Roll Protection For Single-Character Handlers

[MurderWeasel]

So this has come up a few times and it's been suggested I post it here but I've been llllaaazzzzyyyy. But I figure, hey, best time to do it is now when the new version is way far away.

I'll preface this by saying that, while I'll go to bat forever that this as the best solution to the problem in question, I am very much not particularly invested in the problem's status as actual problem. That's a conversation for staff/the community! I'm pretty neutral, maybe leaning slightly in favor of putting in a clause.

So, then, the problem, if it exists, is this: handlers with a single character are often at a disadvantage even with the lower odds of being rolled brought by roll-by-character. With just one character, they can easily end up immediately out of the game.

A possible suggestion has been to commute single-character handlers' Hero Cards to Nulls. I hate this for several reasons I can go into later if folks really want. The big thing, though, is this: I think, while it's important to try to keep running only one kid from being a crippling disadvantage (though I note as V7 winds down some solo kids are still doing pretty well), it's even more important to not make it an advantage.

Therefore, I propose the following rule be added if one-character fragility is an issue staff want to address:

Until the 1/3 completion point of the game, any character who is their handler's sole character will be immune to rolls unless no other valid target is available. Should such a character be rolled, the roll will be redone until such time as it lands on a valid target.

This seems to me way easier than messing with cards, tweaking odds, etc. If the goal is to protect last characters, just cut to the chase and make them immune for the early stages!

Moreover, as phrased it applies to any character who becomes a last character. Start with four and get bopped three rolls in a row? Your last kid is safe until the 1/3 point. Start with one? Also safe until 1/3. That said, if you want to Hero your one kid out before, sure, go for it.

A few possible quirks/quibbles and their solutions:

"This lets a bunch of handlers write fodder kids to push one specific kid really far!"

Sure, you can get your posse to all write kids for 1/3 of the game and then Hero you after that point if they don't get rolled... but that's making people stay active for a third of the game for fleeting and likely irrelevant tactical advantage. And you can already do more or less this, just with more fodder.

"This lets you run 1-2 spare kids as fodder for your flagship and if you get rolled early they die but if you don't they're a buffer after the first third!"

Sure, but you're writing for a third of the game, first, and second you can already do the same thing, just probably you write even more fodder for a better buffer.

"This is against the spirit of the game, which is that everyone's always at risk!"

Fair enough! This assumes the problem of one-character handlers getting bopped early is not a problem. That's a totally valid stance. What I think is not a valid stance is that it's enough of an issue to change the rules some (Nulls, reduced odds, etc.) but not enough of one for this. If it's a problem, nip it in the bud as simply as possible and with no room for wiggliness.

"But handlers will just adopt after the 1/3 mark to pad their rosters!"

Official adoptions end at 1/3, cards cannot be fueled by adoptees until three rolls post adoptions, and kids unofficially handed off after 1/3 are not subject to multi-roll protections so even if you somehow do adopt after the protection cuts off you gain literally nothing from it.

"1/3 isn't long enough! Make it 1/2 or something!"

1/3 is the minimum to work due to the adoption thing. I don't think you can argue for anything beyond 2/3 as at that point it'd be basically just final kids left. Personally I think if we're giving free rides, 1/3 lets you establish a character and arc but doesn't push too much. But I'm not picky.

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Anyways, as requested like half a year ago here's my idea. I'm half lucid at best and super down to elaborate on anything unclear. As mentioned I don't actually care too much if staff does this or not, but I want it in the pool of discussion topics because I think if we're working on this problem this is the best option for a fix.

[dmboogie]

don't have much to add except a thumbs up

personally i don't see any real benefit to handlers being completely eliminated early in the version so i'm all for it

[General Goose]

Yes I concur with this

I sorta worry sometimes a new handler comes along, enters one character, dies quickly, and then leaves, and while the existence of Mini and such a beautiful community helps with that, it's not going to be perfect

[Melusine]

We could test it out in TV3.

[MurderWeasel]

We could test it out in TV3.

My big hesitation here, and the reason I've never pitched it for Mini, is that Mini's games both move quicker and are much smaller. If most of the game is running 3-4 kids, protection for single characters buys you a decent amount of time and the burden is spread around. If, on the other hand, the most anybody's got is 2, and a big chunk of the game is rolling with 1 (as is typical on Mini), then instead of the "protect single-character handlers" rule it becomes the "the character cap beyond 1/3 is 1 unless you win the lottery" rule, which in turn has some unfortunate ripples.

