Personally, I think fairmath is far more useful as an immersion tool rather than a mechanical one. As straightforward as the formula is, simple arithmetic will always be easier to consider when balancing.
A couple good examples I can think of would be situations like, say, having someone train. If they’re already good at something, the outcome of training will be less impactful than if they’re coming off the back of something. Similarly, I’d argue the best use of fairmath is in relationship determination. A passing compliment will be far more impactful for someone you’re less familiar with than a friend. Conversely, if someone already thinks you’re an asshole, insulting them will impact your relationship less than someone who you’re on friendly terms with.
That being said, it can have a disproportionate impact later in the game, so it does need to be used carefully. A character stubbing their toe shouldn’t cripple their abilities, so just using direct subtraction would be a better choice.
Basically, I think fairmath is a nice tool to have, but it’s best used in conjunction with base arithmetic rather than in lieu of.
To be honest I think it’s solving a problem that isn’t really there. Ostensibly it prevents stats from getting above 100 and wrecking the UI, but, like …
CHOICESCRIPT_STATS
*if (strength > 100)
*set strength 100
*stat_chart
percent strength
IN THE GAME'S TEXT
I want 100 to be the maximum Strength,
so if you lose Strength, it shouldn't
ever remain above 100!
*if (strength > 100)
*set strength 100
*set strength -10
Perfect.
Today my procrastination has been in the shape of thinking about how much authors reveal about their games while it’s in progress, especially about characters and relationships before PCs have had a chance to get to know those characters/relationships in the game. Mostly thinking about what happens when a WIP or a partial series becomes a fandom of its own (especially on IF Tumblr, which is its own animal, but also very active/popular Patreons or threads here) when not all of it is available to play.
I haven’t played this particular WIP but I do think in general this can be a tricky thing (I tend to like to go into a game without knowing very much about it beforehand) and it must be hard for authors to balance wanting to accommodate players being excited about knowing lots before, vs keeping some things back, vs making changes and players getting frustrated by that.
I think when there is so much focus on knowing huge amounts about characters outside of the game, there’s a risk that when the characters are encountered “in the flesh” in-game, as players we lose some of the excitement of learning more about them with our PCs. Or perhaps we expect them to be as legible in-game as they are to us out-of-game when we’ve read so many answers or point-of-view stories about them. (I am partly talking about myself as a player here! I found that I am taking some time to warm up to the major BG3 characters because of how they’ve been marketed/what I’ve heard around the edges of fandom… but I don’t really mind that because I’m playing so slowly ).
I wonder if it also makes a bigger risk of characters becoming flattened into their tropes/narrative roles, in the story itself in the worst case scenario, or more likely, in the way they get talked about outside the story. Again I’m not talking about specific WIPs, but I see that sometimes characters are sort of “marketed” or spoken about as tropes, or types of routes, or as “red flags”/“green flags”. I think it does the characters a disservice because they’re more complex and interesting than that, and, for example, a “friends-to-lovers trope” romance route could mean such a massive variety of things that it doesn’t mean much.
But then it’s tricky because giving extra information about characters, and categorising them in various ways, is so popular, and is a major important way in which authors can promote their work. (Maybe if I promoted Noblesse Oblige with lots of “look at these red flag ROs” it might be more popular…? But it feels weird and flattening to do that, heh.)
From an author perspective I am always wondering how to balance promotional activities and potential Patreon extras which might help me get more money to pay the bills, and writing the actual thing I’m working on, which will definitely get me more money to pay the bills but is a long game, literally and metaphorically I haven’t figured out a good answer yet.
Yeah I myself don’t really see a reason to try to label any of my own characters as fitting a particular ‘trope.’ I mean, honestly I hadn’t even remotely considered that they could fit any of them until people were actively talking about tropes and I begin retroactively thinking about it. I think that putting them in those boxes is definitely a ‘disservice,’ since as you said, it can lead to people coming in with a much flatter view of things.
I think that FH’s handling of introducing external information on the Patreon is pretty healthy. You can learn about a lot of things regarding the characters, but only things that won’t naturally come into play in the games themselves. This means you don’t become aware of information that would interfere with the way you interact with the game since it is mostly about framing or learning background details you wouldn’t have access to otherwise.
