Address of challenge examples [AD&D, D&D]

[Callan S.]

Providing some examples for the GNS thread about address of challenge: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=16117.0

I'm kind of screwed for examples though. The fact is I've pursued exploration of challenge primarily, though my gaming (ie, I concentrated primarily on getting an advantage by using the mechanics, rather than through apt narration). So it's hard to provide many examples of address of challenge, because I avoided them as they were so poorly handled, or felt like getting through 'for free'.

An example of poor handling: In a past session of AD&D I was playing with friends, I had the traditional dwarf with a two edged battle axe. I had two attacks, and at one point a bad guy was roughly behind me, and one in front. I felt confident that I could narrate the following 'I swing back hard to not only hit the guy in front of me, but the back swing will likely take out the guy behind me too! All in one fluid movement!'. Basically I had two attacks, so I didn't think I was earning anything I couldn't get by more mundane, boring methods. The GM said no. So I ended up using said, boring methods "I hack at the guy in front, then turn and hack at the guy behind".

An example of reasonable handling: In a fairly recent session of D&D 3.0 (different GM, same friends), we were in the basement of some evil guy, with a intellignent demon thing working at the other end. One of us (the GM from the previous example) had an orb of invisibility on, and my cleric could speak infernus. I said we should walk up (all of us invisible) and I'd talk to the demon, conning him that I was his higher up and to pump him for info. The con worked out, he believed I was a boss or something and we pumped him for info.

I think what would make the latter example even more fun are mechanics that add complication to the address. The traditional D&D mechanics might ask for a bluff roll. This adds nothing, as either you suceed (everthing goes exactly as you say...thus nothing is added) or you fail and the address is forgotten (and by target number manipulation, a GM with a conflicting agenda can use this in a Typhoid Mary way). Rather, mchanics which tell you when complications are added, like the demon asking for some nasty act to be performed, would retain the address and add even more challenge right on top of it.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Callan,

Would a fairly standard Saving Roll on Charisma in Tunnels & Trolls, used as a defense, qualify?

Say I'm playing a hobbit or something equally little in this game, and a big ol' demon-babe is about to fry him. I make a really hard SR based on "I'm gonna be so appealing that she thinks I'm cute and won't fry me!" H'm, says the GM, sets a value, and I make it!!

What's really been accomplished, aside from the not-fried part, is that now we have a new Challenge - not only me, not only the GM, but both of us, in a way which catapults the entire context for further risks into a new and unknown (and wonderfully rich) territory. Whole scenarios, scenes, and dangers can arise from it.

Best,
Ron

[Callan S.]

Hi Ron,

A bit crushing of me, but that's not what I'm aiming for. Though I had to read it through about a dozen times to pin down exactly why.

Say I'm playing a hobbit or something equally little in this game, and a big ol' demon-babe is about to fry him. I make a really hard SR based on "I'm gonna be so appealing that she thinks I'm cute and won't fry me!" H'm, says the GM, sets a value, and I make it!!

There's little facilitation of peers being able to aim questions at that address, or for the player to answer those questions with a new address. For example, say I'm GM, and I think that "Hey, demon chicks are, of course, into kinky sex and thus kinky guys. This player hasn't covered that base at all in his address. I guess I'll take the means given to me (setting the SR) to express my concern, by giving a really high number!"

The player then receives the really high SR and thinks "What's that for!?"

Further, say they parlay and get down to why that number was given. But the SR is under the control of the GM, not the player and can only be changed through negotiation with him. Through negotiation the player will need to satisfy the GM's requirements, for the SR to be lowered. To be able to reach a satisfied state, the GM realises he will have to have to generate an idea of what will actually satisfy him. To generate this, he'll have to make his own address of challenge. The negotiation process will involve the player probing for/guessing the GM's address of challenge. Pure exploration of challenge, on the players part.

What's really been accomplished, aside from the not-fried part, is that now we have a new Challenge - not only me, not only the GM, but both of us, in a way which catapults the entire context for further risks into a new and unknown (and wonderfully rich) territory. Whole scenarios, scenes, and dangers can arise from it.

