Buffy and the Conflict-Shy GM

[John Kim]

So I had another game of my Buffy RPG campaign on Friday night.  It had been a while since the last session due to schedule conflicts, but everyone was pretty enthused from last time and there was a bunch of cool role-playing on the in-character blogs.  To explain again -- I had GMed the last three sessions, and now I was switching off with Bill who will GM the next three.  I based my episodes on two-line "episode pitches" which Bill gave me, and Bill is basing his on pitches which I gave him.  

This session went pretty well, but had some problems.  Basically, I had pitched it as a really tough monster session.  My pitch was that a demon comes after people who had slept with the Big Bad, Samuel Devins.  This includes the PC CEO of Vampster (Roberta) who had gone out with him in college, and a rival NPC Monique who is CEO of a company he is funding called Discrete Software.  It absorbs magic, can travel over the Internet, and is really tough.  Obviously, this is about how past relationships come back to haunt you.  

I'll skip to my problem in a nutshell.  I had seen this as a "get serious" episode of a sort, but as it turned out the monster didn't end up hurting any of the real PCs except by exploding as it died.  It instead destroyed only things which were mandated by GM fiat.  I should also explain that Bill has been taking classes in scriptwriting, which is a fine creative endeavor but can be a bad influence on RPG habits.  You can read my episode summary:
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/buffy/siliconvalley/season2.html#s2_e10">2.10 Consequences

Good things:

[*] The character interactions, which had been showcased of late in the blogs, kept in the fore.  There was plenty of good dialogue.  
[*] Roberta was drawn out a little more as a focus PC, which is good because she has definitely been withdrawing of late.  On the other hand, Cynthia fell asleep later in the session, though it was a weekday night.  [/list:u]
Not-so-good things:

[*] The first thing was that the demon showed up immediately in our HQ and headed right for the boss.  Now, Vampster's HQ had been established as a dimensional nexus which Roberta controls, precisely to prevent such threats.  There were two other cases of intrusion: but one was early when Roberta was still learning her powers, and the other was player Drama-Point mandated.  This was something I objected to a bit, but we eventually let it stand with some extra comments from me.  In retrospect, this was precisely why I pushed to have a safe haven, to avoid this sort of immediate-threat prod; and instead focus on what the PC's choose to go out to do.  
[*] Before it was killed, the only things that the demon damaged were designated things it was supposed to.  These were Roberta's house (which was mandated for later plot reasons), Ken's cube (who was the one NPC that no one cared about, since he just quit), and Ifurita (Bill's PC, who was supposed to be taken out since it was his turn GMing).  In short, it was pretty ineffective.  It only managed to get at Roberta once we had set a trap for it.  
[*] The interactions with Monique had a bit of an odd feel to them.  My PC, Dot, flat out wanted to kick her out when she found that Monique was with us.  In truth, she was being attacked by the same thing as we were -- but none of us (except Chip) trusted her.  
[*] There were two points when the GM essentially suggested the solution to a problem.  The first was when Ifurita was taken out, she came out for a moment to tell us what to do to save her.  The second was the the demon in the end was killed, it was our temporary ally NPC demon who by fiat managed to skewer it and carry it to the elevator.[/list:u]
Anyhow, my diagnosis is this:

Bill is struggling to control too much in a script-writerly fashion.  But to be collaborative authorially, he is shying away from conflict.  Thus, he has a hard time really hurting the PCs, but conversely he really doesn't want to let go if the players are messing with stuff he wants.  I think he would like to t accept what the players do and then weave it back into the episode.  In Forge terms, I guess the scriptwriting is pushing him towards Illusionism -- and that's something our group doesn't do well.  

There are plenty of mechanical options in the Buffy system.  It is possible for us to spend Drama Points for plot twists to demand changes, but frankly Bill seems uncomfortable and flustered with that.  Now, in my past, I was very content to be a "problem player" who would charge in and wreck the GM's plans.  But these days I am more concerned over the GM's feelings.  It's not so much that we are trapped -- but that I would like him to be positive about this rather than overruled.  

