Dominion and Dependency: a game mechanic for an ugly society

[henebry]

I've been working lately on a system for modeling a social mechanism familiar from pirate stories, prison stories and real-world junior high school experience: a tough guy (or gal) establishes dominance over a weaker individual, making him a dependent. I like the mechanism that I've come up with, but I"m concerned that systematizing a psychological process might inhibit rather than spur roleplay. People come equipped with an instinctual sense of social give and take, as also an instinctual sense of fair play. So a good game system should activate that social instinct, not attempt to replicate its function. On the other hand, sometimes a game mechanic helps to stretch players outside their normal comfort zone, making it "okay" to do things in the roleplay universe that they'd never do in real life.

My hope in this forum message is (1) to get feedback as to whether the system looks fun and playable but also (2) to spur a conversation on using game mechanics to spur players to engage in social systems different from their own.

Basic principles:

• acts of cruelty establish a dominance hierarchy
• power over an underling allows a master to demand aid during conflicts and even to take some of the underling's share of treasure
• too much cruelty will lead eventually to the underling rebelling and betraying his master
• resentment (and eventual rebellion) is kept in check by the master shielding his underling from harm

The system tracks dominance with black poker chips (denoting "Mastery"), and resentment with red poker chips (denoting "Suffering"). Both kinds of chip can be spent to gain an advantage in certain sorts of conflict.

As you might guess from the mention of treasure, at the moment I'm designing a pirate-themed game. Each character sheet has spaces for tracking relationships with the other characters in the game. If my pirate, Bos'n Ridley, dominates Jonathan Culler, then I've got black chips next to Culler's name on my sheet and Culler's got red chips next to Ridley's name on his sheet.

• Acts of Cruelty: In general, add one "Mastery" chip for every "Suffering" chip, though this changes if the victim resists.
  
  
  
  • The master describes his act of cruelty and hands the victim as many red chips as he deems appropriate, though this number can be questioned by other players if they think it unreasonably large or small. 
  • Picking on someone does not require a conflict roll if the victim chooses to suffer the indignity and accept the red chips (I owe this idea to Vincent Baker's Poison'd). In that case, the master adds the same number of black chips to his own sheet. 
  • If the victim resists, run a conflict where the stakes are accepting or refusing the proffered dose of suffering AND double or nothing on the current pool of black chips (minimum increase = 2x the # red chips at stake in the conflict).
• Shield Underling: A master can reduce the resentment felt by an underling by taking his place in a conflict. This reduces the stack of red chips without affecting the stack of black chips. (I'm leaving out details here that reference the game's conflict resolution system.) The choice of whether to intervene and help out is entirely up to the master.
• Call for Aid: a master can call on his underling for help in a conflict—though obviously NOT in a conflict with the underling. This reduces "Mastery" chips without affecting "Suffering." 
• Crew Vote: A master can force an underling to vote for whatever side he chooses. He must pay 1 "Mastery" chip for each of the victim's "Vote" chips, and he must buy all the underling's votes. The master can even force the underling to change his vote, but to do so he must act immediately after the underling votes. 
• Treasure: a master can take part of his underling's share of a treasure, though doing so increases resentment even as it spends influence. Remove 1 "Mastery" chip and add one "Suffering" chips for each 1 share of treasure taken from the underling.
• Betrayal: an underling can use "Suffering" chips to justify killing his master or otherwise breaking the pirate code in a way that harms his master. Each red chip improves his chances during the trial to justify his act of betrayal before the ship's assembled company.
• Refusal: short of betrayal, an underling can simply refuse to do his master's bidding. To do so he must win an internal conflict against the master's store of black chips. Winning means a reduction in black chips; losing an increase.

As you can see, this system interfaces with a number of other game mechanics: a conflict resolution mechanic and a crew vote mechanic. But I don't want to detail those here; I'm focused for the moment on this system for modeling social interaction. Will it encourage players to behave as pirates do, and to respond to the behavior of other pirates as pirates would do? I want masters to revel in domineering over other players, and I want oppressed underlings to wheedle and plot and finally erupt in a burst of violence — or to slit the master's throat in his sleep.

My instinct is that too much system will distract from the social interaction by focusing attention on the system. I'm not sure whether my system is too much or not. But without a system, players may be afraid to behave like pirates at all.

Thoughts?

[Adam Dray]

This is pretty damned interesting. I don't necessarily agree with all of your design choices, but that doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. Here's where I disagree:

You've read essays about The Fruitful Void, right? You know, that space in play that all of your game mechanics touch and point at without ever really trampling? I think you've trampled into your Fruitful Void.

