[Actual play] Dark Border

[CPXB]

]Did this seem like a Bang? That is was CPBX really interested in the potential choice to have pressured her for information? In point of fact, he had his cake and ate it too. That is, he got the information and the girl. So did he have to make a choice at any time, really? CPBX, was it interesting that way? Or did you let him off the hook? Did she ever say, "please don't bring it up?"

The reason that I strongly suspected that it would turn out with Stephan helping her, is because no matter Stephan's goals, the hidden Sex keyword came out in spades here. You women don't realize the power you have over males. That is, given the choice between following your curiosity, or of being nice to a woman, that's really little choice at all for most. Most male players playing male characters will have the character fall all over himself just to help out. She didn't even need land. She's a potential sex partner (to men every reasonably attractive woman is a potential sex partner - yes every one), so the male needs some very strong incentive to go against this.

But what do I know. Was it a bang? Do we feel we know Stephan better now than we did before?

Well, Stephan is a pretty social character.  He did make his cake and eat it to -- it's very much the sort of character I designed him to be.  He is an aristocrat and I play a pretty mean aristo.  ;)

But I didn't feel the bang.  I mean, Asha was a nice girl and all, but the city is full of nice girls.  Annoying any particular one doesn't bother him in the slightest.  Plus, she came to him asking for a favor, and he'd just done a favor for her father, so he felt really confident dealing with her.  And while the hidden sex keyword could be at work, uh, Stephan's sex keyword is not hidden at all.  He is an extremely seductive and persuasive man.  And Asha isn't precisely a vamp; she's more than a little shy, so she wasn't the sort to try to manipulate Stephan that way.  But, all in all, the sex keyword goes both ways and Stephan is quite designed to fully participate in sexual politics.

In this encounter, Stephan felt he held all of the cards.

Sure, but was the player satisfied? Probably, players can hang on through a lot of information gathering and whatnot. But why not have Vitale have something that he could act on? Better yet, why not have Vitale only help him with the troops and information if Stephan actually did a specific favor for him?

Well, fortunately you can still do that - Stephan owes Vitale. :-)

I was pretty well satisfied, yes.  I had just expected the resistance to be stiffer than it actually was.

And Stephan knows Vitale owes him, but that's OK.  Vitale is so disliked in town that Stephan is figuring that Vitale won't call in his debts to Stephan just so Stephan will keep coming to his place with wit and gossip.  And what did Ambrose Bierce call allies?  People whose hands are so deep in each others pockets they can't seperate to plunder a third?  Stephan is comfortable with this sort of connection.  :)

I must emphasize I'm having fun in the game.  A lot of fun.  I like political games.  Me and Adrienne also talked tonight about the sorts of things that would be bangs for Stephan.  I told her that since, fairly recently, I had a character fall to evil that I had no intention of going that route with Stephan -- but that it would be quite easy to have him chose between, say, his honor and ambition.  And at one point I jokingly said, when I learned that Asha was going to inherit land, that he'd marry her and kill her father -- but that was only half a jest.  I'm not sure, yet, if Stephan is the sort of person who would kill for land (at least, kill like that), or (at least) for so little land.  As an alternate path, I'm also considering that he might attempt to replace the Vicar in Manjipe; he would look good in that position.  ;)

There's plenty of bang-worthy material, there, but I'm not really obsessed with getting bangs, either.  I, as a player, like scheming and taking a fairly active role in what my character does (which was one of the criteria for joining the game, too).  I'm not sure where that sort of active play falls in with bangs, which are generally passive.

[CCW]

I'm not sure where that sort of active play falls in with bangs, which are generally passive.

Hi CPXB,

I'm no great expert at bangs, but I've never thought of them as conflicting with active play.  What do you mean when you say they're generally passive?

Charles

[CPXB]

I'm no great expert at bangs, but I've never thought of them as conflicting with active play.  What do you mean when you say they're generally passive?

Bangs are things that happen to the character.  The character doesn't go out and seize bangs; the player sits back and the GM does bangs to player characters.  Bangs are not active play; they are fairly strictly passive play relying almost entirely on the GM to come up with something for the character.  I see them as being akin to, and I hope this comes off as intended, narrativist dungeon crawls.

