HQ Midnight - New Bangs Thread

[Kerstin Schmidt]

This is the sequel to this thread.  


We haven't played out the Redgard map yet, but it looks like play may move around the region a bit over the next couple of sessions or so.  There's a number of options here, depending on what the players decide to do and how I present things.  

Apari is about to ride out with Roland and kill some orcs, planning to head for the snow elf stronghold Autilar afterwards.  Katrin is planning to run away from the Pike with the snow elf prisoner Nollorn, to escort him to Autilar.  
The advancing orc army might complicate matters a tad ... and so will Uilia, Snow of Autilar and Nollorn's mother, now on her way to the Pike to demand her son to be released.  



Katrin

With Katrin I'm still running strong on the initial bang material.  Here's my current list:  

Info:  

Olec is betraying House Norfell by allying with Roland in his own name.  

Veddia entangled in a wild kiss with Olec – as he storms off (to ride out with Roland and Apari), she claims he forced her and complains bitterly of Olec's sway over Roland and the Pike.  

Olec's sword oozes black blood when he prepares to fight to the death.  

To be demonstrated as needed:  Reifels knows magic that can help in a fight.  

(Note to self: Charankh's ghost!)

Bangs:  

- The staircase down to the dungeons is guarded by two men, who deny access on "King Roland's" and "Prince Reifels's" orders.  (No match for Katrin in an armed fight, as all three of them know.)  

- Veddia begs Katrin to write a letter to her father explaining the situation, distancing herself from Olec and assuring him of Katrin's and Veddia's loyalty to House Baden.  Veddia has "a courier she can trust".  

- A bruised Reifels reminds Katrin of the quest for the Crown, and insists that Katrin can't leave while Olec and his two thug cousins are on the Pike:  "Olec and Veddia will take over."  

- Once Katrin and Nollorn are away from the Pike, Reifels (with huge book) and Tam turn up, either alone or together.  Reifels implores Katrin to turn back;  if she won't, he will come as well.  Nollorn isn't in shape to go on by himself.  

- A large force of orcs starts moving into Glass Valley (ice needles) from the north just as Katrin & Co are getting ready to cross from east to west, trying to reach snow elf territory on the far ridge.  (Either spearhead of Izrador's army, driving in a wedge between Dorns and snow elves;  or Ice Fang Mothers, the snow elves' allies.)  
- Turning back quickly is safer than going on.  Either is safer than waiting for long because of orc outriders (on war boros – small mammoths).  Neither is completely without risk.  
- Nollorn will go on, by himself if no one else comes.  
- Tam speaks in favour of going back "to our own people".
- Reifels feels he carries the future of the Dorns (in his book) and must bring it to safety with the elves.

- Hot pursuit:  Stand and fight a rearguard action... or have Tam do so?  (He'll volunteer of course.)  Or run for it together?  
(Lucy keeps asking for Katrin to "hit rock bottom", so now I feel almost obliged to present her with a chance to fall into orc hands...)

- Many myths:  looking more closely at the myths of the Dornish Crown it becomes apparent that there is one slight problem.  In all the stories Reifels is the strong warrior and his wife helps him out with magic as he battles his way up the slope.  Not the most feasible combination, with Katrin and present-day Reifels...  


Apari:  

Still working on understanding the player, so my thoughts are more tentative here.  Discussion of the player's own plot input follows the bangs list.  

Info:  

Some arrows are missing from Apari's quiver.  

Olec's sword oozes black blood when he prepares to fight to the death.  


Bangs:  

- Leia's ghost, mad with grief and guilt, begs Apari to forgive her and "bring her babies back" so she can find peace.  (Leia's sister Catti, also a ghost, told Apari last session that she knows where the babies are.)

- Catti's ghost tells Apari that she has magically bound his daggers to her and that every time he uses them, he will "come closer" to her.  

- Orcs rush Apari:  will he draw his daggers on them?  

- Catti will augment his dagger fighting with her desire for him - player may choose to apply his love for his wife, for a total penalty.  

- Each time Apari draws blood with his daggers, ghostly babies wail.  

- Roland is shot in the back with one of Apari's arrows.  

- Surrounded by a flying squadron of snow elves on giant eagles:  Uilia Snow of Autilar demands her son.  



Player's plot input

Apari's player gave me some utterly cool stuff to play with.  Two ghosts pursue Apari:  his wife Leia, whom he killed by mistake (Love Leia 20w);  and Leia's sister Catti, who wanted Apari for herself and set Apari up to kill his own wife.  When Apari found out about this, he killed Catti in a dagger duel (Hate Catti 10w).  He left the daggers that had killed both women behind and still won't use them, but is now carrying them again since his wife's ghost brought them to him.  

The player tells me that he sees Apari go gradually mad, as he's drawn more and more into talking with ghosts rather than interact with living people.  

(Between sessions, the player asked me whether we could have a scene in which Apari's wife appears and tells him to use the daggers.  I said ok, but wouldn't that kind of do away with his whole cool idea?  He thought for a moment and agreed.  He agreed to let me try and create something more dramatic and complicated – whew!)

He appears to have been ok with the Catti scene we did last session;  the character ended up all clenched with rage but I think the player enjoyed himself playing that. So I'm going further down that route.  

Here are my thoughts.  When Leia died, Catti magically captured the spirits/souls of Leia's and Apari's unborn twins.  She has magically bound them to the daggers in some way.  

Leia is desperate to have her babies back, bordering on madness with grief and loss and guilt for having contributed to the mistake that made Apari kill her, hence the bang that has her pleading to Apari.  Once Apari and Leia figure out that Catti is behind things (again!), she may end up begging Apari to do whatever Catti wants because she can think of nothing but her missing babies.  

Catti wants Apari to bring her back to life:  last session she told him, "you know we belong together, you know we are meant to fight side by side".  
My initial thought was that she wants him to use the Tear of Healing on her, but perhaps there's some sinister way in which the baby-imbued daggers drinking blood will feed her and will gradually bring her back.  (Be careful not to go too Hellbound Heart here...)  


We have some added potential for the future in the fact that by elven funeral customs, Leia's corpse and soul would likely have been bound to a tree in Erethor after she died.  So she escaped, or was set free by someone, or something, for some future purpose.  For example:  
- Catti freed Leia, either inadvertently when she stole the babies or knowingly for her own nefarious purposes.  
- Leia received help from one of the many demons haunting the Aruun jungle, for the demon's (nefarious?) purposes.  
- The "demon" who helped Leia was actually a creature working against the Shadow.  (An angel the PCs freed in an earlier scenario would fit the bill.)
- Some horrible large-scale event destroyed trees and set souls free in Apari's and Leia's home region.

[Kerstin Schmidt]

(quote copied from actual play thread:)

It seems that what you selected for a goal for Olec was something like "ensure that Roland never listens to her over me ever again." You could have done other things like "Get Roland to kick her out" or "Make everyone in the room think she's crazy" or just "defend my position in Roland's council" (this makes the "damage" of the contest very one-sided - losing would mean that she'd just never be able to discredit Olec in front of Roland again. Sometimes contests just are sorta one-sided in terms of what the results might be (you can give a bonus to a character who attempts very small goals, if you like).

I'll comment on what this means about Bangs in the Bang thread. ;-)

Sounds promising...

I'm not clear on what "one-sided" means in this context - do you mean specifically targetted at another person?

[Mike Holmes]

By "one-sided" I mean that one side is looking to do some harm to another in the contest, and the other side is only looking to prevent the harm for the most part.

Again, you can have two characters fight with a goal to kill each other, or one can be out to kill, while the other only seeks to get away from the other character.

The point is that the potential outcomes of the goals don't have to match in any way. It seems "unbalanced" that the outcome of one side is likely to be death, while the other side's outcome would only be to become unable to find the character or somesuch. And, well, it isn't parallel. This happens, and it's OK.

That said, what's often fun is to try to find the "hidden" agenda of the guy with the goal that seems weaker. For example, the guy who tries to kill himself from the lethal attacker may be trying to teach a the attacker a lesson. The example I keep thinking of is the kung fu master teaching a violent person the error of his ways by subduing his attempts to kill the master. The goal might seem like it's just for the master to stay alive, but he may really be intending to alter the attacker in such a way that he understands the futility of his violence. In fact, in many ways it's much more powerful to transform a living enemy into an ally than it is to convert him to a dead person.

Anyhow, you've basically allowed her to get away once with failing to Olec in a way that seems pretty one-sided. She just can't assault him again, she's otherwise undamaged herself. Next time, make Olec go for something more damaging to her goals. Have him discredit her or something. Or actually get thrown out of Roland's court.

Now, that said, this is a somewhat "final" option in some ways. It might be time for it, but maybe not. Just like selecting "dying" and then killing a PC is not a good idea in most cases, having a contest remove a character from conflict in play is not a good idea, either. So only use this option if you think that:
- Lucy will try hard to find another way to get back "in" at court (maybe she helps Reifels overthrow Roland or something, I dunno). Or
- The dramatic potential of that R-Map is pretty much used up.

Also, only do this if you have some ideas for where they might go, and bangs for that. Otherwise, there are always other options. Again, Roland needs Katrin for some things. So as a result of losing the next contest to Olec, Roland might offer to let her stay, but only if she permenantly gives something up, like marrying Tam (marrying Roland instead). Or maybe he just never listens to her suggestions again. There are lots of ways to permenantly damage Katrin if Olec wins next time.

Now, that said, maybe she wins next time. Note that an interesting thing about HQ is that even if she's an underdog, she might win some contests she doesn't expect - the HQ odds are designed to support this possibility. So her goal of "bottoming out" might not be possible from a mechanical POV.

But that's OK. Because she can still do it. Here's the thing - "bottoming out" isn't really about wining or losing contests. That can be part of it, but it's very possible to bottom out through winning. Take Hamlet. He rolls well, and accidentally kills his girlfriend's father. She then kills herself, etc.

