Emotion mechanics and losing control of your character

[Sydney Freedberg]

Over in another thread (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=11152&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=75)

Give the players a reward for voluntarily taking the penalty and you will find the players never conveniently "forget" the penalty. They'll apply it to themselves with more relish and more frequency then the GM would ever dare to apply it to them.

Noon, is this the bit from Ralph Mazza aka Valamir you were referring to?

I'm intrigued. Not sure exactly how to apply it, but intrigued.

[simon_hibbs]

I am very very skeptical about this kind of thing.  The idea is that you loose control of your character.  It's a certain kind of 'you loose control of your character' but that's the issue nevertheless.

Wel, as has been mentioned you can lose controll of your character to varying extents already in many games. Arguably the game master shapes the dmain of available choices for the players all the time regardless of the rules, simply by framing or shaping the situation (scenario) the characters are in. Depending on how psychological effects are introduced they could be seen as simply beign part of that - part of the situation the players find their characters in which is often arbitrary anyway.

Then there are bad times: "Your character runs in fear at the orge, knowing that he can't, will never be able to fight with it long enough to gain any sense of pride from the effort."

Or the possibly more destructive: "You're characters hungry.  You go to the nearest reasteraunt which is pretty nice.  To eat, costs 20 woolong.  While you're there a group of bandits comes over to your table and knocks it over.  It looks like they want to fight.  As your search for your weapon you find that it was left at the base.  After all you don't need a sword to eat your french toast."

I find it hard to understand why anyone would want to use phsychology mechanics for these kinds of situations. These example simply don't ring true in their arbitrariness. They don't seem to be the consequences of a psychological cnflict. It's all downs to what the domain of conflict is in the game. If the player in the Ogre example had decided to bluff the Ogre and blown it realy badly perhaps you might get a result simila to what you describem, but even then your example is very extreme.

Maybe, a game could have rules like the ones you've described in a humerous game or a horror game or something.  Otherwise you're taking away oppertunities for the players to roleplay or you're trying to tell a game that the players are a part of.

Sure, in a hrror game it pretty obvious that psychological reactions are important. Conserving your chaacter's sanity is a matter of resource and risk management as much as conserving Hit Points or Wealth might be in other games. Such mechanics can be mishandled of course, but so can any mechanics but I don't see any intrinsic quality of psychological mechanics that makes them less viable than combat mechanics which after all can easly lead to character death. They're certainly a sensitive issue though and you're right that player's concerns must be addresses to ensure that they don't feel deprotagonised.

Basically, the more the mechanics make someone's presence at the table meaningless/the more they could be absent and it wouldn't effect a jot, its really screwed.

I could make the same case against combat systems in which characters can die. Surely they're the ultimate in deprotagonising mechanics, and should be expunged from any sensibly designed roleplaying game? The same could be said for games in which characters can be drugged, or lose conciousness, or be captured.


Simon Hibbs

[Valamir]

Over in another thread (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=11152&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=75)

Give the players a reward for voluntarily taking the penalty and you will find the players never conveniently "forget" the penalty. They'll apply it to themselves with more relish and more frequency then the GM would ever dare to apply it to them.

Noon, is this the bit from Ralph Mazza aka Valamir you were referring to?

I'm intrigued. Not sure exactly how to apply it, but intrigued.

Well, I don't know what kind of game you're designing, but lets say its a horror type game where character panic and loss of control are common enough events to be worth modeling.

Lets take a scenario where the character is snooping through the spooky crone's spooky house looking for some artifact.  You've done all of the tension building stuff, laid on the horror elements, maybe even got the players heart beating a little fast, etc.  The character has the artifact and is making their way out when you drop in the big scary cthulhuoid horror.

Example 1:  GM -- "Ok, make a roll against your bravery (or whatever) with a -3 (cause its big and scary), if you fail you flee in panic, if you fail by alot you drop the artifact on your way out."  This is an example of the die roll taking control away from the character.

Example 2:  Player -- "Ok, I'm like 'oh my god, what is that thing!'.  My face gets all twisted in horror, I throw the artifact at it and bolt from the house screaming in panic".  Ok, I'll take 1 wazzit point for fleeing in terror from a horrible transplanar being, another 1 for playing up my 'screaming coward' flaw, and a third one for volutarily losing the artifact.


Obviously you'd need something a little more solid than the off the cuff Example 2, but that would be one way of applying the concept of letting the player decide when to "lose control" of their character.

[Henri]

First off, I agree with Noon that GNS is a red herring here.  I can think of arguments both for and against behavior mechanics that are consistent with each of the three modes.  Fortunately, this discussion has generally avoided GNS.

