What Went Wrong?

[Tancred]

Hi,

I've been running a play-by-email game recently and have been trying to use techniques like bangs, kickers and premise. Recently I ran a scene which didn't go at all well and failed to engage the two players in the scene at all.

The scene began in the lair of a forest spirit. One of the PCs (Jack) had just chased after his NPC girlfriend into a spirit gate leading to the lair and another PC (Wat), tagging along to spy on events for his master. The girlfriend, a budding witch, had previously contacted the spirit and had agreed to get intimate with the spirit in exchange for information about a threat to the town everyone lives in.

So the PCs get together and look for the girlfriend/witch. They find her talking with the forest creature about to agree to getting intimate with him in exchange for info. Jack intervenes, trying to stop her from going ahead with the bargain. The spirit says he's been promised her, so what can Jack offer instead? He responds by convincing his girlfriend that they can find the information elsewhere and persuades her to renege on her part of the bargain. The spirit responds by saying they're not getting out of there without offering him something, and suggests a boon to be collected later or the tranference of the boyfriend Jack's father's love to the spirit.

Meanwhile Wat hid, watched, then decided to leave by climbing out of the lair. To engage him in the scene I had the spirit of his dead mother (taken from his backstory) greet him on the way out.

Things went wrong about here.

Jack's player seemed to get frustrated by the options presented to him, not wishing to dicker with the spirit over exact terms. My initial reaction was that he just didn't like any of his choices and felt cornered, and that was just his character's tough luck, but later it seems he disliked the negoatiation aspect and would have preferred a straight binary choice: girlfriend's safety versus Jack's father's love, which would he rather lose. The way I saw it, this was a definite option but not the only option - I didn't want to step in the player's toes by forcing him to only choose between two options if he could think up a third way.

Wat's player didn't know what to do with the confrontation with his mother's ghost and described backing away from her in fear, risking falling from a great height (they met on a ledge). We're using FATE, so I invoked his Haunted by Mother aspect, with him overcoming his fear or plummeting from the ledge to very bad (but not fatal) consequences. He chose to accept the invoke and fell from the ledge, and I had him impaled on a tree root in critical condition, now forced to choose between being stuck there in the spirit's lair or making a deal with it to get rescued. Again I left it open to the player what the terms would be, but I thought he might also want to bargain for the release of his mother's spirit. I backed the character into a corner, but felt justified in doing so as the player had accepted the fate points and was aware that the consequences would be bad.

Instead his character fell unconscious and dropped out of the scene (due to out of game commitments I understand), which unfortunately shifted the onus for Wat's fate onto Jack's player. At this point both players were tired and unhappy with the scene and I could still not really see where the problem lay.

Eventually we solved the situation by having Jack choose his girlfriend over his father and with Wat's mother indebting herself to the spirit in exchange for the healing and freeing of her son.

Okay, so that's the essentials of the scene laid out all messy. Certainly part of the problem arose from miscommunication and differing expectations - the game is by email with players I have never met or gamed with before, so a lot of communication signals - body language, etc. are missing. I guess a lot of this could be ascribed to social contract issues which have now been largely resolved (I think), but I feel the bangs in this scene were poorly presented by myself and could have worked a lot better. Did the situation I presented the players with even constitute a bang? I'm not sure anymore.

So if anyone would like to give me some advice so I can sharpen up future scenes and avoid player disatisfaction from reoccurring I would really appreciate it.

Cheers,

Adrian.

[TonyLB]

What are the character's Kickers?

[Tancred]

Jack: Came home from the war, saw his love embracing a stranger in the woods (which later became the forest spirit in the scene)

Wat: Witchhunter turned up in the night demanding Wat show him where the witches gather. Wat's only friend is a witch (who is in turn best friends with Jack's love and Wat was in the scene spying for the witchhunter)

[Lamorak33]

Wat's player didn't know what to do with the confrontation with his mother's ghost and described backing away from her in fear, risking falling from a great height (they met on a ledge). We're using FATE, so I invoked his Haunted by Mother aspect, with him overcoming his fear or plummeting from the ledge to very bad (but not fatal) consequences. He chose to accept the invoke and fell from the ledge, and I had him impaled on a tree root in critical condition, now forced to choose between being stuck there in the spirit's lair or making a deal with it to get rescued. Again I left it open to the player what the terms would be, but I thought he might also want to bargain for the release of his mother's spirit. I backed the character into a corner, but felt justified in doing so as the player had accepted the fate points and was aware that the consequences would be bad.

