Above and Beyond

[apparition13]

Hi there, I'm apparition13 and I haven't played in 15+ years.  I've been collecting RPGs, but no actual play.  Recently I started visiting here and RPG.net and I find myself thinking maybe I should start up again.  I've got half a dozen settings I've been fiddling with, but I found myself, upon reading into Midnight, interested with the potential of that setting and the advantages of doing something in a commercially available setting.  This has lead me to a bit of a quandary,  so I hope you'll bear with me while I put it all into context.  I may go on a bit, but germaneness is in the offing.

For those of you who may not be familiar, Midnight is advertised as a setting analogous to Middle Earth had Sauron won.  It posits a world wherein  Good has lost the Last Battle and if engaged in a desperate struggle for survival.  What sets it apart from other "after the disaster" (I've got one of these settings myself) settings is that the opportunity to strike back remains, even though hope of reversing defeat is bleak.   It struck a bit of a chord, and I mulled the idea over for awhile before coming to the conclusion that, while the official 100 years after the defeat of the Last Battle timeline had it's appeal I was interested in doing  things a little differently.  There are plenty of settings foreshadowing a calamity, and many afterwards, but games taking place during the cataclysm are not so common.  

My idea was to play a campaign I've taken to calling  "Midnight:  in media res".  Play would start during the last battle, in a little lull in the action that would allow the players to introduce their characters (maybe some flashback scenes) before the assault that turns the battle against them begins.  It's too late to do anything to change the outcome of the battle, so the game is built around what they do next.  As I thought about it my sim-brain remembered that most casualties happen during the rout phase of a battle, and that it seemed realistic to expect PCs to get killed in the first session, maybe even in the first assault once play starts.  Not generally a good idea... but I decided to go with it.  The idea of losing PCs would be built into the game and frequent death would help reinforce the bleakness of the setting.  Kinda like Paranoia, only not played for laughs.  So a sequence might go like this:

Lets say there are four players.  Their PCs are fleeing from the battle when they run into a group of orcs.  Combat ensues, and one of the PCs is killed before the orcs are vanquished.  They continue their retreat, encountering another group of fleeing soldiers which allows the player who lost the PC to rejoin the party with another PC.  As play continues and the party gets further from the battlefield they might find refugees rather than soldiers joining the party etc. etc. I suspect that PC casualties would be highest in the first few sessions before settling down to a more conventional rate.  (The present idea is for the replacement PC to be have roughly the same capability as the lost one.  The game would not be d20, but in those terms a fifth level casualty would allow for a fifth level replacement and so on.)  

Then I found out there is a new edition of Midnight coming out, so my enthusiasm was put on hold in anticipation of the new book.

Yesterday I found myself on RPG.net reading Ross Winn's "Close to the Edit" columns and ran across this quote:

At one point in my life I had sworn off fantasy. It was simply that the genre was tiresome to me. I had explored damned near every game that I had seen and I was tired of it.
Of course then a friend of mine named Sam decided he wanted to run a fantasy game set in Harn using GURPS. It was a brilliant game. The group played together for damn near two years and I don't recall a bad session in the lot. I always assumed that he had some cool new ideas. What I never realized, until he told me yesterday, was that the entire cycle was ripped off from Richard III. Of course the minute that he said it, I felt like a complete ass for not realizing it. I have read something like twenty-six of Shakespeare's plays, and liked Richard III quite a bit. Still he threw in some other elements that made it different enough that it was entertaining to all of us, and as importantly I think it seemed fresh and new.

in  "Everything Old is New Again".  The following article, "Gaming the Bard" by the GM of that game expanded on that point and left me with something very interesting to think about.

