[Middle Earth - home brew] - last week - Repost

[contracycle]

Reading this, the view that "none of you feebs understand whats really going on here" and similar sentiments do seem to suggest to me that this player may be gamist.  Certainly I have shown a propensity for similar decisions, and so I think have the most gamist of players I have gamed with.  On that assumption I'm laying out how I would respond.  I do not actually think that the observation that the player is conflict-avoidant mitigates a gamist diagnosis - thats often good strategy.

My proposition then is to demonstrate to him that "NPC's play hardball too".  This may be especially pertinent if there is a history of cushioning players from the consequences of their actions.  That might be appropriate for other players, I don't think its appropriate for gamists, and probably not this one.  I suspect his past successes, combined with cushioning, give him quite a bit of room to rationalise his way out of any unpleasantnesses.

The first thing I would seek to establish firmly is that the Elvish king would have been within his rights to take his head.  The most effective way for this to happen would be to have the dwarvish kingdom back down in some form.  IMO the least effective method would be to try to have the other players apply persuasive pressure; I think this is rather a case of "you've made your bed and now you'll have to lie in it" and the other players are better cast as sympathisers than critics.

One suitable way to do this, for example, as it appears the dwarves are already mobilising, might be to have the two armies draw up, and the kings meet to negotiate in the field.  Perhaps rather than fight a bloody battle over a (percieved) insult, they agree to settle it through champions, and the dwarvish king sends this player out to literally fight his own battle.  Or, perhaps Elvish diplomats come to the dwarvish court and argue that the dwarf king should send the PC's head home with them in a box to keep the peace.   Or demands an exorbitant honour-price for the offence given their king.  The point is to put someone who can speak to the other point of view into the dwarvish court so that the players interpretation of events is no the only one aired.

The purpose here is to detach the player from his source of support and backup; to demonstrate that if he expects to retain the ability to call on that support, he has to subordinate his immediate feelings to the needs of the group as a whole.  The group as a whole probably doesn't want to get into a war with the elves over an avoidable insult.  The player may well feel that this is unfair, given his reading of the "necessities" of circumstance, but he's unlikely to be able to hold a grudge for words spoken from NPC mouths; thats how you voice "other points of view" in the game itself.  the GM is not obliged to play NPC's as relentlessly rational, and you can use this to soak up some perceptions of the justness of the cause.

[Lee Short]

My first reaction to this was "OK, so the GM wants to replay the story of King Thingol and the dwarves, and the players are playing along."  And there may still be some validity to that reading.  Frankly, I think it explains a lot about why the dwarves chose to take up arms in this case.  The GM gets to play out the story he wants.  But from Chuck's point of view, it's another example of playing hardball and getting what he wants as a result.  

From Chuck's side, I think contracycle has nailed it -- both in diagnosis and solution.  It sounds like, every time Chuck has played hardball, he has gotten what he wants out of it.  The NPCs have refused to play effective hardball in return.  I think contracycle has adequately pointed out the in-game reasons how they could do this.  The real question is:  why hasn't the GM done this, on a player level?

[Silmenume]

Heya contracycle,

I'll withhold judgment on the diagnosis of Gamist for now and move on to the next part.

My proposition then is to demonstrate to him that "NPC's play hardball too".

That "fact" has been firmly established in the world generally and with this Player specifically.  The GM has a KIA file of probably over 1,500 Character sheets.  This same player lost a Character not too many months ago to an NPC that didn't care for his Character's attitude.  Actually this particular incident ended with a near total party kill.

Not only are player Character's killed, they can be captured and tortured in gruesome detail.  NPC's can, and have, wiped out entire families or even villages, or in one case nearly an entire people (The Dunedain) where players lost multiple Characters in one session.

The first thing I would seek to establish firmly is that the Elvish king would have been within his rights to take his head.

Trust me when I say that we all firmly and deeply understand this position.  It was probably why he went off the deep end so fast.  I am guessing that he felt that primarily because the Elvish King could do just about anything he wanted that the player felt he had nothing to lose since he felt that his Dwarf was probably dead from the get go.  Mind you that is a guess on his interpretation as until the Dwarf insulted the Elven king to a state of fury there was no threat or hint of threat on said Dwarf's life from the King.

However this is not an issue of "rights" but of power - for both sides.  The Elvish king did have a "right" to be insulted, but then the Dwarf did have a "right" to feel that he was being dealt with in a less than honest fashion.  Both sides had legitimate beefs, borne of hubris that were handled in a catastrophically poor manner.

The most effective way for this to happen would be to have the dwarvish kingdom back down in some form. IMO the least effective method would be to try to have the other players apply persuasive pressure; I think this is rather a case of "you've made your bed and now you'll have to lie in it" and the other players are better cast as sympathisers than critics.

I disagree with the Dwarfish kingdom backing down would have been effective.  This is where the Sim preference differs from the Gamist.  More devastating than losing a Character is the loss of an entire people who make up a huge component of the Dream world being Simulated.  Not only that, but this particular player loooooooooves the Dwarves and works very hard for their "cause" in the "world".  It is not unheard of in this game for players to sacrifice their Character to protect an NPC!  While loosing a Character almost certainly sucks major ass, it is the Dream as a whole which transcends a given Character.  (I don't know if I have mentioned this before or not, but we play folios of Characters.  This means the loss of a Character does not "remove" or put a player out of the game nor does it necessarily put a player at a huge disadvantage to the other players.  Also we don't play "troupe style" games where the loss of a Character would be extremely problematic.)

That the two realms run the risk of annihilating each other is a far greater risk/burden to a player than the loss of a single Character... At least for those who end up "fitting in" with our style of play over the long run.

The purpose here is to detach the player from his source of support and backup; to demonstrate that if he expects to retain the ability to call on that support, he has to subordinate his immediate feelings to the needs of the group as a whole.

Emphasis mine.

Actually when the Character was called before the king to recount his ordeal, he actually pled that King Dain not do anything that would cost the life of even a single Dwarf.  IOW he basically said, "I don't want to go to war over this."  The King's response was roughly, "That's noble of you, but I grow weary of this mock friendship with the Elves.  They forget who we are and if we don't act now they will remember that we did nothing."

So rather than have the Player pay a price via his Character, he was having the Player live out the consequences of his actions by facing the real possibility of being responsible for the end of the Dwarves as a race.  In this he could not call on any support to prevent it from happening.  The best recourse would have been exercising wisdom and prudence before he shot off his mouth.

On the following game session, which I have not posted, Gandalf arrived and tried to bargain for anything that would salve the ego of Dain – though not in so many words.  Dain basically said he would "consider" with a jewel worth a thousand times more than the one that was taken.  So Gandalf took the Dwarf and off the went to the Dead Marshes.  During this travel Gandalf, who had been the Dwarf's (Gralin) only friend while he (Gralin) was in exile from the Lonely Mountain, expressed great anger at Gralin for his foolishness.  This was a terrible blow as Gralin (Chuck) nearly worships Gandalf as the person who saved his life and helped restore his honor in the kingdom of the Lonely Mountain.  This may not sound like much, but when one is deep into Character such an exchange can be devastating.

