{"id":648,"date":"2019-03-15T00:17:33","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T00:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/cinemechanix-resources\/"},"modified":"2023-02-24T14:21:27","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T14:21:27","slug":"cinemechanix-resources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/cinemechanix-resources\/","title":{"rendered":"Cinemechanix: Resources"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s talk about resources, which at least for this post include things like money and equipment, connections and allies, locations (like crime caves or secret hideouts), social capital (rank, status, fame, etc.), and anything else that\u2019s beneficial to the character but not a personal trait of the character. In QAGS, we called (more or less) these things \u201ctrappings\u201d and assumed that your character had whatever trappings were appropriate for your job: A knight has a horse, armor and shield, several weapons, a liege, and a lady to champion; A private detective has a trench coat and fedora, a gun, some informants, and hip flask; A super-hero has a goofy costume, a rogues\u2019 gallery, and a secret identity. If there was any question about a specific trapping–Does the knight have a squire? Does the P.I. have a car? Does the super-hero have a crime cave?–you could either make a Job roll or spend Yum Yums to decide. This works great right up until you get into a situation where resources are important to the character or genre: a game of court intrigue were social capital and connections define where the character fits into the game; a con artist game where money is both the goal and a vital resource to set up the next job; or a cyberpunk game where the line between \u201ccharacter trait\u201d and \u201cequipment\u201d is fuzzy at best.<\/p>\n

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A very slightly less abstract option is to treat resources as a separate stat (either an attribute-style stat that players roll against or a bonus), so you might have a ratings for Money, Gear, Contacts, Reputation, or whatever. These kind of stats require that a lot of ground rules be set: Is the scale absolute or relative to the character concept? Is there a modifier for resources that are\/aren\u2019t appropriate to the specific character? What about when the character is away from his usual area of operation? How to you calculate reputation for Robin Hood type who some people hate and others love? Even once the rules are worked out, the only real advantage this kind of system has is a slightly clearer breakdown on the type of resources the character has the most of and a less direct tie between resources and Job stat (which may or may not be desirable). It\u2019s still all abstract enough that it doesn\u2019t help much when resources really matter.<\/p>\n

The next level of abstraction is the Advantage\/Disadvantage kind of set-up, where some resources are hand-waved, but some resources (mostly those with obvious game uses) have to be bought with character points. Since the resource traits tend to be more specific than abstract stats, this provides a bit more detail, but there\u2019s always some gray space between \u201cyour character would have this\u201d and \u201cyou need to spend points for this\u201d that can cause a problem similar to the Thief skills problem I mentioned last week: if you\u2019re listing stuff, most players are going to err toward listing more stuff than they really need too. It also introduces the question of whether and under what circumstances players have to go into character point debt to pay for resources they\u2019ve earned during play, which can lead to tedious character point math.<\/p>\n

The least abstract option is the \u201ctrack your iron rations and ammo\u201d option where all resources are tracked, but this only works if the PCs are murderhobos and the players don\u2019t mind the tedium of tracking their food supply. As soon as the players find a place to live or buy a van, the amount of stuff you need to list for a complete inventory becomes excessive. It also inevitably results in a situation where the player forgot to list something that the characters would definitely have. To avoid stretching suspension of disbelief, the GM is right back to hand-waving, die rolls, or other abstract resource tracking.<\/p>\n

Even ignoring things like cyberpunk where resources are central to the genre, specifically defining resources to some extent is really useful, especially when you start introducing things like contacts and player-linked locations. Knowing that the characters celebrate their successful missions at an Elvis-themed Mexican restaurant, have a team dog named Bob Barker, or live next door to a hippie commune ties the characters into the world around them and gives them something to fight for. Even equipment can add flavor to the game if the players have fun with it. For example, probably half of the M-Force games I\u2019ve played or run has had a weird or super-cool team vehicle that had its own personality and in some cases came close to that Serenity \u201c10th Character\u201d territory. Having the characters drive around in an ice cream truck, an old van that\u2019s been modified into a war wagon, or a short bus named \u201cGeorge W. Bus\u201d can definitely add something to the game, even if it\u2019s just a running gag or a little quirk.<\/p>\n

My gut instinct (and probably yours, if you\u2019re a regular reader) is that all this kind of thing can be handled with story and you really just need a simple rule (like the \u201croll Job\u201d mechanic in QAGS) for when there\u2019s a question or disagreement. For pure flavor, that works. The problem is in that murky area between \u201cflavor\u201d and \u201cresource.\u201d The ideal situation is for players to introduce all kinds of flavor and then let it naturally find its role in the story if appropriate, but that doesn\u2019t happen. Some players won\u2019t bother with the flavor because it\u2019s not \u201cuseful.\u201d Others are very good at introducing resources disguised as flavor in such a way that the GM will be hard-pressed to justify not allowing the PCs to exploit it later in the game. If others catch on and start emulating the \u201cstealth resources\u201d strategy, you end up with a setting that feels like a video game where every notable minor character or piece of background scenery is something that either gives the PCs and advantage or triggers a side quest once you figure out how to unlock it. Making resources too abstract or hand-waved also makes it hard to play characters whose \u201cGimmick\u201d is resource-based (Billionaire Playboy, a character with contacts and allies everywhere, the gadgeteer, and even some characters who don\u2019t have one of Batman\u2019s shticks). Either the gimmick seems watered down because everyone has some version of it by default or the character seems unbalanced because you can buy \u201cFilthy Stinking Rich 3\u201d for the same number of points as \u201cKnives 3.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taking all that together, I think I\u2019m starting to see my \u201cwant list\u201d for dealing with resources:<\/p>\n