[MLwM] Humiliation: Another way to increase a minion's self-loathing.

[Arturo G.]

In my first session of MLwM I was acting as The Master, an old-family lord in Galicia, the north-west region of Spain, a land of forgotted low-mountain-valleys, rain and myst.

I was punishing 5 minions for their incompetence when something unexpected happened. One of them, a Shepperd was ordered to do something horrific with a herd-animal to scare some town folks. He really enjoyed to describe how he was looking for some folks (one of them he specially hate) and how he was commanding his sheepdogs to frighten them, then killing onr sheep some meters far from the folks, doing himself the main of the job. A colorful description... the player knows perfectly how pigs are killed with a knife following the old tradition. Disgusthing. He was looking very proud of himself.

Following the counsels found in "A manifesto on Mastery" I was prepared to crush his enjoyment. When he came back, I begun to say that he was stupid and such things. I said I was not intending him to do such a thing openly. Now, the people were complaining to him (the Master) for his actions. Thus, he should go there and apologize for his stupidity. Especially to that man he hated so much. Instinctively I ordered him what I though he really was going to hate more. And I get the target. What amount of complaints. He had not tried to resist previous commands, but this one...

When we arrived at that scene, it was incredible the amount of hate he was accumulating while the folks were getting the opportunity to completely humiliate him.

But, we didn't know what to do about mechanics. All of us agreed this was something which surely may increase his self-loathing. Finally we used the "villainy against NPCs" formula because if you fail it, you do not get weariness.

Is there a better way to mechanically consider such a situation?

Cheers,
Arturo

[TonyLB]

Apologizing for something horrid is a virtuous (if hard) thing to do.

Maybe the Minions shouldn't be ordered to do virtuous things.  If you stick to that formula then you need to taint the apology with some horrible ulterior motive.  "Apologize to the townsfolk, and make sure to keep them occupied for at least ten minutes with your humiliation, so that Ezri can kidnap the girl!"

Then it's Villainy as usual ... possible Violence as well.

[Mike Holmes]

Tony has it right. Paul has said, IIRC, that Self-Loathing does not come from humiliation - the minions are "Less than Human" and immune to that sort of thing in some ways. They only get Self-Loathing if they do inhumane things (proving to themselves that people are right to question their humanity), or are rejected by somebody they love.

So instead of "You made me look bad, go humiliate yourself" make it "You made me look bad, go kill all those people who you made me look bad to." Or some sort of villainy like Tony suggests. Now, the diffucult part may be coming up with something that the character has to do that the player won't revel in. If he liked messing with the villagers, then perhaps he'll like killing them, too. In this case, have the master force him to do some really pusilanimous villainy. Here Tony's suggestion is really good. Because it accomplishes both tasks, it's something that the player will not like for his character, and it's also villainy.

There is a point at which I've seen lots of players go "over the edge" with self-loathing. Sometimes early, and sometimes later, at some point a player may stop caring about his minion accumulating Self-Loathing. At this point it may be impossible to "crush" this player as Mike suggests, by finding some errand that's objectionable. The player has become enamored of playing the bad guy. He's shooting for being the next master as end-game.

I have an idea of how to handle this player. Have the master order him to do nice things. Fight the player's strategy of accumulating piles of Self-Loathing (and the attendant ability to do Horror Revealed) by relegating the character to dull duties that don't give him a chance to do the fun bad stuff. Have the master get reviled by his attitude, and have him go clean up the dungeon.

No idea if it'll work, but it might get a player angry enough to try to resist the master, putting him back on the road to self-loathing being a bad thing, etc. You'd have to catch it early enough, however.

Mike

[Arturo G.]

OK! I got the point. The minion should keep doing horrific things which are not "human". Humiliation is associated with human feelings which are not what we are searching for.

Tony was proposing a nice idea. Still keeping the humiliation scene to punish the player but with a villainy purpose at the end.

Mike:

There is a point at which I've seen lots of players go "over the edge" with self-loathing. Sometimes early, and sometimes later, at some point a player may stop caring about his minion accumulating Self-Loathing. At this point it may be impossible to "crush" this player as Mike suggests, by finding some errand that's objectionable. The player has become enamored of playing the bad guy. He's shooting for being the next master as end-game.

I have an idea of how to handle this player. Have the master order him to do nice things. Fight the player's strategy of accumulating piles of Self-Loathing (and the attendant ability to do Horror Revealed) by relegating the character to dull duties that don't give him a chance to do the fun bad stuff. Have the master get reviled by his attitude, and have him go clean up the dungeon

I'm not sure it is a good solution. The player will keep doing overtures and getting love points, increasing her possibilities to kill the master. And these tasks are indeed normal human tasks.
I think it should be possible to tackle the problem earlier, seeking for violence or villainy tasks which the player is not really enjoying; and transforming each violence or villainy success in something which make them feel embarrassed and stupid. Shouldn't it?

Thanks a lot for your answers,
Arturo

[Mike Holmes]

OK! I got the point. The minion should keep doing horrific things which are not "human". Humiliation is associated with human feelings which are not what we are searching for.[/quote}Actually that paraphrase doesn't sound to me like what we were talking about, but I may simply be misreading it.

Tony was proposing a nice idea. Still keeping the humiliation scene to punish the player but with a villainy purpose at the end.

I'm not sure it is a good solution. The player will keep doing overtures and getting love points, increasing her possibilities to kill the master. And these tasks are indeed normal human tasks.
I think it should be possible to tackle the problem earlier, seeking for violence or villainy tasks which the player is not really enjoying; and transforming each violence or villainy success in something which make them feel embarrassed and stupid. Shouldn't it?

I probably shouldn't have introduced this idea, since I'm not sure it applies to your game at all. But, basically you're not getting the phenomenon in question. In the sort of play I'm talking about, the player stops trying overtures at all, and instigates violence and/or villainy instead. In fact he does nothing but this.