Bottoming out is about losing everything that you care about. So it doesn't matter how it happens, but at some point her plans to become politically important have to grow thin to non-existent, her plans to marry Tam should be in a shambles (perhaps with him dead, even), and even her family thinking that she's a failure, etc. Basically look at every value you can discern on her character sheet, and figure out ways to have the source of the value be eliminated.

The theory is that at some point, as she gets very close to nothing left, the player will grasp onto one small remaining thing - perhaps just one remaining personality trait like Hopeful. And then they'll make a comback to turn things around. At that point, then you have to find ways to allow the character opportunities to fix some of her situation, or make things "right" again as much as possible.

It's tricky in terms of pacing. You don't want to crash everything all at once, but you want to do it relatively quickly. Or else the fall will get boring.

So, what's the first thing you're going to do in engineering her bottoming out?

Mike

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Thanks for the brilliant explanations of one-sidedness and hidden agendas. You answered a number of unarticulated questions on my part.

Anyhow, you've basically allowed her to get away once with failing to Olec in a way that seems pretty one-sided. She just can't assault him again, she's otherwise undamaged herself. Next time, make Olec go for something more damaging to her goals. Have him discredit her or something. Or actually get thrown out of Roland's court.

Yes it was one-sided, my bad. The way Lucy played, all Olec had to do was stand and watch Katrin demolish herself, so it was plausible (and sufficient to carry the scene).  But even if he was outwardly passive, I might have given him a hidden agenda of his own for a more interesting outcome.  

That said, as I've said in the other thread, depending on what Lucy wants we may yet settle on a more far-reaching Consequence for this contest that may include Katrin's standing with Roland in general. I'm not going to go beyond what I envisaged as Olec's goal in the contest on my own, but if Lucy wants it, that's what we'll do.

- Lucy will try hard to find another way to get back "in" at court (maybe she helps Reifels overthrow Roland or something, I dunno).

Not unless I present very strong incentive. Lucy seems relieved to be escaping (she thinks... ) the political complications at Roland's court.  The feeling I get from her is that she is literally in two minds. On the one hand she's getting into that whole story thinking and loving experimenting with the new freedom; on the other she sees Apari's current political successes and that's a bit daunting to her, it's like she keeps thinking Katrin should be doing as well or better, only she (Lucy) isn't playing her politically smartly enough. We talk about that every time it comes up and she ends up being reassured and happy with how things are going, but it keeps creeping back. Damn D&D training...

That was probably part of my (inarticulate) hunch in my original planning, to put Apari on a different map at first. It would have given each of the characters their own set of conflicts and cool moments (both shining and grim), with less danger of comparing levels of "successes".  OTOH with two separate maps we'd have missed out on other cool developments, which became possible only through both PCs acting on the same map. So who knows; at any rate we have gained wonderful story potential out of what we did play, so I'm not regretting it.

Or - The dramatic potential of that R-Map is pretty much used up.

By no means. If we staid exclusively on that map we'd have at least another couple of sessions of play, and that's not even counting a possible heroquest.  And I'm now letting snow elves in, and possibly orcs, which will draw things out further.

Bottoming out is about losing everything that you care about. So it doesn't matter how it happens, but at some point her plans to become politically important have to grow thin to non-existent, her plans to marry Tam should be in a shambles (perhaps with him dead, even), and even her family thinking that she's a failure, etc. Basically look at every value you can discern on her character sheet, and figure out ways to have the source of the value be eliminated.

Hm. You see, I'm not at all sure that Lucy is aware of what it is she's asking for.  So what I need to do is provide a way for her to get a feel for what story developments do in terms of character change. Which means that perhaps I should suggest to her that we go for a far-reaching Consequence of the last contest when we settle that.

So, what's the first thing you're going to do in engineering her bottoming out?

Ooh. Brilliant question.

(...leaving out much gasping and shaking of head and wringing of hands... ;-) )

Here's some thoughts - always assuming Lucy stays with me all the way through (I'll really have to stay alert to whether or not she's comfortable with all this as we go, she doesn't always speak up).  

I'll try and group them in some sort of possible dramatic (not necessarily chronological) order.

First batch: Going over the edge - ground already prepared in play.

Lover of Tam Allin:  

Tam can get captured, killed or go MIA when Katrin has a run-in with orcs while escorting Nollorn.  Or can get into a fight with the Olec crew, can be "disappeared" by them either alive or dead (if alive, possibly in concert with Veddia wanting her little brother out of Katrin's clutches).

In order to make a loss of Tam count, he has to be present and there has to be a seeming chance for the two of them to make up again before this happens.  (I'm planning to have him seen ride out, much pained, after orcs with Roland & co., but he'll turn up when Katrin makes her run for it with Nollorn.)  

Honourable, and relationship to Father (& Love Family, Honour House Baden, Revere Ancestors at default ratings):

In swearing her oath to Roland as "King of Dorns", Katrin has made herself subordinate to him even though she should be his equal. Worse, without realising it (and Lucy doesn't know this yet but will find out prob this session), she has put herself on the same footing with Olec, who is not only of inferior blood (from a retainer clan like Tam) but a traitor: he is betraying House Norfell by allying with Roland of Redguard.

Hm. Which reminds me. Once she leaves with Nollorn she'll have violated her oath of loyalty to Roland. A new ability: Oath-Breaker. I think it rates 5w: higher than her Love Tam (3w) but lower than her Honourable (12w) - she does run away from Tam, but part of her reason for leaving is that she feels she's responsible for Nollorn having got himself captured looking for her, so that's honourable, too, in a sense. About reasonable?

Ambitious (& Politics):

Katrin's suffered a big blow with her defeat against Olec, big enough for her to flee from Roland's court and make herself a traitor by freeing Nollorn. She may be aiming to gain political clout with the snow elves, to return and make a second attempt to become the ruler of the Dorns.

Further demolishing her political position among the Dorns at this point doesn't feel right. It'd be easy to present her with opportunities to alienate Reifels, say, but I don't want to resolve the map that way, certainly not right now.

The snow elves OTOH ... See below, Inspired By Arrenu


Second Batch: Falling - needs developing.

Inspired By Arrenu:
Her undead Sarcosan ex-lover.  I think we agreed that he has "Revere Katrin". He hasn't turned up yet.

I can so see them overreacting to undead people strolling into their capital asking to talk to Lady Katrin of Baden. And Katrin being who she is won't like seeing Arrenu put in a cage like a wild beast, and won't distance herself from him I'll bet, at least not right away.

I'll think of a reason for at least one politically powerful snow elf to hate, hate, hate undead. (Even more than normal.)

So she'll have to choose between loyalty to Arrenu and political opportunities with the snow elves.  

Further opportunities to mess with this "being inspired" thing: Arrenu starts acting like a proper Fell.  And/or it becomes apparent that he's working for the Night King Jahzir, a Sarcosan.  


Protect Innocents (& Soft-Hearted & Devoted To The People):

Cool. That completely slipped in beneath my radar. I so need to use that for a complication very soon... which would be easier if we had Katrin in Baden's Bluff or elswehere in occupied territory.  

(Might tie in with the religion thingie, see below My Hands Take Pain Away).  

Third batch:  impact.

Strong and Sword-Fighting:

Difficult. My feeling is that it might be unwise to mess with this one in Lucy's case.  

Hm. Actually let me rephrase that. It would have to be the last, or last but one, to go.

My Hands Take Pain Away:

Magic ability. Hasn't seen use, although Lucy did put points into it and Katrin might have used it at least on one occasion on a wounded man. Could be trimmed away soon (being a minor thing); or better, could be left to the very end as "the last thing to hold on to".  

Which would tie in very well with another thing. Lucy wants a messiah-type role for Katrin. So losing her bit of magic as part of a huge major religious upheaval in her life could work well.  
I have some very vague images involving dead Dorns and dead orcs, orcish beliefs and possibly Charankh that need further development once I get a better feel for where Lucy would like to head religiously.

One thing I need to remember here is that Katrin lost two months between going into the magic portal stone and coming out the other end - room for flashbacks to previously "forgotten" events once we get to the religion theme.

***

Assuming for a moment that all of the above were lost or overridden by various new flaws, that leaves Katrin with Determined, Maternal, Shame over Defeat By Shadow, Hate Izrador, plus with whatever her new (or renewed) religion would provide her with.



There.  I can think like that, can't I!  :-)



***

And reading back over my list, some of this will need to happen all at once, or it'll become really, non-dramatically painful.  I need to rethink my planning, I wasn't thinking of that kind of falling-star before this.

A Night King. Not this session I think, but we might lay the groundwork for next session, or the one after that - no later than that.

And who? I had the undead dragon and the snow elf Adherin in the region, but it looks like I need Arrenu's fellow Sarcosan Jahzir instead.  

Oh. A Night King of course could always steal her Hate Izrador and Shame Over Defeat By Shadow abilities with some vile curse (overriding flaw) ... and I didn't even have those values on my to-demolish list.  

Oh! Oh! And Jahzir himself was corrupted by Izrador through a combination of dark magics, torture and a pretense that he'd get to marry the princess he wanted but who was promised to marry someone else.  So easy for him to promise Tam to Katrin if...  

Wow. Have to go and think.

[Mike Holmes]

Yes it was one-sided, my bad. The way Lucy played, all Olec had to do was stand and watch Katrin demolish herself, so it was plausible (and sufficient to carry the scene).

JNo, good, not bad. I tried to make that clear. You just don't have to balance conflicts out at all. Disparity is normal and a fine thing. What it means is just that you get to do another similar conflict later. So, in a way, you've allowed for more development over time.

The note on subtle goals was just giving you other options.

That said, as I've said in the other thread, depending on what Lucy wants we may yet settle on a more far-reaching Consequence for this contest that may include Katrin's standing with Roland in general. I'm not going to go beyond what I envisaged as Olec's goal in the contest on my own, but if Lucy wants it, that's what we'll do.

And like I said, that's a great way to handle it. My point is that you should seriously consider letting it stand as it is, and allowing for another such conflict to occur in the future. Sure, Katrin can't attack Olec, but that doesn't mean she can't defend herself from an attack by Olec intending to damage her. Just break the action up into two chunks. If Katrin wins against Olec, and he can't discredit her anymore (due to a big penalty of a complete defeat inflicted by Katrin), then you have the interesting situation where Roland won't listen to either of them about the other. Meaning that they'll be forced to escalate (well, use alternate methods) if they want to do something about each other.