Hey Lee,

But from Chuck's point of view, it's another example of playing hardball and getting what he wants as a result.

The problem is that the player did not get what he was seeking, which was to expiate a death burden.  Basically his insolence was the "last great (pointless) act of defiance" before he was robbed and left for dead in the dungeons – as he understood how events were unfolding.

It sounds like, every time Chuck has played hardball, he has gotten what he wants out of it.

Nope, he rarely does this, and he has lost Characters as a result.  This is not a way for playing effectively or long term – its just plain way to unpredictable and dangerous.  For both the player's Character and the world at large (that is the Dream as a whole).

The real question is:  why hasn't the GM done this, on a player level?

For two major reasons.  First is that this is not a black and white issue.  Second, and this is absolutely vital to understanding our mode of play, the GM basically lets us play our Characters any way we want, as long as the Players' take into account the history of the race/culture/Character.  What the Player did was not out of Character for his Character or his race, but it was emblematic of a problem that surfaced a couple of times at the Social Contract level.  So as long as the Player was not violating the socially based "rules" of the simulated world, then the GM really does not have much authority to say anything.

So there you have it – I'm off to bed cuz I'm tired.  Good night and thanks for your comments!

[contracycle]

I disagree with the Dwarfish kingdom backing down would have been effective.  This is where the Sim preference differs from the Gamist.  More devastating than losing a Character is the loss of an entire people who make up a huge component of the Dream world being Simulated.

... assuming it is Sim driving the action.  That may be true for the game overall, but may not be true to this player.  This looks dangerously like an is/ought error.

Actually when the Character was called before the king to recount his ordeal, he actually pled that King Dain not do anything that would cost the life of even a single Dwarf.  IOW he basically said, "I don't want to go to war over this."  The King's response was roughly, "That's noble of you, but I grow weary of this mock friendship with the Elves.  They forget who we are and if we don't act now they will remember that we did nothing."

OK.  But then I cannot see the problem, anymore.  The player went to make a gesture, which was frustrated.  Quite possibly from the players perspective, the GM had been sufficiently informed as to the players intentions, but then shut them down.  Then despite the anger of the Elvish king, the character is let go.  And then the dwarves decide they want to take up the cudgels despite his urging them not to.

The player does not seem to have much impact here - it looks much more like the GM is engineering a conflict between the elves and the dwarves.  Certainly I no longer feel the player should bear any responsibility for the ensuing conflict.

The best recourse would have been exercising wisdom and prudence before he shot off his mouth.

I'm not sure that flies, anymore - were his actions so unusual by Dwarvish standards, given the dwarf-kings response to the situation?


Anyway, its not my game.  But unfortunately I think that if you are dealing with a gamist player here, the level of character death you are able to accomodate is undermining the risk level of play.  I don't think that killing characters, or NPC's, constitute hardball in and of themselves; thats too easy to accomodate under the label "enemy".

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Actually when the Character was called before the king to recount his ordeal, he actually pled that King Dain not do anything that would cost the life of even a single Dwarf.  IOW he basically said, "I don't want to go to war over this."  The King's response was roughly, "That's noble of you, but I grow weary of this mock friendship with the Elves.  They forget who we are and if we don't act now they will remember that we did nothing."

I agree with Gareth, Jay:  reading this bit made my hackles rise.

Tell me if I'm off track here.  My feeling from your initial post was that the player may well have felt railroaded and acted out his anger when he was cheated out of delivering his gem to his dead friend's mother. He was obviously aiming a scene involving closure for the personal backstory, and possibly new ties between elves and dwarves - not being pressurised, imprisoned and stolen from.  Reading the play report I felt that the dwarf was played plausibly while the elven king's bandit-in-his-own-den approach jarred on me. It looks like the GM had a plan here that overrode everything else. (Whether he actually did or not is beside the point, what matters is what got across to the player.)

Your description of the ensuing scene with the PC's own king confirms my impression of a GM-override taking place.  

During this travel Gandalf, who had been the Dwarf's (Gralin) only friend while he (Gralin) was in exile from the Lonely Mountain, expressed great anger at Gralin for his foolishness.  This was a terrible blow as Gralin (Chuck) nearly worships Gandalf as the person who saved his life and helped restore his honor in the kingdom of the Lonely Mountain.  This may not sound like much, but when one is deep into Character such an exchange can be devastating.

The player had already stated that he didn't want his character to be responsible for the impending war, both in character (to Dain) and OOC to you folks. And the GM proceeds to hit him with the biggest hammer in his arsenal to tell him how very wrong and responsible he was? Hm. Why did that happen, do you think?  Was that the GM's way of telling the player that he'd been playing wrong? I hope not.

The problem is that the player did not get what he was seeking, which was to expiate a death burden.  Basically his insolence was the "last great (pointless) act of defiance" before he was robbed and left for dead in the dungeons – as he understood how events were unfolding.
[...]
Nope, he rarely does this, and he has lost Characters as a result.  This is not a way for playing effectively or long term – its just plain way to unpredictable and dangerous.  For both the player's Character and the world at large (that is the Dream as a whole).

You say he does that when he doesn't trust you people to come help him out. Can a feeling of being railroaded have something to do with that, as I suggested above? When a player feels railroaded there's little point in expecting him to trust in the other players to be able to help him - if the GM overrides his wishes then surely he'll override the other players as well.  

In this case what the player wanted (scene with dead friend's mother) was made impossible by the GM.  Elves who have gone west are gone for good and a dwarf can't follow them and return. How could you other players have helped him get what he wanted at this point? I don't see how, which means that I also don't see how trust issues on his side would have played into it.  (Trust issues with the GM, possibly, although the limited evidence we have available seems to suggest that the player may have been justified in those; trust issues with you other non-GM players otoh, no.)


Regarding whether he may be gamist:  

Reading this, the view that "none of you feebs understand whats really going on here" and similar sentiments do seem to suggest to me that this player may be gamist. Certainly I have shown a propensity for similar decisions, and so I think have the most gamist of players I have gamed with. [...] I do not actually think that the observation that the player is conflict-avoidant mitigates a gamist diagnosis - thats often good strategy.

I've experienced a sim player with precisely the same mindset: he always knew he thought what was "really going on" (and was brilliant at getting other players to believe him).  He was avoiding conflicts by obsessing about planning for dealing with them, and sometimes reached very good tactical decisions.

None of which means that your player necessarily is a simulationist like the guy I know, obviously.  It merely suggests that the evidence we have so far is inconclusive.

[LordSmerf]

Jay,

What Kerstin said with some expansion.  Was there any big reason that the intended recipient of the gift had gone West?  The more I think about this, the more I feel that I would be greatly upset with any GM who sprung that on me.  This was clearly something that had had multi-session build-up to closure.  There seems to have been a clear intention of what the player wanted to see, and then seemingly out of no where the GM says, "Ha!  Your plans can't happen!  Now deal with this other thing."

