Keys and Griefers

[Joel P. Shempert]

Over in this thread, Joao Mendes was describing one player's reaction to the use of Keys in Shadows of Yesterday:

- Isidro stated the opinion that the system drives people to play to their Keys too much. . .

to which I responded:

I think the concern might be better stated that the system drives people to play to their Keys too mechanically, rather than too much.

After a much bandying about and cleaning up my wording/thought processes (I should have said "wooden" or "disinterested in the fiction" rather than "mechanical.") I finally understood what makes a good set keys for a character to really drive toward conflict (mainly through opposing Keys). That's all fine and dandy and on record in the other thread. But I figured out just what it was that I'm afraid of happening in play, which Keys seemed to me to encourage. I have zip play experience with TSoY, so I'll draw on my own:

We were playing a fantasy campaign using Big Eyes Small Mouth. One PC gave a sentient, malevolent sword (whose evil influence HE had successfully resisted) to another PC for some purpose, but unexpectedly that character became possessed by the sword and turned on his allies (US). The player in question was having great fun getting to go all murderous, with a wicked grin on his (real life) face. So he's wounded a couple of NPCs I think, and maybe a PC, and we're all trying to stop him but we don't want to hurt him, etc. etc. I decided to have my character dive into the fray and cut off his freakin' sword hand. Which to me, was total address of premise: Is the peace-loving Bard willing to do what it takes for everyone's good, even if it means blood on his hands? Well, I succeeded, and the other PC was de-possessed and minus a hand. Then the player had him walk calmly over to my wounded, unconscous character, and cut of his hand with his other weapon.

I was rather irritated at this; it seemed petty and stupid. It was NOT in the heat of battle, he was NOT possessed (he said something about the possession effects still gradually wearing off), and another PC even had a garrotte wire around his neck telling him "don't you dare do it." He gave some mumbo-jumbo about angling his body so said PC couldn't seem him chop the hand until it was too late, and the GM ruled in his favor. (Why the PC didn't get to still garrotte him AFTER the severing, I'm not sure.)

The offending player claimed that his character has an extreme revenge fixation. And yeah, he does have a "evil guys killed all my people!" background that could justify that, but I'd been watching him play this character on and off for like 5 years, and never seen any characterization like this before. He was always kind of a happy go lucky type. This just came out of the blue for me. And it irritated me to no end. I mean, sure, "You severed his hand but at the cost of your own" COULD theoretically be cool fallout, but as it was it was just sort of tacked on and seemed to me to cheapen what for me was a key scene. In any case, an NPC healer fixed both our hands, but told us it was a one time deal.

So this is what worried me in my initial TSoY reading, I'm thinking. I was subconsciously picturing this guy, creating combinations like "Key of Vengeance, Key of Bloodlust, Key of Not Letting it Drop," or "Key of the Jackass, Key of Bloodlust, and Key of Getting My Own Way." it's like, "Yay! I get EXP for griefing!"

Another player has repeatedly complained that the guy in question creates only characters that are obnoxious, stubborn, and PVP-maximized, concluding that he only gets his jollies from being disruptive. I'm not entirely sure if that's his sole motivation, but it does seem to be pretty prominent. His PCs in other games definitely follow this trend. I had thought this char to be the exception, but then he pulled this "stubbornly vengeful" shit out of his ass.

The way I see it, there are several possibilities here:

1) He IS trying to address premise, such as "how far will you go for revenge?" and his address merely fails to appeal to me, and in this case stepped on my toes a bit.

2) He's not really addressing premise, but is just trying without guile to portray his character, and that action made sense to him in that context.

3) The in-character justification was just a sham; in reality he just doesn't like to "lose" or be shown up, and the hand-severing was pure OOC revenge.

4) The in-character justification was just a sham, and he really just gets his jollies by messing with people and asserting power over others.

5) Some combination of the above.

Part of the problem in diagnosing this is that there's a fine line between the "heh heh heh" of guilelessly (though gleefully) provided meaningful and tough adversity and the "heh heh heh" of just plain ol' griefing, or screwing with people just to get their goat or assert dominance.

Of the above options, I'd rule out 1 pretty quick because I've never seen any real premise-addressing desire or behavior from him, and the way he handled it was more of a "maximum result for minimum risk/sacrifice" aspproach. For instance, if I was so intent on maiming a guy that i'd be willing to be garroted, I would both expect and want to have my guy garroted. Instead, we got all this "I angle my body" wheedling.

2 is trickier, 'cause I (unlike the player's other critic) am unwilling to definitively judge what's going on in his head; there's a possibility that at least part of this is motivated by "what my character would do." I'm guessing that this is at least mingled, though, with either motive 3 or 4. Just which, I'm not sure. Possibly a combination.

*                    *                    *

Now, as for what I want out of this thread: for Keys, I've already recieved good advice on what sorts of Key combinations drive toward good conflict. As for the problem player, I know the first solution on everyone's lips will be "don't play with him." Which is what it may come to (his work schedule prevents him coming right now anyway). But I'd like to try to work things out with him first, let him know what my feelings about his playing actually are. I guess I'd like people's analysis to see if anyone reads this differently, especially if there are angles to the incident besides "this sucks and craps on my input" that I'm not seeing. Also, I'm trying to get a good idea of how to present a mechanic like Keys to players who have seen a fair bit of play like that above.

