Player Responsibility

[Doctor Xero]

This was inspired by a post in another thread http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=14118&start=45

Let's say that a player is playing "The Teen Horror Movie Game" and it has this mechanic as a hard and fast incontravertable rule (sex=death).

A player is presented with a love/lust interest and he decides what to do (have sex and die or continue playing).

If the guy decides that his character *would* have sex--but does not want his character to die--then I think we have a decison that, under the rules, leads to dysfunction ("I wanted to 'play my character'--but I was punished for doing so")

The above example I think epitomizes for me the obfuscating nature of certain discussions in RPG theory.

Why would a player roleplay in a game with a sex=death mechanic unless he or she wanted to play in a game with a sex=death mechanic?

If the players want to roleplay in a game with a sex=death mechanic, then it is impossible for said mechanic in and of itself to lead to dysfunction and it is impossible for game master enforcement of said mechanic in and of itself to involve railroading or deprotagonization or any similar ills.  If the players change their minds arbitrarily in the middle of play but had not bothered to ensure the possibility of mid-play change from the start, this is their fault, not the fault of the mechanics nor of the game master (except in his/her niche as a fellow player).

It is the responsibility of the players (including game masters) to choose a game system which has the mechanics which they want.  If they defer said responsibility to an alpha male or alpha female, such deference was their choice, and I am uncertain whether we can or should try to counter such outsourcing of personal responsibility in our game designs.  (Actually, I'm fairly certain we couldn't control it in game design.)

It concerns me that we often seem to neglect player responsibility in such discussions.

(NB : This is an addendum off what Marco has written, not a disputation -- what he had written in the thread made a considerable amount of sense both logically and intuitively.)

Other thoughts related to this occur to me, but the above is enough for starting a thread.

Doctor Xero

[timfire]

I would agree with you. The only thing I would add is that the game text needs to be clear on how the system works, so that players don't go into the game expecting one thing and getting another. In the above example it's pretty obvious, but in many games it's subtle. For example, some games claim drama and story-telling, but instead end up being just another game about kewl characters with kewl powerz.

[Marco]

For example, some games claim drama and story-telling, but instead end up being just another game about kewl characters with kewl powerz.

I'm not sure there's a difference between this and saying "Some games claim to be great but really they are the suxx0r."

The example I posted was pretty extreme (I think the expectation of playing a sexually active character in Teen Slasher Movie is pretty low) to make a point (as was said).

In reality, though, people rely on things like genre and "good roleplaying" to set expectations and that doesn't always work (of course the individuals involved bear responsibility for this too--just because someone's expectations clash with yours doesn't mean you and they explode in an annihilation reaction unless we're talking about teenagers).

So I think that if the GM decided "this will be a teen movie and everyone knows that sex=death" and didn't tell the players that (say the GM is using Call of Cthulhu as an engine) then I think they'd potentially have a bitch.

For what it's worth, I did play in a horror game where, for not giving the right answers to a question in the very beigining the GM tried his best to kill me (and the other PC) within the rules. I was shocked at the level of deadliness in the game--and although I survived (barely) I was, frankly, surprised (and I knew it had been a horror game going in). If the GM had just "ruled I was dead" for "violating the unspoken rules" I would've been upset.

-Marco

[contracycle]

Well, actually this all shows how dubious the example was from the outset.  Because the player refusing to accept the sex=death judgement is in fact purposefully violateing the structured story with which they are supposed to be engaging.

And if they do not know that that is the structure with with they are engaging, they are de facto being railroaded, as the GM has decided how play "must" come out.  The whole thing is nonsense IMO, in that it is an example oif a game in which the social contract has already collapsed.

[LordSmerf]

contracycle,

While your position is somwhat extreme, I think that's exactly what everyone else is saying.  The players have either: A) Chosen a bad game for themselves, one where sex=death despite the fact that some players don't want this; B) Had a miscommunication in which some of the players believe that everyone has agreed that sex=death and some believe otherwise; C) Have some player violating social contract by enforcing his will that sex=death even though it isn't in the social contract.

I think B happens an awful lot, personally.  Xero's point was that A is a big deal too, and I fully agree.  As a player you have no one to blame but yourself with any of these problems since they are social in nature.  It might be argued that C isn't really your fault, but if you aren't working to fix it you are contributing to the problem.

