Why should player's support their characters?

[TonyLB]

[ Okay, I am arrogant enough to think that what follows is a whole separate topic from Advantages/Disadvantages.  They are clearly linked, in mindset if nothing else, but they seem to be distinct, interacting elements.  Then again, maybe I'm wrong, and I'm just looking at the same thing from two different angles. ]

Players have a choice, always, about their attitude regarding character success.  You can chose to try to make your character to succeed.  You can choose to try to make your character to fail.  Yes, if you're wholly immersionist (and your character has zero self-destructive tendencies) then you want your character to succeed 100%.  Bully for you.  That's still a choice.

Many (perhaps, all) systems try to create interesting game-play and conflict when you want your character to succeed.  You play your tactics, and other people play their tactics (usually aligned with the idea that your character will fail) and one or the other of you gains the authority to narrate your outcome.

Theoretically, there is no difference if you (the player) are trying actively to make your character fail.  You play your tactics, and other people play their tactics (aligned with the idea that your character will succeed) and one or the other of you gains the authority to narrate your outcome.  But, practically speaking, very few systems even try to create interesting game-play and conflict when you want your character to fail.  Indeed, most of them let you fail unilaterally, simply by not bringing any of your resources to bear.  I think that is, on some pretty fundamental levels, screwed up.  Players should not get carte blanche to have their characters fail at will.  It shuts out the contribution of other players at the table.

What I offered over in Advantages/Disadvantages is the notion that when players drive to failure they are expressing their judgment that (in these circumstances) some of their character traits are bad.  When a player drives their character toward failure they are saying that the character should fail in this instance.  There is plenty of room for other players (by means of their characters) to dispute this position.  The player is not (IMHO) the final word on their own character or that character's worth or destiny.  So, imagine:

Joe:  I'll roll Seth's Crude, Reckless and Stupid against "Seth impresses Mary."  He yells at her, not understanding what she wants from him but knowing in his heart that he can't give it to her.  "Just get away from me!  I don't deserve you anyway!"
Horace:  Okay, I'm rolling Seth's Sincere and Hurting, and Mary's Sad on "Seth impresses Mary."  I win.  Mary sees that Seth is crude, reckless and stupid... and she likes him anyway.

Is there a reason that this interaction would only work with Joe playing Mary and Horace playing Seth?  It seems to me that it works better with Joe playing Seth and Horace playing Mary.

[Josh Roby]

Tony, for clarification's sake, in your example Joe wants Seth to fail, but the character Seth is actually trying to impress Mary, and the character wants to succeed?

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

What I offered over in Advantages/Disadvantages is the notion that when players drive to failure they are expressing their judgment that (in these circumstances) some of their character traits are bad.  When a player drives their character toward failure they are saying that the character should fail in this instance.

Um, from my experience (whatever that's worth) players drive their characters not towards success or failure, but towards advantage.  Failure in one instance yields an advantage in another (see: Dogs in the Vinyard).  I think getting caught up in the success vs. failuer thing is a misinterpretation of what the players are actually doing: which trying to put themselves in the position of greatest advantage.

Your example, Tony, makes no sense to me and probably only would in the larger context of an entire Actual Play post.  What game is that example from?  What were the stakes in the conflict?  Why were the players engaged in it in the first place?

I want to definately add more constructive thoughts, but I think I'm missing the point you're trying to make.

Peace,

-Troy

[Troy_Costisick]

Oh, and let me just add that I am not speaking of "advantage" in the way you used it in your other thread.  What I'm talking about is not a rules mechanic but the character's potential in the game and how players push to increase it.

Peace,

-Troy

[Ben Lehman]

Players (and people) drive themselves towards advantage.  Advantage takes the form of scarcity of resources.  If we see "ability to effect the story" as a resource, then if a player's only power to effect the story is via the character, we will see players driving their characters towards positions of power.

yrs--
--Ben

[TonyLB]

Joshua:  Pick whatever motivation you want for Seth.  He's fictional, after all.  If you want to add some details to the example, in order to make a point, do so.  But if you're asking a question about my point, I don't get the relevance and so I really can't give you a solid answer.

