Does anyone have advice for making sure social leverage currency gets spent in your PbtA games (e.g., Monsterhearts strings, Urban Shadows debts, Masks influence)? I’ve played a lot of these games, usually at cons or limited runs, and it’s consistently the least engaged with mechanic, particularly between PCs. I don’t know if it’s related to the fear of spending a resource before you REALLY need it, or anxiety about messing with narrative direction, but I’d love to hear people’s tips for pushing these tools, or if they’ve felt it holds their game back
Social Leverage Currency in PbtA games
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Do you find that there is inter-player conflict but people don’t use strings? Or just that there is no inter-player conflict?
When I ran monster hearts as a con one shot a lot I had done favorite tricks to force players into conflict. These could be heavy handed, depends on the game you wanted to run. So for each playbook I would be prepared with a negative behavior or driving question. In an extreme example, to a werewolf character, near the beginning of the game, “tell me why you are beating his character up in the hall?” Similarly I would push really hard with questions in homeroom setup, that didn’t let them avoid creating tension.
Those sorts of things helped me get players pointed at each other. Which is the main issue I had with getting them to use strings.
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I think your intuitions on this are likely close to the reason. I think these games are designed to be played over a largish number of sessions. That gives you time to get comfortable with how spending the currency will impact your play in the short and long term. Uncertainty about that breeds hoarding.
Another piece of it though is that a lot of these systems are designed to get players to do things they might not always feel comfortable doing (ie PvP or causing drama). If your players are already comfortable with doing that stuff they are just going to do it and won’t really need to make use of the economy per se.
I might be wrong, but I don’t think any of these systems have a penalty for not making use of the currency. So there is no negative for hoarding or doing things you would do anyway that just happen to generate more currency. And if you have the situation where the players do the thing without needing to use the currency then just saying “you lose it all at the end of the session” might not be enough.
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It always helps me to remember that spending Strings or using Influence or whatever is a Move that gets triggered by the fiction just like other Basic and Playbook Moves. Be reasonably aggressive with “It sounds like you’re burning a String there” or “OK, you’re using your Influence over them here!”. The other thing that helps is to allow retroactive use of those currencies even if the system doesn’t allow it: “Ouch! You want to keep that six or use your String to bump it?” “Using up that Mission Pool gets you the 10 here!” Remind them regularly that currency is there and that the default expectation is that it gets spent.
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I’m designing a FitD game using Strings as a currency. Part of my plan is to integrate Strings into more systems and give players other options for them.
But in my experience with Monsterhearts the biggest issue has been establishing expectations and tone at the table. Every game of MH I’ve played, it’s been clear that the major source of drama would come from interplayer conflict and the GMs lead us down that path pretty obliquely. If you are using such systems for similar purposes, make sure the themes of your game support and encourage that kind of play.
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@JimLikesGames has some great points.
I’ve had problems getting players to use Debts in Urban Shadows. My latest thinking is to aggressively push the use early in the game to set the tone and break the ice, so to speak. Set up situations that will encourage the use, and then ask the players if they want to spend the Debt/String/Bile, because the downside of not spending it is X. Make sure to show both the spending and earning of the currencies early so that players know they’ll get them back after they spend them.
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Like many of the world of darkness games i’ve played/run/seen, there is a social PVP element to Urban Shadows, and it does take some player experience/maturity to handle that without table flipping or triggering emotional bleed.
In an age of instant gratification for entertainment, playing characters who have to trade/wheel and deal to progress on their projects may be alien, also it’s different to mmo culture where you can grind/exp farm on your own and ignore the rest of the world easily.
Debts can be offered by notable npcs, so you can lead by example. I do not think people should be penalised for not using the debts, just encouraged for a richer/more varied experience through play.
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