Part of the problem, of course, is that this is a complex situation and we only have pieces of it from you.  Anyway, my reaction is, "Wow, that GM isn't very nice.  What was he thinking depriving a player of something he clearly wanted?  He must have had a good reason, I wonder what it is."  And in reading your account I don't see a good reason.

Thoughts?

Thomas

[Silmenume]

Hey everyone,

What I find particularly interesting in all three of the previous threads is the mistaken assertion that the GM prevented the player from reaching his goal.  The GM certainly made it difficult for the player, but the player, and this is where our complaint lay, made no effort to navigate his way through the difficulty towards an equitable solution.  From the very first moment the player spoke with the King, he was haughty and rude.  Why is that important?  Because in this circumstance the one way through this situation depended almost solely on his ability to treat with the King.  However, because the player had no faith in the GM or the other players at the table, he took a bad situation, which he interpreted as hopeless, and immediately set about fanning into a devastating conflagration.

How do I know he didn't have faith in the GM, and this relates to the condemnation coming from all three posters above, because after the dwarf was released and the game stopped he said, "Well, there goes that scenario."  He explained that he figured that the Dwarf would demand to be led to/allowed to find Lisivas and deliver the gift in person.  On this journey the GM was going to weave in the rest of the PC's.  But that is merely hindsight.  However this is a typical pattern in our games where the seeking of a goal is made available by the GM, but is not guaranteed.  Strictly speaking unless the player is on his game, he is NOT going to get to his goals.  Conversely we all know that the opportunity for success is there if one is willing to put the effort in and deal with the intervening complications.  We all know that and it is a major reason for our play.  The GM's credo is "Give them what they want, just not in the form the expect it."  This means that the GM had intended for the player to deliver the gem!  On the flip side of the coin, I never said Chuck was unhappy that he was unable to complete his task.  He said that he would have happily kept the gem if she was not there, it being so beautiful and all.  All in all he was happy because he got to be "intensely emotionally involved/expressive."  

This is interesting – what bothered me was that he felt satisfied while the rest of us saw the Dream going up in flames.

Quite possibly from the players perspective, the GM had been sufficiently informed as to the players intentions, but then shut them down.

The GM did not shut down the player's intentions; the player pulled the pin and dropped the grenade down his own shorts.  Yes, the GM made things difficult, but he always makes things difficult – but he did not make them impossible.  That was the player's choice, and from all the rest of player's reactions at the table mine included, we felt that he should have known better.  However, we all recognize this is a subjective situation so there is no "right" answer or call on this.

By the way, this whole thread was offered up to give an example of a problematic event to illustrate what is and isn't important to our style of play.  I'm not really looking for solutions so much as to show what is important to us Simmers in our game.

...were his actions so unusual by Dwarvish standards, given the dwarf-kings response to the situation?

His complete lack of any deference to a king is a bit unusual by Dwarvish standards.  A dwarf would understand the consequences of his actions, and the way he acted would absolutely lead, under the circumstances (read – give the king no other option) to some sort of punitive actions.

I don't think that killing characters, or NPC's, constitute hardball in and of themselves; thats too easy to accomodate under the label "enemy".

It does in Sim – certainly in our game.  Remember this is a game where players have given up Characters trying to save NPC's.

The player does not seem to have much impact here - it looks much more like the GM is engineering a conflict between the elves and the dwarves.  Certainly I no longer feel the player should bear any responsibility for the ensuing conflict.

Not so.  He totally derailed an entire scenario.  He basically put events into play that led to the mobilization for war.  Do things grow out of control?  Absolutely.  It happens in the real world all the time and it happens in our game world.  They're called flashpoints.  Minor or trivial events spiral out to major consequences/complications.  

The player certainly did understand that if things went wrong that it could lead to war, this was not lost on anyone at the table before he left the mountain to try and make his delivery.  IOW that he was there, and came in the "red armor," made him a representative of the Dwaven people and King Dain specifically.  Thus when he was acting rudely towards Thranduil before any demands were made to just see the gem, he was perceived as the Dwarven race being rude towards the Elves.  Yes, Thranduil was being a grabby weasely conniver, but a Dwarf should have understood the ramifications of his actions and realized that he's making a statement for his people just by being there.  That the Dwarf started off being arrogant and ungracious despite the initial circumstances would not be wise in a "geo-political" sense – and the player understands that as he plays on that level fairly often with some of his other Characters.

Regarding the Elven king; I leave you with this quote from the Complete Guide to Middle-Earth (which the GM does reference) -

...Thranduil had a love for jewels and riches, and it may have been that this love led to excesses, especially with the Dwarves.

Hey Kerstin!

...he was cheated out of delivering his gem to his dead friend's mother.

Actually the elf was not a friend per say but a random benefactor.  As far as cheating opportunities, the player torpedoed the possibilities himself.  The way was not closed by Thranduil's/GM's design but as a reaction to the character's/player's insolence.

The player had already stated that he didn't want his character to be responsible for the impending war, both in character (to Dain) and OOC to you folks.

He never actually said anything to us OOC saying that he didn't want war.  Several days ago I was with both the player in question and the GM and the GM asked the player if he was worried about the impending war and the player responded, "No.  Actually Gralin was looking forward to it."  To which the GM responded, "Then I guess I failed."

He was obviously aiming a scene involving closure for the personal backstory, and possibly new ties between elves and dwarves - not being pressurised, imprisoned and stolen from.  Reading the play report I felt that the dwarf was played plausibly while the elven king's bandit-in-his-own-den approach jarred on me. It looks like the GM had a plan here that overrode everything else. (Whether he actually did or not is beside the point, what matters is what got across to the player.)

That's a telling assumption, as we don't angle for "scenes."  We have intentions that we like to fulfill, but that is never guaranteed, we just get opportunities to try and make it happen.  Trying means that there will be complications and it is up to the player to deal with them.  No one complained that the Dwarf wasn't played plausibly, I certainly did not.  We felt he was played foolishly.  Now there are foolish Characters, but the manner in which the player handled these circumstances was similar to how he handled himself in other similar circumstances and thus we saw the player showing through and not necessarily the Character.  This is open to debate, but what we saw wasn't so much a break in Character as much as a break in the Social Contract.  About not being pressured – that is a fixture and a primary element in our style of play.  Everything we do has some pressure, the more important the event and or the Characters involved, the more pressure that is applied.  Regarding the Elven King's bandit-in-his-own-den approach I refer you to the above quote.

...And the GM proceeds to hit him with the biggest hammer in his arsenal to tell him how very wrong and responsible he was? Hm. Why did that happen, do you think?  Was that the GM's way of telling the player that he'd been playing wrong? I hope not.