Also, note that while I am concerned about conflict with the monster -- it's not like that was the "point" of the episode.  The point was about how old relationships come back, and that actually came through pretty well in the end.  

So, any suggestions?  Obviously, there is talking with him.  My worry is that criticism will shut him down rather than help him.  Still, I'm not averse to pointing him to this thread and maybe he can ask some questions.  Another thought I had was encouraging "guest stars" -- i.e. players for key NPCs rather than having him play them.  Basically, a guest villain player can cut loose on the PCs much more easily without the hesitation of doing so as GM.

[Ron Edwards]

Wow - this is so on-target in so many ways, I hardly know where to begin. Every sentence in that post is confirmed by dozens of my play-experiences.

Not that you needed my confirmation. That's all a gush of appreciation for the post.

Anyway, advice? Geez. Just this last Sunday, I and an old friend (previous fellow role-player from two decades ago) chatted on a semi-cordial basis about our current games. He is committed, long ago and permanently, to the script-writing model of role-playing. His story. I've become convinced that in many ways, he considers the input and dice-rolls of everyone else at the table to be, in combination, like his dice-rolls ("uber-dice") for the story overall.

I say our conversation was "semi-cordial" because I was trying to keep it value-neutral, and he could not manage to get the idea that in a game like, say, Primetime Adventures, the GM still can utilize tons of prep, back-story, non-disclosed knowledge, and surprises. To him, all of those things were inextricably bound up with his own control over protagonists' decisions, through various means of Force.

(In his case, up to and including simply reaching over and running a player-character, when he feels like it. He expects his players to prioritize the story that will be therefore revealed over all else; they still get to "be" the guy, after all, in their group's contract. "You feel angry and attack!" "I do? Uh ... oh! Arrghhh! Dieeeee!")

I am boring you with all this because I'm not sure there is much meaningful advice. Another friend of mine, a professional screenwriter (and one who's actually sold stuff, not just another Hollywood dude), has written to me fairly extensively about how role-playing gutted his scriptwriting and vice versa.

I definitely agree with you that the Situation (monster) and Conflict (speaking as if I were there, trusting Monique) were not firing in tandem. I also think that if Bill isn't comfortable with you guys spending Drama points, then I guess I'm boggled ... that would be some major Drift, or rather un-Drift I guess (away from coherence).

My experience with having third parties play key NPCs as you describe is not positive. I've tried that, and speaking as the GM in question, I was actually even less reluctant to cede control over them than over player-characters (to their own players). I ended up annoying myself with that tactic as well as everyone else.

Obviously, yes, "talk to him" ... but as you say, that's not really the issue, it's what to say. Ultimately, it's Bill's choice - either he's amenable to more Narrativist play (if you'll excuse the terminology), or he's not. I guess all you can do is state your preferences for yourself, not in terms of "playing right," or what he "has" to do, and let him take it from there.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

I think that there exists a pretty strongly affirmed body of advice that could serve as guide posts here to point him too. I'm talking about stuff such as:

1. Players often enjoy the game more when they are the ones who work out how to solve their own problems.
2. Having NPC's kill the major antagonists is often less fun for the players.
3. It is often an unpleasant experience for the GM to run PC's like NPC's or even approximate that (as in Ron's example).
4. Players often enjoy a serious danger or challenge with real consequences.

Note that I've phrased these as:
(a) non-absolutes--which, for me, they are not (even though I have strong feelings).*
(b) being advice in terms of player enjoyment.

If the guy is in the entertainment mind-set point out to him that the screen-play for a game is situation and the audience is a "tough crowd" with "special and different desires than a movie-goer" (in this case, desires to act against situation and not act out pre-determined plot).

If he gets that the creative and authorial aspects of being a screen-writer still apply albeit in a signifincantly different fashion, he might be okay with that.

Also: there is a problem of experience. If the GM is stumped and feels that the game will be ruined (for everyone) and he'll be responsible if, for example, the PC's don't save the NPC--then you may be dealing with a situation where the GM feels guilty/responsible for setting things up and feels he must intervine to get everyone out unscathed.