Of course, for that to be true, you have to agree with me about what the Fruitful Void is. I think it's loyalty. If you don't agree, then you're likely not trampling on your own design.

You hint at it being loyalty with your Refusal mechanics, but then you go the route that My Life with Master did, making the minion resist the will of the master to disobey an order. I think you trod a bit on the underling's free will that way. Also in Call for Aid and Crew Vote, unless the underling can make a Refusal there, too.

I have a hard time believing that underlings get subjugated without getting something out of the relationship: protection, status, belonging. Model how the master can dole out those things to his underlings, then let the underling refuse without rolling, and see what happens. Now the masters aren't near-omnipotent beings but are just manipulative bullies who need to play a balancing act themselves.

How is your game set up? How are players divided into masters and underlings? Is everyone is vying to be a master all the time, and people build master-underling alliances to get stuff done? Or is the GM the master and all the PCs are underlings? I can't quite tell from your description.

So, to answer your question, I don't think this systematization of a psychological process inhibits role-play, but it might inhibit game-play. There will be plenty to role-play here. Question is, will the players have freedom to make meaningful choices? My Life with Master constrains players in exactly the same way you are doing, and it is a wonderful game, so the answer isn't clear.

[henebry]

Adam,

Yours is a very helpful response. I'm a big fan of indie storygames, but I'm also a relative newcomer (just over a year worth of experience). Thanks for pointing me to the online discussions of "The Fruitful Void": it wasn't a term I was familiar with, and it so neatly provides an answer to the problem I was postulating: system in itself isn't a bad thing, but you don't want the system to "trample" the void, to mechanize something that should be played through with the players' feelings, emotions as their only guide.

That's what I was groping toward in speaking of emotional intelligence as an inbuilt human capacity that the game ought to harness, rather than attempting to replicate its workings with mechanics. One of the essay discussions I found on the Void (over on Baker's lumpley.com) referenced the Sanity system of Call of Cthulhu as an instance of what we're trying to avoid.

You suggest that I shouldn't limit the underling's options: he shouldn't have to make a roll to resist his Master's influence. I see what you mean. You're right that the toadies remain loyal not just through fear, but also because they gain something in influence by being able to claim their masters as patrons.

Perhaps what we're looking at here is a mechanic where the underling gives dice (or some similar measure of personal power) to his master (kowtowing to his master's will) in exchange for receiving a larger number dice back from his master (since, after all, he can claim to speak for his master). The master can revoke his dice at any time from the underling, but the underling cannot recover his dice quite so readily—though perhaps he can easily transfer them from his current master to a different master!

This would be a far simpler system. The advantages of serving as underling are a lot more plain, and at the same time the loss of dice would make underlings loath to lose their masters' favor.

[contracycle]

There is quite a distinction between being in someones power and being an toady.  I'm not sure if you mean one in particuler, or are confusing them.  The toady-type relationship is certainly at least partially voluntary, and the toady gets something out of it.  But there can be highly coercive relationships in which the subordinate person gets nothing out of it, and everything is totally one way.  I think you need to clarify precisely what you mean in this regard.

When you say, 'behave as pirates do', you are really referring to fictional pirates.  Real pirates were sort of proto-democratic more often than not, with a few dramatic exceptions.

[henebry]

I've always imagined pirate society to be democratic in much the way that many prisons feature democratic societies — which is to say dangerous, ugly, coercive, factional democracies. But I'm no expert.

My interest, in any event, is in creating a game mechanic for an ugly society — like the one in Lord of the Flies. Pirates with cutlasses, prisoners with shivs, prep school boys with pointed sticks — all window dressing as far as I'm concerned.

Contracycle, your distinction between the toady and coerced subordination is well taken. TheStockholm Syndrome suggests that coercion alone can result in the co-optation of a susceptible individual. But my latest version of the rules does leave room for this distinction:

• if you commit a cruel act, pass a red card to the victim, and give yourself a black card. The red card signifies the victim's suffering and resentment; it can be played by the victim for a mechanical advantage while alone (usually something revengeful). The black card signifies the reputation that the sadist gains; it can be played by the sadist for a mechanical advantage while in a group (usually something that plays on that reputation.)
• a toady can offer tribute to his master (sacrificing personal power — dice or cards). This tribute can be held by the master or distributed x2 (doubled and distributed) among that master's toadies.

