regarding character ownership

[Matt Wilson]

In a game I'm working on, I had this mechanic idea for a player rolling a Setback, a complication to the character in question. My original idea was that the player could choose whether or not to take the setback when rolled, and would receive a reward when doing so. Another player would decide what the setback is and play out how it happens to the character, in effect playing that character for a "turn."

Well, in playtest, the idea seems to have crossed a taboo boundary, where "you can play my character when you take the sheet from my cold, dead hand." Why is that? With all the strides toward shared authorship and storytelling, why do individual characters remain proprietary? Is it a holdover from agonistic "player vs. GM" experiences?

Is my playtest experience a fluke, or is the thought of playing another character repugnant across the board?

[Jason Lee]

Well, in my group severe hatred for someone else playing your character is the norm.  The hatred even extends to extra-dimensional duplicates of the character.  Though, the interpretations of some players are more hated than others.

The reasons are normally something along the lines of 'because Joe Butt will screw up my character' or 'because Joe Butt will be untrue to the character' or 'Joe Butt doesn't understand the character at all'.

My feeling is that this is an issue of trust across taste boundaries.  The player has a very specific image of the character in his head, and he doesn't trust that the other player sufficiently understands his taste preferences not to intentionally or accidentally mangle his vision.  It'd be like twisting your profound philisophical statement into a cliche seen on a pepsi commercial (at least, the feeling anyway).

Those who are willing to put forth the effort to understand the other player's vision of his character, and make the other player's feelings the priority over personal assumptions and desires are often trusted with temporary proprietorship of someone else's character.  Those who do not make every effort to cooperate get to be the target of a lot of bitching.

Well, that's how it seems to be in my group anyway.  Understand that we've got a lot of Sim/Char and Sim/Sit priorities that color this.

[Matt Gwinn]

One of the things I hate most in gaming is whe a GM tells me what my character feels or thinks.  I think telling a player what his character actually does goes a step further.  Most players are willing to surrender a small amount of control over their character to the GM, but giving tht power to another player would be baulked at by most of the players in my game.

However, if a game explains this upfront and the rules explicitly grant a player that power, I don't think it is as much of a problem.

In my game Kayfabe players surrender control of their character to another player every time they enter a match.  It's all part of the narration process.  No one that has played in a full game or a demo has complained about that.  It could be because that's how wrestling actually works and Kayfabe is pretty much targeted at sim players.  Any Kayfabe players care to comment?

,Matt G.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Matt and Jason,

I think it's important to note that trust wasn't the issue. (I'm in Matt's said group.) At least for me, I would have given control of my character over. What I had a problem with was playing some else's character, especially in a negative context. While ideas brimmed of how to screw over other characters, the people playing those characters are my friends, and forcing them into a negative situation just seemed deprotagonizing and antagonistic.

[Matt Wilson]

Matt and Jason,

I think it's important to note that trust wasn't the issue. (I'm in Matt's said group.) At least for me, I would have given control of my character over. What I had a problem with was playing some else's character, especially in a negative context. While ideas brimmed of how to screw over other characters, the people playing those characters are my friends, and forcing them into a negative situation just seemed deprotagonizing and antagonistic.

Yeah, sorry Clinton. That's what I'm digging at right there. Damn, too much travel and lack of sleep. That's all I need is to be that guy on the Forge who posts one thing and means something else.

So back to the topic: why is it okay for the GM to thrust characters into predicaments, but not for other players to do it? What it sounds like is you wouldn't even want to "choose the form of the destroyer," so to speak, let alone play the character. Is that true? Or is it only the playing it out part that rubs you wrong?

[Clinton R. Nixon]

It's actually the "hosing the other character" part. The playing out the other character is a separate issue, I think.

The best example is from last time we played. Onboard our ship, we were being attacked by enemy craft and destroying them well. One crew member, Ipslanti, an amnesiac woman tried to help and rolled a Setback.

I thought of a cool idea for it - this was the very first time Ipslanti remembered seeing violence, and it freaked her out as she fell to the floor weeping. However, actually using that felt to me like saying, "Hey, James - I'm going to take your character and make her do something weak and stereotypically female." I just wasn't willing to do that to him.

[Jason Lee]

I thought this was an issue for the owner of the character, not the temp-owner - whoops.

