Gamist Play: This one's MINE!

[Jeph]

So here's a phenomenon that's happened a few times recently.

In Peter C's D&D game, I play this awesome diviner/alienist. Peter K plays a simple Paladin, Argonath the Good. Curran controls Don Ramon Sanchez, a noble hit on hard times, classed up as a Rogue. We're all middle school friends, although now that we're in highschool I don't see them much, as they go to one and I another.

So. We're fighting, uh, I think it was a troll, an evil cleric, and an evil rogue. There's these two kids in the back, meant as sacrifices. The evil rogue's down low on HP, sees that things are going badly, and starts running so that he can use the kids as hostages. Senior Sanchez runs after him, and curran say, "This one's MINE!" But Teppin's next in initiative, and then the rogue, and if the evil rogue's not dead by then we'll have a hostage situation. So I say, "Maybe next time, man," and down the evil rogue with a burst of Magic Missiles. Curran seems mildly pissed but deals with it.

That was three sessions ago. Last session there was a similar experience.  We're surrounded by Drow. Of our Dwarven guades, Borry and Morry are down, Torry wounded badly, and Lorry a coward. Two Drow down, two up, another with a painful leg wound and very few HP thanks to Don Ramon. He again makes it explicit that this guy is his to take. As there are other threats in the area, I don't do anything snarky like blast his target with lightning.

So. I think that first instance is a definite conflict bread from the social contract, with one meta-rule being clearly higher priority (and recognized as such by all the players). But I can't exactly pin them down.

Thoughts?
--Jeff

[Sean]

These are pretty well established D&D phenomena, I think. What you have in the first case is a conflict between an element of social contract (I think) and maximized effectiveness - maximized effectiveness won in this case.

The sections in Hackmaster on 'calling dibs' (I think the 'he's mine' rules in HM fall under that just like treasure does) are somewhat useful for understanding this. I'm not sure, but you could 'raise the ante' on dibs-calling in Hackmaster by making it a loss of honor to interfere with someone else's call of dibs. I think that's a rule already, but if it's not, it should be. That way your choice between effectiveness and respecting the other player's ego-assertion would have been harder: in traditional D&D basically the only way you can back up other characters' violating your 'he's mine' or 'that's mine' calls (assuming the DM backs them instead of you) is to attack them or otherwise sabotage them in retaliation. Which is often, though not always, Not Fun.

[FredGarber]

Things I don't know, and so I can't help:
1) Is your party getting/dividing XP for Killing 1 Evil Rogue, 1 Evil Cleric, and 1 Troll,  or does Teppin get XP for the Rogue, Argonath killed the Troll and the Cleric, and Don Sanchez gets left out of the XP?
2) Or are there story elements? Do you get a bounty based on who did the actual killin from the king?  Was the Rogue (or the kids) related to Sanchez's family or something?
3) And are you sure it was _Curran_ saying "He's mine," or _Sanchez_, because Curran might be roleplaying the Famous Latin Sense of Honor for Sanchez, which would make it just an in-play issue.

Finding out which (or how many) of these issues are going on is important.  Because you guys don't see each other at HS,  I would double check OOC.  Maybe Curran is trying to be more "Honorable" in RL, or maybe he just had an English paper due and he was procrastinating about it, and took out some frustration on you?

But it doesn't seem group-threatening, unless both of you ignore it and expect it to go away, or expect that the other person will somehow automatically "know" what's wrong.

[Jeph]

You know, Curran might like a feat (or something) for calling dibs on an enemy. I'll suggest it to Peter.

Fred: Our group usually splits pretty much everything equally--exp, treasure, proceeds from the sale of wild triceratopses. I'm pretty sure it was Curran staking the claim, but it will almost definitely become a part of Don Sanchez's personality as the game unfolds. And it's definitely not a group-threataning or dysfunctional thing, just a tidbit of interest--contrariwise I think it shows signs of function, indicating that we're able to deal with problems like that smoothly.

But what I'm really interested in here is what this says about our group's preferences. That we prioritize group challenges over individual challenges? I'm not really sure.