Secondly, I think the main tension here is that you need a way to "give temptation teeth."  If you give the player complete control of the character, it is easy for the player to play a character who is completely above temptation, without any chance of failure.  This is because the PLAYER HIMSELF DOES NOT FEEL THE TEMPTATION.  Therefore, he loses nothing by not giving in.  The character is having all sorts of physical, hormonal reactions (probably due either to his instinct for self-preservation in case of reaction to fear or his instinct to procreate in case of reaction to seduction), which cloud his ability to make rational decisions in the moment.  But the player feels none of this.  

I see two ways to give teeth to the temptation.  The first is the standard "willpower" or whatever roll to resist, but people complain that this is deprotagonizing.  The other is something non-random, that leaves the player in charge of making the decision, but somehow either rewards the player for giving in or penalizes the player for not giving in.  That way the choice is less of a no-brainer for the player (assuming that otherwise they would always choose not to give in).

Does anyone know of a thirds approach?

EDIT: Oh right, this is the third way.  Completely in-game consequences.  Obviously if you choose not to run from the very scary demon-thing, you are likely to get eaten.  If you choose not have sex with the fickle temptress goddess, she turns you into a newt in a jealous rage (can we say Greek myths?).  But there might be some situations where it is hard to come up with an bad in-game consequence that makes sense.

[Sydney Freedberg]

First off, I agree with Noon that GNS is a red herring here.

Agreement.

Secondly, I think the main tension here is that you need a way to "give temptation teeth."  If you give the player complete control of the character, it is easy for the player to play a character who is completely above temptation, without any chance of failure.

Applause!

In My Eventual Game, I'm toying with an idea (not entirely original, I grant you) of depicting both permanent personality traits and temporary emotional states with what I call "ambivalent" modifiers -- that is, they can act as either bonuses or penalties depending on what the character chooses to do. Act in accordance with the personality trait/emotional state, you get it as a bonus; act against it, you get it as a penalty.

For example your character has the trait "Lecherous +/-3" and someone tries to seduce him; if you decide to take the bait, all your die rolls to that purpose (conflict or task resolution, whichever) get a +3 bonus; but if you decide to fight temptation, you're distracted and conflicted, so you get a -3 to doing whatever the other thing was you meant to do.

Or your character nearly has her head blown off by a Cthulloid horror with a bazooka, makes a fight or flight test, and gets a strong "fight" result (probably because of personality traits like "Bad Temper" or "Combat Hardened"). Now she's Angry At the Monster +5. She gets a +5 bonus to fighting the monster -- but a -5 to running away from the fight, or trying to make peace with it.

The idea here -- and Henri's on-the-nose discussion of "temptation" just helped me understand my own proposed mechanic much better -- is that you tempt the PLAYER to act in the same way as the CHARACTER is tempted. If you choose to follow your passions / emotions, the ambivalent modifiers act as bonuses and make you more powerful -- but you may be powering up all the way down to your doom. If you choose to fight your feelings, the ambivalent modifiers act as penalties and make you less powerful -- but while you may be crawling, you may be crawling in the right direction.

Now if your character's feelings about what to do are in line with your plans as a player, fine -- you power up in the direction you want to go, and the ambivalent modifiers act as someting akin to TROS Spiritual Attributes. But the fun part of this idea is how they can tempt you to screw yourself over.

N.B. When I say "more powerful" / "less powerful," that could mean either to meet the challenge (Gamist) or to influence the story (Narrativist); this is GNS neutral, as Henri and Noon have said.

[neelk]

Secondly, I think the main tension here is that you need a way to "give temptation teeth." [...]
I see two ways to give teeth to the temptation.  The first is the standard "willpower" or whatever roll to resist, but people complain that this is deprotagonizing.  The other is something non-random, that leaves the player in charge of making the decision, but somehow either rewards the player for giving in or penalizes the player for not giving in.  That way the choice is less of a no-brainer for the player (assuming that otherwise they would always choose not to give in).

Does anyone know of a thirds approach?

You just gave me the ideal lead-in: thanks! Try looking at Wraith's Shadow mechanic. In Wraith, the players all play ghosts, and every PC has a Shadow, which is a kind a personification of the character's dark and self-destructive impulses. Now, the game says that each player plays a wraith, and a different player's Shadow. The Shadow's goal, of course, is to seduce/browbeat/tempt/bargain/trick its "self" into embracing Oblivion. The kicker here is that the Shadow has a set of superpowers, and can use them on behalf of the main PC -- and every time the player of the main PC agrees, then they accumulate Angst, which empowers the Shadow and weakens the Wraith. (And with enough Angst, the Shadow can temporarily "possess" the body, going from a tempter to a possessor -- a possessor with all of the knowledge and personality of the original, only with a dark self-destructive urge.) What makes this so cool is that the internal dialogue of temptation and negotiation is lifted up into the player level. What's also cool about it is that it gives a way to externalize a character's internal monologue -- when the two players are negotiating and arguing, the other players can actually watch and hear the PC's inner life at work. It's incredibly fun.

