Introducing narrativism and 'my guy' player behaviour

[Lamorak33]

Hi

I am still trying to grasp a lot of the theories around narrativism.  My question relates to one of my players.  I once presented him with a bang in our Heroquest game, 'If you kill that guy you will get a flaw, Killer.'  Now the player wears it like a badge and kills in the game fairly indiscriminately.  My concern came when I presented him with a bang and he immediately elevated it to murder.  My gut reaction was that this is 'my guy' dysfunctional play, but not in the way it is described elsewhere. 

Does anyone recoginse this behaviour and what it is a symptom of?  My view is to take it as a bad sign that he is detached from his character and therefore to some degree from the game.  We have until quite recently had a very heavy sim emphasis.  Could this be a residual effect of his rebellion to GM force in our heavy sim game?

As this guy is someone who attends our gaming group and do not know him personnaly I don't know whether its just his style of play.  Whenever I have encountered fairly extreme play of this nature its not normally been a good sign.

Thanks in advance for any help on this one.

Regards
Rob

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Rob, could you give more detail? What was the bang you presented him with, and why did you force a flaw on him as a result of his decision? What does "indiscriminately" mean, can you give examples of situations in which he had his character kill people and why that posed a problem for you/for the group?


Kerstin

[Larry L.]

Hi Rob!

I once presented him with a bang in our Heroquest game, 'If you kill that guy you will get a flaw, Killer.' Now the player wears it like a badge and kills in the game fairly indiscriminately. My concern came when I presented him with a bang and he immediately elevated it to murder.

I don't think that's a Bang at all. What you describe is nothing like a Bang. Why do you think that's a Bang? From the Provisional Glossary:

The Technique of introducing events into the game which make a thematically-significant or at least evocative choice necessary for a player. The term is taken from the rules of Sorcerer. See also Kicker.

You're going to have to descibe the circumstances around the NPC he killed before anyone can understand the significance of this action.

Does anyone recoginse this behaviour and what it is a symptom of? My view is to take it as a bad sign that he is detached from his character and therefore to some degree from the game. We have until quite recently had a very heavy sim emphasis. Could this be a residual effect of his rebellion to GM force in our heavy sim game?

I think you essentially offered him a "reward" for killing, and he chose to accept it. I don't see that there's anything wrong with your player's behavior unless he's using it to be an asshole to the actual people sitting around the table.

[Lamorak33]

Rob, could you give more detail? What was the bang you presented him with, and why did you force a flaw on him as a result of his decision? What does "indiscriminately" mean, can you give examples of situations in which he had his character kill people and why that posed a problem for you/for the group?

Hi Kerstin, Larry

The original bang was this;

Background:
Returning home from a long journey they had resuced a clanmate who had been crucified.  When they found out the enemy soldiers (Lunar Tax Collectors) would be back in 7 days to check, and said they would torch the village and crucify everyone there if the person was not still on the cross.  The 'heroes' said they would procure a member of the enemy culture (Lunar, and many could be found at a local town) and butcher them to make them look like the clanmate and nail them up in place, hoping the enemy soldiers would not notice.

Onto the 'Bang'
They went into town to find someone to 'nail up'.  Aren knocked down from behind an unarmed merchant looking fellow.  His declared action was that he would cut the merchants throat.  As killing was not a feature of our game to that point, and was thematically important to the premise (what would you do to remove the occupying force from your homeland) I said that killing someone in such a cold brutal manner would be a character defining moment.  Hence if he proceeded he would have a flaw 'killer' if he spared him, then we would find something out about the character/ player.  Hence bang.

On monday we continued our game where we are on a giants cradle (c/w 10metre giant baby) trying to defend it against overwhelming odds.  The character Aren worships a god of stealth and 'taking things' (Desemborth).  I thought a good 'bang' would be to find out, given the nature of the situation they were all in, would Aren 'steal' from a fellow defender.  A good bang, as I understand it, is something you have no idea which way the player will go. 

I had guy A say to Aren that he wanted this ornate dagger from guy B.  Guy A had lost the dagger in a game of chance to Guy B and he refused to trade it back.  Aren likes poison so Guy A offered him some very potent poison.  Aren then offered to steal the dagger AND murder Guy B!

Its the escalation that bothers me here, and concerns me that it is a symptom of dysfuctional play.  Do you need any more detail?