--Jeff

[ethan_greer]

I dunno.  Seems like calling "dibs" on an opponent could as easilly be supported in any of the modes, not just Gamism. Is it Step On Up at work, or just exploration of character/situation?

[Callan S.]

It sounded like the player had built up a personal passion against the rogue and wanted to express it. Actually getting pasionate about enemy NPC's doesn't happen all the time, in my experience.

However, maximised play, which when agreed upon happens pretty much all the time without much effort (its not as rare a state as passion), got in the way of that.

So the technique of enjoying the game by getting passionate about something was overruled and wiped out by the technique of maximising play.

[contracycle]

So the technique of enjoying the game by getting passionate about something was overruled and wiped out by the technique of maximising play.

I'm not sure how significant this all is.  The statement above is correct, but I'm not sure whether its worth addressing.

Sometimes it happens in cricket or baseball that a high ball falls between two fielders.  It can also happen that both expects the other to get it and instead it *plonks* on the ground.  Or, a fielder might yell "I've got it" and then drop it.

My point is, this is something that is inherent to team-based games, and should probably be dealt with between the characters rather than the players.

PS: in online FPS gaming, you can get "frag thieves" who knock off the last HP of an enemy a buddy has been working on for a while.

[Luke]

We used to call "he's mine" on opponents all the time when playing ADnD. Players would actually sit back and watch their friends act rather than interfering.

One player had a reputation of getting too enthusiastic and "stealing kills." He would bow to his companions after the fight and say, by way of apologizing, "Thank you for fighting with me; I love to fight!"

One of his companions routinely got annoyed with this.

In one instance I decided to have a little fun. The player in question stole a kill in a climactic fight, this time he stole it from a loyal and trusted NPC who also considered himself quite honorable. The NPC was obviously in over his head and wasn't going to survive the fight. The player leapt in and took down his Yuan-ti assassin-sorcerer opponent with a few well-placed kicks. As the NPC, I turned to him and exploded in a burst of inchoate rage and stumped off to help the others. He gave me a look of innocence, "What did I do?"

This one instance lead to years of rivalry and tension between those two characters.

I instigated that scene because the other players in the group  would obviously get annoyed with the cowboy behavior, but wouldn't do anything. I thought it would be fun to put him on the spot.

Addendum: Interestingly, this has become a non-issue in BW. Everyone is damn thankful when their friends help to bring down their opponents.

-Luke

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Callan (Noon), I'm going to comment on the same text that Gareth (contracycle) quoted, but in a different way.

the technique of enjoying the game by getting passionate about something was overruled and wiped out by the technique of maximising play.

I guess that puzzles me. If the primary goal is about maximizing play-effectiveness, then why is it a problem to drop the "passion about something"? In other words, why not acknowledge that, in this case, the passion is about the effectiveness?

This whole thread-topic is about Gamist play. What I've been saying for a while is, Gamist play has big nads and big rewards. When people say "Dibs" and so forth, and when they honor or betray the dibs-ing, you are seeing plain old Gamist play work itself out in the course of a perfectly appropriate activity. The reward system is facilitating the activity (assuming that we're talking about special solo rewards for killing). That's why Elfs, for instance, specifies that only killing an opponent nets that one character a reward - because in that game, inter-character and inter-player conflict can become quite fierce and still stay fun.

Sure, the "passion about something" (which can mean any Creative Agenda that includes strong Explorative foundations) has been overruled. No big deal! Any number of role-players would respond, "And?"

It's only a breach of Social Contract if the individuals' standards differ for what's "fair" - just as in any basketball game, in which how hard you have to be elbowed to call "foul" is going to have to be set by the actual people, in practice. You can't look that stuff up in books and expect it to stick.

Best,
Ron

[Paul Czege]

Hey Gareth,

My point is, this is something that is inherent to team-based games, and should probably be dealt with between the characters rather than the players.