So, going with that...I can say with certainty that this sort of arrangement would be even more disliked in my group than what I orginally thought we were talking about.  Seems set up to create strife directly between the players, bad news in my group (player based railroading, but only for deprotagonizing purposes).  Why it would bother me would be that I would feel like I was fighting the other player's creative rights.  I'd feel like a disruptive and naughty player.

It's a spiffy idea, but I think you'd need a group full of players who didn't have personal investements in their characters and didn't have any leanings toward Author/Pawn Stance (is this possible?).  A group with decent levels of trust and cooperation could certainly do it, but would they enjoy it?  I'd hafta see it in action.  Maybe if you made it a rule to smile, preferable laugh and say 'Oo oo, I've got a cool idea', before proposing a Setback.

Wow, I steered way off track again.  Anyway, I don't know if your feelings are the same as mine Clinton (they sound the same), but it would make me uncomfortable as well.  This is just conjecture, but I don't think the discomfort on the Setback-suggester end would be terribly common.  You'd have to have an 'I must foster a gaming environment that promotes fun for all' kind of attitude.  Which, in my experience, is not as common as I'd like.  However, it probably is with the Forgites.

[Dr. Velocity]

Wow, some interesting things coming out here for certain. First of all, I'd like to say I think its the 'intellectual property' thing, when a player creates a character, and invests a lot of time into it (whether or not he writes it down and has a physical bio for people to read, he STILL has an idea of what the char has been through, etc) and I feel its that creativity is seen as being part of a person's "personal space", their very own sovereign construct, like an abstract "child" - to me, this is partially ME unwillingness to 'release' a character to another player, though I'm creative enough that I can always pretend something didn't happen to keep my ego straight, heh.

Secondly, I signed up for Matt Gwinn's wrestling game group, Kayfabe,  once and wrote a review of it (my name I go by is JP and I founded the Professional Wrestling Simulator Enthusiast - PWSE), and found it very original, approaching the concept from what I *thought* at the time smacked of narrativist "storyteller" influence - looks like I was dead on! =)

[Le Joueur]

...forcing them into a negative situation just seemed deprotagonizing and antagonistic.

Why is it okay for the GM to thrust characters into predicaments, but not for other players to do it?  What it sounds like is you wouldn't even want to "choose the form of the destroyer," so to speak, let alone play the character.  Is that true?  Or is it only the playing it out part that rubs you wrong?

From the examples posted, this is something few gamemasters do; take 'control' of a character away from the player, do something nasty or demeaning (no limits), and give it back.  As far as I know, that kind of loss of control only, and I mean only, works when there's at least some pawn stance evident; lacking that you just asking people to screw each other over.

There's still one other ambiguous aspect here.  Since you've destabilized the 'ownership' issue, what replaces it?  That's right; the gamemaster 'always' has the setting, but if the players aren't full 'owners' of their characters, what do they get to do in place of or because of this?  Pawn stance (as well as multiple characters) is perfectly acceptable if you get something out of it.  If you are simply lessening what the players 'normally have' without any return, I could see it being a problem.  If the only 'perk' you get for people being able to 'violate' your character is getting to return the favor, it sounds like a game where people's naughty natures will eventually come out.

And even if this isn't the case, did the participants know that?

Personally, I always target ownership issues when I work on or suggest game design.  Unless you have that give and take for a mechanic that encourages pawn stance, I pretty much leave 'ownership' solely in the player's hands.  I'm always a little leery of InSpectre's Confessional mechanic.  (Don't get me wrong, it's one of the coolest game mechanics I've seen, but it looks dangerous.)  It lets any player hijack the game (in itself not a bad thing) with only one possibility of negative consequences (as I've read it); further, the target is not compelled to make any use of negative attributions (I think).  Here, it sounds like you've only opened up the 'dark side' and then only at the fickle whim of the dice (I can't say for sure, I wasn't there); that cuts out the 'power' of the confessional and only offers the opportunity to 'hose others.'

Even if it doesn't reinforce that on paper, it looks like the players got that idea.

