Trying to resolve different aims, or at least coexist

[beingfrank]

This is not exactly an example of actual play, but it's an example of actual discussion between roleplayers about game issues.  It's come about from a discussion between my GM and myself.  He asked me what issues were frustrating me, and my character.  This is the trickiest one, because the other player in the game (who I talk about below) is the partner of the GM, and I hate having to say anything remotely critical of her to him.

I'm looking for advice, and possible solutions.  For those tempted to give the 'you're iredeemably screwed, dump the game now and do something else with your time' advice, I'm afraid that's going to please nobody involved.  It may be the case, but we'd rather preserve our illusions that we can come to a workable solution.  Most of the time we do get by ok, despite some large differences in aims and styles.

Lately I've been frustrated with a few things C (the other player) has done.  I don't think she does them to upset me.  In fact, I think that often she does them because she believes it will make me happy, and my attempts to explain to her that it doesn't have so far been unsuccessful.

Let's take a minor thing first, that may seem like nothing, and I'll explain why it frustrated me.

Over the last few months, in IM conversations, I've told C about my plan for Cassia (my PC) to adopt a stay kitten while on an upcoming holiday.  I explained that this was purely a player plan, Cassia had no such thought in her head, that it was something I was planning for Cassia to do as a spontaneous gesture.  And I also explained that my pleasure in this action would come from the statement it would make about Cassia's character, and how it would show aspects of her personality that are not often brought into play.

I think (I don't know, because I haven't brought it up with C yet, and may not do so, because I'm sure she'd be extremely surprised to learn that it made me anything other than happy) that C took away from these conversations that I wanted Cassia to have a cat.  What's the next thing that happens?  Cara (C's PC) gives Cassia a super-cool, exotic snow leopard cub for her birthday.  From one perspective, it's a great plan.  Cassia ends up with a better cat than a stray kitten, C gets to have her PC do something cooler than what I was planning for my PC to do, everyone should be happy.

But I'm not.  And why?  Because the point for me was not that Cassia ended up with a cat, but that I got to show Cassia adopting a stray kitten, and saying something about the character.  All of which I explained to C.  So from my perspective, Cassia now has a pet cat which I don't care about, and I can no longer use my plan to adopt a kitten because that action says very different things about Cassia when it follows on from her just being given a present of a kitten by Cara.  Instead of looking impulsive, kind-hearted and affectionate, she'd look like she was aiming for a studied insult to Cara.  Not only did I not get the chance to make the statement I wanted about my character, I'm now blocked from doing so.

This is a minor thing, and, while I'm a little sad about the outcome, I firmly believe that C didn't intend to do anything but please me.  But I do think it's part of a general trend.

Another example is money for conflict diamonds humanitarian aid.  I set up a humanitarian aid agency (in a setting that doesn't have that sort of thing on a large scale) as a tool for me to say interesting thing about Cassia's values, with the decisions she made about what to spend money on, and how to do it.  I thought I'd explained those to both GM and C.  From my perspective, C then tried to gain influence over what the money would be spent on (by making sure there was a large amount of money available to spend on a very specific thing, conflict diamond ravaged areas) and then how that money would be spent (through the committee set up by the Crown) while her character was Regent of the country.  Now it's all very well to argue that it's only natural for Cara to want the Crown to retain some control over how the very large amount of money is spent, but that desire doesn't exist in a vacuum, it comes about as a fairly foreseeable consequence of a situation C created.  So the defence of saying 'my guy should do this, anything else would be out of character' is not very satisfying when she created the situation where that was the in character action for her PC herself.

If I enjoyed the same things as I believe she does in roleplaying, then her actions are not so problematic.  My character gets more power (through more money) to play with in her pet project, my character gets to be more effective, and the two PCs now both have a vested interest in the project.  I'm sure C thinks it was a great move, and, if we had the same interests in roleplaying, it would be.  But we don't, and she's effectively killed 90% of my enjoyment in the project.

From my perspective, in order to meet my goals of play, the best option for me would be to have Cassia and THARA turn their backs on the conflict diamond money and do something completely different.  But that would be a slap in the face to C, so I'm really trying to avoid it.

I know that C and I look for different things in our gaming, and I do my best to ensure that I don't limit her enjoyment where I can.  I try to do things that I believe will suit her style of play, that I wouldn't do to please someone with the same style of play as me.  Though, I haven't managed to break myself of the habit of trying not step on her toes in terms of aspects of play for her PC that I'd really enjoy even when I know that she doesn't appreciate them nearly as much as I do.

I don't think our different styles need to be an insurmountable problem, but I do think that we all need to be more aware that there are differences.  And that if one wants to please the other player, one should do things that they'd like, rather than what one would like to receive.

God knows how we do it, though, when C can't even see why I'm not thrilled by her actions.  My GM is sensible, and genuinely desires all his players to have the sort of fun that suits him.  But his ability to persuade C that her well meant actions could be causing problems may be limited.

