delineated the difference between fun and rewarding and that games like 5e have a blunt opportunity to show them that nuance and amazing open door to possibility that Happiness isn't necessarily the goal and that doing things because that they are morally or ethically rewarding supersede "fun" as far as total life satisfaction. Not to mention the idea that great storytelling will ALWAYS be about consequences and not subverting the constraints of the consequences in the world in which a story is told
I would agree... teach it, and like mentioned below, model it... whatever it is you want at your table (as a GM) you have to model it, do it, demonstrate it, etc... Give me a brand new player that wants to learn what role-playing is and how to role-play over an experienced player that "knows" everything. You can teach how, but the want... I think that's up to the player. I agree with your sentiment, I do however enjoy playing games that reward (usually with experience points) players bringing in their characters bonds, flaws, backgrounds, etc into the session... it doesn't necessarily have to be in first person role-play, but at least it can get them thinking about how the player can incorporate parts of their character sheet that may not get much attention and I know some that depends on the system I do like to reward players... and as you said, consequences from players autonomy are what makes the game memorable... along with success/killing blows/"how do you want to do this"... on a side note, I've been thinking more about how to make games more proactive for the players instead of reactive. Players are always responding/reacting, allowing the players to have more input seems to help create proactive role-play where the "world" is reacting to what the PCs are doing.
I think you comment is beautiful. I let my players create parts of the world. Many times I ask them, what would be consequences of your action? Thank you. Sincerely, Alicia from Sweden.
I agree with your statement around meta currency. Without consequences, actions don't have tension. Without tension, roleplay had no stakes. Without stakes, it is impossible to create engagement. Thank you for the thought provoking videos!
Well said as always. With the 4D gang, it's nice to finally have a selection of players now that we never had before. We can have the full-roleplay experience without searching high and low trying to find those players that want THIS. (and have live-video examples of this style to pull from) Once you have all 'Roleplayers' in your group, the play and flow of the game itself is satisfying, and a lot of players really get into-it. The players play with the freedom of knowing their turn won't be re-written by the GM, or their action won't be re-directed by the GM... or hand-waved by the GM to shortcut a scene. Often I'll put on a practice for new people, and they are at-first worried and wondering if they are co-creating too much, they are coming to terms with their newfound freedom. I do reply (after-session) that my goal in the practice is to see how they use the power of adding to the scene and I have no intentions of saying "No you cannot do that" The Freedom and the realization of freedom itself is reward.
These are really interesting points, and I completely agree that roleplay is central to the experience. If I understand you correctly, you're highlighting two opposing perspectives, and you seem to lean more towards the roleplay side, which I find compelling. That said, would you agree that this is more of a spectrum, with positions ranging from one extreme to the other, including various blended approaches? For example, in Fate, the metacurrency isn't just plot armor but rather a tool to balance risk, reward, and consequences, ultimately enhancing roleplay. It allows players to shape the story of their character, much like your tea kettle analogy-empowering them to tell the story they want, rather than relying solely on the GM's narrative.
I've tried to, as you say, "teach players to want to roleplay" for about 5 years. Gave up for the third time this year. So I'm staunchly in the "nope" camp. We've played a few long campaigns and many one shots, different systems and settings. I was trying to find some genre, some rules system, something that would make them really get into it and become infatuated with playing RPGs... but I've realised there's no game that would change them, no technique I could use to turn them into roleplayers. So I've just taken a break and now we get together and chat, and I play RPGs online with people that share my interests. I'm a lot more content now.
Very interesting video (as always). Made me think (as always). My thoughts regarding the meta-currencies part of the discussion: I agree they can be used as "dumb" get out of jail free cards, which can go against the notion of agency. But... even then, you have agency to use those tokens or not, being awarded only so many. Also, I find that, when well implemented, meta-currency can facilitate emulation. What is really the difference between giving a heroic character lots of HP or few HP but ways to survive against bad odds? Say you play as a pulpy Indiana Jones type character, you want them to be able to survive outrageous situations, and face overwhelming odds. Yet I could still see that character having to pay for their decisions at the end of the day, reaping we reward of the player's choices. Meta-currencies or not. Again, maybe meta-currencies come in too many shapes and form to make blanket statements about them.
Great video, interestingly I think meta currencies are best used to make the life of the character harder to exactly getting more emotionally rewarding play out of them. Hell, that is why I abandoned that paradigm of competency focused play altogether in my design and go just for the drama and outright tragedies.
There's so much content about GMs incentivizing their players, but I take issue with it because it makes GMing seem like a job that should be remunerated rather than a role in a game. Happy to hear this perspective, where (adult) players ought to be coming to the table with their motivations already aligned 😂
PF2E has a great Reputation subsystem you can use either openly or secretly. I use it openly in the game I run with my kids so that my son learns "fire breath" is not always the answer.
I guess I considered things like reputation to be an abstraction of the dispositions of a group of NPCs, a social stat the GM uses to role-play them. It represents something that exists in the world. Ideally, the players would be able to work out their reputation from interactions with NPCs, but having the number available for the players to look at certainly gives a very direct indication of consequence for action. It's almost like the players get to peek at the GM's character sheet, just like the GM gets to peek at the players'. This would be different from say, _Darkness Points_ in _Coriolis_ that the GM 'spends' to make things harder for the players.
I don’t believe that when people say a good role-playing game should have mechanics that encourage good role-playing, they mean it should convince reluctant players to start loving the game. And although you group reluctant and "bad" role-players together, I think they shouldn’t be in the same category. The idea is that by highlighting and rewarding aspects of role-play through encouraging mechanics, it not only teaches what good role-play looks like but also promotes it. There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to role-play in a game that doesn’t care about your character at all. Anyway, that’s a different rabbit hole. I think great, or even just good, role-playing is hard. Putting your mind into another's shoes, with different formative experiences, and figuring out how those experiences should affect choices made in the game world, are not simple tasks. That’s why so many of us end up playing with just a couple of tropey things and mostly superficial characteristics. In my opinion, any rules, systems, or rewards that make it easier for any "bad" role-player to think about the deeper aspects of characters, play to their flaws, and engage in opportunities when others are doing the same are all good and useful-even if they are codified as a meta-currency.
I wouldn't group 'bad' and 'reluctant' in the same group either, they're only similar in that meta-currencies are often designed to solve both problems. I'd say recognising and encouraging good role-play is a great thing to do, but I'd prefer we find a way to do it without having to break character, or create possible tensions between player motivations and character motivations. To reuse my music metaphor, if we get to the end of a song, and someone did a great job, well, we say 'hey, great job!' After an RPG session and we talk about what happened, what went well, what didn't, all of that comes out, but without the artifice of coding it into points (which are often at a pretty arbitrary whim of the GM).
@@TheTombofLimeGaming While designing my game, I always keep a design mantra in the back of my head to ensure the game encourages-and doesn't inadvertently punish-behaviors I find rewarding, like creative collaboration. From this conversation, I will add 'encourage players to stay in character' and 'prevent motivational rifts between players and their characters' to that mantra. Thanks for another thought-provoking video.
@@TheTombofLimeGaming I think that's a playstyle thing though. I would hazard to say most roleplaying groups break character frequently so the main concern is what does it do at the table and, the best implementations I've seen are where the players cash in metacurrency to add details, complications, etc to their character's story. Basically, in it's best form metacurrency helps shift influence over the world from a GM only responsibility to also include the ideas that are the most important to each player. So really in the end whether it's good game design depends how much power your players should have over the world to make the story work. For a dungeon crawler, probably a mistake. but, for a game focused on collaboration and building a world out together? It can be a natural fit to give players a mechanic to paint their own parts of the canvas of the game. Also, I just disagree that rewarding players for doing something that is the goal we all came to the table is bad game design. You can encourage something without it being a trick or ruse to get your players to play something they don't want to do. As someone who enjoys mechanical crunch and a good story nothing feels better than when a game manages to marry mechanics with its flavor/theming. Like, when a Paladin gives a dramatic speech about sending a lich back to hell before smiting him with the power of her god. That's the good stuff. Yes, it was a good narrative beat but the game also propped up the moment mechanically and that, personally is when I feel the best about giving my players a good time.