Thomas

[clehrich]

Let me point out in passing that "choose a game that's right for you and your group" is the primary practical focus of the whole Big Model.  The idea is to figure out what sort of Creative Agenda is embedded in a game, and how that is effected through mechanics of various sorts.  From this, you figure out whether that is a game you actually want to play.  And the basic implication of System Does Matter, in this context, is that you cannot know the answers to these questions---and thus whether you will like the game---without considering the system as well as the setting and the advertising rhetoric.  The idea there is just that people tend to pick up games that sound cool because of the presentation and the setting; the system, however, is the dominant textual factor determining what play will be like, so you may love the setting and the presentation but hate the game.

[CPXB]

One of the things that this also assumes is the needs of the players during the game stay static.  The player, initially, might have been honestly behind the sex is death slasher movie mechanic, but as play progressed and things developed the player might have changed his view about the nature of the game.

IME, games are not very static.  As they are played, the needs of the players often change in ways that a very static and close ended set of rules is not capable of dealing with.

[Doctor Xero]

The only thing I would add is that the game text needs to be clear on how the system works, so that players don't go into the game expecting one thing and getting another.

The players have either: A) Chosen a bad game for themselves, one where sex=death despite the fact that some players don't want this; B) Had a miscommunication in which some of the players believe that everyone has agreed that sex=death and some believe otherwise; C) Have some player violating social contract by enforcing his will that sex=death even though it isn't in the social contract.

I think B happens an awful lot, personally.  Xero's point was that A is a big deal too, and I fully agree.

The idea there is just that people tend to pick up games that sound cool because of the presentation and the setting; the system, however, is the dominant textual factor determining what play will be like, so you may love the setting and the presentation but hate the game.

I also think this means that, in our game designs, we underestimate the severe importance of the introductory passages.  The introduction to a game is not simply color or persuasive commentary -- the introductory section is the portion in which the game designer(s) lays out the goals, emphases, and paradigmatic parameters of the game system.   Complaining about any accidental mismatches in a White Wolf game is nothing more than listless bitching unless we use these complaints to focus our own attention as designers on the skills we need for being explicit about the games we design.  Personally, I would like to see more posts in the game design section which include an introductory section which clarifies for the potential players (including game masters) the reasoning behind the particular mechanics chosen.

Some people, such as Sorenson and Arntson, are positively poetic in some of their introductions, making it clear why they chose the mechanics they included in their works.  I would like to see a greater emphasis on developing that aspect of game design in the Forge in addition to what we already focus on.

I am also concerned that we may be using terms such as "railroading" and "deprotagonization" a little too freely, almost as default tar for any game which could upset a player.  (I have a vague memory of someone stating that all game masters railroad and therefore game masters should be done away with altogether, but I do not recall whether that was posted on the Forge or on another gaming forum or website.)

One of the things that this also assumes is the needs of the players during the game stay static.  The player, initially, might have been honestly behind the sex is death slasher movie mechanic, but as play progressed and things developed the player might have changed his view about the nature of the game.

IME, games are not very static.  As they are played, the needs of the players often change in ways that a very static and close ended set of rules is not capable of dealing with.

I have seen a number of posts in various gaming groups in which players angrily assert that they feel the equivalent of deprotagonized whenever a rule they had known about all along (or never bothered to learn about) suddenly inconveniences them.  My thought is that it is a waste of time for us to care about such players -- let them feel deprotagonized or railroaded or such all they want, because in such cases it's their own damn fault.

That said, I agree with you that player needs often change.   It can be a difficult balancing act between keeping a game open to player growth or change and yet avoiding a coddling indulgence of capricious players or players who eschew an attention span.

Personally, I prefer those games which are clear in their restrictions because then I know what I'm in for and I can more easily gauge when it is time to switch to a different system.  (I played in one three year campaign which went through four different game systems as player needs and interests changed -- fortunately, our game master was wonderfully adept at translating the essence of a character from one system to another.)

Doctor Xero

[clehrich]

I also think this means that, in our game designs, we underestimate the severe importance of the introductory passages.  The introduction to a game is not simply color or persuasive commentary -- the introductory section is the portion in which the game designer(s) lays out the goals, emphases, and paradigmatic parameters of the game system.   Complaining about any accidental mismatches in a White Wolf game is nothing more than listless bitching unless we use these complaints to focus our own attention as designers on the skills we need for being explicit about the games we design.  Personally, I would like to see more posts in the game design section which include an introductory section which clarifies for the potential players (including game masters) the reasoning behind the particular mechanics chosen.