I'm not sure this is a bang. Sure its a choice, but on a 'degrees of shit' choice. Its actually almost a 'do this or die' which is actually most likely to alienate players as the feel railroaded.

So the PCs get together and look for the girlfriend/witch. They find her talking with the forest creature about to agree to getting intimate with him in exchange for info. Jack intervenes, trying to stop her from going ahead with the bargain. The spirit says he's been promised her, so what can Jack offer instead? He responds by convincing his girlfriend that they can find the information elsewhere and persuades her to renege on her part of the bargain. The spirit responds by saying they're not getting out of there without offering him something, and suggests a boon to be collected later or the tranference of the boyfriend Jack's father's love to the spirit.

I think framing is important here. Maybe if you said that they wouldn't get out there alive unless they did some sort of deal, I don't know the game, before he went in. But when he gets there then just reneging must have seemed a good or reasonable idea and they probably percieved your not letting them off that lightly as railroading again.

Just a few thoughts.

Regards
Rob

[Judd]

So these tough and tumble choices were right after the kicker, which is the opening scene?

I'm all for driving the game with bangs but after those difficult choices where was the game to go?

Do you think you drove the player too hard for the opening scene and should have built to those kinds of terrible decisions?

I find that when you let bangs build, and I'm not saying lead with weak bangs, far from it, but lead with bangs that allow for the possibility of the character being cool and thus the player feeling cool.  It seems like his kicker went off and you hemmed the PC's in immediately with damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don't decisions.

What is the game's concept?  What kind of TV shows or books or movies have you all agreed this game is influenced by?

[Brand_Robins]

We're using FATE, so I invoked his Haunted by Mother aspect, with him overcoming his fear or plummeting from the ledge to very bad (but not fatal) consequences. He chose to accept the invoke and fell from the ledge, and I had him impaled on a tree root in critical condition, now forced to choose between being stuck there in the spirit's lair or making a deal with it to get rescued. Again I left it open to the player what the terms would be, but I thought he might also want to bargain for the release of his mother's spirit. I backed the character into a corner, but felt justified in doing so as the player had accepted the fate points and was aware that the consequences would be bad.

Others can probably talk about the theoretical framework going on here better than I, but I do have some observations from my table around this point.

In my experience with my railroading tendancies as a GM (yes, I have them, and bad) and my players backgrounds in illusionist/participationist games things like Fate and Drama points used in the mode of "get points because the GM pushed bad things at you" does not lead to player-centered authoring. It leads to a moderated form of GM centered authoring.

I've found it a very useful tool in games like Truth and Justice for playing under Sim modes ("I'll give you 2d6 drama points if you accept being put in a death trap now" "Yea sure, I could use them, plus it would be what happens in the comics!"). It does soften the blow of GM direction, and can offer the players choices as to when they just flat out deny taking the points to do what they want. However, in essence I find the system to be most often used to bribe people into going a direction the GM finds interesting rather than letting the players proactivly chose what they want to do.

For comparison, in Burning Wheel when you have a belief or trait that you play to, you can get Artha for playing to it. However, there is no turning it around on you and offering you points if you do what the GM thinks would be cool now. Similarly, you can revise your beliefs as a result of things that happen in play, and don't take penalties for doing so. As a result the things that happen to you, the things that get you points, are all as a result of you pushing things. When you instead get points for responding to things the GM offers you, you end up with the GM pushing things and players responding.

In the situation you're describing, this is what I see hapening. You push, the player responds, you push harder, the player responds more softly, you push hardest, the player is in a corner. If it had been the player helping set the stakes and/or invoking his own Aspect, then it would have been his choice. I think you need clearer communications around what the Aspects/Fate Points mean, who invokes them, and what players are saying when they accept the Fate point. As it was you took it as "screw with me more" where the player may have meant something very different.

[Brand_Robins]

Do you think you drove the player too hard for the opening scene and should have built to those kinds of terrible decisions?

I find that when you let bangs build, and I'm not saying lead with weak bangs, far from it, but lead with bangs that allow for the possibility of the character being cool and thus the player feeling cool.

I'll second this.  I very often find it effective to start a game with bangs that are centered around, "You can do A, which is cool, and B, which is cool, but you can't do both. A or B?" is a good way to start things off. Rather than jumping in with two horrible choices, jump in with two good choices in which the player/character wants both of the things, but can only have one. That way no matter what happens they get something good out of it. Later the "chose the devil you know or the one you don't" choices can start up, after the groundwork of protaganism has been built up and everyone is more comfortable with the process of conflicts.

