Is taking responsibility for your character really so hard?

[jburneko]

My weekend group is now four or five sessions into a 7th Sea game.  This game is a sequal to a game we played a year ago.  Some of the characters are the same, some are new.  Same with the players.

One of the player's played with us up until the last time we played 7th Sea.  Then he stopped because of complications in his personal life.  So he didn't play in the previous 7th Sea game.  So he is both a new player and a new character.  I'll call him D.

There's a funny habit he has that really came to a head last session and just hit me really hard.  Here's the situation.  Genvieve, played by S, is being stalked by an NPC named Sebastion.  Sebastion finally has Genvieve cornered alone in a hallway of a nearly abandoned castle.  D wants in on the action and asks if his character can show up.  Since I have NO aid from the system on this matter I look at S for her permission since it's her scene and she gives the okay.

Okay, so D's character is a Castillian Swordsman named Fredrico who is also a fairly high ranking Los Vagos member.  For those of you unfamiliar with the setting this bascially means that Fredrico is Zorro, if Zorro was an organization rather than just one man.  Fredrico has a stake in this situation because Sebastion has been going around impersonating El Vago (i.e. Zorro) while stalking Genvieve.

Anyway, Fredrico sneaks up on Sebastion and puts his sword at Sebastion's throat.  At that point Genvieve runs off in a panic leaving the two alone.  So I ask D what Fredrico is going to do and I mention that Sebastion starts taunting his stealthy cowardice and that he should face him with honor.  It is also BLAZINGLY clear from previous encounters that Sebastion is the better swordsman.

At this point D's habit kicks in.  D is very indecisive when put into these kinds of situations.  He starts clawing through his character sheet and notes looking for guidance on what he should do.  Normally this is just a nusance but what hit me so hard was when he actually got up from the table and started going through my 7th Sea books looking for the El Vago sourcebook.  He then starts flipping through it page by page.  I asked him what he's doing and he responds that he's trying to figure out how an El Vago would handle this situation.  I reminded him that that's not the issue.  The issue is how Fredrico is going to handle this situation.  He dimissively says, "Yes, I know, I know" and continues pawing through the book anyway.

I know this behavior has been mentioned and discussed.  Ron talks about people in Sorcerer demos pointing to the character sheet and claiming that "how to behave" is ingrained there.  And sometimes this is attributed to habits often steming from White Wolf roleplaying.  But this guy isn't the most experienced player in the world.  I have trouble believing that his brief brushes with roleplaying in the past would have ingrained this behavior so automatically in him.

So what exactly IS the root of this behavior.  Is it just roleplaying stage fright?  Who else has seen this and what has been the underlying issue?  Is there something the group might be doing to perpetuate this behavior that I'm just not noticing?

Jesse

[Danny_K]

If you don't mind me asking -- how did the other players react, especially S, whose scene he pretty much stole?  How did the scene finally play out?  And, since I don't know anything about 7th Sea, what was really at stake if D fought an honest duel with the NPC?  Was he likely to get killed, or just humiliated and scarred?

[Valamir]

A good question and I don't have any particular insight for you.

I'm very interested, however, in what YOU did as this continued...and what you know in hindsight think you should have done (if different)...I know what *I* would have done...but I'd like to get your take first.

[Sean]

This is a total guess. I don't know player D from Adam.

Artistic insecurity is a candidate, but I don't think that's the case here. You might think "well, I can't just make anything up, I've got to keep it in tune with what everyone else is doing."

But in this case it's Zorro and rapiers and everyone knows the genre. And everyone at the table is cool with him doing his thing. (Right? That's the way your post made it seem, that you in particular were egging him on to do his thing, and he was all like 'whatever'.)

So then he says "well, I can't just make anything up, I've got to keep it in tune with what the books say." But this isn't the freakin' Bible or Little Red Book. The books are a cover for some personal indecision.

So what could this stem from?

You gave him a thematic choice, mastery or maybe revenge vs. honor. (That's how it seemed to me.)

A lot of people we role played with as kids would just pick mastery/revenge. "I cut his fuckin' throat. Haw! Sucker." No real choice there, for them, because they've got the guy at a disadvantage, and they want to win.