I'd generally agree, though I think it's extremely difficult to do this well for the range of the potential or desired audience.  White Wolf seems to me one of the great proponents (pioneers?  not sure) of using fictional in-character text to formulate this.  I find that stuff painful to read and infuriating, but god knows I am not be their target audience.  On the other hand, if you wrote a game that laid out in very formal and clear terms your design constraints, right at the start, it may be that much of WW's audience would say, "Yaddy yadda, get on with it," and skip to chapter 1, just as I do with WW games.

Clearly the ideal would be a very precise adequation of the desired audience to the style and genre of the introductory text, but that means you have to know your audience cold, you have to constrain that audience considerably, and you have to have masterful control of your prose.  The first two are plausible; I have never seen the third in any RPG, including my own, and I don't ever expect to.

I would like to see a greater emphasis on developing that aspect of game design in the Forge in addition to what we already focus on.

I seem to recall a lengthy couple of threads about this in the Publishing forum, but can't find them at the moment.  Could someone who remembers them better than I dig 'em up?

I am also concerned that we may be using terms such as "railroading" and "deprotagonization" a little too freely, almost as default tar for any game which could upset a player. ...
I have seen a number of posts in various gaming groups in which players angrily assert that they feel the equivalent of deprotagonized whenever a rule they had known about all along (or never bothered to learn about) suddenly inconveniences them.  My thought is that it is a waste of time for us to care about such players -- let them feel deprotagonized or railroaded or such all they want, because in such cases it's their own damn fault.

I wouldn't put it quite so harshly, but I agree with your general point... with one big caveat.

That is, an awful lot of games out there whose systems are so constructed that various forms of GM dominance and/or player-freedom constraint are critical to the system, do not make this clear or explicit.  It's in there, but you have to dig for it.  This is once again a writing problem, but it is extremely common; I venture to say that it's especially common in mainstream "big publisher" games that foreground "storytelling without limits" or the like.  Such games announce in big letters that the players are free to do whatever they like and the rules are just there to help out on the tricky bits; the rules actually do something else, however, requiring more traditional GM dominance and so on.  This is one form of what the Big Model calls "incoherence," and to my mind the only one that follows directly from the Model's practical formulation.

It is also worth bearing in mind that gamers are not always especially close readers---not unlike most people these days.  Furthermore, games are commonly a mishmash of many genres and formats, such that it can be difficult for even an effective reader to interpret precisely the implications of every piece of the text; I myself am pretty rotten at reading straight-up mechanics (numbers and rolls and stuff) and figuring out what this is going to mean in play, and I like to think I'm a pretty careful and precise reader.  So these factors make it even more difficult for a potential player to read the texts and understand what they entail for actual play.

This gets us to yet another writing issue, related to your point about introductions.  I personally think that in-character game-world fiction is a big mistake, because it doesn't tell you how the game plays.  It cannot do so, because it says nothing about system; to use Ron's terms again, it provides a "transcript" (a term I dislike, but that's the Glossary version) which as Ron notes says nothing about how it got that way.  To put that differently, those little bits of fiction are hypothetical products of play, and say little or nothing about the processes.

So my conclusion is that the introductory piece needs to:[list=1][*]Describe the process of play
[*]Be scrupulously accurate
[*]Be composed in elegant, clear prose
[*]Precisely fit the genre and style expectations and desires of the intended audience
[*]Exactly and rapidly formulate the feel and style of play, both process and product[/list:o]1 and 2 we can all do, and should, though we don't always.  3 we can all do with a hell of a lot of work.  4 and 5 are a nightmare.  Getting all five together in a clean, concise way is as difficult as writing a truly great short story, academic article, or any other form of masterful short prose.  As I say, I don't ever expect to see it happen in RPGs, but it should certainly be the ideal toward which we strive.