If, say, we had a Mini with 60 characters and 35 handlers (25 running 2 kids and 10 running 1) that would mean everyone in the larger group has an 80% chance to lose one kid in the first third. On Main, meanwhile, if you have, say, a 150 kid game split between 55 handlers (15 have 4, 20 have 3, 10 have 2, and 10 have 1) then the first third (50 students) pulls 50 students from an effective pool of 95, giving close to a 50/50 chance for a given non-single character to make it past the hurdle.

These are definitely wiggly, made-up numbers but the core of the issue is basically the same: this rule doesn't work super great unless the character cap is 3+.

[MethodicalSlacker]

I like this and I'm giving it a +1, for basically the reason Goose mentioned. I've seen one character handlers who get rolled early and then just check out for a while before fucking off for good, and that's not what we want as a community, I think.

[Zetsu]

I like this as well.

[Maraoone]

dont have much else to say but i like this too for basically the reasons ms stated

[Fenris]

thumbs up

[General Goose]

I feel this proposal is justified from the point of view of the Difference Principle as articulated by John Rawls. In this post I will

[backslash]

My initial thoughts (and this is strictly a personal, non-staff-hat opinion): I'm skeptical of giving blanket immunity from rolls to anyone because even with good intentions I think it opens itself up to people potentially trying to game the system by running certain numbers of characters, etc. I would also be concerned about the potential of inspiring resentful feelings or debates about whether people who have the immunity "deserve" it if say, their single character isn't living up to expectations or what have you.

That said, (this is the staff hat part now) reviewing the rolls system to see if improvements can be made has been on the V8 to-do list for a bit, so while we can't promise that we'll go with this exact route or any other, we can definitely take it into consideration. I'd be interested in seeing what other possible ideas people have too, so by all means continue the conversation.

[Fenris]

ive had vague brainstormy talks about this topic with people before for funsies but setting aside all the extreme wild bullshit that would be great but will never happen (or is just like. unrelated to the topic at hand) ive ended up at basically this spot myself so i dont have a lot to add. i think the 1/3 mark is kinda arbitrary but thats a thing to get workshopped or whatever.

i think the "if you have bad luck and get hit down to 1 kid before the deadline you are also immune to getting hit again until that point" clause is vital in terms of mitigating Resentment; i do see where zee's coming from re: people being annoyed if the 1 kid isnt very good but idk. assuming we're going with 1/3 thats like what, 4 days? it isnt really that long, and imo it could only be a good thing for every (actively participating) writer to be able to stick around for ~4 months before possibly being rolled out.

i did some glancing at the data and the only kid in v7 who would have been directly saved by this rule if it had been in place would be Tristan (discounting Clayton here since his handler was inactive and he would have been killed anyway); that said there were also 3 heroes used on one-handler kids that wouldnt need to have been used when they were

which is like another point i feel like making, which is that i feel like one-kid handlers tend to attract easy heroes in the early game, and i guess you could call that a natural solution to this problem (a low-quality single kid presumably won't get heroed thus sidestepping the resentment problem and any others will get saved anyway). but like. its basically a social expectation that Someone hero a single kid early on, and because that social expectation is in place the handler in question will feel super shitty if it doesnt happen, and the knowledge that those bad feelings will come out of no one heroing makes it more likely someone will hero if only out of pity, etc.

i am rambling. my point is that i feel like its better for the community if we can mitigate the Expectation that people will always hero handlers with one kid early on by just having that not be necessary. and also that imo the point of hero cards is to use them on characters you like, and feeling compelled to use them out of pity kinda sucks.

I THOUGHT I HAD NOTHING TO SAY BUT THEN I HAD A LOT TO SAY, im very sorry

[dmboogie]

imo even if a handler's single character is widely and wildly disliked they still deserve to have a chance to play the game, and it's not like you'll get better at writing by not writing

[Jilly]

the sparknotes is that I p much agree about roll immunity through the first third or so (or whenever official adoptions stop, really). I get the worry about people abusing the system or the feeling of unfairness if a disliked character is pushed through, but at the same time I think the likelihood of someone gaming the system is way less likely than it is to get rolled in a set early on.