And maybe I just partly wanted it on record what I (and I suspect others) feared on first blush with Keys. I think it's more than just asshat players; this guy is pretty much the worst case in our group, but I could easily see other players in our group doing the same thing (uninteresting, conflict-light "get my own way" Keys) without the malice.

Peace,
-Joel

[Eero Tuovinen]

2 is trickier, 'cause I (unlike the player's other critic) am unwilling to definitively judge what's going on in his head; there's a possibility that at least part of this is motivated by "what my character would do." I'm guessing that this is at least mingled, though, with either motive 3 or 4. Just which, I'm not sure. Possibly a combination.

Just one thought here: in my experience the "my guy" syndrome depicted here is not a genuine personal motivation at all, it's just a psychological tool people use to justify their actions to themselves and others. Thus it's entirely possible that number 2 is involved with numbers 3 and 4 while the latter still are the actual driving force of behavior. In other words, your player here might say or think (insofar as he is himself uncomfortable with his actual motivations) "my guy" while gleefully pestering others quite purposefully. It just so happens that "my guy" in this case isn't interested in anything except harrying other characters.

As to why this kind of thing happens: in all my encounters of this kind of behavior it's been about inability to communicate purpose of play. Specifically, a player usually starts the dysfunctional cycle of harrying other characters to seek attention and in-game communication that he fails to achieve otherwise. When you start disrupting play in various manners you're pretty much ensured that something is going to happen, and your character will be in the middle of it. When you're sufficiently disinterested in the course of play it begins to seem preferable to start creating trouble rather than sit there waiting for something to happen (which it won't, because you're already missing the actual happening while sitting there in the first place). This can even happen to otherwise well-adjusted individuals, I'm reminded of a friend playing TSOY who managed to create a character he didn't know what to do with; his answer was to become a bloodthirsty bully in the game. Interesting, that.

Combine the above psychological response (which is shared by children, by the way; my nephew starts sabotaging play all the time when he drops out of the communication cycle for whatever reason; of course, with children it happens much more often, as they're not as good with communications) with low social skills and you get the traditional problem player who doesn't seem able to play, whatever the game. He might play board games just like a human person, because those require much less in terms of social understanding. But roleplaying games will often stump him when other people talk and talk and talk of matters he doesn't see.

What to do, insofar as you're interested in suggestions: ask the player in question to read this thread. Reading a detailed description of his actions and how they seem from your viewpoint might prove useful if he genuinely wants to play nice but just hasn't managed to communicate with the rest of the group about the how of it. Personal discussion is also good, but alone it might end up in anger and other unproductive social forms, leaving the actual substance unsaid. So perhaps you could treat this thread like a bit of a letter to your problem player?

[Brand_Robins]

Joel,

A couple of things strike me here, mostly in a ball of things that are half possibilities and partly inter-related to each other. So forgive me if I meander a little.

1) PVP does not have to be griefing. I know this wasn't the prime aspect of what you were saying, but I want to touch on this a little. When you've gone from the kind of mixed-message and my-guyism games like the one you describe to something with a more coherent Nar premise there is a change in what you can do to the game without hurting it. Suddenly PVP does not have to be crap, and can in fact be a very strong way to drive the game forward. The issue is that the PVP has to be what the game is about, not something that is interfering with or running contrary to the rest of the game.

In your example of the BESM game I got a very strong feeling that you were playing in party mode. That is, you had a group of adventurers who were a combination of friends and comrads who travel and complete quests together. In this mode of gaming there is a lot of need for and emphasis on party cohesion and teamwork. In order to succesfully acheive both the mission completion angle and the band of brothers angle you have to stick together and work together through thick and thin. That, alone, is perfectly fine. But if you add to that characters wanting to address premise (even in non asshat ways) that has to do with selfishness, vengeance, or any moral code that the rest of the party does not subscribe to... you will have real problems.

In these situations people, even ones who aren't meaning to be griefers, can end up becoming such simply because there is a class of agenda going on. The fact that it happens so often is partly because the games we play tell us it is okay to do so. We get, in the same game, advice about how to make a character who is obssesive and picks fights with the others in the group (because that's good personality RP, right?) and advice about how you must all work together to overcome challanges (because that's good strategic RP, right?) as though the two can work together without any hitch.

It is really amazing how fast these problems can disapear when you really and truly focus on just one of them. For example, I had a recent TSOY game in which I played with Mo (my wife), Gary (one of my best friends), and Charles (a Forgite whom I'd met for the first time the week before and never played a game with). In this game we specifically set up the situation to be a place where everyone was out for themselves, the PCs all had intentionally conflicting and intersecting desires and keys, and in which all of the PCs were powerfully linked to the same group of core NPCs. There were keys of the selfish bastard, vengeance, and sexual obsession left, right, and center.

The result was a really fun game in which the PCs took turns screwing each other (in every sense of the word) and uniting only when it suited the interests of the characters. There was no "them and us" and there was no "group" to deal with. There was "watch these powerful characters go at each other like snakes in heat" and it was a lot of fun. When the femme fatal (PC) and the spy master (PC) were both trying to get past the powerful noble prince (NPC) while each trying to expose the other there was never a moment of "oh shit the PCs are trying to screw each other, this is bad!" because we all knew that was the point of what was going on.