Today, while at work, I was in the company of another armchair gamer.  Unlike me (I prefer fantasy) he likes Science Fiction and is also something of a WWII geek.  He just got into GURPS because of their WWII setting, and immediately picked up GURPS traveler as well.  I was wondering what I could use for a setting if I were to GM for him.  I know he likes space opera and things military, so a military sci-fi setting seemed like a good idea;  but how to make it distinctive?  Yesterday's articles came to mind, and the siege of Bastogne popped into my head.  As advanced unit in an offensive, cut off by a counter-offensive, trying to hold out until relief arrives.  I envision alternating sessions playing the troops under siege and those racing to their rescue... which brought me back to Midnight:  in media res.  High intensity combat, lots of casualties, high potential for PC death, so better to build it in.  Lost half your platoon in an attack?  So did this platoon, we're merging the two units.  (Introduce your new PCs please.)

So now I have two campaign ideas with the risk of high PC casualties built in.  It's no longer just a campaign idea, it's a game idea.  Which brings me to the point of this post (see, I've achieved germaneness).  One of the stronger attractions this idea holds for me is the idea of PC sacrifice.  To quote Ani Difranco's sond "Dilate" (totally out of context) "if I'm gonna go down, I'm gonna do it with style".  Sure, a PC could get shot in the back running away, or wind up on the recieving end of artillery;  but they could also dive on a grenade or hold off the orcs while the others escape.  Death is built in, dying well is a potential goal of play.  Which brings me to my dilemma.  How do I set things up so that, ideally, everyone at the table can feel that "frog in my throat, eyes getting misty" feeling a great self-sacrifice scene can elicit?  How do we make PCs distinctive and "real", even if they are only around for half an hour?  How can players connect with characters they may not be around for that long?  In other words, how do I make gallantry above and beyond  the call of duty visceral?  (If there are any questions, "Above and Beyond" is the games title.

Caveats:
1.  Please focus your responses on the question raised in the last paragraph.  "Use system X" doesn't help, "look at how system X handles Y in situation Z" and how that relates to my query could.

2.  I'm simmy, I like my deep immersion and plausibility and all that stuff, but what I'm looking for is emotional response from the players, please keep that in mind.  I have ideas for mechanics, chargen, task/conflict resolution etc.;  what I need are things that will reinforce and encourage play that elicits the "lump in throat" emotional response.  

3.  Reward systems are in play:  if you have an idea that you think might help with point 2, toss it in the ring.

4.  "Talk it over" and social contract are insufficient in and of themselves;  I think it's safe to say we've moved towards (if not into) narr.  I need rules to spotlight and encourage point 2.

Thanks for your time and input,

[daMoose_Neo]

First thing to jump at me: Reduce handling time, generate several characters RIGHT at Chargen. Draw up a frontlines assault troop, a footman, and a commander.

I'm wondering what kind of structure this needs. If you're looking for the misty-eyed, frog in throat yea, tis safe assumption to be thinking this is going to be Nar. Gotta make the players care about the characters...like most stage tradgedies, Act 1, introduce the characters, have dinner, get to see them and their families. Act 2, show the "Bad Thing" be it their own flaws or the plot outside of them, Act 3 throw the two together and watch in horror as the main character falls, usually heroically.
Wondering...some kind of structure akin to that? Give each character an "Introduction" "Revelation" and finally "Conclusion" scene? PTA almost- set up several scenes, one of which is the characters Intro, followed by their Revelation, and ends with their conclusion. Interesting at times to have an Introduction for one character and a Revelation for another going on, or a Revelation and a Conclusion.

[Sydney Freedberg]

So "Last Stand: The RPG" where it's not about winning (more XPs, more levels, more treasure) but about how you choose to lose?

Well, here's an interesting thread on the emotional aspects of combat to check out: Fear and Confusion.

The real challenge here is to get people so engaged with their characters that character death matters, yet have character death be relatively common. DaMoose Neo's suggestion of "show the characters having dinner with their families" is a good one. Further suggestion: The "get to know these characters" scene doesn't have to be at the beginning of the game:

Allow players to call for flashbacks and play out mini-scenes establishing their background, their families, their aspirations -- all the things they have to lose. Then, when a player decides to sacrifice a character's life, that character's last, heroic action gets a bonus directly proportional to how much that character has to lose. So if you're currently playing "Spearman #5" and decide to have him hold off the rampaging orcs while the others escape, well, nobody knows anything about this guy, so there's no bonus. But if you're playing "John of Kent, blacksmith, father of three girls whose mother died in the plague, and who is slowly learning to love again" and decide to send him to his doom... whopping mondo bonus.