Gandalf did not lecture the Character, he merely said, "I am angry with you, but I do not abandon you."  Why did this happen?  Because Gandalf had to pull himself off of some very important missions to deal with what was essentially a pissing match that this Character had started.  Gandalf has his hands full dealing with Sauron's machinations and the foolishness of humans.  He doesn't have time to deal with peoples who have more wisdom than they displayed and should know better.  Remember that the GM also supported the player's actions via the support of the Dwarves as a whole.  So in one voice he tells the player he is foolish, and with another voice he is telling the player he has been unjustly victimized.  Its up to the player(s) to decide how to give meaning to the events.

You say he does that when he doesn't trust you people to come help him out. Can a feeling of being railroaded have something to do with that, as I suggested above? When a player feels railroaded there's little point in expecting him to trust in the other players to be able to help him - if the GM overrides his wishes then surely he'll override the other players as well.

The GM did not override his wishes, and as a veteran player of the campaign, 20+ years, he should know better.  He had, granted only a very few, unexplored options open to him, but we all felt that he was not "railroaded."  He was in a tough situation, but he of his own choice and volition willfully made it much worse, not better – and nearly brought much woe to the rest of us players.  Did he not think the other player Character's would to try and aid him?  Did he not have faith in his companions to affect some sort of rescue or at least address the situation?  He torpedoed the situation as if it was some last great act of defiance where he had absolutely no other options, but he did have other choices – which included placing some faith in the other players.  Remember the Character was ultimately sent to the dungeons with his gem – it wasn't until he called the king of thief a second or third time that the king in a frothing anger (the GM said that one could almost see flames flickering off of Thranduil's brow!) snatched the gem from him.  The player baited the king and I don't know about you, but to me that is always an extremely foolish if not fatal game to play!

Hey Thomas,

Was there any big reason that the intended recipient of the gift had gone West?

I don't think I had mentioned this in my original post, which I take full responsibility for, but Thranduil said that she had only recently left and could find her.  IOW she had not yet reached the Grey Haven's.  This meant that the NPC was not out of reach and if the player thought about it, that meant that he could still reach her.  So the GM had not negated the opportunity, but merely moved it away from the Character.  In game he justified it in a thoroughly reasonable manner that the mother had grown weary of the world and that her heart had grown heavy from the lost of her only born.  Out of game, from what I understand, the GM had moved the NPC so that the dwarf would be forced to follow her and in the process weave in the rest of player characters.  The GM was hoping then to play out a big emotional scene between the Elf mother and the Dwarf that would have been "paid for" by the difficulties the player dealt with in the journey itself.  Climbing Mount Everest would not be emotionally rewarding if it was easy.

We don't "play" emotions; we try and evoke real emotions.  This means the GM makes things difficult so that emotional tenor of the game is high and usually this is extremely satisfying.  However, how people react emotionally to events varies from person to person and is an inexact art.

..."Wow, that GM isn't very nice.  What was he thinking depriving a player of something he clearly wanted?  He must have had a good reason, I wonder what it is."  And in reading your account I don't see a good reason.

Again, I say the GM did not "deprive" the player of something he wanted.  The player slammed the door shut, not the GM.  Also this throwing in of difficulties is something always happens.  This over coming of difficulties increases the value of the act itself.  If the hero gets the girl in the beginning with out any struggle it is both boring and not emotionally engaging.  Now if there are ups and downs, struggles and conflicts, well then that suddenly becomes very interesting – and if he wins the girl over then we have a feeling for the depth of his feelings by what he was willing to endure.  Same here.  The more we go through as players the greater our emotional payoff.  That the Character ran into difficulties came as NO surprise to the player or any of us spectators.  What surprised both us spectators AND the GM was how said player self-destructed the situation.  The GM had guessed the player would push to know the whereabouts of the Elf and had not expected said player to piss all over a king.  This was supposed to be a grand coda, not a disaster.

However – what happens is what happens and our role is to deal with how the chips fall...

Thank you everyone for your interest!

[LordSmerf]

I don't think I had mentioned this in my original post, which I take full responsibility for, but Thranduil said that she had only recently left and could find her. IOW she had not yet reached the Grey Haven's. This meant that the NPC was not out of reach and if the player thought about it, that meant that he could still reach her. So the GM had not negated the opportunity, but merely moved it away from the Character. In game he justified it in a thoroughly reasonable manner that the mother had grown weary of the world and that her heart had grown heavy from the lost of her only born. Out of game, from what I understand, the GM had moved the NPC so that the dwarf would be forced to follow her and in the process weave in the rest of player characters. The GM was hoping then to play out a big emotional scene between the Elf mother and the Dwarf that would have been "paid for" by the difficulties the player dealt with in the journey itself. Climbing Mount Everest would not be emotionally rewarding if it was easy.

Ooooooooh...  Now things make a bit more sense...

New round of questions (if you're not sick of them already):  Have similar situations arisen in the past?  Did they result in "hopeless" situations?  Basically: if this was a veteran player, is there any reason that he might have believed that his character was about to get screwed over from past experience?  Would it have been reasonable for him to assume that his character would be treated unfairly by the king?

Thomas

[contracycle]

What I find particularly interesting in all three of the previous threads is the mistaken assertion that the GM prevented the player from reaching his goal.  The GM certainly made it difficult for the player, but the player, and this is where our complaint lay, made no effort to navigate his way through the difficulty towards an equitable solution.

Well, I just cannot see how that makes sense on the situation as it has been given at the moment.  I mean here's this guy, he has this tremendously valuable and desirable thing, and he volunteers to give it away.  That does not look like selfish or disrespectful play; it looks thematic and colourful.  And then he goes on this journey, and divests himself of his important armour, and so presents himself vulnerable and almost in sackcloth and ashes to the elvish king all to answer a personally felt debt.  And the GM says "you can't - she's gone".

This is why I don't understand the allegation that the player pulled the pin.  Are you saying that actually she was NOT gone, and that if the player had been sufficiently diplomatic that king would have eventually relented and allowed him to deliver his gift?

It looks to me that this act on the GM's part is essentially de-protagonising.  The player has exposed himself to unneccessary risk, and the GM immediately kicked him in the nads.  If that happened to me, I'd be very wary of letting my guard down ever again.

Secondly there were a number of ways, it seems to me, to resolve this situation without casting blame on the player.  Given, as it seems, that player death is not that big a deal, it might arguably have been more elegant to simply kill the dwarf and send the body back with his companions (sans gem).  The Elvish king could stand on wounded pride, and the dwarves seek revenge, and none of it would have required major dispute at the table, because it is manifestly an unfair and brutal act by an NPC.

But that is merely hindsight. However this is a typical pattern in our games where the seeking of a goal is made available by the GM, but is not guaranteed. Strictly speaking unless the player is on his game, he is NOT going to get to his goals. Conversely we all know that the opportunity for success is there if one is willing to put the effort in and deal with the intervening complications. We all know that and it is a major reason for our play. The GM's credo is "Give them what they want, just not in the form the expect it." This means that the GM had intended for the player to deliver the gem!

