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Fenhorn
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Re: Willpower farming by sport

Sun 04 May 2025, 21:10

There is no WP farming in this game. A player that tries to do something for the only reason to farm WP, is a big no no. There is no, "what if the player say this or that", there is no WP farming, period. A player that wants to do some nonsens things like jumping for himself for no reasons should be treated with the cold hand. It is the GM that decides when to roll for a skill roll or not. If a player wants to do an action that actually has an in-game purpose, then there might be a skill roll involved or the GM can just say that the action succeeds without a roll if he thinks that the scene is not that important.

To the player that say that he wants to jump, I would just say that, "sure, you spend a couple of hours jumping, what does the rest of you wants to do?" and that's it. The jumping in this case has no other meaning than for meta-gaming. If the player have problems with this and doesn't understand that there is no meta-gaming in this game, I would have a serious talk with the player and if he doesn't accept it, then this game is not for him.
"Thanks for noticing' me." - Eeyore
 
Boamvndvs
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Re: Willpower farming by sport

Sun 04 May 2025, 21:48

There is no WP farming in this game.
I am not sure what you mean by there "is no" farming. If you mean there "should be no" WP farming, we agree, and thank you for your input on how to deal with it.
 
Boamvndvs
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Re: Willpower farming by sport

Sun 04 May 2025, 22:21

To the player that say that he wants to jump, I would just say that, "sure, you spend a couple of hours jumping, what does the rest of you wants to do?" and that's it.
By the way the player will respond: "No, wait! You misunderstood me. I didn't want to jump for hours. Just a single eight meter jump. Did I make it?"
 
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Fenhorn
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Re: Willpower farming by sport

Sun 04 May 2025, 23:17

To the player that say that he wants to jump, I would just say that, "sure, you spend a couple of hours jumping, what does the rest of you wants to do?" and that's it.
By the way the player will respond: "No, wait! You misunderstood me. I didn't want to jump for hours. Just a single eight meter jump. Did I make it?"
That's still meta-gaming because the reason he wants to do it is to push a skill roll in a safe environment to earn easy WP for no effort, not to jump 8m. If he say that it is some sort of training, then I would say that this game doesn't have that kind of training. In this game you earn XP that you can spend increasing XP. There is a specific list how to earn XP. The only XP question that could be called for here would be
Did you perform an extraordinary action of some kind?
To do a long jump where failure has no consequence is not extraordinary. To do a jump over a 8m chasm is another thing. This calls for a skill roll because it is both very dramatic and is a tough challenge. This chasm jump, I would probably give a formidable difficulty (-3) move skill roll. The Art of Failure is obvious, you fall down. If this is not the end of the adventure, the GM might call for a failing forward if he fails, like he manage to stop his fall a bit down, taking a critical injury, but he is at least not dead. Also worth mentioning here in my example is that if the player actually succeed this -3 skill roll on his initial roll, he can't push it since pushing would have no further effect. In the end of the session I would accept this as an "extraordinary action of some kind" and he will get an XP.

If the player insists of doing a long jump just by the camp with the only meaning of failure is that he only jumps 4m instead of 8m. I wouldn't allow that kind of skill roll because it has no meaning in the game, other than a meta-gaming reason. To the player I would just say "sure, you jump 4m" without any skill rolls or anything or I could even say "congrats, you jump 8m" but I still wouldn't allow any skill roll because there is no consequence for failing. I would also tell the player that if he just plays the game he will get WP naturally.

WP represent your inner strength, your Ki if you will, something that you get when you are pushing yourself to the limit of your abilities or when visiting a shrine, not by doing some exercises just to see how long you can jump, measuring distance with twigs.

It all comes back to the GM. If the GM thinks that this kind of skill rolls are ok, then they are ok. It is not in the spirit of the game, but it is common to tweak and house rule RPGs to your liking. I just told you what the idea of the game is. Change it if you like. It is not a big deal. Personally, I would think the game would be boring because the players would just do nonsens skill rolls during the days back inte a settlement where they can sleep safely in an inn at night until they all have earned 10 WP.
"Thanks for noticing' me." - Eeyore
 
Boamvndvs
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Re: Willpower farming by sport

Mon 05 May 2025, 07:29

[...] then I would say that this game doesn't have that kind of training.
All right, so a solution like

5) don't accept actions that have no in-game motivation.

Personally I feel obliged to let the characters do (or at least try) anything they want, and I feel it is "illegal" to question their motives, but this thread is about collecting solution proposals, not shooting them down, so your suggestion is noted.
If the player insists of doing a long jump just by the camp with the only meaning of failure is that he only jumps 4m instead of 8m. I wouldn't allow that kind of skill roll because it has no meaning in the game, other than a meta-gaming reason. To the player I would just say "sure, you jump 4m" without any skill rolls or anything or I could even say "congrats, you jump 8m" but I still wouldn't allow any skill roll because there is no consequence for failing.
OK. That would be

4) refuse to make the player roll for undramatic actions. Instead roll yourself or decide the result.
Personally, I would think the game would be boring because the players would just do nonsens skill rolls during the days back inte a settlement where they can sleep safely in an inn at night until they all have earned 10 WP.
I agree, and I also do not want to pay out the WP. The purpose of this thread is to find the best principle (or rule if you will) that explains why no WP is obtained.
 
JohanR
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Re: Willpower farming by sport

Mon 05 May 2025, 08:41

An alternative house rule, that worked out for us, was to run the rules as written, but after a session (when handling out XP) then WP moves towards a low set threshold.
Using a formula like (current WP + threshold)/2, round any .5 fractions towards threshold. This removed incentives for WP farming enough to remove it as a metagame from my group. It also added the benefit of adding extra incentives to spend WP and not just hoard it.

So lets say the threshold is 2. After a session if you end up with 5 WP. (2+5)/2=3.5, next session you begin play with 3 WP. If you ended on zero, next session you start with (0+2)/2=1 WP.

If you end the session in a dangerous environment, feel free to delay this WP modifier to after that is resolved, if you feel your players may want to exploit ending a session early just to gain fresh WPs.

I wrote more about this in my collection of house rules "Reforged Power", it also tries to give some input in why or why not certain house rules can be good or bad. Those rules can be found on drivethrurpg. The entire player's book part is previewable, see page 10 for this rule.

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