Again, this is cool stuff, IMO.

We talk about that every time it comes up and she ends up being reassured and happy with how things are going, but it keeps creeping back.

I don't know any more. That is, a player shouldn't have to subvert such emotions. Yeah, she's having fun playing Katrin "badly," but I have this suspicion that she's trying to prove to herself now that she's playing nar play "right." When, in fact, it's just fine to always root for your character to win if that's what you want. Yes, losing should be good in that it gives you more stuff to look at as a player, but winning is also important.

Put another way, you guys are really overanalyzing some of this stuff. If she says that she wants her character to win, then throw some potential success her way. In fact, unless all you do is plan to stomp on her from now on, she's going to have some success whether you guys like it or not. So quit trying to predict where things will go before you play. Just play, and do whatever seems the most fun at the time. If that's trying hard to win, then try hard to win.

That was probably part of my (inarticulate) hunch in my original planning, to put Apari on a different map at first. It would have given each of the characters their own set of conflicts and cool moments (both shining and grim), with less danger of comparing levels of "successes".

Nope, "Protagonism." That's the character's tendency to seem like a protagonist. To some extent, this will be wrapped up with how well and often they win for some players. Go with that. In the end, if both characters are cool, then they'll stop comparing then. Right now, it seems like Lucy might not think her character is as cool as Apari. Fix that. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to allow her to win. It means that you have to make her character seem important to the events that are occuring. Put it this way, when she loses, it should be as big a deal and as moving to the story as when Apari wins. And vice versa.

That all said, to some extent, there's always going to be a bit of players admiring each other's characters (and a tiny big of jeallousy involved then). This is a good sign. It means that the players like what's happening to each other's characters.

By no means. If we staid exclusively on that map we'd have at least another couple of sessions of play, and that's not even counting a possible heroquest.  And I'm now letting snow elves in, and possibly orcs, which will draw things out further.

That's about what I thought. So, don't force them to stay, but definitely don't create any outcomes that force leaving, either. Make that a player choice. In fact, bangs about this are probably becoming more and more an option. Give strong incentive to stay and to go, and force the player to decide. Save that bang for when you're really ready to abandon the current characters.

Otherwise, just make the bangs about staying with X or staying with Y or the like, and leaving will not happen too soon.

Hm. You see, I'm not at all sure that Lucy is aware of what it is she's asking for.  So what I need to do is provide a way for her to get a feel for what story developments do in terms of character change. Which means that perhaps I should suggest to her that we go for a far-reaching Consequence of the last contest when we settle that.

That's one way to handle it. I'd actually say it's a pretty good one, too. I mean, if she's thinking her character needs to start coming back now, then make this as "bottomed out" as she requires.

That said, if you just play some more, and let her author through her character's actions, I'm sure that it'll all work out fine anyhow. I mean any of this can be the result of the next thing that happens.

In order to make a loss of Tam count, he has to be present and there has to be a seeming chance for the two of them to make up again before this happens.  (I'm planning to have him seen ride out, much pained, after orcs with Roland & co., but he'll turn up when Katrin makes her run for it with Nollorn.)  

This is good to note. Losses that she doesn't cause are not "bottoming out." That is, if somebody just takes away all the things that she values, that's not bottoming out, that's looking to make her into a revenge machine. Bottoming out, in dramatic terms, and as I understand it (Lucy could mean something else entirely), means that you yourself do things that are responsible for the losses you face. So, yeah, Tam disappearing isn't good enough, it has to be because of some decision she makes. "He wouldn't have left with Roland if I had just not said what I said to him!"

Note that there is an illusionism technique that you can use here, "The Magician's Force" that you can use to make any decision she makes a bad one (you pretend like the other decision was the "right" one, no matter which she makes). But it might not be a good idea to use here, unless it's really important to have her bottom out. Put another way, if you offer her a bang that allows her on one side to really reconcile with Tam, she should be allowed to, and thus reverse her own bottoming trend.

Again, leave the character's destiny largely in the hands of the player. Just make the choices telling.

In swearing her oath to Roland as "King of Dorns", Katrin has made herself subordinate to him even though she should be his equal. Worse, without realising it (and Lucy doesn't know this yet but will find out prob this session), she has put herself on the same footing with Olec, who is not only of inferior blood (from a retainer clan like Tam) but a traitor: he is betraying House Norfell by allying with Roland of Redguard.

Danger Will Robinson! She didn't realize this when she did it? Who? The player or the character or both? This could be seen as railroading. You gave a choice without the player having the knowledge of what's going on, potentially (and you'll have to tell us) without indicating that it was a risk. That is, did Lucy realize that she didn't know, because Katrin didn't know, just what she was getting into when swearing? Was that part of the bang? Was she weighing that against the potential upside? Or are you just creating this fact after the fact in order to create the bang, when it might contradict the player's previous understanding of things. That is, did she expect that the bang presented equal opportunities on each side, and not that she might be stepping into a trap? If the latter, then don't do this. In fact, the opposite, let her benefit from her decision in the ways that she thought she would benefit, and only play up the implied downside from the original bang. Which I remember as "loss of freedom" or something like that.

Hm. Which reminds me. Once she leaves with Nollorn she'll have violated her oath of loyalty to Roland.

Again, assuming she leaves. If she does, then the actual choice to leave should include this fact, which makes it a bang. "You have some incentives to go, but if you do, you'll be an oathbreaker." If Roland sends her away or something, then she's following his command, and can't be an oathbreaker. No?

A new ability: Oath-Breaker. I think it rates 5w: higher than her Love Tam (3w) but lower than her Honourable (12w) - she does run away from Tam, but part of her reason for leaving is that she feels she's responsible for Nollorn having got himself captured looking for her, so that's honourable, too, in a sense. About reasonable?

I don't tend to assign abilities, unless it's as the result of some contest. Otherwise, typically I just allow players to take such flaws if they like. If the player says no, then that means that her character is not conflicted about breaking the oath, and/or it's not a reputation that spreads, etc.

I can so see them overreacting to undead people strolling into their capital asking to talk to Lady Katrin of Baden. And Katrin being who she is won't like seeing Arrenu put in a cage like a wild beast, and won't distance herself from him I'll bet, at least not right away.

Or, if she does, she alienates herself from him (could send him into an undead rage or something, no?). It works either way, IMO.

I'll comment more later.

Mike

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Ok, one point warrants its own post.

I don't mean to say that Lucy should stop trying to win. Not at all. From my discussions with Lucy, my understanding is that she's relieved that she doesn't have to think about winning, nor worry about losing, any more. She loves making a story and she doesn't have a problem with putting her characters in horrible scrapes - in the past she did that in backstories, now we can see what we can do with that sort of thing in play.

That's where all our talk about losing and "hitting rock bottom" comes from - that and the fact that in some situations, despite me and despite herself, Lucy will suddenly sit there feeling that there's a "challenge" somewhere that she has to "beat", and will freeze up.  I've learnt to stop and ask whether she's all right, she will say she doesn't know what to do and she isn't good at this politics, tactical thinking or whatever it is she perceives as the framework for the "challenge" at the time.

I offer guidance, I answer questions, I've sometimes suggested a number of possible decisions that she could take for Katrin and the direction that would likely take the story in.  That takes the pressure off her for the moment and she ends up doing whatever appeals to her most, not necessarily using any of my suggestions, which is great of course. Most of the time her choice doesn't have much to do with wanting to win.

Currently as a result of all that Katrin's scenes have a lot more "pull" on all of us as the audience than Apari's do (for all his "winning" recently, no one's really rooting for him yet), and I think Lucy is very much aware of that and is enjoying it.  This bears repeating: Katrin is the cooler character and I think Lucy knows that.

Yet whenever Apari's player gets fun out of winning something (and I haven't yet presented him with opportunities to risk something big and lose it, so if you like, the picture and the character are incomplete), it's like it triggers that old worry in Lucy: am I playing stupidly? Am I overlooking where the "real game" and the "real fun" is?

Which would have been the case in D&D. I know her pain, I've felt it.  (Damn, I still feel it when I play a player character.)  In past games we both made huge creative investments in what in D&D amounts to nothing but Colour. People will applaud you for it but at the end it counts for naught. The player who comes out ahead is always the one who has read up on the tactics and the feats and has (wisely, I should add) avoided investing creatively in a character.

That doesn't mean Lucy should or will never want to win again, of course not. She should, whenever she likes. It's still part of her play anyway, everything she says about "hitting rock bottom" is geared towards winning in the end. I see that very clearly.

It's only that winning doesn't have to be her sole and overriding concern anymore, she now can afford the luxury of going for (or not going for) the most dramatic, melodramatic or heart-breaking choice whenever she wants.  But when another player still plays in a way that looks like winning is "the winning option", it's only natural for old memories to come up and wonder, am I playing this game in the right, fun way? Or am I going to be left stranded as I've been in the past? Am I (again) playing a giant with clay feet?

I think that is what is going on here. I'd repost this bit in the actual play thread for Lucy to comment, but I know she's currently very wrapped up in other stuff and doesn't have a lot of free resources for posting, so I'll print it out for her instead.  

And sorry if I sound like I'm overanalysing - my feeling about this is very clear but trying to communicate it is hard, hence all these words. Dunno how to do it better.

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Regarding Olec:  

I should have given Olec a hidden agenda to frame the conflict in a more dramatic way because Lucy was aiming for a dramatic defeat. I do think I should have honoured that. (I did actually, as best as I could think of at the moment, but I'd like to do better next time.)

I do appreciate that you were talking not about "balancing encounters" but about increased variety in conflicts and goals, that is cool and helped me a lot putting things into more context.  

I was merely drawing a (limited) conclusion from it for the Katrin's last contest against Olec, I now understand better why I wasn't quite happy with how I handled that.  