2) Keys and My-Guysim. My-Guys are annoying fucks. However, there are always reasons that people are annoying fucks and not all of them are malicious. I've seen any number of My-guys go functional the moment they get into a game in which they not only can but must make powerful and authorial moral statements about their character. In dysfunctional play so much of the game focuses on "can you do anything, much less what you most want to do" and so much agency gets taken from the players that folks with this issue are just trying to find a way to cope. If you make a game where the whole game says to them, "Sure, you can do that, but what does that mean? Oh, you believe that? What about now? What about NOW? Oh shit that was crazy!" then the emphasis and need to protect and control space shifts. Of course, it doesn't shift right away. No long term pattern of behavior is going to shift instantly just because you're trying to do something new. So the first steps towards fixing the problem are often bumpy.

As to some practical advice, I find it really useful to watch the keys people are taking -- especially keys they are wanting to create -- when you're moving new folks towards a TSOY game. If I start seeing "Key of the Jackass + Key of Not Letting it Drop + Key of Bloodlust + Key of Fuck You" I start talking to the player right there and then, up front. The great thing about flags is that they stand out, and they stand out before you're in the moment of play. If you're going to have a player who is building a character for PVP by their keys, then you'll know it well ahead of time. At that point you can bring it up, talk about it openly, and decide what to do with it as a group.

Seriously, how much of a difference would it have made in your BESM story if nothing had changed, but before you dove in to cut his hand off (with your keys of Pacifist + Brotherhood + Sacrifice) knowing that his keys were Bloodlust+Obssession+Eye For An Eye? At that point you wouldn't have had to guess or hope so much about how he'd respond -- you'd probably be expecting him to come after your hand. So that would be an address of premise for everyone, because everyone knows up front what is being addressed and why. 

Alternatly, if you'd really really hated that kind of key chain, you could have identified it and dealt with it before it came up in play. "Dude, that kind of character is pissy stupid" in character generation can go a long way to avoiding problems later on. Sure, it can be unplesent in the moment, but it's a question of a short up front conversation or a game full of frustration.

3) Don't play with asshats. But I'll leave it at that, as you've identified that you're already ontop of that.

4) I had more, but then the elephant knocked on my window and distracted me. Are there any other questions you'd like to hear from me about?

[TonyLB]

As to some practical advice, I find it really useful to watch the keys people are taking -- especially keys they are wanting to create -- when you're moving new folks towards a TSOY game. If I start seeing "Key of the Jackass + Key of Not Letting it Drop + Key of Bloodlust + Key of Fuck You" I start talking to the player right there and then, up front. The great thing about flags is that they stand out, and they stand out before you're in the moment of play. If you're going to have a player who is building a character for PVP by their keys, then you'll know it well ahead of time. At that point you can bring it up, talk about it openly, and decide what to do with it as a group.

Brand speaks with great wisdom, as he often does.  Let me play devil's advocate here, for a little bit, and talk about this from the point of view of the guy whose character got possessed.  We'll call him Bert, and I'll try to refrain from thinking of him as a muppet.

You've just shown that you think it's okay for you to maim Bert's character.  I suspect that this came as news to him.  It may well have caused him to re-evaluate what type of game he was playing.  And there is a certain grim logic to his response.  If it's okay for you to maim his character then it's gotta be okay for him to maim your character, right?  More okay, in fact, because he's doing it in response to something you chose to do, something you're responsible for.  You maimed his guy in response to something that was done to him, and which he bore no responsibility for.

Now when you say "Well, maiming isn't generally okay, it's okay in certain very special circumstances (addressing premise)" you are putting forward a very, very complicated rule.  You're doing so unilaterally, simply trusting that you speak 100% for the group without having given anyone a chance to debate.  And, of course, in this instance you discovered that rule in the midst of a charged situation, freighted with all sorts of other factors like your emotional reaction to play, and the clear and evident self-interest that aligned with your in-character decision.

That's a terrible way to refine the social contract of your group.  Would you agree?

Keys let you make these discoveries, and discuss the specifics (if something concerns you) in a situation where nothing is at stake and nobody is het up.  Doesn't that seem like a better way to do things?

[Ricky Donato]

Hi, all,

I would like to clarify something for myself. What is the definition of Griefing? Is it any violation of the Social Contract, or is it more specific than that?

[Brand_Robins]

Ricky,

The last general definition of griefer I remember was something like: "A grief player (AKA an obstructionist) is someone who is getting their joy out of damaging other people's play – if another player is having less fun, the griefer is having more fun."

For more discussion on this, check Tony's Standard Rant #2 in which we break down (at length and sometimes painfully) the differences between grief, disagreement, obstructionism, and opposition.

[Storn]

You've just shown that you think it's okay for you to maim Bert's character.  I suspect that this came as news to him.  It may well have caused him to re-evaluate what type of game he was playing.  And there is a certain grim logic to his response.  If it's okay for you to maim his character then it's gotta be okay for him to maim your character, right?  More okay, in fact, because he's doing it in response to something you chose to do, something you're responsible for.  You maimed his guy in response to something that was done to him, and which he bore no responsibility for.

I think Tony brings up a really good point.

But I also think that Shadow of Yesterday, Burning Wheel put a lot of emphasis on Stakes, both overtly in the rules and very subtly in subtext and structure of the mechanics.  So if you HAD been playing TSOY in that situation... it probably would have gone very different.  Because you would have HAD to Bring Down The Pain on "Bert".

