[D&D 3.5] (Dexcon) Final Fantasy and the Art of Railroad Maintenance

[Bill_White]

I did "debrief" the DM in order to get at some of his rationale for doing what he did; I was professorial in manner so that he wouldn't think I was attacking him per se.  When he allowed as how there were differences in styles that might shape preferences in the game, I knew that I couldn't push any more.  So I said, "Don't get me wrong, there's lots of good stuff that you did," and thanked him for running the game.

[Bill_White]

But I was trapped by habits like this kind of pseudo-clue. I couldn't give the revelation away before it was time! But they had to have information to act on! But I couldn't just give it away! But they need something to do, and a random attack/fight totally sucks! But ...

Well anyway. It was that sort of thing that led me to think more in terms of Kickers and Bangs, much later, and ultimately, more recently, I think that raw Situation is becoming more central to RPG design among at least a few of us. It's a perfect example of a Technique that exists (I think) practically only as a compensating feature, and not even a very strong one, of a fundamentally screwy approach to play - specifically, Typhoid Mary as discussed in the Narrativism essay.

This is exactly right, I think.  Raw situation.  Like a sculpture of moving parts that we set up at the beginning of play and set into motion and enjoy what happens, whatever it is.

[Ron Edwards]

Almost. "Whatever it is" insofar as our decisions actually matter during the process, and the thing takes a shape which reflects those decisions and other conditional factors.

H'mmm, not a perfect analogy. Sometimes it's like taking stuff away instead of shaping. Sometimes it's like getting to add new parts, and sometimes it's not. But all that is Technique, not goal/agenda.

Best, Ron

[Robert Bohl]

I did "debrief" the DM in order to get at some of his rationale for doing what he did; I was professorial in manner so that he wouldn't think I was attacking him per se.  When he allowed as how there were differences in styles that might shape preferences in the game, I knew that I couldn't push any more.  So I said, "Don't get me wrong, there's lots of good stuff that you did," and thanked him for running the game.

What I wonder, though, is if you would have felt comfortable in telling him during the game.  I know I wouldn't have, and I know that when I was on the other side of the table, I couldn't do the equivalent thing during the game.  A lot of times we say the healthier thing to do when someone really isn't making it work for you is to get up and leave or point it out to them (or if the GM, ask them to leave).  This is a question that's been occurring a lot to me lately.

So I'm wondering, if it's the healthier thing, why is it so hard to do?  Is it in fact the healthier thing, or is it better to politely suffer?  I guess it's dependant on the level of suffering involved.

[Bill_White]

I did "debrief" the DM in order to get at some of his rationale for doing what he did; I was professorial in manner so that he wouldn't think I was attacking him per se.  When he allowed as how there were differences in styles that might shape preferences in the game, I knew that I couldn't push any more.  So I said, "Don't get me wrong, there's lots of good stuff that you did," and thanked him for running the game.

What I wonder, though, is if you would have felt comfortable in telling him during the game.  I know I wouldn't have, and I know that when I was on the other side of the table, I couldn't do the equivalent thing during the game.  A lot of times we say the healthier thing to do when someone really isn't making it work for you is to get up and leave or point it out to them (or if the GM, ask them to leave).  This is a question that's been occurring a lot to me lately.

So I'm wondering, if it's the healthier thing, why is it so hard to do?  Is it in fact the healthier thing, or is it better to politely suffer?  I guess it's dependant on the level of suffering involved.

No, I wouldn't have felt comfortable saying something healthily direct (vs. veiled sarcasm), and I think that very few people would have, exactly as you experienced with the Guy Who Didn't Like TV But Wanted to Play PTA.  But I know why that is, and my friend Dave the Ph.D. Communications Guy will back me up.  It turns out that even though we think that interpersonal communication is all about reaching understandings with other people, it turns out that we spend a lot of time in interaction establishing and maintaining our own face, and  (this is important) helping others do the same.  In other words, tons of what we do as people interacting with other people is helping them maintain whatever social fiction they are trying to establish.  When someone challenges the social order by committing a faux pas of one sort or another, most of us feel embarassed for the other person, and seek to rectify the situation by avoiding it, ignoring it, or tacitly correcting it without acknowledging it.  For example, if you're sharing a meal with someone, and they have food all over their face, do you say something?  Usually you only do it if you know them well enough or intimately enough that you can act as if you are "back stage," i.e., on the same team.