(Not that I expect to be perfect in the future, but I learn by looking at why something didn't work as well as I'd have liked to and what I could do better. I also learn from the good stuff but I don't have to think about that too much, it kind of files away as a buzz of "this way" feeling that I can call up later. So, sorry for focussing on the not-so-good stuff; it's not that it figures bigger in my mind, it's simply what needs thinking about more, for me. )

Regarding your other comments:

Do I sound like I'm turning into a controlling narrator suddenly? Must do, judging by some of your comments. I was looking at my own techniques in isolation (and in wonder, and sometimes faint terror - yes it's still all very new and strange to me). That doesn't mean I'm going to enforce them in play like that, certainly not overriding player input.  

So, don't force them to stay, but definitely don't create any outcomes that force leaving, either. Make that a player choice. In fact, bangs about this are probably becoming more and more an option. Give strong incentive to stay and to go, and force the player to decide. Save that bang for when you're really ready to abandon the current characters.

Otherwise, just make the bangs about staying with X or staying with Y or the like, and leaving will not happen too soon.

My feeling is that Lucy very much wants Katrin to leave for now, so bangs that I throw at her in tonight's session will give her that option.  (I may ask her whether she wants to play out what happens, or start out in the snow alone with Nollorn.)  

I mean, if she's thinking her character needs to start coming back now, then make this as "bottomed out" as she requires.

Apparently not. :-) She says it's doesn't feel like rock bottom yet, that's why I said I have to play it by ear.  She, too, by the way. Neither of us has ever played anything like it, and although her backstories have always been full of it she may find that she doesn't like it when it actually, really happens. However cool it may be and however much it may make us as our audience sit forward and grip our armrests in anticipation.

This is good to note. Losses that she doesn't cause are not "bottoming out." That is, if somebody just takes away all the things that she values, that's not bottoming out, that's looking to make her into a revenge machine.

Sure. I'm sure Lucy agrees with that, too. And I wouldn't want to use "Magician's Force" on something as important as this, I don't feel comfortable Forcing things anyway and certainly not ones that are important to the player.  

Lucy and I tend to talk OOC quite a bit and do stuff consensually, so if it looked like bottoming out was really needed for Katrin and her story I'd mention that to Lucy and if she agrees we'd come up with a both-choices-bad situation together.  If she doesn't agree, then we'll do it her way.

In swearing her oath to Roland as "King of Dorns", Katrin has made herself subordinate to him even though she should be his equal. Worse, without realising it (and Lucy doesn't know this yet but will find out prob this session), she has put herself on the same footing with Olec, who is not only of inferior blood (from a retainer clan like Tam) but a traitor: he is betraying House Norfell by allying with Roland of Redguard.

Danger Will Robinson! She didn't realize this when she did it? Who? The player or the character or both? This could be seen as railroading. You gave a choice without the player having the knowledge of what's going on, potentially (and you'll have to tell us) without indicating that it was a risk.

I didn't explain the context well, let me try to fix that.

It was quite clear to Lucy that Katrin was taking a risk, but not actually what it was.  I didn't invent Olec's betrayal after the fact (and certainly not to trick Lucy out of something she'd achieved).  It was in my original idea for the character, although you've seen my kind of open-ended prep: it isn't actually certain that Olec will really turn out to be a traitor to his House, not as long as we haven't played it.

This is what happened:

It was Katrin's first scene in the first session in which Apari's player was back. Katrin strode into Roland's council chamber just as Olec finished taking his oath.  She was offered to ally with Roland as well.  Lucy wanted time to think, I cut to Apari.

When I cut back to Katrin, it was one of those "I don't know what I need to do" moments, reinforced by the fact that Apari's player was sending strong cues that he saw something Lucy wasn't seeing and wanted to "help her" with me being supposed not to notice, or pretend not to (a half-joking players-v-GM game he likes to plays).  

So as we'd done before Lucy and I stopped and talked:  about Dornish Houses and retainer clans, about what swearing an oath to Roland might mean, whether Katrin as a good daughter should go and ask her father's permission first (which was Lucy's initial instinct);  about how in the end we weren't simulating a political intrigue but making a story and Lucy could have Katrin do whatever she liked, heck she could even just grasp the moment and do something she was convinced would go very wrong, just like characters sometimes do in stories; but if she wanted I'd give her all the background info I had including things Katrin didn't know.  

All the while Apari's player was shuffling in his seat, not listening to what we were saying but signing and mumbling like some desparate pupil in class that this oath thing mustbe a bad idea and surely I the devious GM was setting a trap for poor Lucy...

Lucy thought a moment. I would have bet she was going to do what Apari's player told her, avoid a decision.  Instead she grinned at me and told me she was taking that oath.  'Wrong' decision? Yes. She was convinced of it.  And taking it, and trusting me with it.  

(Apari's player had Apari enter the scene at that point, insisting he need to talk to Katrin urgently. Lucy told him no and went ahead.)

So when we come back to it and do something with that oath she swore, trusting me with a blank check as it were, then I'll do hell and fill that empty space without her consent.  

For one thing, we'll be talking about oath-breaking before it happens - and no I wasn't meaning to enforce an Oath-Breaker ability against Lucy's will (although rereading it, I sounded like I would - the idea hadn't entered my mind).  I was thinking about what might be reasonable and I'll definitely suggest it, but it's her decision in the end.

For another, we can twiddle the dial on what Olec's betrayal means for the Roland alliance in general and Katrin's standing in particular - not me as the lone ranger narrator, but Lucy and me together. We'll talk about it OOC or resolve it by giving Katrin ways to respond to the situation IC, or a mix of both (most likely).  

I can so see them overreacting to undead people strolling into their capital asking to talk to Lady Katrin of Baden. And Katrin being who she is won't like seeing Arrenu put in a cage like a wild beast, and won't distance herself from him I'll bet, at least not right away.

Or, if she does, she alienates herself from him (could send him into an undead rage or something, no?). It works either way, IMO.

Works either way, yes.  All the things I was listing above have an alternate outcome, or more than one, of course. All I'm doing is looking at what would endanger things on Katrin's character sheet, I'm not saying any of it has to happen or will necessarily happen.  I was just responding to your question about engineering what you call bottoming out, and playing around with it to learn where the potential is.

[Mike Holmes]

On the issue of Lucy stalling out when decisions come up: taking what you've said quite literally, it sounds like standard GNS incoherence. That is, if it's true, Lucy sees Apari's player as playing using gamism, and she's been informed by you that you're all supposed to be playing narrativism.

Classic, really. The question is whether or not it's accurate. I don't know why, but something about the description of how it happens seems to be wrong. Can't put my finger on it, but, basically, I think that Apari's player isn't really using gamism. Maybe it's just a mistaken perception of gamism. Any thoughts on that? If not, then I'm sorta reduced to making suggestions regarding incoherence only.

Important question: did Lucy exhibit this apprehension before Apari's player joined the game?

The suggestion in the case of the incoherence is to get Apari's player on board with the mode. Or at the very least to display better being on board with it. That doesn't mean that he has to do things to get his character in trouble (though that would help if he did decide to do something like that once in a while). But if he would, at least display appropriate metagame signals. For one, instead of being bemused or confused about Lucy's play, he needs to understand what she's doing, and appreciate it to some extent. He doesn't have to agree with her decisions in all cases, but he should agree that they're hers to make, and that it's legitimate to drive your character into danger and trouble.

For his own play, perhaps some commentary on why he likes winning would help. That is, for the contest about Olec, was he excited about winning? If so, why? It's vaguely possible that he feels the gamism boost in self-esteem, but if so, I'm not sure why. There's really very little that a HQ player can do to stack the odds in his favor - and even if he does, he needs narrator compliance to do so. Meaning that every win of a contest is really just about the random roll of the dice. It doesn't really say anything about player skill or ingenuity. As such, there's nothing to rejoice over. But, ironically, RPG players have been trained to see their characters' successes as their own, and may miss this fact somehow.

But it's also possible that what Apari's player is enjoying are the choices he's making from a thematic POV, and just likes his character to be a winner. In that case, ask him what it is that he likes about the outcome for the character. Is winning against Olec cool simply because Olec is an ass? That's theme. He wants to win to make a statement about asses like Olec, not to make himself look good. If Lucy saw this, she might understand better that he's not playing to win as a player.

Do I sound like I'm turning into a controlling narrator suddenly?

No, I didn't mean to imply that. I'm just pointing out the danger involved in that one sort of suggestion that you put out there. I always take opportunities to expound on things like this. Because even if you're not "guilty" of the sin, somebody is, and they might be reading. I'm not posting here just for you, but for the other readers benefit as well.

Bangs actually require the GM to have a lot of input into what's happening in-game...the same sort of input that can be used for railroading, and other methods that take the power out of the player's hands to make plot for their characters. The point is that it's a fine line sometimes, and it can be crossed in a lot of different ways. One is to not allow for more than one solution to a situation. This is classic railroading, and what the methods behind bangs are meant to avoid. The method that I thought you might be proposing retroactively alters the perspective on a character to make it such that the effect of a player's previous decision is rendered somewhat moot. A "Retroactive Railroading" if you will. I was just trying to point out the pitfall.

Basically, it's not enough to simply allow players to make decisions about their characters, those decisions have to stand thematically, in most cases in perpetuity (if the player wants to alter them, that's another case, however). Else the player feels the same elimination of the effects of their input.

It was quite clear to Lucy that Katrin was taking a risk, but not actually what it was.

Then not a problem. And a perfect opportunity for GM induced propulsion to "bottoming" as well.

My feeling is that Lucy very much wants Katrin to leave for now, so bangs that I throw at her in tonight's session will give her that option.  (I may ask her whether she wants to play out what happens, or start out in the snow alone with Nollorn.)  

The best thing is not to make the leaving option at all explicit. Often leaving is a sort of subtle unstated option to any situation - Ron talks about ensuring with a bang that even "walking away" is a statement. So the bangs don't have to be "Stay with these pro's and con's vs Leave with these pro's and con's" but can be "This vs That" with leaving as a third option to avoid the conflict.

