Creating the sensation of hope.

[sirogit]

It occurs to me that a sensation I never here people trying to create in an RPG session is "hope", and yet I find it a very essential part of any game, the less game I was in was rather dull because there was never any sensation of hope.

Now, from a personal perspective, the reason hope is so intereasting to me is because being hopelessness is damn intereasting to me, and a game without the sensation of hope can never feel hopeless because there is no context for such a feeling.

Let me go on an anecdote about the anime Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh has this incredibly strong undercurrent of hopelessness through out it, it starts with the world being screwed up and than a boy and his sister running away from their landlord who wants to sell the girl's body and the boy's organs.

Something that is missing through the entire show is a feeling of emotionall wellness or pleasure. Characters occainsially work together or develop romantic attraction towards each other, but they never have any really good time with that romantic attraction or friendship. Central to this theme is the boy and his sister, who at the start, seem deeply bonded, like the only thing they have in the world is each other.

It's very much like a good romance film where you wait for the characters to end up together happily. And whie that feeling lingers, their bond quickly falls apart to the point where it doesn't seem like they even like each other much anymore. So the only real sense of Hope is gone.

Except for, in the ending credits of the show, there's the usual anime sad love song lyrics, and there's this picture of the girl holding her brother, and it gives a very strong sense that the characters really do love each other and that should be how they should end up.

When you watch the show, keeping in mind that image, it makes their interaction much more meaningfull because of the stakes; Is that image an eventfull reality or does it never happen, or did it just happen in the past? And thereby creates a profoundly hopeless feeling when something goes wrong.

I'm really attracted to the idea of doing something like that in a roleplaying game. In the Little Fears review, there's an effective use of the similar idea of establishing potential despair to give the in-game events meaning.

I'm wondering what techniques work really well for people to establish hope, either one's they've come up with or ran into.

[montag]

It might be worthwhile to have a look at "Dead Inside", which is supposed to be somewhat excentric in that people are rewarded for being "nice" to others for a change. (I own it but haven gotten to read or play it yet).

[Paul Czege]

Have you read http://www.halfmeme.com/nicotinegirls.html">Nicotine Girls?

Paul

[neelk]

Could you elaborate on what you're after, please? I find the topic interesting, but don't think I fully understand your question, because you start by asking about hope but your examples are all about hopelessness. Are you trying to get the players to keep feeling sympathy in the face of disaster rather than fall into apathetic despair? Or is it something else, like how to enable a feeling of optimism without taking away from the sense of risk or the possibility of failure?[/list]

[Doctor Xero]

It occurs to me that a sensation I never here people trying to create in an RPG session is "hope",

Are you referring to giving the players a sense of hopefulness or to providing a mechanic which determines character hopefulness?

Doctor Xero

[SlurpeeMoney]

Mechanics-wise, this would be quite an interesting resource-management tool, not entirely unlike Vampire's Humanity or Willpower. You start off with a rating in Hope that determines some of your character's mannerisms. A person with hope acts completely different from a person without, and there is a scale on which you can view it, if you care to notice it in people. I'm a depressive who has lived with other depressives, and you can literally see the difference if you know how to look.

So characters with a high Hope could stare down adversity with a stiff upper lip, because they're sure it's going to come out alright in the end, and everyone will live happilly ever after. Their shoulders are squared, their head is high, they talk happilly even in the most distressing of times, and, to them, no matter how bad it gets, they just couldn't be having a better day (it's an extreme, I know, but bear with me).

A person with very low Hope couldn't be motivated to do anything, suffer penalties from, really, not caring what happens, sit with their shoulders slumped and their heads down, shuffling their feet and talking in grumbles.

One could gain or lose hope over the course of the session by finding things that give them hope; different situations would apply to different archetypes in different ways to give them hope, or to take it away. You could "lend" hope to hopeless characters, but it's emotionally draining (basically, give some of your hope to another character through role-playing a conversation in which the Hopeful attempts to cheer up the Hopeless).

It would be a neat trick. I sincerely doubt I would ever use it, though, and here's why:

I don't like emotion mechanics. Sure, my players don't always play their characters as their characters, but instead as "playing pieces," but I would much rather they do that than be forced into emotional states they don't really feel. I would much rather make them feel hopeless by standing them up against an enemy they will need all of their resources to beat, or give them hope by having the cavalry arive just in time to back them up (not save them, just back them up so that they can win).

Then again, why kill babies? It's still a nifty gimmick.

Kris
"'Gimmick' is my middle name. Well, actually, it's 'Grant,' but if that leaves the forum, there'll be Hell to pay."

[Andrew Martin]

I would much rather ... give them hope by having the cavalry arive just in time to back them up (not save them, just back them up so that they can win).

Wouldn't that make the players feel "helpless" rather than hopefull? Sure, they have outside help, but it was given to them by GM fiat, rather than through their own abilities.

[SlurpeeMoney]

It was an illustrative example, one taken from my own play experience; it was the group's idea to send for reinforcements, but those reinforcements had been engaged to their west at the time the request appeared. When everything looked its most hopless, the cavalry finally showed up and they had renewed hopes of beating back the threat they were facing. *shrug* I didn't think that one example was really the point of my post... Funny what people will pick up on...

I suppose it all comes down to: who gets the hope? In sirogit's primary post, the examples seemed driven towards hope felt by the audience. He describes his personal feelings towards the show; he talks about themes. But he also talks about the characters, and their relationships, and bonds. So who gets the hope? The players or their characters? Character hope you can achieve systematically, if you choose. Player hope comes from something entirely different. And while that "something entirely different" can be supported systematically, it is still mostly up to the players, the Game Master, the Creative Agenda of the group.

Sometimes, building hope is as easy as using the narrative tools at your disposal. Tone, inflection, description and action can all help a mood along, regardless of what mood you are trying to accomplish. Simply tailor your story-telling to ensure that the proper modes are being established, let the other players know what's going on, and try to get everyone into it.

Keep in mind, though, that one person's "Hope" is another person's "Freedom." Themes can be tough to manage in Shared Imagined Space, mostly because of perception. Perhaps the easiest way to establish hope is to let everyone know what you're going for, and see what they come up with to help.

It's late, though, and I have this strange, niggling feeling that I'm rambling.

Kris
"Ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble "

[TonyLB]

I think that the issue of hope being linked with deprotagonization is more than accidental.

Is hope a fond desire concerning the course of events beyond your control?  That's about the best I can manage on short notice.  If that's a decent definition then hope is precisely focussed on the area outside of the character's range of protagonism.

But, interestingly, what is outside of one characters range is not necessarily outside of the character-group's range.  In Frigid Bitch and... uh... Mountain Witch?  I forget the other name.  Anyway, in two recent Iron Chef games we've seen Trust mechanics.  I wonder whether a Hope mechanic that focusses on specific hope for aid from another player's character might work.  For example, the "cavalry rescue" example that's gotten so much attention becomes a different beast when the cavalry in question is under the control of another player, doesn't it?