[Long] GM Refusal to Explain Ruling

[TonyLB]

Eszed, I'm sorry, I won't be answering your specific questions.  Let me talk instead about the general issue of trust.

Trust is huge in roleplaying.  It goes hand in hand with communication.  If you trust that your core goals for a game are not under assault, you communicate more effectively.  If you communicate more effectively it is easier to convey your core goals for a game.  Synergy, that.

More importantly, trust that is built upon having communicated your goals and understood those of others is bedrock, worthy to build upon.  Trust that comes from hope, or the mere appearance of agreement without deeper understanding... that's quicksand.

Internet roleplaying has only a shadowy parody of real human communication.  You have to be a really, really good writer to convey in words the sort of emotional nuance that can be gotten across by a single lazy wave of a hand, or a raised eyebrow.

Unfortunately, this lack of communication does not, in fact, lead to a lack of trust.  I don't know why, but people are very ready to place their trust in most anyone who shares their interests.  

I had a nice little mathematical exercise worked up, but it's boring.  I'll skip to the conclusion:  An unchanged level of trust, coupled with much less effective communication, creates an environment which disproportionately drives people into situations where misunderstandings are viewed as betrayals.

I'm beginning to wonder whether my motto for internet gaming should be "Do not trust me!  You couldn't possibly know what I'm thinking!"  A bit over-the-top on drama, but it does get across my general point:  Making first contact with a person or group is a tricky matter of establishing a shared language and probing for cultural booby-traps.  Underestimate its difficulty at your peril.  The friendly natives who keep offering you wonderful food may assume that you know you're being fatted as a sacrificial offering :)

Many Indie games (Sorceror, Inspectres, MLwM, presumably others I haven't yet investigated) share a common feature:  The opening of the first session (or the entire first session) is composed of out of character discussion where nothing "in-game" is at stake.  In short, people have a chance to acclimate to each other socially before being called upon to live up to most responsibilities of the social contract.  Good gaming wisdom there.  I wish I'd paid more attention to it.

[MarktheAnimator]

Whenever I have a problem with this while running games I first listen to the player's complaints, and often I'll change to rule in their favor.  If not, I'll often roll a die or flip a coin to determine which way to go.  Most players accept this.  I get good results mostly because I usually let my players talk me out of my position if it's logical.

On the other hand, most RPGs have a rule someplace that says "the GM is the final authority", etc.
I usually don't try to dominate the players because if I abused it they would all quit.

The other factor to think of is that from a storytelling point of view, perhaps the events have to go a certain way to tell a story.  If it wouldn't work mechanically, often the GM will "force it".... but players tend to hate that.

I'd suggest that the GM simply think of another way to advance the story, without forcing the issue.

It's all about "pulling" the players along instead of "pushing" them.  

Also, since the game is being played online, the dynamics are a bit different...

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

[Valamir]

Hey Tony, I think your comments on trust in internet gaming is spot on.

I was having this exact discussion recently and my conclusion was internet gaming is most successful when there is an established sense of community that exists outside of the participants themselves.

By this I mean for example, long running chat room play where (for the long time members at least) there is something personal at stake that is at risk (ostracization) and thus encourages members to operate within the boundaries that have been established in that community.

Or MMORPGs like EQ or DAOC.  In these cases its not the game itself that provides the community but the various guild structures who provide a community within the game enviroment very similiar in structure to chat room RPG sites.

When you don't have such a community Internet play works best IMO for 1 shot and comedic play, primarily because there is less at risk.  If the game is only 1 session long, or if mostly its alot of clowning around, then there really isn't anything to be betrayed that's meaningful.

Long term PBEM or chat based roleplaying, however, that is based primarily on the pick-up model ("hey I'm running a game, anyone interested in playing") I think are very very difficult to pull off successfully consistantly for exactly the reasons you indicate.

I'd love to have you start a thread on your experiences with PBEM play and your notions of trust in the game and how you've dealt with it.  I think that would be a great topic of conversation.

[Eszed]

Oooh.  More and more interesting, guys.  Thank you for playing along, and being so open.  This is exactly what make the Forge so great.