In a dungeon crawl, the archtype of the gamist experience, the GM points the PCs towards the dungeon and says, "Go get 'em, folks!"  With bangs, the GM creates a sitution of choice and forces the character through it.  Dungeon crawls largely exist to provide a number of tactical choices for players; bangs largely exist to provide a number of narrative choices for characters.  As such, I regard them as pretty passive.

An active player will need fewer bangs.  They'll, basically, come up with them on their own.  So, in the DB game, if I decide that Stephan is, say, going to marry Asha so he can kill Naryan and thus inherit land, without GM intervention, what good are bangs going to do?  Also, at that point, additional bangs might even be railroading.  If the GM goes, "I don't care what Stephan's player wants, I'm going to create a bang that pits his honor against his ambition" there's a good chance I'm going to feel railroaded, going, y'know, "But . . . what about me seducing Asha and then, y'know, killing Naryan to inherit?"

So, yeah, I guess I'm saying I regard bangs as passive.  Which isn't bad.  IME, most players are pretty passive and want that sort of thing.  ;)

[Kerstin Schmidt]

If the GM goes, "I don't care what Stephan's player wants, I'm going to create a bang that pits his honor against his ambition"

The problem you point out here is a painful one, and unfortunately one that most of us have suffered in one form or another.  But it hasn't got a thing to do with bangs.  (Nor with what Adrienne was doing in your game, am I right?)  It's simply an abusive GM pushing through their vision of a game regardless of what the players would regard as fun.  The important bit of the sentence is, "I don't care what X's player wants, I'm going to..."  

Have you experienced a GM who used bangs in such an abusive way? If you have, could you be more specific on what happened?  

So, in the DB game, if I decide that Stephan is, say, going to marry Asha so he can kill Naryan and thus inherit land, without GM intervention, what good are bangs going to do?

Without GM intervention.  How exactly does that work?  Stephan marries Asha, kills Nayan and inherits the land.  You state the action, it happens. Is that what you want? Somehow I think it isn't.

[CPXB]

The problem you point out here is a painful one, and unfortunately one that most of us have suffered in one form or another.  But it hasn't got a thing to do with bangs.  (Nor with what Adrienne was doing in your game, am I right?)  It's simply an abusive GM pushing through their vision of a game regardless of what the players would regard as fun.  The important bit of the sentence is, "I don't care what X's player wants, I'm going to..."  

Have you experienced a GM who used bangs in such an abusive way? If you have, could you be more specific on what happened?

But that's really what happens with bangs.  The GM does not -- in order to create suspense -- ask the player if the player wants a bang of a given nature.  The GM, on their own, just does them without, generally, any sort of consultation with the character.  It can happen quite without any malice.  The GM misses a clue -- or, IME, which is more often the case they don't know how to handle a player who aggressively pursues a goal for a variety of reasons -- and, bam, you're in the position where the GM is ignoring what the player wants.  (I don't even necessarily think this is bad.  Why should the GM ignore what the GM wants to do for the player all the time?  Certainly it's a two way street, right?  Sometimes the GM wants to do something and the player wants to do something else and SOMEONE has to give.  Sometimes it should be the player.)

I think anyone who has gamed for any period of time has faced abusive GMs.  Heck, I think it is possible many of us have been abusive GMs.  But that isn't relevant to the situation, here.

Without GM intervention.  How exactly does that work?  Stephan marries Asha, kills Nayan and inherits the land.  You state the action, it happens. Is that what you want? Somehow I think it isn't.

You might want to play Universalis to see how it works.  GM adjudication is far from necessary to play a game.  ;)

However, I was referring specifically to bangs.  Bangs as generally ran require a fairly passive player -- which is OK because, IME, players are a pretty passive lot.  But with an active player, I think that it is possible that bangs could become obstructionist unless they were tightly integrated with the goals of the character.  At which point they would seem more to feel like traditional encounters than bangs.

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Oh and by the way. This...