As always, the best bangs have multivariate possible outcomes. The tendency is to make dilemmas because they're simple to create and easy to note. Try to have some that are more open-ended, however. Often this involves giving some power or thing to the PC with no suggestion whatsoever to do with it, just the question, "OK, now what do you do with it?" There are other typical ploys here as well.

Apparently not. :-) She says it's doesn't feel like rock bottom yet, that's why I said I have to play it by ear.  She, too, by the way.

That's key. Just commit to making the decision on the spot. As Ron says, "Story Now." Don't fall into the trap of "Story Before" (which sucks all the joy out of the actual in-game acts, IMO).

All the while Apari's player was shuffling in his seat, not listening to what we were saying but signing and mumbling like some desparate pupil in class that this oath thing mustbe a bad idea and surely I the devious GM was setting a trap for poor Lucy...

See, classic incoherence indicator. Again, it might be a stylistic thing, or it might indicate actuall incoherence. That is, either Apari's player is actually concerned about "losing" to the GM, or he's joking about it to create thematic tension. Either way it's a bad idea, because it's confusing.

In fact, it's quite possible, that his statements are in a "kidding" mode, because he's confused about the mode of play. That is, he "knows" gamism, and thinks he has to play to that, but he also sees the narrativism, and wants to try to play that way. It's possible that he's thinking that you can do both at once, and his statements are trying to create reinforcement for both modes at once.

In any case, it has to stop (or you two have to agree to play in another mode). The way to do this is to engage the player like, "Do you think I should set a trap for Katrin? Do you think Lucy would like that?" That's kind of stilted, but you get the idea. Basically address the isssues being brought up by the player's comments in clear terms.

(Apari's player had Apari enter the scene at that point, insisting he need to talk to Katrin urgently. Lucy told him no and went ahead.)

Tempting to call this a real gamism tell - using blatant Author Stance to interject on a scene in order to help another character "win." But it still could be thematic. It's still just possible that he's doing it because he thinks of Katarin as a hero who wouldn't fall prey to such a ploy or somesuch.

Or maybe not. Keep this in mind: if Apari's player thinks that this is all "wrong" and that Lucy should be playing to win as a player, then Lucy's play has to be unsatisfying to him on some level. Is his laughter nervous ever? Do you think that he's covering for actually being uncomfortable?

Generally what's his response to the game been so far? Does he respond favorably when it's done? Say that he's looking forward to playing next session?

This might all be unwarranted, everything might be just fine. I'm just digging to try to see what the case is.



Getting back to the other Bang stuff:

Protect Innocents (& Soft-Hearted & Devoted To The People):

Cool. That completely slipped in beneath my radar. I so need to use that for a complication very soon... which would be easier if we had Katrin in Baden's Bluff or elswehere in occupied territory.

Maybe somewhat easier, but not hard at The Pike. Certainly there has to be some serving folks who work there. An easy ploy is simply to have Roland or somebody important do something mean to a servant. The classic example is that the servant smiles at the PC, and the PC smiles back, and the servant comes over to serve the PC first. The lord roars that he's outraged at the impropriety. The question becomes whether or not the PC sticks their neck out to fend for the servant, or lets it go.

Either of these work for bottoming out, BTW: if they stick their neck out, then the lord quashes their political goals. If they don't then have something really bad happen, like the servant gets lashed, and in an unusual case, suffers nerve damage and the loss of the use of their right arm. Or something like that. The point being to make the character seem very low for doing what they had to do for the sake of political expediency (if you follow this up with the loss of political favor despite not sticking up for the servant, then you have an instant bottoming out event, IMO).

These are cool conflicts, IMO, because they also call into question things like honor and such.

Regarding your comments about "strong" and "Swordfighting" are you saying that it's bad to take these away? You're correct that it's bad to make these permenant losses. But one thing to do is to take them away in a way that would simply require taking a different overall rout to get back. For example, let's say Roland takes away her sword. While she's there, she can't use her Swordfighting. Unless she borrows somebody's sword (against Roland's will), or, say, she goes berzerk, breaks into the armory to get it back, and then hacks her way out of the castle. Or somesuch. See what I'm getting at?

Keep in mind that even death is, mechanically, only a simple contest to heal. There is no such thing as a "permenant" alteration to a character in HQ, other than meaning a change that won't go away without some major effort. But there's always a way to get anything back once lost. She's got a scar? Then later have some witch offer to heal it if Katrin does something foul for her. The point with these is to make them sources for more bangs, and ones that tempt the character into completely new sorts of action.

So, if she bottoms out, losing these things, then she has to devise an entirely new way of dealing with the situation if she wants to get them back. No, just asking nicely for her sword back won't work...but if she gets enough of Roland's Court on her side, then maybe she can oust him with a little court revolution, and regain her sword that way. See what I mean by alternate routs? The idea is for the character to "realize" that the rout they've been taking generally has not been working, and that they have to embrace some other of their values (forsaking the original ones) to head back to redemption.


I like the idea of "Take Pain Away" as the last thing to hold onto - but not to loose neccessarily. Again, you can't take absolutely everything away from Katrin, otherwise there's nothing to turn around on to make the inevitable comback (OTOH, there's always simply tragedy, which you could do if you like). Yeah, when she's really down and out, have her come across somebody that she can help, taking away their pain. Oooh, really poingiant: have her encounter somebody dying in the snow from having fallen on a sharp branch under the snow. They've been lying there in pain for hours, but she can help by taking the pain away, and allowing them to die peacefully. Or something like that.

The point is that this then can become the turning point. She can realize that her religious values that give her this ability (or wherever she gets the ability from - see how important the "where it comes from" question is?) are what she should turn to.

Of course, don't make this the only option...just keep throwing bangs like this at her when she's down, until she decides for herself what it is that she wants to make the "turn" on, when it happens in play, and the notion strikes her.

BTW, if she does return to religion (or whatever value structure), that's a good time to make up the details. Like she's "forgotten" them for a while, but it now comes flooding back to her. Of course, let Lucy decide what the values are. As you say, flashbacks might be good here. They're often pivotal in "turning point" moments.



Your point about the fall having to happen rapidly in order to not be painfully dragged out is quite correct. The simple solution is not to simply shoot for the character's swordsmanship or just her value of protecting innocents, etc. Shoot for big groups at once. The simplest way is to imprison the character. That removes the character from all of their values all at once. Again, to make it an actual loss, the character must be giving up opportunities to help people, to be a hero, etc. But once you've established the opportunity, then have some bad decision land her in the Donjon, and you pretty instantly bottom the character out.

Night King, Dragon, Undead Sarcosians...do them all. Write up bangs that include the introduction of each. No you won't be able to get to them all. But the ones that do get introduced will be the best for what's going on when you do introduce them. Basically, allow yourself the opportunity to make the decision of which to throw in on the spot. Of course, if you can't come up with a Bang, or other essential way to include the new character into the game ("monsters" are NPCs, too, damnit!), then you know you shouldn't include that character.


Princess? Once again, your failure to include amongst our elements for possible play something as important as a Princess that our protagonist's undead ex-boyfriend was in love with is really not helping with our ability to help you out with bangs here, Kerstin! ;-)

Gotta have the princess show up. :-)

Mike

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Incoherence indeed.  

Lucy said I hit the nail on the head with this:  

It's only that winning doesn't have to be her sole and overriding concern anymore, she now can afford the luxury of going for (or not going for) the most dramatic, melodramatic or heart-breaking choice whenever she wants. But when another player still plays in a way that looks like winning is "the winning option", it's only natural for old memories to come up and wonder, am I playing this game in the right, fun way? Or am I going to be left stranded as I've been in the past? Am I (again) playing a giant with clay feet?

I'm glad to say that this session there wasn't a single moment of stalling on her part.  So we can work around the vibe that Apari's player brings into the game, that's good.  Lucy is also beginning to think about scenes, conflicts and story decisions on Apari's behalf, which could be great – assuming anything can be done to help that player into the boat with us.  Not sure about that.  


Now, what's going on with Apari's player?  

I don't know why, but something about the description of how it happens seems to be wrong. Can't put my finger on it, but, basically, I think that Apari's player isn't really using gamism. Maybe it's just a mistaken perception of gamism.

It's not classic gamism, I think he's trying to play both gamist and sim at the same time.  Yeah.  Narr doesn't even enter into it, not as far as I can see.

I collected more data in last night's session .  

He looks at everything that happens in either of two ways, both of which he uses in D&D as well:  

1.  Where is the challenge?  How do I beat it by exploiting the rules as far as they will bend?  Where is my risk?  

2.  What do I want to be "plausible" for my character to be doing at this moment?  ("Apari is annoyed right now, he's not thinking this through."  "He has never met his unborn babies, he doesn't care about them.")  Not sure whether that is a My-Guy approach or what.  

He works hard to reinterpret conflicts in ways that will remove any choice-making on Apari's part.  "Apari is an assassin/ranger/..., of course he would do X."  When he said after the session that the sensible thing for snow elves and Dorns would be to ally rather than fight each other (well, obviously yes...) and I suggested that he could make it a goal for Apari, if he wanted even try to get the two hostile parties talking out in the snow right then and there, he told me that he didn't want to do that.  He wasn't interested in "perfect roleplaying.  Right now Apari is miffed.  He doesn't want to negotiate."  

Maybe I just haven't managed to present him with any choices that interest him;  but I'm getting less optimistic that I can.  

He has looked at the rulebook and decided he didn't need to buy it because he doesn't need to know the niceties of the rules to "play well".  He's told us repeatedly that he's disappointed there's no risk of dying in the game and he misses that.  On the other hand he's uncomfortable with the idea that some contests may end with long-term changes to a character.  

Worse, he was also uncomfortable during some of Lucy's scenes, which wasn't quite the case before.  I'm not sure why but he appears to have made up his mind that there is something "wrong" going on there (it could be the melodrama/romance theme, or the story mode, or both) and he won't comment on it – he's not really commenting on her scenes at all anymore.  

