I'm taking Paka's advice (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17897.msg191151#msg191151) to put the question of "What are stakes? What is risk? Does it imply gambling?" into the context of my own experiences with folks who couldn't get on the same page about this.
I was playing Harper in a play-by-email game. He was fun, a good-for-nothing, selfish, manipulative, abusive, downright evil bastard. Charming though, and dedicated above all to the proposition that he could get on without the freaky blood-alliances that everyone else was making with wierd primal beings from the dawn of time. And he did okay, if I do say so myself.
In a conflict with some mook NPCs, an ally PC cut loose with a poorly targetted Soul-Cage spell of some sort. The GM determined that Harper's soul had been ripped from his body. Rough justice, but ... whatever.
Anyway, I said "What are my options here?" The GM said "You can take a chance on getting back into your body on raw willpower, but it's very dicey. Or you can accept that offer from the Dragon-Blood-Whatsis, and reincarnate as half-draconic, in which case you're pretty much guaranteed."
"Cool," says I, "I'll try to get back on raw willpower."
GM: "No, seriously ... it's unlikely that you'll be able to succeed."
Me: "I'm ... really okay with that."
GM: "I'm just going to roll a twenty-sider. If you don't get a twenty then the character's dead. Sure you don't want the Draconic option?"
Me: "Wow, those are bad odds. But yes, I'm sure. Roll it."
GM: "You jackass!"
Me: "What?"
GM: "You know I won't kill you on a die roll."
Me: "I know nothing of the sort! Roll the damn die, roll it fair, and let's find out what happens!"
GM: "Fine. I rolled a 16. Close enough, he manages to get back into his body, but is much weakened."
Me: "The HELL? I think not! It's not a twenty. He's dead. Thank you very much for an enjoyable game. I hope that you will let the others discover that Harper died as he lived, self-involved, evil, but principled."
GM: "Stop being such a twit! It's totally fair for me to weaken the character! It's a near-death experience, he should be weakened!"
Me: "I'm not arguing. You can't get much weaker than dead."
Anyway, after much OOC back and forth I agreed (with honest reluctance) to let him get back into his body much weakened. I played the game for a while longer, until the GM pulled the whole magician's-force "Pick a card, any card, THIS ONE!" thing again, and then I left. But that's another story.
To this day, I think I should have stuck with my insistence that Harper died there. It was just about the rawest moment of stakes-setting that I'd ever managed (at that time): "I will accept a straight up, unmodified, 95% chance of instant irrevocable character death, rather than compromise his principles." That was cool. It was the risk I wanted to take, win or lose.
But that sort of thing is, in fact, exceptionally rare in Amber play. That was explicit, communicated risk. "If you win then X, if you lose then Y." What is far more common (and the technique that the GM was clearly more accustomed to) is risk through uncertainty. "If you become half-draconic then the GM will do ... something ... with that. You don't know what."
And I think that's why I was always entranced by Amber in theory and disappointed in practice: because the system generated uncertainty by the bucketloads, but I couldn't make the sort of statements I wanted through accepting uncertainty.
Basically, saying "I'm willing to put you on the spot and make you decide what happens to my character ... I'm that committed to this principle," isn't the same thing as saying "I'm willing to refer my character's fate to the heartless, implacable dice ... I'm that committed to this principle." But I'm not sure exactly how they differ ... I feel that they are, but have trouble putting precise words to it. Does anyone else have a better way to say this? Or different opinions on what was happening in the Actual Play?
It seems to come down to this:
Quote from: TonyLB..but I couldn't make the sort of statements I wanted through accepting uncertainty.
With the options you were presented, you knew which one would make the statement you wanted to make. The GM undermined the power of that statement by removing the associated risk.
It's not that Harper did or did not die for his principles, but that accepting the ultimate sacrifice in the name of Harper's principles was apparently never really an option. You were being doomed to a game full of watered down statements in the name of character preservation.
-Chris
It sounds to me like your GM was uncomfortable being the deciding factor in the Drama/Karma resolution system Amber uses. He stumbled when he gave you the option of trying to get back under your own power. He tried to use Force (I think I'm using the term correctly) to get you to go along with his plans. In fact, he did it twice. Once when he gave you the option, and once when gave you the odds: "1 in 20 or you're dead!"
If he wasn't willing to actually kill your character, he shouldn't have involved the die at all. Would you have been happy if he'd told you up front that your options were a) survive, majorly weakened, but on your own terms, or b) make the draconic pact and get off uninjured? That is what the stakes really were in this conflict.
It's an interesting situation. A few things could have been happening, depending on how the GM saw the situation. The first thing I want to say, though, is that, no matter which it was, he done you wrong. Actually, the most benign interpretation is a social-contract misunderstanding between you and the GM, but even so he failed to honor your sincerity at the moment of crisis. The possibilities I see
* GMly reluctance to kill PCs in a system where the GM can't hide behind a formal resolution mechanism. Mark Woodhouse hates ADRPG-type play for just this sort of thing.
* Wujickism! The GM believes that his job is to visit continuing torment on the PCs and the PCs' job is to "suck on it and like it," in the memorable formulation of a Nationals ballplayer. Your "suicide squeeze" strikes him as you taking your ball and going home. Death? Too good for 'em! This veers toward straight-up Illusionism - the GM has determined that the campaign is about these pacts you allude to, and his job is to get you into one.
* GM believes you're all playing under a script-immnuity contract (however tacit), with its subclause of "the PCs won't abuse their immunity." Thus he's not able to hear what you're actually saying - he's seeing script immunity abuse.
* GM regards your action not as "stepping up" to - what does Ron call it, the "guts" challenge - but as a PC committing suicide. PC suicide is a big flashing "campaign in trouble" sign. He's too embarrassed/frightened to straightforwardly address his fear - Tony, you're unhappy, aren't you? - and falls into bluff, and bluster when the bluff gets called.
My own view is that you probably really did make clear that you wanted what you wanted, and he should have let you go. Of course, my view is also that he shouldn't have pulled out a die. He should have dropped out to OOC play after the first few "really really dangerouses" and your "I don't cares" and said, "Okay, you're dead. Give yourself a big IC sendoff and I'll play along if that's what you think is the best thing for the character. OR, let's retcon now, but I need to hear from you right away."
One last thought: the Corwin saga produces at most three Amberite corpses, all in the last book. (Two of which are never found, because of that darn Abyss.) If you include the "fan fiction" (aka the Merlin chronicles) I don't think you get even one extra Amber/Chaos body. So a system that maximizes protagonist survival will make sense to hardcore Amber fans. That may have helped further the disjunct between you and your GM.
Best,
Jim
First off, were you playing Amber diceless? Where'd that d20 come from? I think that's one of two big indicators that the GM was not comfortable dictating/narrating your character's death. The second big indicator is the "you jackass" part of your paraphrased transcript. Did you get the sense that he thought you were trying to force his hand? The script immunity scenario laid out by Jim may be really accurate.