But then it’s tricky because giving extra information about characters, and categorising them in various ways, is so popular, and is a major important way in which authors can promote their work. (Maybe if I promoted Noblesse Oblige with lots of “look at these red flag ROs” it might be more popular…? But it feels weird and flattening to do that, heh.)
Hearing about all this is making me realize I don’t even truly have a ‘red flag’ character in my own roster… Mind you we’ve discussed my own thoughts regarding romance for the story but… Honestly, while I myself am a fan of exploration of what would be unhealthy dynamics for relationships in real life, I think having the biggest ‘red flag’ in my own story be the main character themself to be more of a comfort ground for me.
(Maybe I just struggle with understanding what a ‘red flag character’ even is since, internally, I know the justifications for all my own characters myself. So what others might perceive as a ‘huge red flag’ I might understand to be something else.)
Also, currently reading Twisted Scene, and Gia is very sweet.
Leaving aside the Tumblr IF world because, like Hannah, I feel it is a unique niche, the development of a significant fandom for a storyverse is a crossroad that presents many challenges and opportunities.
Projects that have a cast of characters, regardless of the game’s focus, will have to deal with expectations, both at the point where a fandom becomes ascendant and thereafter through the game’s life-cycle.
I’ll give an example of a character that has gone through more of 20 years worth changes wrought by the developer and 20 years of changes in fandom expectations: Sylvanas Windrunner, a character from WoW.
To start off, since WoW is a graphical game, there have been 20 years worth of model changes.
Now, you might think that something like a model change would not be of a concern to fans, but it seems that fans grow attached to even graphical models of the characters in their beloved storyverses.
Here is an article published less than a week ago, showing that the fandom still wants access to earlier model armor of Sylvanas:
This is despite the character eventually being evolved by Blizzard into a genocidal killer.
Speaking of which, this evolution by Blizzard created quite a storm:
I focused on this character, from this game because this character’s evolution, both by Blizzard and its fandom is very well documented and spans two decades.
It is my take that when a game, such as Baldur’s Gate 3 (via three years of early access) or the Mass Effect series 1-3 (through a long period of release and development for the entire series), releases information about their character cast it limits their ability to revise, change or evolve the characters themselves.
I feel this happens here too, especially in published multi-part stories. I have seen Cataphrak’s series and JimD’s series both have pushback on the authors making change and/or evolving characters over the life of the series.
I, personally, do not see this as something done by authors here, as much as I see it being done by the fandom. Even so, I feel this is something seen more often in multi-part series and not so much in the stand-alones or stories set in the same storyverse.
From an author perspective, the lessons I have learned seem to tell me to keep character development strong, detailed and flexible from the very beginning but to keep it close to my vest until actual release.
I am in what seems to be the minority, when I do not intend to do pre-release promotional work for my cast.
I might provide a listing while the public beta will be active, but I do not intend to write side-stories or other such common promotions found elsewhere, such as in the Tumblr IF realm, until after release.
Every author should look at this issue and plan ahead on how they will handle this, or I feel, they will misstep, or cause unforced errors during their development, release and post-release of their work.
In the story I’m currently working on, I have a magical world ruled by four seasonal monarchs. Together, they’re supposed to make sure the seasons run smoothly. However, I’m not sure what “seasons” are in this world. I had imagined this world is parallel to earth and the monarchs’ work translates to what we experience as Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. But that’s Earth. So are Spring, Summer, Fall. and Winter kingdoms within the magical world? I called them “territories” in my notes, because the monarchs rule them, but that doesn’t feel right.
What I think of is the Courts in Changeling: the Lost - perhaps Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter Courts might work instead of Territories? I don’t think it would be out of place to have seasons with those names in a fantasy world if they correspond.
Although I’ve shared more than this, I definitely agree that it’s helpful for authors to make sure they have a good, solid idea how the characters are before putting more out there. I think although some people thrive on sharing lots of details (and I’m sure it can benefit the story itself, if the author figures something out through exploring characters in that way), there is the risk of flattening or maybe a concept getting diluted in response to feedback.
