Research Retool Poll

[Jacob]

As mentioned in closing ceremonies at the last event, we're looking to revamp the Research system in response to some player concerns. We've come up with a number of options and are giving them here as a poll. Please select as many options as you like.

Also, I want to take this time to reiterate: Research is not the same as down time actions. There seems to be a bit of confusion about that. For things to be OR Canon, they have to happen during the course of a sanctioned event. Research is meant to provide information of various kinds to PCs, not to act as an avenue to perform actual actions between events.

Anyway!

The options have limited text space, so they're written in short hand. The full descriptions are here:

1) Research will never unlock production recipes, only information. Production recipes will be restructured to be released through hidden headers and the like.

2) Each individual researcher can only ever ask 1 question. The number of points at their disposal will determine the quality of the answer they receive.

3) Research questions will be assigned a difficulty--likely 1 for Common Knowledge, 5 for Obscure Knowledge, and 10 for Secrets. While no partial credit would be given for insufficient expenditures, anybody who contributes to a successful research will get a full and complete answer.

4) Genre will no longer be applied to Research Points--they will treated as entirely fungible and anyone can combine any set of points.

5) Research will never lead to mods. Ever. This would make sure that while the game is still a conspiracy game based on information, people without research skills won't be left behind in terms of mod finagling.

6) Researchers will be able to have a "common sense" check on research questions.

7) Status quo--leave things as they are.

[Madrigus]

I have some questions about the options before I can vote.

2) Say we research the same question twice in a row, hoping to add to the information we already have. Does the quality of the answer improve?

3) what if we don't have the resources at the time to put a full 5 or 10 points into a single bout of research? is the information received like option 2 until we devote the full amount of research to the question?

6) I don't understand what this means

7) How do things work now in contrast to the options to change?

[Jacob]

Answers:

2) Probably not.

3) No. That's what friends are for--one thing we keep trying to do is encourage people to put more points into fewer questions.

6) People would have some way of bouncing a question off of staff before committing to it to spare themselves a "That skill still doesn't work that way" type of answer, or wasting time on a non-starter line of inquiry.

7) Well...there have been a couple Research primer posts...

[PoeticJustice]

2) Would we have an idea of what would be worth a question vs. not?

3) Would we know the value of the question we are asking beforehand? Or would it be possible to get an estimate on complexity and then start pooling? I really like this option, but I am worried about accidentally asking a more secretive question than otherwise suspected and wasting upwards of 5 research points.

[Jacob]

2) I think that has to do with the "Common Sense" option.

3) While the values are locked down yet, I think the variable would be "Can you look it up," "Can you look it up if you try real hard," and "Is someone actively trying to hide this information."

[PoeticJustice]

[quote="Jacob"]3) While the values are locked down yet, I think the variable would be "Can you look it up," "Can you look it up if you try real hard," and "Is someone actively trying to hide this information."[/quote]

Sure sure! I guess the actual question is some questions could look like a "You could look it up if you tried real hard" and be a "Someone is actively trying to hide this information", given the general atmosphere of the game. Would we know that before coordinating points?

It seems kind of apropos to look up something you think would be fairly simple and instead stumble across a larger conspiracy, thus netting no information, but wasted research feels frustrating, especially in a game where research is so pivotal.

[Jacob]

That's one of the reasons we're trying to revamp the system. One facet of the equation, though, is that we don't want to hand hold people in a setting that's meant to be dark and treacherous.

We want the rules to be friendly and easy, but the decisions you guys make are in your hands. Part of this is squaring the two.

[Tesla]

Ok, just want to post my thoughts on this so far

I've generally been underwhelmed by research because of the CP cost for benefit ratio.
It's a skill that generally costs 4 CP. Most of the answers I've received are usually on the lines of a teaser trailer. Just enough information to make me think there may be something interesting, but never any concrete information.