Which of course gives the players a lovely little stab in the heart: the more they care about a character, the more they want him to be one of the few who survives, but the more in-game effectiveness they get when they "cash in his chips."

Ooh: You could even have a literal pile of chips on the character sheet and add something every time you establish a bit of backstory. Then the bad guys catch up with you and everyone looks around to see who has enough chips to save them.....

P.S.: No need to make this setting-dependent at all, anymore; as you said, it could be Tolkeinesque twilight or World War II.

P.P.S.: In GNS terms, you could either go Simulationist or Narrativist with this and still get strong player investment in the characters. It'd work either way. I suspect the difference is if you want to have the game be about "this is how it feels to sacrifice yourself nobly in a losing cause," you want Sim; and if you want it to be about "do you sacrifice yourself nobly or try to survive?" then you want Nar. But I'm not GNS expert.

[EDIT: Oh, and you should read this discussion on character death in RPGs.]

[daMoose_Neo]

Ooo- Just made me think of the finale to Man in the Iron Mask- where Datanion reveals he's Fillipe's father- we've established
A) Brillaint soldier
B) Devoted servant
C) even more devoted to love

and now a heartwenching
D) Father to king & outcast

and POW, he's the one that dies, and because of that the other Musketeers live. Works, and fits the theme. Just gotta pack it all into a half hour of play now.

[apparition13]

First thing to jump at me: Reduce handling time, generate several characters RIGHT at Chargen.

Yup, got it in one.  That, and FAST chargen.

I'm wondering what kind of structure this needs. If you're looking for the misty-eyed, frog in throat yea, tis safe assumption to be thinking this is going to be Nar. Gotta make the players care about the characters...like most stage tradgedies, Act 1, introduce the characters, have dinner, get to see them and their families. Act 2, show the "Bad Thing" be it their own flaws or the plot outside of them, Act 3 throw the two together and watch in horror as the main character falls, usually heroically.
Wondering...some kind of structure akin to that? Give each character an "Introduction" "Revelation" and finally "Conclusion" scene? PTA almost- set up several scenes, one of which is the characters Intro, followed by their Revelation, and ends with their conclusion. Interesting at times to have an Introduction for one character and a Revelation for another going on, or a Revelation and a Conclusion.

Yup, PTA popped into my head too.  Just not sure how to integrate that into a crunchier game.

[apparition13]

The real challenge here is to get people so engaged with their characters that character death matters, yet have character death be relatively common. DaMoose Neo's suggestion of "show the characters having dinner with their families" is a good one. Further suggestion: The "get to know these characters" scene doesn't have to be at the beginning of the game:

Allow players to call for flashbacks and play out mini-scenes establishing their background, their families, their aspirations -- all the things they have to lose.

I'd gotten this far...

Then, when a player decides to sacrifice a character's life, that character's last, heroic action gets a bonus directly proportional to how much that character has to lose. So if you're currently playing "Spearman #5" and decide to have him hold off the rampaging orcs while the others escape, well, nobody knows anything about this guy, so there's no bonus. But if you're playing "John of Kent, blacksmith, father of three girls whose mother died in the plague, and who is slowly learning to love again" and decide to send him to his doom... whopping mondo bonus.

and am considering this...

Which of course gives the players a lovely little stab in the heart: the more they care about a character, the more they want him to be one of the few who survives, but the more in-game effectiveness they get when they "cash in his chips."