Issues of identity are wrapped up in sitting down at the gaming table, and we recognize that unconsciously.  Challenging someone's right to be there, either as GM or player, is powerful teeth-baring primate-dynamics stuff.  If you believed in evolutionary psychology, you might say we are adapted to regard the cohesion of any group to which we happen to belong to be more important than some of our individual preferences or values.

So the solution is to depersonalize it, making the caveats or challenges indirect rather than direct.  That's what you did in the PTA game you ran that I played in, and that's what I tried to do in debriefing Walter, taking a line of "I was puzzled by these choices, because I think they had these effects," which allowed him to retain his expertise and his rules knowledge and attribute my dissatisfaction to stylistic preferences.  I mean, I tried, but you can only have a dialogue when both people are willing to listen.

[Callan S.]

Callan -- No, in a CRPG I get it.  In Final Fantasy, the cut-scene is a little bit of eye-candy to reward you for playing it out:  Put down your controller and watch.  Awesome!  On the tabletop, there is no reward involved.  The "cut scene" amounts merely to heavy-handed deprotagonization.

Yes, but why?

Couldn't it be made to work somehow, to be rewarding, just like in final fantasy comp play? He's obviously invested in alot of the idea's there. If your interested in what he's interested in, there will be some way of setting up rules to help a compromise between your interests and his, and we already have a working, fun example to steal from (final fantasy games). It'd be heavy handed to say "You deprotagonised me - no compromise! Leave behind the ideas your invested in!". I think I lost alot of passion as a GM myself, trying to leave behind 'bad' ideas, when really what I needed was a structure to help me get them into play in a way that other players could accept readily.

What I'm saying is - design challenge - what mechanics could have made the same moves by him not only palatable, but groovy (final fantasy groovy!)?

[kalyptein]

The "cut scene" amounts merely to heavy-handed deprotagonization.

Yes, but why?

Couldn't it be made to work somehow, to be rewarding, just like in final fantasy comp play?

I'm not sure it can be, because I often find the computer game cut scenes to be heavy-handed deprotagonization as well.  I like eye-candy as much as the next guy, but there have been tons of games where cut scenes irritate the hell out of me.  The classic example is the "big betrayal".  About half way through the game, right when you're character thinks he's about to achieve his goals, someone backstabs him, or the bad guy revealed that you've been doing just what he wants all along.  Generally the player can see this coming a mile away, but if you want to finish the game you have no choice but to walk into the trap and look like a moron while the villian mocks you.  Similarly annoying situations are when your character is scripted to be a dick to a friendly character to set up a "mistaken enemies" conflict, when you spare an obvious bastard's life so they can backstab you ten seconds later, the "lovable" foil who keeps outwitting you and getting the McGuffin, and when they take your gear away from you.

Cut scenes shine when they make you look cool, when they give a dramatic introduction to a big enemy, or the old "meanwhile the villian gloats in his stronghold".  And of course when you beat the big bad and his fortress explodes as you barely escape to safety.  I think these kinds of things are already in use in table-top games and are well received, so there's nothing that needs to be done about them.  The kind of cut scene that makes a plot choice for you is the problem, and I don't think it could be redeemed without simply recruiting the players into supporting it in the first place (participationism).

Given that I'm only grudgingly participating with many computer game cut-scenes (mainly because there's no human GM to argue with), I can't imagine ever enjoying having a plot decision crammed down my throat.

Alex

[Joel P. Shempert]

I think Alex has a good point. A lot CRPG cutscenes are annoying. . .part of it is that the plot developments in question are hackneyed and overused, like many he mentions. And part of it is a sense of helplessness in the real fate of your characters. The "Nephew rushes in and kills him" scene would still be pretty galling in an FF game, especially with as little development as the Nephew got in play. It can work maybe for an early encounter where the still-weak heroes are at the mercy of an all-powerful villain, but at the end of the story when it's time for the heroes to come into their own. . .no way. Luke may need Obi-wan to fight Darth Vader so everyone can escape, but eventually he's got to come back and face his father on his own.

Another factor, more mechanical, in the Nephew ex Machina is the fact that the bad guy's HP were actually reduced to 0. Not, like 25% left, the nephew rushes in, but 0 HP. The nephew literally stole the kill from the players. Not just that they should have gotten to kill him, but that mechanically, they did. This is JUST like a lot of FF-style bos battles, where you deplete all the hitpoints, then something happens, usually the guy gloats and retreats, or decides to "end this" and casts a spell to knock you out, capture you, etc. Way to make it entirely clear that your mechanical victories have NOTHING to do whatsoever with what actually happens in the story. And of course, in a CRPG, mechanical input is all you have, though even in pen and paper, non-mechanically supported input can easily become a mere popularity contest.