If that's the case, it's a different deal (responsibility vs. ego) and you might try encouragement. I've had games get to the point were I felt that the night would be ruined and I, as the GM, had responsibility to the group to do something desparate to get it back on track. If the players had said "Hey, Marco--it's cool. We did thus and so--and it's okay if there's an unhappy ending." Then I'd have been a lot more confident letting things play out like that.

-Marco
* I realized, when writing this, that the game I ran last weekend terminated with an NPC killing the major bad-guy to the *delight* of the players (who are pretty pro-active). The circumstances made all the difference: they were powerful, he was normal--they'd rescued him and armed him and were trying to protect him from the guy who'd been tormenting him--so when his final bullet, with all rolls on the table and the PC's aware of the relative health-statuses of the antagonist, took him down, it was considered a player-victory by them. But it's all about specifics.

[John Kim]

Ron:  It's interesting, because my instinct is to say in some sense the opposite -- that this is moving away from simulation.  There was no cause-and-effect reasoning here.  Cause-and-effect reasoning would be that the demon would attack at inconvenient times for us.  Cause-and-effect reasoning would be that our allied demon Togth's plan would just "beat on it", and even if he did come up with a plan he wouldn't automatically succeed on it.  Viscerally, my issues with how things went were about how things did not seem real and characters were not done 'right'.  

Certainly if I were running it, I would move towards more use of cause-and-effect reasoning.  I would play the demon out based on his goals and his powers.  I would play Monique based on what I knew about her.  I feel that with some minor adjustments for drama, that could have been a powerful episode.  On the other hand, I can see your assessment of Narrativist leanings.  In GNS terms, I think this suggests that cause-and-effect reasoning is a useful Technique in the service of Narrativism.  

A few miscellaneous points:

[*] This is an explicitly dramatic and episodic campaign -- based on the concept of a Buffy-like television series.  So at least the thought of techniques from scriptwriting are not a priori unreasonable.  We do some other TV-like techniques.  
[*] Bill is relatively new to GMing.  He started GMing for the first time by running the first season of this Buffy campaign (starting two years ago).  He is not hugely confident and I really want to encourage him and other players to try GMing.[/list:u]

Also: there is a problem of experience. If the GM is stumped and feels that the game will be ruined (for everyone) and he'll be responsible if, for example, the PC's don't save the NPC--then you may be dealing with a situation where the GM feels guilty/responsible for setting things up and feels he must intervine to get everyone out unscathed.

If that's the case, it's a different deal (responsibility vs. ego) and you might try encouragement. I've had games get to the point were I felt that the night would be ruined and I, as the GM, had responsibility to the group to do something desparate to get it back on track. If the players had said "Hey, Marco--it's cool. We did thus and so--and it's okay if there's an unhappy ending." Then I'd have been a lot more confident letting things play out like that.

I think this part is fairly on target with my assessment.  Bill understands many of these things in principle, but it seems like he does feel "responsible" when bad things happen to the PCs, or when things go "off track" on some unknown path which could be ruinous.  

* I realized, when writing this, that the game I ran last weekend terminated with an NPC killing the major bad-guy to the *delight* of the players (who are pretty pro-active). The circumstances made all the difference: they were powerful, he was normal--they'd rescued him and armed him and were trying to protect him from the guy who'd been tormenting him--so when his final bullet, with all rolls on the table and the PC's aware of the relative health-statuses of the antagonist, took him down, it was considered a player-victory by them. But it's all about specifics.

See, this reinforces my point about cause-and-effect.  The power of the above seems to be that it drove from causes that were (or at least seemed) real.  I feel that following out cause-and-effect here would have been cool, but it's not something Bill is skilled at, I think.

[Marco]

See, this reinforces my point about cause-and-effect.  The power of the above seems to be that it drove from causes that were (or at least seemed) real.  I feel that following out cause-and-effect here would have been cool, but it's not something Bill is skilled at, I think.

