Did you read these posts? Over on his blog, Ryan Macklin wrote about what he calls use-whenever stats and why they don’t quite work for him:
Give me a situation and a generic approach, and I’ll make them fit. Which really means I have these three stats:
- d10 Be a successful-but-one-note character
- d8 Show a but more color to your character, at a penalty
- d6 Like I’m going to use this stat
This sparked a post from Dan Maruschak about emotional versus rational decision-making in RPG play, in which Maruschak considers the psychological aspects of the issue:
When one choice is obviously mechanically better then the rational part of the player’s brain will feel obligated to pick the most mechanically advantageous option, even if the emotional part of the brain thinks its an unsatisfying one. In my opinion, this kind of breakdown usually manifests as either one-note characters (if the player follows the obligation) or a reduced emotional connection to the game (since the the player is using emotional energy to deny the obligation and play the character “right”).
This is especially provocative to me, lately, because I’ve been playtesting a couple of games with widely applicable abilities—abilities that apply to certain plays based almost wholly on their fictional boundaries—and I’ve been considering the differences between pushing and pulling a player towards certain kinds of plays. It’s sometimes the difference between being enticing and being demanding, between procedure and provocation. Do you force a player-character to swing swords against shields first, or is that a strategy you make attractive through the interactions of abilities? Do you make attacks against armor or ennui mechanically identical but fictionally distinct? Is your audience invested enough in the fiction to make emotional decisions despite the rational consequences?
Can Forceful ever be as quick as Quick? What makes use-whenever stats equal versus making them identical? How much overlap can stats have in their Venn diagrams before they’re functionally interchangeable? I personally like stats to have a little overlap, to allow for creative play and multiple approaches to the same solution, but games with rigidly demarcated abilities are often tighter play experiences.
Want to fire a bow? That’s Dexterity. Want to swing a sword? That’s Strength. Without a feat, never shall they overlap. (In D&D, the overlap between Skills and other abilities is often up to the DM and often fluid.)
Want to Manipulate someone? That’s roll+hot. Manipulate someone with a show of force? To roll+hard and get a promise from someone might be a custom move—a bit of temporary overlap before the abilities snap back to their default positions. (In Apocalypse World, moves are practically mapped to hotkeys, though custom moves let you hotwire the whole thing.)
Anyway. I’m just thinking out loud right now.
Will,
I think that whenever you have no reason beyond the social pressure at the table to make a sub-optimal decision, you have a flawed game. So to me it’s not a “meh, this doesn’t work for me” but “this is shallow.” Because you haven’t cause to make that decision until you’ve worn out your welcome with your friends.
I’m fond of John Wick’s talk about how a rich game is one where there are not optimal decisions. Similarly, in D&D there’s less a decision and more a lever to pull — I want to shoot a dude, I know what lever I’m pulling to do that.
– Ryan
Ryan, can you give an example of a reason to make a sub-optimal decision?
Will,
Sure!
First of all, it helps if you remove all optimal choices, so you’re only left with sub-optimal ones. Life is filled with them. Do you keep your steady-paying job that you don’t like in a city you loathe, or do you do crazyhouse and move while becoming a freelancer at the same time. (An example from my life last year.)
Let’s say you have a game where you can carry an item for battle, you have three choices:
A spear that does +d10 to attack, +0 to defense
A sword that does +d6 to attack, +d4 to defense
A shield that does +1 to attack, +d8 to defense
There is no perfect choice.
Another route is to reward for the sub-optimal with a currency that is often, and maybe desperately, needed. Leverage already does this. Work in your Distinction positively, get a d8. Work it is as a determent, roll a d4. But for rolling that d4, you get a Plot Point, which you can use to get an edge later.
In a Wicked Age’s way of handling this is that if you roll lesser dice than another person, you get your name on the We Owe list, which you can either cross off for a bonus d6 or leave on to become a star character in the future.
But it also depends on your game. Is it a competence porn game? Then that’s different from a drama game, so the ways in which you present sub-optimal choices will be colored and affected differently.
Is that what you were looking for, Will?
– Ryan
It also occurs to me that John Harper’s Wildlings is a strong model for how to frame a game that could easily be use-anywhere, because the stats have no special additional impact on the game.