The concept of accepting, even appreciating, character death is not commonly understood in the wider gaming world. The phrase "You could die" generally means, "Pick something else because your death is not acceptable stakes for me." Certainly if that's what they mean, that's what they should say, but roleplaying is based on smoke and mirrors; it's hard for some to step out from behind them when dealing with player decisions outside the fiction.
Quote from: Marhault on December 19, 2005, 04:59:54 PMIf he wasn't willing to actually kill your character, he shouldn't have involved the die at all. Would you have been happy if he'd told you up front that your options were a) survive, majorly weakened, but on your own terms, or b) make the draconic pact and get off uninjured? That is what the stakes really were in this conflict.
In the interest of utter honesty: My memory on this is hazy, this having been a good long time ago. I
think that a die was involved, but it might have been some other manner of "this is really seriously risky" tag. I'm
quite sure that it was presented to me as a serious risk, not just a "GM will decide what you deserve" thing ... which again, an odd thing in an Amber game. Anyway, I'd like to discuss it under the assumption that I remember it right, but there are other real people involved, and just on the off chance that they jump in to say "Hey, I never would have used a die in an Amber game," I'm going to say right up front: Not The Point. Also, for those who are saying "Using a die in Amber is a clear sign of X," I'll say: Not The Point. If you want to say "Disavowing GM responsibility for the outcome of any action under the system is a clear sign of X" then I'm right there with you.
Anyway, if I'd been offered the options you listed I would have been
substantially less happy with the initial situation. First off, as pointed out, those are pretty watered down choices compared with the stark possibility of death. I'd have been fine with "50% chance of death" or "5% chance of death" or even "1% chance of death", but the real, objective chance of death is a
big deal to me.
Second, the "substantially weakened" bit ... that's not a cost to me, the player. Yeah, Harper as a character might have felt bad about it (though ... probably not) but certainly I as a player would have just said "Cool. Story fodder!" In other games I have explicitly asked for my characters to be depowered by horrible accidents (and once through legal action and a welding torch) on numerous occasions. So, see, there's no tension there for me. If I were offered a die roll between "Survive unscathed" and "Survive, majorly weakened," I as a player would be totally uninterested in the outcome of the roll. Whatever. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Roll the dice if you want, but it doesn't really matter to me, so I'm not going to get all tense about it.
Now if the GM had said to me "Okay, here's the deal ... you get back into your body, guaranteed ... but if you want to take a risk, you can choose to have Harper have an out-of-body experience and gain a whole new ability to interact with a new realm of quasi-spiritual beings,
but there's a 50% chance that the process will turn him half-draconic as well ... " now
that would have been a hell of a choice to make. The reward of "whole new areas of information, intrigue and roleplaying" on the one hand, and the risk of "50% chance of having him rewritten in a way that totally reverses what you've done so far" on the other. Those both speak to me, the player. That ... urgh ... I can't tell you how I'd make that choice. It could go either way. But I'd be happy with a game that presented it to me.
Quote from: TonyLB on December 19, 2005, 04:15:28 PM
Basically, saying "I'm willing to put you on the spot and make you decide what happens to my character ... I'm that committed to this principle," isn't the same thing as saying "I'm willing to refer my character's fate to the heartless, implacable dice ... I'm that committed to this principle." But I'm not sure exactly how they differ ... I feel that they are, but have trouble putting precise words to it. Does anyone else have a better way to say this? Or different opinions on what was happening in the Actual Play?
On this topic specifically, I have to say that in the situation at hand your response is pretty understandable just on the general basis of the way the GM was pushing things. He seems to have had a fairly obvious agenda, and getting your back up against the railroad is a pretty typical PC response for players in general.
So, before I even get into this on a more abstract level: would you say that this type of interaction is true in most games that you play? Are you asking us a specific question about this example, or just using it as a template for backgrounding the fact that in game you would rather trust the (supposedly) dumb dice to give you story than the (supposedly) smart human beings at the table across from you?
Because the first has been covered, and doesn't seem to be your point. The second, I think, is going to come down to a matter of personality type and how we deal with information and interactions.
Jim overstates my issue. I have a deep distrust of subjective resolution, and the subcultural assumptions that drive a lot of Amber play make it more distasteful for me, but I wouldn't say hate. It's the angst of a spurned lover, dammit.
This is almost exactly the same kind of stuff that I object to, though, in an even more obvious form. Here's my typical beef.
GM: "Here is a situation."
Player: "Looks like my options are A, B, or C."
GM: "Well, yeah, you could try that. How 'bout D? That might work too."
Player: "So what does my character think his odds are if he tries B?"
GM: "How should I know? You have all the facts."
Player: "So... looks pretty good to me. I do B."
GM: "Dude. You are so utterly screwed. I can't believe you did that - it was completely obvious that you should do D."
...cue lecture on how obvious D was...
No clear stake-setting, no clear way to assess chances of success. It's Let's Make A Deal.
Tony's case, though, is even nastier. The GM says what the stakes are, he tells Tony the odds, and then he reneges on the deal. Way to teach players not to bother making choices.
Quote from: Brand_Robins on December 19, 2005, 05:53:50 PMSo, before I even get into this on a more abstract level: would you say that this type of interaction is true in most games that you play? Are you asking us a specific question about this example, or just using it as a template for backgrounding the fact that in game you would rather trust the (supposedly) dumb dice to give you story than the (supposedly) smart human beings at the table across from you?
Hrm ... yeah, I think I do feel like that across the board. If I'm taking a risk, I want it to be a risk that's (at least in part) out of the control of the people at the table.
Or ... man! This is hard! There are places where uncertainty strikes me as exactly right. Like, in the same game Harper and an NPC (Lord of Shadows) spent a lot of time working together. They were both pretty skeevey people, not in any great sense "trustworthy," but they went through a lot. The GM then framed a situation in which it would be very difficult to pursue Harper's goals without putting his life in the NPCs hands, as a matter of pure trust.
I decided that Harper trusted the guy ... not because I thought it was the rational choice, but just because ... he chose to trust him, even knowing he might be betrayed. It wouldn't have been the wrong choice, even if he were betrayed. The trusting was ... it was something he'd come to, something important. And it was
very tense waiting to see whether the NPC was going to come through for him (he did).
It would have been pretty seriously wrong (at least in my head) to have the Lord of Shadow's reaction determined by random chance. Because I can't form any sort of
relationship with the dice, and I wanted Lord of Shadow's choice to be informed by what each choice would
mean. I wanted the betrayal or the good faith to be a conscious choice ... to be a person addressing the issue.
But I
didn't want the question of whether he lived or died to be anyone's conscious choice. I didn't want his life or death to be part of someone else's story (even the GM's). It was
mine. Does that make sense?
Hey Tony,
this reminds me of a situation we had a week ago in our Amber campaign.
I'm playing Istwan, the son of Deirdre. Istwan's mortal allies had betrayed him, and kidnapped his wife Erika, who was pregnant to Istwan's cousin Dorian, another player. Istwan had to choose: should I negotiate with them or use raw force? There was a big chance that Erika would end up dead. Without thinking, I said: "Ok. I'll kill them all as quickly as I can."