What is SO interesting to me about Stake setting (or BDTP) is that it allows for the event to NEVER happen.  You declare, I'm Bring Down The Pain, I'm gonna cut Bert's hand off and stop the problem of the possession.  Bert goes "hey, waitaminute... I don't want my character's hand to be cut off..."   Okay.... then as a group, lets deal with the problem... and maybe Bert should come up with the solution of how he is exorcised and offer it as a counter.  One can always not accept the Stakes.

OR Bert could say "fine!  if you win cut off my hand.  If I win, you still cut off my hand, but I retaliate and cut off your hand."  Guess what?  This is Stake setting, you can walk away if you don't like the Stakes.  It is not a game of chicken.  However, the intent is out on the table.  Or everyone accepts and then the dice do their job.

[Storn]

Sorry, I realize that I really didn't weave in Keys and the percieved pitfall  of the OP.

I agree with Brand.  Keys are nice, fat, big flags waving from the player.  Because of such, you can see them miles off... and be ready to deal in a constructive story-generating sense...as the PCs themselves rip themselves to shreds. 

[Joel P. Shempert]

Hi, Ricky. Brand's got a pretty good definition of griefing, I think. I believe the term originates in online computer gaming.

Hi, Eero,

in all my encounters of this kind of behavior it's been about inability to communicate purpose of play. Specifically, a player usually starts the dysfunctional cycle of harrying other characters to seek attention and in-game communication that he fails to achieve otherwise. When you start disrupting play in various manners you're pretty much ensured that something is going to happen, and your character will be in the middle of it.

Good point. This definitaly rings true, as this guy is kind of introverted, incommunicative, and emotionally guarded. I've had many a conversation consisting of me saying (or even asking) something, followed by silence or a grunt on his end. Getting him to open up could be difficult. I'm not sure exactly how to proceed on that score, but as I know him and y'all don't, I expect that's my problem.

What to do, insofar as you're interested in suggestions: ask the player in question to read this thread.

Wow, interesting suggestion. I hadn't really thought of that, honestly. I've been thinking of a private talk, but the guy is really hard to pin down outside of game time. I'll have to give this some thought. Thanks.

1) PVP does not have to be griefing. <snip>  When you've gone from the kind of mixed-message and my-guyism games like the one you describe to something with a more coherent Nar premise there is a change in what you can do to the game without hurting it.

Yeah, I'm quite aware, and that's the kind of play I'd LOVE. As things are now, it makes things more ambiguous, because"bad" PVP can disguise itself as an acceptable kind.

In your example of the BESM game I got a very strong feeling that you were playing in party mode. That is, you had a group of adventurers who were a combination of friends and comrads who travel and complete quests together. In this mode of gaming there is a lot of need for and emphasis on party cohesion and teamwork. In order to succesfully acheive both the mission completion angle and the band of brothers angle you have to stick together and work together through thick and thin. That, alone, is perfectly fine. But if you add to that characters wanting to address premise (even in non asshat ways) that has to do with selfishness, vengeance, or any moral code that the rest of the party does not subscribe to... you will have real problems.

Well, this is sorta accurate--we do follow a general party questing structure, but with an acceptance of intra-party conflict, even violent conflict. These are fairly rare, but we've had it before without problems. We've also had it before WITH problems, but that usually has to do with the specifics of the case, ush as one guy (when we ran the campaign in AD&D) detonating a fireball at his feet, at lethal range to other PCs, solely to prove that the GM was coddling our characters and would save us by Deus Ex Machina, rather than talk to her about his dissatisfaction. But we've never had pure "Party play" in the sense of "Characters MUST work together toward a common goal." We're more like "Characters and Players mostly work together out of their individual motivations, but if those motivations occasionally clash, that can be cool too." This is, however, muddied by A) unclear standards for when such conflict is "cool," and B) extreme commitment to "what my guy would do" roleplaying fidelity, which makes it hard to dispute (A)even if it were defined.

In dysfunctional play so much of the game focuses on "can you do anything, much less what you most want to do" and so much agency gets taken from the players that folks with this issue are just trying to find a way to cope. If you make a game where the whole game says to them, "Sure, you can do that, but what does that mean? Oh, you believe that? What about now? What about NOW? Oh shit that was crazy!" then the emphasis and need to protect and control space shifts. Of course, it doesn't shift right away. No long term pattern of behavior is going to shift instantly just because you're trying to do something new. So the first steps towards fixing the problem are often bumpy.

This rings SO true. I know I've often felt powerless myself, struggling to just be able to have SOME effect on play. Thus it was a huge rush in this scene to be able to decisively with a real effect on the situation. Whether through failed rolls, other players screwing up or rendering moot what I was trying to set up, or just plain inadequacy of the rules to support what I was trying to do, I'm so used to being ineffective that the outcome of this scene was almost shocking.

And yeah, I hear you about a rough transition. I've been trying to rework my own GMing for more player empowerment, and some players both get and dig it, some dig it but are still unclear on how it works, and some are just like, "jeez, sounds like he just wants us to do HIS job for him." (Or so I'm told from third party sources.)

As to some practical advice, I find it really useful to watch the keys people are taking -- especially keys they are wanting to create -- when you're moving new folks towards a TSOY game. If I start seeing "Key of the Jackass + Key of Not Letting it Drop + Key of Bloodlust + Key of Fuck You" I start talking to the player right there and then, up front. The great thing about flags is that they stand out, and they stand out before you're in the moment of play. If you're going to have a player who is building a character for PVP by their keys, then you'll know it well ahead of time. At that point you can bring it up, talk about it openly, and decide what to do with it as a group.