Thanks
Rob

[Lamorak33]

You're going to have to descibe the circumstances around the NPC he killed before anyone can understand the significance of this action.

I think that it is important to note that the first bang I described above was 'accidental', and by that I mean not a concious attempt at narrativism, and was during a generally very sim heavy game, though that  particular session was entirely what I recognise as Narrativism - although I may be mistaken.  The reason I say that is the session began with them finding the crucified victim, and proceeded entirely based on the characters actions. I had no plot.  I merely wondered what they would do in that situation.

The latter bang was a concious attempt at Narrativism after long conversations with Mike and packing in a lot of reading at 'The Forge'.  I have also recently aquired a copy of Sorcerer.  I am trying to introduce Narrativism to my game, being open and not sneaking it in.  The players are currently involved in a massive 'railroad-sim-fest' classic Gloranthan scenario 'The Cradle', but I am trying to introduce under-belly play, as I think that can work well.

Best regards
Rob

[Balbinus]

The first bang I'm not sure is a bang, though I am not an expert.

Leaving aside terminology though, it does sound a bit deprotagonising.  "Do this or get a character flaw" sounds like a choice, but it's not much of a choice is it?  Go through door A and get a reward, go through Door B and lose a hand gives me a choice but I'm not sure it's a protagonising choice.  Is it possible he simply felt he was being railroaded and rebelled against it through his character rather than by discussing it with you?

I ask because I have a suspicion that in the same circumstances I would feel I was being forced by the GM to spare the guy or get a new character disadvantage, and I can well imagine rebelling by then going "fine, I'll take the disadvantage".  It could be him seeking to assert control of his character which he may feel you tried to usurp.  Or, I could be way off, please let me know if this all seems off beam or if any of it strikes a potential cord.

Also, it sounds like you are trying to introduce more narrativism focussed play into your group by stealth.  That rarely works, and people often sense something is up and rebel.  If you want to move toward more narrativist play then you need to say to your players what kind of play you would like to work toward, talk openly with them and see if it interests them.  Choosing a narrativism supportive system alone won't cut it, I prefer sim play generally and speaking from my own actual play experience can assure you that Heroquest is more than able to support sim priorities in actual play - if the group wish to use it that way.  It works extremely well for sim play, even though it also works of course very well for nar focussed play.

Incidentally, I do note you say you are introducing it openly but you also refer to getting it in under belly, which may have confused me.  What did this player say about you introducing nar style play?

On the second example, I'm not especially surprised at your player's response.  He's playing a bad guy, a worshipper of a stealth deity who has a reputation as a killer.  What he did was entirely in character, the question then is whether being entirely in character is important (and it may be more important to him than to you depending on your play preferences) and if it is important whether that is a good choice of character to play.

Sometimes folk play unpleasant characters to be disruptive, then say "I'm just playing in character".  Sometimes people play characters who turn out to be disruptive, but the player values playing in character so much they would rather then be disruptive than play out of character.  The first guy I don't think you can do much with, the second you can ask to play a different character as that one is disruptive and you will damage their fun by asking them not to play it as it is envisaged.

Does that make sense at all?

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Thanks Rob. Let me try and look at this step by step. The bang isn't where you think it is.

Returning home from a long journey they had resuced a clanmate who had been crucified.  When they found out the enemy soldiers (Lunar Tax Collectors) would be back in 7 days to check, and said they would torch the village and crucify everyone there if the person was not still on the cross. 

Did the players find out about that after they'd already rescued the clanmate? Before would been better because once they'd taken their mate off the cross they obviously weren't going to nail him on again, were they? Just as a side note.

The 'heroes' said they would procure a member of the enemy culture (Lunar, and many could be found at a local town) and butcher them to make them look like the clanmate and nail them up in place, hoping the enemy soldiers would not notice.

Cool decision to my mind. You had no problem with it so far, that right?

(Again on the same side note as above, if they learnt of the Lunar threat to the village only after they'd already rescued the guy on the cross they were almost forced into this "solution" by your narration. )

Aren knocked down from behind an unarmed merchant looking fellow.  His declared action was that he would cut the merchants throat. 

Wow. Very interesting decision. The players decide to murder someone.  But it's Aren's player who has his character go through with it.

Up to this point it hadn't been decided who'd do the deed, right? So basically what the players did was set up a bang for each of them. Will you have your character kill someone? If so, who and how? And Aren's player is the one to respond to it. It makes little bumps go up on my skin. Yeah, it's a scary decision to make, especially in a game that hadn't featured killing until then.