Later on you might develop prejudices against those kids, or feel ashamed that you slaughtered half the Village of Hommlet because you couldn't get a decent price on a Large Wooden Chest, or whatever else. Or you might just have confusion because of a conception of what RPGs are about - 'wait? That's it? I can 'win', just like that?" So then you think maybe there needs to be some constraint on your behavior to rein this kind of stuff in.

So you look for one. You learn to "play your character". No metagaming for me, nosirree! I vill confine myself to ziss role.

And then you feel OK about yourself again. No more bad metagame considerations of winning leading to wildly immoral play.  

This is SOP for a lot of role-players. The 'good' roleplayer figures out what his character will do and acts accordingly; the 'bad' roleplayer just tries to 'win' every situation.

But I take it that's not really what you were asking him for at all. (Or is it?) The way you wrote your post it sounds like what you're asking for is for him to make a statement: what does he value, honor or mastery, or maybe revenge for this guy's bad behavior, but is even that worth the stain on his honor, etc.

"Making a statement" isn't a 'move' in an RPG for a lot of players.

But even if he didn't want to "make a statement" in the more public sense mightn't he still might take it personally, asking 'what do I value more? Do I value revenge or honor more here? What do I want out of this situation' But then he'd be metagaming, and we all know that's 'bad'.

So he just dismisses it when you tell him the choice is about him. Yeah, whatever. It's not even on his map. "If it's just about me, I'd cut his throat, but then I wouldn't be roleplaying right any more." If he even gets that far.

One reason that the GNS essay would be profoundly important for people to think about even if every theoretical point in it were flat-out wrong is that it confronts the question "What do you want out of your roleplaying?" head on, and treats decisions made in games as made by real people who are not characters in games. Including the decision to play your elf or Zorro wannabe 'right', consistently with some external text. But the training I've described above, which lots of people (including me) go/went through en route to becoming "good roleplayers", is a training which encourages some people not to want to answer that question in personal terms at all.

"It's not a matter of what I want; it's a matter of roleplaying right. You don't want me to just sit here and break your game by metagaming everything and playing to 'win' without any concern for genre fidelity, do you?"

False dichotomy, baby. Now there's a fallacy that pulls its weight.

[jburneko]

Interesting questions and comments.  I will say up front that my group has a very funny view of "killing" in 7th Sea.  Somewhere deep in the 7th Sea books it says something like, "7th Sea is game about heroes and heroes don't kill people."

Now, there's a Reputation system in 7th Sea that I HATE because there's no mechanic attached to it other than the GM arbitrarily adds and subtracts points.  I desperately want this to act like Humanity does in Sorcerer but it just doesn't.  The closest it comes to working that way is the rule that at -25 reputation, you become a villain and an NPC.

But what all this amounts to is that my group frowns on any other player even contemplating killing a foe they've defeated.  A few sessions back there was this really large battle and this "Black Knight" figure was taken out.  One of the player's (who had the most at stake in the conflict) said, "I want to mount this guy's head on a pike."  And the group gave her this kind of disapproving shocked stare.  I jumped in and said, "If that's what you want to do, go ahead, there's no problem with that.  You might take a reputation hit, but that's your call."

Now to D's particular situation.  Eveyone in the group is used to his indecisiveness.  I don't think S minded having her scene stollen because she used it to justify her character slipping away while D's character and the resulting noise distracted everyone else.  I think that's why she reliquished the scene to D.  I also think she got a kick out of leaving D in the lurch.

What ultimately happened is that D agreed to a face off and summarily got his ass kicked.  There were multiple things at stake for Fredrico.  Part of it was retrieving the El Vago mask Sebastion was using.  Part of it was defending Genvieve's honor (he had pledged to protect her a few sessions back).  Part of it was just facing the man ruining the Los Vagos reputation.  At the end of the duel I ended up having Sebastion pin the El Vago mask to Fredrico's chest with Fredrico's own sword.

Oddly enough, one of the other PC's pocketed the El Vago mask before reviving Fredrico.  So Fredrico thinks Sebastion still has it.

To answer Ralph's question: While D was making up his mind, going through notes, flipping through the book, I switched scenes.  If I remember correctly I switched to S who played out Genvieve's flight from the castle.  Once that was done I switched back to D who still hadn't made up his mind and I asked him what he wanted to have happen.  He hemmed and hawed some more and then finally decided to face him.

