Reciprocity in RPGs - How to Share the Spotlight - Extra Credits

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Welcome back to our guest writer Eddy Webb! After his last episode, Eddy's been doing some thinking about failure in tabletop RPGs. More specifically, how failure can bring everyone at the table closer together. How? Through the principle of reciprocity. Letting yourself fail can help let another player shine and just by offering the spotlight to someone else, you can build a better play experience for everyone.
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[@extrahistory]

Share your stories of how your character ended up in a sticky situation and let another character take on the spotlight!

[@Arkylie]

Well, there *was* that time that my rogue, who had snuck into the cultists' main room with the aim of distracting them, thought it would be a great idea to light their robes on fire. Because no one would ever notice that, right? She's a rogue! This ended in the rogue getting tied up and sacrificed to the emerging god, the entire city going up in apocalyptic flames, the remnants of the team fleeing for their lives, and my replacement character lasting all of two half-sessions due to being eaten by a tree (twice). It was certainly memorable! Honestly, probably the worst mistake I've ever made in terms of overall consequences, but not the dumbest thing I've ever done. I think it'd be hard to top my attempt to sneakily avoid eating hallucinogen snakes at a king's banquet... by pickpocketing them (turns out, snakes don't like being stuffed into pockets; I spent the rest of that scenario never sure if what I was seeing was real or just from the LSD coursing through my veins).

[@Arkylie]

Also, I happen to love any time my character gets captured in any way, shape, or form. I'll sit there with my arms inside my vest and have way more fun than if I were actually rolling dice and participating in the action. So it's perfectly possible to enjoy times when you can't do anything. Wish there were a way to replicate this feeling in MMORPGs, because I have yet to work out a mechanic that allows "other players track down your body to help you" feel like fun instead of wasted time.

[@Arkylie]

Also also, does it count if the "spotlight" was a moment of total failure and TPK? Because I once made a low-level sorcerer who specced more "interesting" spells and less "combat-ready" spells. In a very small party. Which ended, after a few sessions, in my friend's character, IIRC, invisible and pinned beneath some giant object while the rest of us got killed, and he gasped out something like "Tell them... it wasn't my fault!" which has become quite the memorable incident in our history '^_^

[@francez123456789]

Game: 40k black crusade My khorn aligned character was turned into heritic soup a couple sessions prior and I had rolled up a new nurgel psycher to replace him. One of that characters first actions was to make fake cigarettes for a character that he noticed was on his last smoke. The smoker character was a bit of a bitch- he was more or less inadvertantly thrust into being a heritic through unfortunate circumstances. Anyway my character spiked the fake cigarettes with some deseiese to see how reailiant he was. After the smoaker violently shit himself due to the disease he pieced together that my character was somehow responsible and in that moment of rage he grew as a character a little because as soon as my character rounded a corner to board a transport ship he is chest was blown the fuck up by auto cannon fire and stunned for like 5 minutes. Before that 5 minutes was up however he yanked the astartes chain axe from one of the other characters hands (we are all human btw, the character with the chain axe was literally a meme character) dragged it over to my horrifically injured character, revved the chain axe, lifted it over his head, and dropped it in my characters body and letting that mother fucker do its thing. My character lasted all of 2 sessions before being killed and honestly... it was worth it- I made that guys character grow. He was still a bitch after that but far less of one. After that I rolled up a slanesh character who was all about hunting bigger and badder foes in pursuit of self perfection through combat. He actually lasted the rest of the campaign!

[@YourFunkiness]

Paladin was focused on tracking down a fallen paladin. My character was stuck facing an iron golem, and I only had fire and mind altering spells. I called for help and he rushed and saved me from a foe I couldn't do anything to while I left to finish off the fallen paladin.

[@Nurdse_326]

You know, I am not in game development, I do not play tabletop RPG games, I am really more of what most people would qualify as a casual gamer. Yet you guys always seem to put out content that is insightful, engaging, relevant, and full of important introspective life lessons. Love your content. Thanks for putting out great, positive content in the midst of all the junk KZbin has to offer.

[@zacktrever1878]

Roll20.net + discord = a whole new world Try it

[@bran_donk]

This reminded me of my own improv theater experience (a crossover the video also suggests). The tenets of improv are really useful in tabletop roleplaying. "Yes, and", "make your partner look good", and "there are no mistakes" alone make a huge difference.

[@mr.johnson3844]

I, too, remember learning the "Yes, and," rule in improvisational theater. But I also like how it is a major rule of successful TTRPG'ers. The D&D group Critical Role has one moment where something completely unexpected happened as a result of a player action that was so funny the table had to stop for a good several minutes because of the laughter. I remember Liam O'Brian shouting out "YES, AND!" as a humorous commentary on the other player's choice.