The suggestion in the case of the incoherence is to get Apari's player on board with the mode. Or at the very least to display better being on board with it. That doesn't mean that he has to do things to get his character in trouble (though that would help if he did decide to do something like that once in a while). But if he would, at least display appropriate metagame signals. For one, instead of being bemused or confused about Lucy's play, he needs to understand what she's doing, and appreciate it to some extent. He doesn't have to agree with her decisions in all cases, but he should agree that they're hers to make, and that it's legitimate to drive your character into danger and trouble.

He mostly accepts that it's legitimate for Lucy to do whatever she wants with her character, but subject to what feels like gamist restrictions.  There was a half-joke about Apari feeling pretty let down by Katrin when she managed to get defeated by Olec in council – only half a joke because he then went on to "joke" at length how Katrin's defeat increased Olec AP and endangered Apari's victory.  

He does not understand what Lucy and I are doing.  Anything to do with story falls on deaf ears on his part.  

For his own play, perhaps some commentary on why he likes winning would help.

Two reasons:  

He likes risk, specifically the risk of death, which HQ cheats him out of – if he gets to decide whether it is ok for his character to die, that doesn't count.  
And he enjoys "finding new solutions", which made me hopeful for a moment.  But he wasn't referring to anything creative, or new in terms of finding out something about the character or story, he meant finding tactics that work.  He wants to be satisfied that he, the player, is winning.  Apari is his tool in doing that.  

It's vaguely possible that he feels the gamism boost in self-esteem, but if so, I'm not sure why. There's really very little that a HQ player can do to stack the odds in his favor - and even if he does, he needs narrator compliance to do so.

He was working hard to turn the session into a wrangling contest between me and him about target numbers and applicable augments and penalties.  (He started that even in Katrin's contests "to help Lucy out".)  

He wasn't happy after the session.  I think he's beginning to feel that the game isn't giving him the kind of satisfaction that he gets out of winning a fight D&D and he's searching for it, hard.  

But it's also possible that what Apari's player is enjoying are the choices he's making from a thematic POV, and just likes his character to be a winner. In that case, ask him what it is that he likes about the outcome for the character. Is winning against Olec cool simply because Olec is an ass? That's theme. He wants to win to make a statement about asses like Olec, not to make himself look good.

I forgot to ask about the Olec contest, dammit!  But we talked about why he liked Apari to win in other situations.  In the cases we discussed at least, it wasn't about Apari.  It was about the player's satisfaction in dealing with challenges, and about discovering new (or new-to-him) tactics to deal with them.



I'll reply to your thoughts regarding bangs in a separate post.

Edit:  D'oh.  Not quite yet.  I notice I didn't copy all of my reply, here's the rest:  

All the while Apari's player was shuffling in his seat, not listening to what we were saying but signing and mumbling like some desparate pupil in class that this oath thing mustbe a bad idea and surely I the devious GM was setting a trap for poor Lucy...

See, classic incoherence indicator. Again, it might be a stylistic thing, or it might indicate actuall incoherence. That is, either Apari's player is actually concerned about "losing" to the GM, or he's joking about it to create thematic tension. Either way it's a bad idea, because it's confusing.

In fact, it's quite possible, that his statements are in a "kidding" mode, because he's confused about the mode of play.

I don't think it has anything to do with confusion about mode of play, or about thematic tension.  They are his running comments in both games I've seen him in (mine and another, gamist GM's), and always the same old gamist tropes:  "The GM is your enemy."  "Don't give the GM ideas."  And all the rest of them.  

In any case, it has to stop (or you two have to agree to play in another mode). The way to do this is to engage the player like, "Do you think I should set a trap for Katrin? Do you think Lucy would like that?" That's kind of stilted, but you get the idea. Basically address the isssues being brought up by the player's comments in clear terms.

I've tried similar questions to find out what's behind it but he clams up immediately, grows uncomfortable and obviously wants everyone to pretend he hasn't been saying anything.


I dunno.  I need to drive it home to him that this game isn't about challenges, and that it is about something else that I though he had already perceived but actually doesn't.  
If I can manage that we'll see whether he's happy to try out a new mode of play - right now it's just not working very well for him and really seriously not working for me. I just don't have fun this way because I see a different thing I want to do and he's not playing.


(Edited: added several paragraphs at end of posts.)

[Kerstin Schmidt]

As always, the best bangs have multivariate possible outcomes. The tendency is to make dilemmas because they're simple to create and easy to note. Try to have some that are more open-ended, however. Often this involves giving some power or thing to the PC with no suggestion whatsoever to do with it, just the question, "OK, now what do you do with it?" There are other typical ploys here as well.

I've seen the open-ended thing in play;  and I think Katrin's oath to Roland had open-ended potential only the other bangs I presented filled in that open space pretty quickly.  It would have been interesting to let this play out a bit more with fewer bangs introduced.  (The reason I was using a lot of additional bangs so soon and all in one session was that Apari's player was back at the table with his non-story vibe:  I was throwing out bangs as a countermeasure, to reinforce our mode of play.)  

And what other typical ploys?...  :-)

See what I mean by alternate routs? The idea is for the character to "realize" that the rout they've been taking generally has not been working, and that they have to embrace some other of their values (forsaking the original ones) to head back to redemption.

Lucy has planned that out for Katrin already apparently.  She says she doesn't want Katrin to return to the Pike until she has found her religion and has a new approach to things.  

I'm a bit wary of that categorical general decision btw, it sounds almost as if Lucy is planning to implement this decision whatever else happens in play, and that wouldn't be good because it would mean that we are merely playing through her story and not creating it.  I'll have to think of things drastic and interesting enough for her to start considering changing track as we play, or if that doesn't work we need the religious revelation to happen almost right away.  

Oooh, really poingiant: have her encounter somebody dying in the snow from having fallen on a sharp branch under the snow. They've been lying there in pain for hours, but she can help by taking the pain away, and allowing them to die peacefully.

Very Midnight.  :-)  The MN books and forums are full of examples like this one:  you don't really save anything, you merely aid help it to die in dignity.  The thematic pull of it is so strong that MN games are in real danger of getting mired down in a never-win mindset ... and then die in a quiet whimper because too much of it is just, well, too much.  To have it now and then is wonderful of course, and precisely one of the themes of Midnight.  

She can realize that her religious values that give her this ability (or wherever she gets the ability from - see how important the "where it comes from" question is?) are what she should turn to.

Hell yes.  I've been gnashing my teeth at the lack of religion over the last couple of sessions already, we're working on fixing that.  Lucy has decided that she likes your approach of an unavailable Ancestors Pantheon and an ancestors' common religion and we'll build on that for Katrin's current value set, I'll post it when we have worked it out.  Last night Lucy had Katrin curse "by the names of all my ancestors".  For the first time, proper swearing!  

When I first started the Midnight game a year and a bit ago, I posted a query on www.againsttheshadow.org about what cool swearwords people were using.  Not easy in a world that doesn't have religions anymore, neh?  When all the PCs and most of the NPCs they will meet hate the only available god anyway, so he isn't the best swearword material?  I got meagre answers to my query, which in retrospect shouldn't have surprised me.  

To return to Apari's player for a moment:  I gave both players a choice between an animist and a theist religion for their respective people.  I explained the difference between feats (what we've been using) and charms, sketched the difference in religion and left it to them to decide either on the basis of which magic system they prefer or on the basis of which type of religion fits their concept of their characters better.  Lucy had already decided that she wants to explore animism elsewhere (Shay) and was keen on having Katrin from a theist culture.  Apari's player asked whether his daggers could be magical under both systems, I confirmed.  He then asked why one had to choose between feats and charms, so I said that one could have both and briefly explained Concentration.  He shrugged, looked disappointed and said both systems seemed pretty much similar to him and he didn't have a preference.  

Y'know, I'm so frustrated?  He's not interested in giving input beyond but building and playing his character;  he couldn't be bothered to think about the religion, nor even on what style of magic might fit Apari.  All he was interested in was how to get at the most powerful rules set and if there wasn't one, then why waste time talking about? And for that matter if there was one, why waste time obscuring the real issue (powerful rules) with fluff like what people might believe or how they cast their magic?  

Night King, Dragon, Undead Sarcosians...do them all.  Write up bangs that include the introduction of each. No you won't be able to get to them all. But the ones that do get introduced will be the best for what's going on when you do introduce them.

Yup, cool.  Quite a bit of work, but work that will be useful even though much of it will never see play – simply because it gets me to think the entire situation through again, as it revolves around Katrin.  It'll be fun doing this.  

My much bigger problem at this point is what bangs to create for Apari.  I'm at a loss.  We're not clicking on the ghostly family thing he created, he's really disliking what I did with that and won't communicate why.  I suspect he'd like me to drop it, and keep the ghosts as some sort of followers that will augment him when he likes but will be inconspicuous otherwise.   The classic gamist's approach to flaws, although maybe that's not even his reason here, perhaps he just dislikes the family and love themes that he introduced (unintentionally?) and that I reinforced.  

Whatever I do with this and other bangs for Apari, I need to find something that is too big to overlook and leaves him no room to evade story - which further means I need something that will push the player's buttons so he engages, and I'm not at all sure how.  In fact now I think about it this way, last session felt like he was wriggling to dodge my play like a sinner the devil's pitchfork.  Or something.  That's gotta change.  

Gotta have the princess show up. :-)

You had me confused there for a bit.  (Princess? What princess??...)  Let me clarify.  Sorry to disappoint you.  

Katrin's undead ex-boyfriend Arrenu has never been in love with any princess other than Katrin.  (Or to be honest, seeing him as the man he was, he probably was in love with any number of princesses at any time in his life, but we don't know anything about those other princesses and I don't think they are ones that need to turn up right now. Although if we need to complicate Arrenu's relationship to Katrin that way we can make one up.)

The man who loved a princess but couldn't get her was another Sarcosan lord, Jahzir – now one of the Night Kings.  The undead Arrenu might be working for Jahzir now (although if he does it will be a major letdown for Katrin because Arrenu was the man who inspired her to leave Baden's Bluff and live a warrior's life fighting against the Shadow).  