I agree. I've been thinking a good deal about this--I'm going to post something to that effect in an actual play post soon.

-Marco

[Paul Czege]

Hey John,

Ron: It's interesting, because my instinct is to say in some sense the opposite -- that this is moving away from simulation. There was no cause-and-effect reasoning here.

Ron never characterized your session as Sim. I believe he meant "more Narrativist" from the force perspective, not from the cause-and-effect perspective.

Paul

[John Kim]

Ron: It's interesting, because my instinct is to say in some sense the opposite -- that this is moving away from simulation. There was no cause-and-effect reasoning here.

Ron never characterized your session as Sim. I believe he meant "more Narrativist" from the force perspective, not from the cause-and-effect perspective.

Could you expand on that a little?  I think you're right, that Ron was commenting on this from the perspective of Force.  I was saying that my instincts are to react to this from the perspective of cause and effect.  i.e. When I think back on the session, the things that bother me are where things didn't make sense.  Based on his perspective, Ron was saying that Bill had to be amenable to more Narrativist play.  From my perspective, I felt that Bill should be amenable to more cause-and-effect, more Virtualist play -- where he lets go of wanting a particular storyline and instead just plays to see what happens.  

By the way, I'm not saying these are opposed.  Indeed, I think they are both steps in the same direction.  But I think people often do think of them as opposed.

[Paul Czege]

Hey John,

From my perspective, I felt that Bill should be amenable to more cause-and-effect, more Virtualist play -- where he lets go of wanting a particular storyline and instead just plays to see what happens.

Player appeals to cause-and-effect in my experience have always arisen from frustrations with GM Force. Why use code words? "To see what happens" is what you want. How is that not code for "stop forcing"? I've not seen player appeals to cause-and-effect in games where the GM was not forcing. Why? Because it's not so difficult to accept that the game world moves in mysterious ways, or to retroactively compose a satisfying causality. Players appeal to cause-and-effect because "stop forcing" is uncomfortably confrontational compared to "not believable enough."

Paul

[John Kim]

Player appeals to cause-and-effect in my experience have always arisen from frustrations with GM Force. Why use code words? "To see what happens" is what you want. How is that not code for "stop forcing"? I've not seen player appeals to cause-and-effect in games where the GM was not forcing. Why? Because it's not so difficult to accept that the game world moves in mysterious ways, or to retroactively compose a satisfying causality. Players appeal to cause-and-effect because "stop forcing" is uncomfortably confrontational compared to "not believable enough."

You're asserting what I really want here, but I'm not sure if your assessment is accurate.  First of all, this isn't a "code-word" per se since I am describing what my feelings and instincts are.  I'm certainly not averse to talking about Force and control issues -- they're pretty clearly laid out in my first post.  Now, you could claim that this is self-deception on my part -- that really the only thing I care about is Force and I express that through fake feelings about cause-and-effect.  But I'm not yet convinced that is the case.  

Also, I certainly do pipe up in a game if something comes up which doesn't make sense, even if it isn't Force.  It's just that if it's not something the GM is set on for plot reasons, they're usually glad to fix it.  Further, in practice, there are a lot of devices for GM direction that I am fine with.  For example, I usually respond pretty well to taking a character someone else wrote in a convention game and playing that character -- even if the character has a designated goal and/or a set of orders.  I will generally dutifully follow those orders.  

For comparison, I probably should have pointers to earlier threads.  http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=14220">Buffy and the Mirror Universe (Feb 2005) described our previous session.  And I talked a little more about issues with Bill in http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=13588">Buffy and the Perils of Scene Framing (Dec 2004).  I think the Mirror Universe one is a good contrast, because I see it as having been heavily directed in a number of aspects.  i.e. An NPC (i.e. my PC, Dot) was the leader of the alternate-universe gang and was quite free with giving orders.  On the other hand, it was also an open-ended "see what happens" sort of episode where I didn't have any strong attachment for what should happen.  

What I'm really looking for, though, are strategies for talking to Bill, and strategies for Bill to learn more about other styles.