It worked out well.
But it felt too easy somehow. There was no real risk in my mind. I knew the GM wouldn't just kill Erika like that, she was too important for the story. And I'm afraid that if Erika would have died, I would had been angry at the GM. "How could you kill Erika like that? That's boring."
Perhaps these kind of fast conflicts with huge stakes just don't work very well in Amber Diceless. The system works much better in slowly developing, epic conflicts, where the players have a chance to give loads of player input to the GM. Without this input it's impossible for the GM to make a "fair judgement" that the players can accept. It's a social contract thing. It's hard for the GM if he is reduced to a random number generator, and I can understand the tendency to avoid these kind of situations.
The problem is, I love to live dangerously, and to gamble with high stakes, just like you.
We have a houserule that helps us somewhat: "the coins". You might remember the mechanic, we've discussed it before. We have agreed that if a player spends a coin on some action, it will always have dramatic consequences, good or bad. Spending a coin is a risky move, it's asking for trouble, and in these specific situations the GM can judge whatever he wants, and no player will complain to him how "unfair" his judgement was.
Spending a coin is actually a lot like Bringing Down the Pain in TSoY! For example, I'd imagine that it is the only situation in our game where a player character could die. We've already seen how other "story protected" characters get killed after somebody spends a coin.
This is a very interesting thread to me! Lately we've had similar discussions with my group, and I've been telling them the same things that you are saying here, Tony. I think I'll point them to this thread.
Quote from: TonyLB on December 19, 2005, 04:15:28 PMBasically, saying "I'm willing to put you on the spot and make you decide what happens to my character ... I'm that committed to this principle," isn't the same thing as saying "I'm willing to refer my character's fate to the heartless, implacable dice ... I'm that committed to this principle." But I'm not sure exactly how they differ ... I feel that they are, but have trouble putting precise words to it. Does anyone else have a better way to say this? Or different opinions on what was happening in the Actual Play?
Their different because with "I'm willing to put
you on the spot and make you decide what happens to my character ... I'm that committed to this principle," your not saying anything, the other person is (if they say anything at all - your own example see's the GM avoid that).
While with the dice, they let you talk in
hard,
concrete words. Your not just saying your PC is willing to die, your spelling it out in exact percentile! That's strong language! There's no ambiguity there - your address is compelling, exacting and very much in everyones face!
I hypothesize: Uncertainty is great, but the nature of it can ironically mean other people at the table are themselves uncertain of what your saying your PC would face. But the uncertainty inherant in dice is very easy to communicate and really carries the address.
Selfish side note: This is the exact same sort of issue gamism faces - what sort of risk are you willing to take on? "Well, um, I call the risk, but I guess I let the GM decide exactly how risky it is, like always". Not to mention, the way the GM's call is supposed to be modereated is by social feedback - which requires everyone to really think how the game world works. Now that's a recipe for agenda subversion - but I digress.
Hey Tony, thanks for spilling this interesting moment in time. Man, your posts in Actual Play are pretty much spot on examples of what happens with Theory when the rubber hits the road. Tony then just takes it a step further, doing donuts in the Wal Mart parking lot! :-)
OK, blowing aside, I think what was pretty much going on was straight-up social contract misunderstandings.
First off, I want to take a look at this again:
Quote from: Supplanter on December 19, 2005, 05:15:45 PM
* GM regards your action not as "stepping up" to - what does Ron call it, the "guts" challenge - but as a PC committing suicide. PC suicide is a big flashing "campaign in trouble" sign. He's too embarrassed/frightened to straightforwardly address his fear - Tony, you're unhappy, aren't you? - and falls into bluff, and bluster when the bluff gets called.
I'm wondering if the above wasn't actually the case? I've not participated in many play-by-posts/emails, but a staple of the PC suicidal move usually reflects on the player not wanting to play anymore: The game is boring, they became busy, they don't like the direction the game is going and want out, real world concerns yadda yadda yadda.
I'm wondering if things might have been different if you prefaced either your "Hey, I wanna take the gamble!" email with a lengthy, perhaps 2-3 page (to get all the nuances, subtleties and all right in place) describing how you like the game, choices are important, This Isn't a Suicide, I really *AM* taking the Million Dollar Challenge just for the hell of it because I really am interested in the outcome, I totally am fine with you killing off my dude, etc... If that would have made a difference? Maybe a kind of clearing of the table, backing up, and slapping him with your Social Contract Mission Statement in a way that brought him on board as to why you were making that decision, and not doing it as "A Suicide" or "To be a Dick"?
Also, in the above, because it's the nature of such RPGs, maybe making a backdoor so that this character could really die, but in 3-5 days a new character could be introduced that you could take control of and continue playing with? <--- This would have really settled things, I think. Because it would have given the GM an opportunity to really make that decision with the knowledge that you weren't just Suiciding... and it would have stopped you from blowing yourself if you REALLY WERE Suiciding, and dressing it up in fancy rationalizations. :-)
But yeah, sounds like it links back to the Great Social Contract.
Quote from: TonyLB on December 19, 2005, 04:15:28 PM
Basically, saying "I'm willing to put you on the spot and make you decide what happens to my character ... I'm that committed to this principle," isn't the same thing as saying "I'm willing to refer my character's fate to the heartless, implacable dice ... I'm that committed to this principle." But I'm not sure exactly how they differ ... I feel that they are, but have trouble putting precise words to it. Does anyone else have a better way to say this? Or different opinions on what was happening in the Actual Play?
Yeah, as I indicated above, the best way to do this is to address the issue with a quick paragraph on your own agenda as you join the game... but in the above situation, where it hasn't really been spelled out and you two are in this situation, then the aforementioned 2-3 page carefully written, explanative email is probably the only way you can do it without hurting egos and derailing things. As it is, I don't think there's a problem with your message above, and no better way to say it. It's just how you say it, how much back-peddling and explanation required:
Starting the game, and you're the GM: A quick paragraph or two, and include a witty story about how it worked out for everyone, and maybe a story about how it failed because everyone wasn't on the same page.
Starting the game, and you're a player: The above, with a little more explanation and humility, indicating to the GM in great detail that you're not intending on being the Big Campign Derailer Dickweed but rather this stuff is How You Roll, etc. A few extra paragraphs, and maybe an additional explanative story or two.
In the middle of the game (as you were), where none of this social contract stuff had been spelled out in detail before: Aw shit, this is where you have to be careful, writing out that two or three page email with plenty of humility, explanative stories, etc, so that you don't come off as a dick.
In the end, you don't need to explain your reasons, or use any humility, just say "That's just the Way I Roll, deal with it and let's move on", but you'll come off to them as the guy who likes to derail campaigns with dickish behavior. When you take time to explain why you roll the way you do, why you like those big decisions, you're not only clearing the air, but you're also inviting them to watch your behavior and mimic it, to try it out and see what they think.