I've never liked meta-currencies for all of those reasons. Like you said you can't teach a desire to someone, and if you "train" them to desire something through reward you're just training them to optimize for that reward. That's where I think most games that reward character behaviors with XP have awkward moments where your character wouldn't do a thing but the system incentivize you to do it anyway.
I am curious as to where you define the definition of metacurrency vs in-world abstraction with regards to a concept like 'luck points'. While it is something that the character 'has' (as in they are lucky in some regard), it is the player who chooses to spend those luck points. Just curious to see if you would categorize that in the same way as story points or if it fits in the nebulous abstraction of something like XP.
How's this: when we roll dice, that's luck, and any modifiers that mean the characters' attributes reduce the amount of randomness that determines the result reduce luck as a factor. 'Luck points,' then reduce luck as a factor even more! They should be called non-luck points! I jest, but I'm not even sure what 'being lucky' looks like, except that we have continued success against the odds, which can happen naturally. Your character is lucky if you roll well. A 'talent' (read: feat) that came over from the SRD from the game I've been working on was called 'Lucky' and it allowed you to re-roll critical injuries. For the sake of XP I started linking all the 'talents' to certain attributes and faced a problem: which attribute does luck best link to? Wits? Empathy? In the end, I linked the talent to Strength and called it 'Tougher Than I Look,' (or something similar) instead of 'Lucky,' because it makes just as much sense that injuries are linked to that attribute instead of something as arbitrary as luck. So I don't know, maybe luck points are just 'get out of consequence' points. I might have to think about that one a bit more deeply.
Yea, I've never liked meta currency. What I do like is the feeling of being able to try anything. But this is often missed by the referee, not thinking outside the box of rules, or players not looking outside the character sheet, or all us not using our imaginations. Rpg games are built on the foundation of tactical infinity, a term coined from wargames with the introduction of a referee. The freedom of the Player Characters to attempt any tactic to solve a problem, subject to the adjudication of the Game Master.
I think it depends on the game. For example, if the campaign is about Greek gods where players are the children of gods it makes sense to have some meta currency as their parents intervene. So it’s a mechanic to reflect this.
@@TheTombofLimeGaming I do otherwise agree with your points (for what it’s worth). I use to use meta-currency regularly (ever since I read about them in 1e warhammer fantasy). But more recently (10 years or so) I’ve avoided them unless they made sense for the particular campaign/setting.
Aug 18, 2024 Shonner uploaded a good favorable critical thought response video concurring with you before he passed on . R.I.P. Shonner. He recommended your channel. I hope you appreciate his work. Thank You. I hope you got a chance to appreciate that response video by now.
I stand on the shoulders of giants. Shonner taught me a lot - it was a tough pill to swallow to find out how poor a role-player I was before, but he was always very encouraging toward me. There was much more I wished I could have asked him! R.I.P.
Your video gave me a lot to think about, but not a lot to agree with. You say “if you are there to socialize then go play a party game”, this is way off base. Socializing is often the reason ttrpg groups form and the reason they stay together. I’d say if you are not playing a ttrpg to (at least in part) socialize, then maybe you should go play a video game. - and maybe online ttrpg are really just multiplayer video games. Meta currency can be problematic but there are plenty of games that don’t use them- if you hate meta currencies, play one of those. Your argument that they shouldn’t be used because your character isn’t using them is a bit contrived. There are plenty of activities at the table that the character isn’t doing, but that is part of the game. The word I want to mention is “game”. That is the “g” in ttrpg. Not “story”, not “art”, not “therapy”, but “game”. If you are rejecting the game part of ttrpg the. You are engaging in a different activity. That’s fine, if that’s what your group wants to do.
Was gonna say, you could just as easily turn it around and say to all those people concerned so much about role-playing "do freeform RP instead, why are you even bothering with the game part". I don't subscribe to it because this gatekeeper attitude is dumb, but all these arguments kinda fall apart just based on the fact that this type of play is not where the hobby started and appeals only to a subgroup of RPG community.
Listen again to what he says from 4:06 . You seem to be misunderstanding his message. As far as I see it, he is merely suggesting that someone might find playing a game other than a roleplaying game to memorize rewarding, if they have socializing as their highest priority.
@@monomakes It is however a stupid argument because it assumes that metacurrencies are used to "trick" unwilling people into roleplaying, that they otherwise despise and are only dragged through by the insistent GM. Which is an absolutely dumb take that doesn't match how those games play out, but he's just so obsessed with this "martyrdom" of "true roleplaying" that as soon as you use anything to assist it, approach it more casually or have a different definition of what roleplay is, he just defaults to "you should play board games instead", not just in this video.
'“If you are there to socialize then go play a party game,”' is certainly not what was meant by what I said! Rather that if socialising is the _primary_ reason you are there, then you will be best served by a game that facilitates that. Like I said, 'RPGs are social,' so socialising is definitely one of the reasons I engage in this particular kind of game, but it's not the _main_ reason I would play a _role-playing_ game, _in particular._ That would be: _role-playing._ Likewise, I wouldn't want to reject the gaming aspect either, it's just that... well, if I wanted a balanced competitive gaming experience, would I really choose a game where the GM can just front load encounters with indestructible monsters, or conversely, a GM that (secretly?) wants me to win? I love RPGs but I do not think they are the best vehicle for _gamist_ tendencies. And when _I_ get those tendencies, _I_ play other things! RPGs have a little bit of lots of things in them, but I feel that role-playing games are the absolute best vehicle for role-playing, and suboptimal for the other things. Players of any game will have more satisfying experiences if their goals are aligned with that of the other players and with that of the game, surely. Anyway, I'm interested in what the 'plenty of activities at the table that the character isn’t doing, but that is part of the game,' that you're referring to. While I'm playing an RPG, I'm focussed on my character, and anything else I do (rolling dice?) is just to facilitate that. In any case, I'd want to keep non-role-play stuff to a minimum while I'm role-playing, 'cause role-playing is what I'm there to do!
2 месяца назад+1
Fate is a Game I don't really like. It's a game in which you spend Fate Points to make colourful traits of your character (or other characters, or of the situation itself) have a mechanical effect (they always have a fictional effect). You gain them when they get your character in trouble. The economy is utterly un-fun, but most people are amazed at how it makes players actually take their character traits seriously and "actually roleplay and be creative". To me, it seems like a paywall to have the mechanics match the fiction, instead of a way to incentivize roleplaying. By your premise, all my problem with fate points would be adressed if they represented something the character is in control or aware of. So the problems would be solved if I change the name to "Drive Points" and say they represent my character's drive to do stuff better, and they recover them by surrendering to their quirks (which usually gets them in trouble). Because then, every time I spend or gain a Drive Point, I'm roleplaying my character. Which... I don't really follow. You can say the word for "turd" is "rose", but it won't keep it from smelling bad.