[Henri]

To Neel and Sydney:  Hey, these are great examples of rewarding/penalizing the player based on their decision, rather than making the decision for them.  Cool!

[Paul Watson]

I've never seen this as a GNS issue. For example, I personally regard My Life with Master as a very Narrativist game. Every number on a character sheet describes emotion: Weariness, Self-Loathing and Love. One of the two numbers that describe the Master is also an emotion: Fear. Characters start the game having pretty much no chance to resist the commands of the Master. If the Master orders your character to go kill his beloved sister and bring back her broach, sister's gonna die.

I think this works because of managed expectations, to use the suit-speak expression, which I believe falls under the heading of Social Contract in Forge parlance. If the players are familiar with MLwM, all that I've described is expected and normal within the context of that game.

I also don't regard it as a matter of good roleplay. Good roleplay can include stepping into your character's shoes. It can also include something more along the lines of Author Stance, group ownership of characters, and the like. (As a side note, I've observed a very general tendency for those who prefer Actor Stance to dislike emotion/personality mechanice, and for those who prefer Author Stance to be more accepting of these mechanics. I present the observation as-is, an unscientific observation of a statistically insignificant sample.)

I don't believe that emotion/personality mechanics are intrisically, objectively a bad thing. I think I all comes down to managed expectations/Social Contract, and "appropriate" use, the definition of  appropriate varying from group to group. Put another way, hosing a player character is not in and of itself a bad thing; hosing the player is. And if the player feels like you hosed her, you probably did.

In some RPGs, emotion/personality mechanics are an integral part of the game, like the aforementioned MLwM. Call of Cthulhu and its Sanity mechanic is another good example. In CoC, the Sanity mechanic can dictate character action (run away, stand frozen, curl up on the floor and soil yourself, etc), change the character's personality through the addition of some sort of psychological condition, and take the character out of the game.

Here, even though the Sanity mechanic is an expected and integral part of CoC, I feel the GM still must keep in mind "appropriate use." For example (and this comes from the CoC rules, version 5 or something like that), if a character is rendered inactive (ie: helpless) by a Sanity shaking monster, perhaps its more appropriate, and more interesting, for the monster to for whatever incomprehensible reason to leave the character sitting there gibbering rather than to kill the helpless PC. An example of an inappropriate use, IMHO, would be having a character who was forced to run away in terror from the monster go charging over a cliff, into traffic, or into some other negative (and uninteresting) situation.

In some games, these mechanics are a very minor part. Off the top of my head, I think Werewolf: the Apocalypse is a good example of this sort of game. A player can enter into this game never expecting the use of emotion/personality mechanics against his character by an NPC. This player could react negatively to, for example, an elder Shadow Lord imposing his will on the PC to force him into the GMs plot. The player didn't know what he was getting into, didn't anticipate this situation. If, on the other hand, the player is aware of the mechanic that allows a higher ranking werewolf to force a lower-ranking one to back down through force of will, and still decides to have it out with an elder in the middle of a moot, I would feel that the use of the emotion/personality mechanic in this case was appropriate. The player entered into the contest knowing what the possible outcomes were.

In FATE, emotional/personaity traits are modelled using Aspects. In vanila FATE, Aspects are freely chosen and invented by the player. Aspects can represent a great many things, including experiences, relationships, significant possessions, physical attributes, and personality traits. Players can invoke these aspects in positive ways a limited number of times. GMs can invoke them in negative ways, but the player gains FATE points for this, which they can then spend in various ways, including blocking a negative invocation. For example:

Player (facing a nasty fight): "Hmmm ... the odds are against my character, but she stands and fights anyways."
GM: "I'm invoking her Cowardly aspect. Here's some FATE points for you."
Player: "You can keep the points, and I'm spending a few more to negate your invocation. Bring it on!"

I like that this system leaves it up to each individual player to decide which personality aspects to take, and how many, if any at all. If you don't want your character's life complicated by such issues, don't take such aspects. (As another aside, I also like that this approach incentivizes the players to take interesting aspects which can be negatively invoked.)

