Last time, I settled on a system for generating Applause. The long and short of it, is that if you get the target number exactly, you crit, which gets you an Applause. If you get double the difficulty--you get double the Applause! Triple? Triple your Applause.
Which I'm very happy with! But what about Heckles? The GM can't just freely take Heckles now, because you only get Applause under specific circumstances, and unless everything is done during initiative, some players will simply never have a chance to take any of the available Applause.
I can do better than that!
Heckles should be generated under a specific circumstance--a critical failure! But how do you get a critical failure if you can game the system with Technique scores to get the exact number you need?
Finally, We Get to the Pooping!
This game IS called Nobody Poops on TV, after all, so it stands to reason that the real, physical needs of our flesh-and-blood actors will have SOME impact on the performances of their characters.
Because that's the two core concepts of the game:
- You are on a TV sitcom, AND
- You are a real person.
We've focused on the TV aspects pretty well in-depth, but that's not the entire premise of the game! The premise of the game is that you're a real person ON TV!
But before we get to all that, I just want to take a moment to discuss what "failure" means for a TV show. Actors memorise their lines meticulously, and rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse ad nauseum before they EVER get to the point that the cameras start rolling. So random chance is less of an issue than it would be for, say, a D&D character! There's no natural 1s in this game, so critical failures should be more the result of poor planning, instead of simply random chance.
What actors can't account for, on the other hand, are their bodies betraying them.
Their need to eat, sleep, shower, and use the bathroom, in other words.
One thing I've been toying with, is the idea that an actor and their role are two completely different entities, which together make up a character. Premade actors and premade roles will be two entirely different entities, which players can combine freely, in any way they wish.
And if roles have Talents and Motivations, then actors have Techniques and..........
........Needs!
A Need is something seen in The Sims, and even though I've moved more and more towards a treatise on filmmaking, rather than a pure life sim RPG, I still want to keep SOME of that Sims DNA in my final product. We have opposing attributes, we have learn-by-doing skills, and we have "having to go to the toilet".
So, what about failure?
Failure states are pretty common in The Sims games, tied to ones' Needs. The lower your Needs, the lower your Mood, and the lower your Mood, the more likely you are to fail. So, how can I replicate that?
Much like how Motivations are broken down into:
- Avoid Obligation vs. Do the Right Thing
- Be Correct vs. Admit Fault
- Seek Status vs. Be Charitable
- and Have it All vs. Find Contentment,
And Techniques are broken down into:
- Emotionality
- Precision
- Spontaneity
- and Cooperation,
Needs could be broken down into four statistics of their own:
Hunger is the statistic that determines when, and how much, an actor needs to eat.
In The Sims 2, eating food makes you less Hungry. Shocking stuff!
Toilet is, unsurprisingly, how often they need to go to the toilet.
This may come as a surprise to some, but using the toilet relieves your Bladder in The Sims 2.
Sleep is how much sleep they require,
ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz.........
and Fun is how mentally stimulated they are.
A pet cat needs enrichment, and so does a human being! And by having fun, their need for fun decreases.
...all classic Sims Needs that are true to my games' roots!
I could even break them down further--Physical Needs (Hunger vs. Toilet), where as one increases, the other decreases, and Mental Needs (Sleep vs. Fun), where the more stimulated you are, the less sleep you need, but the more bored you are, the more you want to go to bed.
There's other Needs in
The Sims; Comfort, Hygiene, Social, and Environment (depending on the game), but I don't know if I
need those Needs. Comfort? Hard to roleplay sitting in a chair. Environment is the same way. It's purely based on the GM's storytelling chops, I don't think that would be entirely fair on the players. Social? It's a roleplaying game, socialising is already baked in, and a character that isn't socialising isn't
playing. Hygiene
could work, but for the sake of symmetry I don't think it's
required.
Generating Heckles
The primary way I'll be generating Heckles is via resource management. Each player has a specific Need score, and as those deplete, you'll be adding more "failure dice" into your dice pools.
Think Vampire: The Masquerade's Hunger die.
In Vampire, you have two differently-coloured sets of d10; official sets use red and black. So let's say you normally use the black d10s. As your Hunger increases, you swap out a set number of black d10s for the red ones--these are Hunger dice. Getting a 10 on a Hunger die results in a Messy Critical; the vampire loses control, and the beast within gets what they want.
This is how I think Heckles should work, too: the more Heckle dice you have in your pool, the more the Audience starts to get to you. You can't concentrate on your performance, as you're hungry, or tired, or you need to pee, or you're just plain bored, and you can't give it your all anymore. You flub your lines, your jokes don't land, you do something unprofessional.
You fail your roll.
Failure is hard to come by in Nobody Poops on TV as you can cultivate your dice pool exactly how you want it, but when it DOES happen, the show gains a Cancellation Token.
And when you have nothing but Heckle dice, you're guaranteed to fail! This would be the classic Sims "my character pees themselves" event.
A critical failure, in other words.
Now, the part I'm struggling with is how to use these multiple Needs. With Techniques, Motivations, and Talents, a player chooses what's most important to them. With Needs, it's more instinctual.
I've got some ideas, and I'll have to tinker with them next time.
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