Keys and Griefers

[Joel P. Shempert]

That makes a sickening amount of sense.

[Precious Villain]

Operant conditioning, using Positive Reinforcement on a Variable Ratio (you get the reinforcement after a random number of responses) schedule.  The commonly used example is gambling, specifically a slot machine.  You put money in and every once in a while (and you don't know exactly when) you get money, flashing lights, etc.

One thing to notice about this kind of conditioning is that it lasts a very long time.  Even if you stop putting food pellets in the rat's tray the rat will keep at that button for a loooong time before he gives it up.

I suppose a vicious GM in an old style RPG could try to get away with this.  Seems like a technique a typhoid mary GM might use to keep the group on the hook - every so often you get your premise addressed!  Actually, I always felt that experience points and "leveling up" were the crucial thing that would have set D&D apart from other wargames. 

On the topic of keys, it would make them far more powerful to allow the player to get "XP" or whatever based on a random roll, rather than every time they hit the Key or flag or whatever.  Ideally, the roll wouldn't be visible to the player (maybe have the GM do it behind a shield).  Of course, this would only make a griefer more committed to causing grief. 

[Callan S.]

That doesn't mean it couldn't be meta-motivated, but I don't think it follows from the description.

The description wont tell you what you need to know. He could have chopped your hand off as an address of premise, or as a cynical 'gotcha last' move. The hand chopping could easily look exactly the same in both instances. So looking at the description wont tell you anything. I'm working from the scanty information you've provided about player intents so far, when I say the motives were meta.

I just think it's a case of the cool and fitting IC thing to do happily lining up with the OOC desire for the outcome of the scene. If he was really just trying to meta-block "Bert" at all costs, he coulda garrotted him anyway to be "safe," or just straight-up attacked, or something. But he rolled with the adjudication of the scene and kept to what was reasonable for the character, even though he (like me) found the ruling bogus.

Sorry, that OOC desire is what I'm getting at. You felt free to make your address as you saw fit (whether that involved chopping off a hand or leaving it on). While in his case, the garrote player and yourself were not interested in what he chose for his characters actions. You'd already decided on a specific scene outcome, as you say (the garrote is just a reflection of that - it doesn't matter how much it was applied). I don't think he wanted to make an address, from what I see. But even if he did...but I'm repeating myself, so I'll leave it for now.

[Joel P. Shempert]

Hmmm. I'm really not sure how to address this, Callan. I can tell you're on to a valuable point here, but I'm just not sure where the truth of it lies. I mean, yes (just as Tony stated as devil's advocate), it's not fair to say "hey, we're allowed our input, but you're not allowed yours" (premise-address or no), but where do you draw the line? Just like an interminable scene that just keeps going nowhere rather than being framed into a new one, there seems an endless recession of action-reaction units that are (as implied by your statement) each allowed their "say," or else you're denying a player input. I feel that we gave him a fair shake, in terms of his ability to have his "say" in the scene, by engaging the mechanics against him; I did so and achieved my input; cutting off his hand was by no means a gimme. The other guy engaged his mechanics for garrotting and achieved it. . ."Bert" tried to circumvent the mechanics (completely successfully, as it turns out) and get a free "swipe" at my character. My char being unconscious was no one's fault but the combat mechanics, but he exploited that, and when the one source of opposition who could mechanically act, did so, he squirrelled out of it by clever description ("Player Fiat"?) and got his way.

I'm really trying hard to grok you, but I can't see where what we did was anything like "we won't let you have your say." The guy, while possessed, was trying to KILL our characters, and we were all (several other PCs) fighting him, though me and Garrotte were the only ones in close combat. So then when one of us falls and he menaces him with a weapon, the other guy tries to stop him. YES, there's OOC decision involved, of COURSE--"there are no characters, only players." But it seems like a legit decison, and maybe the only reasonable one. There was no OOC cueing around the table, "dude, he's going to mess up our ending, you gotta stop him!" I'm pretty sure I bemoaned the fact that my guy was unconscious and helpless, and I was irked at "Bert"'s action, but held my tongue. We were both annoyed at the dissembling over body posture to avoid having his action checked, but after hearing all input, the GM decided for "Bert." And we both let it ride and swallowed our discontent. Oh, we bitched about it to each other afterwards, but we let the game go on, me privately thinking that my cool scene had been stomped on (not runined, but severely bruised) by the act.

I'm trying to provide more player-level description here, as per your desire. Let me know if there's anything more you'd specifically like to know about. When I said "description" in the line you quoted, I was talking about my account of the whole event, not "description of the in-game fiction" which yeah, looks the same any which way. But I can see that there isn't much about the players in the examples. I guess I'm just not sure what kind of information is needed.