Peace,
-Joel

[DocMMedia]

I have to pitch in a few thoughts here. I was in the session and I think Bill's description  captured the session really well. I have to get up front that this was a HUGE eye-opening experience for me. It had been quite a while since I had played D&D and...well...comparing it to other kick-ass games I played at Dexcon (namely Capes, PTA, Ganakagok)...it's not likely I will any time soon. This was a pretty traumatic realization for me. Shit...I grew up with D&D. And to realize that it doesn't work for me any more was quite sobering and sad.

My big thing with the whole session was that the kill-joy Nephew scene was the climactic piss-off. For me the frustration built from the beginning of the session. Characters with no background to help me invest. No clear reason why we had a party of mixed classes other than it was a D&D trope. For all we did, we could easily have been a team of samurai...which to a large degree would have been kind of bad-ass and fun to play out. I mean...holy crap! We had a ninja in the party that wasn't allowed to sneak around and do ninja stuff.

Here's my take on it. The game was short circuited by weak narrative choices on the part of the GM. The GM knew the rules really well...I'll give him that. But it seemed that he was so set in trying to make everything fit with his prep and the rules, he wound up undercutting what might otherwise have been an interesting or compelling story. Hell, we just wanted to explore this world he set up and solve the mystery. But the only tools we had (especially considering we all weren't the 3.5 rules experts the GM was) were our own story-telling and narrative efforts. Each time an interesting twist came up...it got ignored or shot down. I think Ron's description of the "big reveal" of clues and details hits pretty well on what happened here. It was clear the GM was trying hard and was proud of his adventure. But to be honest, most of his clues and details sucked. For example, the "big feast" scene in this pseudo-Oriental adventure was a big ol' turkey dinner, punctuated by a desert of tiramisu. (Hmm...Samurai and tiramisu...is there a game concept there?)  Generally speaking, I know this was a fantasy setting, but there has to be some internal logic to the details presented. When the details are so blatantly out of place, it makes it hard to pick up on the  other details that really matter for the game (the clues).

As for the CRPG stuff. Cut scenes are fine in that context...if they make sense for the overall narrative. The unfortunate part of all this is that CRPG stories aren't usually that great to begin with. It's something that critics and designers  of computer games have talked about for quite a while. When the story is weak, so is the experience of the game. So to duplicate the narrative structure that's more often than not weak to begin with (there are exceptions, of course) just makes for a weak and frustrating table-top narrative and experience. In one of our numerous talks about this Bill and I both saw that our character interactions were limited to what was scripted...just as in CRPGs. If you can talk to someone, you can press the [insert favorite controller reference here] button to get the pre-arranged dialogue. If you can't talk, they won't highlight. And that was the most frustrating thing about the game. It was so much more about the "you can'ts" than it was about the "you cans"...all leading up to a "You don't matter...here's my big climax scene!" ending.

I wound up quietly walking away from the table as Bill debriefed the GM. I felt I was ignored enough during the game so anything that I could have provided in terms of advice would have been ignored as well. Kudos to Bill for at least trying.

Dave

[contracycle]

Well, I wonder how many of these allegedly bad cut-scenes actually exist.  The 0-hitpoints one is fairly widespread, yes, but this again is arguably an import to CRPG convention from tabletop.  IME, most cut scenes are informational; similarly, the "betrayed by your patron" concept is firmly embedded in cyberpunk RPG too.

I likjed Dave's comment above about the problem being the "you cans".  IMO things would be much clarified if plot structure was more, not less, present and visible; the thing with the ninja arises becuase it is implied you have the freedom to infiltrate, but in fact you were not.  Life would be easier I think if when you hit the edge of the board, or the rendered volume, or the imaginary space, you knew that you had done so.  Then the game would not be promising more than it is able to deliver.

[Joel P. Shempert]

Y'know the particularly heinous thing about that situation was that the characters were pre-generated. . .it wasn't even "Oh, you're playing a ninja? Sorry, you can't sneak." It was "Here, play this Ninja. . .by the way, you can't sneak."

I've seen plenty of the former, but never, thank God, encountered the latter. *Shudder*.