And use some empathy, too. In the above, if you REALLY wanted to "play the game" and weren't Suiciding to cancel your involvement, then you could have told the GM (because you had a good idea as to how he operated) on the sly, "...and hey, if I die? Totally cool with me. I can just sit out a few days and come back as another charcater, we can work it out on the side. I'll leave that decision in your hands." That would have gone a little further, I think. But then again, if you really wanted deep down to Suicide to ditch the game (you gave indicators that you already had an inkling to give it up), then it was a good way to go, just let the GM know.
-Andy
Hi Tony,
QuoteGM: "Stop being such a twit! It's totally fair for me to weaken the character! It's a near-death experience, he should be weakened!"
You're coming from the point that it's totally fair if your character dies, and he's coming from the point that you're trying to be an ass and force his hand. Was there other markers that he was not very comfortable with dealing with the "man behind the curtain" situation of how things get decided in Amber play?
Chris
Quote from: TonyLB on December 19, 2005, 04:15:28 PMMe: "The HELL? I think not! It's not a twenty. He's dead. Thank you very much for an enjoyable game. I hope that you will let the others discover that Harper died as he lived, self-involved, evil, but principled."
GM: "Stop being such a twit! It's totally fair for me to weaken the character! It's a near-death experience, he should be weakened!"
I think this little bit of crosstalk really clarifies where the GM is coming from on this issue. From the GM's perspective, character death is always totally unacceptable; thus, every time you say "I'm willing to let my character die over this," he hears "If you don't do what I want, I'm leaving the game." To his ears, it's the equivalent of saying "I'm willing to stab myself in the face over this." Further, it seems pretty clear that he thinks you're obviously either on board with this or at least aware of how he feels -- this comes off, to me, as a big social contract issue.
Quote from: TonyLB on December 19, 2005, 04:15:28 PMAnyway, I said "What are my options here?" The GM said "You can take a chance on getting back into your body on raw willpower, but it's very dicey. Or you can accept that offer from the Dragon-Blood-Whatsis, and reincarnate as half-draconic, in which case you're pretty much guaranteed."
"Cool," says I, "I'll try to get back on raw willpower."
GM thinks: Wait. He's taking the option that has a high risk of death. He KNOWS that character death is unacceptable to me and that that threat is thus a false one that I put in to encourage him to make the choice I want him to make. Why is he doing this? Is he missing that his character might die? Is he missing that that means not to do it?
Quote from: TonyLB on December 19, 2005, 04:15:28 PMGM: "No, seriously ... it's unlikely that you'll be able to succeed."
Me: "I'm ... really okay with that."
GM: "I'm just going to roll a twenty-sider. If you don't get a twenty then the character's dead. Sure you don't want the Draconic option?"
Me: "Wow, those are bad odds. But yes, I'm sure. Roll it."
GM thinks: What the hell? He's not missing anything. He's deliberately messing up my game by doing something I don't want him to do, AND by calling me on my threat, which we both know is a lie that I won't follow up on because character death is bad.
Quote from: TonyLB on December 19, 2005, 04:15:28 PMGM: "You jackass!"
Me: "What?"
GM: "You know I won't kill you on a die roll."
Me: "I know nothing of the sort! Roll the damn die, roll it fair, and let's find out what happens!"
GM thinks: He's denying it! I can't believe he won't admit he's deliberately messing things up. Well, okay, I can't kill him, that's not allowed. However, I'm going to punish him to show that he can't just blithely ignore what I want. I'm the GM, dang it.
Quote from: TonyLB on December 19, 2005, 04:15:28 PMGM: "Fine. I rolled a 16. Close enough, he manages to get back into his body, but is much weakened."
Me: "The HELL? I think not! It's not a twenty. He's dead. Thank you very much for an enjoyable game. I hope that you will let the others discover that Harper died as he lived, self-involved, evil, but principled."
GM: "Stop being such a twit! It's totally fair for me to weaken the character! It's a near-death experience, he should be weakened!"
GM thinks: Now he's threatening me -- in response to me punishing his character, he'll quit the game! Why is he being so unreasonable?
It seems that "character death is bad" is so clear for the GM that he interprets every suggestion that it's not intrinsically bad as actually being subtextually about something else. That's my interpretation, anyway.
I think people are spot on in their analysis. But I don't think it ends there. Take a look at what you guys are saying:
People (GMs particularly) will threaten Stakes that they absolutely, positively, cannot let somebody accept, because Stakes are not just Stakes ... they're a channel of communication. They're a code. As in bridge-bidding, sometimes saying "Two no-trump" means "UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you, my partner, allow this hand to be played with a bid of two no-trump!"
People don't say what they mean, they say what they think everyone will understand as a cue to what they mean. Yes, that's fucked up in terms of social contract ... but, really, how many of our games have explicit channels for discussing this? If this is a place that social contract breaks down, shouldn't we be paying attention to it, in order to provide ways of communicating to resolve it?
Just as a (totally random) example: I could imagine sets of Stakes being given an importance rating. Character-Death would be, I dunno, 50. Destruction of the universe would be 100. Getting roughed up and left in an alley would be 10. Then players (the GM included) would be given resources that they could spend to threaten and accept stakes.
In that case you'd actually have a communication channel for the exchange that took place.
GM: Okay, I've got like a thousand stake-setting points left. So I'm going to set these stakes: either you become a dragon or you risk death (50).
Me: Becoming a dragon is a much bigger deal for me than risking death. That's 75 points.
GM: Fine. I'll pay 75 to pose it, and 50 to pose the death risk. But the dragon thing is cool for me, so you can accept it for zero. But the character death thing is still 50.
Me: Dammit! I don't have 50 stake-accepting points! You're railroading me!
GM: Well, maybe you should have been conserving your points then.
Would I be steamed to be railroaded in such a fashion? Sure. Of course I would. "Here's your choice which, by the way, you don't get to choose." But at least this system (rough and pointless as it is) would mean that we weren't speaking different languages in terms of what stakes meant. When the GM put down the "you will die" and intended it to be an insurmountable wall I wouldn't be able to breeze through it as if it were made of fog. We'd both know that those were stakes I wasn't allowed to accept. Wouldn't that be better?
Better, yes, but better still would be sitting down before roleplay begins and talking about the range of stakes people are willing to consider and accept. For even better results, do so at the start of each session, cause these things change.
Unfortunately, this requires people to be open and honest with their intentions, which gamers are often incapable of doing even with themselves. There was recently a thread about a GM who asked how he communicated to the players that they would save the world in the game without making them feel like they couldn't die -- which they pretty much wouldn't, because then they couldn't save the world, but he wanted them to think that they could. If asked, I'd wager that GM would swear up and down that he'd kill a PC if "that's what happened." We lie to each other and ourselves about this stuff all the time. Taking the step beyond the smoke-and-mirrors and into real, interpersonal interaction is a rare thing, but I'm glad to see games that prompt it.