My endorsement of in-world abstractions was not a carte blanche for any abstraction so long as it wasn't meta, but rather that being _in-world_ was the _minimum requirement;_ not that it would solve _all_ your problems... but that it would solve _one_ problem! Good game design doesn't end there, it starts there! Recall how earlier in the video I mention that what you abstract and what you leave granular tells you something about what your game is about? Well, one of the most important things you _don't_ want to abstract away from the player in a role-playing game is the role-playing. If playing a role involves making decisions for your character then you don't want to take that away from the players, and if Drive Points do that, they probably shouldn't be part of a _role-playing game._
2 месяца назад+2
The thing is that Drive Points don't take away agency from players. We can certainly ignore them and the game still works. The thing is that Drive Points facilitate some tough rolls (and it makes in-world sense, if you call them Drive Points), and thus it makes the players have more agency. Do I let my anger issues take the better of me (thus, gaining a DP and getting into trouble), or do I try to control them (thus, paying a DP)? Do I want to emotionally invest in this task (thus, paying a DP) to get it done, or do I detach myself and trust my luck (thus, not paying amnor gaining anything)? With the lens of what's in-world and what's not, DP should be the ultimate game design tool. And yet, in the table, to me and the other players, that currency is taking away some of the fun (or all of it, in my case). It IS still currency, in your terms, because it's not "meta". The only way to explain why it doesn't work needs to take into account of what happens outside of the fiction, i.e.: out-world. If we go there, it's actually clear that while it doesn't take away from _character's_ agency while it does serves a purpose (limiting ourselves to their fictional perspective, to what is available diegetically), it does not serve any purpose to the _players_ (i.e.: if we take into account meta-gaming considerations). It's specially worse if the GM ask for rolls to get out of the trouble your character made for himself when giving in to their worst traits. Let me illustrate: my PC wants to save a City from danger (Problem A). But he feels somewhat low on motivation (i.e.: I have too few DP). He still endures and try to prepare, but he has some anger issues, and I tell the GM that he's gonna give in to them, to get a DP (diegetically, engaging in their anger issues lets them steam off and begin with fresh motivation, translating that to DPs in the player-world). As a result, my PC breaks some stuff from the preparation, and, logically, that makes noise, and someone comes to investigate, and maybe they'll tell the ones endangering the city. Now we have a Problem B. To actually get to a position in which he can try and solve Problem A, my PC needs to first deal with Problem B. If the GM ask for a roll, I'll probably have to pay my recently-gained DP to solve Problem B. In the end, if that happens, he still felt the same demotivation, because their steming off caused a new problem. All is exciting in the fiction, and makes sense, but as players, it felt very much as just filler, a zum-0 game that advanced nothing, that introduced some nice details which weren't at all necessary nor fun in any sort of way. It wasn't enjoyable for me as a player, and I think it has NOTHING to do with the diegesis, the in-world, the fiction. It has all to do with my (as a _player_) investment in the game, which, if I'm correct, has toninclude more than just "roleplaying my character, being immersed in my character". The only option you have to explain it (if I'm not missing anything, which may very well be the case) is that I'm actually not roleplaying, but playing a different sort of game, not about roleplaying. OK then, we may disagree on the definition of RPG, but if you actually respond that, I challenge you to either (a) explain, using your conceptual framework, why DPs don't work, despite being consequential and agency-enablers fiction-wise, or (b) say that they actually work if one actually wants to roleplay, and then try using them and reporting if you had any sort of fun. (Of course, you don't need to follow my challenge, but I enjoy this kinds of debates, and if you do, it may be fun for us both.)
I supposed you won't be fan of Chronicles of Darkness beats system? your xp progression is ties to certain goals you set for your character, not always positive things.
I disagree with your opinion. Fate has a wonderful meta currency system the fact is it incentivizes role-playing in a different way than normal. Compels drive the narrative a different way the same way or even more the dice do. In any other game that doesn't have similar mechanic you won't feel rewarded the same way for doing something bad for your character or the party
Hmm. I'm not familiar with how Fate handles it specifically, but if you _only_ feel rewarded when you role-play your character _if_ the game rewards it mechanically, then is role-playing really what you wanted to do here? I would say that I didn't need that kind of reward, because I find inhabiting a character in a shared imaginary world (including, yes, doing something 'bad' for your character or the party) a reward unto itself, much like the creation of a song is the reward for a group of musicians playing their instruments well. I don't need a meta-currency to be rewarded for making music, so if role-playing is as worthwhile an activity as something like that, then I'm not sure I need a meta-currency to reward me for role-playing either.
@@TheTombofLimeGaming the fact is RPGs are not only role-playing, but also are games and reward mechanics are inherently tied with the later. The overlap between games and role-play is the strongest point of RPGs. Meta currencies tie together mechanics of the game and the narrative. Having to write something down onto your character sheet because of the decision you made feels empowering and makes you want more
@@Whrait72 This is a great point, I wish I'd thought about it before I posted the video, because video games have a very similar dichotomy and I would have used this an example! Consider a video game where if you defeat an enemy, there's a fanfare, a shiny gold _100PTS_ appears above your character's head and it adds to that game's meta-currency: your score. These elements are exactly as you describe, they feel 'empowering and makes you want more.' They're a dopamine hit that tie together the mechanics of the game and your activity in it. Now consider a game like _The Last of Us,_ in a tense and emotional moment an innocent young girl is forced to brutally take a human life for the first time. No fanfare, no _100PTS,_ no High Score, no meta-currency. _The Last of Us_ doesn't need those things because the experience of playing the game itself is rewarding enough. The idea that _The Last of Us_ is somehow less of a game than, say, _Pacman_ because it doesn't have meta-currencies as reward mechanics is pretty silly. In fact I'd say that not only would those kinds of mechanics not make _The Last of Us_ better, they would *ruin* the experience, making it less immersive, verisimilitudinous and impactful. If reward mechanics are inherently tied to games, that's fine, but the idea that RPGs needs something as superficial and extraneous as fate points to _be_ games, or _be_ rewarding underestimates the potential that RPGs have, and how rewarding role-playing can be in its own right.
@@TheTombofLimeGaming The meta currencies are not some score from video games. Continuing on example of fate points, they are intrisic to how the game operates, it is the fuel that drives both the game and narrative. In the fate game it is assumed that the players would get compelled for something bad to happen to their characters either by the GM or by the player themself, but in return they would get fate points, think of them like story beats. Like in the good action film the character is the strongest by the end of it, beaten, exhausted and broken. From the simulationist stand point that makes no sense, but it's good for the overall story layout. Getting beaten and broken in Fate makes you accumulate Fate points, that the player can dump at the important point and seize the victory from the futile position. And it feels earned because characters strugled get them. Well done meta currencies in RPGs don't just work as a reward, but are inherent to how game operates
@@Whrait72 I think it's telling that you say that this meta-currency 'is the fuel that drives both the game and the narrative', because I would say that in a role-playing game it should be the characters that drive the game and the narrative. A good character will have goals and motivations and these will compel the risks they take and the actions you describe. Worse than being redundant, Fate Points then also ask the player to do the calculations 'will this action earn me a point?' and 'is this risk worth the point?' These aren't the characters concerns, so at that point you aren't role-playing, you're playing the Fate Point meta-game. And all this in service of imposing the GM's (or players?) trite notions of 'good... overall story layout.' If story is the concern, I suppose this serves, but if it's agency and consequence, which I think are integral to role-play in particular, then I'd say they don't serve. If I make decisions that get the character into a 'futile position,' I will accept them, rather than going in knowing that I have the power of _deus ex machina_ to save me. Consequences don't make a _bad story,_ and winning doesn't make a good one. It's cheap dopamine and you get what you pay for. I've never seen an action movie where the protagonist takes risks because they'll get meta-points for it (excepting, perhaps Scott Pilgrim and Wreck-It Ralph)! Movie characters tend to do stuff because of their goals an motivations (and good role-players will too)!
I think the best ways to cultivate good roleplay at the table are:
- Acknowledge and show appreciation for good roleplay when we see it
- Model it
So the difficulty is that many people dont know what they are missing because in order to experience the rewards for role playing with consequences, you need to experience more than just the consequence, you need to experience a full cycle of setbacks, then recovery, and then an ultimately more meaningful success than if you just had the success in the first place.
