[Dread/Jenga] Heartbeat, slow down (long)

[Frank Tarcikowski]

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[FredGarber]

Could the conflict over stabbing the man in the wheelchair bound man have been described as:

"If Justin wins, he stabs the old man (presumably killing him)"
"If Andy wins, Justin is unable to stab the old man."

  It's not up to Andy to say whether or not Justin still wants to kill the old man.  The player of Justin can keep pushing for new ways to kill the old man (if he's tied to a wheelchair, there's a lot of that).  But if Andy wins, then the knife is dropped in the trash, or out the window, or is kicked under the heavy TV cabinet, or something else removing the knife as one of Justin's weapons.
  And yes, it would probably continue until one or the other players took it to the "either give up trying to kill him, or topple the tower" stage.

[Callan S.]

I don't think I agree with the mechanical assessment of the tower. No one really knows when the tower is tight. When someone backs down, it's because they estimate the tower was tight. There's no certainty here, it's still a gamble.

In addition, the tower getting closer to someone having to die to restore it makes any conflict its used in signficant (as significant as PC lives are in the particular game). You can't have throw away task/conflict resolution here, like you do in D&D where the GM gets you to make a skill roll but really it doesn't matter in the end. Any time you use the tower, its as significant as the lives that rest upon it. Rather than a bug, using it in a throw away manner is going to cause the fault. Realising that a character is going to die for no other reason than some throw away stuff happened might at first seem like a bug, but that's due to the initial missuse.

[Frank Tarcikowski]

Callan, I see your point. Still, you are looking at the other guy. Who is going to back down? One of you clearly should, for the sake of the group and the story and everything. But who is it going to be? Why does it have to be you? Who backs down is who loses the conflict. The system doesn't help you to decide that.

So, no vanities over what's bug or feature. The point is, PvP conflict in Dread must be solved without the tower. Right?

[Callan S.]

For the sake of wha??

Sorry, I've been looking at this in much the same mode as Capes system use, you use it try and have your way. In capes you don't win a conflict and then...give it up for the sake of story or the group. You winning a conflict and narration IS the story. If other people don't like that, they should have used the system better to stop you. This isn't being nasty to each other - good natured conflict between people is creatively beneficial, and everyone knows the conflict is just a temporary thing, like the conflict in a game of chess isn't being nasty to anyone. In context to this, you either back down because your afraid to go one more block and think you can get your way by some other method, or your character isn't morally invested enough to risk one more brick/risk his life that much. In a pure duel to the death, keep drawing blocks - your counting on the other player screwing up. That's how I understand it to work here, and achieve its goals I think it does.

However, from my own history of play and what I see in other peoples accounts many people, without a system to manage who wins...well, who backs down? Why does it have to be me? In many groups this does become a real social sore spot.

The thing with these groups, and again I'm thinking of my own history as well, is that faced with that social nastyness, people stop wanting to win. It's better to just supress the desire. In fact in forums here and there you often see it lauded as being a good gamer or GM to give up the desire to achieve something.

From observing accounts here and there, I hypothesize: After awhile of this, even if the group is exposed to a system where someone can dare to win and it seriously, honestly wouldn't result in social nastyness, they still wont dare to win.

When the system didn't decide who backs down, did you think it'd still result in social nastyness if you just decided to go for the win? Or would continuing on, taking that next block, be emperilling 'the group' as you put it? Emperilling the investment everyone had in 'the story'?

Tough questions. Don't worry, karma will get me back one day!

[Frank Tarcikowski]