I'm torn between optimism that we'll sort it out, and depression over my chances of even making C understand where I'm coming from, let alone acknowledging that it's a legitimate view point and that she might need to take it into consideration.  Some hope, and constructive help would really be wonderful.

[Emily Care]

Hey Claire,

Sticky situation there.  It sounds like you described pretty clearly in both situations what you were looking for and why. Do you have any insights about why C. didn't understand you? I hear you loud and clear.  Does your GM understand what your intent was/is with your character?

For pragmatic advice, I'd say you might want to not tell C. what you're up to next time you've got plans for your character.  It seems like she is trying to take a lead about what she should be doing from what you say your character is doing, which ends up interfering with what you want to do since she doesn't quite get it.  Or you might want to think about some course of action her characters could take that would help you in your efforts, and suggest that rather than just opening the field for her with respect to what you are doing.

The big thing I see being lost between your words and her actions is your desire for resistance in order for you to explore aspects of your character.  C. obviously wants to help you/your character.  If you could explain somehow that what you want to happen is not for the goal to be obtained but to experience the struggle to reach the goal, or to be in the unknown with an issue, maybe she could find ways to really help you by supporting you in that.  Or maybe she could find things to do with her character that address her own goals and leave you to your own.

It doesn't sound hopeless, just in need of better communication.   I just thought of the soundbite for what's happening for you: she's deprotagonizing you by giving too much help.  If you can give her an example of a situation this might have happened to her with her character, perhaps she could see where you are coming from.

Hope that's of use.

best,
Emily Care

[beingfrank]

Emily,

I suspect, from various discussions in the past, that C believes that ways of roleplaying that differ from hers are wrong.  And more than that actively destructive to roleplaying as a concept.  I suspect that this is a firm and unshakeable belief.  I described a character I created for a different game that she wasn't playing in.  I created this character so that he'd swiftly end up in a sticky situation that he might not be able to cope with.  A Bang, sort of.  I thought it would a fun way to quickly get into a game that had been running for a while where I was the new player joining.  She felt that desiging a character that way was unfair to the GM and the other players, because if they hadn't seen my PC for a reasonable while in a time of non-stress then they wouldn't be able to predict his behaviour enough to play with him.  I still don't completely understand that perspective.

I've pretty much concluded that I shall have to stop telling C any plans for my character, or anything about my characters internal motivation or reasoning that her PC doesn't know.  Unfortunately, the GM regards this as unhelpful.  In fact, his major suggestion for how to resolve game problems involves more talking about it.  Which I would be fine with if C didn't keep using that information to deprotagonize me.  And no always helpfully.  If the PCs have an argument and I tell her my character's reasoning, she changes her characters position such that my characters logic no longer makes sense, or rebutts arguements my character might make before she makes them.

Deprotagonizing through her attempts to contribute to the game is exactly the way to put it.  I very nearly called this thread "Help! Help! I'm being deprotagonized!"

[Emily Care]

Are you the only one she's deprotaganizing? How do other avoid it?

--Em

[beingfrank]

Are you the only one she's deprotaganizing? How do other avoid it?

Well, it's a two player game, so there isn't anybody else to avoid it.  I can't think how to deprotaganize a GM.  Actually, now that I think about it, she only really plays 2 player games.  Four or five different games, all with different people as the second player.  And all attempts to get games going with a large group in the last few years have failed in ways that can be directly traced back to her.

Hmm, this is looking depressing again.

[Jaik]

Is her partner always the GM for these two-player games?

[beingfrank]

Is her partner always the GM for these two-player games?

Yup.  Or she's the GM and he's the player, with the second person.

Now I'm better understanding my instinctive desire to have at least 4 players in the game I'm proposing to run for them.

[Jaik]

Yeah, this is starting to sounds slightly grim...

What do you think their reaction would be if you started just as you started this thread, with the kitten->tiger cub example?  

"C, remember when we were talking about how I wanted to adopt a stray?"

(discuss, discuss, discuss)

"So, do you see why adopting a stray while on vacation shows a certain side to my character while being handed this (really cool!) tiger cub doesn't give me the same ability to show aspects of my character?"

Or would this come across as acusatory?

[beingfrank]

Yeah, this is starting to sounds slightly grim...

What do you think their reaction would be if you started just as you started this thread, with the kitten->tiger cub example?  

"C, remember when we were talking about how I wanted to adopt a stray?"

(discuss, discuss, discuss)

"So, do you see why adopting a stray while on vacation shows a certain side to my character while being handed this (really cool!) tiger cub doesn't give me the same ability to show aspects of my character?"

Or would this come across as acusatory?