The thing is ... okay ... asking this stuff isn't likely to hurt anything. But if the person doesn't know the answer, then asking them can't drag the answer out of them. And people will, very often, just be flat out wrong in their answers ... they won't just not answer you, they'll lie. But giving them a concrete choice, or (even better) a long series of small, concrete choices, can still reveal that information. When they have to do something, they'll do what feels right, and it feels right because it jibes with what they really think.
It's like, years ago, if you asked me what kind of music I liked I'd have said "Oh, I like medium-hard rock, y'know, with the strong bass-line and all that." And I really thought that's what I liked. But when I look at my music shelf, I essentially don't have any of that stuff in my collection. I've got (don't mock me here!) show-tunes and Bonnie Raitt and Clannad and a good chunk of Dixie Chicks and stuff like that. Heavily melodic music, with an emphasis on a certain degree of intricacy, and a genre-leaning towards country/blues. So what do I actually like? Do you listen to my words, or listen to my actions?
There's a scene in a late-season episode of Angel where Wesley has the entire resources of Wolfram and Hart working on a disease Fred has contracted. And this clerkish guy comes in and says "Hey, we need to look at these contracts on this other case ... you can't really expect all of us to be working on Fred." And Wesley nods, pulls out a handgun and shoots the guy in the knee-cap. "If anyone else feels they shouldn't be working on Miss Birkle's case, please send them to me."
I looked at that and I said "That's how I'm going to GM, from here on out. I'm never going to ask 'Are you putting all of your resources on finding a cure for Fred? Even if that lets other clients slip?' I'm just going to have some stupid mook come in and yammer his opinion about how things should be happening, and see how the players have their characters respond."
So, see ... I don't actually think that open, explicit out-of-game discussion is better than open, explicit discussion grounded in the immediate reality of the game. Does that make sense? And what do you think?
Quote from: TonyLB on December 20, 2005, 12:55:39 PM
So, see ... I don't actually think that open, explicit out-of-game discussion is better than open, explicit discussion grounded in the immediate reality of the game. Does that make sense? And what do you think?
It makes sense. From a certain perspective. The difficulty with that is always the character/player boundary. When I ask these questions out of character, I have to pry people out of telling me all about their character. "Well, my character would...." No. What do
you, the real person at my table, want to have happen?
When you embed the "what matters? what do you want to have happen?" questions inside the fiction, most roleplayers I've encountered are going to be powerfully conditioned to answer from a character standpoint. Even though the player is going to be unhappy if what "the character wants to have happen" happens.
QuoteIt makes sense. From a certain perspective. The difficulty with that is always the character/player boundary. When I ask these questions out of character, I have to pry people out of telling me all about their character. "Well, my character would...." No. What do you, the real person at my table, want to have happen?
I think one way to move people towards this type of statement is to move away from deeply defined characters in chargen. By deeply defined I mean character sheets that are 2 or 3 pages long and/or multiple pages of character history. If, like in the Pool, the player has only 50 words to define the character before play, then any statements about what is important during gameplay (Traits in the Pool) is more likely to be a product of the player's desires rather than "what the character would want/do". Mostly because the character hasn't been defined enough outside of play to actually determine what it would want/do.
Quote from: TonyLB on December 20, 2005, 12:55:39 PMI don't actually think that open, explicit out-of-game discussion is better than open, explicit discussion grounded in the immediate reality of the game.
Makes sense, Tony, but I don't think either in-game, contextualized situations or out-of-game abstracted discussion will net you 100% of player preferences. The in-game stuff won't always work because gamers who want to see their tough-as-nails character take a fall won't
play their character into taking a fall (basically what Mark said). The out-of-game stuff won't always work because gamers lie, and gamers lie to themselves. We need a two-pronged solution that incorporates both in-game and out-of-game input -- and preferably does so in mechanical and concrete terms.
Something like a "Danger Meter" for scenes -- in this scene, the Danger Meter is set to 20, so while the PCs might be roughed up, they won't be permanently hurt -- any damage will be cleared off by the next scene. The next scene has the Danger Meter set to 80, so the PCs might have their characters rewritten by the events of the scene. Now, at the start of a scene, give all the players input to what the Danger Meter will be. In the scene, let in-character actions escalate and de-escalate the Danger Meter. Most likely the Danger Meter also determines what resources/information/McGuffin the PCs can pull out of the scene, and whether or not they can defeat the baddies with finality. Rough, but I think it gets the idea across.
Quote from: Joshua BishopRoby on December 20, 2005, 01:16:58 PMThe in-game stuff won't always work because gamers who want to see their tough-as-nails character take a fall won't play their character into taking a fall (basically what Mark said).
But ... wait ... that's not failing because it's in-game. It's failing because it's asking the wrong question. Yes, if I ask you "What will your character risk to achieve this?" then I'm going to get answers that have to do with your character, and that's obviously at a remove from any answers about you. But if I ask you "What will
you risk in order for your character to achieve this?" that's a whole different question, with different answers.
If you ask me "Will Harper risk being severely beaten, a very painful experience, in order to achieve this goal?" then you learn
nothing about me. Because Harper's severe beating has a cost of zip-point-zero to me, the player. I don't feel the pain. I don't have the bruises. I probably don't even have to moderate my descriptions, given how quickly Amber-folks bounce back from injury. He can be sneaking around, with "Ouch ... that hurts" thrown in for narrative color.
If you ask me "Will you risk Harper's death, which will mean you stop playing him, in order to have him achieve this goal?" then the answer is going to be about me. Even if I go all delusional and say "Well, I don't want to take the risk, but I need to be true to the character, and he would ..." feh! That's meaningless jibber-jabber. You ask me, I answer, you now know something about me, the player. And I would contest that if the question is "Will you risk X?" and I choose to either risk X or not risk X then I
cannot be answering the question wrong. Will I? Let's try it and find out for sure.
Quote from: TonyLB on December 20, 2005, 10:30:20 AM
I think people are spot on in their analysis. But I don't think it ends there. Take a look at what you guys are saying:
...
People don't say what they mean, they say what they think everyone will understand as a cue to what they mean. Yes, that's fucked up in terms of social contract ... but, really, how many of our games have explicit channels for discussing this? If this is a place that social contract breaks down, shouldn't we be paying attention to it, in order to provide ways of communicating to resolve it?
Heh, welcome to the theatre of human discourse, man. Try telling your favorite aunt or parents, "No, I really don't need a Christmas present this year. Really. Let's just
not exchange stuff, and save our money to do fun stuff together". Now imagine how many little alarms that conversation will set off, how expertly you'll have to preface it with a narration that defuses every one of those bombs, otherwise auntie will think:
1) Oh, he's just being modest. He's doing the "Oh, no really, you don't have to" game. Well, I don't have to, but I will anyway. Tee hee.
2) (darker) ...What's wrong with Tony? Is he having a money problem? Does he have a problem with me? Is this because of that incident with XYZ?