My rather convoluted thought went like this:  

Jahzir got to be a Night King about a century ago by being corrupted by Izrador's vile whisperings.  More specifically, he was promised help in gaining the hand of the (unavailable) princess he loved, but was lured into a trap instead.  He was captured, locked up in some dark dungeon and alternately whispered to and tortured until his mind broke and he swore loyalty to Izrador.  

Now assuming a potential heiress to the Dornish Crown (and her much-loved fiancé) happened to come into Jahzir's reach, there's obviously a number of things that could happen.  I was thinking that Jahzir might try to repeat his own fun experience on that Dornish heiress, to convert her to Izrador's side.  

And please don't tell me that Jahzir could decide it was time for him to get a queen of his own...  
Ok.  I'll admit it.  It would be easy. The story doesn't say whether Jahzir got that princess as a reward or not and in any case she could have died, run away or become inconvenient.  But I'm getting to a point where I'm having quite enough men trying unsuccessfully to marry Katrin.  No... more... please... ;-)

[Kerstin Schmidt]

More thoughts on Apari's player.  

It certainly felt as if he was trying to play D&D last session, and (not surprisingly) being constantly frustrated.  Whether D&D is all he wants, as BirdMan suggests in the actual play thread, isn't a question I can answer at this point.  The player doesn't (yet?) get the narr mode of play - all I can do is try to analyse what happened, see whether I can do better in engaging him, and if I can't, well then I can't.


I've been wondering what was different from the two sessions before, when his play was like he was feeling his way into the new mode and enjoying it.  I think the greatest difference was that before, he was able to introduce his character into the other PC's conflicts and scenes (to the point of abandoning Apari's own conflicts), while this time he was on his own.  

It's difficult to tell because he doesn't want to discuss his preferences, but I get the feeling that it is a bit like this:  

•   He obviously realises that the other player is having fun in her scenes.  I also believe that he feels the "pull" of the story we are creating:  he's being pulled into it as if he were reading a book.  

•   He isn't reading a book of course, he's playing a game, so he wants in on the fun.  Great.  But ...

•   He can't identify the mode of play.  All he sees is the fun in the other player's scenes, and confusing, unexpected and difficult things happening to his character in his own scenes.  He's not seeing that by simply responding and playing whatever the hell he likes with them he'll get his own fun going.

•   So he evades his own chances to play and instead has his character wander over to where the "real fun" is.  Which doesn't work all that well because in this mode of play it doesn't make his PC a party member with equal chances of competing at being "the best", it makes him a supporting character to the protagonist PC.  Not good, and even less good when he wants his own PC to be cool but the protagonist PC is losing contests.  So he muscles his way in to "win some" and (in his eyes) proves he's the best - because that's how it's worked in the past, right? So it ought to work again, right?  


Only it doesn't, of course.  

Now is there some way I can engage him and get him to give our new mode of play a chance?  Not sure.  

Although at least he's seeing that the system isn't giving him proper risks and challenges, and that is making him uncomfortable – it's too easy beating it.  (It's noticeable that he thinks my skills at running the game with this system quite poor, but he's working hard to not admit that without actually lying to me:  anything to protect me from finding out that sore truth...)  So if I tell him that the game isn't about challenges and that if he wants to give the new style a chance he'll have to think differently, that much might actually get through to him.  

Which still leaves me to show him where the fun actually is, not just where it isn't.  I need some bangs for him that he won't be able to dodge as easily as he did the ones before.  So where does he engage?  

I've tried the ghosts he created;  he doesn't like playing with them so far.  
At his request I've given him a chance to bring his wife back to life if he can find the Tear of Healing, but he simply told Reifels to stop researching that and help his father make maps instead.  He's said he could never refuse his wife anything, but had no trouble lying to her when she asked him to find her babies.  (It'll be interesting to see whether he changes his mind about that now he knows the babies are somehow linked to the daggers.  Perhaps he was just trying to wriggle out of something that he felt he had no way of solving – still looking for beatable challenges.)  

I've tried the prisoner elf;  he left him in the dungeons to be maltreated and went off to "save" Katrin from swearing loyalty to Roland instead.  He did try twice, later, to get Nollorn out of Roland's clutches, by betting on Katrin in her duel with Olec and by negotiating with Roland to let him take Nollorn to the snow elves in his investigation.  (Even spent a HP trying to achieve this.)  
Cool play, all the cooler because he never tried to take the extreme step of setting Nollorn free... but now Katrin has done just that, and I think Apari's player is jealous that he "lost" and she "won".  

I'm giving him a big political mess with Roland, whom Apari has acknowledged King of Dorns, practically taken hostage on his own land by snow elves, who Apari feels some abstract loyalty to.  The player tried to muscle his way out of that regardless of the price, by threatening the snow elves with war from the wood elves if they don't do what he says.  (Not sure how to handle that.  When he realised that this contest would be hard to win he didn't want one, but insisted he made the statements nevertheless.  I can't really see the snow elves simply ignoring a threat of that magnitude – if they believe him they have every reason to not let him get away alive.)  

After the session the player mentioned to me how the Dorns and snow elves really ought to work together and not act hostile towards each other.  That way at least they would "survive a few minutes longer" once Izrador's army strikes.  When I said that it was all up to him to try and turn the situation into a political summit, he shrugged and told me Apari wouldn't want to do that:  "Apari is miffed now.  He's never been threatened by an elf before."

[Andrew Norris]

Hi,

I think that you need to directly engage the player in a discussion, totally independently of his character. He seems to keep responding to overtures to discuss the game with "My guy wouldn't do that", which indicates to me that he's not getting the mode.

I would make an effort to talk to him as a player, and try to get him to articulate what he's liked and not liked so far, and do it entirely out of character. It seems like he wants interesting, beatable challenges that make his character look like the mental picture of him in his head. I'd suggest telling him that he can have that, but that you would like to bring out the subtext behind those challenges, and that even if his character isn't aware of that subtext, he as a player should feel free to work with it.

Look at that discussion you had about the possible political summit. The player's engaged, but he's keeping his character away from the situation. Why? Because he's been taught in D&D that making things happen in-game that your character wouldn't want to have happen is "bad play". This is a place where you might say something like "What if this political summit ends up having to happen, would you find it interesting for Apari to be involved even though he's miffed?" (There's an angle -- okay, the character's affronted, he doesn't like elves, but this is a setting where the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Is he really willing to let the Shadow advance, even a little, for the sake of his pride? That's a fascinating scenario that would "fizzle" and leave him frustrated in Actor stance, but could be a blast to play in Author stance, coming up with reasons why he keeps coming back despite his anger, etc.)



This is pretty far off track, but I wanted to talk about a situation I had similar to what I think I see. The player was very much about having his character look calm, cool, and competant, and was doing the whole "sarcastic loner" thing between opportunities to shine. I gave them a line on allies and resources that they exploited to the hilt to get "the job done". I then played out the natural consequences of them having exerted so much pressure (we're talking casual blackmail and exploiting budding romantic relationships for backup, serious stuff). The character's story, such as it was, had a "How far will you go for power? All the way" vibe to it. That might not have been totally satisfactory on its own, but the contrast with the other characters was really interesting -- they all said "The line is *here*", where here was different for each, and he said "There's no line at all."

Basically my take is that if someone wants to play a Jack Bauer (from 24) type of character, I let them do it, with the explicit understanding that the cost of victory is an explicit subtext.

I hope that helps a bit. I agree that there's no sneaking up on mode, so I think you'd be best off being explicit in telling him what you're trying to do. Good luck.

[Kerstin Schmidt]

More news, good ones I think.  Apari's player and I went for drinks tonight, with another friend who also games, and we managed to talk briefly about the Midnight game.  

I told the player once again that the game isn't about risks and challenges of the D&D type and that if he keeps looking for them he'll just be frustrated.  We clicked on this (for the first time) when I mentioned that obviously I wasn't even preparing stats or "encounter levels" (I don't pretend otherwise at the table), and was creating resistance TNs as the conflict warranted, as a story decision and not as a "challenge to beat";  he nodded and his eyes brightened, I think he suddenly understood what I ain't doing in the game.  

When I said that the core of the new game style is presenting choices to players, preferably difficult ones, he confirmed that:  yes there are choices, difficult ones for him.  Wow.  Playing with that doesn't come easily to him, but on the whole he does enjoy it.  Even though he does tend to wriggle away from it, and although he was a bit sad (but also kinda relieved to have clarity) when I said that there weren't going to be D&D-style challenges anymore.  

He still isn't really sure what defeats would add to a character, but this time round when I asked him whether he could tell me of any cool hero in a book or film who never suffered any setbacks (we've been through this before), he admitted that no - "but they win in the end".  Of course, I said.  Hm.  In D&D you'd die, he said, thinking.  

I tried to get through to him again that whatever choice he makes just leads to a different kind of story, they are all valid and all fun.  I gained a bit of ground on that I think, compared to last time we spoke.  

He says one reason he's been growing a bit uncomfortable at the table is that he doesn't know what he can and can't say. Can he make suggestions to the other player Lucy in her scenes?  Can he laugh when a particularly melodramatic moment amuses him?  What kind of feedback is he allowed to give? Is teasing allowed or will it be considered offensive? It sounded like he's been falling back on the old D&D-style jokes half because they felt like a "safe outlet" and only half because he was still trying to reinforce his preferred and familiar mode of play.  (Yeah, that too. But I think he got my point this time round.)

So it's looking like he's trying to give the new mode of play a chance even though it's harder work for him than playing gamist - and he's beginning to see what our play is and isn't about, which is great.  

I think that you may want to consider that you've just got a different take on Apari than his player does. That is, what you're seeing as his issues, and what the player is seeing may just be different.

For example, you keep on trying to hammer on reproductive issues, like Apari's children. The player isn't interested. Consider that he's male, and that issues about children, especially if the player doesn't have any of his own, are just not as interesting as they tend to be for women, or people with children.

Absolutely, it may not interest him after all.  It was him who created the babies, and he stressed how especially tragic their loss was to Apari (especially seeing that elves are a dying race in our Midnight), so I tried to use that - but seeing his reaction it is very likely that he wanted it to be background-cool and not actual-play-cool.  (Not that he'd have known the difference at the time because I don't think he's ever had a GM pulling backstory into the actual game.)