His choice of a victim is interesting, too. Was that unarmed guy a Lunar? Were there armed people around who'd have had a chance to put up a fight?

As killing was not a feature of our game to that point, and was thematically important to the premise (what would you do to remove the occupying force from your homeland) I said that killing someone in such a cold brutal manner would be a character defining moment.  Hence if he proceeded he would have a flaw 'killer' if he spared him, then we would find something out about the character/ player. Hence bang.

Ouch. Nope, that's not a bang. That's narrator judgement passed on a player who has just responded to a bang in an awesome, horrific, highly character-revealing manner.  "Cold" and "brutal"? Do you really think that's the reaction the player wanted to elicit? Was he fishing for a flaw? I can't imagine he was. He was having his character do the hard-but-necessary thing in the situation - a highly meaningful thing if you ask me.

Yeah, maybe it came easily to that character, in which case he's a bit of a chilling guy, Aren. Would it cause problems for your game if that were the case?

I had guy A say to Aren that he wanted this ornate dagger from guy B.  Guy A had lost the dagger in a game of chance to Guy B and he refused to trade it back.  Aren likes poison so Guy A offered him some very potent poison.  Aren then offered to steal the dagger AND murder Guy B!

Hmm. Escalation as such isn't dysfunction. Bangs aren't supposed to lay linear tracks that fork only in specific directions. Some may be put in the form of yes/no questions, but still you'll often have a player come up with a third answer because he or she doesn't like any of the explicitly presented ones.

Did the player even get that he was asked "merely" to steal? The offer of poison might have been taken as a veiled request for Aren to poison B.

Have you asked the player what this is all about? One of many possibilities would be that he's simply taking the flaw you've imposed on him very seriously. That would be typical for a game with a heavy-handed GM, which is what you said the group is used to.

Another possibility is that he enjoys playing Aren like this and is fully aware there will be consequences eventually. Which might make for a short but intense story if you go along with it and let him have his crazy ride.

I'd definitely say ask the player at this point though, if you haven't done so already.

Kerstin

[Balbinus]

Rob, I saw that you gave additional detail in another thread as to what happened in play which made me want to add to my comments.

You said in that thread that when the player considered poisoning Mr B you considered telling him if he did that his Killer trait would get changed to Murderer.

That slightly sets of alarm bells in my head, and I think could be very counterproductive.  It suggests to me that when you offer choices you have a preferred outcome and a punishment in mind if the player chooses the "wrong" outcome.  That I don't think is quite what you are actually aiming for though, so I think you will be disappointed in your goals.

The reason I think that is that what it seems to me you want is meaningful player choice driving play.  For that to work there must not only be two or more possible outcomes and you don't know which, there must be two or more valid outcomes.  I think without realising it you may be trying to invalidate one outcome, in the other thread you said that you hinted heavily about how useful guy B could be which is seeking to influence the player's decision and then considered hitting his character with a worsened negative trait if he didn't go as you hinted.

Whether you mean it to or not, I suspect many players would feel railroaded at that point.  Do as the GM suggests, or have your character nerfed.  That leads to rebellion.  Having read your other more detailed post I think this really may be an issue of perceived (and maybe actual though I'm sure inadvertent) railroading leading to a player rebellion.

Try giving him a choice where both outcomes are equally valid, where neither carries a punishment, see how that goes.

Oh, one other thing strikes me, gaining a trait in HQ is a bonus because it increases character effectiveness.  Killer arguably is great, I can augment almost any combat with that, if I have a more gamist play agenda then that is a real boost to my character and if you offer it to me I'll do whatever I can to get it.  That could also be the problem, you may be actively rewarding precisely the thing you'd like to discourage.

[Larry L.]

I think your first bang had nothing to do with the actual murder incident. Rather, I think the bang was "So you just rescued your crucified friend, but what are you gonna do so the Lunars don't catch on?" If the players conceived of the plot to find a patsy to replace the body, and you didn't somehow "push" this idea on them, then the question of the murder is actually the resolution of this bang.

I thought a good 'bang' would be to find out, given the nature of the situation they were all in, would Aren 'steal' from a fellow defender.  A good bang, as I understand it, is something you have no idea which way the player will go. 