– Ryan
(This turned into a whole thing as I wrote it. Please forgive me as I ramble a bit; I’m thinking out loud here…)
That’s sort of what I was getting at: You had to restructure the question to get at your point. Those are not sub-optimal decisions you’re talking about, those are decisions with no optimal choices. (A sub-optimal decision implies that there is an optimal decision.) You know how I like games to provoke tough choices—and for RPGs to create choices with no one optimal option—so you know I like the no-optimal array of options in actual play. Then you can riff on the situations in which consequences of earlier choices are explored by engaging in situations in which that spear or that shield suddenly become valuable. Etc. etc.
I ask because I think you’re not getting to the heart of the issue, in your initial post on your site. You don’t want there to be an easy or optimal choice, and in the FAQ hack, each player has one easy-to-ID optimal choice: their d10 stat. Fair enough, I think that’s a sound criticism. (I’d argue that what FAQ does, in actual group play, is probably task the group with choosing which PC takes action, rather than which ability takes action, since each ability is presumably d10 to SOMEbody.)
But you’re also letting D&D off the hook in your initial comment. Why choose to shoot the target with a bow rather than hit it with an axe? (And when are you making that choice? During combat or during character creation? But that’s a whole other thing.)
The single most important job any GM can get good at, in my opinion (lately), is in finding and framing compelling choices for players. Sometimes the question is “Which ability do you use?” or the related question, “Which consequence do you want to deal with?” or “How do you want to hit him with your axe? Is it a brutal, screaming strike or something cold and dismissive or something else?” Then, you take the consequences of those choices and you make them matter in ways big or small—so that the game world or the fiction (or what have you) changes—and you keep that cycle going.
So, yes, FAQ reduces one area of choice into something shallower, but if the GM is on her game, she’ll be devising situations in which the Forceful approach (or whatever you’re using) isn’t as quick (or as quiet, or as impressive to the Mark, or whatever) as the Quick approach, no matter how broad you choose to play the Forceful angle. This may be temporarily confounding to you but it’s also creating a decision for the group, in an ideal scene—something like, “Can we get the Quick character down here?” or “Do we do it with Force anyway?”
The thing that makes the decision challenging or interesting or meaningful isn’t always in the very core mechanism. Sometimes that’s just the language the GM or the other players use to phrase and parse the challenges, which must be constructed like little game mechanisms during play. For some games and some players, this is a feature, not a bug.
Are very broad attributes subject to certain problems? Sure. Some groups either don’t mind those problems, don’t see them as problems, or rein them in through play style. The GM says, “Putting that shaped charge on the safe? That’s not Forceful or Quick—it’s got to be shaped just so.” It’s a design decision made on the fly for a very specific situation. Yes, it requires a GM to be designing or deciding on the fly. Some people like that. I do, sometimes.
Remember, your character isn’t at the heart of every choice, either. The question isn’t necessarily forcing you to use a sub-optimal trait any more than an NPC that needs to be healed is punishing you for not playing the party’s cleric.
I’m afraid this got very long; I think this question is fundamental to the design of game mechanics.
I tend to agree with Will in general; if there is a clear optimal choice, then the game is badly designed. This is, of course, just a broad general principle, and it has exceptions, but I think it’s a good general principle.
For example, in Ars Magica, Hermetic magi are the most powerful characters going, no question. However, they are very bad at social interactions. You can have a magus who is good at social stuff, but he has to give up his one Major Hermetic Virtue for it, which means that he’s going to be significantly weaker at magic than other magi.
Similarly, although Hermetic magi are more powerful than any other magical tradition, all the other traditions can do something interesting that magi simply can’t. Thus, for certain concepts, it is rational to play a member of a different tradition.
Of course, in a complex game, like Ars Magica, some things get through that are sub-optimal choices, but that is a failure of the design and a mistake. They are, at least, not obviously sub-optimal, and people still argue about them on the forums.
Shifting perspectives, if you want players to do something a lot, then doing that had better be mechanically beneficial. Hermetic magi are supposed to study in laboratories a lot, so the rules make that clearly the optimal choice, while giving near-infinite options for exactly what you do in the laboratory. On the other hand, D&D wizards may study in libraries a lot as background colour, but no-one would actually have a wizard character do that, because there is no benefit, and quite a substantial loss in most campaign styles.
One of the roles of game rules is to tell the players what behaviour is rewarded in the game world. I think carrots are better than sticks, because players feel happier when told “there’s a bonus for doing this!” than when told “you can’t do this!”. This is at the root of my dissatisfaction with general minimalist systems, I think. The rules don’t tell you anything; everything is supposed to be roleplayed. Minimalist systems can work for a specific task, of course, and I think the rules for Kagematsu work to drive that game.