[Doctor Xero]

So my conclusion is that the introductory piece needs to:[list=1][*]Describe the process of play
[*]Be scrupulously accurate
[*]Be composed in elegant, clear prose
[*]Precisely fit the genre and style expectations and desires of the intended audience
[*]Exactly and rapidly formulate the feel and style of play, both process and product[/list:o]1 and 2 we can all do, and should, though we don't always.  3 we can all do with a hell of a lot of work.  4 and 5 are a nightmare.  Getting all five together in a clean, concise way is as difficult as writing a truly great short story, academic article, or any other form of masterful short prose.  As I say, I don't ever expect to see it happen in RPGs, but it should certainly be the ideal toward which we strive.

Seriously, take a look at some of the free RPGs of Sorenson and Arnst.  I can't find my copy right now, but I recall one of Sorenson's free RPGs had an introduction which seemed to perfectly capture the interrelationship between the setting/genre and the mechanics he'd devised.

Such games announce in big letters that the players are free to do whatever they like and the rules are just there to help out on the tricky bits; the rules actually do something else, however, requiring more traditional GM dominance and so on.  

Hmmm, I wonder if it could be said that a number of Big Company games utilize the game master as their free-floating patch-in so that they don't have to worry about making the product virtually bug-free?  The skillful game master is there to fix it for them while the unskilled game master takes the blame for them?

Or would that be another thread?

Doctor Xero

[clehrich]

Seriously, take a look at some of the free RPGs of Sorenson and Arnst.  I can't find my copy right now, but I recall one of Sorenson's free RPGs had an introduction which seemed to perfectly capture the interrelationship between the setting/genre and the mechanics he'd devised.

I'm not being clear.  I think those are very, very stong examples, no question.  But (1) clearly they don't always work, even for players of good faith; and (2) I really sort of meant an extreme ideal, a sort of "where is the Shakespeare of RPGs?"  I don't really expect to see one, ever.  Jared's great, and so is Zak, but let's not go overboard.

Hmmm, I wonder if it could be said that a number of Big Company games utilize the game master as their free-floating patch-in so that they don't have to worry about making the product virtually bug-free?  The skillful game master is there to fix it for them while the unskilled game master takes the blame for them?

Or would that be another thread?

Um, it's your thread, man.  If you think it fits the topic, it's your call.

[Mike Holmes]

I've seen people play Jared's games "incorrectly". No matter that his instuctions are short and very clear.

Two points, one short, and one real long.

1.  If they aren't going to read and try to do what you wrote, there's nothing you can do about that as a designer. So we won't worry it.

2. In the case given, however, the player who rejects the particular rule in question may in fact be doing something akin to 'conscientiously objecting" or "civil disobedience." Remember that people playing an RPG are under no particular pressure to play by the rules as written - in point of fact, I'd say they usually don't do so. Or at the very least they have some very creative interpretations of the rules.

The point being that the rule that's in the text, and the rule that's used are two different things. In fact the set of rules used in play really only becomes cemented once they're actually used. Between those two points there's often a lot of negotiation, alteration, and all sorts of things going on that result in the end agreement on rules.

When you have a rule like the example, particularly, a rule that comes up only rarely in play, often the decision to adopt the rule from the text is really a tacit one. We haven't said we wouldn't use it, so we must be using it, given that we've generally agreed to use the rules as we understand them from the text.

So in this case, it's like a supreme court challenge to the rule. It's not automatically dysfunctional. In many cases, at this point, the other players will simply see the reasoning behind the players tactit attempt to change the rules, and agree to it tacitly, too. It may never even get discussed. Or maybe it does, "Hey, that's not fair, the ruels say he's supposed to die!"

It's only dysfunctional when there's no final agreement on this, tacit or explicit. This is one of the many ways that drift occurs.

Take an example, the old "Death in Chargen" rule from Traveler first edition (pre-book 5 release). I've actually seen players ignore this rule. They actually roll the survival roll, until they fail, and then say, "That's a stupid rule," the Referee agrees, and play proceeds with the rules altered.

Players have a responsibility, but that's not just to accept the rules as written out of the book. The responsibility is to play by the rules as agreed to by all of the participants. For some groups that might be iron-clad adherence to the strictures of the text. For others it might change minute to minute with the wind. Even the allowable rate of change is actually part of the social contract with regards to this. I'm an inveterate tinkerer with rules, but I limit myself to only suggesting changes between sessions, and only making major changes to my suggested ruleset between entire games. But, again, that's my personal conditions, and others probably work as well.

So I don't think there's any particular imperative, except to work with the other players to make sure that all of this is making everyone happy. Fortnately it's pretty easy stuff.

