Forum games and GM/Mods

[BrennaLaRosa]

A few weeks ago, I got talked into running a Sentai diceless game on a Forum. Don't ask how; let's just say it was a deal with the Devil. My earliest problems were trifles: So-and-so wants mega-angsty background, this player clearly didn't read the intro and information. I handled them as cool-headedly as I could.

Then things broke down.

One of the common things is, GMs running PCs in their own games. Cheating maybe, but only if you WANT to cheat. I only cheat if its a High-Powered NPC and it's NECESSARY (i.e. Plot points hinge on NPCs escaping and returning with bigger, badder, guns). So I did run a character or two, in addition to NPCs. I had no trouble and have spoken with other GMs who think I handle a dual task well.

I had decided to give the role of "Brainwashed Good! Guy with Redemption coming to him" to...let's call him "Bucky". Bucky took it and ran. He was fine in the beginning. Totally gullible and suspiciously calm about not getting powers with his teammates. The moment the character succumbed to the temptation of stealing his powers--BAM! He turned into my worst nightmare.

Example 1: He immediatly decided that his character, Jay, and his female counterpart, Lily, were destined to be together. I have control of Lily (her player bailed and she's needed for a certain plot twist, plus nobody wanted her) and this seemed unlikely, as I believe in keeping character romances in Sentai Games to a minimum and the character would have walked all over him. When I told him this, he practically laughed in my face.

Example 2: I have a rule about bad language: NONE. We are on a public board and there are minors with us. He has broken the rule several times, to the point of my siccing a mod on him. But since he hasn't broken any official forum rules, all the mod can do is slap his hands and send him on his merry way.

Example 3: I feel this is the worst part. The first fight between Lily and Jay (both brainwashees and independant fighters) gets destructive and the other players decide to try and break it up. Meaning it's time to remind them who the real villain is. I bring in the new villain and have her showoff a bit to prove she's big and bad. Then she escapes.

Bucky decides "AHA! Villain chick kidnapped me and Lily! I get to be a bad #!% and show off how cool I am!" Stupid me, I fell for it. Then I went back and realized she'd left the scene alone. But he's got a head of steam going and I now have to slow him down. So *sigh*, I had to do something really cruel and rude. I had to cheat. Or, felt I had to. There were other ways, but hindsight is 20/20.

Here's his reaction:

(what? oh come on thats not cool. bogus as h***. Hey can u retract that last post so lily can respond to my action and post first, it would fit better casue we dont know if she would try to run or attack or what.))

I don't know what was more frustrating, the fact that he assumed Lily was under another person's control, or that he had hauled me on a merry chase and then called a foul when I tried to put a stop to it. I eventually ruled the previous incident a hallucination and warned him about moving characters and using language I'd warned him about.

All I'm asking is, Was I wrong? Should I have gone with the flow, despite the damage to the original plot?

[Valamir]

hmmm.  

Can you provide a bit more information?  What is this "Plot" and "Needed for a Plot Twist" you're referring to?  How scripted was this adventure?  I can't tell from your post if you were running a fully (or nearly so) railroaded linear plot or what nor whether the players were aware that they were participants in such a plot.

That answer is pretty crucial to knowing whether you "should" gone with the flow or not.

If the adventure wasn't supposed to be a rail road then generally going with the flow is part of GMing, as long as the rest of the social contract is working.  It sounds like (his use of language for instance) there are some broader social contract issues beyond this particular incident of character behavior.

On the other hand, if everyone knew in advance that this was a linear adventure that they were stepping through and that was part of the social contract, than clearly he was out of line for violating that understanding.

Now if this was a linear railroaded adventure but the other players DIDN'T know that and they actually thought they should be able to do anything while you were mostly interested in keeping them on the track so as not to spoil any of your plot twists...then that's a REALLY complicated subject and getting into a whole discussion on the perils and dangers facing an Illusionist GM.

[BrennaLaRosa]

There were 5 main facts that had to stay constant. The plot was such:

1. The Main Villain was a sorceress called Lady Black Sun. NOT Jay or Lily. They were merely foils to complicate things. Neither one was of any interest to LBSun because she'd finished "tinkering with them". They would attack the other fighters and each other, both convinced that they had the right to be the only one.