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Gamist rewards for roleplaying are for getting people through the first cycle. They’re like training wheels. They take the sting off the initial set of consequences and often give you a comeback mechanic to give you the expectation of bouncing back. This helps people experience this cycle and hopefully they will eventually crave the ups and downs of this gameplay loop without the need for the game to reward them for engaging with it.
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But the gamist rewards are not granting the players artificial enjoyment of roleplaying. What they are granting is artificial grit. Artificial resilience to failure and determination to continue on despite failure. This is the quality that is missing initially because they arent yet anticipating future payoff. Thats the key to grit, is that you need to be convinced of future payoff, and someone who hasnt yet personally experienced the full rewards of claiming moments of success in a game after experiencing meaningful failure cannot truly believe in that payoff the first time around. So it makes sense to help them get there with gamist rewards and currencies to help them go through the motions the first time around.
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This is necessary for many things where the best route is not the most direct route. You need to signpost the twists and turns of the best road, or else people will take shortcuts and end up robbing themselves of the true experience
I think metacurrencies can have their uses. I am a big fan of the fate point system from the fate rpg. I think the defining differences that does it for me, is that you get the points rewarded if you introduce a complication. You dont get rewarded for good role playing per se. you get rewarded for introducing added tension and risk to a situation.
One issue i always had is that players are fundementally risk averse. so they will always pick the safest option to resolve a conflict. In stories characters are driven by their flaws to get into trouble. The point of the story is to see them face the mess that their bad choices landed them in. I think its very important that the challenges come from internal factors such as pride, greed, impulsivnes but i rearly see players truly follow through with these flaws.
We shouldnt forget there is also a social cost to roleplaying these tension moments. Lets say the prideful warrior gets humilitatet by the king. A proper response would maybe be to demand a duel. You are however not your character you are a player in a group. do you really take the limelight like that? do the other players approve that they now might face a combat situation because you wanted to act on your characters flaws? what does the DM think about that? Here i feel it helps to codify this with a mechanic. Because now you can make the life of the characters more challenging in the story but get a mechaincal benefit from it in the future. it gives you permission to roleplay making it explicitly a goal to add tension to the story.
So, I too am generally against metacurrancies. Especially when they are used to gain bonuses or to reward good role play.
However, my group played a Genesys campaign, and that uses a meta currency called story points, but the way it worked (atleast in our group) felt like it was part of the expression of the character. You could spend it to make an argument that your character would know something, have planned for something, or had some sort of connection to the game world. All of these things had to make sense for the character. To me, it opened doors that your character would have available to them that the GM wouldn’t think to place, but it had a natural consequence because once you spent the story point, it went to the GM, who could use it to make things more challenging. (Which the gm could do anyway, but it kinda worked out.). That’s the only time I’ve felt that meta currencies facilitated role play.
In a perfect world, it’s probably unnecessary, but it was a nice tool.
Total agreement. When I learned about the negative effects of positive reinforcement for a task that a person already enjoys (extrinsic reward killing intrinsic motivation) I never offered an inspiration point again.
Consequences certainly are the fundamental reward that TTRPGs can provide for roleplay, but meta-considerations can guide players into rich veins of roleplay and give incentive for them to dive in harder than they otherwise would have. The best mechanic I've ever seen for incentivizing roleplay from people who might not otherwise have done so is the overarching structure of 10 Candles:
1. Character creation is structured in such a way that your character must be multifaceted, and so you will discover their nuances through play rather than planning them in advance.
2. The game is 1 session. You know they will fail and die from the outset. Anything that you do not work into roleplay in this session will be lost forever.
3. Each of your traits is a card, which you can sacrifice to the flame, using that trait in some way to extend your character's meagre life a few moments longer.
4. You know how close death is, but your characters do not. Every time a roll fails, future failures become more likely.
The pace and mood created by this structure inspires desperate, frantic, intense roleplay that escalates in a way that feels true to the characters and the situation, incentivizes players to play their characters like stolen cars and take big swings because they know if they don't take this shot they won't get another. Honestly, maybe that's a better lens to look at metacurrency mechanics through; even though they are often structured as incentives, the ones that actually work seem to function more as inspiration, with the incentive mechanic just being there to draw players attention for a long enough moment to have the chance to inspire them.
Vaesen's wound system is quite good as well, despite running on non-roleplaying principles; when you suffer physical harm, you mark your choice of Exhausted, Battered, or Wounded. When you suffer mental harm, Angry, Frightened, or Hopeless. In most situations, this just means you have three hit points of each type that have arbitrary names. Your character probably isn't making any choice that is modeled by the player's choice. Nevertheless, the simple act of checking that box and looking at that word inspires roleplay that might not otherwise have occurred to you, regardless of how much you might desire good roleplay.
This is a great video, because it brings up many interesting points.
First, I agree that giving out story points for "good roleplay" is bad for multiple reasons. Who judges this anyways. In practice, the GM just forgets some times and antagonizes some of the players.
The use of metacurrency is a totally different topic imho. That is, one should look differently at the gaining and spending of these "story points", as they are not really related and do different things. I think it is fair to soften the blow of bad luck with dice on the whim of the player. In many games the odds are set by the GM somewhat arbitrarily, e.g. through a DC or target number, and a change in the odds for a random roll by the player at least brings in a collaborative aspect.
Now for advantage gained through the use of a metacurrency in particular, i think if the player declares the use before the roll, then this would make sense from the perspective of the character wanting to succeed and giving his all to change the odds.
Last point, a "meta" system I love is the push your luck mechanic from Call of Cthulu. With this system, you may retry your failed roll, but you will have to accept severe consequences if it fails again, or in other words, the GM gets to offer a devil's bargain to the player. Arguably everything about this interaction is on a meta-level, but in my opinion it still can greatly increase the immersion and engagement of everyone at the table. Is it bad for bein meta, i.e. primarily an out of character interaction first, even though the decision may later be informed by the risk taking of the character? And will this assessment depend on the framing of the interaction?
Meta currencies are a bit like plot armor in stories. Sometimes they are necessary for the type of ttrpg and style of game you're running. It's not ideal but you also don't want to end up in an Edge of Tomorrow type situation, which could completely deflate a lot of players.
Yep, I see roleplay as dramatic choice, system as simulation, and meta-currencies as genre reinforcement. They are not at odds and together make a rewarding game & satisfying story.
True desires and wants should come from within the individual, that way you know it is authentic. We should however look to be good influences so that if the desire manifests within another then we stand as a good example for them to draw from.
I'm not entirely sure I'd consider it a meta currency but one good example is from the Delta Green RPG. In that system you have Bonds that effectively represent your character's relationships. Whenever you take Sanity damage within the game you can instead choose to deflect that damage onto the Bonds, thus saving your character the harm of losing their mind but eroding the relationships that matter most to them. I think if a game were to have any kind of meta currency it should always lead to more roleplay rather than the dismissal of consequence.
Good stuff! Gave me inspiration to mod my system, thx.
So the Bonds are abstractions of relationships, and the characters using them simulates their dependence on those relationships. All seems in-universe, so as long as it can be role-played, sounds good to me (in fact, I've got a similar thing going on in my game)!
@@TheTombofLimeGaming Yeah! That is an interesting point to think about though. When is a meta currency not one? So long as you get the opportunity to roleplay the consequence of your decisions? Or that there must be consequences at all? To me even if the consequence is shifted elsewhere and there is still consequence to the negative, I would still need the ability to roleplay it out to not consider it a meta currency, I can see a lot of people disagreeing with that though. Great video as always!