I have to stop here, because I should be working on Ars Magica…
Will: Your comment above expresses my thoughts on the matter exactly! I don’t see the FAQ stats as use-whenever, since they have such distinct fictional triggers, results, and consequences. A forceful move isn’t quick or analytical — and that has meaning in the fiction.
I also agree that the GM calling for a particular approach to suit the fiction at hand doesn’t remove player choice at all. The player is free to choose any course of action they want for their character. Not getting to -also- choose any stat they want is not a hardship.
John,
I also agree that the GM calling for a particular approach to suit the fiction at hand doesn’t remove player choice at all.
I boggle at this notion. I truly do.
– Ryan
Will,
That’s sort of what I was getting at: You had to restructure the question to get at your point.
Or what you and I mean by “sub-optimal” isn’t the same, apparently. 🙂
But you’re also letting D&D off the hook in your initial comment. Why choose to shoot the target with a bow rather than hit it with an axe? (And when are you making that choice? During combat or during character creation? But that’s a whole other thing.)
Certainly not. There are a half-dozen circumstances that alter that decision. Where you are in relation to your foe. Your ammo. What the foe is vulnerable again. Etc. But you’re also restructuring, I think. You’re talking about what’s< being done, not how it’s being done. Those circumstances don’t exist here.
So, yes, FAQ reduces one area of choice into something shallower, but if the GM is on her game
(Emphasis mine) Honestly, as a GM I have enough on my plate without having to constantly socially fix a problematic mechanic. There’s enough other social things I have to juggle.
The GM says, “Putting that shaped charge on the safe? That’s not Forceful or Quick—it’s got to be shaped just so.”
But what if you’re given a compelling and interestingly-described case for using Forceful or Quick? Just because you-the-GM can’t think of one in the moment doesn’t mean a player couldn’t present something. Again, the GM has enough to think about. Granted, I can’t think of one right not, but I’m also fond of saying that four brains are smarter than one.
I also point back to Leverage being very much a team game, where intentionally playing sub-optimally could also be seen as a social dick move. When I’ve run Leverage, I’ve seen people work to justify their high attributes because they don’t want to let the Crew down. So if there’s social pressure from the group or internally by a sense of teamwork, and social pressure from the GM to play against that, is that a good game?
Maybe for some. But then you’re playing a social duel more than you’re playing out a story.
– Ryan
(We cross-posted here. This is me writing in response to Ryan’s reply to John.)
For me, part of the key issue is the idea that the player is picking consequences in addition to actions, and that highest-rated ability might come with a consequence that’s less appealing than that of the next-highest-rated ability. Boom, now that next-highest ability is more attractive. Creating these challenging, interesting choices is part of the GM’s job, in my opinion.
Is a system more robust or more sturdy if it’s keyed with those choices built in? So that every adverb or adjective is a part of the ludic language? Yeah, maybe. Look at Wildlings and Technoir and Apocalypse World for some of that. In AW, one of the things you’re doing when you make a move as a player, is choosing the potential consequences of your actions. It’s what makes Hot different from Hard, even when those abilities might be rated the same. Right? The game, then, is watching those moves interact with the fiction and each other over session after session of play.
This is true, and has been true, of RPGs for a long time. If I can make an NPC do what I want with Charisma or Strength, are they both use-anywhere stats? Not if the consequences for success or failure are different. Not if they push the fiction in different ways.
This is a total aside, but:
The GM says, “Putting that shaped charge on the safe? That’s not Forceful or Quick—it’s got to be shaped just so.” It’s a design decision made on the fly for a very specific situation. Yes, it requires a GM to be designing or deciding on the fly. Some people like that. I do, sometimes.
As a GM, I never want to say this. I want to be told this. The best trick in my arsenal as “…so, do you guys buy that?” to mitigate if someone seems to be stretching it. But that’s social aikido. If no one steps up, then I let it go. But again, total aside.
– Ryan
Not if the consequences for success or failure are different.
Because it’s not about what you’re doing but how you’re doing it, I find it difficult to see how the consequences are appreciably different for failing using Forceful, using Quick, using Analytical. I can when it comes to Roles, because it’s about what you’re doing. I can when it comes to GURPS or D&D or Apocalypse World, because those stats are directly tied to what you’re doing.