2. LBSun was related to an as-of yet unidentified character (because of various backgrounds, it could be ANYBODY and I'm leaving it that way for the moment, I have to see who will "benefit" from this conflict). She appears to be teenaged, but acts like a spoiled child and is magically augmented, so she might look completely different from the relative.

3. The PCs are teenagers in a Gifted/Talented program, who have been chosen for this job. The male characters were there first and they feel that the girls are trying to invade. The Girls were summoned as backup and resent their treatment as "eye candy".

4. LBSun is trying to obtain the "Five Relics of Amenti". So far she has one, a very powerful wand. The Fighters must stop her from 1) getting the rest and 2) destroying the wand and unleashing chaos on the world.

5. This is a team effort. Nobody goes out alone and they will have to swallow their pride and learn to get along or be destroyed one by one.

I established all this and am going to REPOST it to make sure they remember.

[sirogit]

A little more information would be appreicated:

Are you running this game at the request of someone else? Is this game one of those inter-connected, multiple-GM games, where you yourself don't have very much control over the rules or who gets in the game?

One of the common things is, GMs running PCs in their own games. Cheating maybe, but only if you WANT to cheat. I only cheat if its a High-Powered NPC and it's NECESSARY (i.e. Plot points hinge on NPCs escaping and returning with bigger, badder, guns). So I did run a character or two, in addition to NPCs. I had no trouble and have spoken with other GMs who think I handle a dual task well.

I don't quite understand this.

Are you cheating by

A) Running a player character in the first place
or
B) Playing a player character to advantage the oppoisition, which you also control?

Example 1: He immediatly decided that his character, Jay, and his female counterpart, Lily, were destined to be together. I have control of Lily (her player bailed and she's needed for a certain plot twist, plus nobody wanted her) and this seemed unlikely, as I believe in keeping character romances in Sentai Games to a minimum and the character would have walked all over him. When I told him this, he practically laughed in my face.

I get the impression that his character supposed to be kind of a foil/loser (As evidenced by what you said the main villianess would let him get away with, and by the idea that 'lily' would 'walk all over him') and he seems to trying hard to be a hero/anti-hero.

The thing is, I think its very natural to assume that a sentai character will be a hero/anti-hero... that's very close to what a Sentai is. Did you inform him that you didn't want him to play a heroic character?

Example 2: I have a rule about bad language: NONE. We are on a public board and there are minors with us. He has broken the rule several times, to the point of my siccing a mod on him. But since he hasn't broken any official forum rules, all the mod can do is slap his hands and send him on his merry way.

This is related to my first question, I'm confused about what sort of power you're supposed to have: Are you able to tell him "Two more naughty words and you're out" and than kick him from the game? If so, why would a mod be nessecary?

Example 3: I feel this is the worst part. The first fight between Lily and Jay (both brainwashees and independant fighters) gets destructive and the other players decide to try and break it up. Meaning it's time to remind them who the real villain is. I bring in the new villain and have her showoff a bit to prove she's big and bad. Then she escapes.

Bucky decides "AHA! Villain chick kidnapped me and Lily! I get to be a bad #!% and show off how cool I am!" Stupid me, I fell for it. Then I went back and realized she'd left the scene alone. But he's got a head of steam going and I now have to slow him down. So *sigh*, I had to do something really cruel and rude. I had to cheat. Or, felt I had to. There were other ways, but hindsight is 20/20.

This is really confusing. What is a "head of steam"? Why did you 'have' to slow him down? What was he going to do?

I don't know what was more frustrating, the fact that he assumed Lily was under another person's control, or that he had hauled me on a merry chase and then called a foul when I tried to put a stop to it. I eventually ruled the previous incident a hallucination and warned him about moving characters and using language I'd warned him about.

Did you tell him that Lily was under your control? Did you expect him to understand it somehow?

Isn't his calling foul related to what you said was really cruel and rude? Wouldn't that justify it? Or is it unrelated?

------------------------------

Here's my judgement of the situation which I still understand poorly.

This, like many large scale online games, is set up so that the "players" have very little input into the game, while the GMs have a lot. You are expieriencing trouble with a player who tries to insert input you disagree with(Some of which you made clear at the beginning you wouldn't allow, some you just sorta expected him to read your mind on.)