I'm glad you've made the argument about "Fun" vs "Satisfying".
I usually argue it's "Fun" vs "Enjoyment". One of the first things i explain to someone when they join my table, that there's a difference between Kung Fu Panda and Schindler's List 😅But we enjoy both, many would argue that the latter is more satisfying. Or at least they're separate experiences and we need to all be focused on attaining one or the other.
I largely agree about Meta Currencies, but think it's mostly a case of framing for me. I like currencies that can edit outcomes, even after the fact, but I at least want it posited as something psychological about the character, their last minute determination etc. I imagine we're probably (mostly) on the same page about that given what you said in the video about willpower.
I think the problem with this currency/meta-currency debate in the community is that no one has a reliable definition for what those things are. The mileage varies massively.
Yes, I'm a bit new to this. What's an example of a meta-currency?
@@Pale_Mooncalf I'm not sure if it fits the description, but my group just won a contest against some cultist.
The reward was a handful of cosmic coins. They spent some coins on crafting a magic weapon, and next session they can choose to spend the coins on a more detailed version of the map I'm drawing.
@@Pale_Mooncalf Some examples are fate points in Fate, Inspiration in D&D, moxie in Eclipse Phase, and momentum in some powered-by-the-apocalypse games.
Generally awarded for either roleplay or accepting a mechanical hindrance on your character. In return you get a resource which can be spent later, to either skew an outcome in your favor, or exert authorial control into the game, almost like turning a player into a mini-GM. Some games make it explicit that you can spend a metacurrency to gain narrative control over some aspect of a scene. If you have a look at Ironsworn: Starforged, it's all about using moves to manage Momentum.
(Personally I don't always hate metacurrencies, but I agree they can reduce the feel of organically roleplaying a character. It shifts intrinsic motivation to extrinsic.)
I think you got it right, in that the point of metacurrencies is not to increase the immersion, but rather to encourage telling a specific kind of a story, especially as a counter to other incentives.
I'll point out that this sentiment you mention is true, it's just that the definitions of role-playing are different, as for most it's just acting true to how you imagine your character should act based on their personality and the situation around them. And here metacurrencies for example make acting sub-optimally more acceptable in a game where otherwise you're supposed to be trying to win. More subtly they can guide people towards tropes that are characteristic to the genre, there's a lot of different ways to use them.
You instead equate it solely to immersion and genuinely feeling like you are this character, including making suboptimal choice with no incentive other than getting a pat on the back from others. So there's kinda no argument there, because those claims are not even about the same aspect of play.
You made me rethink the concept of "inspiration tokens". They can be useful at first to hook a new player, but this will likely cause a pavlovian effect and the person will only roleplay because of the meta-currency.
The only point I disagree is about the experience being rewarding instead of fun, like in Aliens for James Cameron, because I have to be honest, if I'm a player and your RPG session is a torturous experience that's only gonna bring me something good after it's over, I don't think I wanna play with you anymore, haha.
Haha, well, yes, _hopefully,_ your game is _also_ fun! But I suppose we could say there is opportunity here for more than _just_ fun.
I think that we can extrapolate some things from the success of TTRPGs. In the OSR, you can get rewarded XP for spending money.
That is important, because it makes you engage with the fantasy of having money and spending it and I've recently come to compare this with terror management theory, hero projects and the death drive. It's spending money by which your character becomes invested in repeatedly pursuing danger and immortalize themselves. Eventually, this shifted towards XP as a mark of your character's honor (which is not necessarily using chivalrous tactics, but more so exerting your destiny by defying death in the view of others), which is a more specific kind of hero project. That then shifted to mile stone leveling, where you simply level up when the DM feels like it.
Ironically, I feel like the milestone system is much more arbitrary and much more corrosive to the hobby. Milestone levels are that kind of pet on the head for 'congratulations, you showed up' reward that leads to a phenomenon called 'overjustification'. Overjustification occurs when the internal motivation of a player (or human being) is accompanied with an external reward. The classic example is two groups of children who are told to draw. One group is rewarded with candy and praise for every drawing they complete and the other is rewarded only with praise. The group who receives candy lose their motivation to draw when they stop receiving candies, while the other internalizes the praise and fun of it.
I've seen many players show up at the table for the fantasy of leveling up. They enjoy the story, but there is this thing in the back of their mind where they want to level up and are frustrated when they don't get it. Of course, we're all adults, so we know that leveling up is not the point, but it is still affecting play.
Conversely, XP rewards cause 'instrumentalization'; if you receive feedback for doing something specific, you are inclined to internalize the source of the feedback as your motivation rather than what you went into the hobby for. AI ends up pursuing instrumental goals over their stated goals, because they know the instrumental goals will get them to their stated goals faster in theory.
Instrumentalization is, however, not immediately going to lead to overjustification. Just like we are adults about levels, we are adults about XP. In Pendragon, progress is measured in more than one way; you receive glory for your deeds (good and bad) and you receive experience checks for succeeding notable rolls. Through instrumentalization, these two reward systems invite you to make enemies (thereby allowing you to fight them chivalrously) and to take risks (since success is not guaranteed). And these result in your character getting stronger; for some reason, simply being more (in)famous can allow you to become more physically healthy, ensuring your knight's story can endure a little longer. They will die eventually, but unlike hero points in D&D, this kind of benny-system invites players to take more risks and to allow themselves to fail, because they're going to get glory one way or the other.
In Blood Feud, finally, there's a whole economy for gaining and spending your metacurrency called honor points. If you fail to stake more honor, you will lose all the honor points you had invested and cede them to another player. The goal of the game is to get more honor, but the players know, explicitly, that this is going to cause problems for their characters.
So I disagree that these currencies are by definition going to be worse. Just like many systems, we think these things don't work because we've moved the goal posts so much in the past decades that the mechanics no longer fit their original purpose and just kind of hang around. Alignment and milestone XP are zombie mechanics, I'd describe them as.
great vid, almost totally agree
i hate it when meta currencies "support roleplay". No, they support power gaming, giving the player enjoyment from BONUSES for roleplay, not roleplay itself. Even exp, like you pointed out, is also meta-currency, a countable reward. How is a character supposed to learn how to communicate with his god by killing more enemies and completing more quests? Let the player just choose what they want to be able to do - and do it gradually in freeplay, or as a different phase of game, or something like that (preferrably without breaking balance, but that's another issue). I have yet to see a game system that does this trick. Blades in the Dark and Heart City Beneath are kind of half there (i just need to combine the clock and the "advancement for actions" mechanics). To me, this thought came so naturally... Well, gonna have to implement it in my system (fat chance but imma take it). No meta-currencies, no exp or even hp, based on pure choice and consequence (ideally)
P.S. milestone advancement in dnd can be sort of a solution: you just go up in power after an important plot point, but there has to be a break before the start of the next plot point. Like, "you worked hard, now we do a time skip for a month, in game of course, during which your characters will be doing something that allows them to gain abilities described in the book. Please tell what your characters do during this month, briefly". But if players hit a milestone, gain new abilites and start using them TOMORROW, it just isn't roleplay anymore - it's a bad script. I've been there, inexpirienced GM that i am, and I wish i had ruled differently. Time skips are always good, by the way, helps build a more meaningful pace) at least in long campaigns
your delineation of fun vs rewarding is epic and legend tier. I think that everyone is here to have "fun" but the "why" and root cause of what drives people to Role Play based games where there is no "winning the game" speaks volumes about people that often haven't delineated the difference between fun and rewarding and that games like 5e have a blunt opportunity to show them that nuance and amazing open door to possibility that Happiness isn't necessarily the goal and that doing things because that they are morally or ethically rewarding supersede "fun" as far as total life satisfaction. Not to mention the idea that great storytelling will ALWAYS be about consequences and not subverting the constraints of the consequences in the world in which a story is told
I would agree... teach it, and like mentioned below, model it... whatever it is you want at your table (as a GM) you have to model it, do it, demonstrate it, etc... Give me a brand new player that wants to learn what role-playing is and how to role-play over an experienced player that "knows" everything. You can teach how, but the want... I think that's up to the player.