Personally, I think turning the Setbacks over to the creativity of not just the gamemaster, but the players as well, is inspired.  However, it seems altogether too focused on 'bad stuff.'  What about the reverse?  Like allowing the same creativity with...I dunno what to call 'em, 'critical successes?'  Another thing, the 'only when the dice dictate' is one of the things that really eats at sense of consistency; play is rolling along and pow, everything stops and a setback is negotiated, talk about inconsistent.  Would it be possible to allow 'self induced' Setbacks to gain rewards to be used later?  Could rewards be used to 'force' those creative 'critical successes' I offered?

See, the reason I find this so interesting is it bears quite heavily on the Critical Threshold system we use in Scattershot.  Here it works both ways for critical successes and failures, except the creative agent is the player who it 'goes against.'  (You fail catastrophically, you 'create;' someone succeeds tellingly against you, you 'create.'  Eventually, everyone gets 'creation time.')  We felt it was important to prevent anyone from 'slamming' someone else's character, while trying to tap into some of the 'extra creativity' available.  (You do also get an extra reward for especially creative 'self destruction.')

You system is evolving into a different animal completely thus I'm intrigued how it will work in comparison.  (I don't have any blind playtesters yet and have just entered a fifth full rewrite.)

Fang Langford

[Tim C Koppang]

Frankly, I think the issue arises out of a GNS dysfunction.  You're encouraging players to hose someone else, and thereby creating Gamist competition between the players (who can hose over someone else's character the worst?).

Hmm?  I don't know actually.  Perhaps it's merely a deprotagonising situation.  Still, equally bad.

It's one of those two though.  Maybe a little of both, depending on the particulars of the narration.

I did have a wacky idea that I really don't feel would solve the problem, but I'll go ahead and say it nonetheless.  If, on the other hand, the only problem with the mechanic is an expectation of character ownership, then why not really break down the norms?  I mean, if you make it clear from the beginning that you will not retain ownership of your character from the beginning, then players will come into it with different expectations altogether.

Here's my idea:  When a player earns a Setback, have him come up with the negative effects.  However, because we are playing with character ownership here, once the negative situation has been described by the player, he then trades characters with the target player.  Alternatively, the target player comes up with the Setback for the other player's character and then receives the character in a trade.  Actually, I think the latter method solves the problem of deprotagonising/competition and makes players aware that character ownership is not absolute.

Like I said, I think this suggestion is a bit more crazy than you are looking for—and in actual play it would really be a whole different game than what you have now.  So maybe it's not such a good idea for you after all.

On the other hand, this thread has me thinking.

[Andrew Martin]

In a game I'm working on, I had this mechanic idea for a player rolling a Setback, a complication to the character in question. My original idea was that the player could choose whether or not to take the setback when rolled, and would receive a reward when doing so. Another player would decide what the setback is and play out how it happens to the character, in effect playing that character for a "turn."

Wouldn't it be easier and better to simply let all players suggest a interesting setback and then let the owning player play out the setback they preferred (which can include their own setback)?

One could even use a reward mechanic that rewards the player for hosing their own character, and a greater reward for taking another player's suggestion (and that player is also rewarded). These rewards then give the player greater in-game power, like spending a reward to negate a setback, or to gain director stance.

For example, I'm playing the game and roll a Setback while walking along the road. My suggestion is that my PC gets distracted by a bar and goes in for a drink. Alice suggests that my PC trips. Bob suggests that a passing car collides with my PC as my PC is crossing the road. Carol suggests that my PC meets an old flame out for revenge. I decide to take Carol's suggestion, so I get level 2 reward (double that if I took just my own suggestion), and Carol gets a level 1 reward.

With rewards, the player has the choice of taking a soft setback of the player's own design or the greater gain (and pain) of taking another player's suggestion.

[Tony Irwin]

In a game I'm working on, I had this mechanic idea for a player rolling a Setback, a complication to the character in question. My original idea was that the player could choose whether or not to take the setback when rolled, and would receive a reward when doing so. Another player would decide what the setback is and play out how it happens to the character, in effect playing that character for a "turn."

Well, in playtest, the idea seems to have crossed a taboo boundary, where "you can play my character when you take the sheet from my cold, dead hand." Why is that? With all the strides toward shared authorship and storytelling, why do individual characters remain proprietary? Is it a holdover from agonistic "player vs. GM" experiences?

Is my playtest experience a fluke, or is the thought of playing another character repugnant across the board?