I’m not failing against Hot, I’m failing against the move that requires Hot. I’m not failing against Hacker, I’m failing against the action that requires Hacker. The action you fail against is the heart of consequence. Not that failure is meant to be treated like that in Leverage — generally you fail because mitigating circumstances come into play, like guards walking in on you while you’re cracking the safe, whether forcefully, quickly or analytically.
– Ryan
Ah, I think I see what you mean, Ryan.
But I think about those FAQ stats differently. When you choose one to use, you’re saying that you’re NOT doing the other two. Doing something with Forceful means you’re not being Quick or Analytical, and that opens the door for complications. On a success, yes, you do it — you get the safe open. But you’re slower and less precise than you could have been. Maybe that doesn’t complicate things much, either because you don’t roll any 1s or because the fictional situation doesn’t include any risks for slowness or sloppiness.
But, if you’re in a situation where precision, speed, and power matter, you have to make a choice. You can’t have everything — no matter how clever the description of your move — because the system says choose ONE: Force, Quickness, or Analysis.
(In Leverage, the degree to which the not-chosen stats complicate things hinges a lot on rolling 1s for the GM to use. But that’s cool — the stats not picked give the GM easy and obvious fodder for making up complications when they do arise.)
I guess what I’m saying is, the names of the stats matter. The methods impact the fiction. Force breaks shit and leaves evidence behind. Quickness doesn’t hit as hard or as accurately. Analysis is slow and careful. Treating them otherwise seems like a missed opportunity. Treating them as interchangeable blobs totally dependent on clever narration does make them “use-whenever” stats, and I can see why you’d find that less fun.
To use AW’s language, everything is a custom move. Everything.* The list of consequences decided beforehand is there, even if the move is written moments before the dice are rolled, whether it’s public knowledge at the table or not. (I think it often, but not always, should be.) You’re never attempting to be Forceful, you’re attempting an action that uses Forceful, to put your spin on it. I also don’t think assigning particular consequences to particular actions is the end of the discussion (or negotiation) over consequences—this isn’t an example of play, I wrote.
If the player comes up with something clever, then I assign consequences and ask, “Is that what you want to do?” When the action is something great or cunning or wittier than I am, I assign consequences that are easy to accept—I let the choice be easier—and when I want a meatier choice, I add consequences that are a little tougher to accept (“The ceiling might come down”). This is a suspense trick. It works wonders for me in actual play.
I don’t see the gap between these ideas as being all that big. I see the job of the GM as including all these things that you don’t want to worry about. (I’m not sure what you mean by “socially fix a problematic mechanic” unless you consider custom moves to be doing the same thing.) That’s just how that goes.
I’m speaking very generally, too—I’m not talking about Leverage in particular. I’m talking about whether “use-anywhere stats” are necessarily bad design. To me, the essential follow-up question is, Bad design for what? Bad at what? Do they have drawbacks? Sure.
Like John, I can totally see why you’d find this sort of play less fun. Good thing not all games have to serve every master, right?
*(Not everything.)
John,
And I hear what you’re saying. It’s paradoxically interesting. What you & Will are suggesting in part is that the stat used influences consequences — in Leverage, generated by 1s/Complications, and by narrating failure. But if I want to mitigate the complications and failure, I use my best stat.
If I use d10 Forceful all the time, the issues that come up will be colored by that. But if I use d10 Forceful all the time, I’ll have a smaller chance of issues coming up.
(I suppose here’s where we can say that something like AW where even success has consequences is where some real juice lies.)
Combine that with an ability to creatively bullshit and the ability to maneuver socially at the table, and you get the problem I see. Which is a bummer, because I really want to see how the life of a Quick Hitter is appreciably different from a Forceful one or an Analytic one.
That said, Logan had some things to say about the intent of FAQ on Critical Hits.
– Ryan
Will,
Like John, I can totally see why you’d find this sort of play less fun. Good thing not all games have to serve every master, right?
I’ll take that as the conversation shut-down. 🙂
– Ryan
Ryan— That’s not what that is. It’s just a step back. Here, I’ll even add to the conversation to keep things moving, if you like:
Consequences are not just for failure.
(Again, I’m not talking about Leverage in particular here—we keep oscillating between the specific and the general, I think, so I should be clear. You’re a better judge than I am whether FAQ works for Leverage or not, as I’ve read but not played that game.)
Will,
Word. I agree that not all games serve all masters, and it’s good to be reminded of it. But it’s also the classic “I don’t want to talk anymore” last word.
Consequences are not just for failure.
YES. Totally. And that’s why Complications exist in Leverage — not the only way to do it, but that’s how it’s done there.