Captain,  I think you and I are actually on exactly the same wavelength, here.  "I like my characters to be active and have control of their own destinies", looks to me like another way of saying 'I, the player, want to have creative control over (some) events that happen ingame'.  If the GM sacrifices your character for his own metagame agenda it means he is exercising WAY too much creative control over the story/world and completely devaluing your quite proper creative input.

Semantics, semantics.  Do you see what I mean?

Now, here's the interesting bit.  DannyK writes that you "had already shown admirable willingness to let our characters get screwed with in the service of a cracking good story"?  

Do you know what moment he's talking about, because I'm curious what felt different to you about that time, compared to this one where the wheels fell off.  

See, I think we each come to the table with our own metagame agendas.  Finding a way for them to coexist is the essence of the 'Social Contract' everyone is always on about.

My suspicion is that the three of you (or maybe just you and Tony) failed to understand or to respect each other's metagame agendas.  

So, I'm trying to figure out from each of you what those agendas might be.

Does that make sense to you?

Making "a cracking good story" sounds like DannyK's metagame agenda; and what he wrote about walking contradictions and so forth hints at what sorts of tales are most interesting to him.  

What you wrote about being active and controlling your own destiny sounds like it is hinting at yours.  Can you expand on that?  Are there particular types of characters you tend to play?  What moments (in this or another game) made you feel the least impotent?

Again, thanks for keeping this up, and for being so honest.  Very cool.

[Eszed]

Tony, Please do open a forum to discuss PbP gaming.  I've not done much (and always with people with whom I also game FtF), so hadn't thought much about the inherent 'slipperiness' of the social dynamic in that context.  

However, that's getting off topic here.

I think you are absolutely right that only

trust that is built upon having communicated your goals and understood those of others is bedrock, worthy to build upon

and I think (as I suspect you do) that you and Captain hadn't fully communicated and understood each other's goals -- or metagame agendas, as he puts it -- and that that accounts for the breakdown of trust.

Why didn't you want to answer my specific questions?

I asked them because, as I told Captain, I'm trying to figure out each of your goals for play.  Hopefully he'll answer some of my specific questions to him and we'll figure his out.  

If you just tell us what your goals are, then I don't need you to answer those specifec questions -- though answering them might go some way towards demonstrating to Captain that he ought to trust you.  As you will, though.

It may be, once everyone's goals are out on the table and each of you are aware of your own and everyone else's, we realize they conflict so completely that you should agree to part ways.  

Or, maybe, once you all understand each other's points of view you can find a playstyle that enjoyably accomodates everyone's creative agendas.  

Either way it seems better than quitting a game (or asking someone to leave) out of irritation.

I've been enjoying this thread because both you and Captain sound like good guys -- you even play together in another context -- and I'd feel great if you can find a way to get along here.  

But I also think this is an important discussion because dissecting problems like this is how the rest of can learn to avoid them in the games we participate in -- so even if the "Roleplaying Therapy" doesn't work, I think the two of you are performing a real service to the larger community.

So, many thanks again to you for playing along.

[TonyLB]

I'm not detached enough to discuss the specifics without advocating my position.

It reflects well on you that you want to make peace, but all the same I'll stick to generalities.

[Eszed]

Tony,  OK.  Fair enough.  What, in general then, are your metagame goals?  

And slightly more specifically:  What are (were?) your goals for this campaign?  What themes did you build in from the beginning?  Who are your favorite NPCs?  Which scenes did you get jazzed about every time you imagined how they might occur? Where were you hoping the characters would end up?  

(None of that need reference Captain, or the altercation you've been having, right?)

(Have you opened that other thread?  Not sure what forum it should go in . . .  RPG Theory?  I don't usually spend much time there.  hm.)

cheers,

[Mike Holmes]

I'll be lambasted, likely for doing this, as I do often when I assign this diagnosis, but this is simply yet another case of incoherent play, in the Forge sense of the term.

Worse, I'm fearful that Erick is reading this, because I think that I'm about to insult his game. Amber leads to these sorts of problems with great frequency from what I've seen. I love many elements of it's design, but the one thing that it does not do is to get the players on the same sheet of music in terms of a creative agenda.