I have suspected that D is very concerned with image.  I don't think he's concerned with 'winning' per se, so much as 'looking good.'  And here he was in a situation where there was no way to 'look like Zorro.'  If he killed him he'd look evil.  If he took the mask and ran (which is what I think the player REALLY wanted to do) he'd look like a coward.  If he stood and fought he'd lose and look incompetent.

Now, mind you the player proceeded to use the Intimidation rules to severely mechanically hamper the opposition.  I thought this was pretty cool.  I mean here was this weaker swordsman, making this master swordsman quiver and hesitate.  It just wasn't enough.

Jesse

[TonyLB]

Actually, there's a subtle difference between "Looking good" as a goal and "Not looking bad."  It sounds as if D has that second one on the brain more than the first.

[Alan]

Is this a case of deprotagonization?  

The game system put D in a postion where any task he undertook, especially in competition with this more compitent character, had a high chance of failure. Did D choose the character type because he was seeking the thrill of being zorro?  Before I understood this fact about task-based systems, I often found myself in that situation -- dithering, looking for a way for my character to not look like a duffus.  

This only changes when I either give up the desire to be a hero, or play a game with a system that doesn't put pcs in this position very often.

[John Kim]

But what all this amounts to is that my group frowns on any other player even contemplating killing a foe they've defeated. A few sessions back there was this really large battle and this "Black Knight" figure was taken out. One of the player's (who had the most at stake in the conflict) said, "I want to mount this guy's head on a pike." And the group gave her this kind of disapproving shocked stare. I jumped in and said, "If that's what you want to do, go ahead, there's no problem with that. You might take a reputation hit, but that's your call."

I have suspected that D is very concerned with image.  I don't think he's concerned with 'winning' per se, so much as 'looking good.'  And here he was in a situation where there was no way to 'look like Zorro.'  If he killed him he'd look evil.  If he took the mask and ran (which is what I think the player REALLY wanted to do) he'd look like a coward.  If he stood and fought he'd lose and look incompetent.

OK, I'll give my offhand interpretation on the situation.  From my information thus far, my feeling is that the player really wanted to just kill the guy.  However, he was getting strong vibes from you and/or others in the group that this was the wrong choice.  This put him in an untenable position that disconnected him from his character.  

I'll bet that based on how you delivered the NPC's demand for a duel, he read it as a statement to him that he was supposed to do that.  I'd also warrant that he was correctly reading out-of-character disapproval of killing the guy as the "wrong thing".  

I saw the same thing in a LARP I just played in Saturday night.  There came a point where one player just said -- "I have no idea what the heck I am supposed to do here."  This came after a bunch of people trying to tell him different ideas about what to do.

[Lee Short]

Is this a case of deprotagonization?  

The game system put D in a postion where any task he undertook, especially in competition with this more compitent character, had a high chance of failure. Did D choose the character type because he was seeking the thrill of being zorro?  Before I understood this fact about task-based systems, I often found myself in that situation -- dithering, looking for a way for my character to not look like a duffus.  

This only changes when I either give up the desire to be a hero, or play a game with a system that doesn't put pcs in this position very often.

I've long felt that one of the worst pieces of baggage from early game design is that you are often forced to earn the character you wanted in the first place.  I'm a pretty strong advocate of just giving the player the character they want.  Want a big badass hero?  Here, take one.  Why make the player suffer through six months or more of playing just to get the character they want?

[Bill Cook]

Reading this made me think how I would handle a situation like that. No way would I duel honorably. He might kill me! At the same time, I wouldn't ever really want to hurt someone, much less kill them. Just the thought of actually slitting someone's throat is nauseating. I'd probably do just that, though. At least, that's what I'd say as someone playing a roleplaying game.

The latest Robert Redford movie (The Clearing?) has a scene where the rich guy is strangling his kidnapper on the forest floor. He stops moving, and the kidnappee turns away and leans against a tree, aghast at what he's gone. The kidnapper revives and takes the man under control again. He later blinds him with a flashlight and shoots him several times in the chest, killing him. It's a pretty amazing contrast. The first guy is justified in defending his life, and yet, he is horrified at the act and unable to follow through. The second guy uses the trek to screw up his courage, blinds the guy so he won't have to look in his eyes and uses the gun to kill decisively from a distance.

