plotting and scheming: must be in secret parlays?

[unheilig studios]

so i want to do a game where stats are determined similarly to amber (ranked vs. the other players), but i do NOT want players to know where they stand... but have them learn where they stand vs. the other players during play. (the PCs will be adversarial, in a light to non-combat environment).

but my REAL problem is in machinations against other players. i really don't want to have players passing notes and having to go into seperate rooms to hatch their schemes. is there a way around this?

[TonyLB]

What would go wrong if you just let them do that openly at the table?

I'll offer a common problem with this:  It would be impossible to surprise another player, and therefore betrayal would be non-profitable, because the player would automatically "figure out" that they were being betrayed, and therefore wouldn't leave themselves vulnerable.  Yes?

But that depends on a certain way of playing with each other:  That the players are supposed to be correctly deducing (or guessing) when other players are going to betray them.  The players, indeed, will be rewarded for being sneakier than each other, and this player skill (completely separate from character statistics) is a fundamental building block of the structure of the game.

If you want that then there is no alternative to secrecy.  The secrecy is part of the structure of that game... it gives players something to guess about.

Is that what you're concerned about?

[unheilig studios]

i like secrecy, i just wanted a smoother way to do it than "i need to talk to you in the other room".

maybe, the intention of the scheme should be unknown... EVEN to the GM. perhaps players must set the gears in motion that will hopefully lead to their desired result? that would be more realistic, i guess.

look at Gormenghast, for example. Steerpike wouldn't say to the GM "i want to look like a hero and make Lord Groan mad by convincing his sisters to burn down his library, thus i can save people from the fire, and deprive the Lord of that which he loves most."

if steerpike had to set each step in motion, and hope for the desired result, would that be easier to facilitate at the table?

i guess i am looking for a mechanic for Secrecy, and minimize the amount of away-from-table playing.

how do those murder mystery boxed games do it?

[TonyLB]

I don't know about the murder mysteries.  But I'll point out that there is virtually no secrecy in the Gormenghast example.  Steerpike isn't (from my limited understanding of the game) going around and doing things that the Lord doesn't know about.  He's simply doing helpful things with an ulterior motive.

That's about trust, which is a whole different deal.  You can achieve an interesting game around trust with a bare minimum of secrecy... certainly nothing as extreme as having people pass notes or go off to have separate discussions.  But that's not secrecy.  Which are you most interested in?

[Eric Provost]

In the How to Host a Murder games I played there are several acts.  Each player has a script book with one page devoted to each act.  On one facing of the page are facts that the player must devulge during the act and on the opposite face are facts that the player knows but should resist devulging.  

It's worth noting that the rules prohibit lying when asked a direct question and reading ahead of the act you are currently involved in.  Also, none of the players, including the murderer, know who the culprit is until the last act.

-Eric

[Adam Dray]

The other interesting thing about How to Host a Murder games is that the player learns what his character did as the acts play out. That is, the rules keep secret information about one's own character. This preserves the pacing of the murder mystery. While you cannot lie about what you know OOC, the game designers makes it impossible to be forced to tell the truth about stuff the designers don't want to get out till act 3.

[Adam Dray]

Oh, I know this because my wife and I built a 60-person LARP based on the How to Host a Murder Mystery format for our FiranCon get-together over Memorial Day and it ran beautifully.

[Doug Ruff]

but my REAL problem is in machinations against other players. i really don't want to have players passing notes and having to go into seperate rooms to hatch their schemes. is there a way around this?

There's one simple way, but it's not to everyone's taste; Allow retrospective scheming.

Example: three players, Mike, Louise and Bob. Let's say Louise wants Mike to help her set up Bob. Say, by hiding in a closet and "surprising" them.

Traditional method is for Louise to drag Mike into a side room to suggest the deal, and for Mike to agree or refuse, then for Louise to persuade Bob to come upstairs.

Retrospective method is for Louise to get Bob upstairs, and then to ask Mike - at the table - whether he wouldn't mind jumping out of the closet and taking a blackmail photo. Assuming there's no reason why he couldn't have got there without being spotted, why not allow it?