Yes, I think it’s very useful for authors to be conscious of how they’re doing things rather than reactive in the moment, or doing what they think they “should” be doing. I’ve definitely both been reactive and been overly worried about what I “should” do in my time, and will do it again I’m sure… but it helps to be mindful about what we’re sharing and what we want to do/how much we want to change in response to feedback.
Although… I did say I was planning not to publish side stories on Patreon earlier in the month, but have returned to my sitting-point on the fence about it and am wondering again about doing it, so I am not necessarily the best example for sticking to a plan!
@Kelly_Seastar – Expanding on what Hannah just said… many historical Fae traditions have dual courts, one in charge of the “spring and summer” aspects and the other in charge of the “fall and winter” aspects of the natural world.
Of course there are the cross-over creatures, such as hags, that are outside either court, but with such a world-structure, I feel you can do a lot.
I’d create your story-world without ties or expectations set in “reality” or in common fantasy-types of worlds (such as Tolkein’s or G. Martin’s) so you have more flexibility with what you want to do.
Two ideas I can think of are having four territories on a single plane that coexist, but are primarily influenced by one season, with the effects getting more moderate the closer you get to a boundary between kingdoms. This is pretty much taken from the way the elemental plane works in Divinity: Original Sin.
The other is to have separate but interconnected planes where each is inhabited by a single kingdom, but pockets of “influence” seep through in certain areas where they’re linked. This is based on my (limited) understanding of how planes work in D&D.
You mean like it’s always summer in the Summer Territory, always Winter in the Winter Territory, ect? I was in an rp group with a similar concept but those were different countries that shared a continent.
Hear me out, but the Tinker Bell movies do this very well. The fairy part of the word is split into four quadrants, one for each season. And each season has a leader who acts as a counsel member for all the fairies. Yes it’s a kids movie, but I think the series will provide some good inspiration
I don’t have the slightest clue how serious you’re being right now. But to give my own two mules anyway…
Fairmath has some definite advantages beyond “no going over hundred pls” that you can’t really replicate by just manually making sure all the stats are in the right range always like @will suggests. Putting a straight-up cap on a value has the unfortunate effect of just deleting all stat increases beyond a certain point and only after that point, which is just weird on more than one level. With fairmath, putting everything into one stat becomes questionable but not invalid a strategy where you’re struggling against diminishing returns instead of just crashing into a ceiling at some point, which is both more realistic and more mechanically satisfying.
The main issue is with how quickly stats are allowed to move towards 50, something that becomes infuriating when you’re working with relationship stats. If you’re only using fairmath commands, there is just no way to make anyone ever truly upset with the MC or truly loyal to them, since everything can be forgiven at lower levels and every disagreement becomes a reason for divorce at higher ones. In that case a static cap is better but sometimes only playing around with variables and conditional statements can get you the results you want as a writer.
On the flipside again, that quirk arguably works to your advantage when you’re working with personality stats. Not always, since it sucks to fail some personality check because you acted “out of character” once, but it lines up with how character growth tends to work in storytelling. You could be the biggest asshole in the universe for most of the game and there’s still a decent chance of almost filling that blue bar before the end of the game and having that development acknowledged by the story. Your previous actions aren’t meaningless like they well could be with a flat cap, but they matter fairly little just like the number of planets blown up by Darth Vader does.
Personally, I really wish there was some other operator that just “stretches out” the borders of the scale, increasing and decreasing stat changes based on their distance from the middle point. But implementing it would require ChoiceScript to understand such advanced and arcane concepts as negative numbers, so I mostly stick with fairmath. It’s not terrible as long as I’m not planning some skill decreases or ultra-tough personality checks, and I can’t help but appreciate the simplicity of the formula. I am a matematician, after all.
Before I go further, I would like to say: I see you experiment all the time Hannah, and in doing so, I feel you add a lot to the collective knowledge base here, so thank you!
I am curious here and I don’t expect you to know the answers quite yet, but this is one change (sharing more during the earlier developmental phases) I see in your newest DD/WiP thread.
I thought you did well enough with Royal Affairs (for example, the discussion about societal norms that occurred in-thread) but, for me, as a reader – I am being careful to keep the current info sharing on the MC and others at arms length.