My take on the situation in Jeff's group is that the calling of dibs is a player-level activity. It's about Curran establishing the significance of his own role relative to the other players. Correct me if I'm wrong Jeff, but I bet Curran would never call dibs on "the third orc from the left." He'll select weak and anonymous opponents as targets, because being part of the group means doing your share, but he'd never call dibs on one. At the player-level, calling dibs is about establishing that you are the respected manager of a hero.

Paul

[Andy Kitkowski]

Senior Sanchez runs after him, and curran say, "This one's MINE!" But Teppin's next in initiative, and then the rogue, and if the evil rogue's not dead by then we'll have a hostage situation. So I say, "Maybe next time, man," and down the evil rogue with a burst of Magic Missiles. Curran seems mildly pissed but deals with it.

...

He again makes it explicit that this guy is his to take. As there are other threats in the area, I don't do anything snarky like blast his target with lightning.

...But I can't exactly pin them down.

Thoughts?

Hey dude, I'm not good with the speculatin'.  I'm better looking at something, finding a "problem" and proposing a solution". It sounds, and I might be reading too much into it, that at the end of the day, speculating aside,  that you want to somehow have the rules or play back up the character who says "He's Mine!"  and means it.

If so, well... I couldn't help but eyeing the other thread in Actual Play about using something like SAs in D&D.

Even if you don't use SAs as Experience Point generators, and simply focus on their role as "character motivations and things that give you bonuses to die rolls", then they should be quite easy to create.

You can either have the payoff be in "plusses" that you can add to rolls like initiative and skills, or possibly granting 2 or more (probably no more than 4-5, or it can get silly) extra d20s that you get to roll at the same time, and take the highest one.

Again, sorry for breaking the momentum by not jumping on the topic of speculation, but I thought I might have seen a "Problem->Solution" situation at work there.

-Andy

[Callan S.]

So the technique of enjoying the game by getting passionate about something was overruled and wiped out by the technique of maximising play.

I'm not sure how significant this all is.  The statement above is correct, but I'm not sure whether its worth addressing.

Sometimes it happens in cricket or baseball that a high ball falls between two fielders.  It can also happen that both expects the other to get it and instead it *plonks* on the ground.  Or, a fielder might yell "I've got it" and then drop it.

My point is, this is something that is inherent to team-based games, and should probably be dealt with between the characters rather than the players.

There's a strong feeling in RP culture that the game can 'do anything'. This thread is a clear example that in choosing one technique, your shouldering out the other. You can have one or the other, not both at the same time. You can't do anything...well, not all at once, anyway. You can change techniques even in mid play, but this requires some recognition that this is even needed. Then you can get onto social contract stuff about it.

PS: in online FPS gaming, you can get "frag thieves" who knock off the last HP of an enemy a buddy has been working on for a while.

THAT is an example of social contract breaking. That hasn't happened here, the guy killed the thief because it was within the maximised play agreement. For example, if there had been no hostages, its clear the 'dibbed' kill wouldn't have been taken by another player.

[Callan S.]

Hi, Ron
Basically I'm getting at the idea of an incoherance in the social contract. It sounds like this:
1. The idea of players getting totally pumped and wanting to flip out and kill a particular NPC is considered great and kewl.
2. It is also considered great to work as one well oiled machine on the road to kick ass.

But they don't think of 3: Where both ideas at the same time crash into each other.

I'm strongly assuming that the idea of #1 is there. And then I'm saying that before play, it may not be apparent that it can colide with other techniques. Likewise, if no problem is seen, I doubt #2 was clearly put ahead in the social contract. Why bother if there's no clearly seen reason to do so?

BTW, Jeph's latter post tells us the XP is shared, so its not effecting this.

[contracycle]

THAT is an example of social contract breaking. That hasn't happened here, the guy killed the thief because it was within the maximised play agreement. For example, if there had been no hostages, its clear the 'dibbed' kill wouldn't have been taken by another player.

Hmm, I'm not sure I communicated properly then.  In the situation I am thinking of, its not really a contract breakdown precisely because maximum team effectiveness is the priority; its rather an unfortunate side-effect.  But not as bad a side-effect as being killed by your own team, say.