I agree with your sentiment, I do however enjoy playing games that reward (usually with experience points) players bringing in their characters bonds, flaws, backgrounds, etc into the session... it doesn't necessarily have to be in first person role-play, but at least it can get them thinking about how the player can incorporate parts of their character sheet that may not get much attention and I know some that depends on the system
I do like to reward players... and as you said, consequences from players autonomy are what makes the game memorable... along with success/killing blows/"how do you want to do this"... on a side note, I've been thinking more about how to make games more proactive for the players instead of reactive. Players are always responding/reacting, allowing the players to have more input seems to help create proactive role-play where the "world" is reacting to what the PCs are doing.
I think you comment is beautiful. I let my players create parts of the world. Many times I ask them, what would be consequences of your action?
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Alicia from Sweden.
I agree with your statement around meta currency. Without consequences, actions don't have tension. Without tension, roleplay had no stakes. Without stakes, it is impossible to create engagement. Thank you for the thought provoking videos!
Thank you so much Matt!
Also, I really liked your t-shirt!
Sincerely,
Alicia.
Well said as always. With the 4D gang, it's nice to finally have a selection of players now that we never had before. We can have the full-roleplay experience without searching high and low trying to find those players that want THIS. (and have live-video examples of this style to pull from)
Once you have all 'Roleplayers' in your group, the play and flow of the game itself is satisfying, and a lot of players really get into-it. The players play with the freedom of knowing their turn won't be re-written by the GM, or their action won't be re-directed by the GM... or hand-waved by the GM to shortcut a scene.
Often I'll put on a practice for new people, and they are at-first worried and wondering if they are co-creating too much, they are coming to terms with their newfound freedom. I do reply (after-session) that my goal in the practice is to see how they use the power of adding to the scene and I have no intentions of saying "No you cannot do that"
The Freedom and the realization of freedom itself is reward.
Very well said.
These are really interesting points, and I completely agree that roleplay is central to the experience. If I understand you correctly, you're highlighting two opposing perspectives, and you seem to lean more towards the roleplay side, which I find compelling. That said, would you agree that this is more of a spectrum, with positions ranging from one extreme to the other, including various blended approaches? For example, in Fate, the metacurrency isn't just plot armor but rather a tool to balance risk, reward, and consequences, ultimately enhancing roleplay. It allows players to shape the story of their character, much like your tea kettle analogy-empowering them to tell the story they want, rather than relying solely on the GM's narrative.
I've tried to, as you say, "teach players to want to roleplay" for about 5 years. Gave up for the third time this year. So I'm staunchly in the "nope" camp. We've played a few long campaigns and many one shots, different systems and settings. I was trying to find some genre, some rules system, something that would make them really get into it and become infatuated with playing RPGs... but I've realised there's no game that would change them, no technique I could use to turn them into roleplayers. So I've just taken a break and now we get together and chat, and I play RPGs online with people that share my interests. I'm a lot more content now.
Very interesting video (as always). Made me think (as always). My thoughts regarding the meta-currencies part of the discussion: I agree they can be used as "dumb" get out of jail free cards, which can go against the notion of agency. But... even then, you have agency to use those tokens or not, being awarded only so many. Also, I find that, when well implemented, meta-currency can facilitate emulation. What is really the difference between giving a heroic character lots of HP or few HP but ways to survive against bad odds? Say you play as a pulpy Indiana Jones type character, you want them to be able to survive outrageous situations, and face overwhelming odds. Yet I could still see that character having to pay for their decisions at the end of the day, reaping we reward of the player's choices. Meta-currencies or not.
Again, maybe meta-currencies come in too many shapes and form to make blanket statements about them.
Great video, interestingly I think meta currencies are best used to make the life of the character harder to exactly getting more emotionally rewarding play out of them. Hell, that is why I abandoned that paradigm of competency focused play altogether in my design and go just for the drama and outright tragedies.
There's so much content about GMs incentivizing their players, but I take issue with it because it makes GMing seem like a job that should be remunerated rather than a role in a game. Happy to hear this perspective, where (adult) players ought to be coming to the table with their motivations already aligned 😂
PF2E has a great Reputation subsystem you can use either openly or secretly. I use it openly in the game I run with my kids so that my son learns "fire breath" is not always the answer.
I guess I considered things like reputation to be an abstraction of the dispositions of a group of NPCs, a social stat the GM uses to role-play them. It represents something that exists in the world. Ideally, the players would be able to work out their reputation from interactions with NPCs, but having the number available for the players to look at certainly gives a very direct indication of consequence for action. It's almost like the players get to peek at the GM's character sheet, just like the GM gets to peek at the players'.
This would be different from say, _Darkness Points_ in _Coriolis_ that the GM 'spends' to make things harder for the players.
I don’t believe that when people say a good role-playing game should have mechanics that encourage good role-playing, they mean it should convince reluctant players to start loving the game. And although you group reluctant and "bad" role-players together, I think they shouldn’t be in the same category. The idea is that by highlighting and rewarding aspects of role-play through encouraging mechanics, it not only teaches what good role-play looks like but also promotes it. There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to role-play in a game that doesn’t care about your character at all.
Anyway, that’s a different rabbit hole. I think great, or even just good, role-playing is hard. Putting your mind into another's shoes, with different formative experiences, and figuring out how those experiences should affect choices made in the game world, are not simple tasks. That’s why so many of us end up playing with just a couple of tropey things and mostly superficial characteristics.
In my opinion, any rules, systems, or rewards that make it easier for any "bad" role-player to think about the deeper aspects of characters, play to their flaws, and engage in opportunities when others are doing the same are all good and useful-even if they are codified as a meta-currency.
I wouldn't group 'bad' and 'reluctant' in the same group either, they're only similar in that meta-currencies are often designed to solve both problems. I'd say recognising and encouraging good role-play is a great thing to do, but I'd prefer we find a way to do it without having to break character, or create possible tensions between player motivations and character motivations.
To reuse my music metaphor, if we get to the end of a song, and someone did a great job, well, we say 'hey, great job!' After an RPG session and we talk about what happened, what went well, what didn't, all of that comes out, but without the artifice of coding it into points (which are often at a pretty arbitrary whim of the GM).
@@TheTombofLimeGaming While designing my game, I always keep a design mantra in the back of my head to ensure the game encourages-and doesn't inadvertently punish-behaviors I find rewarding, like creative collaboration. From this conversation, I will add 'encourage players to stay in character' and 'prevent motivational rifts between players and their characters' to that mantra. Thanks for another thought-provoking video.
@@TheTombofLimeGaming
I think that's a playstyle thing though. I would hazard to say most roleplaying groups break character frequently so the main concern is what does it do at the table and, the best implementations I've seen are where the players cash in metacurrency to add details, complications, etc to their character's story. Basically, in it's best form metacurrency helps shift influence over the world from a GM only responsibility to also include the ideas that are the most important to each player.
So really in the end whether it's good game design depends how much power your players should have over the world to make the story work. For a dungeon crawler, probably a mistake. but, for a game focused on collaboration and building a world out together? It can be a natural fit to give players a mechanic to paint their own parts of the canvas of the game.