Of course, Mike doesn't have to accept the offer (representing him breaking a promise) or he could decide to come out of the closet, and turn the tables on Louise. Maybe he's got a gun, and he's set Louise up so that he can shoot Bob, and leave Louise to take the rap.

If you really want to up the pressure, have Bob, Mike and Louise all make their offers and counter-offers right there and then, in the instant before we find out whether or not Mike really is in the closet after all. (It's a bit like Schrodinger's Cat, except with extra backstabbing.)

All of this requires players to accept that they had automatically promised to help each other in a previous scene off-camera. But if it's a game about scheming, this may not be such a great stretch.

You could also mix this up with a traditional Drama Point system. If so, Louise has to spend a Drama Point to give Mike the opportunity to enter the scene unexpectedly. Note that this gives Louise no control over Mike's actions (nor does it compel him to join in), so it's also a Trust mechanic.


* Aside: I'm considering something similar for group scenes in the Schrodinger's War groupdesign. Of course, as the characters in that are time-travellers, retrospective isn't a problem...

[unheilig studios]

i thought of the retroactive scheming thing... i appreciate your thoughts on its execution. the idea is pretty interesting.

[BigElvis]

but retrospective doesn't really work though does it? In your example it wouldn't make sense for Louise to bring Bob upstairs if Mike had already declined to help her.
It might work for some games, but I don't even see it working flawlessly in a time-travel game. Only if the timetraveller does not live in a certain time either, meaning that he would have to do everything in all the times that he travelled to at the same time, making it unplayable.
The problem is that your current actions demand that something has happened earlier, so if you have to establish 'now' what happened 'then' your pre-now actions might seem out of place.
It only works if your character doesn't know what happened 'then' or if Mike in your example is an NPC, that doesn't have a chance to refuse(if enough drama points are spent?).

[Doug Ruff]

but retrospective doesn't really work though does it? In your example it wouldn't make sense for Louise to bring Bob upstairs if Mike had already declined to help her.

You're absolutely right - which is why it is necessary to assume that Louise asked Mike beforehand, and that Mike said that he would help come. This does not commit Mike to honour the agreement, but it does commit him to making it.

So, Louise is always bringing Bob upstairs, in the expectation that Mike will help, because he's already agreed to do so.

And yes, this takes some choice away from a player character. It's a trade-off for allowing scheming to take place in perfect secrecy. But the more I think about it, the more I think that it should be a limited resource. This also outs the oressure on the initiator of the "deal" to make it attractive to their new co-conspirator.

As for the time-travel thing... that was an aside, and I don't want to derail the thread with a long discussion about causality. But feel free to PM me and/or start a new thread if you really want to talk about this with me.

'Lig, looking at the problem logically, in order to meet your goals, you'll need to either:

- Allow players to leave the room, which you don't want.
- Find a method for players to communicate secretly at the table, or
- Have the scheming take place in the open.

The retrospective trick is just a cunning way of allowing scheming to take place in the open while maintaining the element of surprise.

Perhaps it would help to analyse exactly why you don't want players to pass notes and go into a side room. Is it because the element of surprise is lost? Because of the delays to play this causes? (From your response to Tony, I think it may be a bit of both). Is there something else? This may help narrow down angles for a solution.

[BigElvis]

You're absolutely right - which is why it is necessary to assume that Louise asked Mike beforehand, and that Mike said that he would help come. This does not commit Mike to honour the agreement, but it does commit him to making it.

So, Louise is always bringing Bob upstairs, in the expectation that Mike will help, because he's already agreed to do so.

And yes, this takes some choice away from a player character. It's a trade-off for allowing scheming to take place in perfect secrecy. But the more I think about it, the more I think that it should be a limited resource. This also outs the oressure on the initiator of the "deal" to make it attractive to their new co-conspirator.

I think it would only work in a game where the players are already defined as being scheming and backstabbing, maybe playing yuppie stock-brokers trying to get ahead at other's cost in both professional and personal life or evil(or at least tricky) powermongers or medieval lords or something, but I am not sure that's what unheilig wanted.

