Editing One Simple Thing (section)

=== Agenda/Reward ===

Original post and nine pages of discussion, [http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=243071 here].

: Reward/Agenda: Rewards and Agenda may seem like two different things, but in fact they are just the two sides of one coin. Agenda is what a player '''wants''' to do: not merely the goal of having fun, or telling a good story, but specifically what she finds fun, and what elements she thinks make a good story. Rewards are what other people at the table will give a player for doing something: they combine a judgment on what the player did ("That deserves extra XPs!") and a judgment on what is important enough to be a reward ("XPs are what you want, right?")

: If a player is rewarded for following her agenda then she will feel recognized and supported. The group agrees with her about what is cool: she can see that she is playing the game the right way for this group. If she isn't rewarded then she may well not feel that.

: If you reward someone with money, or praise, or candy then they will value the reward for its intinsic value. If you reward someone with something that helps them follow their agenda then they will value the reward for what they can do with it, and they will try to be rewarded again in future. If you reward them with something that can only help them follow some other agenda then it is of no value to them. They won't feel rewarded, and they won't try to gain that reward again in future.

: The most successful rewards are given to a player for following their agenda, and provide them with resources to follow that agenda in future. The most successful agenda is one that other players recognize and reward in action, and one that the player will always be getting new resources to pursue. Agenda and Reward: Two sides of the same coin.

There was no disagreement to speak of.  To my pleased astonishment people actually said "Cool, I agree.  Now let's look at the implications," and we did.