Oh and he was slightly worried that I was going to throw bunches of marriage proposals at him the way I've been doing with Lucy.  I reassured him that I have no such intention.

I mean, he's even told you point blank that he doesn't want to deal with the knives issue. He just wants it to be some backstory to make the knives all the cooler. Yes, I think that you may have "influenced" the player when you asked him if he wouldn't want to keep the conflict about his character's wife alive. That you should have gone with his original request.

I agree that I should have gone with his idea of ending the wife conflict (which wasn't what he originally asked for, but still).  Looking at it from the point at which we now are, with this stuff already in play, his signals are mixed. We didn't go into much detail on it tonight because we'd have bored our other friend (who's not playing in the Midnight game anymore) out of the window;  but he's wanting to keep those ghosts in play somehow.  

Can you make conflict out of "power?" Sure, it's easy, really. Just give two choices of power. Become poliltically important with Roland, or go off after some artifact of power? Apparently he's playing this issue already, with his comments about choosing who to back.

We're having that already and we'll be getting more.  He's had a few days to think about the political mess Apari's in the middle of, and is now looking for ways to deal with it.  Not sure it's about power at all, I think it's more about, hm... doing stubborn and unexpected things, maybe? Being powerful as a matter of course and then doing unexpected things, more likely. Such as:

He's "mostly decided" that Apari will back Roland against the snow elves, to the point of refusing to negotiate with them and "killing them all" next session.  

He was shooting that as a test balloon in my direction tonight, and looked a bit distrustful when I said that I was perfectly ok with that ("where's the trap?").  But I think he ended up satisfied that any choice he made would be valid, and lead to a fun story, and give Apari opportunities to look cool.  Any choice, not just "the right one".

He even ended saying that "funnily enough" he was usually happy to "roleplay more" (rather than go and kill things) when his character was powerful and didn't have to prove himself anymore. (Not "funny" to me, it'll just follow naturally from taking all that risk-and-challenge pressure off.)  

So it almost looks like we need to establish Apari as powerful (done, at least partly), and then go on to the stuff that really interests him, which is something else that I can't quite grasp yet.

Now, the real question which remains unanswered is whether or not these issues are "challenge" issues, or "thematic" issues. The player may be misusing the terminology, or he may not, when he says he wants "challenges." If he's got it correct, what he's saying is that he wants you to place challenges before the player to get the things he wants. So there's not really any question of which thing to get, but just how best to get them as a player. Gamism vs. Narrativism, basically.

We cleared that one up. When we were talking after the last session he meant challenges about him getting, or failing to get, what he wants.  He was disappointed at first to realise tonight that he really, definitively, wasn't getting any of those in the game anymore.   But he ended up accepting that (it does make things clearer and in a way he seemed relieved to have that half-wish for gamist challenges out of the way) and said eventually that dealing with difficult choices was a "challenge" for him, too, in a different way.  

I know you talk about your "group" and how they seem adverse to this sort of play - have you considered making some players out of non-gamers?

I'd certainly consider doing that, I've done it in the past and it's been great fun.  A few friends of mine here have already expressed interest in dropping by for a session or so to find out what this roleplaying thingie is all about.

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Look at that discussion you had about the possible political summit. The player's engaged, but he's keeping his character away from the situation. Why? Because he's been taught in D&D that making things happen in-game that your character wouldn't want to have happen is "bad play".

Possibly so. Although there's also a different dynamic going on, which is an exaggereated sense of keeping OOC knowledge and character knowledge separate. The player knows (from the other player's scenes) that Izrador's armies are already marching south, there's a huge orcish war horde moving to cut through between snow elves and Dorns. The character doesn't know that. The player said to me that if the character knew about that, he'd have him talk to snow elves and humans immediately, point them to the common enemy and tell them to fight side by side - but since the character doesn't know that the player feels he has to (wants to?) play the character in the way furthest removed from the "OOC knowledge".  

I'm not sure that that is the only aspect to it though. The player was really getting worked up about his idea of his jungle elf character heroically and stubbornly killing all the snow elves in his anger.  So, hm. I could drop the info about the war horde in some way, but it might mean cheating the player out of something he was just (between sessions) beginning to engage.  

Perhaps I'll just decide to put the player in another difficult place and ask him what he'd prefer. I drove him to distraction last time I gave him a similar choice. :-)

Is he really willing to let the Shadow advance, even a little, for the sake of his pride? That's a fascinating scenario that would "fizzle" and leave him frustrated in Actor stance, but could be a blast to play in Author stance, coming up with reasons why he keeps coming back despite his anger, etc.

He answered that question tonight I think, when he told me that if Apari knew of the orcs' offensive he'd get the two hostile parties to fight together. Seeing that Apari currently doesn't know about it, the choice the player is going for (assuming that I get him correctly now) is between backing Roland, the uncultured, disgustingly barbarian human, or Apari's own race who admit to being allied with orcs (a tribe that claims to have fallen out with the Shadow, but still - orcs haven't been considered people by the PCs in the past, just monsters to be eradicated where found).

The player was very much about having his character look calm, cool, and competant, and was doing the whole "sarcastic loner" thing between opportunities to shine. I gave them a line on allies and resources that they exploited to the hilt to get "the job done". I then played out the natural consequences of them having exerted so much pressure (we're talking casual blackmail and exploiting budding romantic relationships for backup, serious stuff).

Interesting.  Did the player enjoy that? Did it make his character cool the way he wanted him to be cool, with "no line"? As I read you, you told him upfront that there'd be consequences of him drawing no line, yes?

I hope that helps a bit. I agree that there's no sneaking up on mode, so I think you'd be best off being explicit in telling him what you're trying to do. Good luck.

Thanks for commenting (yes, it's been helpful - even the things that don't apply to our case do help because they help me think more clearly and distinguish what is what), and thanks for the good wishes. I'm more optimistic again after my brief between-drinks chat with the player tonight, it did feel like we were making headway towards understanding each other.

[Mike Holmes]

First, about "falling behind," ask her how she might feeling that she's falling behind. Does she get fewer HP? This seems troubling, because if she's having fun, then why would she have such a question? I'm not saying she's not having fun, but worrying that you might not be having fun when you're having fun...well that's just wierd. No?

Apari's player (can we just call him Bob or something?), is not playing My-Guy play at all, from what I can see. My-Guy involves being reactionary often becuase of a perception of being manipulated. I think that, if anything, this is just garden variety incoherence. He's just playing gamism or whatever. I mean, it sounds like he honestly just wants to play that way - not that he's dysfunctionally avoiding something else. Just a clarification.

It sounds like you had a player expecting gamism who's now understanding, at least, what you're offering. Well done, getting him to grok it. I have to say that often this sort of conversation ends up with nothing but frustrated players. Just quickly, terms to avoid ever using in such discussions include "story." Seems like an innocent term, but it's not.

but seeing his reaction it is very likely that he wanted it to be background-cool and not actual-play-cool.

More techically stated, the kids are situation for Apari, not premise. That is, you can make premises from the situation that includes kids, but not about them. That is, you can't make him choose between them and something else, but if his premise is about power, you could make him choose between Power A that the kids can give him, and Power B that the sister can give him or something. Or choosing about whatever issue is actually interesting to him.

Basically a statement of theme in background is easily taken as a request for premise about that issue. But in this case, it may just be theme (meaning an answered premise). Group chargen is supposed to aleviate this to some extent, but we can't actually read each other's minds. Sometimes it's just hard to figure out what issues a player wants to play about.

Again, this could also be just avoiding issues. But I think that his statement that he's worried about Apari getting marriage proposals may be an indicator of the sorts of issues that he's interested in. In fact, if you read Ron's "Sex & Sorcery" you'll see that you're specifically throwing "female" type bangs at him, when it's pretty obvious that he wants "male type" bangs. So, again, make it all about establishing Apari's suitability as a male mate (from the male POV). He must kill things! Note that the jaded narrativism player derides D&D for being "hack & slash" but you'll find just as much blood in many narrativism games (if not more; I've seen some Sorcerer games that I don't even want to describe). Nothing wrong with a lot of killing as situation in which to create premise. Protagonist, remember. So it's, do I kill A, or kill B? That sort of thing. Do I seduce this one, or that one? Or both, and then try to make it so they both don't kill me?

That sort of thing. Again, hidden Male keyword. Once he realizes that he hasn't taken "Awesome Lover" watch him buy that at the very next opportunity. ;-)

Think about all of those games that you played in when you were the only female. Now he's the only male. You can choose not to cater to his interests at all, and play a very "female" game. Or you can try to be more sensitive than those who made you play their very male game.

He says one reason he's been growing a bit uncomfortable at the table is that he doesn't know what he can and can't say.

Well, what did you tell him? That it's OK to say exactly what he feels? That, in fact, you encourage him to do so? Did you tell him point blank that you want him to play using his OOC knowledge? Not to "abuse" the game, but to help make the story better? Not to decide on how Apari reacts to Roland based on the character sheet, but on which decision will lead to the most interesting outcome for the players (meaning to use OOC knowledge to make the decision). Did you tell him that one of your favorite moments in play was when he came into one of Katrin's scenes just at the right time? That you want him to do that constantly?

You do have to give feedback on this stuff.


Other typical "open-ended" bang ploys: Actually "bottoming out" the character is one. Lots of reading on this one in a series of threads about the game called "The Pool" about "Wallowing at the bottom off the Pool." But the thing with bottoming out is that the player has to decide what to "turn around" on. And that can be anything (and it makes a very powerful statement). Basically any radical change in the characters life is likely to itself be an open-ended bang. Problems that seem to have no solution can work, too, because they make the player come up with some solution - and often players will give themselves a dilemma at this point (do I divert the meteor magically to hit Anvilania, or do I let it hit here?)

I'm sure there are lots more one could think of. But the key is simply not to create the bang in the This vs. That mode. That almost always makes for a dilemma. Instead to "This is changed - now what?"

Mike