Ooh: You could even have a literal pile of chips on the character sheet and add something every time you establish a bit of backstory. Then the bad guys catch up with you and everyone looks around to see who has enough chips to save them.....

but I hadn't gotten here.  That, particularly the bolded bit, is brilliant.  Any ideas on how to adjudicate chip-awards?

On a different note, not all deaths are heroic.  Sometimes you just get hit with artillery or "cash in" in the first round of an ambush.  I'm thinking this possibility will mandate transparency:  ie:  all dice rolls will be in the open.  I'm also thinking of using random "encounters" to simulate artillery, ambushes, a friendly squad etc., with the players drawing an enounter card (and maybe contributing cards)... then again maybe not.  Dunno. Suggestions?

[Sydney Freedberg]

not all deaths are heroic.  Sometimes you just get hit with artillery or "cash in" in the first round of an ambush.

I once proposed (I think it's even in the character-death thread I linked to above) that to really simulate warfare, you need to draw a card for every player character at the start of each scene: If you draw the Ace of Spades, you die for some stupid reason. No recourse.

And of course if you die randomly, your chips go away without doing anyone any good.

Any ideas on how to adjudicate chip-awards?

My first thought would be to borrow from Prime Time Adventures, actually, specifically the "fan mail" mechanic:

1) Give every player a pool of chips they can only give to other people. (Maybe replenish these every so often).

2) Player A calls for a backstory-establishing scene and then either narrates a flashback, plays out a mini-scene with other players temporarily taking on the roles of his family members, or just roleplays his character reminiscing aloud about pre-war life to the other troops.

3) Each other player decides whether to award Player A a chip or not.

So if Player A doesn't engage the other players, he gets no benefit for his backstory; but if Player A's backstory really appeals to everyone else, he gets 1 chip per other player in the game. Which has the incidental benefits of encouraging cooperation, but also of making the characters whose sacrifice is the most powerful be the characters everyone cares the most about, not just their own players.

[apparition13]

Sydney Freeberg wrote:

[EDIT: Oh, and you should read this discussion on character death in RPGs.]

Looks like I've been anticipated.  That was very helpful.

[apparition13]

Ooh: You could even have a literal pile of chips on the character sheet and add something every time you establish a bit of backstory. Then the bad guys catch up with you and everyone looks around to see who has enough chips to save them.....

...and on a related note, what do you think of "cashing in your chips" meaning giving the to the other players.  Your PC may not be any more effective, but the others now have more resources to use in getting away.  Alhtough with conflict resolution it may be (effectively) the same thing either way, ie: do I hold them off? vs. do we get away?

[Sydney Freedberg]

I'm personally tempted to be as brutal as possible: You can only spend a character's "investment" in backstory by sacrificing his/her life.

Now, to be gentler, you can allow backstory to gain characters traits that they can use in all sorts of situations short of martyrdom, e.g. "I think of my wife's love for me and, with one last desperate effort, claw my way up out of the pit"; or even, as you suggested, letting people help each other out, e.g. "While the medic works on him, I hold his hand and tell him about springtime on my dad's farm in Iowa and how he's gotta visit when this war is over."

But that does take the focus away from the moment of sacrifice and broadens the game. Which is neither good nor bad, just different, and a decision you need to make carefully.

[Colin Fredericks]

Heads-up on the name:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=2120&;

[timfire]

How do I set things up so that, ideally, everyone at the table can feel that "frog in my throat, eyes getting misty" feeling a great self-sacrifice scene can elicit?  How do we make PCs distinctive and "real", even if they are only around for half an hour?  How can players connect with characters they may not be around for that long?

I'm very skepital this is possible in such a short time span. I'm also skepital that you can repeat this pattern over and over every single session and get the same emotional response from the players.

I think the simple fact is that it takes time to develop a relationship/attachment/whatever between player and character. Sure, having a character be killed is disappointing, but to generate that real "lump in your throat" feeling, the players need to honestly care for the characters. This doesn't come easy.

In my experience GM'ing The Mountain Witch, it seems to take playes, oh, at least 3 or 4 hours before they really start to care for their characters. It's around that time that choices stop being easy and they start hestitating just a little bit before deciding.