[@cifer1607]

I quite like the failure mechanics of Invisible Sun: When a session as a whole is negative for your character, you gain a point of Despair. When it is positive, you gain a point of Joy. To advance, you need both Joy and Despair.

[@Sanorace]

One time, I got stuck in a spider web first turn and spent the entire fight really hamming up the damsel in distress shtick. It added a level of depth to a pretty straight forward giant spider showdown. My friends were more invested in saving me than they would have with a random NPC.

[@kevinschultz6091]

Making a character that's sub-optimal in order to create interesting and dramatic tension? How ABSERD!

[@liamwhite3522]

Well, I'm not sure how much tension Abserd made, other than the tension of having a serf of all trades, jack of none in a party that could have used a jack of all trades, master of none.

[@jamesmiller3127]

@@liamwhite3522 I am so going to use "serf of all trades," that's hilarious.

[@franzfanz]

Alternatively you could also try Build Murray.

[@gunjfur8633]

I think I see what you did there

[@GameProductionMatt]

You're missing the point, minmax your character all you want but add some imperfection to it. If you're too insecure to play a suboptimal character, at least try to enjoy failures.

[@brianyoung3324]

At 3:00, you say that "while I may enjoy the act of being nice, I don't feel closer to you as a person until you do me a favor in return". There are studies that indicate otherwise, and it actually strengthens the point you're making in the video as a whole. Performing a small favor can actually make you like that person more than it makes that person like you. The idea is the same as you say later: it puts you in the mindset of contributing to the success of the other person. Their victory is also yours if you help them. Of course, it only works if the favor is reasonable, or you'll just feel taken advantage of.

[@Talik13]

This is one of my favorite parts about tabletop games with the people I've played with, and honestly, I've never thought of it that way - It's always just come naturally to us. But pointing this out makes me appreciate the chemistry my friends playing these games have had.

[@GameProductionMatt]

What a great guide to help power gamers to really role play. It could be summarize in one sentence: No one is perfect nor good at it all the time; own your failures and drawbacks.

[@isadoracostahamsi163]

I played with a guy that could attack 4-6 times before anyone rolled initiative. He also could re-roll and output a lot of damage (not sure how the DM allowed for that). My character was pretty slow so he would always kill everyone before I got a chance to play. Because of this the DM had to make the encounters harder, but now no one could damage them, except for that guy. Needless to say, it was a lot more fun when he didn’t show up to play. Also, we enjoyed the non combat parts of the game more the normal, because it was the o my thing everyone could participate at.

[@falconJB]

Negative reciprocity is also great and very memorable, Paranoia has always been great for that kind of thing. Its especially great when the GM starts going easy on the characters and tries to help them salvage a bad situation and one of the character just throws a spanner in the works, which then gets everyone to start throwing spanners and all of the sudden everyone's clone number has ticked up and the mission is an abject failure so the debriefing officer has no choice but to declare them all traitors and knock them all back down to infrared.

[@Lulink013]

I think this works for the mechanics of a solo RPG too: your party is bound to include characters that shine more than others, so the moments designed to make the others shine should be given extra care as to make that shortened spotlight time even better than the rest of the game makes the MVPs look strong

[@benlittle5543]

This reminds me of a time I found a dog lost and scared, returned the dog the the owners tried to pay me and when I tried to reject the payment they were perturbed. I swallowed my pride and took the reciprocity in kind. Keep on mind when you start the cycle you should not try to stop it because the good you felt should be felt by all. Thank you for using game design as a place for personal growth in real life. I have been actively recommending this channel to all my friends [games or not]. With emphasis of the episode on mental health in games as an example of some of y'alls best work. Keep on keepin' on

[@johnno4127]

A gentleman stopped to put air into his tire at a public pump which didn't work; he asked me to help change it. I got everything ready but couldn't break it free. Someone else was able to get the lugs loose. When we were done this businessman offered us each cash, the second guy turned him down, but I've seen the importance of letting people express gratitude. It was odd to feel guilty accepting someone's gratitude.

[@Jamie_ThatJamGuy]

Zoey's such a good cat, I wish I could get my dogs to help around the house as well.

[@archmagusofevil]

My dogs help around the house. It's been years since the last time I've had to clean up dropped food.

[@fionafiona1146]

Just put stuff on high shelfs you don't want there, if he wasn't allergic a cat could very well compensate my boyfriend 😂(I guess getting steps is sufficient too).