Absolutely. Thanks to Joao and Rogerio's advice in the other thread, I have a pretty good idea of how to apply Keys to good effect. And if I were starting something new (whether TSoY or not), I'd be able to lay the groundwork like you describe with little problems, I think. At least, if people didn't like it, we'd all know what we were getting into. More problematic is the prospect of introducing such a thing into an existing game. I'm already modding my Over the Edge game in several ways to accommodate the playstyle I'm going for, so I should probably just stick to that. I'm of the opinion that several campaigns of other GMs could benefit from modding Keys onto the existing system (and I think one GM in particular would really like the results if she tried it). I just may approach her about it soon.

4) I had more, but then the elephant knocked on my window and distracted me. Are there any other questions you'd like to hear from me about?

An elephant really knocked on your window. Damn, living in India rocks!

Anyway, if you remember what else you were gonna say, by all means, lay it on me. Otherwise, can't think of nothin'.

Hi, Tony,

We'll call him Bert, and I'll try to refrain from thinking of him as a muppet.

Hmm, I think the guy in question would actually enjoy being thought of as a muppet. :)

You've just shown that you think it's okay for you to maim Bert's character.  I suspect that this came as news to him.  It may well have caused him to re-evaluate what type of game he was playing.

Well, I hardly think it came as a surprise in general (as far as whether it's "Okay" in gameplay at all), since this is the same guy who in another campaign thought it was okay to put two arrows in another PC for stealin' stuff, in the middle of a town with guards and everything, and then even threaten another PC for tryin' to heal him. Though I daresay it may have surprised him coming from me. He may well have expected, "Oh, he's just the angsty Bard, he'll just run around waving his arms yelling 'stop the fighting' or something." Whereas I was thinkming, OK, here's where the bard shows that he CAN pull his weight, and proves that he's a warrior poet."

Now when you say "Well, maiming isn't generally okay, it's okay in certain very special circumstances (addressing premise)" you are putting forward a very, very complicated rule.  You're doing so unilaterally, simply trusting that you speak 100% for the group without having given anyone a chance to debate.  And, of course, in this instance you discovered that rule in the midst of a charged situation, freighted with all sorts of other factors like your emotional reaction to play, and the clear and evident self-interest that aligned with your in-character decision.

That's a terrible way to refine the social contract of your group.  Would you agree?

I totally hear you, dude. Yes, it is a crappy way of trying to understand each other in any way. And yes, keys are way better, which is why I'm getting way stoked about them.

One caveat. . .I'm not sure I'd say I was defining it as "it's OK when addressing premise." (And a caveat withIN a caveat: this incident was before I discovered all this Forge Hippie Brainrot, so the works "addressing premise**" never once flitted through my brain. When I say this scene was "all about that" for me, I mean that given my current understanding, I look back and see that was what I was trying to do. However, at the time I was confused about just what I did want, contributing to our confusion at the table.) Anyway, I'd say the deal was more like "It's OK when acting from believable character motives." Which is a pretty wonky and unclear standard, to be sure. But that was the crux of our schism, as I understood it at the time: premise-addressing or not, his action just didn't jive with me for his character at all. If I had been attacking a doggedly vengeful bastard (like his arrowhappy character in the other campaign), I'd fully expect a reprisal. But as I attacked "Sydrais the lovable boozing water druid, the revenge deal just seemed to pop out of nowhere.

That said, this doesn't invalidate your point at all: that I tried to renegotiate social contract at the table. In fact, I'd say this was constantly happening, since I was wanting things out of play that just weren't happening, and not knowing how to articulate much less get them. So I was always trying to have my own cool stuff along everyone else's, or interjecting my own desires for the scene into a situation that for everyone else was about something else entirely. I say "was," but it still happens, actually; I'm trying to work on it by (A) knowing we want different things and not expecting my "thing' from others that don't want it, (B) negotiating, bit by bit, for things I'd like to see in play so that it IS part of the social contract, and (C) as I work through this process discovering which of my fellow players also enjoys the kind of play I'm looking for, and playing a game that delivers this with those players. (C) is more of a future goal, but I'm working on (A) and (B) right now. It's rough going with a lot of communication barriers, but I am seeing results.

Hi, Storn,

Great point about the negotiation factor of TSoY. That sounds like a super-functional way to deal with something like this.

Thanks for the great feedback, guys!

Peace,
-Joel

[Hans]

Then the player had him walk calmly over to my wounded, unconscous character, and cut of his hand with his other weapon...It was NOT in the heat of battle, he was NOT possessed (he said something about the possession effects still gradually wearing off), and another PC even had a garrotte wire around his neck telling him "don't you dare do it."

Joel, the above section is puzzling me, and I would like to ask some questions about it before I say anything else.  It strikes me that the larger problem in your description above is not the motivation of that player, but rather the failure of your system (using the Lumpley Principle definition) to adequately address and resolve conflicts.  There seem to be three different conflicts involved here, where at any point along the way a player could have simply gotten pissed at how the system was working:

1) When the character was possessed by the evil sword - if this was NOT of that player's choosing, did he have any way to resist it?  If it was of his choosing, did he have reasonably complete information about what the consequences would be?