If you really want to generate that visceral "lump in your throat" feeling, my advice would be to slow things down. The more time you spend building up to an event, the greater emotional response you will get from the players. (That's the theory, anyway.) That's an issue I have with tMW, people always want to play the game in a single session, in like 3-4 hours. But it's so hard to properly build up the characters in that time.

TMW uses basically a three phase structure to accomplish what it does. (Actually it uses four phases, but the forth isn't really applicable to your issue.) First, you introduce low stakes action that allows the players to define their characters. Then, you start providing situations that allow the characters to develop their relationships. Then -- and only then -- do you start to force the characters to start making hard choices.

The second issue I have with what you want to do is that generating this type of honest emotional response from the players is very taxing for the players. Players can't endure that type of emotional intensity day in and day out. They will start to shutdown or emotionally withdraw. If you honestly want a high PC casaulty rate, then you might have to accept that the players will remain disconnected from their characters.

[edit] I think I'm going to start a Theory thread on this subject. [/edit]

[apparition13]

I'm personally tempted to be as brutal as possible: You can only spend a character's "investment" in backstory by sacrificing his/her life.

Now, to be gentler, you can allow backstory to gain characters traits that they can use in all sorts of situations short of martyrdom, e.g. "I think of my wife's love for me and, with one last desperate effort, claw my way up out of the pit"; or even, as you suggested, letting people help each other out, e.g. "While the medic works on him, I hold his hand and tell him about springtime on my dad's farm in Iowa and how he's gotta visit when this war is over."

But that does take the focus away from the moment of sacrifice and broadens the game. Which is neither good nor bad, just different, and a decision you need to make carefully.

Ooh, sorry about the lack of clarity.  What I meant was that when the character sacrifices his/her life for the others the bonus chips go to the party, not the character.  Is it really a sacrifice if the character gains the benefit?  

Timfire wrote:

I'm very skepital this is possible in such a short time span. I'm also skepital that you can repeat this pattern over and over every single session and get the same emotional response from the players.

I see this as happening in the initial stages of the campaign (or series if you prefer), ie: during the actual battle and it's immediate aftermath.  I'm sure the death rate would slow down considerably once the characters get to relative safety and can again take the fight to the enemy;  though even then I anticipate higher than normal casualty rates.

edit:  So perhaps what you would see would be pulses (battles?) wherein casualties would come fast and furious (relative to "normal" games) with lulls in between... or not.  Hmm, still uncertain.

[Frank T]

I agree with timfire. You don't want to have a flashback with every new GI just tossed in. Players will get bored by yet another wife and kids scene since they want to move on with the action. I suggest that the game should be as much about surviving as about dying. So we have the possibility of cruel random death, which is cool, and the possibility of noble self-sacrifice, which is also cool. But survival should be an option, too, and not only an option but a goal.

Here's an idea: Each time he has survived a critical situation, a character gets a scene that features his personality. You would not necessarily call for a flashback every time. Rather, you could have a dialogue in a quiter moment of battle, or some other scene within all the chaos and destruction that establishes some theme for the character. You could do something like: Every third personality scene is a flashback that tells us more about the character's background.

I would suggest a character creation method "as you play". Characters could use basic templates like "foot soldier", "officer", "knight" etc. Pick one special fighting skill, go. Use a name list to quickly grab a name. Roll for rank, if you will. Establish personality traits and relationships only as you create the related scenes. Like in a novel or movie, the character gains profile and also gains importance (chips or whatever). His chance for survival doesn't increase, however.

So you will have increasing emotional investment with characters that survive a lot of critical scenes. That would fit very well with a war story: There are those guys who stick around barely long enough for you to remember their face, and then get blown away. And then there are the guys that stay around for a long time, and you really start to like them. But you can never know who's next.

Man, I would buy this game.

[Sydney Freedberg]

What Frank said, enthusiastically.