Epistemic status: Trying to make vague rambling gestures at the sort of thing I would ideally like to find inside the data in one of these scenarios. Probably comes off to some extent as rude backseating of the author, I apologize for that but promise that no rudeness is intended.
The synergies/anti-synergies in this example arose mostly from ad-hoc things: ‘Shapeshifting plus Sociopath is an extra +4, while Shapeshifting plus Otaku is an extra +5.’
The way I would ideally like the under-the-hood generation to work would be to have some kind of actual world modelfrom which these synergies arise.
So imagine a world model that looks something like this:
A Hero will face four challenges en route to victory:
The Demon King will try to assassinate them while they are still weak.
They will need to rally followers behind them and build a power base.
The Demon King will try to kill their Fated True Love and drive them to despair.
They will gather their forces and march to siege the Demon Castle and gain victory.
Each challenge is implemented by rolling 2d10, and the challenge is passed if the hero rolls >8. So a hero with no traits and no cheat power has a ~2/3 chance of winning each challenge and a ~1/4 chance of winning overall.
Monstrous Strength or Anomalous Agility makes you automatically pass Challenge 1 (you are nearly impossible to assassinate).
Barrier Conjuration applies +3 to both Challenge 1 and Challenge 3 (barriers can protect both you and your Fated True Love).
Radiant Splendor makes you automatically pass Challenge 2 (very easy to convince people).
Rapid XP Gain applies +1 to Challenge 2, +2 to Challenge 3 and +3 to Challenge 4 (you grow stronger over time).
Sociopaths automatically pass Challenge 3 (since they will not be driven to despair even if their True Love dies).
Nerds automatically pass Challenge 4 (since once they are established they can make machine guns and tanks and so on).
Hikkikomori have a −3 penalty to Challenge 2 (they are bad at talking to people).
...and so on...
There would be a lot of interactions in this world model:
Monstrous Strength and Anomalous Agility would work very badly together, and quite badly with Barrier Conjuration, as they would point at the same problems.
Sociopaths would get less benefit out of Barrier Conjuration, as part of its benefit would be pointed at something they already passed automatically.
Similarly, Nerds would get less benefit out of Rapid XP Gain.
Radiant Splendor would be very good for Hikkikomori, who need to deal with their problems in Challenge 2.
Rapid XP Gain would work well with one of the defense powers that helped in Challenge 1, as it would help with everything else.
...and so on...
But these interactions wouldn’t arise from explicitly saying ‘Sociopaths get less benefit out of Barrier Conjuration’. Rather they would arise...naturally? organically?...out of a set of general rules. And I feel in some fuzzy way I can’t quite describe that this would be...a better way of modeling things? A model that fits together better under the hood? Mumble mumble emergent behavior? Even if players aren’t likely to actually reconstruct the full data model, I feel like this is in some way a more honest way of generating the data than having ad-hoc synergies and antisynergies?
Again, this isn’t intended as criticism—I like the scenario, and I don’t in fact think that I’ve done a good job of having a clean underlying data model in scenarios I’ve written. I’m just trying to convey this sort-of-hand-wavy concept of ‘the synergies exist inside a model’ rather than ‘the synergies are glued onto the outside’.
Epistemic status: Trying to make vague rambling gestures at the sort of thing I would ideally like to find inside the data in one of these scenarios. Probably comes off to some extent as rude backseating of the author, I apologize for that but promise that no rudeness is intended.
The synergies/anti-synergies in this example arose mostly from ad-hoc things: ‘Shapeshifting plus Sociopath is an extra +4, while Shapeshifting plus Otaku is an extra +5.’
The way I would ideally like the under-the-hood generation to work would be to have some kind of actual world model from which these synergies arise.
So imagine a world model that looks something like this:
There would be a lot of interactions in this world model:
Monstrous Strength and Anomalous Agility would work very badly together, and quite badly with Barrier Conjuration, as they would point at the same problems.
Sociopaths would get less benefit out of Barrier Conjuration, as part of its benefit would be pointed at something they already passed automatically.
Similarly, Nerds would get less benefit out of Rapid XP Gain.
Radiant Splendor would be very good for Hikkikomori, who need to deal with their problems in Challenge 2.
Rapid XP Gain would work well with one of the defense powers that helped in Challenge 1, as it would help with everything else.
...and so on...
But these interactions wouldn’t arise from explicitly saying ‘Sociopaths get less benefit out of Barrier Conjuration’. Rather they would arise...naturally? organically?...out of a set of general rules. And I feel in some fuzzy way I can’t quite describe that this would be...a better way of modeling things? A model that fits together better under the hood? Mumble mumble emergent behavior? Even if players aren’t likely to actually reconstruct the full data model, I feel like this is in some way a more honest way of generating the data than having ad-hoc synergies and antisynergies?
Again, this isn’t intended as criticism—I like the scenario, and I don’t in fact think that I’ve done a good job of having a clean underlying data model in scenarios I’ve written. I’m just trying to convey this sort-of-hand-wavy concept of ‘the synergies exist inside a model’ rather than ‘the synergies are glued onto the outside’.