[@setteplays]

Not only the players! Believe it or not, I've encountered a lot of GMs who have a hard time "failing" with their prep or letting the players win and reap cool scenarios and situations as rewards for their planning and effort (not just xp and items). Most GMs I've met just try to raise the challenge higher and higher all the time and the player's tension never goes away, causing stress and frustration.

[@Gabriel-ic3sr]

My DM just sent this to our group chat...

[@xatiter]

Extra Credits, I'd like to say thank you. Since I found your channel some months back, I've learned so much from you guys.And now, I'm starting to work on my very first game,all thanks to you guys. Keep up the good work!

[@Atariese]

Quirks and weaknesses make characters seem real while still providing them with an opportunity to leave the spotlight whenever necessary. Phobias i find work extremely well on characters who are quite powerful. We all have fears or things we don't want to contend with, so its something everyone can draw from and understand. In a somewhat recent Earthdawn campaign i was playing a T'skrang Swordmaster (short lizardfolk swashbuckler) who exemplified confidence. In everything she did she gave everything she had. Always pushed herself to the limit and did not fear pain or death. For if she were to die, that was her decided fate by the passions. She was a hero, and everyone around her knew it at all times. She also was afraid of spiders. Every dusty crypt, each dark wood, and anything with 8 legs freaked her out. To the point where she would spend many turns running to the farthest point away she could get. At which point she would hopelessly use a bow she was not proficient with to try to make it go away. Our BBG loved sending Jehuthra after us. They look so horrifying: dmscraft.proboards.com/thread/3244/jehuthra-horror-construct (post not associated with me in any way)

[@lauraschantz9058]

I love the bit about wrestling, because it does a good job of showing what's predetermined vs. what's up to chance. Yes, the ending is decided ahead of time. Yes, this means the heel is effectively "throwing the match." But wrestlers still use real fighting moves, and while they generally aren't injured AS badly as they pretend to be, they do get injured. Pulling your punches doesn't mean you're not punching at all, and even when you know how to throw someone without hurting them too badly....you're still throwing them, and it will still hurt. And the heel has to really SELL "I'm powerful, and it takes a good hard hit to knock me down," while the face has to sell "I'm having a really hard time here, but I'm gonna win." Similarly, a good DM wants players to (eventually) win, whatever that means for that game. You want them to get from point A to point B, but *how,* and what everyone does along the way, is up to the rest of the party. And while the party's gonna go around beating the tar out of monsters and villains of all sorts, they do still get hit. They lose HP. The healer may need to stabilize the tank so they don't die. And to make sure the healer's around to keep the fighters fighting, the rangers ranging, and the wizards, um, whizzing, party members have to be willing to help each other out both in combat, and in social situations (role-playing as well as "roll-playing," as my husband would put it).

[@Xukti]

There is also another mean of reciprocity rarely spoken about. If you put a person that doesn't like you in a situation where they did something good for you, they may explain it to themselves that you're not as bad. Rewarding them for this can strengthen the likelihood of that reaction.

[@aerowalker3]

I like how this topic not only helps in RPGs, but also life in general. A very good example of how games can help people practice good, healthy habits

[@jamrenzee]

There's a player in our rp group that has a tendency to not do this. He always plays a wizard and knows the game so well that there's no point for anyone else to try anything other than hit a monster occasionally. It honestly feels like we are just window dressing to make it look dangerous up until he kills them all with one spell. And he knows the game so well that his builds are absurd. Whenever he makes a check there's no question as to whether or not he will pass. We don't even check his rolls most of the time because its irrelevant, no matter how low he rolls he passes. We had a good campaign going where everyone had good reciprocity with each other, then he joined the game and now its just all about him. Sometimes I wonder why my character is even there since its clear everyone could just leave it to him and he could solo the campaign.

[@MogofWar]

Usually fuckers like that use the broken ass overpowered builds they have to conceal the fact that they're cheating. Sometimes it's in the structural semantics of how the abilities stitch together or whatnot. They make things stack that shouldn't stack or make circumstantial effects into constant effects. Sometimes it's by a semantic "sleight of hand" or it's from interpreting the words in the descriptions by the common house rules rather than actual system rules. This was where about half of the power creep in 3.5 came from, and is incidentally why half the time, the people at WotC didn't understand the players complaints.

[@fumpledump]

I always make characters that are really only good at one or two things in order to have situations like this show up. (This is not only fun for everyone else but sometimes the DM will allow you to use creative ways to use that one power to get out of a situation)

[@johnno4127]

I know you'd probably prefer a more general format, but I'd LOVE to see an episode about specific ways to begin a loop of reciprocity in D&D.