For someone who spent the same CP in say, the skill "Unswerving" (Faithful header, same CP cost, 4, as "So it is written" the Exorcist research skill) The ability to resist any Horror trait effect by spending A. I'm betting they would get a lot more concrete use out of the second one
Or "Police Business" (Law Enforcement header, same CP cost, 4, as "Database Access: National Crime Investigation Center" the Law Enforcement research skill) The ability to spend WW and make a melee attack for "Slam". Lot more use.

I don't dislike Research, but I find the CP cost for it to be too high for the benefits it may grant.

Specific thoughts about each of the above options

[quote]1) Research will never unlock production recipes, only information. Production recipes will be restructured to be released through hidden headers and the like.[/quote]

I had no idea that research could be used this way. But I only started getting some production skill recently to have something to do. I actually think this would be a good use for research.

[quote]2) Each individual researcher can only ever ask 1 question. The number of points at their disposal will determine the quality of the answer they receive.[/quote]

Neither for or against this. I have 2 research points and I've almost always asked different questions with them because one is intrinsic and the other paranormal.

[quote]3) Research questions will be assigned a difficulty--likely 1 for Common Knowledge, 5 for Obscure Knowledge, and 10 for Secrets. While no partial credit would be given for insufficient expenditures, anybody who contributes to a successful research will get a full and complete answer.[/quote]

I always assumed that was how research worked. A question would need so much work (points) to uncover the needed information. I am against not allowing partial credit. If you keep working at something you should have a chance of getting there. If the other posts here are any indicator, it seems that may not be the case. If this is true and they aren't cumulative, I've wasted over a year of research points because I could only use one at a time. If you are trying to research something specific to your own backstory, it may be near impossible to get other people to contribute research points. Heck, I've found it impossible to get people to spend research points to find out about the radiation poisoning they have and that may well kill a bunch of them off. Asking people to pool points and ask fewer questions is highly unlikely because everyone has their own interests and a lot of them are personal to that character. The only people that might get useful information are organized groups and that seems to penalize individual players who don't have groups.
A full answer for all contributors seems reasonable.

[quote]4) Genre will no longer be applied to Research Points--they will treated as entirely fungible and anyone can combine any set of points.[/quote]

Hmm, I'm of two minds with this. I appreciate that have different flavors of research adds to the game experience, but being able to use both of my points together would be an advantage to me.

[quote]5) Research will never lead to mods. Ever. This would make sure that while the game is still a conspiracy game based on information, people without research skills won't be left behind in terms of mod finagling.[/quote]

Oh, please let them lead to mods. Especially if it's research into a character's own backstory. I can't think of any players that would begrudge a player getting his own mod. And see my point above about how much research costs CP skill-wise. If getting the occasional mod helps balance the loss of useful combat skills, I don't see that as a bad thing.

[quote]6) Researchers will be able to have a "common sense" check on research questions.[/quote]

I'm not sure what you mean by "common sense" check, but if you mean that Staff may notify a player that the research question they asked has no answer or won't lead anywhere, I'm ok with that. Sometimes learning not to waste time and effort in a given direction is helpful.

[Madrigus]

I like the professor's analysis.

[Owle Isohos]

I agree with the Professor as well. Well said, sir.

The only point I differ on is...

[quote]2) Each individual researcher can only ever ask 1 question. The number of points at their disposal will determine the quality of the answer they receive.[/quote]

I can't say I see the benefit to this one. There always seems to be more to research than there are Research points in the game, so being able to ask only one question feels like a step back to me. It would also make it a lot more difficult to collaborate on research with others, since it would force people to choose between personal projects and topics important to the group. It sounds like option 2 would also disallow contributing research points slowly over time, which could make it impossible to get useful answers to more obscure questions.

Largely, I like the Research system the way it is. The only thing I really want is option 6 - having paid the CP cost for Research, I'd like to always get some benefit when I spend a Research point towards something. It doesn't have to be a big benefit, but I feel it should be more than "You didn't ask the right question." Doing the Blind Molly thing of giving a cryptic hint towards something else along with the "You didn't ask the right question" would be just about perfect.