But if we’re talking a fast-paced convention game, which is the environment where Logan came up with FAQ, then I’d like the game to help me a bit here. (There’s an element of System Matters in my thinking, naturally.) It could be as simple as:
* If you can’t justify an approach, pick another.
* If everyone else isn’t feeling your justification, pick another.
* If the approach you’re using is likely to cause all manner of problems, the Fixer will hand you an additional d4 to roll.
Of course, that last bit doesn’t discourage rolling the high die. And maybe that’s cool. But it does at least add a little push into “and the game’s going to help me here, because I have enough stuff to deal with” land.
It could go a little farther, into:
* The Complications I buy when you’re using a problematic approach are worth two dice.
A little game language to say “this is going to be some shit, yo,” to make “yeah, well, I’m going to be Forceful anyway” mean as much as “yeah, crap, let’s see if I can do well Quickly.” It also takes the “you’re using the wrong approach” out of solely social shame territory. Because nothing sours a moment like having to pull out that stick.
– Ryan
Y’know, what this has clarified for me is that I don’t want to be a GM that doesn’t have to work hard at it. I think I squeeze out my best rewards from doing the heavy lifting. It kicks my ass every time. Yes, there are ways I’m lazy/efficient here and there, but those are strategically chosen to enhance player involvement (“tell me how you fail!”).
This comes up for me because I’m dissatisfied with the resistance I’m seeing Ryan evince in the face of, in essence, getting told it’s his job to saddle some consequences with the choice of whether to be forceful, quick, or analytical. My knee-jerk response to that is, “Maybe you should sit down and play while someone else runs it, then.”
That’s not fair, but it is where my gut goes on the issue: Ryan appears to see the idea of a GM scrubbing at circumstance to create consequences for always choosing an optimal stat as extra work he doesn’t have to or want to do. It’s said to be evidence of a broken mechanic. Whereas I see it as a missed opportunity to do the good work.
Having a shower-think on this, I’m left concluding that the main disconnect is between implicit and explicit mechanics.
I’ve seen Ryan edit a bunch over the past couple years, so I know he has a strong urge to push things from the implicit territory into the explicit territory, so everyone’s on the same page and so maybe they can be codified a little.
John and others (including myself) seem comfortable with the idea that Forceful/Analytical/Quick has a corona of implicit mechanics around them, such as the “when you’re choosing Forceful, you’re NOT choosing Analytical or Quick” principle.
The problem is, while that idea is derivable, it’s not explicit. I mean, yes, you can observe it to be true and the distance to that realization is no great length, but it’s also not zero length. Making it explicit would move it into territory where I think it could start to help Ryan in his preferred approach to GMing.
For FAQ, I’d propose a “but list” for each of the three stats, a list that’s explicit, explicitly open-ended (i.e., it can take on more elements than are provided), and explicit to the players themselves. Ryan or any other GM could choose from the but list himself, but he could just as easily task the player with choosing an appropriate “but” as well. (Which, yes, implicitly means they’re not choosing any other element of the given “but” list, but you can’t fully escape from implicitness, and here, it’s not really a problem.)
You’d start populating each stat’s list with “not” versions of the other stats, plus add a few other things that seem inherent if they occur:
FORCEFUL, but…
… you’ll break it.
… it’ll take some extra time.
… you’ll raise a ruckus.
… ?
ANALYTICAL, but …
… it’ll be a weaker effort.
… it’ll take some extra time.
… too cold-hearted.
… ?
QUICK, but …
… sloppy.
… too mild.
… you end up on your own, ahead of the pack.
… ?
Add that to the mechanical explanation of FAQ, and I think everyone’s on the same page, the methods for using it are fruitful, etc. Essential to the idea is that the but is ALWAYS there, it’s a condition of the choice. There’s no “Quick, and just Quick, perfectly Quick, amen.”
For John, that “Quick and just Quick” scenario may never exist due to the implications of the choice. For Ryan, it does exist until something comes along mechanically cut it off.
I’m afraid that my gut is saying that Fred’s approach to game mechanics is a bad one. I can even rationalise that a bit.
I would describe game mechanics that produce a game effect contrary to that intended by the designer as broken. They don’t do what the designer planned. Thus, if the FAQ mechanics lead to players always using their highest stat, and that wasn’t the plan, then the mechanics are broken. If Exalted combat was supposed to involve lots of flashy attacks, but the mechanics push you to turtle, then they are broken. If D&D lets a 15th level fighter survive an elephant falling on his head, and that was the plan, then the mechanics aren’t broken.