[Liz Henry]

Viscerally, my issues with how things went were about how things did not seem real and characters were not done 'right'.  
....
I would play Monique based on what I knew about her.  

One thing I'd add to this is that I was also thrown by the sudden switch of Monique's personality.  I think that Monique evolved as an NPC based somewhat on out-of-character knowledge of my real life relationship with my ex-girlfriend (with all the problems and fun parts of dating someone 20+ years older).   In retrospect I realize that Bill didn't have that level of information and so had a much different concept of the character.  So for me it was jarring to have Monique call Chip for help (She's super confident, powerful, smart, sophisticated and professional; he's her flakey, temporary teenage boytoy and arm candy.) I could still play it out okay, since Chip is too dumb in some ways to notice that she was acting weird.  But me the player noticed.  

My point is that it's a neat example of character-player blurriness.  And an even better one of information dynamics:  it's not that I'm sleeping with you, or that I'm a girl and you're a guy (as has been said on here before in a rather annoying thread that turned into "how girls disrupt games, and perhaps all of social reality, with their dangerous sex") -- it's that out of character, you and I are around each other and talk about the game, and so build our own concept of characters and what's going on in the game that is in its own little bubble and other players don't always see it unless we make a special effort to share that information (as we are doing on the in-character blogs).

[Danny_K]

I've been running an online Buffy game lately, and I also find that it engages my screenwriting instincts in a way that other games don't, and I have to fight a tendency to think of a cool, cinematic way that things might turn out, and then be reluctant to "lose the scene."  

The way I've been handling it is to focus really hard on taking what the players do and making that cinematic.  I also try to come up with multiple interesting developments, and not get too strongly wedded to a particular one until it comes to pass.  

Perhaps that internal struggle I'm having will make sense to you and Bill.  

By the way, when you discussed the issue with the how Bill ran the episode with the monster, what do you think he should have done differently?  Just run the monster full-tilt at the characters according to its own abilities and desires, and let the chips fall where they may?  

Danny

[John Kim]

By the way, when you discussed the issue with the how Bill ran the episode with the monster, what do you think he should have done differently?  Just run the monster full-tilt at the characters according to its own abilities and desires, and let the chips fall where they may?

Well, I didn't want to micromanage how he should run things, and I think that there were a number of different ways that it could be done.  

Still, yes, that's what I would have done, more or less -- and that's probably more what I had in mind when I pitched the idea.  This being an explicitly dramatic game, I would have some nods to dramatic timing and of course I would respect drama point spending.  However, I thought the scenario could work pretty well in that mode.  

I suspect there will be some skepticism of this as an approach, but I'd ask for some faith.  I've been using Virtualist methods for a long time, with many successful games.  When pressed with a real threat, character comes out.  Like much of the Buffy TV series, the monster is just a device to expose the characters.  Yes, the monster is impersonal in a sense, but it is both related to personal background (i.e. sleeping with Devins) and would be symbolic of related issues.

[Danny_K]

Still, yes, that's what I would have done, more or less -- and that's probably more what I had in mind when I pitched the idea.  This being an explicitly dramatic game, I would have some nods to dramatic timing and of course I would respect drama point spending.  However, I thought the scenario could work pretty well in that mode.  

I suspect there will be some skepticism of this as an approach, but I'd ask for some faith.  I've been using Virtualist methods for a long time, with many successful games.  When pressed with a real threat, character comes out.  Like much of the Buffy TV series, the monster is just a device to expose the characters.  Yes, the monster is impersonal in a sense, but it is both related to personal background (i.e. sleeping with Devins) and would be symbolic of related issues.

It seems like a very good approach to me, actually.  I think "playing the hell out of the antagonists" is a good technique for both the Gamist and the Narrativist CA.  

After reading through the transcript of the latest session, I do get a strong impression of the kid gloves being on.  If it's OK with you, John, I'd like to look at that a little more closely.  

Please excuse me if I don't get the GNS lingo quite right.  One of the nice things about the Buffy RPG is that the combat system is well-calibrated to yield a satisfying Sim experience.  Most of the combats I've played in or run under the system have felt like a fight scene in Buffy.  

