Messing with relationships?

[Hobbitboy]

In the "Request for assistance with Demo and my gaming woes" thread Mike Holmes makes the following statement...

... In fact I've been going a step further, and requiring players to tailor the character somewhat. The intention being to give the player some sense of ownership and power to direct the character.

These are the explicit steps:
1. Before play the player has to add one ability to the character that's not a relationship, and one that is. ... For the pirate game, for instance, the player would be required to make up one other member of the crew with whom he has a specific relationship. Then I usually kill these NPCs as fast as I can possibly remember to once play starts. :-) ...

Mike, can you tell us what purpose is served by killing off the NPCs that the characters have a relationship with?

I had formed the impression that, in HQ at least, it was inadvisable for the GM to unilaterally invalidate (or significantly modify) decisions that players had made about their characters, especially ones commited to a character sheet.

Thanks,

- John

[Mike Holmes]

The reason I remembered the technique in question, as it happens, is that a player I did it to complimented me on doing it.

I have several responses here. First, if/when a NPC dies, and a player hero has a relationship to said NPC, this does not mean that the relationship goes away. In fact, in the short run it doesn't even modify it until the character in question can really get a handle on the fact that the NPC is dead. What it does do, however, is to give the character tons of motive if it's done correctly. Relationships often become more powerful, not less, after the characters with whom they're shared have died.

The way I stated it may have seemed capricious, but it's not. Keep in mind the context of the post, which is that we're running demo scenarios here. Meaning that the player didn't make up the overall character to start, and will not play the character after tonight. So there's no long-term play ramifications for doing this sort of thing. That is, where you might wait a long time to kill a NPC in a campaign game, in a demo it's good to get it going right away so that you can move on to the ramifications.

Third, there's this notion that goes around in narrativism circles that the only way to validate a character concept for a player is to let the player make all the decisions regarding it. Yes, it's bad form to make a character non-fun to play. But let's say that a character gets into a fight and the resolution system says that he loses a hand, thus making him no longer the best warrior around. Should we ignore that result simply because it changes the character concept dramatically? Well, many narrativism systems, including HQ, actually allow you to avoid this - you can't lose your hand unless the narrator says you lose your hand. But, assuming that the system does allow this, and is well designed for narrativism, doesn't that mean that the result is a good one?

I'm arguing circularly to an extent, but to make a point. Just as it's manifest that players should have some control over events and environment to some extent to ensure that the results are colaborative narrativism, there's no reason why other participants in a RPG can't have some control over your character's means of being a protagonist.

Does this run some risk of somebody accidentally making some adjustment that will make a player like their character less? Sure, but then so does every single time the narrator has to resolve a failure, for instance, or any moment of decision he makes in regards to things that happen around the character. The narrator could, if he wanted, make every NPC laugh at the player's hero when he goes by. This might make the player hate his character and not want to play it.

Why doesn't this happen? Because we know better. So, no, if I'm pretty sure that killing an NPC will screw up a player's concept of why he really likes playing his character, then no, I don't kill the NPC. But given the circumstances above, a demo where the player is still getting to know his character? Well it's almost just like I said, "Make a relationship to a dead character" and had the player do that instead.

But I think it's more fun to let them build the NPC and then instantly kill it. Everyonbe feels the shock just a bit more than if I'd asked them to create an NPC who's already dead.

Anyhow, the demo where I got complimented is a horror scenario, and it helps to have a mechanical connection to the characters who are getting offed. For another scenario it might be good to have this connection so that we feel some political motivations more strongly. In another it might emphasize some sort of internal religious conflict. It is, very simply, a good way to immediately escalate the urgency and power of a situation.

In the scenarios in question, the players with the dead relatives have fun stuff to do. First, they have an augment that's going to add to pretty much every contest they get into for the whole scenario. What, you're going to just forget that the current conflict occurs in the context of your dead friend's death? Unlikely (though if you do forget to augment with it, that could be a powerful statement in and of itself). Further, the player gets to have the character come to grips with this change in his life.

I've personally found that narrativism isn't supported well by a "we'll do whatever you want" style of play by the GM, but instead by the GM using even more overt and blunt forms of his authority than you would in other sorts of play. That is, I'm constantly having things appear out of nowhere just because I know that the events that they cause will create opportunities for players to make interesting decisions. Relationship deaths are instant bangs - you can't ignore them, and no matter how the character responds we know more about him when he's done than when he started.

To say nothing of the secondary bangs that these can be used to produce. In the instance where I was complimented, the situation was that the character with the dead NPC is discovered by the local law enforcement holding the dead NPC looking like he's killed them (and the lawman has a grudge against the character in question). So instantly the player is forced to come up with his response to being accused of killing the valued dead NPC.

In fact, in the original scenario, I just wrote in these dead NPCs as the characters's wife and child, and then started with them dying. What's interesting is how it's more potent for the player when they chose who it was that they valued, and then these characters are killed off. Even if the relationship is less close for the character, it turns out, the effect is greater for the player.

Lastly, look at the quote...see the smiley. I've actually only managed to find good places to do this in a few key circumstances. I think it's cool when it works, but the key is that what I'm saying is to immediately throw these NPCs into some situation that spikes the action level up - forces the players to take some action (while not forcing any particular decision so they can make that themselves). I was being a bit facetious in how I said what I said. But I wanted to make the point here before I admitted that, that I see nothing at all wrong with extremely heavy-handed GMing if it's well intentioned, and produces good effects. What particular events you choose, then, are simply a matter of color.

Mike

[Hobbitboy]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply. It was just the sort of illuminating explanation that I was hoping for. :-)

Thanks,

- John

P.S. Its good to see someone who doesn't omit the nose from their ascii smilies. ;-)

[Web_Weaver]

Just an aside really, but Mike mentions death as a mood setter in horror games and I thought i would add a cool example.

I have not used this example as stated but have adapted it for play in the past.

Opening scene: a group of low skill pre-gen characters (played of course by the players) are out in the wilderness and get attacked by the horror of the game, the horror is kept vague but is deadly and menacing. Lots of atmosphere like mist, labyrinthine tunnels or other things to confuse the players help here. One by one and in quick order the characters are killed.

Close of scene: GM asks the players to create characters that have relationships to the dead from the fist scene and a goal related to investigating the horror (ie revenge or inheritance).

This is directly based on a common first scene in horror movies, innocent gets killed by unseen monster, and it works as a way of focusing the players on what they are up against and the unknown danger that their characters will face.

And besides, it is great fun for all concerned, and so much more evocative than investigating a crime scene.