But in the event, the GM seems to have taken careful aim and blown his own foot off.  The GM wanted the stone to be delivered, but told the character it could not be, in the voice of an NPC who could not be challenged?  How can the player be blamed for acting on the information given to them by the GM?

But there was another point I wanted to make here.  At one point, my players virtually grabbed my be the lapels and screamed into my face "can't we just have one plan work once for gods sake!"  I had been too busy generating complications and conflict for them to develop any satisfaction in a well executed idea, and this left them constantly frustrated.  So, I warn that it is possible for the GMing style you describe here to get a bit carried away and become counterproductive.

It does in Sim – certainly in our game. Remember this is a game where players have given up Characters trying to save NPC's.

This was regarding hardball.  I know what you mean, but as the GM I can burn down whole cities and slaughter thousands of NPC's in a single declarative statement.  And a PC dying to save an NPC might be construed as a victory, rather than a defeat.  Theres a big difference between going down heroically before overwhelming odds and being beaten on the field by a better opponent.  Thats why I say character deaths are not necessarily  hardball, in terms of the experience of play.

Not so. He totally derailed an entire scenario. He basically put events into play that led to the mobilization for war. Do things grow out of control? Absolutely. It happens in the real world all the time and it happens in our game world. They're called flashpoints. Minor or trivial events spiral out to major consequences/complications.

But from the play as described, it would seem to me that the Elf king put events into play that lead to war, not the player.  The PC looks like patsy used by the elf king for a provocation.

...Thranduil had a love for jewels and riches, and it may have been that this love led to excesses, especially with the Dwarves.

Right.  But the way this played out, it appears more like the dwarves are culpable of rudeness than that the elf  king is guilty of greed.  Thats the whole basis for blame being layed on the players head.

--

I know you only posted this to illustrate what your group cares about in terms of CA.  But the interpretation appears sufficiently dubious to me that it reinforces my perception that you and the player may in fact have different CA's.  This would certainly explains the radically different views, and their irreconcilability.  So I just want to say that I am not trying to poor cold water on your game or criticise for crticisisms sake.

[Silmenume]

Hey Thomas,

Ooooooooh...  Now things make a bit more sense...

You have no idea how red faced I am about that minor omission!  Sorry about that.  Onward to new, and hopefully, ever more fruitful questions and answers!

Have similar situations arisen in the past?

I'm a little uncertain what you mean by "similar" Situations.  By similar do you mean Situations that are as difficult to navigate (with all sorts of "social dynamics" in play) and are as laden with enormous potential for disaster?  If so then, yes, all the time.  Typically speaking, this is kinda where we like the game.  This tense, bring all your faculties to bear, intense and nearly impossible Situation really submerses one into the Dream. The GM refers to them as Kobayashi Marus – tests of Character (player) where there is no "real right answer."  If you mean "similar" Situations as in the conditions are "physically" similar then I require more clarification on your part, please.

Basically: if this was a veteran player, is there any reason that he might have believed that his character was about to get screwed over from past experience?

It depends on what you mean by "screwed over."  If you mean "screwed over" as in the player would be raped of his goods and he would have essentially no input?  Then the answer is primarily no.  If your definition of "screwed over" means that the GM makes it extremely difficult for a player to easily and directly execute his plan, then that happens all the time.  However, none of us players view this as "screwing over."  We view it as the difficulties inherent in the game process – i.e., conflict.  This conflict, or I should more accurately say, the potential fallout from how one deals with conflict is one of the primary activities that makes the game so exciting.

Would it have been reasonable for him to assume that his character would be treated unfairly by the king?

Again, this comes down to definition.  What do you mean by "unfairly."  Strictly speaking, Kings in this game have tremendous authority, especially one in charge of such an important realm as the Mirkwood Elves.  Do all kings just throw their authority around in our game?  No.  Elrond and Galadriel are very powerful, but are wise and gentle as well.  Adrahil was a "good" king.  Thranduil is "not so good."  He is not in league with "evil," but he is vain.

In the Hobbit, Thranduil demanded payment for their allies the Men of Lake Town as well as their own economic losses as a result of the Dwarven actions provoking Smaug.  They almost went to war over that matter twice until Bilbo intervened.  Long is the memory of Dwarves, especially where gold is concerned.  Conversely the Elves has perfect memory and Thranduil is both vain and does have a weakness for gems and jewelry.  Both the Dwarves and the specific player know these facts.  Thus, in answering your question, did the player have reason to believe that he would be "treated unfairly" by the king?  Well, he certainly was wary.  He brought a company of 23 addition Dwarves with him.  My guess is that he did feel the king would try and pull "something," but whether the player felt that Thranduil would try something that would end up in war, I don't know.  My feeling, and apparently the feeling of all the rest of the players at the table, was that while we felt that Thranduil would try and "manipulate events" and "pressure" the Dwarf we did not feel that he would nakedly assault the Dwarf in question.  Even kings have to deal with consequences – i.e., war.

So whether or not the player felt he would be treated "unfairly" depends on whether there is a basis for him to believe that the world is "fair."  The player was certainly cautious and there was a palpable concern at the table as he set off.  We "knew" that there would be trouble of some sort.  So that the player did indeed run into "trouble" was itself neither "unfair" nor unexpected.  In the whole discourse between the Dwarf and the Elven king, the king never threatened the Dwarf until the Dwarf baited the king by calling him thief.  Was the king acting "innocently" or honorably?  No.  Did the king force or threaten the Dwarf to give up his gem until the Dwarf disrespected the king in his own hall?  No.  Did the GM place the player in a difficult Situation?  You bet.  Was that unusual or unexpected?  No.

Hey contracycle,

This is why I don't understand the allegation that the player pulled the pin.  Are you saying that actually she was NOT gone, and that if the player had been sufficiently diplomatic that king would have eventually relented and allowed him to deliver his gift?

She was no longer in his realm, but Thranduil intimated that she was still in Middle Earth traveling to the Gray Havens and that he could find her whereabouts readily.  To your question about being sufficiently diplomatic, the answer is most likely yes.  Certainly antagonizing and being rude are not ways to win over a vain and powerful king.  But more than that, the player's actions recklessly pushed the situation from local to "global" and the player is well more than savvy enough to know that.

What does this mean?  In game we as players have to accept what he does and play on it as it unfolds without comment.  After the game, though, it is not uncommon for a player to say something like, "I didn't mean to ruin X, but I was playing what I felt was appropriate."  And that's very cool.  What he is saying is that he understands the ramifications of his actions and they did have a negative impact on the other players and that he did not purposefully/intend to poop on the players' Dream via the SIS.

Our problem is that he is utterly unyielding on the possibility that he could have damaged or put into jeopardy the Dream for the other players.

It looks to me that this act on the GM's part is essentially de-protagonising.  The player has exposed himself to unneccessary risk, and the GM immediately kicked him in the nads.  If that happened to me, I'd be very wary of letting my guard down ever again.