I think this sort of play comes about for one of two reasons. Either the player is just getting off on playing a villain, or something more subtle happens. The subtle effect is that the character misses all of his rolls to avoid Self-loathing on overtures, and accumulates some Self-Loathing due to being forced to do villainous things. The player looks at his odds of ever being able to get to the point where he'll be able to defeat the master, and just gives up on the idea. Instead he goes off on a killing spree or whatever, intent on driving hard on being the next master (or similar endgame), and the extra fun of getting to do Horror Revealed a lot. There's a point at which this can just seem a lot more fun than striving to beat the system and climb out of the hole with loads of love.

I think this is a fine option, BTW. That is, if it's what the player wants, then why not? What I'm saying is that you can sorta mess with this option by having the master keep the character out of action as much as possible. If you do this, then the player just might, yes, start to try to accumulate love again. He'll hate the master for messing with him, and get back on track to try to kill the master. Then, once he's back on track, then you can start crushing his forward momentum again (making him hate the master even more).

I'm not saying that the GM should use the master to deny a player whatever rout they want to take - I don't even think that's possible. But to the extent that you can frustrate a player with the master, it helps to do it no matter what tactic they're going for. Which just might take some creative thinking when the tactic is not the normal "let's try to beat the master."

Mike

[Arturo G.]

Now I see what your are talking about, Mike.
I have tried MLwM only once, and there was no such effect.

I had a player that seemed for a while to go in that way. But I managed to crush his enjoyment of violence on time. It was his first time playing, but I knew him since long ago, and I could imagine the kind of violence he will not be pleased to narrate. And it worked. But if you find one who really doesn't mind to do any kind of violence/villainy... it is indeed a different problem.

Is it common this kind of play? Have you seen it often?
Arturo

[Mike Holmes]

Again, what I've seen is the more subtle effect. Not so much the gamer who likes playing the bad guy. But of the 6 or so games I've played or run of MLWM, I'd say that there was one player in 4 of them that found that they were "wallowing" in self-loathing and decided to just go with the flow there instead of fighting it. Noting that other players were in a position much closer to take out the master than they were. It's almost like resignation - I can't beat player X's character who's right on track to take out the master, so I'll go another direction instead.

Anyhow, wasn't sure if your player qualified or not. But it is a phenomenon, I'd say, and one that might do with some analysis for play. Note that, again, it works just fine to allow the player to go nuts with it. It's just that using this odd tactic to crush him might add to the game dynamic.

Mike

[Arturo G.]

Ummm... I see. In that case it is not a problem of crushing the player or not, it is a problem of redirecting her to the normal game dynamics or not. Thus, the tactic of the dull-tasks is probably going to produce the desired effect. I guess that if I would face that situation I would try thst tactic only if the minion behaviour is becoming somehow disruptive for the rest of players. Good to know about this.

Thanks again Mike and Tony,
Arturo

[Mike Holmes]

I almost let me go, but I have to be pedantic here.

No, I emphatically do not want to redirect the player. I tried to make that clear. I don't want to have any control over what the player decides he wants to do. I want, instead, to give the player more options. In fact, by crushing him.

1. Player feels he can't "win" so he instead goes down the only road he sees available, "More Violence and Villainy!"
2. I crush the player's enjoyment of that.
3. The player hates the Master for the crushing, and has less opportunity for what he wants to do.
4. So now going back the other way seems like an equally viable option again.
5. The player then chooses either to stick with "More Violence and Villainy" or to turn the character around.

It's about using the crushing technique to balance the options back out again once they've become lopsided, and the game is, in fact, starting to control where the player is going.

Mike

[Arturo G.]

Nice you were pedantic or I would still miss something.
I shouldn't previously say "not crushing but redirecting", but instead something like "crushing to open the door for coming back to normal game dynamics".
In that case my little objections about using the technique dissapear.

I hope now I've really got it.
Arturo

[Vaxalon]

I want to say that I have seen the "aw, the hell with it" mechanic in action.  In the game I played with TonyLB and Sydney, I started to feel that there was little point in continuing to go after Love, and I contemplated what would be necessary to become a Master.

It never showed up in play, mainly I think because of Tony's masterful Mastery.

[Arturo G.]

I want to add something. In the thread: [MLWM] Weariness; Why do I want it again?, Ron has commented something interesting.

Ron Edwards:

With all of that going on, the door is opened for some other player to enjoy just racking up Self-Loathing if they want to, and perhaps becoming a Force of Fear in Their Own Right. Which for some reason is being held up as Wrong, Not Right Play in other threads right now. However, as I see it and have seen in several games, this is lots of fun as a secondary element of the overall story - i.e., when it's only one player-character and everyone else is doing the Love-Love-must-defy-Master thing. Note that this character is well-suited to delivering the deathblow and often does.

Mike has clearly pointed out that playing a minion in that "anger-mode" is a choice of the player. And as Ron says it is not a bad thing if he decides to do it. My former hesitation about using the "dull-tasks" technique appeared because I didn't understand Mike correctly. As far as the Master may find a way to spoil the triumph-feeling of the player when the minion executes violence/villainy, the player (not the minion) will hate the Master more and more. I understand that this is the purpose of the Manifesto on Mastery. Isn't it?

But if we are talking about a player who did not choose it but has arrived at that situation by bad-luck, is frustrated by the situation, is playing the "anger-mode" only because she cannot get out of it, and specially is becoming less interested in the game because her chances are limited. In that case the "dull-tasks" may be a way to open her the door for another way of playing; still accumulating hatred to the Master. I think this is more or less what Mike was saying.

Cheers,
Arturo

[Mike Holmes]

Yup, that's quite accurate.

Mike