And that's what happened here. Captain complains that he felt "impotent." I've never heard a better term for the feeling that a player gets in an incoherent game when the GM isn't allowing the character to have the effect on the game that he feels that the he should be allowed throught the vehicle of the character.

Captain, the reason you can't understand Tony's post is because it's espousing a different CA than you understand Amber to support. This is why Tony can say that the play in question "followed the rules" and you can say that it did not. The rules say two different things. Making the two different interpretations completely valid.

And these interpretations (and a few more, I might add) are so common, that it's no surprise that players have problem with other players as often as they do. You'll note that Amber groups tend to segment off by certain self-selected criteria. This is because they've noted this phenomenon. Unforunately they don't understand it quite perfectly because they're using fairly undefined terms, or phraseology that can be interpreted in multiple ways by different people.

For example, if someone says, "What I like about Amber is creating stories." That tells you precisely nothing, because what constitutes creating a story is different to every RPG player alive.

So, don't blame each other, blame the system which lead you inevitably to this problem. If you ever want to play together again, I suggest that you learn the GNS theory to the point that you can communicate your ideas to each other. Only then will you know if you are combatible enough to play with each other.

Simply agreeing to use the Amber rules is not enough.

Mike

[Eszed]

Yeah, yeah, Mike.  I was getting there.  I was trying to get all Socratic first, though.  Thought it would be more convincing to go by baby steps, you know?  Kind of clever.  Yeah.  

Busted!  :)


Anyone still care about this thread, or should I go back to rotting my mind on  Baldur's Gate?

yrs,

[TonyLB]

I wholly agree that it's a difference in CAs.  But part of the interest of this for me personally has been trying to decide from my own experience whether differing CAs are something that can ever be overcome, or whether (as you seem to recommend) the only thing to do is to go your separate ways.

I've been fascinated to see, in this experience and this discussion, how powerfully people (myself most certainly included) filter the actions of others through the lens of their own modes of play.

Indeed, in this case, I think that I made matters much worse in the game itself when I figured out that we had a problem of incoherence, and tried to explain it in those terms.

Understanding that somebody else is thinking in ways fundamentally different from your own requires going well outside your mental comfort zone.  That's just not going to happen, I think, when both sides are already feeling under attack.

Which leads me to a more general application of the previous idea I had about "Don't set precedent, just solve the problem".  Generally speaking, I think that for problems of incoherence it is better to slap a band-aid on the specific symptom, and give everyone a chance to cool down, before trying to address the underlying malaise.  

Thoughts?

[Mike Holmes]

Eszed, sorry to have jumped your gun. :-)


Tony, I think you have to handle these things on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes the game will disintigrate on the spot, no matter how you try to gloss things over (has happend to me). So, sometimes you do have to stop and address the issue right there. You can't wait for a break. It's not always the best policy.

What you definitely can't do is continue playing and not expect further problems to occur at some point. At the soonest possible break in the action, it has to be discussed. Since this was online and PBP (if I understand it) there were no breaks in the foreseeable future. So you'd have to create one of your own. Given that, I'd think that stopping right then and there would be the best way to go.

If I had to present evidence that your method was incorrect, it's the result that occured. Remember that Captain isn't at all in the wrong here. That's not to say that you're wrong in your CA, but I think that you were wrong not to straighten it out in some way immediately. If you saw that as the problem at that point, you could have realized that the problem would not go away.

For instance, you didn't say that you were going to give an explanation later, did you? That is, it seems to be captain's position that you seemed to be saying that there would never be an explanation. So, to him all that he sees is that the game is broken and will not be getting fixed ever. How can he continue to play?

OTOH, this perception could have been due to the both of you communicating poorly - I can't say for sure.


In any case, it's not absolutely impossible to play with people in different modes. It all depends on the players willingness to accept different modes of play. Typically, however, this means that the GM has to cater to each player's mode. Given the power that the GM typically possesses, if the GM does not cater, then that player will almost definitely feel Impotent.

This is one (albeit very difficult) way to "overcome" a CA disparity. The usual way, however, is to select one CA for all, and try to stick to it. That is, the problem is "overcome" by getting all of the players to agree to one CA. In this case, it means that either you or the Captian, will have to change your outlook on how to play. Which requires that one of you bend here to fit.