See, here is the red letter difference between Sim and Gamism and especially Narrativism.  Player input during the game is limited to their Character.  The only way to a GM can deprotagonize a player's decision in Sim is either to prevent/withhold a decision or vacate one already made.  The types of decisions available to a player during a game are strictly limited to the events unfolding within the SIS.  Thus the GM making matters difficult for the player to deliver the gem is not deprotagonizing, but actually an essential and integral aspect of our play.  We don't play conflict resolution but task resolution (as I understand the terms to mean – which can be completely incorrect.)  A player has no say during a game about "where he wants the story to go."  Also our input is understood to be the form of an Intention, not an Execution.  Well, we may intend a lot of things as players, but as the hoary old adage goes, "no plan stands up to contact with the enemy."  Actually, this is a truism for us and something that is celebrated in the sense that the game really "picks up" precisely when dealing with these difficulties.

Secondly there were a number of ways, it seems to me, to resolve this situation without casting blame on the player.  Given, as it seems, that player death is not that big a deal, it might arguably have been more elegant to simply kill the dwarf and send the body back with his companions (sans gem).  The Elvish king could stand on wounded pride, and the dwarves seek revenge, and none of it would have required major dispute at the table, because it is manifestly an unfair and brutal act by an NPC.

Regarding your assertion that Character death "not that big a deal"; I don't believe that to be sound.  In Sim the loss of a Character is always a major event.  Sometimes it can be made less painful in the knowledge or hope that some "good" will come of it, but Character loss always diminishes the player's ability to Bricole.  That is all those objects contained within the object known as "the Character", the attendant meanings created within and thus that particular worldview are removed from the player's "shed".  In a sense you lose a part of yourself in as much as the Character was partly you as wished yourself to be.  But also remember all those in game friendships are gone, all those hopes contained with that Character will never be realized, etc.

However, I am fascinated by your thought that there was an intention by anybody, especially the GM, to create a "fall guy."  This scenario was not structured to create a Situation so that "blame" could be laid at the feet of a player, nor was there a "story" already waiting to be played out a head of time.  The GM creates or shall I say frames the beginning events, motivates the NPC's, and takes an educated guess as to which direction or how the players will handle events.  IOW he creates vectors – pushes events into motion (creates conflicts), but all that requires a starting place.  Once the foundation is laid and the events are put into motion, then what happens from there is pretty much based upon what unfolds from within the SIS and not primarily by some outside guiding force.  I would say the GM frames aggressively at the start and then more or less surrenders "control" to the players as the game progresses.  Remember the GM too must adhere to the strictures of bricolage.  Yes, he can introduce new elements to the shed, but those objects must "fit into the shed" and how he puts the objects together must also follow (or at least give a nod to) the "myth" already extant.

There is another notion above that is interesting in how it highlights how Sim works.  You described a possible scene whereby the GM could have accomplished setting up the circumstances for a war – IOW your suggestion is basically a GM created plot or story point.  The assumption here is that the GM could/should have been willing to off a Character just to push a story element so that the GM could control the unfolding of his "story" and in this way avoid controversy at the table while moving events where he wanted them to go.  However, let me tell you, this solution would have us rioting at the table!

As I indicated above, neither the GM nor the players take PC loss lightly.  Second to just kill a PC outright for story control is deprotagonization.  Third, as I indicated before, the GM did not start the scenario angling to create a war between the two kingdoms.  Forth, its not the playing out of "plot" that matters, it's the players interactions with (the decision making about) the "setting elements" (which includes everything in the SIS that is not that particular player/character) that matters.  To remove that necessary interaction by killing the PC outright so that the GM could forward his goals is an absolute violation of our Social Contract and Sim in general as that does totally deprotagonize/nullify the player's input.  IOW no matter what the Character did within the SIS nothing would change the outcome – the GM was still going to kill him.  That is verbotin.  Even in Situations that do become extremely desperate, there was always some out before they got there.  Even then the GM gives a player a hero's saving throw, in which some other event might transpire to hold off incipient death.  However, what he isn't allowed to do is give the player absolutely no opportunity for effective input.

But in the event, the GM seems to have taken careful aim and blown his own foot off.  The GM wanted the stone to be delivered, but told the character it could not be, in the voice of an NPC who could not be challenged?  How can the player be blamed for acting on the information given to them by the GM?

The GM did not say, "it could not be."  The GM essentially said, "the goal you seek cannot be completed here ... (but if you figure it out you could do it over there)".  The player interpreted it as "it could not be."  Even if the GM said, "it could not be", that does not absolve him of all responsibility for jeopardizing the Dream for the rest of us players.  I should also note that the GM did not "want" the stone to be delivered per say, but rather that was the objective by which the main Character in this event was motivated and thus the rest of the scenario was going to be built around.  However, that he was "going" to do something does not mean it "must" be so.  These motivations are merely vectors; they put events into motion they are not goals that must be reached.  In fact these motivations/frames/vectors are most certainly not the point of play as they are merely the foundations upon which the sessions begins.  What is important is our decisions/reactions to what happens in game, not necessarily that we end up someplace.  For all the negative things that happened to this Character, afterwards the player said he had a great time, because he really got emotionally involved for the first time in 3 games.  (He basically took himself out of the previous 2 adventures – one of those would be his Character Basil which I posted about in an earlier AP thread.)

So, I warn that it is possible for the GMing style you describe here to get a bit carried away and become counterproductive.

So noted!  I appreciate your input.  Just as another data point, there are times where we have "supremely heroic" moments when plans fail, but through imaginative play events turn out far better than could have been hoped for.  Also I should note that our GM does play on norms.  So while the norm is "difficulties – but usually some success" he mixes it by also occasionally go to "overwhelming number of difficulties" all the way to "nearly flawless execution."

Thats why I say character deaths are not necessarily  hardball, in terms of the experience of play.

I am a little confused by this.  Please see above.

But from the play as described, it would seem to me that the Elf king put events into play that lead to war, not the player.  The PC looks like patsy used by the elf king for a provocation.

Maybe, and that is certainly an interpretation that is open to you!  What you are doing above is certainly part of the fun of the game we play – the deciding of motives, the deciphering of the meanings of events, etc.  However, given that all the rest of felt that the player was certainly being provocative without ever being respectful, I am inclined to say that the player did his own self in.  Especially in the light of the GM's comments afterward that he was not looking to succeed in the "taking of the gem" from the Dwarf.

Right.  But the way this played out, it appears more like the dwarves are culpable of rudeness than that the elf  king is guilty of greed.  Thats the whole basis for blame being layed on the players head.