Troy and Ben:  You seem (from your tone) to be saying something you think is important.  Please elaborate, because I'm not seeing it.  You may be trying to be more subtle than I can manage to parse.

What I can see is you saying "Players come to the table to do something (which we'll label X).  They will take actions that increase their ability to do X."  Which I'll agree with, but I don't see it shedding a whole lot of light on the questions I asked.  If you have a stronger statement (like "Players will only take actions that increase their ability to do X," or even "Your question is trivial in light of the fact that players will take actions that increase their ability to do X") that would probably help me understand.

[Gordon C. Landis]

Building a bit on Troy and Ben's excellent points (which, Tony, I take to be that the advantage-outcome of a player-decision is more important than the character success/failure outcome) . . . let's say what we care about is affecting (or maybe effecting actually is better usage here) "the story" (meaning that advantage with regard to story-impact is what we're looking for).  Setting aside issues with exactly what that word Story means in RPG play, that might be awful close to a declaration of Nar CA intent, so maybe we have to agree that we're only talking about Nar play here.  I'll continue on that assumption.

Now, it's never actually true that the only way you can influence story is via your character, but it is often assumed that that's the "right" way to do it (silly one-wayism or valid creative choice as appropriate to the exact situation).  And even when you explicitly have other tools available to use for story-influence, most RPGs (certainly DitV, not Universalis unless you've added a PC Gimmick) want you to use your character as a key tool.  But when we can see the character as, first and foremost, a tool for influencing the story, then anything that describes that character is also a tool.  We may say that the character "has Advantage/Disadvantage X", but what that really means is that X can be used to impact the story.  Who uses it, when and how, are details of the specific design and actual system-in-play use of the tool - but it is a tool.

I have not yet developed any skill at including discussion of my own games into these kind of posts, so appologies if this comes across as self-promotion, but I thought about this issue a LOT in SNAP.  Character Traits are always and only cues about what this character does to impact a scene - "Clumsy around powertools" and "Uber-mercenary training" are both (potentially, depending on the fictional situation and with some effect from the numeric value associated with 'em") equally useful in influencing the story.  Driving a Characteristic (what the character is, as opposed simply to what he or she (or it) does) down to zero has the same "value" as advancing it to 20.

So yes, if we want to see both success and failure for particular characters being pursued by "their" players, both should provide equivalent advantages.  Though "equivalent" by no means has to mean "absolutely identical."

[timfire]

What I can see is you saying "Players come to the table to do something (which we'll label X). They will take actions that increase their ability to do X."

What they are trying to say, I believe, is that the success of a player's character is a byproduct of the player trying to acheive "X". Players don't care about success or failure per se, they are only concerned with acheiving "X".

If you look at the "traditional" model,  the player's primary (if not only) tool for affecting the SIS is the character. As such, the only way a player can acheive "X" is through the actions of their character. Therefore, the character must succeed in order for "X" to happen.

But if the players have some other means to make "X" happen, then the success of the character becomes a side point. Players will pursue whatever means seems most appropriate to "X" happen. Are you following me, does that make any more sense?

But one thing though---practically speaking, "X" very often involves the character, as they are often the thing the players identify with the most. Therefore, "X" usually involves the success of the character in some way. But again, the success of the character is a byproduct.

[TonyLB]

Yeah, absolutely.  The character is an avatar through which the player affects the story.  The choices you'll willingly take using that tool are the ones that will help you to achieve that goal.

I guess my point is that you can affect the story as easily (often more easily) through character failure as you can through character success.  For instance, I've been watching a lot of House.  There's a medical drama where they never succeed in any of their early attempts at diagnosis.  But the process of their failures is what makes the show great.  If you want to play something like that, shouldn't the players be trying to fail in spectacular ways at the beginning of a session?

I don't see many games (and I don't think I've ever seen deliberate, explicit rules) that encourage the players to both choose that character failure and have fun fighting for it under the mechanics against adversaries who want the character to succeed.  Either there's no sensible reason to want the character to fail, or it's a choice that is reasonable and important but mechanically uninteresting.