2) When the character with the sword got his hand chopped off - what game mechanics were used to establish this fact in the SIS?  Was it a special combat roll of some sort, or does BESM have hand chopping off mechanics?  Did you simply state your intent and the GM come up with some rules for hand chopping on the spur of the moment and implement them?  Was it strictly GM fiat, because the GM thought this was a cool way to resolve the evil sword possession thing?

3) When his character cut your character's hand off - pretty much the same questions.  Did you get a chance to mechancially resist (dodge, get away, punch his character in the face, etc.)?  Did the character with the garrotte get a chance to mechanically resist?

From your description, it seems as if all of this happened by fiat somehow.  Its not clear to me that any of the three conflicts described above, the players involved got to really set up goals/stakes/intents and work through them.  He says "I'm chopping his hand off"; did anyone get a chance to say "No he doesn't" or "I help him" or "I chop his OTHER hand off" or anything like that, and then roll some dice/compare some numbers/whatever to see which way it goes?

A deeper question, I guess, is this one; if this player sent his character after yours, bloody stump of his ruined limb dripping, with an axe to chop off your character's hand in some kind of tit for tat action, under what circumstances WOULD this have been ok with you?  If you had a mechanical way to resist (i.e. Bringing Down the Pain in TSOY)?  If you agreed that it was cool (your character stretches out his arm to redress the karmic balance or similar)?  Under no circumstances? 

[Callan S.]

Tony (and for Joels perusal),

Geez man. I'm pretty sure that guy wasn't tuning into some new social contract rule (he'd do this regardless). But lets say he did - "If you chop off my hand I can chop off yours". Okay, say that's an option he can now take.

Why did he take it? There's no analysis in saying "Well you did it and now he can and is doing so, so that's that". Why was he interested in taking that option? And if it's to examine something that's totally different to what Joel was trying to examine, any change to the SC on hand chopping is atomic in comparison to that issue.


Hi Joel,

Check out the above. And from what data you've given so far - well, I'd say this is entirely meta, like if he tried to worm out of paying for pizza and you called him on it, then his PC goes for yours with some BS revenge story.

That said - umm, you hardly even mention the other player with a goddamn garrote around this guys neck. EVEN if he had wanted to address premise, it seems this other players intentions are entirely meta as well "We just don't do that in our games!" and not any address of premise. Am I close on that? You didn't mention anything morally meaningful about the garotte, so I don't think you saw it as an address.

Even if there was no garotte, would that other player believe this guy could make an address of premise? Can he actually play the same nar agenda as you, if no one else would see it as an address and perhaps worse, would apply force/a garrote to stop him? I don't think he was interested - but at the same time, is nar play actually available to him if he was?

I think your going to have to take a leap of faith with keys. Don't tell him about your feelings - tell him your going to listen to his feelings and address. Sure, in play he might burn you and just do some meta PVP jerk stuff again - but that's what giving someone a chance involves. You can't keep yourself safe by holding a garotte wire around their neck until they address premise 'correctly' - that's disgusting and premadona style play.

And I'd hypothesize that he 'griefs' because he's bored. You give him something to grab and keep grabbing (and keys let you keep grabbing XP) and he'll focus on that grabbing, rather than grabbing at you. And he'll grab at the keys, if you listen for his address (listening is the vital other half of an address of premise - there is no address, if no one listens for it).

[Brand_Robins]

Well, this is sorta accurate--we do follow a general party questing structure, but with an acceptance of intra-party conflict, even violent conflict.... But we've never had pure "Party play" in the sense of "Characters MUST work together toward a common goal." We're more like "Characters and Players mostly work together out of their individual motivations, but if those motivations occasionally clash, that can be cool too." This is, however, muddied by A) unclear standards for when such conflict is "cool," and B) extreme commitment to "what my guy would do" roleplaying fidelity, which makes it hard to dispute (A)even if it were defined.

Yea, that's what I was talking about. "Party Must Work Together" = Safe. "There is No Party, FIGHT!" = Safe. "There is a party, but the game is as much about how they fight as anything else" = Difficult, but possible with the right system (PTA, Capes, Universalis, Dogs). "There is a party, sometimes they solve missions other times they fight, sometimes they do both and it is never clear which" = DISASTER.

Yes, sometimes it will work out. Juggling knives works out sometimes too. But sooner or later you end up missing fingers.

(This reminds me of my standard rant about why dysfunctional play can be so addictive, but I'll save that for another time.)

I'm so used to being ineffective that the outcome of this scene was almost shocking.

I remember that feeling. God did that suck.

I also have seen a lot of players who are still getting over this feeling. It can be amazingly hard to deal with the fact that suddenly everything you do actually matters in game. I'd watch for signs of that as your group transitions -- some people will have real issues with the level or responsibility you have to have to match your ability to actually effect the game.

Which this reply reminds me of:

And yeah, I hear you about a rough transition. I've been trying to rework my own GMing for more player empowerment, and some players both get and dig it, some dig it but are still unclear on how it works, and some are just like, "jeez, sounds like he just wants us to do HIS job for him." (Or so I'm told from third party sources.)

Then

More problematic is the prospect of introducing such a thing into an existing game.

I feel compelled to warn you that my attempts to drift games in the middle of play have had very mixed results. I do know that some folks around here have pulled it off, but my experiences with it are less than encouraging. I find that in a game precedent counts more than anything else, not unlike a court of law in an episode of Law and Order. And so switching rules in a game where you already have precedent against you is rough.