Again that is certainly a plausible take, and one that the player of the Dwarf is basically taking.  However, we do not worry about the Elf's greed because that is beyond our control as players.  IOW the elf's greed is nothing more than something beyond our control that must be taken into account and dealt with.  What we do worry about is the players' response to Situation, as that is under our individual control.  It was the player's choice to play his Character extremely rude and to knowingly escalate the matter.  If the player had made an attempt to play it "diplomatically" as you described it and he was still jailed, robbed, released, returned home and a war still started, then we would have had no issues at all with the player.  In fact we would have been sympathetic towards him.  Yet, all this is open to interpretation as there is no "right" way to respond as long as it was within or close to the confines/behaviors already existing within the "myth."

Given the above our admittedly weak claim of "blame" is based on the notion that the player broke what we feel were several of the pre-existing confines/behaviors already existing within the myth.  We felt that Dwarves would be savvy enough to know to be deferential or at least polite with a king they knew was vain.  We felt that Dwarves would be savvy enough to know that if he let things really get out of hand that war would be the likely outcome.  When the player got back to his realm, he recounted his event accurately, but really played up the emotions and indignations – and he was certainly justified in doing so.  However, by doing so in that "manner" he again fanned the smoldering tinder of war.  Was he justified?  You bet.  Was the player capable of handling it differently?  Sure.  Was it wise?  ...  Did he consider the other players at the table?  I don't think so.

So I just want to say that I am not trying to poor cold water on your game or criticise for crticisisms sake.

I deeply appreciate you making the effort to say that.  However, just so that you know, I never got the feeling that you were trying to be critical for criticisms sake.

Anyhow, I hope that I have shed some additional light on the inner workings of our game!

[Gordon C. Landis]

Jay,

So, I'm going to look at this as a Sim(as I understand it)-related dispute among Sim-inclined players.  I'm going to focus on this one little snippet from your latest post, 'cause it rang major familiarity-bells for me of disputes between Sim-players that I've encountered myself.  The snippet is:

Was the player capable of handling it differently? Sure. Was it wise? ... Did he consider the other players at the table? I don't think so.

I have no way to know if and/or why the Dwarf player didn't "think of the other players" in this situation - maybe he did, and thought he was supporting the Dream.  Maybe he didn't think of the others, but legitimetly reacted as he thought appropriate.  Or maybe he was bent out of shape about something and (delibrately or inadvertantly) caused damage by flailing about.  

When dwelling in the Dream, it can be very tricky to "think about the other players at the table."  After all, the idea is to NOT think about them, right?  Rather, think about the Dream . . .   This difficulty is compounded by the fact that "I was just playing my character" can equally be either a legimate creative claim or a bullcrock excuse for childish interpersonal behavior.

I know of no great solution to this dilemna.  To me, the answer is simply "sometimes, you have to drop the Dream and deal with the people at the table."  In this case, that could look like the Dwarf player recognizing that his choices might stomp on the other players, and saying, "uh, guys, here's where I'm thiniking of going with this - can you think of reasons not to go there?"  Or the other players (GM included, perhaps especially included, depending on group taste) saying "hey, uh, sorry to interrpupt, but it looks like we're going to a very ugly place here - can we take this in another direction?  Have you thought about this (Dwarf-Elf politics/other players/whatever)?"

Interrupt the Dream and interact as real people.  If[/i] it's important enough.  Where "important enough" is a variable that can only be established locally, perhaps even situationally.  And sometimes, you'll get it wrong; interrupt inappropriately, or fail to solve the problem even with the interruption.

But unless you just want to hope you "get lucky" and don't run into such problems, I don't think there's any other answer.

Gordon

[LordSmerf]

The GM did not say, "it could not be." The GM essentially said, "the goal you seek cannot be completed here ... (but if you figure it out you could do it over there)".

Oh, oh!  A question I meant to ask last post and forgot:  How clear did the GM make it that the elf was still available?  From what you said above it sounds like it was kind of hidden knowledge...  I've got some comments on that if it was, but I'll save them until I know what's going on.

Also, I'd be very interested in hearing your take on Gordon's comments.

Thomas

[Silmenume]

Hey Gordon,

Thanks for taking the time to share your input!

I have no way to know if and/or why the Dwarf player didn't "think of the other players" in this situation - maybe he did, and thought he was supporting the Dream.  Maybe he didn't think of the others, but legitimetly reacted as he thought appropriate.  Or maybe he was bent out of shape about something and (delibrately or inadvertantly) caused damage by flailing about.

I am as certain as one can be that the player felt what he was doing was legitimate and in support of the Dream.  The GM seems to think that the player did bring in some outside baggage to the table (e.g., he was bent out of shape about something).  If that is true, that does not excuse him and he should be willing to consider that he did indeed bring in baggage to the game.  However, the player in question does not think that he did anything that was not legitimate.  Upon questioning recently, the GM said that the player via his character had expressed "some embarrassment" about how events were unfolding.  This conversation, while at the table, was quiet and not really observed.  I only remembered that there was a conversation between Gandalf/GM and Gralin/the player many days later.  It was not that the conversation was unimportant, it touched on the very topic on why I was risking one of my favorite character's life, but rather it was not played "center ring."  Thus the question remains whether he truly personally felt bad about how he handled himself and the subsequent crises, or he was merely playing the Character as remorseful as we players were never really privy to this conversation and he certainly had not spoken to us in such a manner.

Mind you, this laser like focus on this specific incident does make it seem to be a much larger issue than it functionally is at the table.

When dwelling in the Dream, it can be very tricky to "think about the other players at the table."  After all, the idea is to NOT think about them, right?  Rather, think about the Dream . . .   This difficulty is compounded by the fact that "I was just playing my character" can equally be either a legimate creative claim or a bullcrock excuse for childish interpersonal behavior.

I fully agree about the "just playing my character" part.  

I certainly agree that the idea is to think about the Dream, however as this is social activity with a shared imaginary space one cannot or should not utterly exclude considerations of the other players who are supporting one's own imagining process.  It is a give and take process and it is always based in trust.  IOW one does something in the expectation/hopes that someone else will (in the future – either immediate or distant) support you in that effort.  We are building the Dream.  How he bricoles effects how I bricole, so there is this ill-defined and necessarily vague commitment to each other to aid in that process.  Also, while we certainly are looking to submerge into the Dream as deeply as possible, we should never really lose sight that we are Exploring – and this is reinforced by the external-to-the-SIS resolution mechanics system which does interrupt the Dream.  I think there is always a tension here in Sim, between the SIS and mechanics, that is never fully resolvable.

I know of no great solution to this dilemna.

I don't think there is one.  There are several kluges that we employ to "get past" these issues.  The first is the often stated at the start of nearly every game is the "We are "roleplaying" and none of this stuff is to be taken personally" speech.  The second method is the post game debriefs where we find out what each of us was thinking and we hash out an inter-player issues that might have popped up.  Third we sift players very carefully to make sure everyone is basically on the same page so that the opportunities for these types of problems is minimized before hand.  Finally one of the stated understandings (and that may be the wrong term) is that the process of play is the dealing with problems as they arise.  We are not creating "a story" and we are not trying to "defeat challenges" – we are "dealing with problems from the point of view of the fictional world."  The process of dealing with problems from the point of view of the fictional world reinforces the fictional world – that is the Dream.