I had guy A say to Aren that he wanted this ornate dagger from guy B.  Guy A had lost the dagger in a game of chance to Guy B and he refused to trade it back.  Aren likes poison so Guy A offered him some very potent poison.  Aren then offered to steal the dagger AND murder Guy B!

Its the escalation that bothers me here, and concerns me that it is a symptom of dysfuctional play.  Do you need any more detail?

Okay, cool. It sounds like you do get the gist of Bangs then.

So far I don't see any proof of dysfunctional play... yet. It could very well be that your player is genuinely interested in exploring the idea that his character has what it takes to kill another man.

If that's the case... hell, give him what he wants: a story about a murderer. Let him try to murder his way out of anything. Make up bangs for him where he has to deal with the victim's family. Figure out who knows he's a murderer and if that reputation will spread. I don't know that HeroQuest has any equivalent of Humanity or Bad Karma, but you might want to hop over to the HeroQuest forum and solicit ideas for how to represent this situation in the game mechanics.

Don't you personally act as the hand of retribution and make sure he gets what's coming to him (that would be dysfunctional play right there), but don't flinch at letting the player deal with the consequences of his actions... and don't shield him from the judgement of the other players, either. The player is choosing to make the story about murder, let him justify his choice to the other players. (Not the characters.)

However, I do recognize that he may just be getting behind what "my guy" would do, and using that as an excuse to ruin everyone else's fun. So how are the other players handling his decisions? Does anyone, other than you, seemed peeved at his play? Do they seem do dig this murderer theme? Do they just sort of turtle up and not express an opinion one way or the other?

Cross-posted with the last 3 posts.

[Larry L.]

What Kerstin said is all good, too.

[Lamorak33]

Rob, I saw that you gave additional detail in another thread as to what happened in play which made me want to add to my comments.

Yes, that post was in response to Mike Holmes, who has been incredibly patient and helpfull, and dare I say instrumental in my shift toward narrativism, althought the real push has been having a number of players who are clearly not sim orientated - they tend to look for the hook and go in the opposite direction.

You said in that thread that when the player considered poisoning Mr B you considered telling him if he did that his Killer trait would get changed to Murderer.

That slightly sets of alarm bells in my head, and I think could be very counterproductive.  It suggests to me that when you offer choices you have a preferred outcome and a punishment in mind if the player chooses the "wrong" outcome.  That I don't think is quite what you are actually aiming for though, so I think you will be disappointed in your goals.

Yeah I know what your saying.  I am not trying to pass a moral judgement, but I am trying to reflect that certain actions mean certain things.  Thus in the absence of somekind of humanity or karma mechanic the way is to say if you do this it will mean that.  I don't see hcanging the ability from killer to murderer as a punishment, but I can see how it could be taken to mean that.  I guess its like losing humanity, yes its bad, but if it is a means to an end.  I guess what I want to do is say to the player, you may kill at any time but it will have an effect on your character and how your character relates to other characters.

Whether you mean it to or not, I suspect many players would feel railroaded at that point.  Do as the GM suggests, or have your character nerfed.  That leads to rebellion.  Having read your other more detailed post I think this really may be an issue of perceived (and maybe actual though I'm sure inadvertent) railroading leading to a player rebellion.

Agreed.  The challenge then is to explained that the character hasn't been nerfed but that the player has taken the character through a character defining process.

Oh, one other thing strikes me, gaining a trait in HQ is a bonus because it increases character effectiveness.  Killer arguably is great, I can augment almost any combat with that, if I have a more gamist play agenda then that is a real boost to my character and if you offer it to me I'll do whatever I can to get it.  That could also be the problem, you may be actively rewarding precisely the thing you'd like to discourage.

Agreed.  Maybe it could be a symptom of an incoherent game?

Regards
Rob

[Trevis Martin]

Hi Rob,

Kristen is right.  As far as I can tell, the bang...i.e. the 'real human delimma question' is the first part.

Returning home from a long journey they had resuced a clanmate who had been crucified. When they found out the enemy soldiers (Lunar Tax Collectors) would be back in 7 days to check, and said they would torch the village and crucify everyone there if the person was not still on the cross.

That is the closest to a bang in the description because it presents a difficult situation which demands an answer or there will be consequences.

The 'heroes' said they would procure a member of the enemy culture (Lunar, and many could be found at a local town) and butcher them to make them look like the clanmate and nail them up in place, hoping the enemy soldiers would not notice.

And that's a hell of a decision.  The rest of this is consequences.