An elephant really knocked on your window. Damn, living in India rocks!

Yep. At least when it isn't making me sick. Riding an elephant is cool. Puking from the back of an elphant is less cool. Though I suppose its still cooler than puking not on the back of an elphant.

[Joel P. Shempert]

Hi, Hans. I'll tackle your questions:

1) When the character was possessed by the evil sword - if this was NOT of that player's choosing, did he have any way to resist it?  If it was of his choosing, did he have reasonably complete information about what the consequences would be?

He chose to take the sword when another PC handed it to him. I'm not certain he had complete information about what the sword could do. . .*I* certainly didn't know that this other character possessed a demon-possessing sword (I think it came from a session that I wasn't there for). "Bert" then made a resistance roll, which he failed.

2) When the character with the sword got his hand chopped off - what game mechanics were used to establish this fact in the SIS?  Was it a special combat roll of some sort, or does BESM have hand chopping off mechanics?  Did you simply state your intent and the GM come up with some rules for hand chopping on the spur of the moment and implement them?  Was it strictly GM fiat, because the GM thought this was a cool way to resolve the evil sword possession thing?

Kinda half-fiat. There are no hand-chopping-off rules in BESM. I announced what I wanted to do, made a called shot with a penalty to the roll, scored a success, and the GM ruled that the hand was indeed chopped off. That's basically how we handle any stunt along the lines of "I want to have an effect with my attack besides depleting Health Points."

3) When his character cut your character's hand off - pretty much the same questions.  Did you get a chance to mechancially resist (dodge, get away, punch his character in the face, etc.)?  Did the character with the garrotte get a chance to mechanically resist?

This was declared automatic, because my character was lying unconscious from wounds taken in the fight. The garrotting char rolled to slip the garrotte around the guy's neck, then told him to stop. "Bert" circumvented the chance for Garrotte Boy to roll initiative or attack or anything to prevent him hand-chopping, by spinning this "I angle my body so he can't see what I'm doing" pitch.

He says "I'm chopping his hand off"; did anyone get a chance to say "No he doesn't" or "I help him" or "I chop his OTHER hand off" or anything like that, and then roll some dice/compare some numbers/whatever to see which way it goes?

To the first part, yes, that was where the garrotting guy came in. I'm a little confused/hazy on what happened after the hand-chopping to prevent garrotting. "If I have a gun to your head, and I say (Don't shoot him or I'll kill you," I'm either bluffing or if you shoot him I'll sure as hell kill you.) I'd have to ask the player in question. . .did he just let him go; did everyone forget about the garrotte; did he escape it somehow? I dunno. As far as the second half goes. . .BESM is far from a conflict resolution system. Just basic task resolution, action by action. So no "which ay it goes" roll, just a "do I garrotte him?" roll, a "do I chop his hand off?" roll, etc. Theoretically, anyway; even within BESM "Bert" STILL should have had to roll to cover his movements or strike first or whatever, to beat out Garrotte Boy and hand-chop me.

A deeper question, I guess, is this one; if this player sent his character after yours, bloody stump of his ruined limb dripping, with an axe to chop off your character's hand in some kind of tit for tat action, under what circumstances WOULD this have been ok with you?  If you had a mechanical way to resist (i.e. Bringing Down the Pain in TSOY)?  If you agreed that it was cool (your character stretches out his arm to redress the karmic balance or similar)?  Under no circumstances?

Well, that's a bloody tough question. Thanks for asking it (seriously). Hmm. I think for starters, how he presented it would help. Half-crazed from the possession, face contorted in cold fury at his mutilation, wild-eyed and frantically lunging in shock at his attacker. . .one of these or a dozen others, something, ANYthing to hang this action on, characterization-wise. Like I said, it came out of the blue for me. All I got was a nonchalant sort of "oh yeah, well I walk over and cut his hand off right back."

Moving right along, yes, mechanical resistance would've been nice. If my character was conscious and could have interacted meaningfully with his attempt to revenge-chop me, that would've been cool. But there was no interaction, and no defense roll,because I was unconscious and helpless. Which made sense and all, especially given our simulation-y, task based mechanics. If we were using a system where "you slump down unconscious" would be simply part of narration decided by the conflict roll (rather than just "Out of health points? Down you go"), I'd be relatively happy.

I say relatively, because, well. . .I gotta be honest, I just didn't like what he did, fron the perspective of the fiction, OR of the player-to-player interaction. It just seemed to shit on MY input to the system. Not just that he took revenge in general, but that he took revenge in THAT situation, with THAT character, after THAT specific resolution of MY input. The dramatic quality quality of my PC's actions and their effects, right down to slumping down wounded and exhausted, my task complete, felt cheapened to me by his addition of "oh, and by the way, this too. Ha ha." I think I could've taken it though, if I had a mechanical say in it, so I could say, "welp, I fought it and lost, them's the breaks." And I could accept that his input was legitimate and merely not to my liking, if I felt that he really was merely providing input to the fiction, as opposed to pursuing an agenda (small 'a') of revenge and one-up-man-ship.

[Joel P. Shempert]

Wow, this thread's generating a lot of interest for being mostly complaining. :) Thanks!

Callan,

That said - umm, you hardly even mention the other player with a goddamn garrote around this guys neck. EVEN if he had wanted to address premise, it seems this other players intentions are entirely meta as well "We just don't do that in our games!" and not any address of premise. Am I close on that? You didn't mention anything morally meaningful about the garotte, so I don't think you saw it as an address.