And just to be clear, that "don't think it follows from the description." line was referring to the garrotting, not the hand-chopping, since that was the event under inquiry.

peace,
-Joel

[Brand_Robins]

Operant conditioning, using Positive Reinforcement on a Variable Ratio (you get the reinforcement after a random number of responses) schedule.... I suppose a vicious GM in an old style RPG could try to get away with this.  Seems like a technique a typhoid mary GM might use to keep the group on the hook - every so often you get your premise addressed!

Yep. But I'd take it further than that, typhoid GMs may well do it on purpouse, but the very structure of a lot of dysfunctional games does it without anyone deliberatly causing it. I've heard over and over again in actual play reports about how folks love their game because "this one game rocked and twice in the last five games I got to do something awesome, but then the last three games sucked and in the session before that I didn't even get to have a scene the whole game, I just hid under a tarp ICly."

So you've got variable ratio payoffs, you've got flashing lights and bells and whistles that go off sometimes but not others, and you've got this lingering sense that maybe, just maybe this time it will be as awesome as that one time! So you keep coming back, even though the last six solid sessions have sucked, because maybe, just maybe this time....

And hell yea, it lasts a long time. There are still days where I sometimes think, "Hey maybe if I ran a game the way I used to... wait what the HELL AM I THINKING!" Like a rat hitting the feeder bar.

Anyway, I've drifted the thread. Sorry about that Joel.

[Callan S.]

I'm really trying hard to grok you, but I can't see where what we did was anything like "we won't let you have your say."

No, not refering to restricting his say. He could have had all the freedom in the world to kill all your characters and feed your bodies to the buzzards. The garrote, for example, isn't important as a restriction - its important because it likely shows another players dissatisfaction (enough to use it). You can remove the restrictions all you like - but if the action still only irks the other player, the real problem is still there (attempted restriction is a symptom and not the problem itself).

I'm pretty sure I bemoaned the fact that my guy was unconscious and helpless, and I was irked at "Bert"'s action, but held my tongue. We were both annoyed at the dissembling over body posture to avoid having his action checked, but after hearing all input, the GM decided for "Bert." And we both let it ride and swallowed our discontent. Oh, we bitched about it to each other afterwards, but we let the game go on, me privately thinking that my cool scene had been stomped on (not runined, but severely bruised) by the act.

It's the 'irked' that's the real issue. Take a basic turn around: say when your PC chopped off the hand, instead of it being seen as the action of a warrior poet, other players just say "Uh, that's just annoying", like you'd gotten over excited and split soda on their game books. It's an absolute non moment to them - the pizza delivery had more meaning.

Don't read this as me wagging my finger and telling you you done wrong, in some feeble attempt to guilt you into something. That'd be me applying force. It's just food for thought in terms of how important the way you listen is, when someone else makes an address of premise.

I'm trying to provide more player-level description here, as per your desire. Let me know if there's anything more you'd specifically like to know about.

Times in this game or any other game when any player was happy and eyes bright, leaning forward. Or when they were withdrawn, perhaps wandering away from the table fairly often. And the action that was going on during those times.

[Hans]

He chose to take the sword when another PC handed it to him...[snipped all the answers to the questions I asked]

Thanks, Amos, for your thorough answers.  It sounds to me like

a) the situation wasn't solely due to a failure of your system to work through these conflicts in a satisfying way to everyone at the table.
b) BUT, some better system support and a little less fiat could have helped make the situation more tolerable, or at least made it more interesting.

Moreover, it's pretty clear that your feel fairly certain that this guy did this to your character simply to be a jerk to you, as a PLAYER.  That is, instead of making your toilet overflow or stealing your beer, he had his character chop your character's hand off. 

Whether that was what really happened (i.e. if I was a god-like impartial observer of the situation and would agree with your recollection), or whether its the way the other player remembers it are different matters of course, but from the reaction of the garrotte wielding character it makes me think there was at least one other person around the table who felt the same way you did.

Relating this all back to the idea of Keys, and your concerns about how this player would work with Keys, I think you can't really take Keys in a vaccuum; Keys and related mechanics (Spiritual Attributes in TROS, for example) are always embedded in a larger system.  If you simply tacked on Keys to a typical D&D game (along the lines of Clinton's Sweet20 system that he has since seemingly disowned), I think many of your concerns would be more pressing.  But in a game like TSOY, Bringing Down the Pain is at least a partial defense against this kind of behavior. 

But honestly I don't have enough experience playing either TSOY or with players like you describe to know how things would really go down.  If I was playing in a TSOY game and someone suddenly took the Key of Screwing over my Friends, unless I knew that person pretty well I would probably be pretty darned concerned.