I have considered requiring that all toady relationships be founded first on an act of cruelty, but I'm not sure that's necessary.

My great challenge so far has been in finding players willing to explore this dark space with me. I've been running it as an aspect of a homebrew pirates game, and so far everyone has stuck to the combat system. In one game the players were determined to be nice to one another (sharing equally, etc.). In the other game, the players enthusiastically embraced the game's PvP character, but still held themselves clear from dominion and dependency, acting as independent moral actors. This preference is the more interesting as the game system (as written) provides mechanical advantages to both sadist and victim in the case of cruelty AND to both master and toady in the case of tribute.

[Sebastian K. Hickey]

Really interesting.

Though I'm a bit confused as to how the lackeys are rewarded by their Master with chips (outside of conflict).  I believe that coercive rule is most enduring when tempered with kindness.  I heard about a phenomenon, which you guys will know more about, where in some cases the soldier in privation can learn to admire their torturer, to become subservient beyond the reaction to privation.  Perhaps because there is perceived kindness.  I'd like to see more obvious balancing just as Adam Dray describes:

I have a hard time believing that underlings get subjugated without getting something out of the relationship: protection, status, belonging. Model how the master can dole out those things to his underlings, then let the underling refuse without rolling, and see what happens. Now the masters aren't near-omnipotent beings but are just manipulative bullies who need to play a balancing act themselves.

Building from that, I'd like to outline what I'd expect from this kind of exploration of dominion, if that's okay.  If you're looking to recreate a mood of aggressive dominion, I think you can create that by tweaking the motives for both parties.  I think it would be best to look at the top first, to the Master.  In your dog-eat-dog kind of world, the Master is only as good as his minions, and he knows it.  How the Master chooses to influence his lackeys should be up to the player in charge.

For example, let's say the Master wants to be nice.  He gives everyone an equal share, takes the fall for criminal charges, acquires and organises the ship, plans the voyages, bribes the officials, etc.  In this case, what reason have the crew to mutiny (unless they fancy his boat)?  They're better off with him than without.  But then, why bother being the Master in the first place?

Now, let's say the Master wants to be nice, but, in fairness, he's doing all the hard work, so he fancies some larger part of the booty.  Some of the lackeys fancy that booty for themselves.  The Master can try to please everyone, but sooner or later, someone might challenge him for dominion.  This could be dangerous unless he's got a few friends.

What if the Master takes more booty, does less work, takes less personal risk and finds more than just a handful of crew against him.  Perhaps he must  enlist a portion of the crew to his favour with private promises and intrigue, using them to bully the others.  He may also punish severely, to show he means business.

Things start to get darker.  It looks like you've already got a system that could engender dislike toward the Master player.  The Master should know that if he's too easy going, the crew may refuse their tasks without fear, and may gang up against him.  Could you make that more obvious?  Mutiny is the most dangerous enemy.

Also, could you give more power to the PC lackeys to promote the fear of mutiny?  Perhaps they could pool their chips?  That way, the Master knows he has to keep them happy, even at the same time as he is punishing them severely.  The Master's role could be one of cruelty and kindness, trying to encourage alliances and quash rebellions.  As he punishes one severely, he rewards another.  The see-saw of dominion.

The lackeys, under a well played Master, may try to keep their noses clean, seem important to their Master to get the best rewards, and do their backstabbing in private.  They might only disobey orders when they knew they had the backing of their peers, knowing that if things went wrong they'd probably get thrown to sea.

That's how I envision the exploration you are proposing.  I think the system, however it is polished, should encourage the Master to behave in a cruel way, not for cruelty's sake, but to save his own skin.  And, in tandem, I think the system should encourage the lackeys to subservience, not because they are told to, but because it makes more sense for them to be be servile than to be otherwise.  As soon as that becomes false, viva la revolción!

[Sebastian K. Hickey]

P.S.

My great challenge so far has been in finding players willing to explore this dark space with me. I've been running it as an aspect of a homebrew pirates game, and so far everyone has stuck to the combat system. In one game the players were determined to be nice to one another (sharing equally, etc.). In the other game, the players enthusiastically embraced the game's PvP character, but still held themselves clear from dominion and dependency, acting as independent moral actors.

Maybe if you make it clearer that the Master CAN run the ship any way he wants.  But when the game starts, it would be up to the system to not only reward sadist/victim exchanges, but also punish the Master (only) if they are not used (mutiny etc.).  He might learn meanness.