[@dans6046]

I am currently planning out my first DnD game! My first time as Game Master, and how happy I was to see my favourite gaming channel covering TTRPGs!! Thanks for the video, it was useful.

[@von_derpenstein]

If you're looking for more first times GM advice I would consider Seth Skorkowsky as a good channel to stop by; his in-general TTRPG videos have a lot of good info. Also if you feel like expanding out of D&D in the future he reviews modules for Call of Cthulhu, Connan, Traveler, and Cyberpunk

[@johnno4127]

Good luck! You could do a lot worse than to pay attention to Extra Credits. . I found Extra Credits a long time ago and it was quite useful for me as I tried to improve my GMing skills.

[@joaomarcoscosta4647]

As a professional actor, I can't help but notice that pretty much everything you've said applies to theater as well. ^^

[@ws.hicks14]

Now the question is, when will my cats start helping me clean my bathrooms?

[@Haannibal777]

“Can’t talk. Ranked game.”

[@BrazenBard]

Huh, there's an idea for a game mechanic - every time someone Botches (Critical Failure, Fumble, whatever you want to call it), every other player gets a Hero Point, an Advantage, an Action Die, (whatever you want to call it)... Effectively, one player's utter and total failure may be detrimental to that character there and then, but each other player gains some sort of boost, overall strengthening the party as a whole... Gotta look into ways to implement something like this... or how it might've been implemented in earlier systems.

[@Atariese]

I believe those systems are referred to as "momentum." My Saturday game uses it. Failure goes into a pool that can be used for later use for a re-roll (that anyone in the party can use) or being able to react to a situation that is happening too quickly (like jumping in the way of an arrow that was going to hit a dignitary) or even change the environment ("is there a convenient bucket nearby to get some water out of that river?")

[@colricht]

Always great content! Makes me wish my DM and half my party hadn’t moved so far away!!

[@toomayps214]

Watching this episode I remembered a moment from a quick zombies game I had with my friends. We were looking around when two zombies grabbed my friend, who was already weak from a previous encounter, and bit him. Trying to save him, my other friend tried to shoot the zombies but ended up hitting him. After that the first friend got two consecutive headshot crits making him look like a badass. Thought I'd share

[@VileLasagna]

I think all of the times I had the most fun in RPGs was when everyone at the table had these sort of characters who were "predictable and focused" in their approach. In my last game we were playing Forgotten Realms as a bunch of low level characters stuck in the Underdark, and my character was "naive and optimistic", such as that every time we met/saw someone that looked sentient, he'd just wave and holler (at least until he learned better from that race/faction/whatever). This of course had many hilarious results with both predictable disasters (which then gave our martial players their time to shine) but also some unexpected alliances arising. And it was always the time for a laugh because we all knew what was going to happen, even when it was obviously a bad idea from the player's perspective. Embracing this "narrow focus" on the character rather than "metagaming" would lead us to quite naturally evolve the group dynamics even as the party was a bunch of strangers that met as fellow prisoners in a dungeon at the beginning of the adventure

[@LamanKnight]

Aww... that last bit did make me tear up a tiny bit. You're a good cat, Zoey.

[@philipcollier4883]

* Episode about Reciprocity * I got a little motto Always gets me through When you're good to Mama MAAMAA'S GOOOD TOOOO YOOOOOUUUUUU!!! 😁

[@benjaminholt331]

I'm thinking to my group's DnD campaign... there were moments when everyone else would get enemies down to one health, and my weak ass bard would step in and get the killing blow. This earned him the nickname "coup de grace" and it became a running joke in the campaign.

[@snakycarnival9119]

good job you explain these things so well

[@igorthelight]

"Failure is not an option!" - every villain ever to his minions

[@JoseAngelC]

Very well put in a simple and understandable manner, thanks Extra- Credits

[@XboXgamerXboX]

Lmao the opening had me thinking of classic wow the whole time.

[@15098D]

I had a great example of this in a recent DnD session where a villain kept trying to take over my character’s mind and the other players got a chance to beat said villain into the ground for doing so

[@JudinA]

This is relevant for all kinds of roleplaying. I remember the forum-based text RPing of my teenage years. We'd play in the Harry Potter universe, or we were vampires ... or both *cough*. Anyway, it took me a while to figure out that if we showed interest in each other's characters and not just our own, the game became a lot more rewarding and fun. The impulse to spend all your time making yourself look cool actually works against its goal.

[@vladspellbinder]

Thanks for the video EC crew.