Likewise, I do think that many inexperienced authors here attempt to have a discussion on characters and story concepts with their readers before they are ready, and that this causes issues as they write their story. “getting diluted by feedback” is one way of putting it, but I feel it is more a confusion or realization that the character has not been developed well enough.
My take on this is: feedback should not be used to change a character into another but rather help hone and polish the existing character.
Hopefully, this thread month-in and month-out helps show that there is more ways to achieve writing than just a standard or orthodox way.
Writing good characters is a multifaceted endeavor, and I do not think the words “should do” belong in a discussion of “how to”.
I’ve run into this issue in many writing topics, especially grammar, where a case for a singular “should do” can be argued, but in certain areas, I feel the mastery of a particular technique can lead different people to different “should do’s”.
Thanks for starting this wonderful discussion this month.
Well…because fairmath doesn’t aggregate small fractions, you still do hit a ceiling where %+5 and %+10 tweaks just vanish into the ether, and eventually where you’d need to have %+50 or more to get that next point. But yeah, I’ve never seen fairmath mainly as a capping mechanism.
It’s a good tool for any stat where moderate values should be common and getting to an extreme should require extreme play. The key thing is for authors not to write a situation where the only satisfying stories are at extremes. Hide some achievements and other rewards there, sure, but don’t make them the main win conditions.
And don’t gate romances or close friendships behind a fairmath stat – that too easily creates the kind of psychotic NPC behavior @Omeg describes. (In general, don’t have key NPC relationships represented with a single stat – that irons out your story, removing the impact of actual events in your relationship by treating them all as interchangeable. Use Booleans to remember key events, alongside or in place of the general relationship number.)
Earlier I mentioned my contribution to the Bring Out Your Ghosts jam.
There is a certain sort of challenge to doing so, I must admit.
As some of you may know, I have been putting up Maverick character profiles on my own thread (If Hannah’s doing it, then I can’t not be missing out, right?).
One thing about me is that I can be very impatient, seeing things in black and white mostly. So trying all sorts of ways, including both putting out my ideas and works, to gain publicity, was, in retrospect, something that probably won’t last.
But therein creates more problems: what happens when my fanbase grows, and I start getting more serious requests? Clearly Maverick Hunter: Scandalous Mission is incomplete- and Tumblr is a deadly snake pit, for reasons I’ll not explain.
This is the other challenge. Unfortunately, due to the nature, it’s going to be partially that way. Characters are meant to be multifaceted- and throwing labels around can simplify things, but can also be misleading. I also agree that giving more character information is a good way to promote one’s work- and I have been doing that, since I know no other good way (does Mara have any ideas?).
It is indeed a double-edged sword. Trying to appeal to both fanbases is going to be one hell of a ride. How pacifist am I going to make my PC react?
If this works for you, go ahead! I do not thing this will work for me, as my impatience will certainly get in the way.
There are four kingdoms, corresponding to the four seasons. But everything changed when the fifth kingdom attacked…
Back to the subject matter, I want to give a big thank you to the regulars of this thread, those who keep this machine humming.
If you’re forcing a character, then something’s wrong. The main thing is, different solutions work for different people- there is no one-size-fits-all-plan. The tricky part is, what solution works for me, and why?
I believe that fairmath is excellent, if the person creating the story understands and knows how to balance it. It is a tool and like all tools it is only as good as it’s use and sometimes it’s user. I love power drills, but too often I find people stripping screws; I don’t blame the drill.
Some IFs would be better without it, because the game balancing is lacking. That is something that I believe needs to be tested for but often isn’t. That isn’t an issue with fair math, but the use of the tool.
I will love give my opinion in the theme of why authors say too much and use tropes and lot of media but my opinion will be polemic and probably too honest to handle.
I personally gave up. I will never post any wip in this forum or any public beta and the private will be just because is obligation now to be a hosted.
No one here is more burnt scarred than me about forum betas I learned that hard way.
If you are nothing nobody will ever put a eye in anything you do no matter how hard you try. it is what it is.
My jam born from a personal iron thought that anyone else will suffered from the same thing I did. At least in the jam people will read their work amd they will feel happy with themselves
).
I haven’t figured out a good answer yet.
But yeah, I’ve never seen fairmath mainly as a capping mechanism.