-Joel

[ubergeek2012]

I have to pitch in a few thoughts here. I was in the session and I think Bill's description  captured the session really well. I have to get up front that this was a HUGE eye-opening experience for me. It had been quite a while since I had played D&D and...well...comparing it to other kick-ass games I played at Dexcon (namely Capes, PTA, Ganakagok)...it's not likely I will any time soon. This was a pretty traumatic realization for me. Shit...I grew up with D&D. And to realize that it doesn't work for me any more was quite sobering and sad.

I know how you feel, but I really think that it's not the game's fault.  Since hearing this horror story (and only just barely dodging this particular bullet myself) I've been feeling the temptation lately to develop a D&D con scenario.  I'd like to see if I can "do it right", and run a con D&D game that's actually fun.  Would any of you be interested in giving such a thing a try at Dreamation?

[Wade L]

With regards to cut scene in CRPGs...I think it's very important to remember that often the "payoff" isn't in the narrative at all.  It's in the eye candy.  Cool graphics.  The fact that it vaguely relates to the story is just a bonus.

But, then, I can't stand the "cut scenes" in games where it's just the regular old sprites throwing text back and forth...I want the full on cinematic cutscene, not just watching the same graphics I have for the past two hours, only now I can't control what I do.

Same as cut scene in LARPs...  If the cut scene is just a couple of players bantering back and forth revealing backstory, it's usually boring.  But if the Storytellers have put all sorts of work into costumes and props and a surprise SFX to spring in the middle of the cutscene...well, it still isn't Broadway quality acting, sure, but it's a lot more tolerable and even sometimes enjoyable.  Although, having said this, I acknowledge that LARP cutscenes are a different beast, since they generally don't involve your character... 

Point stands, though - for me, the value of the cutscene is associated with the bells and whistles.  There are some GMs who are just such awesome, expressive voice actors that I'd tolerate any cutscene from because it's like watching a really cool one man show...but those are few and far between.

[Bill_White]

Getting back to Nathan's idea of incorporating the cut-scene into tabletop play (where I take that as meaning some sort of structure where satisfying a game-mechanical trigger condition provides powerful narration rights):  My Life With Master kind of does this with "The Horror Revealed."  For those of you who haven't read the rules, the Horror Revealed takes place as a kind of penalty when a character (who is always a minion of a creepy Gothic villainous master in the mold of Frankenstein or Moreau) takes an action that would result in a particular character stat (Self-Loathing I think) passing a particular threshold.  Instead of passing that threshold, the player narrates a scene whose import is that the evil represented by the Master and his minions is spreading through the hitherto blameless townspeople.

So I could imagine a game that does something similar.  The characters are angelic servitors who walk among us in disguise, righting wrongs and avenging evil.  The GM controls diabolical agents who spur humanity to sin.  The GM tracks the "Sin Level" for each of Seven Deadly Sins, and when the characters have put enough of a beat-down on, say, Beelzebub (Devil of Greed), a player can narrate the operation of the opposing Virtue (in this case, Generosity) among the community affected by the adventure.  But if the characters don't succeed, the GM gets to describe Beelzebub going to town...

Something like that might be cool, but note that it moves away from the model tof put-down-your-controller-and-watch-the-eye-candy.  In a more traditional adventure, the GM might get away with revealing plot information or backstory.  But deprotagonization is real!  It almost happened to me!

[contracycle]

Maybe so but please realise then that the idea that the a) the world gets changed in play, and b) that the non-GM players change it are both anathema to me, and that a game that did both would be anathema squared.  More power to you if it's your cup of tea however.

But what I find consistently amazing here with all our emphasis on the real people playing is the lack of interest in PERFORMANCE.  It seems to me there is a big element of portrayal and theatrical performance that goes on with the old school GMing style, at least when you are not being mechanically pushed through a dungeon.  The NPC's weep and wail, they have particular voices and body languages, grand spectacular events occur, dragons roar strategically placed barrels explode, and knights glitter in their shining armour.

The is storyTELLING, the old way.  Me to you, not "us".  It is a valid and entertaining performance art.  There seems to me to be no reason that RPG's cannot achieve that kind of satisfying set-down-the-controller-and-watch cutscene.  And in this regard I fully agree with Wades point about the amount of effort that the people presenting it have invested, becuase although I probably cannot really compete with a hollywood special effects budget, I also have before me a very friendly and forgiving audience who want to enjoy this as much as I want them to enjoy it.  After all, I'm not even charging them money!