Also, I just disagree that rewarding players for doing something that is the goal we all came to the table is bad game design. You can encourage something without it being a trick or ruse to get your players to play something they don't want to do. As someone who enjoys mechanical crunch and a good story nothing feels better than when a game manages to marry mechanics with its flavor/theming. Like, when a Paladin gives a dramatic speech about sending a lich back to hell before smiting him with the power of her god. That's the good stuff. Yes, it was a good narrative beat but the game also propped up the moment mechanically and that, personally is when I feel the best about giving my players a good time.
Good stuff, Matt. Same page.
I've never liked meta-currencies for all of those reasons. Like you said you can't teach a desire to someone, and if you "train" them to desire something through reward you're just training them to optimize for that reward.
That's where I think most games that reward character behaviors with XP have awkward moments where your character wouldn't do a thing but the system incentivize you to do it anyway.
I am curious as to where you define the definition of metacurrency vs in-world abstraction with regards to a concept like 'luck points'. While it is something that the character 'has' (as in they are lucky in some regard), it is the player who chooses to spend those luck points. Just curious to see if you would categorize that in the same way as story points or if it fits in the nebulous abstraction of something like XP.
How's this: when we roll dice, that's luck, and any modifiers that mean the characters' attributes reduce the amount of randomness that determines the result reduce luck as a factor. 'Luck points,' then reduce luck as a factor even more! They should be called non-luck points!
I jest, but I'm not even sure what 'being lucky' looks like, except that we have continued success against the odds, which can happen naturally. Your character is lucky if you roll well.
A 'talent' (read: feat) that came over from the SRD from the game I've been working on was called 'Lucky' and it allowed you to re-roll critical injuries. For the sake of XP I started linking all the 'talents' to certain attributes and faced a problem: which attribute does luck best link to? Wits? Empathy? In the end, I linked the talent to Strength and called it 'Tougher Than I Look,' (or something similar) instead of 'Lucky,' because it makes just as much sense that injuries are linked to that attribute instead of something as arbitrary as luck.
So I don't know, maybe luck points are just 'get out of consequence' points. I might have to think about that one a bit more deeply.
Yea, I've never liked meta currency.
What I do like is the feeling of being able to try anything.
But this is often missed by the referee, not thinking outside the box of rules, or players not looking outside the character sheet, or all us not using our imaginations.
Rpg games are built on the foundation of tactical infinity, a term coined from wargames with the introduction of a referee.
The freedom of the Player Characters to attempt any tactic to solve a problem, subject to the adjudication of the Game Master.
I think it depends on the game. For example, if the campaign is about Greek gods where players are the children of gods it makes sense to have some meta currency as their parents intervene. So it’s a mechanic to reflect this.
In that case, it seems the currency is in-universe, representing something that exists there, divine power. Sounds like a magic system!
@@TheTombofLimeGaming I do otherwise agree with your points (for what it’s worth). I use to use meta-currency regularly (ever since I read about them in 1e warhammer fantasy). But more recently (10 years or so) I’ve avoided them unless they made sense for the particular campaign/setting.
Aug 18, 2024 Shonner uploaded a good favorable critical thought response video concurring with you before he passed on . R.I.P. Shonner. He recommended your channel. I hope you appreciate his work. Thank You. I hope you got a chance to appreciate that response video by now.
I stand on the shoulders of giants. Shonner taught me a lot - it was a tough pill to swallow to find out how poor a role-player I was before, but he was always very encouraging toward me. There was much more I wished I could have asked him! R.I.P.
Your video gave me a lot to think about, but not a lot to agree with.
You say “if you are there to socialize then go play a party game”, this is way off base. Socializing is often the reason ttrpg groups form and the reason they stay together. I’d say if you are not playing a ttrpg to (at least in part) socialize, then maybe you should go play a video game. - and maybe online ttrpg are really just multiplayer video games.
Meta currency can be problematic but there are plenty of games that don’t use them- if you hate meta currencies, play one of those. Your argument that they shouldn’t be used because your character isn’t using them is a bit contrived. There are plenty of activities at the table that the character isn’t doing, but that is part of the game.
The word I want to mention is “game”. That is the “g” in ttrpg. Not “story”, not “art”, not “therapy”, but “game”. If you are rejecting the game part of ttrpg the. You are engaging in a different activity. That’s fine, if that’s what your group wants to do.
Was gonna say, you could just as easily turn it around and say to all those people concerned so much about role-playing "do freeform RP instead, why are you even bothering with the game part".
I don't subscribe to it because this gatekeeper attitude is dumb, but all these arguments kinda fall apart just based on the fact that this type of play is not where the hobby started and appeals only to a subgroup of RPG community.
Listen again to what he says from 4:06 .
You seem to be misunderstanding his message. As far as I see it, he is merely suggesting that someone might find playing a game other than a roleplaying game to memorize rewarding, if they have socializing as their highest priority.
@@monomakes It is however a stupid argument because it assumes that metacurrencies are used to "trick" unwilling people into roleplaying, that they otherwise despise and are only dragged through by the insistent GM.
Which is an absolutely dumb take that doesn't match how those games play out, but he's just so obsessed with this "martyrdom" of "true roleplaying" that as soon as you use anything to assist it, approach it more casually or have a different definition of what roleplay is, he just defaults to "you should play board games instead", not just in this video.
'“If you are there to socialize then go play a party game,”' is certainly not what was meant by what I said! Rather that if socialising is the _primary_ reason you are there, then you will be best served by a game that facilitates that. Like I said, 'RPGs are social,' so socialising is definitely one of the reasons I engage in this particular kind of game, but it's not the _main_ reason I would play a _role-playing_ game, _in particular._ That would be: _role-playing._
Likewise, I wouldn't want to reject the gaming aspect either, it's just that... well, if I wanted a balanced competitive gaming experience, would I really choose a game where the GM can just front load encounters with indestructible monsters, or conversely, a GM that (secretly?) wants me to win? I love RPGs but I do not think they are the best vehicle for _gamist_ tendencies. And when _I_ get those tendencies, _I_ play other things!
RPGs have a little bit of lots of things in them, but I feel that role-playing games are the absolute best vehicle for role-playing, and suboptimal for the other things. Players of any game will have more satisfying experiences if their goals are aligned with that of the other players and with that of the game, surely.
Anyway, I'm interested in what the 'plenty of activities at the table that the character isn’t doing, but that is part of the game,' that you're referring to. While I'm playing an RPG, I'm focussed on my character, and anything else I do (rolling dice?) is just to facilitate that. In any case, I'd want to keep non-role-play stuff to a minimum while I'm role-playing, 'cause role-playing is what I'm there to do!
Fate is a Game I don't really like. It's a game in which you spend Fate Points to make colourful traits of your character (or other characters, or of the situation itself) have a mechanical effect (they always have a fictional effect). You gain them when they get your character in trouble. The economy is utterly un-fun, but most people are amazed at how it makes players actually take their character traits seriously and "actually roleplay and be creative". To me, it seems like a paywall to have the mechanics match the fiction, instead of a way to incentivize roleplaying.
By your premise, all my problem with fate points would be adressed if they represented something the character is in control or aware of. So the problems would be solved if I change the name to "Drive Points" and say they represent my character's drive to do stuff better, and they recover them by surrendering to their quirks (which usually gets them in trouble). Because then, every time I spend or gain a Drive Point, I'm roleplaying my character. Which... I don't really follow.
You can say the word for "turd" is "rose", but it won't keep it from smelling bad.
My endorsement of in-world abstractions was not a carte blanche for any abstraction so long as it wasn't meta, but rather that being _in-world_ was the _minimum requirement;_ not that it would solve _all_ your problems... but that it would solve _one_ problem! Good game design doesn't end there, it starts there!