If the players' characters are the only token they have in the game, their sole means of participating in play, then effectively what you're asking them to do is stop playing while somebody else "takes their shot". That goes completely against all the reasons that brought these people over to sit at your table in the first place - they came to play your game, now they're being asked to stop playing?

An easy way to do it would be just to increase the reward. If you want players to yield their characters to one another then you'll have to give them a bigger incentive to do so. Obviously different rewards will suffice for different people, if I'm among friends and am confident and assured that I can participate in and influence this game through other means than just playing my character, then I'm quite likely to sit back and see what my buddy has in mind in return for no reward at all. So one approach might be to have the two players negotiate an appropriate reward and agree on the nature of the setback. This would mean your mechanic is encouraging compromise and discussion - which seem would seem necessary for shared authorship.

Rather than increasing the reward, you could decrease the pain. Ensure that players are able to influence the game and participate in ways other than using their character as their token. Points, pools, coins, plot dice, anything that permits the player to influence the game without the need to control a character. Also avoid game text like "The GM has final say" or "The Golden Rule - the GM can ignore any of the rules in this book as s/he sees fit" as that's an instant signal to the players that the only part of this game they'll get to control and influence is their own character, and even then only if they do it in a way that pleases the GM. Also a framework to the game that ensures that players have set points at which they can talk out of character and discuss their ideas and where they want the game to go, will assure them that their ideas are valuable to the game and their characters are not their sole means of implementing those ideas (so giving up your character ownership rights for a couple of minutes doesn't seem like such a big deal).

So anyway although different players (and groups) I've played with respond differently to that kind of situation, and although I firmly believe in "different games for different people", I think you can probably evoke a positive player response to your mechanic through careful design.

By the way I've read about your game on your website before and have been looking forward to seeing it - best of luck with it, it sounds great :-)

[xiombarg]

I think this is going to vary a lot among groups.

If you recall, Unsung has a couple of similar mechanics. First, someone can give a Gift which morally challenges another player's characer. Second, when someone Lapses, the character's action is determined by group vote -- with the player of the character not allowed to vote.

So, okay, in playtest this was somewhat problematic for at least one player, but most of the other players liked it.

Aside from the fact I have different players, some differences in the mechanics might be worth highlighting here, "control valves" for deprotaganism issues:

1. In the Gift mechanic, the player can veto the Gift. You never HAVE to have you character morally challenged at the suggestion of another player.

2. In the Lapse mechanic, rather than just picking one player to "hose" the character, the whole group (including the GM and the player in question -- only the player doesn't get a vote) discusses it "in committee", allowing for brainstorming, and choosing the most appropriate behavior. I think that this has two useful effects. First, it spreads out the burden of responsibility, so it isn't like "Bob messed with me", and it includes the GM, who traditionally is more often allowed (tho, often grudingly) to mess with the PCs. Second, the fact the player gets to put in his two cents -- even if it might be disregarded -- was useful in reducing feelings of deprotagonism.

Also, I tried to emphasize with my players that a Lapse was a cool thing -- it's wasn't deprotagonizing because it puts the character in an interesting situation, and probably one the player wouldn't have thought of on his or her own. Explaining to everyone why the mechanic exists and why it could be cool sometimes goes a long way toward reduicing skepicism -- it did with Russ.

On the other hand, even given all that, at least one player (Russ) was highly uncomfortable with it and said he wouldn't play regularly in a game that included such loss of character control, though he was cool with it for the playtest.

To return to your own troubles, I'll note that even Russ didn't have a problem with the Gift mechanic, I suspect because of the veto -- which he exersized at least once. You might want to consider either allowing the player to veto the other player's ideas for getting the character in trouble, or perhaps the player of the character should get to choose what other player decides what the setback is and plays out how it happens to the character.

In fact, I really like the sound of that: Clinton, would you have felt less uncomfortable is the other player had asked you to play the character in that situation?

As for Tony's point, I'll note that since everyone could end up playing another player's character, everyone still gets to play. And watching someone else work, creatively, is part of "play" for me.