Mike

[Kedamono]

I have seen a number of posts in various gaming groups in which players angrily assert that they feel the equivalent of deprotagonized whenever a rule they had known about all along (or never bothered to learn about) suddenly inconveniences them. My thought is that it is a waste of time for us to care about such players -- let them feel deprotagonized or railroaded or such all they want, because in such cases it's their own damn fault.

That said, I agree with you that player needs often change. It can be a difficult balancing act between keeping a game open to player growth or change and yet avoiding a coddling indulgence of capricious players or players who eschew an attention span.

Personally, I prefer those games which are clear in their restrictions because then I know what I'm in for and I can more easily gauge when it is time to switch to a different system. (I played in one three year campaign which went through four different game systems as player needs and interests changed -- fortunately, our game master was wonderfully adept at translating the essence of a character from one system to another.)

I agree with the good doctor that it is the player's own damn fault. And in my experience the type of player who complains about the rules and being railroaded, is your basic munchkin. It is not a matter of being "railroaded", it is a matter of "losing". They don't want to lose, whatever that means. They also want their characters to be the biggest and baddest people in the game world, which in some cases is impossible.

Having run a five year long Narrative campaign, the primary rule we followed was that limitations were good. A character who can do whatever they want is boring. A character with limitations is not only interesting, but can lead to interesting stories.

The trick here is to convince a player who is looking for escapism that limitations are a good thing. And I'm all for the limitations being imposed by the player, rather than by the system... and that's difficult to get across to some people. (I mean if they ignore the rules as this thread implies, role playing suggestions will pass through their heads unimpeded.)

[Marco]

Hmmm, I wonder if it could be said that a number of Big Company games utilize the game master as their free-floating patch-in so that they don't have to worry about making the product virtually bug-free? The skillful game master is there to fix it for them while the unskilled game master takes the blame for them?

I think this does belong here. Choice of game--or choice of situation within game (i.e. we're playing D&D but this will be a no-dungeons, all town game) is very much part of player responsiblity.

The games you're mentioning just simplify the discussion. If we decide to play Dogs in the Vinyard we don't need to have a discussion about who we are and what we do in the general sense (We're Dogs, we fight evil).

I think the criteria against which D&D 3.5 was created was far different than that.  For one thing I think they decided it *had* to work with a computer (I don't know this for a fact, but I'm pretty sure) and therefore, the idea that the GM is just a 'free patch' is, IMO, pretty mistaken.

Secondly, large companies plan to sell their game to a wide audience who will do anything from play it once with 2 players to play it for 10 years with 10 PC's. That's a tall order and, you know, I think they did a pretty good job of meeting it.

It's quite acceptable for an indie game maker to say "I am making a game that mimics Lovecraft's stories--and since most of Lovecraft's stories only had a single protagonist, well: there you go. This game is only for 1 on 1 roleplaying."*

WotC can't do that. Most people who plan to sell a lot of books can't do that. I can sell a general game (Adventure!) to practically everyone on RPG.net. I can't do that with a game of more limited scope.

Thirdly, I doubt anyone thinks that inexperienced GM's will be the fallguy for their rules-set. I suspect that they, IMO often correctly, ascertain that for many groups the creative and presentational abilities of the GM will many times during play be more important than the rules to the enjoyment of the game.

-Marco
*[ Note: I would love to buy a game based on Iain Bank's Culture series. A discussion on RPG.net convinced me that it's probably not something that would be commercially viable without greatly modifiying the background because of things like player-direction, difficulty in running the minds, and multiple protagonists. ]

[Mike Holmes]

Oh, I dunno, Marco. I think that the "Golden Rule" is precisely the designers saying, "We can't make it work for everyone, so just fix it when it doesn't work right for you."

I'm not being judgemental about that, either. I mean it works as a marketing tactic. And we have no data about how often the rule is actually used - maybe the games that have it, have included it unneccessarily because they play very well as written.

To some extent, the quality of play is on the GM no matter what. That's undeniable. So to what extent is it a GM "Filling in" and to what extent is it neccessary GM fiat required to make a game go? I think we could debate that until we're blue in the face.

In any case, I'd agree that D&D 3.5 is pretty damn good for these purposes. So quit putting words in the mouths of the indie designers other than yourself, Marco.

Mike