HeroQuest has an interesting take on this. Emotional/personality aspects are modelled like any other ability, such as the classic Hate Lunars 17. These can be used to positively or negatively augment another ability. One could conceivably roll this as a direct ability, such as rolling Fear Dragons, hoping for a failure to avoid running from a dragon (why you'd want to avoid running is beyond me). It can get a little complicated. Perhaps you negatively augment Fear Dragons with your Brave ability, and so forth. If your son is trapped behind the dragon, perhaps you could also negatively augment Fear Dragons with Mother of Soandso. Alternatively, you could role Brave 17 augmented with Mother of Soandso against your own Fear Dragons 17.

There's a more general case in which emotion/personality plays a role in HeroQuest, and can have direct mechanical affect on your character; non-physical wounds. The best example I can think of is the one Mark Galeotti included in the Hero's Book (as cited in this thread.

Massanwa was trying to negotiate safe passage through the Grazelands, but failed so disastrously (an injured result) that not only have the Grazers threatened to scalp her or her friends should they ever be seen anywhere near their territories but she has suffered such a disastrous blow to her confidence and reputation that her attempts to use most abilities involving interaction with others or personal force of character are at only 50% the usual ability rating. In an attempt to repair the damage, her friend Sarea will later try to use her Invent Stories 8W to construct a face-saving version of events to tell everyone.

Now, in this example, the rules haven't dictated a character action, as such. Instead, the character's state of mind is being established by the rules. I wonder, how would a player who objects (for perfectly valid reasons) to having her character's actions determined by the rules ("She runs away") react to having her character's state of mind determined by the rules? Is "your character suffers a disastrous blow to her confidence" tanalogous to "she runs away from the Deep One", or is this a different issue entirely?

[Callan S.]

I'd just like to clarify that while the techniques I talked about are GNS neutral, what I wanted to get at is that before you start shaping rules to support a CA you need to insure player input isn't cut off (which makes the players presence redundant as long as its cut off).

Basically: The integrity of player input comes before GNS design direction in importance.

[M. J. Young]

I could make the same case against combat systems in which characters can die. Surely they're the ultimate in deprotagonising mechanics, and should be expunged from any sensibly designed roleplaying game? The same could be said for games in which characters can be drugged, or lose conciousness, or be captured.

Such an argument has been made. The best that can be said is that "plot immunity" is a good device for some games, but not for all. There are gamist systems in which the life of the character is the "big stake", which can be risked for the big win; in such games, character risk is a critical component of the challenge. In simulationist games, these "deprotagonizing" possibilities may be necessary to the exploration--if you do this, these will be the probable consequences. Even in narrativism, the ability to risk the life of the character in the address of the premise may be valuable, and it may be deprotagonizing to have a character who cannot die for what he believes.

What should be recognized is that a game needs to consider the inherent problems of character death and other loss of player control situations, and address these. Note that in Multiverser, character death becomes a means of advancing the character's story, and not an end of the player's control over the character.

--M. J. Young

[Autocrat]

Hi... just thought I'd throw a couple of stones in the pond as well!

I'm more than a little confused..... I can understand the GNS stuff, I can understand Player vs. character control, hell I can even unbderstand the reward/punishment ideas.... the bit that really confuses me is why people dislike/like it so much!
If the rules say it, and the mechanics can do it.... then that is it really.

It doesn't matter whether you want to or not.... nor does it even matter if it is beneficial or detrimental!


If on the other hand it is merely a question as to whether this is a good/bad sort of thing..... well, if you want "real" gaming, where the character is a seperate persona/entity, and the player is merely a voice of conscience, then yes, the character should be able to be removed from conscience control every now and then, or suffer rather hindering consequences.... it's not just real life... more importantly, its in most books, films and even comics.... you see the protaginist, even antagonists reduced to doing things due to emotion, acting out of character etc., it's really no diffeerent than being injured, intoxicated or losing control of a vehicle or animal.

I think tyhe real issue is the results of such loss of control.  If I loose control of my character, and it results in a huge loss of money, or items/resources, characters health, powers etc., and there is not a superb and fundemental reason, I'm going to be upset!
On the other hand, if the control loss is short of duration, has little detrimental affect, and most importantly, helps the game along, (doesn't matter whether GNorS), then thats ok and understandable.

I suppose it's a preference thing... maybe it should be on a case by case basis, depending on how important it is to the game, the setting , the character and then the player, in that order.  Work out the scale, and decide on whether there is complete loss, partial loss, roll to keep control, or control is maintained yet you are penalised somehow.

[John Kim]

I see two ways to give teeth to the temptation.  The first is the standard "willpower" or whatever roll to resist, but people complain that this is deprotagonizing.  The other is something non-random, that leaves the player in charge of making the decision, but somehow either rewards the player for giving in or penalizes the player for not giving in.  That way the choice is less of a no-brainer for the player (assuming that otherwise they would always choose not to give in).