Are either of you willing to do so?

Actually that's not a fair question, because I think that the both of you probably still do not understand each other's mode preference yet.

But that's the point. Unless one of you is willing to try to understand the other's perspective, and then to change to it, then you're probably not going to be able to play with each other. And none of this considers the other players in the game. I'm not sure how many there are, but, unless they're all tight into one mode for some reason, then the problem is wider than can be solved by either one of you in the short run.

Possibly the best thing would be for you, Tony, to rewrite the rules so that they support your vision of play directly. Then players can decide if they want to play that game based on the clearly presented vision of play. Optimistically, they'll see what you're trying to do and see that it'll be fun.

Mike

[captain_bateson]

Eszed,

Yeah, I wondered, as I was typing my last post, if I was saying the same thing with different semantics. But I decided to see what the response was rather than guessing on my own.

Now, here's the interesting bit. DannyK writes that you "had already shown admirable willingness to let our characters get screwed with in the service of a cracking good story"? Do you know what moment he's talking about, because I'm curious what felt different to you about that time, compared to this one where the wheels fell off.

Umm...jeez. Well, part of it was that, in other cases, I had some input into what was going to happen, or even came up with it on my own. I don't mind if bad things happen to my characters either because I think it will make a better story, or because it was the logical result of something my character had done (even if unexpected).

But, in this case, there was a lot more going on. Danny's character was being kind of condescending to mine (all in character, perfectly okay, of course), as was another PC there, who are both more subtle and more able to deal with conspiracies and subtletly than mine (they are both spies). My character kept her hand on her sword, in the expectation that yes, they are better at sneaking around, knowing what's going on, doing subtle verbal sparring, but that my character's straight-ahead, damn the torpedoes way of doing things would succeed if they tried anything against her, since she was more of an action character. So, while Danny's character was trying to move things toward a resolution where he could turn things into that sort of thing, I was making sure that if anything was going to happen it would happen right then, right there, where I felt my character had the advantage.

So, the wheels came off when I felt that advantage taken away from my character. By the rules (by my reading of them and the reading of everyone I consulted), I should have had a marked advantage in a direct physical confrontation. I had played it that way. I had worked things to that end. Then, it turned out that my character had no advantages at all: Danny's and the other Player's characters were better than mine in their fields of play and in mine, and that sucked. They were spies, and I was just a straight-ahead fighter. I had reasons, both with the rules and with the sort of crossing of genres, to think that my character would have the advantage in a straight-ahead fight. But she didn't.

Remember, though, I didn't expect to be able to kick the asses off two other PCs: I just expected to be able to quickly disable Danny's character in order to escape. That was basically my whole plan. I would have handled the whole situation and scene differently had things been otherwise.

During this whole thing, Danny did make a statement about how if, I really needed my character to kick his character's ass, he would let that happen, though he really wanted to go a few rounds first. I replied that I would be okay if the chair I threw hit him in the face, making him drop the Logrus, to allow my character's escape, 'cause I didn't want to kick his ass: I just wanted to get the hell out of there. We were both trying to accomodate each other, I think, in the best spirit of cooperative gaming.

I don't play certain types of characters, I don't think. I actively try not to. But I do play Amber because, in Amber, characters do have a huge amount of freedom to tell their own stories, which is what I like to do. I like to be able to think about the whole range of things that a real person in a certain situation could do and be able to choose any of them, not limited by some diced game mechanics or by the setup of the world or the campaign. I like to do the unexpected, to surprise everyone (including the GM), and to make other players and the GM think on their feet. As such, when I feel that my character's actions and ability to choose are being artificially limited by the GM, I get angry.

I did, at one point, more or less state this during the game, following up by asking Tony if he wanted a player like me in his game. Was I attempting to express my CA at that point? Maybe I was.

I'm still a bit mystified about the whole "Amber supports different CAs and leads to incoherent play thing," though. Every other time that I've run into the GM Forcefield, it's been exactly what it looked like: the GM protecting other players at the expense of my character (and the GMs have usually come to admit it). If it's different here, I don't understand how or why. Or is the GM Forcefield always a result of differing CAs and I never knew it?