[@TORchic1]

this kinda reminds me of a situation in the first campaign we had for our DnD group. My sister's character ( a dragonkin) and mine (an orc) had arrived at an old Inn in a new continent run by Rolf from Ed Edd n Eddy (yep.) We met up with new adventurers there and were settling in for the night before we were attacked by Rolf, who turned out to be a monster. The fight was going kinda south, since Rolf was a very high level monster and two of the other players said and investigated the wrong thing at the time, forcing him to attack our level 1 characters. They were both down for the count, when my sister's dragonkin, in the most anime-esque move, gritted her teeth and charged at Rolf-- fist raised and ready to punch his head off. Her punch connected, but did almost nothing and she got her head blown off. We managed to take down Rolf and one other player character asked a favor from a mage to help revive the dragonkin. It was a really memorable first campaign.

[@pancake7117]

Love these tabletop episodes

[@xiongrey19]

Yay more eddy webb videos!

[@Moosbeuren1]

Guys you are amazing. Ty very much

[@EveryGamerLife]

Damn it no spoiler tags for wrestling? Can't believe this.

[@TheAMadMan]

I love these "I've made a huge mistake. I need an adult!" Moments. One time I accidentally turned into a demigod though. The deck of many things can be very dangerous in unsuspecting ways. It turns out demigod school is pretty boring...

[@waaurufu]

Just last night I was playing D&D and I used my turn to buff everyone around me, but didn't myself attack. My ally then got a critical hit thanks to my buff and utterly destroyed the enemy in a blaze of holy fire and glory. That might not have happened if I didn't use my turn in a useful but non-flashy way.

[@Alzzarla]

Love this

[@Fathomorg]

This probably explains why I rarely enjoyed the few games of D&D I've played so far in my life: I often got strange looks from other party members for giving my characters weaknesses...

[@Katana314]

I started thinking how this could apply to video games, and almost instantly got disappointed, because systems often form reciprocity as "the routine" that players then become disappointed from in its absence, rather than excited by its presence. As an example, a Heavy won't do much to thank a Medic who's been healing him for the past minute - but he might curse out that Medic the moment he abandons a fight. Often when a video game relies on players covering for each other, this then becomes a normalized expectation from the way online players repeat circumstances so often. You might even see tabletop RPGs have this same issue if players were ever repeating the same scenarios again and again.

[@GnarledStaff]

Hmmm... so games that want to encourage reciprocity need to allow failure better, so the entire team is not dragged down if one player fails...

[@Cartoonicus]

Awwww, Zoey cleaned his bathroom. So Sweet!

[@Cythil]

Why I only played my most OP character ever once. They just steal the spotlight and solo everything. And that is no fun. I will admit I did not expected the character to be just that OP. But I learned quickly that that character was no good for the game. So I agreed with the GM to retired the character after one session. Also why I like specialization. At least in the start of a game. That makes everyone have there thing they can get there spotlight on them. Later on people tend to develop a sense of taking turns and doing thing more as a team but at the start this team dynamic can be a hard thing to achieve.

[@MrT3a]

There's another way I take when creating a character : build a rounded base, then slightly specialise them for a task. It allow my characters to be able to pick up a role if the real specialist is unavailable, while never outshining them, and if rules allow, even support them. That is at character creation, as the game continues, my characters tend to develop more in their speciality.

[@OrbitalAstronaut]

Nice video. I liked it.

[@hqleakswastaken]

i love the intro fo this channel

[@dhaval1489]

Your team always make excellent video i always give a like

[@timothyguyette2881]

I love it

[@TheBoundFenrir]

Not sure this counts as failures, but one of my favorite campaigns ever had a lot of moments like this, where the party's various negative traits served to spur on and grant limelight to the others: We had a barbarian, who was _absolutely_ fearless, standing in front of gods and calling them cowards. A cleric of a death god, who sought to bring death to _as many people as possible_ , regardless of petty things like 'good' or 'evil' And a warlock of ceaseless paranoia, who did _everything in his power_ to avoid people knowing he existed, while simultaneously knowing _as much as possible_ about any potential threats to the party. The result was each of the the three could build off of the negative problems of the others: The fearless barbarian would walk right into enemy territory like he owned the place; The party would think that *surely* the barbarian had just signed his own death warrant, but the enemies would be scared of the barbarian's courage. Obviously there was a trap, no one would be so stupid as to just walk in without *some* kind of backup, right? Their caution would buy the party time and space to do what they needed. The death cleric would set slums on fire, and leave his holy symbol carved into stone walls, creating an aura of fear and chaos that allowed the barbarian's confidence to seem all the more potent, and keep the party's enemies all the more distracted, uncertain what the barbarian's game was. And the paranoid warlock would act as overwatch, using Master of the Myriad Forms and Invisibility to scout and provide the party information on enemy weaknesses, as well as impersonating the barbarian to provide conflicting reports of where the barbarian was at any given time. The barbarian benefited from the chaos the cleric caused, pretending it was all according to plan, and benefited from the warlock being magic support for any time his solid adamantium balls couldn't solve the situation. The cleric benefited because the barbarian kept people distracted so he could cause his chaos, and from the warlock providing info on the key threats that needed destabilizing. The warlock benefited from borrowing the Barbarian's ever-growing reputation, and from the cleric keeping things confused; broken lines of communication where a shapeshifter could make man-in-the-middle attacks.