I would also describe Fred’s “implicit rules” as “house rules”, because no two GMs will come up with exactly the same approach.
I think it’s a bad idea to design mechanics, and then rely on GMs to house rule them to do what you wanted.
If you don’t include the “buts…” in the text, how are GMs supposed to know that they are implicitly included? If a player complained that the rules didn’t say he was supposed to get hit with problems because he used his abilities, he’d have a point. It undermines the shared expectations. Yes, you can negotiate them before the game, but people don’t raise the points that they assume everyone agrees on. If it doesn’t look like a problem, it has the potential to be a huge one.
This is not at all the same as the rules doing the GM’s work for him. Rather, I’d say it’s a case of making sure that the rules don’t make the GM’s work even harder. If I want to write an entirely non-violent game of courtly intrigue, I’d better not use the D&D 4e rules as written. Sure, the GM could use skill contests to do it, but all the characters have these cool combat powers, and the GM has to keep coming up with reasons why they can’t use them. That’s not the good stuff; that’s unnecessary extra hassle. (And, yes, that’s a stupidly extreme example.)
Not sure I can parse your response, David, without squinting at some of its basic assumptions.
First off: My suggestion here is to make the “but” list explicit mechanics. It’s not a suggestion to make it optional, or to leave it as implicit. It’s a move to make it explicit. It is itself mechanics, moving FAQ from “possibly incomplete” to “complete”.
Secondly, on “no two GMs will come up with exactly the same approach”: of course they won’t; GM does not stand for Generalized Machine. But that’s true of how mechanics get interpreted no matter how deep you go in defining them.
So even with the but list in place, I’d expect everyone to go differently with “…?” — but that’s an acceptable process of play, something which already happens at every table there is, when players answer the question, “What do you do next?” Only here they’re working with the GM to fill in a slightly different blank.
I realised that you were proposing the but list as an explicit mechanic, but when you said “John and others (including myself) seem comfortable with the idea that Forceful/Analytical/Quick has a corona of implicit mechanics around them, such as the “when you’re choosing Forceful, you’re NOT choosing Analytical or Quick” principle.”, I thought that meant that you thought it was unnecessary. That’s the idea I’m disagreeing with; I think it is necessary if you are doing game design.
Of course it’s true that you’ll get differences between two GMs no matter how deep you go with the definitions. My take on that, however, is that it means you need to go deeper than you think you do in almost all cases. If a fundamental element of the mechanics (which the but list seems to be in this case) is implicit, then you haven’t gone deep enough.
A funny historical example. AFAIR, the first edition of Conspiracy X just told you to roll dice. This confused a number of people. I mean, you could work out that they meant six-siders, but it wasn’t explicit anywhere, and for most gamers that’s not a given. With any dice other than six-siders, the original Conspiracy X mechanics are really, really weird. So, that piece of information needs to be explicit.
Of course, if what you were saying is “We didn’t see the need for this because this was obvious to us, but now you’ve mentioned it, yes, obviously the mechanic is broken without the but list”, then I agree. That’s one of the things playtesting is for, after all. It shows where the obvious isn’t, as well as where the mechanics are broken in more straightforward senses.
Just wanted to drop in again and say that I’ve totally dug this discussion. I’m not 100% sure that I’m right, but I know that I’m smarter for having had all of you weigh in on this. Good talk.
I think that a combination of ‘sub-optimal’ choices (and I suspect that these can exist even without an optimal choice in the mix, because I do) and a ‘flavoring to each trait as Fred suggests would be the best solution to the problem of leaning too heavily on the major trait.
(add vague hand waving to substitute for years of game design)
Trait: Negatives:
Forceful (not Quick, not Analytic)
Analytic (not Quick, not Forceful)
Quick (not Forceful , not Analytic)
d10: adds d6 effect to negatives
d8: adds d4 effect to negatives
d6: no effect to negatives
Granted the problem is that a player can justify using any particular trait in the contest, so too can the GM, and leverage the bonus given to the opposition in the contest (or the GM can save the die given to negatives for later)
So an opposing force could pick up more advantage if they can justify using one of the negatives as part of their opposition.
Adding the description of how the trait comes into play enhances role-play, so I don’t mind seeing the additional effort going into figuring out how a trait is used in an instance. And then, since the GM is doing it too the descriptions will be more interesting on both sides.
Now I’m gonna go have a peanut-butter cup.