Even if there was no garotte, would that other player believe this guy could make an address of premise? Can he actually play the same nar agenda as you, if no one else would see it as an address and perhaps worse, would apply force/a garrote to stop him? I don't think he was interested - but at the same time, is nar play actually available to him if he was?

Hmm. I think I only ignored or downplayed thegarrotte guy because I was concentrating (then and now) on the conflict betwen me and "Bert." In truth, I found his input dramatically interesting and engaging; not sure I'd call it address of premise (though it's pregnant with the potential), but it was at least an interesting and reasonable thing for the character to do, and full of dramatic tension. I'm not sure why the action looks particularly meta to you; the way I'm lookin' at it, here's this guy who a minute ago was trying to kill everyone, who Garrotte Guy as well as my guy was engaged in pitched battle with, my guy strikes the decisive blow and goes down himself, then formerly-possessed-guy is going for unconscious me with his trident. Hells yeah he's gonna stop him. That doesn't mean it couldn't be meta-motivated, but I don't think it follows from the description.

I will, in the intrest of full disclosure, reveal that Garrotte-guy's player is the same one who's complained about "Bert"'s griefing tendencies. So there's not a lot of love lost, and definitely skepticism about the player's motives. I just think it's a case of the cool and fitting IC thing to do happily lining up with the OOC desire for the outcome of the scene. If he was really just trying to meta-block "Bert" at all costs, he coulda garrotted him anyway to be "safe," or just straight-up attacked, or something. But he rolled with the adjudication of the scene and kept to what was reasonable for the character, even though he (like me) found the ruling bogus.

Brand,

Yea, that's what I was talking about. "Party Must Work Together" = Safe. "There is No Party, FIGHT!" = Safe. "There is a party, but the game is as much about how they fight as anything else" = Difficult, but possible with the right system (PTA, Capes, Universalis, Dogs). "There is a party, sometimes they solve missions other times they fight, sometimes they do both and it is never clear which" = DISASTER.

Hmm, I see what you mean.I'm not sure where to place our group (well, let's stick to this campaign, 'since my OtE game for instance is more free-for-all). Not "Must Work together," and definitely not "No party, fight," but not really "as much about how they fight as anything else." In between the first and the third, I guess. We've got characters intentionally designed to be mostly compatible in goals and ethics ("good guys", if you will), but with the understanding that if a character has sufficient reason, he may well oppose the group. This rarely comes to blows, but sometimes. I don't know if that qualifies as "some of each, and never clear which" in your book, or not. It's never been negotiated explicitly, of course.

(This reminds me of my standard rant about why dysfunctional play can be so addictive, but I'll save that for another time.)

Sounds fascinating. If it's a "standard rant," does that mean there's an old link I can look up?

I feel compelled to warn you that my attempts to drift games in the middle of play have had very mixed results. I do know that some folks around here have pulled it off, but my experiences with it are less than encouraging. I find that in a game precedent counts more than anything else, not unlike a court of law in an episode of Law and Order. And so switching rules in a game where you already have precedent against you is rough.

Yeah, I understand the concern and the warning is well taken. I think I have an edge in this regard (ooh, forgive the pun, it was unintentional, honest) in my Over the Edge game, since I have a sort of proprietorship over those rules (as opposed D&D, for which several players vie hotly for proprietorship). This, plus the fact that the rules are pretty light anyway, means that I can mod them a bit and not work against such a heavy precedent. Plus my changes are sparing, consisting mostly of openly discussing Flags and scene framing. The only real mechanical change is a tweaking in the awarding and spending of Experience/bonus dice.

I approach the prospect of modding other games in our group with more trepidation. For one thing, I'm not the GM, so I'd have to lobby with GMs in the first place, and then still convince the group. Also, as you said, precedent is powerful and probably more than I can (or should) fight in most cases. I still kinda wish, though, that I could just get a hearing for implementing Keys; one of our GMs I think would really like them if she gave them a shot; in any case they're really geared (IMO) toward the kind of play she'd like to see. But yeah, I may keep this to myself; 'cause I wouldn't want to screw things up for anyone or wear out my welcome with these hippie techniques and such. :)

Peace,
-Joel

[Brand_Robins]

Sounds fascinating. If it's a "standard rant," does that mean there's an old link I can look up?

Ugh, maybe. I don't remember where right at the moment though.

The basic thrust of it goes like this: there is a method of pyschological conditioning that is used to create obsessive behaviors. In this method you give someone a positive response/reward for a behavior, but only do so at random intervals. So, to use the rat with the feeder button example, you don't give the rat a treat every time it hits the button. You give it a treat randomly or not after it hits the button. If the "rat" is a human being, this will lead to patterns of behavior even more obssesive and given to complusive behavior than if they get the treat every time they hit the button. Screwed up, but there it is.

A lot of dysfunctional gaming runs on the same principle. It works sometimes, kind of randomly aligning when everyone is on a good karma day to give you an awesome game. Most of the time it gives you some fun and some annoyance. Occasionally it zaps you with pain. The result is that you keep coming back to whack at that feeder bar obsessivly, because you've got that whole "inconsistant reward" conditioning going on full force.

I'll end this by saying that when folks are conditioned this way they also have a tendancy to become agitated when confronted with the results of their actions, and angry or confused "it works! I know it does!" responses are the most common form of justification.