[@joedoe7041]

TheBoundFenrir. while it's not a failure, it is what the video was talking about just now, charters helping others and in turn helping them. success or failure have little to do with it. also great story, love these sorts of dnd shorts.

[@carloscaro9121]

Aside: In pro wrestling, No Sell is usually a put-down for a bad wrestler who doesn't work to make their partners' moves look powerful and good, which makes them a bad partner. Even if you are supposed to win the match, if your opponent is supposed to get a few good whacks in (I.E. not a squash match, where it's supposed to be a one-sided beatdown), you have to sell them so your win looks like it was a real threat, and the losing wrestler doesn't look like a waste of time. A wrestler who is not a star, but good at selling, could become a jobber, or regular wrestler who is there to do the job and take the beatings selling the stars to the audience. Given how most people in wrestling don't make it, being a jobber at high level is kinda like being a utility infielder in the major leagues; way farther than most of the marks in the bleachers will ever get! No sell is sometimes used to show how bad-ass someone is intentionally. The application of having your GM characters sell or no sell in an RPG is obvious; sell to make the PCs feel powerful, no sell to start intimidating the PCs. This can also apply to characters in "social combat" as well. If a player has a really witty remark and the NPC brushes it off with disdain, it shows they clearly consider the PC's beneath their contempt. If they spew off sputtering, incoherent rage, this sells up the impact of the comment.

[@flamebeard10339]

So. It's not necessarily true that it is the receiver of the gift that increases the relationship between people. There are studies that show the opposite (giving is what makes you feel closer not receiving).

[@wonderlandartwork3579]

in the first session, my character got in a really bad situation. We were up against a pretty twisted kobold cleric capable of telekinesis and he had me in his grasp, ready to rip out my guts through my mouth. I couldn't break free so the other player had two moments to shine. He attacked the Kobold, leading to me being able to free myself and then kicked him around a bit. I actually used my turn to roleplay, letting my character throw up and struggle to stand on 2HP before we could finally make our exit via giant wall explosion. After an adrenaline fueled escape we managed to get to a river and I just dunked my head into the water. Then we got the shit beaten out of us by a troll.

[@Yvaelle]

Wait so the Yuumi that carried my team the other day in League of Legends, who only spoke in ascii cat faces...thanks Zoey!

[@ArloMathis]

Sounds like TAZ. Great stuff. :D

[@theblueshadow3537]

Where did you get your definition of reciprocity? All I got were versions of reciprocity is a mutual beneficial relationship, or reciprocity is the exchange of goods or services where all parties benefit. Your the only one I could find that says it's responding appropriately to something someone else does.

[@sanfransiscon]

Is there a game where you play as a professional wrestler and must win and lose fights stylishly? Because I'd really like that. It could be a hybrid between a fighting game and a puzzle game.

[@scarredchild]

And here I thought you meant videogame RPG's. Though this can be used in videogames, like in Outer World's mechanic of giving you a weakness in exchange for a powerful perk. Also, a few years ago Game Informer magazine voted D&D table-top to be the top RPG even among videogames because it is the base with which our videogames are based on.

[@AceHardy]

👑

[@dkendrick1916]

Can you guys make an extra history on Franz Stigler?

[@DigiMatt52]

I wonder.. Is reciprocity why we keep pets in the first place? We do something for them(their bidding), and they do something for us(cuddles). If we feed a stray cat we never interact with, and our own cat that sleeps in our bed - Which one are we more attached to?

[@kailomonkey]

This sort of thing should be the first rule and thing you learn about RPG playing. I've seen people go in to win and suck the game dry.

[@stevenneiman9789]

My current character, who's buckets of fun to play, basically has one character propping him up morally and another in combat. He's a blue dragon, so he's not really a great person and the bard spends a lot of time trying to get him to behave himself. And because game balance is a strange thing indeed, his kobold rogue minion has way better damage output than him so even in combat he kinda takes a less important role. If anything, he's mostly just a vehicle and support for that much deadlier minion.