Who knows what was going through D's head. I probably would have asked him qualifying questions: what kinds of things are you trying to decide? Why not just kill him? What is there to gain from having a duel? Is there another option that you see? If you could be assured that things would go the way you planned, what would you do?

[James Holloway]

If he took the mask and ran (which is what I think the player REALLY wanted to do) he'd look like a coward.  If he stood and fought he'd lose and look incompetent.

Now, mind you the player proceeded to use the Intimidation rules to severely mechanically hamper the opposition.  I thought this was pretty cool.  I mean here was this weaker swordsman, making this master swordsman quiver and hesitate.  It just wasn't enough.

Jesse

So, yeah, maybe your player was temporizing because he realized he was screwed?

But it sounds like he knew what he wanted to do (get the bastard!) but knew that the other folks round the table would disapprove if he killed him stealthily -- the only practical option -- and was trying to find some text that said "Los Vagos don't mind cutting an enemy's throat from behind if he's dangerous enough" that he could use to defend his action to the group.

[Callan S.]

Jesus, I'm seeing true simulationism. Rather than deciding what his character would do in that situation, and essentially making a narrativist address of premise, he was gunning for perfect simulationism. Man, usually that's the point where people will go nar, but refute they were doing anything but sim. This guy seems to be sticking to his sim guns though.

[Brand_Robins]

Taking responsibility for your character, when the system, the situation, and the unstated but all-too-present dictates of your group can indeed be hard.

My read on it is that he was going so hard core sim because he didn't feel he had the ability, in the group and with the system, to make the Nar choice. And so he needed the backing of the system to give him the authority to do it.

Now, when the GM told him he could do what he wanted he may have heard it, but there is often a reluctance among players to do something that the GMs said is okay that the group doesn't like or want. It's a similar reaction to what you get with elementary school kids and teachers pets -- you know the teacher/GM will back you, but that it will cost you standing with the other students/group.

So in this situation, much as I think the GM was trying hard, I don't think the player had the support he needed to make the decision he wanted. Maybe it's a bit weak on his part, but its also something common and rather normal in group situations. It's also something that won't get fixed without the player changing the way he relates to the group, or the group stopping its passive-agressive judgementality.

(As a semi-sim note, it's worth noting that in any number of movies, novels, and comics Zoro has, in situations much like that, laughed, tagged the sucker, and then run away until later. And yet for some reason in RPGs this gets labeled as cowardly....)

[John Kim]

My read on it is that he was going so hard core sim because he didn't feel he had the ability, in the group and with the system, to make the Nar choice. And so he needed the backing of the system to give him the authority to do it.

As I see it, the problem wasn't that he was trying to act strictly in-character (i.e. hard core sim), but rather that he was frozen in indecision.  For example, when I was the same thing in the LARP that I was in on Saturday night, it didn't matter that we told him it didn't have to be in-character.  He was equally stuck as far as what sort of statement he would like to make.  

So in this situation, much as I think the GM was trying hard, I don't think the player had the support he needed to make the decision he wanted. Maybe it's a bit weak on his part, but its also something common and rather normal in group situations. It's also something that won't get fixed without the player changing the way he relates to the group, or the group stopping its passive-agressive judgementality.

I agree.  I also agree with Lee above that giving him the character he wants (I suspect a Zorro-like masterful swordsman unlikely to be beaten in such a duel) would go a long way.

[Keith Sears]

It seems that the guy was definitely between a rock and a hard place in that situation. He was placed in a situation where he had two choices:

1.) Kill the villian and be marked a murderer by his own group.

2.) Duel the villian, who was almost certain to beat him.

On top of this, he was playing a character that was "Zorro". I don't know this fella, but I had run into players that will create a character that is an analogue of someone in a book or movie, and fully expects the character to perform exactly like in that work of fiction. In this case, he was playing a character that:

a.) Doesn't murder.

b.) Never loses.

So what does the player do? He falls back on the books to determine what choice the character would make, or perhaps find some option c. At the very least, thumbing through the books provided him with time to think.

However, this makes for some poor roleplaying.  It's unfair to the other players that have to wait for him to pretend that the book is making the decision for him.