The reason why it would only work in such a setting is that you actually take quite a lot of choice away from Mike. You force him to backstab and scheme, either against Louise or against Bob. So it is a very personality-defining choice you take away from him. I mean why would Mike want to do this at all and not just decline Louise proposal saying he is not just the kind of person that backstabs.
Either Mike has to be defined as evil or Louise has to be defined as believably holding something that makes her to able to give Mike an offer he can't refuse (maybe a game where all the players start with blackmail information about each other or something).

[Doug Ruff]

I think it would only work in a game where the players are already defined as being scheming and backstabbing, maybe playing yuppie stock-brokers trying to get ahead at other's cost in both professional and personal life or evil(or at least tricky) powermongers or medieval lords or something, but I am not sure that's what unheilig wanted.

I can't answer that for him, but I will say that this would fit Amber exactly.

The reason why it would only work in such a setting is that you actually take quite a lot of choice away from Mike. You force him to backstab and scheme, either against Louise or against Bob. So it is a very personality-defining choice you take away from him. I mean why would Mike want to do this at all and not just decline Louise proposal saying he is not just the kind of person that backstabs.

Absolutely correct.

Either Mike has to be defined as evil or Louise has to be defined as believably holding something that makes her to able to give Mike an offer he can't refuse (maybe a game where all the players start with blackmail information about each other or something).

I wouldn't go as far as to say "evil". It's up to the two players to agree how Louise got Mike to agree: did she bribe him, or threaten him, or did he not need to be asked twice? In addition, Mike (and Louise's) motives aren't going to be fully revealed as the agreement does not predetermine the outcome. Either way, I think that this is a minor concern and that the loss of choice is a major concern.

(BTW - 'Lig, is this still useful or are we dumping on your thread?)

- Doug

[Vaxalon]

Because of the deprotagonizing aspects of it, I think it deserves a mechanic.

For example, if I were using this technique in FATE, it would cost a fate point (at least!) to pull off.

"I want to spend a fate point to create history, retroactively.  Louise and Mike have met, and agreed that on this day, Mike would hide in her closet so that he can take a blackmail picture of Bob."

Bob's player could then, say, pay a fate point of his own to negate the first expenditure.  "No, Mike didn't agree to the plan.  He wouldn't do that, he's an honorable guy.".... or run with it.

If he does, in fact, negate it, then Louise's player can turn around and retroactively change the play she was in.  "Well, damn, it makes no sense for her to have brought Mike upstairs without a photographer.  Let's assume that it's an NPC private detective, then.  It does mean that Bob knows about the plan, at least in broad details, but we'll have to live with that."  She might otherwise say, instead, "Well, damn, it makes no sense for her to have brought Mike upstairs.  Now she'll have to try something else.  That bit never happened."

[unheilig studios]

let's look at Steerpike in Gormenghast.

From Wikipedia:

After a brief time as Dr. Prunesquallor's apprentice, he begins to work for the handicapped sisters of the Earl, the twins Cora and Clarice Groan, whose belief that they have been cheated out of the power that should be theirs he is able to use to his advantage. He persuades them to set fire to the library of Sepulchrave, 76th Earl, and uses the circumstances to appear as a hero by rescuing those inside, including all the remaining members of the House of Groan...
...The library was Sepulchrave's only joy in life—he soon after falls into madness and commits suicide. During this time, Steerpike causes the banishment of Flay by enraging the manservant by an insult to Sepulchrave. This causes a vendetta that ultimately leads to Steerpike's downfall.
Steerpike convinces the Twins to move to a distant, abandoned region of the castle by confabulating an epidemic, then dupes the rest of the castle with a suicide note (including a confession of arson) and wax models of the Twins (he is helped in this by the fact that they are in reality hardly more animated than these).


so how do we emulate this at the gaming table? how can steerpike's machinations remain secret, as they do here?

originally, i planned on having all the players be villainous steerpike types. would that be possible? or do we create a cast of characters, and only one... secretly... is "villainous"?