[@Arcanua]

While not an RPG this whole video screams Dwarf Fortress since that's part of the point of the game. We fans and the developers have the saying "Losing is FUN!" would be interesting to see what Toady would say on this sort of concept since it still matters in Dwarf Fortress, even if you don't really have a story up front you do and don't.

[@garry5291]

I love ur cartoons

[@Shyningfade]

On that note, are there any Wrestling tabletop games? If not, I bet it would be a ton of fun. I can already imagine rolling a 1 and botching a move FTL.

[@TazerMarks]

Were were playing Hero Builder and at the final boss of the Arch. It was a Fallen Far Queen who had hidden her soul in a gem a good 120 feet away from the battle. The queen had smashed our tank and had just nearly smashed my summoner and the other players healer. My minions found the gem but I could only teleport it me with one more action. I wanted to destroy the Queen but I did not have the actions. Our healer tho, did. So with my last action I tossed it to her. She in turn rolled a natural 20 on her created power called Fae Beam. It allowed her ro attack using her own soul gem, but this time she used the fae queens. Destroying the queen with her own gem. My character passed out but because I was able to let go of my want, our hero had the biggest kill of the game. Extra Credits, you should try out the system. I know the creators would love to run you a game! Their site: www.thetablecandle.com

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

This is one advantage that high-verisimilitude low-rules games have; particularly ones set in a version of the current-ish world. When you can leverage players’ real-world specialist knowledge in the game, it’s impossible for one player to dominate since the scope of mastery required would be all of human experience. In a game like Delta Green the odds that just one player knows how to destroy a body, customise a rifle, design a research program and contain a virus are very, very low.

[@Funinyourgame]

The table top example...damn I wish my players would stop being mad about failed rolls

[@Arkylie]

I enjoyed it when we had a Fumble Deck going -- various interesting things could happen, based on which type of roll we'd fumbled, and sometimes the effect wasn't applicable, so the fumble would be reduced to just a miss. Of course, our GM was good at hitting the line between enjoyment and frustration, so he actually took a Sharpie to the most "uh, no, that's not happening" entries in the deck. I generally find the Starfinder/Starjammer rules to be an improvement, but the lack of fumble rules was one of the things I missed (though having critical hits less difficult to confirm is a positive!). Personally, if I were in the GM seat again, I'd have a Critical Hit deck/chart, a Fumbles deck/chart, and the ability to fumble skill checks *if* you had no more than 2 ranks in the skill *and* the roll went under the difficulty by at least ten (perhaps five if untrained). I think once you've invested some good skill ranks in a trait, you can still fail but not catastrophically (especially since you'd likely be the one rolling those checks all the time). But Critical Hit effects in combat avoid one of the most annoying pieces of min/maxing I ever did, which was speccing into being able to blind enemies. So, of course, that being my skill, I arrow-blinded *every single enemy* I possibly could. It got old *real fast* and yet it was the most effective use of my powers. So I prefer having occasional random blinding, deafening, maiming, dazing, what have you, if it makes sense from the circumstances, and I don't in the least bit mind being the recipient of such effects (on occasions much rarer than the enemies receiving them) -- assuming that the Tone of the campaign plus the availability of restoration spells match up. In a grittier piece, I don't mind my character picking up an eyepatch. In a more swashbuckling piece, I don't want to feel like my character was permanently hampered by bad dice rolls. Although I did once demand that my party chop off my arm after I got bit by a space-zombie ("it's not that kind of zombie!" protested the GM; "you do it or I'll do it myself!" protested my character), spent the rest of the flight with penalties due to lacking an arm and being hopped up on painkillers (did I mention I was the tank?), and then, at the close of session, drew the GM aside to ask that I not miraculously have my arm back at the start of next session; I wanted its loss to be "memorable." The next session, we took on an adventure to get the money to pay for my replacement arm... and through various mishaps, *every single character* (including the GM's pet NPC pilot) lost an arm ^_^

[@Arkylie]

Oh, and consider possibly handing out some sort of minor goodie with every fumble. I had a similar tactic -- not for fumbles -- in my Shadowrun campaign, wherein I would reward various types of positive behavior (everything from good in-character decisions to witty lines by the players) with by handing over bonus dice that could be added to any roll. It got slightly overpowered, but seemed to hit a good balance on the whole. We've also employed foam cubes to toss at people (mostly the GM's side of things, but once a foam cube is in your hands, you can toss it at others), which are generally thrown over bad puns. And party poppers (the ones that put out a bunch of streamers) whenever a character bites the dust; sometimes we'll all be holding one, on the edge of our seat to find out if this is really the end for that character or if they can just shake off the malaria long enough to get healed. (Okay, the malaria killed me but I got brought back by GM fiat, because it was just a tremendously bad string of rolls where I couldn't hit two in a row that'd pass the check, even with all the bonuses the party could throw at me. But we've done the poppers for other deaths.)