[Tancred]

So these tough and tumble choices were right after the kicker, which is the opening scene?

No, this was the 3rd or 4th scene after the kicker. Maybe just shy of midway through the game.

I find that when you let bangs build, and I'm not saying lead with weak bangs, far from it, but lead with bangs that allow for the possibility of the character being cool and thus the player feeling cool.  It seems like his kicker went off and you hemmed the PC's in immediately with damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don't decisions.

I guess my position was at this stage of the game, let the players decide where the game would lead. This meant I was winging the scene and I felt I needed something concrete and meaningful to come from the scene. It was intended as damned-if-you-do, etc. for Jack's player and for Wat's I only really wanted to introduce the idea that the reason his mother is haunting him is cause she's a prisoner of this spirit's lair - initially anyway, but this went of the rails a bit.

What is the game's concept?  What kind of TV shows or books or movies have you all agreed this game is influenced by?

Basically, a town has made an old deal with forest entities decades ago and now the spirits are restless and threatening the town. The premise deals with corruption and pagan versus church beliefs, fairy-tale style stuff in a Warhammeresque world. For influence, The Wicker Man is one.

[Judd]

So these tough and tumble choices were right after the kicker, which is the opening scene?

No, this was the 3rd or 4th scene after the kicker. Maybe just shy of midway through the game.

I'm not following ya.

You were just getting to the player-authored kicker in the middle of the game?  Why wasn't the PC finding his girlfriend with a stranger the opening scene if it was the kicker?

I am really not trying to pick at your bones, Tancred but I just want to help but need to understand if I am to be of any help at all.

[Josh Roby]

I guess my position was at this stage of the game, let the players decide where the game would lead. This meant I was winging the scene and I felt I needed something concrete and meaningful to come from the scene. It was intended as damned-if-you-do, etc. for Jack's player...

I dunno, this sounds like a bit of an unconscious contradiction to me.  You wanted the players to lead the game, but you were choosing the situations they were in?  Did Jack's player really have a choice in the matter, or was giving up his girlfriend a bunk choice compared to his father's love?

[Tancred]

Others can probably talk about the theoretical framework going on here better than I, but I do have some observations from my table around this point.

In my experience with my railroading tendancies as a GM (yes, I have them, and bad) and my players backgrounds in illusionist/participationist games things like Fate and Drama points used in the mode of "get points because the GM pushed bad things at you" does not lead to player-centered authoring. It leads to a moderated form of GM centered authoring.

I've found it a very useful tool in games like Truth and Justice for playing under Sim modes ("I'll give you 2d6 drama points if you accept being put in a death trap now" "Yea sure, I could use them, plus it would be what happens in the comics!"). It does soften the blow of GM direction, and can offer the players choices as to when they just flat out deny taking the points to do what they want. However, in essence I find the system to be most often used to bribe people into going a direction the GM finds interesting rather than letting the players proactivly chose what they want to do.

For comparison, in Burning Wheel when you have a belief or trait that you play to, you can get Artha for playing to it. However, there is no turning it around on you and offering you points if you do what the GM thinks would be cool now. Similarly, you can revise your beliefs as a result of things that happen in play, and don't take penalties for doing so. As a result the things that happen to you, the things that get you points, are all as a result of you pushing things. When you instead get points for responding to things the GM offers you, you end up with the GM pushing things and players responding.

In the situation you're describing, this is what I see hapening. You push, the player responds, you push harder, the player responds more softly, you push hardest, the player is in a corner. If it had been the player helping set the stakes and/or invoking his own Aspect, then it would have been his choice. I think you need clearer communications around what the Aspects/Fate Points mean, who invokes them, and what players are saying when they accept the Fate point. As it was you took it as "screw with me more" where the player may have meant something very different.

I think you're right... yet it didn't start out this way. That particular invoke came about from the player saying he wasn't sure what to do, and his IC post described Wat's panic and him shuffling closer to the edge of the ledge. I took this as a hint, and put forward an invoke, promising very bad things if he accepted the fate points. He acknowledged that, and said to 'show him the bad'. I didn't particularly want to push an invoke at him, but felt given the opportunity I couldn't pass it up in good conscience. Weird...

