[Suggestion] White Checks

[Merlandese]

There's lots to talk about when it comes to checks, especially about how, at the table, save scumming doesn't exist, so a White Check system makes a great narrative. But in a video game save scumming is a real demon on our back. And this game has such good dialogue for a Check Failure I'd love to see any patches in design that help incentivise not scumming after a failure.

One idea is to add a bonus modifier to the next roll of a White Check after you fail. Something like (+1 familiar with failure). That way, the player will see that if they unlock the White Check again it'll actually be a bit more potent than having just added a Skill Point to the associated stat. It'd feel like they gained something from the loss and they might be less inclined to save scum a reroll.

Another idea is to add +5 XP to check failures. Hopefully this wouldn't destroy any balance, but, again, the failures of the check feel heavy only because of the word "failure." In reality, a lot of the failures are still wonderful, bite-y bits of dialogue that the player should WANT to experience. Since White Checks can't be rerolled ad infinitum, this couldn't get exploited in any meaningful way. But the feeling of failure might be mitigated.

Anyone else have design ideas for checks like these?

[dwhansen777]

Ironman option.

[Florence]

If people want to save scum in a game whose theme might as well be "embrace failure", that's on them. There don't need to be mechanics that discourage it, or make fail checks less common; you should be discouraged from save scumming just by virtue of half the game's dialogue being hidden behind screwing up.

If that's not incentive enough for a game that's all about reading, then there really isn't anything you could to do stop someone from save scumming.

[Merlandese]

Originally posted by Flo:

If people want to save scum in a game whose theme might as well be "embrace failure", that's on them. There don't need to be mechanics that discourage it, or make fail checks less common; you should be discouraged from save scumming just by virtue of half the game's dialogue being hidden behind screwing up.

If that's not incentive enough for a game that's all about reading, then there really isn't anything you could to do stop someone from save scumming.

I was waiting for someone to have this response. XD

You *can* encourage and discourage how people play a game. There *is* stuff you can do. That's what game design *is*. You can even see it in this game. Passive Checks don't present themselves (often) and thus people don't save scum them. They never see the Failure. If White Checks didn't show they were White Checks, and instead worked secretly in the background, that would definitely mitigate save scumming.

You're right that you can't change individual people but that's not the point, because this is a suggestion for game design not therapy.

I personally don't think the designers want people to save scum. If this were a table game, like it kind of is, the DM would prevent reneging dice rolls. But how do you encourage integrity when the DM isn't around? I think some of these White Check suggestions would help that.

[holy-death]

Originally posted by Merlandese:

I personally don't think the designers want people to save scum. If this were a table game, like it kind of is, the DM would prevent reneging dice rolls. But how do you encourage integrity when the DM isn't around? I think some of these White Check suggestions would help that.

Would it?

Idea #1? People can just reload and "save" their precious skill point. Idea #2? People can just reload, because +5 XP won't be worth spending a skill point in their opinion.

The best reason not to save-scum is because you have high enough stats to be able to attempt something you otherwise wouldn't notice in the first place.

Besides that, succeeding mechanically is not always the better result. Sometimes a failure can give you better outcome. People who try to succeed at everything are going to miss out on some stuff.

[Merlandese]

Originally posted by holy-death:

Would it?

It wouldn't prevent it, but yeah, I think it would mitigate it. Do you have any ideas that would work better?

Like, one thing that makes save scumming so easy is that you can save and load anywhere. Games with Save Points or fixed periods to save don't have this problem. The easiest way to mitigate save scumming would be to make saving more limited like that, but there are other ways.

Originally posted by holy-death:

Besides that, succeeding mechanically is not always the better result. Sometimes a failure can give you better outcome. People who try to succeed at everything are going to miss out on some stuff.

I think so, too. But I think the idea of it being a Failure, with bad sounds and red flashes, makes the player feel like they lost rather than just taken a different branch. That makes them feel like becoming the scum. Then most players don't realize that "failure can give a better outcome" because the game explicitly labels it as failure.

[holy-death]

Originally posted by Merlandese:

It wouldn't prevent it, but yeah, I think it would mitigate it. Do you have any ideas that would work better?

I know how to prevent it*, but I wouldn't call it "better". Forcing people to play on Ironman is going to backfire, because people don't like to be forced.

It's hard to find an actual better solution (as in: one that'd make people roll with failure willingly) than what we already have. As it is you'd be simply giving more bonuses to people who already don't save-scum, rather than convincing the others to stop save-scumming.

*Although I am sure that dedicated people would have found a workaround. Like Alt + F4ing to avoid the autosave, or something like that.

[Merlandese]

Originally posted by holy-death:

I know how to prevent it*, but I wouldn't call it "better". Forcing people to play on Ironman is going to backfire, because people don't like to be forced.

Totally. Some games try to heavy-hand the player's behavior and it just builds some sort of animosity. Bleh.

Originally posted by holy-death:

As it is you'd be simply giving more bonuses to people who already don't save-scum, rather than convincing the others to stop save-scumming.

I guess the balance of bonuses would be really important there. As it is, Successes usually only equal +5XP anyhow.

Failure give nothing, but hypothetically cost you 100XP (1 Skill Point) to retry. So getting +5XP on a loss isn't a huge math-breaker, but it might be a huge impact on player psychology.

[LDiCesare]

Some options:
Avoid checks that block the player (shivers...).
Avoid randomness totally.
Make sure choices are not fail/success but different ways. Like "volition is fighting vs. shivers, who wins?" wouldn't feel like a win/lose scenario but an interesting way of moving forward with the game.

[jabberwok]

I don't think adding an automatic bonus after a failure is necessary. The game seems to do a lot of specific things in context to make failure part of the story, or open up other options to compensate. IMO, that's more interesting than a systematized bonus, and should be even more effective at sending the message that failure can be part of the story.

So far, I've had no trouble resisting the temptation to save scum, though I'm terrible about it in a lot of other games. And if a player wants to play by save scumming, there's no real reason to discourage it through non-optional mechanics. It's still a legitimate way to play.