Ultimately, I agree there is no "great solution."  Problems such as these get hashed out outside the game on a personal level – and there is no guarantee that a solution will be reached.  Or perhaps a better way of stating this is that there is no fixed process that can be created that guarantees an equitable resolution.

To me, the answer is simply "sometimes, you have to drop the Dream and deal with the people at the table."

Sometimes, if it appears that emotions are moving beyond the SIS and are becoming addressed to the players directly/personally then we will drop the Dream to deal directly with the people at the table.

In this case, that could look like the Dwarf player recognizing that his choices might stomp on the other players, and saying, "uh, guys, here's where I'm thiniking of going with this - can you think of reasons not to go there?"

In our game – absolutely not!  It is exactly at these moments where the Dream is most intense and the player himself is most severely tested!  These intense moments are precisely what we are looking for as players!  To break the Dream to discuss the decision at hand is to completely violate the Social Contract.  We want to be riding the razor's edge – its where the umph of our game comes from!  Its squarely there that the emotional rush is derived from.  Intense Situations lead to intense emotions!  Woo Hoo!  Bring it on!  It is also where the "test" of the player lies.

But unless you just want to hope you "get lucky" and don't run into such problems, I don't think there's any other answer.

Actually, as I have indicated before, this thread really wasn't casting about for solutions as much as it was an effort to highlight how our game functions via "failure" as opposed to just only "successes."

Hullo Thomas,

How clear did the GM make it that the elf was still available?  From what you said above it sounds like it was kind of hidden knowledge...

Thranduil roughly said, "Give me the gem and I will see that it gets to her as she has only recently left my realms.  She is of my people and I can readily find her and see to it that she receives it."  While this may not seem like much to go on, every player at the table, including the player in question, saw this as a statement that Lisivas (the aggrieved mother Elf) was still in Middle Earth, though traveling to the Grey Havens, and that she was reachable.  Chuck, the player of the Dwarf, at the after game debrief basically said that his Dwarf did not trust being the only Dwarf in a group of Elves on the way to find her.  IOW he acknowledged that he saw that he could get to her, but felt that he would be subject to some foul fate.  OK – fair enough.  He felt insecure and I don't fault him for that insecurity – however that is a choice he made.

Again, what we did have problems with was his "behavior" toward the King, not that he chose or refused the opportunity to try and get to Lisivas.  Bascially we felt he created an "international incident" unnecessarily which resulted in us other players having to risk other of our Character's lives to try and stave off this pending disaster and he has not acknowledged this fact.

Now "unnecessarily" is open to interpretation which is why I said early on that our footing in our complaint was not secure.  However, he has not addressed to us, on any level, that he did jeopardize the Dream for all the rest of us.  Even if he said something like, "I did what I felt my Character would do, I am sorry if it had a negative impact on you," it would have staved off much of grumbling.

Another issue at hand, which I don't think I have mentioned before, is that he is certainly capable of passing judgment on other player's decisions, but he basically acts as if his decisions are above reproach.  IOW – he came to the best possible solution and thus any discussion about its merits is more or less not worth the effort.  He will defend his choice, logically I might add, but he really does not seem to entertain any other interpretation.  This unwillingness to consider another point of view is one of the important aspects of our game.  While in game we have only our own point of view, via our Character, after the game we share our points of view with everyone else so as to enrich our current and future game experiences and to aid in the bricoling process through the cross pollination that comes from the sharing of "meanings" that the various players bring forth in the discussion.

I hope this helps – let me know if either of you have further questions!

[Gordon C. Landis]

Hi Jay,

Yup, I think your initial writeup shows "failure" and "success" as fully supportive of the Creative Agenda at hand, particularly with the clarifications in the subsequent discussion.  I'd just want to stress a slightly different emphasis to the tension between the SIS and the mechanics you mention; I'd focus more on the tension between thinking in the SIS and thinking of the other players (and/or of the Creative Agenda itself).  That, to me, is the tension between your " . . .  - absolutely not!" and your "however as this is a social activity . . "  It exists in all play, but as in Sim "thinking in the SIS" (as a full and sufficient whole purpose) is a close approximation of what the Creative Agenda is, it can be particularly problematic there.  

For Sim play, I heartily recommend making sure everyone is aware of, and agrees to the existence of, this tension.  While I certainly agree and understand that breaking the SIS at a key time (such as the dwarf player-elf king interaction) is undesireable, you gotta make a call - is it worse to have that break, or to be left with the complaints and disatisfaction that might result from not breaking it?  It's certainly fine (great, in fact) to have a preference, even one that is socially-reinforced by friendly razzing of the person who calls for the break, but (IMO) unless it is sometimes OK to make the call in the "break SIS" direction, you're setting yourself up to be dissatisfied.  It's also vital (again, IMO) that the responsibility for making the call be shared - i.e., it's not just that the dwarf-player should have the desperation-option, the other players are also responsible for speaking up (where "speaking up" could be anything from a blunt player-to-player comment to a private nudge of the GM asking him to attempt an in-SIS adjustment) if they see something that's going to disrupt the Dream for them.

After all, the truth is there is not one and only one right thing for the dwarf to have done in that situation.  What the player chose to do was certainly a valid choice, but if he's claiming it to be the one and only valid choice, I would consider that a problem.  On the other hand, I wouldn't go so far as to say he was "wrong", either, and if folks are doing that, maybe he's getting a little defensive because of it.

As you say, it's a give and take process based in trust, and it looks to me like you've got a (possibly minor) trust-breakdown here: the other players didn't trust that the dwarf player was fully engaged with the shared, social implications as he played through that scene, and subsequent discussion hasn't reestablished that trust.  Again as you point out, it can be important that an "unwillingness to consider another point of view" be displayed through the character during play.  However, I think that if that unwillingness is seen by others to be pervasive in the actual players' thought process when choosing which points of view he's going to pick for the character, then you have an issue.  Possible minor, but valid none the less.

Anyway, that's my thoughts - hope there's something useful in there.  

Gordon

[contracycle]

Thats why I say character deaths are not necessarily  hardball, in terms of the experience of play.

I am a little confused by this.  Please see above.

OK.  What I meant by this is as follows: there are several boardgames in which one side if pretty much destined to lose, but the player can still demonstrate skill relative to their real-world counterparts.  I think Axis and Allies is famously one of these games.  The skill of play is in the doing well under the circumstances, not in the final victory.

Thus it is quite possible for players to be surrounded by NPC's dropping like flies and still not be in the midst of a serious crisis, themselves.  So what I meant by hardball is that the enemy pushes back, and pushes back hard - not through narration and scene framing, but actually right there and then, corps-a-corps, against the players best efforts.

Players can be on the losing side, but buffered from its significance because they have not themselves been personally defeated in a real no-holds-barred struggle.