Trouble was, this led to entirely the situation you talk about where I push, he ends up in a corner - he got there through a couple of decisions and each push/respond seemed to be less satisfactory for everyone involved. I would much have preferred if he had talked to Wat's mother, found out why she was there, etc. - basically, when he didn't know what to do, neither did I, end result bad for everyone. I got worried his character had come into the scene and was about to leave it without having anything occur specifically targetting his character's interests/issues and with his character having no impact on events (basically, up to that point it amounted to 'I leave'). I guess I should have taken the hint the scene didn't engage him and moved on?

I think you're right about the system playing a part in encouraging the player in a specific course of action. Basically at the point where I say 'Your dead mother's in front of you' and he responded with IC panic and OOC confusion, I didn't know what to do next, but by using the system's carrot/stick mechanic I pushed it in a direction neither of us wanted.

Once you've put a 'you must respond' decision/situation in front of a player, what do you do when the player doesn't know how to respond? We kind of hit a stalemate and the falling invoke was me grasping for a way to move the scene on (as you say pushing harder - forcing Wat's player to make a decision or risk death/being trapped in the lair.

[Tancred]

I'm not following ya.

You were just getting to the player-authored kicker in the middle of the game?  Why wasn't the PC finding his girlfriend with a stranger the opening scene if it was the kicker?

I am really not trying to pick at your bones, Tancred but I just want to help but need to understand if I am to be of any help at all.

Sorry for the confusion, no the kicker had already started. His kicker described the stranger leaving, he confronted her about it, learned she was mixed up with dangerous spirits in the first (kicker) scene. The next two scenes dealt with slightly different issues (Scene 2: the friend of the love who had been making a charm to ward away the spirit had gone missing. The town arranged a search party and the character met his estranged father. Scene 3: Searching for the girl, the spirit shows up and the girlfriend is lured away by it. Jack chases, gets there too late and follows her into the gate, ending up in the next scene, the one where it went wrong.

[Brand_Robins]

Once you've put a 'you must respond' decision/situation in front of a player, what do you do when the player doesn't know how to respond? We kind of hit a stalemate and the falling invoke was me grasping for a way to move the scene on (as you say pushing harder - forcing Wat's player to make a decision or risk death/being trapped in the lair.

Well, here's the thing. As I understand it in a Nar-based game you can't force them to it one way or the other. The whole point of the game is them making those choices and chosing what to do. This is, for example, the whole reason that Pendragon is Sim rather than Nar -- because when you get stuck you can roll your Traits and be like "Oh, I'm so lusty I screw Morgan Le Fey." If you can system the choice, if you can let others make the choice, if the choice is obvious, then it isn't you as the player using the character to push and make big choices.

So how do you get around it and still be Nar? Well, you can kibbitz, you can get them to call and respond, you can brainstorm stuff and all toss out ideas OOCly, and all of that. It takes some time to get used to, but it can work well once you're into it.

[Tancred]

I guess my position was at this stage of the game, let the players decide where the game would lead. This meant I was winging the scene and I felt I needed something concrete and meaningful to come from the scene. It was intended as damned-if-you-do, etc. for Jack's player...

I dunno, this sounds like a bit of an unconscious contradiction to me.  You wanted the players to lead the game, but you were choosing the situations they were in?  Did Jack's player really have a choice in the matter, or was giving up his girlfriend a bunk choice compared to his father's love?

Well the previous scene was set by the player concerned. At the conclusion of it, he had Jack follow his girlfriend through the gate, at which point I created the scene, and he didn't have any choice. I guess the choice was in the previous scene, when he raised the return of the spirit trying to abduct his lover. When I say 'let the players decide where the game leads' I meant I had never envisioned the previous scene, so had come up with the follow-up (the spirit's lair) on short notice - meaning I hadn't thought it out as well as I should I think.

Hope that makes sense.

[TonyLB]

Let me put forth a hypothesis:  I think Jack's Kicker was resolved at precisely the moment you thought things went wrong (well spotted, by the way).

You heard "He finds his lover in the arms of another man," and thought that meant that Jack needed to prevent that man from ever coming between them again.

He heard "Jack comes home from the war and sees something that shows him that everything has changed," and thought that meant that he needed to understand the new world he's been dumped into.

So you guys both get to this scene, and you think you're both on the same page ... and then you explain what happening to Jack.  And Jack's player is left there thinking "That's it?  Well, I guess I understand the world I've been dumped into.  So I'm done, but ... well, that was quick."  Meanwhile you're sitting there with your eyes on the "Stop this man/spirit/whatever from being a problem" prize, and you're bewildered by Jack's sudden loss of interest.  I mean, this is where the good stuff starts, isn't it?

How does that sound?