Sounds like the GM was getting trapped in one of the above. A brief, dismissive analysis of your behavior and staying the course, or a breakdown that involves overanalysis, overcompensation and leads to confusion and turmoil. That's what we get when we use our mouth-grunts to convey things other than Food and Mate. :-)
To create explicit channels for this kind of thing in a game (as a writer), you have to sit down and take a frank Luke Crane (FORCE) or Vincent Baker (MELLOW) stance on the issue that cuts the BS, tells you how you should play the game, make implications to the effect that other play methods may or may not produce desired effect, but are really not called for, etc. Still, though, some GMs will blow through that. They'll miss the "Hold the roll for a scene" diatribe in BW, or how to build a town in Dogs, and do what they always do anyway. That's just with stuff that's covered explicitly by the rules.
The other stuff that comes up to the table? Social contract, social contract, social contract. That is the motherfucking alpha and omega to addressing and stopping these problems, to make your words in play make sense in the context they were spoken, etc. "No, really, I mean it, I want this to be the stakes" will HAVE to be prefaced by the 2-3 page email or equivalent verbal diatribe, carefully explaining your position and deactivating potential landminds. And again, it requires a lot of empathy, and no blind "What I SAY is what I MEAN, and how dare they think otherwise!" gameplay (cause it's not how people work).
Interesting topic, though. Because I'm going to see the same issue after X-mas, when my Thursday group is run by Alan, and he does his heavy-Sim and light Nar Firefly-inspired campaign. He wrote a lot of world history. We came up with our character types, which he fleshed out for us, both in stats and their place in the world (ie one guy wanted a religious dude, so he came up with the backstory of the religion and its place in the universe, etc. Yeah, some Sim up in thar). Now, Alan's games are fun, and I love to slip into amateur theatre time like I do in his games, but I do notice that, even a veteran gamer, he's not good (yet) with setting stakes, and really has a problem killing off PCs. More often then not, we play loose by the rules, ONLY going over whatever rulebook back-and-forth with a fine tooth comb when it comes to a situation where one of the PCs is potentially dying, and will die without the help of that one rule or McGuffin. I'm going to have to pull the same shit that you did with your Amber game, and I have a feeling that I'll be doing it early on (I like my character idea, but I want to be the First One Dead to show to the group that "it's ok, if it makes the story cooler and I want to go that direction" etc). And I intend to do it basically by quoting from this thread here, talking about it to everyone before our first game for like 5 minutes or so, getting any questions out of the way ("Should I have an idea for the next character I want to play Now, or should I wait on that until Later?", etc). And bringing in cookies to break the ice a bit. Alan will definitely take what I say as what I mean if I tell him to, but on the other hand, he's the GM and a friend, I know the way he cooks adventures, and so I want to make sure that this kind of thing is no surprise to him, and that I don't come off as the Big Campaign Derailer guy. About February or March you should start seeing the results in Actual Play threads. :-)
Back to the discussion of ways to convey the Social Contract on issues that lie outside the direct scope of the rules: Now, maybe a small sociologically-bent and imminently readable/accessible guide/pamphlet to effective ways to hammer out a social contract with your regular gaming group, be it at the beginning of the game or mid-game, with some real winning, helpful pointers? I'd buy 5 copies for my Thursday gaming group. That would be something maybe worth thinking about designing, if these issues really bother you. Could be like the "7 Habits of Highly Effective Gaming Groups: From D&D to Drama Queens, how to keep the fun at your table".
Quote from: TonyLB on December 20, 2005, 01:31:11 PMWhat will you risk in order for your character to achieve this?
Just to be sure we're on the same page, the things that players can risk are what? Is it just credibility methods (ie, keeping the character alive, keeping a stat on the character sheet, currency which expresses credibility)? Can a player be said to risk elements of the fiction (ie, will you risk the destruction of the City of Jade)? What if, as in Multiverser, the player has invested currency/credibility into that element of the fiction?
Cause yeah, most games have pretty poor options for things you can risk. You want to risk some hit points? You can go from 146HP to 10HP and still keep swinging like a pro, so those 136HP aren't really much of a risk.
The hard line is to say, "All stakes should impact the character sheet (inventory of credibility methods) for success
and failure." Is that going too far?
QuoteIf you ask me "Will you risk Harper's death, which will mean you stop playing him, in order to have him achieve this goal?" then the answer is going to be about me. Even if I go all delusional and say "Well, I don't want to take the risk, but I need to be true to the character, and he would ..." feh! That's meaningless jibber-jabber. You ask me, I answer, you now know something about me, the player. And I would contest that if the question is "Will you risk X?" and I choose to either risk X or not risk X then I cannot be answering the question wrong. Will I? Let's try it and find out for sure.
The problem is that the same basic issue applies. You could be lying, or just not know. "Will you risk X?" and I say "Yes", and X happens. Suddenly I'm all pissed off because I didn't actually want that to happen, or because I figured the odds were really good, so it wasn't "really" a risk, or I assumed the GM would fudge the (proverbial) dice. Andy's Aunt example says this better.
Tony, I don't think this is easily solvable, except in the way we're already solving it. Basically, what it boils down to is "communication isn't perfect, sometimes deliberately, sometimes not". We need to write games with solid rules/system for communication among the people at the table. Beyond that, if people follow the rules, and get burned, we can say "then this game isn't for you" or "Well, now you know for next time."
I'm coming back to Ben's Five Games (http://benlehman.blogspot.com/2005/09/five-games.html) article from a while back.
Specifically, this bit:
Quote1: The expectation that the game will be played to the fullest extent that the rules allow, and no further.
-The expectation that people will not be anti-social within the context of the rules. By which I do not mean not taking advantage of rules loopholes. These games have no rules loopholes.
-These games have no rules loopholes. (Possible exception: Polaris.)
and later:
Quote
Furthermore, absolutely none of the above things is regarded as special within the game text. Nothing says "in this game, which is different from other role-playing games, we do ____" It just says "As long as you are not playing a scene, any player may start a scene for..." We, the designers of these games, have played enough of the other games that none of this is important anymore. Of course you can have a game that does these things. I think it is because of this that a lot of folks, like Ken Hite, are going to call these "not quite games." The rules aren't any further from a role-playing game than in the previous texts, but since we don't apologize for it, we're not really quite right.
What we are (in general) doing in our games is the only really good way to address social communication issues: give clear rules for how it works in this game, and when someone says "Yeah, but [gamer baggage]!!!", shrug and say "Not part of this game."
James
Quote from: Andy Kitkowski on December 20, 2005, 01:46:28 PMBack to the discussion of ways to convey the Social Contract on issues that lie outside the direct scope of the rules
Andy, I do not want to talk about this matter in those terms.
The things I would like to talk about are:
- the structure of what people are trying and failing to communicate, and what commonalities exist in the way it is expressed across various groups, and
- the ways in which the direct scope of rules can be expanded to contain and clearly communicate this specific issue, so that it no longer qualifies as "an issue that lies outside the direct scope of the rules."
I hope that makes my position with regard to "rules vs. non-rules social contract" clear.