I guess I agree with your claim that this indicates a subtle incoherence in the social contract, but I say again it applies to pretty much any team game.  And the way they deal with the stepped-on toes of the party who called dibs and got denied is to depersonalise the problem and subordinate it to team effectiveness.  I don't so much think of these as contradictory but complimentary.

When I played football/soccer in highschool, we had certain players known as "aces" for their skill.  This definitely indicated personal prowess, you were said to "ace it" by, say, taking the ball from your half to the back of their net.  But aces, while lauded for their skills, could still be criticised for excessive hubris; that is, sometimes an ace would get so bogged down in their individual play that a much better goal scoring opportunity was missed, usually because of their unwillingness to pass the ball and forego the scoring attempt themselves.

It seems to me that that is the same conflict between personal commitment/excitement and the demands of maximum team effectiveness.  I do not think this is a special -property of RPG or the social cotnract - it is an inherent property of all team-based games and the fact that humans do not share a hive-mind.  But ubnlike team sports in which there are real stakes and real competition, in RPG we have the opportunity to settle the matter between our characters rather than the players - to use the abstracted game space as a safe venue in which to negotiate the conflict.  This sort of event is as natural a property of the activity in which the characters were engaged as much as it was of the activity in which the players were engaged; theres no need to take the resolution away from the characters and 'make it personal'.

[Callan S.]

THAT is an example of social contract breaking. That hasn't happened here, the guy killed the thief because it was within the maximised play agreement. For example, if there had been no hostages, its clear the 'dibbed' kill wouldn't have been taken by another player.

Hmm, I'm not sure I communicated properly then.  In the situation I am thinking of, its not really a contract breakdown precisely because maximum team effectiveness is the priority; its rather an unfortunate side-effect.  But not as bad a side-effect as being killed by your own team, say.

Nope. Accidents we always agree too, like being fragged by friends or even an occasional kill steal by accident. But agreeing that someone can deliberately and with full knowledge make play crap for me? No one agree's to that.

They may agree in advance that someone can come in and finish off the last hit point and that part of the game and not to get upset about it. But no one agrees to allow people a standard option to screw up their enjoyment. And if they don't agree to that 'last hit point finishing off by anyone is fine' rule, I'm sorry, kill stealing is right out and a social contract breach if done.

I guess I agree with your claim that this indicates a subtle incoherence in the social contract, but I say again it applies to pretty much any team game.  And the way they deal with the stepped-on toes of the party who called dibs and got denied is to depersonalise the problem and subordinate it to team effectiveness.  I don't so much think of these as contradictory but complimentary.

No! If they agree on team effectiveness being above dibs, that's fine. But if they agree on them being equal, then they go on to clash and then afterwards they try to say 'oh no, actually the agreement was that effectiveness is above dibs', that's bullshit calvinballing of the social contract, as your trying to tell someone that 'no, actually you agreed to whatever we say now, before the game started and not what you thought you agreed to. So be happy, because were telling you you agreed to it'. It's just cult like mind games. I hope any answer to this doesn't ironically employ similar techniques as it might if such explanations have worked for an individual in RL and they are commited to that idea now (memories of other boards like the palladium one prompts this comment).

*snip*

It seems to me that that is the same conflict between personal commitment/excitement and the demands of maximum team effectiveness.  I do not think this is a special -property of RPG or the social cotnract - it is an inherent property of all team-based games and the fact that humans do not share a hive-mind.  But ubnlike team sports in which there are real stakes and real competition, in RPG we have the opportunity to settle the matter between our characters rather than the players - to use the abstracted game space as a safe venue in which to negotiate the conflict.  This sort of event is as natural a property of the activity in which the characters were engaged as much as it was of the activity in which the players were engaged; theres no need to take the resolution away from the characters and 'make it personal'.

I don't think IC is a satisfactory management method. If the social contract has shown an error in it, trying to fix the damaged social contract WITH that same social contract is likely to perpetuate the error.

Now, a social contract that already had some notes (unwritten even) on how dibs breaches are handled, that's tasty and good.