I also look at it through the lens of a new handler. If this was my first game and I only had 1 kid, if I got rolled out on like day 2 I'd feel really discouraged from coming back when these games do take a while to even really start. Getting eliminated early on is heartbreaking, but even more if you didn't get a real chance to play in the first place.

[MurderWeasel]

I will add/agree that, yeah, a key component of the rule as proposed is that nobody goes out before the designated mark unless they choose to or go inactive. Start with four kids and see them knocked down domino-style in the first three rolls? You're protected just like the guy who only ran one. I don't think there's really an argument to be had about deserving because literally every member gets the same treatment if they need it.

Does this leave an ideal number of characters to play if you're shoving one flagship through? Kind of, yes, but no more so than there is already, and I'd argue the number is better. Right now, if you want to shove one kid all the way, you should always write the maximum number of characters. You get a Swap (which you will almost certainly use) and a Hero (which you may well not) but you also get multi-roll protection, which means anytime Fodder McGee's name comes up, F. Shippe is safe for that cycle.

Under the proposed system, running four characters is still beneficial if you pass the cutoff, but if you get rolled earlier it's actually a bigger risk--you sacrifice immunity through holding onto fodder, which means if your favored dude gets rolled suddenly they're on the chopping block earlier than they would've been had you only written characters you were interested in. It still leaves running two characters a mathematically superior strategy in all instances but that is already the case in the current system for precisely the same reasons it would be under the new one so I don't think that's a particular knock against it.

The one other benefit I see: this sort of system would empower all handlers to play a longer game without having to fear getting wrecked by rolls. I often hear handlers bemoaning having to choose between kicking an arc off preemptively or waiting until the proper moment but risking being thwarted by RNG. This would give everyone confidence they'll get at least a few months to set stuff up for at least one kid, allowing for a more patient, long-sighted play.

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All that said, on to my real horse in the race: alternatives.

The biggest alternative that's been floated historically is giving Nulls out to one-character handlers (potentially in lieu of Heroes) and I hate this beyond words, for a few reasons.

First off, it absolutely incentivizes a certain number of characters: anyone running two characters under the system is kneecapping themselves off the bat because they double their presence on the roll list for no increase in staying/saving power. Allowing conversion of cards upon loss of characters, meanwhile, encourages handlers to never Hero ever (because by waiting they convert the card to one usable for either selfish or selfless purposes, and double the staying power of their final kid). Worse still, it's an incredibly half-baked solution to the problem--it just makes any sorry sap who gets rolled twice and not saved the second time feel even worse because wow, everyone does hate them, especially since a bunch of people hanging around with Nulls couldn't even throw one of those down to help someone in the same boat. It would also ripple into game pacing, mandating bigger rolls to offset the characters getting Nulled (which in turn makes everyone more likely to get hit, which in turn makes getting double-bopped more probable, which in turn makes the entire effort largely pointless but overly complicated).

As to other alternatives, I'd love to hear any (barring, of course, the most probable and obvious: leave things how they are. That's one's fine and I'm not gonna argue with it--the current system works pretty well IMO). I think the core to a good solution to this issue, however, is threefold:

1. Keep it simple. If it involves complicated math, or rolling conversions of cards, or tweaking probabilities, that's probably gonna mostly just be confusing. "Until the 1/3 completion mark" is honestly already kinda pushing the math level for an everyone-facing policy but at least has the benefit of mirroring a system already in place and being easy to reduce to a core number.

2. Universal benefit/eligibility. Or, put another way: it should not punish handlers for running more than one character. It should ideally not incentivize any different character count behavior except by making it more appealing to not bring fodder. I think letting multi-character handlers in if they lose all but one is pretty mandatory.

3. Doesn't go halfway. If the problem's worth solving, solve it, don't jury-rig it with band-aids. Anything that just goes "Well, this makes it somewhat less likely that handlers get rolled out early" faces a huge hurdle in that it makes those unlucky chumps it does happen to feel positively horrid. I feel pretty strongly that doing nothing whatsoever is a much better choice than adding confusion and complication in service of... not actually fixing a problem, just making it slightly less obviously obnoxious (hence my tirade about the Nulls solution).