[@hollandscottthomas]

I had a player ignore a whole lot of warnings about a bad situation and just go barrelling in, only to then get slapped with double fail rolls and it ended up killing their character outright pretty close to the start of the game. They weren't happy. I was like, "Dude, I'm not going to change the outcome because you explicitly ignored all of the warning signs as well as my warnings as a DM. I'm not punishing you, I TOLD YOU this was a potential outcome before we started playing." Cue sulking. Eventually I handed him the backup character I'd created for a similar scenario later in the game where I expected someone to die proper and brought his old character back as a reanimated villain for him to battle. But damn if that didn't make it easy to demonstrate consequence going forward. I'm all for softening the blow of a fumble, but some people just want to do whatever they want.

[@gaydes1012]

I once joined a dnd game a little late so the dm had to make up an introduction on the fly so my character was stuck in a tree (never mind that he is a centaur but roll with it) so the ranger tried to lasso me out of the tree and ended up yanking me out onto my caricatures neck knocking him out and the party healer had to step in so I wouldn't spend the entire adventure knocked out in a ditch

[@sharif47]

[Someone gives me a gift.] Me [thinking that I must return a gift]: Awwe sh!t, here we go again.

[@purpleghost106]

Zoe is such an excellent animal companion

[@timushpetru1112]

Me:Sees an episode about rpg. Also me:YOU BETTER TALK ABOUT GOTHIC 1 AND 2!

[@ruolbu]

I wish they did at some point.

[@DasNetzwerk]

It would be so great if Extra Credits would talk about this gem at some point. Maybe on topics like world building, three dimensional movement, great quest design or the simple fact that it inspired great grames like The Witcher or Dark Souls!

[@DandragonDe]

Can relate.

[@elig6972]

Everybody can do it!

[@kuronosan]

The system works.

[@sabinhertz4145]

Hey, I'm an engineer and dev working on open world mmorts and I have come across this problem. I just call it the 2p problem but I'm sure you have a name for it. Basically, I want to make sure that if the player makes 2 accounts, they won't be 2x as strong as a player who didn't. Of course I could track IP address but that doesn't really get to the core of the problem, plus a user could just have 2 devices. I would love it if you could make a video shedding some light on this topic. I think it's something that any open-world mmo could suffer from.

[@sarah153017]

Cool

[@brianyang1151]

Dragalia Lost somehow captures this with coop.

[@ninjamonkey2251]

The Zoey bathroom complaint touched me deeply.

[@matesafranka6110]

This episode was brought to you by Matron Mama Morton.

[@honeychiuan8720]

#TeamTrees

[@savitgupta8943]

@extracredits, wanna give tree's their time in the spotlight ?, join the #teamtree !

[@tristragyopsie5464]

Well said. Now if only someone would explain how RPGs are an approach and or view point to a game and not bound by a mechanic or trope. but doing that would open up the whole abyss of what we currently call RPG which is anything with a character and a story. MOST RPGs today are not really RPGs but just action games or puzzle games stretching for a broader audience on there fringe. It's partly why we have tried and true D&D games that flop and why we can't get a good shadowrun game to save our life though if any of you are like me you REALLY REALLLLLLY REAAAALLLLLLLLY want one (CP2077 don't let me down. you have the look, do you have the feel and the depth of setting to make a real cyberpunk rather than the limp wristed social debate of things like Deus EX)

[@Dariushellstrome]

Wtf Trinity Continuum??? (I have just googled it so I know about it now) I've got the entire original line in book form and didn't know this was a thing, between this and Torg Eternity how do I choose what to run in my really limited time

[@shawnheatherly]

You got to take some failures in stride, in gaming and life.

[@markguyton2868]

Now how would using reciprocity help to build a video game RPG?

[@TheRealGuywithoutaMustache]

If only reading words from a dictionary was as interesting as watching this video.

[@ovajgamingtip4230]

Ok who are you are you Justin J s brother or something.

[@bobfearnley5724]

So that's how my gifts made friends in Warframe

[@93izak]

It feel that it's been to long since a gaming related topic

[@minedantaken1684]

Now, how to apply it to mmo?

[@fhengal]

This video reminded me of the Chinese cultural concept of Guanxi.

[@jimmyc.491]

That was a video to rememer. ; )