[Ends and Means] Managing Miscommunication

[Adam Cerling]

In designing my LARP system, I've assumed that all communication between players is clear and complete.

In actual play, this isn't the case.

A scene happened last game where the filmmaker Darius (played by Claus) was videotaping while the medieval femme fatale Moira (played by Tonya) was scheming with a companion. Claus considered Darius to have caught some incriminating dialogue on tape, and went on to share that information with other characters.

When Tonya learned this later, she was unhappy: during her scene she had been unaware of what Claus was attempting. If she had known, she would have asked for a conflict, since the situation was one of a conflict of interest between their characters. Even if Moira was initially unaware of Darius, the conflict resolution could have established just how she discovered and avoided the videotaping.

This raised the dilemma: after the unavoidable fact of misunderstandings like these, what kind of system can repair the damage?

To get all Big Modelly, it seems that the "Sharing" part of the Shared Imagined Space failed here. In tabletop this could be noticed and renegotiated relatively quickly; but thanks to the LARP medium, the failure wasn't noticed until hours later. During that time, two incompatible understandings of the SIS (one in which Moira had been videotaped, and one in which she hadn't) were influencing other players, affecting their understandings of the SIS in turn.

So now I need to design a system to repair these breaks when they're discovered. Plus, I don't want to reward or punish any player involved in creating the problem. (That would make it profitable for some to create such problems.)

Is it even possible to design a general system for fixing such problems? Or will they necessarily require case-by-case handling?

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hi Adam,

I haven't been following Ends and Means so I'd like to know a couple things. How close was Claus to Tonya? Did Claus have a prop camera, or a real camera so other players would know what he was doing? Are you attempting to use conflict resolution in a LARP? If so how does it work?

[IndigoDreamer]

Claus was fairly close, (about five to ten feet) and had his hands positioned as if he were filming.  (This is the standard for his character and he uses it often.)

He's made it clear to me in a different scene that he was intending to film my character when he 'set down' his camera, and then a few minutes later, told me when he was turning it on.   

I do not think it's a player trying to be sneaky; but a player so caught up in roleplay, that she forgot there was another character there.

[Adam Cerling]

Clyde --

That's Sara, above, my co-Stagehand on this playtest, giving the context of the scene. I only heard about it after the fact. (Thanks Sara! We should remind Claus to get an actual prop -- I know he sees the need.)

I trust our players, so I believe this was legitimate miscommunication. Less trustworthy players could easily manufactured this kind of "misunderstanding" in an attempt to create advantage for themselves (Claus) or dodge the consequences of their actions (Tonya). That's why I think a good system for managing this is important.

I am indeed attempting to implement Conflict Resolution in LARP. The basic idea is that each person tells what they want if they win (their stake), then they determine a winner using some fixed stats and fluid resources, and then the winner determines which stakes are won and which are lost. Also, like in PTA, the person who wins may not be the same person who ends up with narrational authority over the scene.

It's working well so far, although it's definitely raising challenges. Miscommunication, here, is one such; secrets, lies and hidden information (deliberately unclear communication) is another. Conflict Resolution really seems to hinge on clear and accurate communication by everyone involved. I can't lie about what I really want, or fail to tell you when I'm trying to get it.

Adam

[Graham W]

Could you do a retrospective conflict? Just use the normal conflict rules, with the stakes "Darius captured the discussion on tape" and "The discussion was private". Then announce the result to any players who might have been affected.

Interestingly enough, having item cards would have solved this one somewhat: Claus would have had to go to a GM with an item card marked "Videotape of Moira's discussion" and the GM would have gone "Hang on...".

Graham

[Andrew Morris]

Adam, I think this is a just part of the LARP medium. In the same way you can't look at paper and say, "I'm having a hard time using paper to carry audio and video signals, so I should figure out some way to do that in my book," you can't expect every person at a large, decentralized LARP to have the same SIS in mind. The only thing you can do is either work with the medium at hand (LARP, paper), or use a different medium (table-top, television).

Of course, if you find a clever way around it, I'll happily steal it from you and use it myself.

[Adam Cerling]

Graham --

For this particular instance, that solution will work. The damage isn't so widespread it can't be retconned.

The question rattling around my head is -- what if it were? What would the best way be to address that?

Andrew --

I agree completely; miscommunication cannot be avoided, and LARP's structure magnifies it. But given that this kind of SIS disjunct can't be dodged, what can I do after the fact? Do I simply say (in the book), "this happens, and when it does, sit everyone down who's involved and talk it out"? Or might there be a more procedural approach I could apply, a step-by-step damage control method?