So is this just a blind-spot of designers, or is there a reason why player effort and character success should be aligned as often as they are?

[Callan S.]

Theoretically, there is no difference if you (the player) are trying actively to make your character fail.  You play your tactics, and other people play their tactics (aligned with the idea that your character will succeed) and one or the other of you gains the authority to narrate your outcome.  But, practically speaking, very few systems even try to create interesting game-play and conflict when you want your character to fail.  Indeed, most of them let you fail unilaterally, simply by not bringing any of your resources to bear.  I think that is, on some pretty fundamental levels, screwed up.  Players should not get carte blanche to have their characters fail at will.  It shuts out the contribution of other players at the table.

Eh? In capes, if I as a player don't pursue story points...then I just don't get story points (and don't get all the nifty stuff that goes with them). Other players don't get some input at that level as to whether I miss out on them or not.

In a system where you don't have story points but instead "Spot" skills or "Reckless" ratings, if I don't pursue these then I lose at them and don't get the neat stuff they give. It's just that the rules management of that world is at a much smaller scope...a story point can control many things, a "Spot" rating controls much fewer things.

At this point, when the game world management is at such a fine level, if as a player you actually decide for your character to fail a spot roll, or a reckless roll...your just not playing properly. Stupid play doesn't give you carte blanche control...your just playing stupidly. If your playing monopoly and say "Well, my piece ended up in jail and gosh darn it, my character deserves it, so he's going to stay there. I wont get him out!" it's just crap, because your basically saying system doesn't matter. That isn't control over something, it's just crap play.

Note: Not saying that wanting a PC to fail is stupid, of course. But if you want him to fail, you need to do it in a system where the mechanics reward it. Otherwise you just get tyranny of structurelessness play, where at one moment getting out of jail is good, but at the next it's bad...and that change can be traced to the dominant persona rather than the game.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

Building a bit on Troy and Ben's excellent points (which, Tony, I take to be that the advantage-outcome of a player-decision is more important than the character success/failure outcome)

-Bingo, Gordon got it :)

I guess my point is that you can affect the story as easily (often more easily) through character failure as you can through character success.

-How is that true in games like DnD and GURPS?

I don't see many games (and I don't think I've ever seen deliberate, explicit rules) that encourage the players to both choose that character failure and have fun fighting for it under the mechanics against adversaries who want the character to succeed.

-This sentence doesn't make sense to me.  First, IMO Dogs in the Vineyard is an escellent example of a game that encourages chracters to fail to a certain degree- Fallout dice is the only way to advance.  As far as "against adversaries who want the character to succeed" my issue is if an adversary wants you to beat him, is he really an adversary anymore?  What are some potential actual play instances of this sort of thing?  And I'm not talking about something you've see on the TV or Movies.

Peace,

-Troy

[lumpley]

Ooh! Ooh! I have a good example from actual play. Here in Sheckleton's Sacrifice.

-Vincent

[Emily Care]

I guess my point is that you can affect the story as easily (often more easily) through character failure as you can through character success.

This really happens in systems like Elfs that make a clear demarcation between character & player goals.  I believe the resolution mechanics in Elfs gives you a bonus if you act against your character's stated goals.

Vincent's example shows us how you can do this in any system (with conflict res?), but most don't give rewards for it directly, as does Elfs. I was just the other day thinking about how interesting a line of design that was, and how little it had been followed up.

best,
Em

[lumpley]

From the Sheckleton thread:

So... is the adversary's job then to always work against your cool story reasons?  That seems kind of weird... unless the adversary has their own cool story reasons for wanting things to turn out the other way.

Of course your adversary's job is to have interests that conflict with yours. That's what makes her your adversary.

Arranging things so that my character winning isn't in my interests, so all the time I'm taking the side against my character in conflicts - that's just a matter of arranging. No reason to consider it any harder than any other design challenge.

Oh and play Under the Bed, too. In that game it's possible to get very subtle indeed with whose interests are in conflict with whose and which side do I take.

-Vincent

[lumpley]

Also, Tony, please check me on topic relevance. I don't want to wander off with your thread here.

-Vincent