Agreed. But what is the benefit of loosing all those scenarios, scenes and dangers, by requiring a successful roll before they are included? I'd much rather include their trigger (the cute hobbit) automatically, and make the roll pertain to adding a new fact (either drawn from the system or something tricky from another player). I'd love to lay down some dominatrix cage on the hobbit and see him try and get out of that. But if he fails his SR, I wont get to.

Cheers,
Callan

[xenopulse]

You know, Callan, your other thread on address of challenge made me realize that my current GM is actually very good in that regard. He and the main player have a long history of arguing about how things work ni the game world. I used to think it was Sim talk, until Ron successfully pointed to the structure of my gaming group as very traditional Gamist-oriented. Now that I think about it, I realize what they are doing--the player is addressing challenge. He comes up with solutions that "make sense" in the game world. Causation, probabilities, and argumentation are his tools for addressing the challenge in any given situation.

I think there are plenty of examples of my AD&D play where address if challenge works. Every time I use phantasmal force, I need to explain what I create and why it will work. And once the illusion is in place, and the GM throws a complication at it ("the soldier realizes that there's no sound associated with that illusionary ogre"), I address it ("But there are all these sources of sound between them, surely he'd have a hard time hearing the ogre clearly over that in his surprise").

There's also peer review, because we sometimes judge each other's contributions ("Great job, now the whole tavern will break out in panic around us!").

The one thing I can't do is introduce new elements into the game, because this is such a traditional group.

My point is, the more a GM is allowing discussion and has set standards according to which the world works, the better you can address a challenge, because you have a venue in which the GM will say, "Ok, I can see that that'd work."

[Callan S.]

Those are good examples, Christian. That's the sort of gamist play that goes on all the time, without any system assistance. With the illusiory ogre, did any rules aid your conversation with the GM? Perhaps only in that you used up a phantasmal force spell, which shows you have made a payment. [rant]That seems to be the level of gamist development right now, books full of resources to make payment with, but nothing else to really aid an address of challenge.[/rant]

Address of challenge needs more assistance than that, IMO, because really satisfying play is just beyond what the GM thinks "would work". Either in challenging the GM's sense of what tactics are viable, or in taking the game to really strange and challenging territory (like having a hobbit about to be strapped to a demon babes dominatrix rack!). I wish I could give some examples of this, but I can't think of any times when the glass ceiling was removed and we could go beyond just what the GM/a fellow player thought would work. Or can I? I'll try and work out whether some memories of mine are examples of this.

[Callan S.]

Another example: I was GM'ing. A player in D&D used his illusion spell to shout some sort of insult outside a tense bar, to get everyone outside. The mayor with a dark secret wont be taken in though and heads back inside. Then the player (now invisible) closes and bolts the doors. He then goes on to intimidate the mayor, by talking to him from different angles each time, some of them at impossible angles (the player used a spell to do this). I can't remember how much he got out of the mayor, but it certainly had the effect intended. Ironically this player was the GM who wouldn't let me do my axe move with the dwarf.

Now, at the end of that game the players excitedly said what they thought the mayors dark secret was (they hadn't found out in play, and it hadn't mattered in the end in their finding a murderer). They had an interesting idea for what he had done, but after a long few seconds I said no, and told them what I had in mind.

Thinking about it, it was because I felt this: the way they asked it, they were asking to see if they were 'right'. And we didn't have a social contract that explicitly states 'the most interesting/compelling/smart/etc answer becomes the right answer'. Although it would make their day to say "yep, that was his dark secret", under a 'Only the predetermined answer is the right one' contract, I would be lying to them. Might make a better game, but makes me think of illusionism. And if that is indeed everyone elses understanding of the contract, it is breaking contract covertly. Sometimes you'll make a worse game rather than risk an SC break.

Hmmm, I wonder if I've GM'ed poor to only okay games for ages, for fear of breaking social contract? Rather than changing SC? But sometimes it's really hard to see something is changable and not a set protocol. You practice the protocol so reflexively, you don't think to question it. Certainly not in the heat of the moment. And then outside the heat of the moment, you forget about it and don't reflect upon it.

BTW, on the glass ceiling thing...I realise now I can't think of any examples of address without a glass ceiling, because none of them have a glass ceiling in them. If you get my meaning. What they either have or don't have, is someone explicitly showing they aren't interested in my/someone elses address of challenge. There's no glass ceiling, there's just people with their fingers in their ears. I think, anyway. Comments?