Adam

[Andrew Morris]

I've never seen a procedural approach that worked well in all situations. But I think Graham's suggestion is probably the most likely to be successful, if it is framed correctly. As a player, I would not have any problem at all with a retroactive conflict to determine who was mistaken (maybe the camera guy had the cap on the lens, or forgot to load film) if it was done immediately after the situation. The problem, as you've pointed out, is when this is only discovered long after the fact, and an increasing number of other players have acted based on the potentially true or false information. I don't have an answer for that, but I'll be keeping an eye on this thread to see if you come up with anything.

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hi Adam and Sara,

Thanks for clarifying. So we have two players we trust, so we can rule out any shenanigans. How carefully are you conducting paperwork and tracking? I've run several non-boffer LARP's the largest of which would peak at 75 players a night, and ran for like a year or so. I found that paperwork was one of the best ways to limit problems. I had two character sheets. When the players checked in they got one character sheet, and I had one on file. You weren't allowed to use anything that wasn't on those sheets, and I didn't allow you to to have something unless you had a prop (minus weapons of course). In a pinch we could pin something to someones clothing but that was dissatisfying. So if your character had a cell phone it needed to be on the sheet, a movie camera it needed to be on the sheet. If your game doesn't talk about book keeping you may want to consider it as it is one of the best steps to keeping a game under control after it goes outside your personal control limit. i.e about 15 people for me.

Now for backdating something, I had a pseudo in character "paper" that I made for each game that players also got on check in. It would contain any rule changes, reports about things that happened that would be making the rumor circuit, etc. I would also include broad events that needed to be backdated. What I mean by backdating is when you have to rewrite what happened in the SIS because it got resolved wrong or in this case wasn't resolved. Backdating in my experience is going to happen in any LARP as Andrew is right, people won't always be seeing the same things entering the Shared Imaginary Space. I have a feeling this is a problem you may find with using conflict resolution for a LARP. You obviously gain tons of flexibility and ease of use, but it can also butt against immersion or the problem of someone feeling that a conflict was obviously needed, when someone else honestly didn't see the need for the challenge. Being clear about when a challenge should happen in the text is likely going to be helpful.

Another thing you'll want to address to head off these expectation problems is to be clear about when play time is and when you're available for dealing with out of game time events. Some of my players would meet at coffee shops to play in character. There's no way you can stop something like that from happening, but I made it very clear that nothing on a character sheet was getting changed unless it was dealt with at the specific times I set aside. This effectively meant they could only talk as anything else could just be ignored by the other party. This is another reason to keep good paperwork.

[Callan S.]

Hi Adam,

What's the larp technique, as in physical world stuff, being used for? For example, if there's a treasure on the table - if I can actually physically walk over, take it and get away, is that what it's being used for, so I can do that stuff?

Or is it being used as inspiration "Hey, I could grab that treasure and run away, as you can see...that inspires me to make a conflict roll about it!". Which would mean the physical world is just an inspiration - it isn't used to resolve conflicts at all.

[Graham W]

Don't you get a sense, though, that Claus should have thrown a conflict? Or told a GM what he was doing?

There's a sort of LARP standard that, if you're doing something that could be misinterpreted later, you tell a GM: either because you're screwing over another player or because it's something that needs remembering later or both.

So perhaps a codification of this rule would be a good idea: "If you do something that might affect another player, especially if they don't know about it, tell a Stagehand. The Stagehand might ask you to throw a conflict."

Having said that, perhaps we should move towards telling the player, not a Stagehand. Something like: "If you do something that might affect another player, tell that player, even if you don't want their character to know about it. The other player can throw a conflict over whether the attempt succeeds or not. However, that player should remember not to mention the incident when playing their character: after all, they don't know about it."

That's not perfect, but perhaps something like that?

Graham

[IndigoDreamer]

Clyde,

One of the purposes of Ends and Means is to get rid of all the clutter that detracts from actual roleplay.  This isn't just in terms of mechanics and lītigātiōn (dispute), but also in needless clutter.

Making item cards for everything would really take away from the game as a whole, where the focus is actual roleplay and not in regulating every last detail.  I fully believe that the main reason item cards and rules lawyering so common in other RPG's is because the Storytellers feel as if they can't trust the player-base to regulate themselves, and so this creates layered levels of baby-sitting, extra work, and as whole, just bogs down the actual roleplay with steps that don't really need to be there.

So, I think while props is a great idea, that I don't think item carding everything is the answer, and I'm really against turning the character sheet into something you'd see in a MET game.   Players love the fact that the character sheet is a tiny little index card that they don't have to whip out every time they want to do 'anything'.   I like that too!