Quote from: Joshua BishopRoby on December 20, 2005, 01:57:57 PM
The hard line is to say, "All stakes should impact the character sheet (inventory of credibility methods) for success and failure." Is that going too far?
I don't think it's going "too far" in order to achieve this particular function of an RPG. It is possible that going that far will, in turn, compromise some other function of an RPG such that it is to be avoided: for instance, when you do this you lose the ability to actually say things about what your
character will risk, independent of what you as a player will risk. That very well might reduce your ability to build up the sense of separation and "otherness" that lets you have empathy toward your character as a fictional being rather than a pawn of your personal expression.
Is there a balance to be struck there? You need some ability to say "This is just about the character" before the character takes on enough life that saying "I'll risk
this of my character" has a context that makes it more than ... a commodity. That sort of "about the character" talk is what lets you say, later, "Oh, yeah, I'll risk my character's Life (mechanical value 5) but not his Pride (mechanical value 5), because they have associations above and beyond the mechanical value."
I don't know. It strikes me that a game that let you actually say "I'll risk this about the character, in order to develop the character and build empathy with them" and then say "I'll risk this about me, the player, in order to answer important questions for myself and others," ... well, that'd be a very different game from anything I've seen. I can't think of ... well,
any game that has those two states clearly flagged.
What immediately springs to my mind is to use Karma for "merely character" risk and use a special add-on Fortune system (think Bringing Down the Pain) for "true" player risk. When the character does something, you just compare stats; maybe things like fictional resources (cash/gear/job/relationships/health) are at risk. When the player does something, you roll dice / draw cards, and you risk one of the credibility methods listed on the character sheet. In other words, when the character risks, he's risking the things he's got, but when the player risks, he's risking who the character is.
Quote from: Joshua BishopRoby on December 20, 2005, 06:05:37 PM
In other words, when the character risks, he's risking the things he's got, but when the player risks, he's risking who the character is.
I think this is close, but not the whole. I'm not sure I can refine it into an axiom either. But here are some examples from recent actual play that point to it:
I'm playing a Justiciar who's investigating a conspiracy. Thor, the player, knows who is behind it all (a baron), but the character is subordinate to that guy and respects him. I am angling play in order to bring my character into conflict with that superior, at which points all my beliefs explode.
My current lead is to a sergeant who was responsible for some weapons that fell into the hands of the enemy. He's been captured by his military (controlled by the baron), and "commits suicide" before he can be transferred into my bailiffs' custody and I can interrogate him. This leads directly to a conflict, in which I pull out my character's interrogation skill.
My Intent (stakes): If I win, I catch the guy responsible for this guy's murder and get a direct lead to my superior.
The GM's stakes: If you lose, the guy responsible for the murder is going to try to assassinate you before your investigation zeroes in on him.
Bam! Now it's going to get interesting either way it goes. It's definitely Thor, the player, risking something. But I'm not sure that I'd consider it risking who the character is. I'm agreeing to how my character's pursuit of that conflict is going to be complicated by failure.
Here's another example:
Chris is playing the son of a bandit lord, who has gone "clean" and is now working for the king's chamberlain. The chamberlain is having trouble with some smuggling operations that are connected to the family, and Chris has been charged by the chamberlain with putting a stop to it. Chris's character is all about his ties to his family and his desire to protect it. He's also about his eventual right to control the family.
Chris gets into a conflict with his character's brother, whom he is fairly sure is responsible for the stuff the chamberlain is pissed about. Chris breaks out his character's Persuasion skill.
His stakes: If I win, I convince my brother to tell me what he knows about this situation and to back the family out of it.
The GM's stakes: If you lose, your brother convinces your father that you're working at cross-purposes to the family, and you get cut off.
Again, we're gambling about which way the story is going to go. Getting cut off from the crime family doesn't risk who the character is. But it creates a new complication to resolving the character's Beliefs, Kicker, Issue, or whatever marker/flag the game you're playing uses.
That's not to say that what you proposed above is not valid. It definitely is. It's just not the whole picture, IMHO.
Certainly there are other ways to go about it, Thor. I'm not trying to propose the only way.
I don't see a lot of thematic statements being made by the players in your examples, though. With your justicar, you were certainly manuevering your character into a situation where he would be called upon to make such a thematic statement -- law versus loyalty, for instance. But investigating some guy getting gacked doesn't say much about your character outside of the fact that he's an investigator who investigates these things. What happened when you got to the face-to-face confrontation with the baron?
As for Chris, what kind of complication was "getting cut off"? To me, this sounds like what I'd staked out as the karma-based character decision. His stakes are that he loses his useful relationship with the crime family. Would Chris have lost the ability to enter into the fiction details of the crime family, "oh, my cousin Alfred is into gun running" and the like? Was he risking his credibility, or his character's resources? Unless the very fact that he was investigating his own family was a sort of thematic statement -- I value the law over family -- I see more set-up to the real Bang.
Or am I way off?
Quote from: Joshua BishopRoby on December 20, 2005, 07:26:57 PM
Certainly there are other ways to go about it, Thor. I'm not trying to propose the only way.
I don't see a lot of thematic statements being made by the players in your examples, though. With your justicar, you were certainly manuevering your character into a situation where he would be called upon to make such a thematic statement -- law versus loyalty, for instance. But investigating some guy getting gacked doesn't say much about your character outside of the fact that he's an investigator who investigates these things. What happened when you got to the face-to-face confrontation with the baron?
As for Chris, what kind of complication was "getting cut off"? To me, this sounds like what I'd staked out as the karma-based character decision. His stakes are that he loses his useful relationship with the crime family. Would Chris have lost the ability to enter into the fiction details of the crime family, "oh, my cousin Alfred is into gun running" and the like? Was he risking his credibility, or his character's resources? Unless the very fact that he was investigating his own family was a sort of thematic statement -- I value the law over family -- I see more set-up to the real Bang.
Or am I way off?
It's all in the Beliefs. My Justiciar's all about being loyal to his superiors. But he's also all about rooting out corruption that is eating the empire from within. And that creates this character's tension: what's more important: loyalty or rooting out corruption? This example was all about the second belief. It was me making the statement that this character is so much about rooting out corruption, that he's going to walk straight into what I, player Thor, know is a nest of vipers, without any protection, to do what he feels is right.
Outside of play, it's me really ramping up the "root out corruption" thing so that when the character discovers that his loyalty (which had also been ramped up steadily in play) ties him to a source of corruption, it becomes a really tight conflict.
Unfortunately for me, I don't know how the conflict with the baron would have played out. I lost the roll, Luke got the assassination attempt, and it went badly for me. I died. But I died making a statement.
As for Chris, who had beliefs about loyalty to his family and his eventual leadership of the family, getting cut off meant that he no longer had the ability to use family resources without conflict with his brother. He still had to pursue his goals of protecting his family and establishing leadership, but now he has to develop new ways of approaching it because the direct route is no longer open.
This scene was all about Chris choosing to protect his family (going forward with the conflict) at the risk of jeopardizing his eventual leadership of the family. Chris would later have that brother thrown in a dungeon by my justiciar as part of his plan to get back into the family, an act which left the family wide open to its enemies...