That's really nice for the GM,. because it means that they can let the system do a lot of the work of keeping things "Buffy-like".  The Drama Point mechanism gives the players enough metagame power to shape outcomes in a meaningful way.  

So I wonder if part of the problem is that Bill doesn't realize how hard he can push things, or is afraid that if he pushes things hard, he'll get the players mad at him or look bad compared to the other GM's.  

For example, the scene where Ifurita gets attacked is really weak, IMO.  It would have been much nastier, and much more engaging, for her to either fall down in a grand mal seizure (leaving the PC's to figure out the problem), or even to get possessed by the demon and attack the PC's without warning.  

Since the players would have the option to spend DP to get a plot twist, or to boost a combat roll (or an Occultism roll or a Medicine roll), I think Bill could have driven the situation much harder without screwing the players.  

But does he realize that?  And is that, in fact, true for your group and their Social Contract?  If he's afraid of pissing people off, he may benefit from *explicit permission" to get tough.  

Danny

[Mike Holmes]

The line between simulationism and narrativism has little to nothing to do with whether or not something is a simulation or "cause and effect." The question is not about plausibility or causality, it's about who is creating these things in terms of plot. If the GM is creating the effects, then whether or not they make sense, it's simulationism. If the players are creating the plot collaboratively, then whether or not it makes sense, it's narrativism. The whether or not it makes sense part may make it bad or good narrativism or simulationism, but is a separate issue. In both good simulationism, and in good narrativism, the player is given power to participate appropriately to that mode.

So to the extent that you control your character in a way that creates real meaning (for example, whether or not the attacking creature dies), that's narrativism. To the extent that the GM controls play such that the meaningful events are the result of his input, that simulationism.

Looking at your original post, I see you coming out pretty clearly for narrativism. The "scriptwriting" sort of play, the GM fighting hard to maintain control of plot, is simulationism on his part. Which I think is problematic because it's incoherent with what you're interested in, and bad because it wouldn't even make for good sim (because of the lack of plausibility - monster too weak, for instance).

Mike

[John Kim]

For example, the scene where Ifurita gets attacked is really weak, IMO.  It would have been much nastier, and much more engaging, for her to either fall down in a grand mal seizure (leaving the PC's to figure out the problem), or even to get possessed by the demon and attack the PC's without warning.  

Since the players would have the option to spend DP to get a plot twist, or to boost a combat roll (or an Occultism roll or a Medicine roll), I think Bill could have driven the situation much harder without screwing the players.  

But does he realize that?  And is that, in fact, true for your group and their Social Contract?  If he's afraid of pissing people off, he may benefit from *explicit permission" to get tough.

Funny you should mention that.  Just last episode (where I was GM), Ifurita was controlled by a Chaos Demon, ordered to turn on her fellow PC Doug, and blasted him to negative Life Points.  (I gave Bill 2 Drama Points as Ifurita's player as compensation for taking control like that, as per Buffy's rules.)  That was viewed as fairly extreme, but everyone liked it.  It's part of things getting darker as we're moving more towards high-tension of the end of the season.  

So it is an accepted part of the Social Contract, but it perhaps has not been totally driven home to him since things have not been so serious early in the season.  (It also means that it would be a bit much if Ifurita were controlled again to attack her fellows.)

The line between simulationism and narrativism has little to nothing to do with whether or not something is a simulation or "cause and effect." The question is not about plausibility or causality, it's about who is creating these things in terms of plot.

I agree.  That's what I meant when I said:

Certainly if I were running it, I would move towards more use of cause-and-effect reasoning.  I would play the demon out based on his goals and his powers.  I would play Monique based on what I knew about her.  I feel that with some minor adjustments for drama, that could have been a powerful episode.  On the other hand, I can see your assessment of Narrativist leanings.  In GNS terms, I think this suggests that cause-and-effect reasoning is a useful Technique in the service of Narrativism.

Sorry if that wasn't clear.