Also, I did actually take a bunch of time to come here to the Forge, learn GNS theory as best I could, in order to try to understand the problems between me and Tony. It helped to a small extent, but not much. We still got into tons of arguments and fights. I always felt like I explained, in great detail, exactly what I was upset about and why, but never seemed to get enough of an explanation in return, sort of like here. I think I was, by Forge terminology, constantly explaining my CA, but not necessarily getting an explanation of the GM's CA in return. But maybe I'm wrong. I'd love to hear what Tony thinks.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey guys,

This is for Tony and Captain B specifically.

If you are primarily concerned with being understood, then you are almost certain not to understand the other fellow. That is, if over and over, you are not getting the feedback you want from explaining your position, then you're going to try to explain it again, and not listen to word one from the other fellow which isn't the feedback you want.

It happens a lot in the GNS forum, and I have to ask the person, "Look, are you sticking with this discussion because you want to understand others, or because you're frustrated that you don't feel you're being understood?"

Most of the time, the person says, "The latter! If you-all would only understand me, I wouldn't be so stubborn!" So then I try to paraphrase their position as best I can, and usually the person realizes that they're being understood after all.

But unless I'd stuck that stick in the spokes, no matter what I'd said, the person would just keep re-explaining, because he'd already decided no one was listening.

Speaking as a third party, then, and looking over this whole thread, I think Tony is currently a wee bit further along the path of acknowledging where the Captain is coming from. You just posted that you feel as if you've provided tons of explanation and Tony hasn't, but actually, go back and read the thread - Tony's actually copped to the idea that he contributed to the problem. Sadly, Captain, right now, I think you're still out for blood, a little bit.

Just a wee bit, you want Tony to be wrong: wrong then, wrong during your later discussion, and wrong now. You want him to say it. I've seen way too many people act on this feeling: wanting the other person to feel just as bad and frustrated as one felt during play and thereafter -"See, see how it feels?"

'Course the other person isn't going to give satisfaction on that score. Who would?

Well, speaking not as Forge moderator but merely as a fellow role-player who's seen every possible permutation of the phenomenon which prompted this thread, I think you should give it up. Just let it go. You didn't get what you want, and getting some sense of reparation for it isn't going to happen.

What I haven't seen from you - and this is distinct from "explaining your position" - believe me, we get it already - is to acknowledge that you contributed to the problem. Not big mean GM-Tony picking on you, who was "only" playing according to his "rights," but you. Yeah, you, contributing to the problem. Completely independently of Tony. It could have been the Sunbeam Savior GMing - whoever.

Tony has acknowledged the responsibility on his part. What more could you want from him? Should he wear a big sign for a week that says "I was a bad GM"? C'mon, man. Accept some responsibility. That's the only help the Forge can offer you.

Best,
Ron

[captain_bateson]

Mike,

We cross-posted. I can't think of any way to answer your post without blaming Tony. I will just say, yes, if I had known about the difference in CAs, I would have been willing to adapt. But I didn't know, so it was never an issue.

[captain_bateson]

Ron,

Nope. Not trying to be understood. Not trying to get Tony to admit anything. I just thought the questions being posed to me were interesting and that I would answer them, either in the hopes of learning something by answering them, or learning something by what others thought of what I said.

I thought this discussion, per your words, wasn't about blame (another word for responsibility). I haven't talked about whether I was responsible or not because you told me no one here would validate which one of us, Tony or me, were wrong. So, the whole issue seemed irrelevant, and I have not broached it, either in regards to Tony or myself.

Also, I didn't word my previous post well. When I said, "but never seemed to get enough of an explanation in return, sort of like here," by here I meant in the case of the ruling that lead to this thread, not here on the Forge. Sorry about that. Tony has been very forthcoming in this thread, which I appreciate. I was talking about during the game.

I've already gotten what I wanted out of this thread and was willing to end it earlier. But I thought I might learn something by answering Eszed's and Mike's posts. I no longer have an agenda for this thread and I'm not trying to accomplish anything other than learn something I haven't yet.