Does anyone know of a thirds approach?

EDIT: Oh right, this is the third way.  Completely in-game consequences.  

I can point to my old article on http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/personality.html">Personality Mechanics.  One that you didn't mention here is what I called "representative" -- which would include Sorcerer's Humanity, for example.  So what you do will mechanically influence a character rating, but it isn't a direct reward or penalty.  I don't address reward/penalty mechanics in there, though I think many of the same principles arise.  

We can split emotional reward/penalty mechanics into subjective and objective.  Objective would mean that there are unambiguous rules, like "+2 points for running away".  A potential pitfall is that this can encourage strategies like "I should run away a few more times so I can be brave when it really counts".  This seems too simplistic for a believable representation of emotion.  Subjective mechanics would be based more on someone's decision: presumably the GM's or perhaps group vote.  However, in essence this is just spreading the decision around more.  

I dislike personality mechanics which are an attempt to make play more "realistic" because they generally do the opposite -- or at best priviledge the GM's vision of character over the players (which may help realism if you have a good GM and weak players, but isn't a general solution).  I am more tolerant of them as a device to encourage certain genre conventions -- like Call of Cthulhu or Pendragon.  However, in general I just don't use them.  

There is a common concern that unless mechanically forced to, players will not act emotionally.  I don't encounter this in my experience, though.  I suspect that players who do so are following an expected group contract that PCs are supposed to act for maximum effectiveness.

[Doctor Xero]

In My Eventual Game, I'm toying with an idea (not entirely original, I grant you) of depicting both permanent personality traits and temporary emotional states with what I call "ambivalent" modifiers -- that is, they can act as either bonuses or penalties depending on what the character chooses to do. Act in accordance with the personality trait/emotional state, you get it as a bonus; act against it, you get it as a penalty.

For example your character has the trait "Lecherous +/-3" and someone tries to seduce him; if you decide to take the bait, all your die rolls to that purpose (conflict or task resolution, whichever) get a +3 bonus; but if you decide to fight temptation, you're distracted and conflicted, so you get a -3 to doing whatever the other thing was you meant to do.

Or your character nearly has her head blown off by a Cthulloid horror with a bazooka, makes a fight or flight test, and gets a strong "fight" result (probably because of personality traits like "Bad Temper" or "Combat Hardened"). Now she's Angry At the Monster +5. She gets a +5 bonus to fighting the monster -- but a -5 to running away from the fight, or trying to make peace with it.

The idea here -- and Henri's on-the-nose discussion of "temptation" just helped me understand my own proposed mechanic much better -- is that you tempt the PLAYER to act in the same way as the CHARACTER is tempted. If you choose to follow your passions / emotions, the ambivalent modifiers act as bonuses and make you more powerful -- but you may be powering up all the way down to your doom. If you choose to fight your feelings, the ambivalent modifiers act as penalties and make you less powerful -- but while you may be crawling, you may be crawling in the right direction.

This sounds a tad like the personality rolls in Ars Magica, but overall it sounds delightful.  When can we hear more about it?  I'd want to incorporate it in my next game!

Doctor Xero

[Sydney Freedberg]

In My Eventual Game, I'm toying with an idea (not entirely original, I grant you) [details snipped]

This sounds a tad like the personality rolls in Ars Magica, but overall it sounds delightful.  When can we hear more about it?  I'd want to incorporate it in my next game!

Yes, it is indeed inspired by Ars, along with quite a few other bits of my system, although the mutation level is pretty high. Glad you like it as sketched out so far. The other fun thing I didn't mention is that this allows player characters to be the object of social rolls by other characters (including other player characters) seeking to influence them: just treat a margin of success of +x as giving the target character an ambivalent trait of +/-x in "doing what I want him to do."

Eventually when my 3-month old baby allows I might even write this up in coherent format....

[Doctor Xero]

I see two ways to give teeth to the temptation.  The first is the standard "willpower" or whatever roll to resist, but people complain that this is deprotagonizing.  The other is something non-random, that leaves the player in charge of making the decision, but somehow either rewards the player for giving in or penalizes the player for not giving in.  That way the choice is less of a no-brainer for the player (assuming that otherwise they would always choose not to give in).

Does anyone know of a thirds approach?

Yes, but I don't how to incorporate it into game design : having players who all take pride in their finesse as actors.

The vast majority of my gaming has been with other people involved in writing, acting, music, poetry, and the other storytelling arts, either professionally, semi-professionally, or as involved hobbyists (such as community theatre and public poetry slams).  Getting experience points has always been secondary to doing a good job of playing out their characters.

Doctor Xero