Ave Sodales.
I saw that even in the Definitive Edition preview the rules on confidence remained unchanged. Playing we noticed that by applying them as described in the 5th edition, our characters easily accumulated a huge number of confidence points as they are earned more than they are spent, allowing the characters to use them at every test, effectively giving them a constant +3 bonus to all their actions. In our opinion this unbalances the rules and the balance of the game. We seem to have understood that the use of the confidence bonus should be a sort of option for critical and important moments in the story, but to work in this perspective the characters should have a number of points that is under ten at least, otherwise when you find yourself with 30 or 40 points it is clear that you use them at every opportunity where you have noticed that you earn more than you spend. In my opinion the logic of this rule should be revised, because as it is it is not functional. I would like to be explained the meaning of this rule beyond the fact that it should simulate the character's will and self-esteem. Do you have any suggestions for a more effective rule?
Just give less Confidence points.
It might help for us to understand the context of your gaming. Are you doing inperson sessions with your players? Or is this a PbP saga?
The rules states that a typical character should receive something like 2 or 3 Confidence Points per session. That means that on average, he would be able to Confidence 2 or 3 times during that session. Otherwise he will end up with no points.
Remember that when a point is used to get a bonus, it is gone. If the characters find themselves with 30 or 40 points, that would mean they haven't used any in over 10 sessions. If they use it at every test, then they don't accumulate them.
How are your players getting an unlimited number of Confidence Points when the rules actually say "Typical characters should gain two or three Confidence Points per session"? Even at peak rate you are looking at a maximum of about 5 per session.
So something is not right if the characters have 30 or 40 points and are spending like crazy. You are giving out way to many points or they are not reducing their total when used.
Heck my group plays with a HR that allows a point of Confidence to be recovered as if it was Long Term Fatigue, though we do have a limited pool size based on Confidence Score. But we also start every session which had a time lapse with full Confidence Pool. And we are no where near being able to spend Confidence on every roll.
The problem seems to be that the players aren't spending the confidence points. They are saving them up for Really Important Stuff - which doesn't come up all that often.
So points accumulate. If they use them much, they wouldn't accumulate.
I don't really see a problem.
Either encourage players to use their confidence points more often, or just let them accumulate.
Confidence points matter only when they are used, and if they are used often they should eventually run out of them.
The problem is that his players are spending them on every test and still have huge stockpiles of points.
If so, something doesn't compute.
Once they have accumulated a large number of points they can of course be used on every test - for a short while, until they run out.
But if points are spent often it should not be possible for them to keep accumulating.
It has to do with the type of gaming. If you do a lot of roleplaying (and are not making the characters roll Etiquette and Charm everytime they talk to someone), then non adventuring sessions pile up confidence to be used later.
Last saga I played in, I had to force my Tytalus to use self-confident to boost rolls by +6 to use my stash, as after a few adventures of barely spending any, I had built up my reserves by 10. It comes down to balancing the rewards you give out to the resources players have to spend in the game. If people keep slowly accumulating, after a while you get stockpiles that seem unbalanced, whether it be confidence points, vis or wealth. Ars has slightly more ways for people to stockpile power than some other games.
Ours is a saga played online with Roll20 in video conference with 2h sessions. We do a lot of roleplay, not because we don't like action and combat (which when there is we do with pleasure and we use battle maps and the advanced rules of Lords of Men), but because since combat is very lethal and dangerous, players/characters wisely avoid it when they can. This leads to a lot of tactics and strategy and a reduced number of dice rolls, often not even crucial, which easily leads to the accumulation of confidence points. The last adventure lasted longer than expected and we did 19 sessions for a total of at least 38 confidence points (2 points minimum per session). If you spend them when you need them and when the test fails afterwards, in practice you never run out of them even if you use them at every useful opportunity. The accumulated number is disproportionate even compared to the statistics of a dragon that has just 12 and should be the most fearsome creature in the game. Giving less can certainly be a good solution, but in that case we rewrite the rule. How do we rewrite it? I was hoping that in the definitive Edition this rule would be fixed.
emphasized text This is an interesting rule that seems to work similarly to the 4th edition one which was more balanced IMHO. Can you describe it in more detail?
I have made the same observation, and although it puzzles me, it does not bother me.
There are many reasons this happens,
- We do not roll a lot.
- We forget about confidence when the rolls come up.
- The sessions are short, like yours.
- Important rolls tends to combine with maxed-out stats, making the confidence point moot.
It is at the very top of my Saga House Rules thread.
Since the suggested rules involve 'per session' and you run lots of shorter sessions, it sounds like you have a bit of an inflated Confidence in yourselves - sorry bad joke.
My sessions at home run 4 or 5 hours, and most adventures last 1 or 2 sessions. My players either got no confidence because nobody remembered, or 2-3 a session. They tended to sit around 10-ish confidence for the characters who went on adventures. We awarded no confidence for people who stayed at home.
While I think this is a unique situation for your very short sessions, I think that could easily be fixed by establishing an 'expected' session duration. Getting 2 confidence on a 2-hour session is very different than getting 2 confidence for a 8-hour weekend adventure.
Now I'm curious what everyone's average session duration is.
4~8 hours play time, depending on if there is food or not. Total time we are together is towards the higher end of that range but we often do meals and such which will eat up time.
If your group is never using the Confidence points, then maybe you just need to stop awarding them. Like give each companion or mage 3 points a session. At the start of the next session, that pool refreshes to 3. Any character with a Virtue tied to the Confidence rule as written can be exchanged for a different Virtue of the same magnitude.
The rule isn’t broken—your group is just playing in a way that the rule isn’t calibrated for. So I would just make any change as simple as possible. It’s not like you and your fellow players are actually needing or even using much or any Confidence.
Short sessions explain a part of your situation. Few die rolls is another reason, though there are many reasons to roll dice even outside combat. What about Awareness rolls to notice an important detail? What about the social abilities like Bargain, Charm, Etiquette, Folk Ken or even Leadership? You never roll those? Lores to remember a detail? Seems like you are missing many opportunities to use those abilities that the players have on their character sheets...
But if your roleplaying style is more narrative and use few die rolls, and you want to keep that in place, then you may just dial down the number of Confidence points you award. One per story might be enough.
In short, the number of Confidence Points that are awarded should be proportionnal to how many important die rolls occur during an average session. Combat generates many important die rolls (because of the risk involved to the character), so a combat-heavy game would warrant more Confidence. A more simulationist game where more time is spend growing the covenant through seasonal activities and fewer die rolls would require much fewer (or even no) Confidence.
One of the best and most result-satisfactory choices I made in my current (120 sessions and counting) campaign was to not award any confidence points, unless from magic or dark arts. As of yet, only one of the players has investigated that a bit though and learned Ablation so he can gain them... But he's yet to figure out what Ablation really is 
I think this is the quintessential point, and the decoupling of the mechanics on how Confidence is gained vs. how it is spent is a design flaw in ArM5, exactly for this reason. Opposite to your experience, our stories tend to be very tense affairs, particularly for the companions - so they are almost constantly out of Confidence. Magi too seem not to have nearly enough.
I remember an indie, medieval horror rpg we once briefly played, were the theme of horror was mechanically supported by the fact that, basically, characters had the equivalent of Confidence points (roll-boosting, use-once tokens) ... and while they started with plenty, they kept regaining far fewer than they had to spend in order to pass the exceptionally difficult tests confronting them. And the climax of the story arrived when the characters were almost out of "Confidence"!