I don't think you're being clear with the players about how much input they're supposed to have, giving credence to bullshit language like "cheating" that isn't really cheating, and "having to be really cruel" as a normal situation.

[Simon Kamber]

I can't quite see where the problem lies here. Two points however:

- It seems you've got a lot of focus on keeping the plot intact. Is that a conscious choice? I've often found myself falling into that trap without even thinking about it. And how are your players with that decision?

- I've never ever seen a GM run character work. I've seen a few run in the forum games I've played, and without exception they've all changed the game for the worse. Either they're inactive and act as a lead weight on the party, or they make decisions and the players go "yep, I agree" mainly because, well, it's the GM speaking.

[Danny_K]

I'm not sure I understand the situation fully either, but I do run a lot of forum games and I think I can share one bit of wisdom:

If a player drops out and the character needs to stay in the game, I completely change the way I look at that character.  I cut down the character sheet, I simplify the backstory.  They're a cog.  They exist only to help me throw things at the PC's and make the PC's look cool.  Think of creative ways to throw them away to improve the game -- get them killed by the Big Bad or make a heel turn and betray their comrades.

I think *that* may be the problem here: you're thinking of Lily as if she had some independent existence that you need to adhere faithfully to, when she doesn't.  She exists as a foil/obstacle/object of desire/whatever for the PC's, particularly Bucky's character.  I think Bucky was right to be annoyed; nobody likes their character being upstaged by an NPC, especially if it's not the godlike-source-of-all-plot-hooks-NPC.

As for Bucky's other problematic behavior: I think this is a purely OOC issue.  If you're allowed to kick people from the game for inappropriate behavior, then handle it yourself.  If not... then I don't think it's a fit place to be GM'ing.

[Mike Holmes]

Cheating refers to the GM being in a situation where he has a conflict of interest, and then exploiting it.

Note that nobody thinks its "cheating" to run an "NPC." Right? So what gives?

Well, it's about the GM's duty. The GM is distributor of opportunities for characters to seem like protagonists in these forms of play. If he squanders these on his own character, then he's not allowing the other players as much (or, in extreme cases, any) opportuinities to be protagonists.

Now, it's theoretically possible for a GM to do this properly, I'd argue, giving his own character an appropriate amount of opportunity. But given the vagaries of perception it's by far much more safe to either give the characters he controls very few, or no options for to be protagonists. Note that NPCs can pretty much be defined in this case as non-protagonist characters. Then it all makes sense.

Mike

[BrennaLaRosa]

Right. In other words, I don't know what I'm doing. I've paused things for the weekend and will either a) do a refresh of everything including the characters or b) shut it down. B is much more likely.

[Danny_K]

It's too late to edit my post, but it definitely came out with more snarkiness than I'd wanted.  I shouldn't post when I don't have enough time to proofread.  

Good luck with working things out-- sometimes a nice OOC talkathon helps a lot, but sometimes it's a lot easier to start over than soothe all the ruffled feathers.

[BrennaLaRosa]

No, you're right. I just felt that considering the way he was behaving to begin with, I had to address things somehow. Both of us, Bucky and y.t. , were out of line. I had tried to fix it, but he was already acting rather immaturely on other things and I had had enough. My biggest issue was him NOT reading posts that carefully stated certain facts and seeming ignoring them to make himself look cool. Don't get me wrong, I love GMing. I LOVE it when people work with what's happening to make themselves shine. I try to give them that opportunity while still challenging them with traditional and original obstacles. But then, I'm not sure I did that right.

I'm very confused now. Am I making any sense AT ALL?

[Simon Kamber]

Ok. I think I've got it now. I see two things happening here.

- First. Like I said, running your own character as a character is never a good idea in my experience. Like Danny and Mike said, even if you do it perfectly and fairly, perception screws it up. If you still need the characters, play them as NPCs.

- Second. I fully recognize your part about him not reading posts. I know the type, and I loathe them. It's some forum thing. When everything's written and static, they get lost in their own posts to the point where they completely forget to connect it with everyone else's posts above (which they often seem to not have read at all). If that's the kind of player you're dealing with, then that sucks. I don't really see any other way out than to stop playing with him, either by kicking him from the game if you feel like going on, or by stopping the game.