If the GM goes, "I don't care what Stephan's player wants, I'm going to create a bang that pits his honor against his ambition" there's a good chance I'm going to feel railroaded, going, y'know, "But . . . what about me seducing Asha and then, y'know, killing Naryan to inherit?"

(emphasis mine)

... obviously isn't even a bang for the character.  If the character plans to marry a woman and kill her father all for the purpose of land, he's all ambition, no honour, so events that would provide the player with an oportunity for playing the character as honourable must necessarily fall flat.  

Note that I say "opportunity" not "obstacle".  That's the entire point.

If, say, after deciding to marry Asha etc Stephan found himself presented with a possible chance to marry another young lady, heiress of a lesser title and lesser lands than Asha but with a high social profile, fun, seductive, well-loved in society, the kind of woman men will envy another man... Then what will he do?  Still marry the wallflower and know that while he's formally the most important man around, the lucky guy who marries the bird of paradise will be the envied focus of social entertainment? Or go for the wallflower?  

Again, note that this doesn't prevent the player in any way from having the character marry Asha. It merely provides another option that might appeal to him.  Or not, in which case we all know more about Stephen's ambition than we did before.  

Bangs are about genuine choices both of which might appeal to the player, you see. Not about arbitrarily placing obstacles in the player's path. It's all about facilitating play, not limiting it.

[Kerstin Schmidt]

The GM, on their own, just does them without, generally, any sort of consultation with the character.  

Nope. In order to create good bangs you first need a good feel for what the player likes.  Without communication between narrator and player this play style won't work at all.  

The GM misses a clue -- or, IME, which is more often the case they don't know how to handle a player who aggressively pursues a goal for a variety of reasons -- and, bam, you're in the position where the GM is ignoring what the player wants.  

You have obviously experienced this in play in ways that frustrated you a lot.  Let me ask again: was that a game in which bangs were used? If so, what exactly happened? What were you playing? What were you pursuing and what did the GM to destroy that?

Why wasn't it possible in that game for you to call a halt and explain that this was really making things unfun for you for reasons A, B and C? That's another thing that is really important when you play this way. Unlike gamist games it's not a matter of the narrator imposing play on the players, and that means that players have the right and the responsibility to speak up in mid-game (yes in mid-game) if something is really going terribly wrong for them.  

You might want to play Universalis to see how it works.  GM adjudication is far from necessary to play a game.  

But you're not playing Universalis, you're playing HeroQuest. And btw you furiously defend your freedom in playing "your" character, which wouldn't be a tenable position in Universalis (although you could sacrifice a bunch of story currency for the sole purpose of making a character hard to buy off you). So let's not go off on a tangent here, shall we? :-)

Bangs as generally ran require a fairly passive player.

Completely contrary to my play experience, both as a player and as a narrator.  But I'm not going to try and convert you. Adrienne and you both appear to have fun in your game and that is what counts.

[CPXB]

Kerstin,

Uh, so, if good communication is so utterly vital to bangs, why are you suggesting to Adrienne that she just hit Barbon's player with "bang after bang" until he "gets" it?  That's not good communication.  That's precisely what I'm talking about.  Adrienne, who wants to use bangs, isn't even talking with the player (because she believes, and I believe she has reason for this, that he wouldn't really grasp the implications of the conversation); she's just doing them and she's doing them in lieu of good communication.  Which you support.

I'm also not going to go do that thing where I go through your posts line by line.  That's usually an attempt to obscure the issue.  But I'll try to be as simple and clear as I can:

Active players need fewer bangs.  Because, unprompted, they get their characters involved in situations and reveal things about their characters without being prompted then bangs -- which are often a GM trying to provoke a specific sort of reaction  -- are less relevant and may even be frustrating to a character if they're not about things the player is interested in.

Lastly, uh, I'm not here for you to psychoanalyze my gaming.  I most certainly do not need to talk to you about my prior experience with bangs.  Your insistence that I do so -- even tho' I don't feel those situations are terribly relevant to the current situation -- confuses me, and the high tone you take in your demands aggravates me.