I think trial and error is a big part.   As Tonya stated, she might have just missed what was obvious, and as Claus stated, he might just have to make sure that people realize he's taping when they say or do something that could cause them trouble later.   I know he had made a point to say something to me during a scene with one of Vesper's cronies.

Our gamers love props...so I think that is the best way, other than just being open with each other on communication so that it doesn't repeat itself.


Graham.

I think you're alot closer to what we have in mind, but that is already in place really.  For being sneaky, that idea is very close to what we expect; but the problem we are having here isn't that Claus was being sneaky, but that he thought it was obvious what he was doing, and Tonya was so engaged in her own scene of being devious that she didn't realize he was actually there videotaping.   

Again, I think it's just trial and error and making sure that everyone involved knows to be more open about communicating what is going on.

[Andrew Morris]

Don't you get a sense, though, that Claus should have thrown a conflict? Or told a GM what he was doing?

Personally, no, I don't think Claus should have initiated a conflict. Told a GM? Probably. Had a prop to represent a camera? Absolutely. In this particular case, I think the real issue was the lack of a prop. Seeing a guy standing off to the side with an actual camera would have been obvious, and the other player could have seen it and said something else. Even a block of wood or styrofoam with a big label reading "videocamera" on it would have worked.

If you have to go to a player every time you do something that might potentially affect them down the line, you'll be doing nothing but conflicts. "I was standing around the corner when you talked about your secret alliance, let's have a conflict to see if my character overheard." "I noticed you pocket the necklace, so let's have a conflict to see if my character saw it." And so on.

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hi Sara,

I think you misinterpreted what I was saying. I was advocating props. I also think a small game with 20 or so players can be more lax as it's much easier to watch over the process, and to communicate with all the players. I didn't do double character sheets and all the other work for my 20 player LARPs. I also didn't charge money for those LARPs. That being said my point is with tight paperwork control the problem may have been avoided as he would have needed a camera prop to have a camera in one of my games. It may not have been avoided because the actual problem is that one player felt there needed to be a challenge and the other didn't, theres no guarantee that Tonya would have seen the camera prop either.  However if that was the case I likely would have favored Darius, as it would seem to me to have been not his fault a challenge wasn't called for, if he had a proper prop.

The thing is if the game is being written for LARP's it needs to consider what works for 20 people and what works for 100 people. Those are two completely different beasts in my experience, as in the latter you are more likely to have someone get petulant because something isn't going the way they want and for them to actively cause trouble. You can never tell who these people are until they go rogue. It's fine to trust people, but my experience suggests in a larger game there will be people who violate that trust and preparation limits the danger to all the other players, and prevents the game from being ruined.

I apologize for drifting off the original topic, and want to be clear that my posts are offered in the spirit of being helpful. I can see how my post might be taken as accusatory or pompous. Please don't read it in that tone.

[IndigoDreamer]

No worries, I didn't take it in a negative way; I just don't think that paperwork or item cards is the way to go for this L.A.R.P. or with Ends and Means in general.

There's already rules in place for things like extrodinary items or 'items of convience' and I think those rules are sufficient really.   The problem isn't that anyone had anything they shouldn't have had, or even that a prop would have helped but that the miscommunication happened and had a trickle-down effect.   So what Adam is looking for is 'what to do' when this happens and how to prevent it.   Props I think will help, but in the end, I think it is just communication really, so this leaves a level of 'what to do WHEN it happens.'

Having played in both small and large L.A.R.P.'s myself, I don't feel this is going to change, no matter how many people are in the game.   The only thing that should need to change is the ratio of stage-hands to the players.

As for petulent players; I've noticed that those sort tend to not like playing Ends and Means in the first place; a theory that I place on that it doesn't support the need they have for absolute power or control.

And this is one of the things that I think is just wonderful about Ends and Means and why I was so eager to use it with my game-world beta test; The fact that those who would try to abuse the system would find themselves unable to truly break the system, or 'ruin the game'.   And this is done all without paperwork.   If it were a matter of a player being abusive rather than a miscommunication, I doubt that neither me or Adam would hesitate to introduce a scenerio that would correct the abuse, speak to the player and let them know why it was wrong.

And frankly, if someone is really being a poor sport, they can be asked to leave.  As with any game, people are there to have fun, and if someone is taking it too seriously, they really shouldn't be there in the first place.

But, It's more or less the 'innnocent' miscommunication we're talking of, and that can happen with props, no props, item cards, etc.   But is there any real one way to fix it?   I really don't think so myself, so my opinion sticks with the idea of more props, and better communication.   

I don't think I want to say that people 'have' to have props for everything though.   That's what our imaginations are for.