Recall how earlier in the video I mention that what you abstract and what you leave granular tells you something about what your game is about? Well, one of the most important things you _don't_ want to abstract away from the player in a role-playing game is the role-playing. If playing a role involves making decisions for your character then you don't want to take that away from the players, and if Drive Points do that, they probably shouldn't be part of a _role-playing game._
The thing is that Drive Points don't take away agency from players. We can certainly ignore them and the game still works. The thing is that Drive Points facilitate some tough rolls (and it makes in-world sense, if you call them Drive Points), and thus it makes the players have more agency. Do I let my anger issues take the better of me (thus, gaining a DP and getting into trouble), or do I try to control them (thus, paying a DP)? Do I want to emotionally invest in this task (thus, paying a DP) to get it done, or do I detach myself and trust my luck (thus, not paying amnor gaining anything)? With the lens of what's in-world and what's not, DP should be the ultimate game design tool. And yet, in the table, to me and the other players, that currency is taking away some of the fun (or all of it, in my case). It IS still currency, in your terms, because it's not "meta". The only way to explain why it doesn't work needs to take into account of what happens outside of the fiction, i.e.: out-world. If we go there, it's actually clear that while it doesn't take away from _character's_ agency while it does serves a purpose (limiting ourselves to their fictional perspective, to what is available diegetically), it does not serve any purpose to the _players_ (i.e.: if we take into account meta-gaming considerations). It's specially worse if the GM ask for rolls to get out of the trouble your character made for himself when giving in to their worst traits. Let me illustrate: my PC wants to save a City from danger (Problem A). But he feels somewhat low on motivation (i.e.: I have too few DP). He still endures and try to prepare, but he has some anger issues, and I tell the GM that he's gonna give in to them, to get a DP (diegetically, engaging in their anger issues lets them steam off and begin with fresh motivation, translating that to DPs in the player-world). As a result, my PC breaks some stuff from the preparation, and, logically, that makes noise, and someone comes to investigate, and maybe they'll tell the ones endangering the city. Now we have a Problem B. To actually get to a position in which he can try and solve Problem A, my PC needs to first deal with Problem B. If the GM ask for a roll, I'll probably have to pay my recently-gained DP to solve Problem B. In the end, if that happens, he still felt the same demotivation, because their steming off caused a new problem. All is exciting in the fiction, and makes sense, but as players, it felt very much as just filler, a zum-0 game that advanced nothing, that introduced some nice details which weren't at all necessary nor fun in any sort of way. It wasn't enjoyable for me as a player, and I think it has NOTHING to do with the diegesis, the in-world, the fiction. It has all to do with my (as a _player_) investment in the game, which, if I'm correct, has toninclude more than just "roleplaying my character, being immersed in my character".
The only option you have to explain it (if I'm not missing anything, which may very well be the case) is that I'm actually not roleplaying, but playing a different sort of game, not about roleplaying. OK then, we may disagree on the definition of RPG, but if you actually respond that, I challenge you to either (a) explain, using your conceptual framework, why DPs don't work, despite being consequential and agency-enablers fiction-wise, or (b) say that they actually work if one actually wants to roleplay, and then try using them and reporting if you had any sort of fun.
(Of course, you don't need to follow my challenge, but I enjoy this kinds of debates, and if you do, it may be fun for us both.)
I supposed you won't be fan of Chronicles of Darkness beats system? your xp progression is ties to certain goals you set for your character, not always positive things.
+1
I understand your pov but I disagree. Xp triggers for role playing in our game of Blades in the Dark have been useful tools.
I disagree with your opinion. Fate has a wonderful meta currency system the fact is it incentivizes role-playing in a different way than normal. Compels drive the narrative a different way the same way or even more the dice do. In any other game that doesn't have similar mechanic you won't feel rewarded the same way for doing something bad for your character or the party
Hmm. I'm not familiar with how Fate handles it specifically, but if you _only_ feel rewarded when you role-play your character _if_ the game rewards it mechanically, then is role-playing really what you wanted to do here?
I would say that I didn't need that kind of reward, because I find inhabiting a character in a shared imaginary world (including, yes, doing something 'bad' for your character or the party) a reward unto itself, much like the creation of a song is the reward for a group of musicians playing their instruments well. I don't need a meta-currency to be rewarded for making music, so if role-playing is as worthwhile an activity as something like that, then I'm not sure I need a meta-currency to reward me for role-playing either.
@@TheTombofLimeGaming the fact is RPGs are not only role-playing, but also are games and reward mechanics are inherently tied with the later. The overlap between games and role-play is the strongest point of RPGs. Meta currencies tie together mechanics of the game and the narrative. Having to write something down onto your character sheet because of the decision you made feels empowering and makes you want more
@@Whrait72 This is a great point, I wish I'd thought about it before I posted the video, because video games have a very similar dichotomy and I would have used this an example!
Consider a video game where if you defeat an enemy, there's a fanfare, a shiny gold _100PTS_ appears above your character's head and it adds to that game's meta-currency: your score. These elements are exactly as you describe, they feel 'empowering and makes you want more.' They're a dopamine hit that tie together the mechanics of the game and your activity in it.
Now consider a game like _The Last of Us,_ in a tense and emotional moment an innocent young girl is forced to brutally take a human life for the first time. No fanfare, no _100PTS,_ no High Score, no meta-currency. _The Last of Us_ doesn't need those things because the experience of playing the game itself is rewarding enough. The idea that _The Last of Us_ is somehow less of a game than, say, _Pacman_ because it doesn't have meta-currencies as reward mechanics is pretty silly. In fact I'd say that not only would those kinds of mechanics not make _The Last of Us_ better, they would *ruin* the experience, making it less immersive, verisimilitudinous and impactful.
If reward mechanics are inherently tied to games, that's fine, but the idea that RPGs needs something as superficial and extraneous as fate points to _be_ games, or _be_ rewarding underestimates the potential that RPGs have, and how rewarding role-playing can be in its own right.
@@TheTombofLimeGaming The meta currencies are not some score from video games. Continuing on example of fate points, they are intrisic to how the game operates, it is the fuel that drives both the game and narrative. In the fate game it is assumed that the players would get compelled for something bad to happen to their characters either by the GM or by the player themself, but in return they would get fate points, think of them like story beats. Like in the good action film the character is the strongest by the end of it, beaten, exhausted and broken. From the simulationist stand point that makes no sense, but it's good for the overall story layout. Getting beaten and broken in Fate makes you accumulate Fate points, that the player can dump at the important point and seize the victory from the futile position. And it feels earned because characters strugled get them. Well done meta currencies in RPGs don't just work as a reward, but are inherent to how game operates
@@Whrait72 I think it's telling that you say that this meta-currency 'is the fuel that drives both the game and the narrative', because I would say that in a role-playing game it should be the characters that drive the game and the narrative.
A good character will have goals and motivations and these will compel the risks they take and the actions you describe. Worse than being redundant, Fate Points then also ask the player to do the calculations 'will this action earn me a point?' and 'is this risk worth the point?' These aren't the characters concerns, so at that point you aren't role-playing, you're playing the Fate Point meta-game.
And all this in service of imposing the GM's (or players?) trite notions of 'good... overall story layout.' If story is the concern, I suppose this serves, but if it's agency and consequence, which I think are integral to role-play in particular, then I'd say they don't serve. If I make decisions that get the character into a 'futile position,' I will accept them, rather than going in knowing that I have the power of _deus ex machina_ to save me. Consequences don't make a _bad story,_ and winning doesn't make a good one. It's cheap dopamine and you get what you pay for.
I've never seen an action movie where the protagonist takes risks because they'll get meta-points for it (excepting, perhaps Scott Pilgrim and Wreck-It Ralph)! Movie characters tend to do stuff because of their goals an motivations (and good role-players will too)!
Whenever you read impotent screeching of "GaTeKeEpInG" in the comments, you know the content is interesting.