They went into town to find someone to 'nail up'. Aren knocked down from behind an unarmed merchant looking fellow. His declared action was that he would cut the merchants throat. As killing was not a feature of our game to that point, and was thematically important to the premise (what would you do to remove the occupying force from your homeland) I said that killing someone in such a cold brutal manner would be a character defining moment. Hence if he proceeded he would have a flaw 'killer' if he spared him, then we would find something out about the character/ player.

This whole sequence of action lets us find out something about this character.  1.)  The decision to kill someone as a substatute rather than a straight up fight or running away.  2.) The decision of who to kill - a man who's main crime is being a member of the occupying culture.  The defining moment started with the decision to and act of killing someone to save this town.  That's a great decision and consequences should arise from it.  My urge to escalate would lead me to several possibilites. 1.) The merchant's little girl comes to find her daddy just as what's his name kills him or is about to.  Will he still do it? What will he do to or about the witness?  2.) The merchant, for whatever reason, is not disliked in the community, despite being a lunar.  The community isn't thrilled with the players choice of victim.  3.) The mechant is actually married into a clan, and that clan is now ticked off because their sister is greiving her beloved husband.

I don't fully understand heroquest rules but I'd say that the character would gain some enemy relationships as a result of the encounter.

When you're putting a question to them of "How far would you go?"  You gotta keep escalating it.  "Oh, yeah?  Now what?"  Sounds like you said,  "How far will you go."  The player said "This far" and you said "oh, um.."

I'm not trying to beat on you here, you see what I'm saying?

It sounds like you felt the decision was wrong, or wrongly done.  You even offered a character flaw as a consequence of an action.  It could be a legitimate flaw given the situation.  But the point is...he took it.  That's it.  Consequences, huge and dire should arise out of that.

That's the cycle of theme in narrativism.  The bang is the question and the action of the player and consequences of the decision are the answer.  Maybe you haven't said it but what consequences arose out of this?  Was there ploy successful with no consequences coming from this guy's murder?  There you go... theme.

Narrativism is gloves off.  You can ask the question but the players answer is his own.  Just make sure that the consequences raise those stakes.

On monday we continued our game where we are on a giants cradle (c/w 10metre giant baby) trying to defend it against overwhelming odds. The character Aren worships a god of stealth and 'taking things' (Desemborth). I thought a good 'bang' would be to find out, given the nature of the situation they were all in, would Aren 'steal' from a fellow defender. A good bang, as I understand it, is something you have no idea which way the player will go.

I had guy A say to Aren that he wanted this ornate dagger from guy B. Guy A had lost the dagger in a game of chance to Guy B and he refused to trade it back. Aren likes poison so Guy A offered him some very potent poison. Aren then offered to steal the dagger AND murder Guy B!

Are guy A and B both NPC's?  Or is B a PC?   I can see why you'd be afraid of PC/PC conflict, many people are not comfortable with it.  Otherwise the bang sounds good.  No matter what he does the player is making a statement.  But as far as being worried about the escalation all I can think of is that line in Pulp Fiction.  "If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions."  Consequences are an issue though.  The choice is meaningless without consequences.

All that being said, it could be a reaction to the amount of freedom in answering he now has.  Are the players aware that you are trying to use these narrativist techniques?

Balbinus is right in saying that the choices you give them MUST have a series of valid choices, which have a series of equally good/bad consequences, and you should hold no expectations as to what choice the player is going to make and be willing to roll with it no matter what they come up with. Otherwise you are attempting the impossible, to get the players to make the decisions you want them to make out of free choice.  It won't happen.  At least not consistantly.

hope that is helpful.

Trevis

crossposted, but it sounds like we're all saying similar stuff.

[Balbinus]

I have a strong suspicion I played at one of your games at a con Rob, I played HQ under a guy called Rob with my character being an old lady with an amazing nag ability.  It was cool, the GM (maybe you) let me use my nag ability in combat to shame our opponents into rethinking their actions.

It was what HQ is all about to me, about letting my character shine for that moment and about allowing something that in most games mechanically couldn't happen.  My character was faced with the enemy, and I chose as a player to emphasise her crotchety old woman streak and focus on that in play.  It was fun and I was able to play the character as I wanted to, which for me at least made for a better game.  It also meant I maintained her thematic integrity, which is important to me, many games would have forced me to make her fight or not participate which would have jarred.