Well, I've emailed the GM starting at exactly that point, since I'd already promised him a follow up email on what where some of my frustrations with the game lately.  Kind of whimping out in saying that this is my issue, how does he think C will take it, rather than going straight to her.

Personally, I think C and I could have that discussion, and she'd see why that caused me troubles, but I'm not certain she'd think that that was a problem.  She might think that I'm wrong to want to enjoy that sort of thing.  She'd never think she was thinking that, but that might be the result.  Maybe I should have more faith in my friends?

I'll see what happens when the GM reads the email I sent tomorrow morning.

[Paul Watson]

I'm not trying to be cute or anything like that, but ... "If in Doubt, be Frank."

[beingfrank]

I'm not trying to be cute or anything like that, but ... "If in Doubt, be Frank."

It's official, irony is dead.

Ok, that's it.  It's 20 to 2am, I got to work tomorrow and I'm making really stupid comments.  No more reading the Forge for me until I've had some sleep.

[Mike Holmes]

Good Mike would agree with the others that you need to talk about this stuff. Or, better, that you might want to play a system where these things just naturally gel better. What system are you using?

Then there's Evil Mikey who's advice nobody should ever follow. Evil Mikey would frown when receiving the snow leopard, and immediately donate it to the nearest zoo. He'd then go an adopt that little kitten anyhow, just as planned. Yes, this would be an afront to C. A completely intentional affront. A statement saying to her, "Don't interfere with my plans for my character again."

The plan to refuse the money in the other game that you have is completely endorsed by Evil Mikey.

From a more reasonable approach, when getting lemons, make lemonade? That is, there are ways that you can do this sort of thing that might otherwise be seen as confrontational with the player, that would make them seem only confrontational in-game between characters. For instance, ask the player if it's OK to refuse the money. Say that you want to set up some animosity between the characters that will be fun to play. Once the other player buys into it, then you're good to go with doing what you want.

Players are not their characters. If you approach the issue correctly, she'll see how you can do this sort of character competition with player collaboration.

Mike

[beingfrank]

Good Mike would agree with the others that you need to talk about this stuff. Or, better, that you might want to play a system where these things just naturally gel better. What system are you using?

We're using fairly standard Amber DRPG, with pretty low powered characters and very little combat.

Then there's Evil Mikey who's advice nobody should ever follow. Evil Mikey would frown when receiving the snow leopard, and immediately donate it to the nearest zoo. He'd then go an adopt that little kitten anyhow, just as planned. Yes, this would be an afront to C. A completely intentional affront. A statement saying to her, "Don't interfere with my plans for my character again."

The plan to refuse the money in the other game that you have is completely endorsed by Evil Mikey.

Sometimes, Evil Mikey's advice seems very appealing.

From a more reasonable approach, when getting lemons, make lemonade? That is, there are ways that you can do this sort of thing that might otherwise be seen as confrontational with the player, that would make them seem only confrontational in-game between characters. For instance, ask the player if it's OK to refuse the money. Say that you want to set up some animosity between the characters that will be fun to play. Once the other player buys into it, then you're good to go with doing what you want.

Players are not their characters. If you approach the issue correctly, she'll see how you can do this sort of character competition with player collaboration.

Yup, we've really got to talk about it.  Hopefully we can do that this weekend.

Thanks everyone for their help and advice.  I think I've got as much as I can from this thread at the moment, but I always welcome more ideas.

[contracycle]

Hmm.  Well, looking at the scenario I'd have to say its probably doomed, but there might be one more angle to try with the GM.  If you approached him with the argument that you want to communicate with C demonstratively, you might might obviate some of his objections.  You might suggest that you would like to copmmunicate with both C and her character, rather than just C, if you see what I mean.  This might give you a language with which to justify claiming boundaries and personal ownership of things like the aid society.

[Loki]

I may be focusing on the small, when the problem is in the large, but I can't help thinking about the kitty plan.

I'm not sure what the personality of the character who received the super-cat is, but I can imagine many characters that would be unimpressed or nonplussed by the gift of a fabulously expensive, pedigreed animal. He might very reasonably put the animal in a zoo where it would be cared for by people who like that sort of thing--and then not long thereafter decide to adopt a stray kitten, not to spite the gift, but because of it. Perhaps the experience made the character realize that she wants a little animal to care for, but a stray is more her speed. Or even that a stray's personality suits her better.

For instance, I like cats, but I'm allergic to them. So I feed a local stray that lives in the abandoned lot behind my house. I like his attitude--he doesn't stick around much, but he's a friendly cat when he's around. I also don't have to worry about him shedding all over my apartment because he wouldn't be caught dead inside. He's the perfect cat for me.

I think what I'm getting at is that the other player has provided you with more grist for the character mill, not less, and there's no reason your kitty has to be a slap in the face. I suspect that your annoyance with her is coloring your sense of the possible alternatives--I know that I'd want to give her a little push back if my plans were being short-circuited.