Quote from: Thor Olavsrud on December 20, 2005, 07:45:17 PMIt was me making the statement that this character is so much about rooting out corruption, that he's going to walk straight into what I, player Thor, know is a nest of vipers, without any protection, to do what he feels is right.
So ... you said that there was definitely something that you, the player, were risking. Is there a real chance that the character will die through this action?
Because if there isn't then I'm not yet seeing what the risk you're taking as a player is. Perhaps you can clarify.
Quote from: TonyLB on December 20, 2005, 08:37:44 PM
Quote from: Thor Olavsrud on December 20, 2005, 07:45:17 PMIt was me making the statement that this character is so much about rooting out corruption, that he's going to walk straight into what I, player Thor, know is a nest of vipers, without any protection, to do what he feels is right.
So ... you said that there was definitely something that you, the player, were risking. Is there a real chance that the character will die through this action?
Because if there isn't then I'm not yet seeing what the risk you're taking as a player is. Perhaps you can clarify.
As I said in the previous post, the risk was that there would be a follow-up scene with an assassination attempt. There was. And my character was killed as a result.
Thor, something like: "As a player, I want to see a conflict involving my character's loyalty to law and supporters tested, and in order to get that conflict, I'm willing to risk my continued use of that character as a method of credibility"?
Cause that's either orthogonal to what I'm talking about or absolutely awesome, and I can't tell which.
This story of Tony's Amber incident jogged my memory of one of the more interesting war stories (http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.frp.advocacy/browse_thread/thread/463188ffd368a761/ba1cfb3b3c83742b?lnk=st&q=runequest+samurai+gamist+group%3Arec.games.frp.advocacy&rnum=1&hl=en#ba1cfb3b3c83742b) ever to appear on rgfa in the glory days, by Kevin Hardwick. Kardwick's focus is on immersion, but it's clearly a case of a player attempting to make a strong statement by more than risking a character and being undermined by a merciful GM. The reason it makes an interesting contrast is that if there's one thing Runequest didn't lack, it was mechanical support for killing player-characters. AND YET the GM couldn't pull the trigger, despite the player's preference that he do so and the fictional logic of the outcome.
It makes an interesting compare-and-contrast. (I read it as a clear case of a player looking for an rgfa-sim/big model nar skewer.) It's clearly a social-contract failure, but one in which mechanics and system support the dispassionate, "objective" killing of characters in that situation. Mechanics did not save the situation. The biggest contrast I see is that the player's paramount concern is the integrity of his decision, not "stakes" as such. His interest wasn't in making a statement by incurring risk but by engaging in sacrifice.
Best,
Jim
Thor, would it be fair to say that what you were risking as a player was the direction the plot took? I mean, if you get what you want, you move the story closer to the internal conflict you want for your character. If you don't, there's an assassination attempt and yeah, you might die and stuff, but the real downside is that the story goes away from the conflict you're arrowing in on.
James
Quote from: Blankshield on December 21, 2005, 02:02:59 AM
Thor, would it be fair to say that what you were risking as a player was the direction the plot took? I mean, if you get what you want, you move the story closer to the internal conflict you want for your character. If you don't, there's an assassination attempt and yeah, you might die and stuff, but the real downside is that the story goes away from the conflict you're arrowing in on.
James
On the nose, I think, James.
Quote from: TonySo ... you said that there was definitely something that you, the player, were risking. Is there a real chance that the character will die through this action?
Tony, are you asking if there's any chance of the character dieing AND doing so in a way that addresses premise? Or are you asking if there's any chance of the character dieing before getting to a position where they can address premise?
I think what James and Thor have said covered the latter. But were you asking the former?
No, I was asking to differentiate from the rare games that explicitly forbid protagonist death, and the not-at-all-rare gaming group that, as a practical matter of social contract, don't have protagonist death as a real risk. If you've ever played a long-term D&D game where no PCs died, always being saved by last minute escapes and deus ex machina then that's what I'm talking about.
But, clearly, from Thor's response this wasn't the case. So I got the information I was after (namely how much player risk was involved).
It just seemed to open a new can of worms in my mind - James seems to describing the risk as whether you'll actually be playing a narrativist game (since your risking whether you'll actually get to a point/conflict your interested in, where you can address premise).
Sounds like a terrific thing to post about. Do you have any actual play examples where that happened to you?
Sorry that I haven't really properly read all the posts in a thread (just the first half of them). I just hope this helps, for I seem to have had kind of similar experiences as a GM in the past.
I believe this particular GM was more a D&Dist in mind (and given that d20, not d6, d10 or d100, or anything, I believe I got it right) thought that character death is bad in all cases. Now then, if there was only 5% chance of game being enjoyable, and 95% otherwise, he disliked it, because it was braking fun for everyone, as he seems to have thought.
In this case he was mad with you, just like he would have been if you munched, powergamed, etc. all those ole D&D troubles. If you made a better choice (so that you would stay alive, as he thought), he would have had _less GMing trouble_.
My point is that you two were playing different games. He felt just a bit more responsible for your enjoyment than was needed, and also misunderstood your needs as a player.
Hi Tony,
I think so. I had an adventure once where the players heard NPC's outside a bar they were in, encountering a monster. But see, he was actually formally a man who turned himself into a barely sentient monster in a fit of rage (through a certain process) when a girl spurned him for his rival. And now he was serving his own mage son, without either of them knowing it, since in his rage he'd raped his love and left her pregnant, before he made himself a monster (part of the reason he made himself a monster, anyway). The son grew up, became a mage and so on. The players, at this point, know none of this.
And frankly, these players got out there and pushed (You know what I mean - eyes bright, sitting forward kind of push) with their resources, to kill this sucker. As I manouvered him the hell out of there, I knew the stakes were not about anything I had in mind with him (I didn't know about nar, years ago when this happened). In fact, it made me quite desperate to get him out of there, because it wouldn't just kill the NPC, it'd kill what I hoped for in the game (and from my position now, I'd say it'd kill the type of game agenda I hoped for).
I didn't think risking the chance for a latter address of premise was what I wanted at all and could never imagine, for myself, ever wanting to risk that (as part of nar play). So I'm not sure I really buy into the idea of risking future address opportunities as the risk a player faces. It's a bit glib, but I think losing a character only breaks your heart a bit...while losing those future opportunities breaks the narrtivist agenda. So much so that I hypothesize that a GM that wants narrativism but threatens such opportunities (to add player risk to an address), may be making idle threats.
Callan, do you want to split this off into its own thread? I'd love to dig into it deeper, but it's pretty far off the original topic, and my digging is only going to take it further.
Quote from: TonyLB on December 28, 2005, 08:13:42 PM
Callan, do you want to split this off into its own thread? I'd love to dig into it deeper, but it's pretty far off the original topic, and my digging is only going to take it further.
Just the greek chorus adding "I, too, would like to hear more, dig more."
Split: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=18152.0