Anyway, sorry if you're a different Rob but if that is you then I can at least say that you can do this stuff even if it's not yet working out on this occasion.  Don't lose heart here.

I don't think HQ is incoherent by the way, but I don't really understand incoherence either.  I think HQ is very flexible, which is great in a way but dangerous too if people have different expectations.

Anyway, one question, how much have you talked to this guy as a player about what he wants for his character and how he perceived those scenes?  Others better qualified than me have spoken well to the bangs issue, it seems to me you understand them but on the day I think confused what the bang really was.  I can't add to what those guys are saying much but what I would like to help with if I can is the question of how the player perceives this and whether he is addressing premise in a way you didn't expect or rebelling against perceived railroading.  There is only one way to find out, and that's to talk to him.

Ask him if he enjoyed that stuff, ask him where he sees the character going and what interests him in the character (carefully though, it would be easy to inadvertently make it sound like you were asking him why he found the character interesting because you couldn't see it yourself which isn't the idea) and ask him if he was cool with the way all that played out.

To be honest, I am a little concerned the player may just be one of those who play psychopaths because they don't really invest in the game.  That he might be ok slitting the NPCs throat not because it's dramatically powerful but because NPCs just don't matter to him.  Again, the best way to find out is to ask him whether he thought that throat cutting scene was cool and if he sees it having any long term effect on his character. 

Talk to the guy, it's the only way forward really.  When are you next playing?

[Brand_Robins]

Yeah I know what your saying.  I am not trying to pass a moral judgement, but I am trying to reflect that certain actions mean certain things.  Thus in the absence of somekind of humanity or karma mechanic the way is to say if you do this it will mean that.  I don't see hcanging the ability from killer to murderer as a punishment, but I can see how it could be taken to mean that.  I guess its like losing humanity, yes its bad, but if it is a means to an end.

There is also something else to be considered here. In Sorcerer and Vampire (I wasn't sure which game's Humanity mechanic you're talking about) you don't just lose Humanity whenever the GM says you do -- you roll dice to see if you lose Humanity when a situation that you, the GM, or the group thinks could cause you to lose Humanity. It is possible, in both games, to do a human sacrifice to summon a demon and not actually lose any Humanity*. This is because, essentially, Humanity loss is a conflict. Your characters actions do not provoke a unilateral judgment from the GM, they provoke a contest about your humanity and what it means to you.

Now, in your game the character made a choice that sparked such a situation, but rather than it becoming a conflict and drawing out the themes, it became a judgment. If, instead, you (or one of the other PCs -- in Nar games PCs should be stepping up to the plate on stuff like this) had made it a contest then the themes would have been drawn out more and it would seem more like a consequence than a punishment/reward.

As you say, HQ doesn't have a morality/humanity gauge -- which is a good thing as it's a game about old morality being dead and the PCs having to build a new morality. It does, however, have a lot of rules about personality, community, and the interaction between them. Why does the character get the Killer trait? Because the community judges him, by their moral standards? Because the other PCs do? Because his enemies do?

In any of these cases you can easily spin the scene off into a conflict with that group, with the ones judging the character (even if they are simply acting as a Greek chorus for the externalization of the character's internal struggle) forming one side, and the character the other. The character can then explain what he did, argue about why he is or is not a killer, see the reaction of the community up close, be shown the looks of horror on the other character's faces when they learn what he has done, and get a chance to either plead that he is not a killer, that he did what had to be done in an impossible situation or laugh callously and make his Nietzschian statement about his superiority, or even shrug it off and demonstrate how he becomes callous -- which opens up new conflicts as the community starts to pull away from him/draw closer to him/find him a hero/find him a villain, and so on.

If you want to make a game in which the players are able to guide their characters as they would, and in which the world/community (rather than you as the GM) judge them and react to them in terms that are consequences rather than GM enforced punishment/reward judgments then it almost always behooves you to make it a contest, to bring in the community, to draw out the player and the character, and make the conflict a Conflict.


* Possible, but not likely.

[Lamorak33]

Hi Rob,

[snip]

hope that is helpful.

Trevis

crossposted, but it sounds like we're all saying similar stuff.

Hi Travis

Very helpful.  You have hi-lighted the missing component to my idea of what makes a good bang.  Now I shall be working hard to push the consequences.  I have been guilty of letting the players off lightly.  Its like I have a bang, and oh um.  Thanks for pointing that out.

Regards
Rob