[Mike Holmes]

First, the issue of token loss is, I think, a straw man. Neither the person claiming there was a problem said this was a problem, nor did one of the players. This is missing the isseu altogether, IMO. When you're character is not in a scene, you are not participating. How often does that happen in RPGs? All the time in the one's I play. And nobody complains as long as they get to play "enough'. Taking a character away for one act, or even for a short scene is no big deal. Most players can live with that just fine. Heck, what is character death in most games?

And GMs do, regularly, as part of play take control of a character away from another player. In CoC, if you miss an insanity check, the GM will dicctate the player's actions, for instance. Mind control is another example. And that doesn't even cover the sort of case where the GM forces an action by, say, surrounding the character with cops, and requiring surrender. Or hitting them with lightning bolts or a disease. Whatever. Now, in most of these cases, it's true that there's some external impetus that causes these changes in the character.

But I'm not sure how that's all that different from what's being discussed as a rule, here. Do "setbacks" occur on rolls where the character is trying do accomplish something external? For example, could the setback in Ipsilanti's case have been that she was shot by someone on the enemy ship? Does a setback have to indicate a character action?

And why does it have to deprotagonize? That's certainly not the goal of the mechanic at all (or if it is, then the mechanic ought to be chucked in total). I mean, if you as the player of the character had the rights to narrate the setback, couldn't you do it in such a way as to protagonize the character? So if you can do it, why can't I do the same for your character? The rule ought to be that you have to hose the character but do so in a protagonizing manner. Failure does not equal deprotagonization.

In fact, Clinton's example seemed pretty highly protagonizing to me. Brings the character's problems to the fore, and gives them something to overcome.

So, it seems to me that there's something else going on here.

I mean from my perspective, this would never be a problem in Universalis. It happens all the time in that game that in the middle of a scene that people rip away control of one character from another, and then narrate all sorts of bad things happening to the character in question. And everyone is cool with it.

What's the difference? Well, in Universalis there's no PCs. Sure, you can create a character, and you can control a character, but you understand that your control is only provisional. That anyone can control any character at any time.

In the game in question, there is an investment in the character by the player. That character belongs to that player in an almost tangible fashion. When a GM takes control, that control is in terms of forces that are seen to be his purview. In CoC, the player simply does not have control over his character's fear, the rules and the GM do. Which simulates life enough that it's easlily accepted by the players.

But in this game, the area that's been given to the player to adjudicate seems to be transfered to the other player at some point. And that's where the line seems to get crossed to me. Apparenly, Clinton feels guilty about narrating that the character is gunshy because normally that would fall under the purview of the other player.

So, what I'd suggest is one of two things. One thing you could do is to get the players used to the idea right away that they are not the only ones that control "thier" characters. For example, after chargen, you could do an entire scene where each character is played by the player sitting to the left of the "owning" player. To break the ice in this manner. Some means by which all the participants are broken of the illusion of complete ownership. Or, better stated, some means by which the players are informed that the characters are shared property. OTOH, that may still not sit well with some players (especially traditional players).

Another idea would be to simply limit the ability of the player to hose the player during a setback to external influences only. That way, the player is simply taking the normal role of the GM for purposes of narrating the damage done to the other character. Which shouldn't bother anyone.

Also, I might suggest that the tone of the game might have something to do with it. Because InSpectres has exactly this mechanic. In Confessionals, players are encouraged to hose each other's characters by tagging them with charactersistics. In the last game I ran, the characteristics were stuff like "stingy" and "Has a thing for x". Given the slapstick atmosphere, players love this sort of thing.

Does this create a PvP environment? Only in a sportsmanlike way, IMO. Players realize that they aren't supposed to trammel the other characters protagonism. That said, having flaws is a big part of protagonism in InSpectres. If the game in question is about infallible heroes, for example, then tagging with flaws would be less suitable (though it's really hard for me to imagine).

Put it this way, I'd have gleefully hosed the other characters using this mechanic. I see no real problem with it personally.

Mike

[Tony Irwin]

First, the issue of token loss is, I think, a straw man. Neither the person claiming there was a problem said this was a problem, nor did one of the players. This is missing the isseu altogether, IMO. When you're character is not in a scene, you are not participating. How often does that happen in RPGs? All the time in the one's I play. And nobody complains as long as they get to play "enough'. Taking a character away for one act, or even for a short scene is no big deal. Most players can live with that just fine. Heck, what is character death in most games?

Im still learning (and often from reading your posts) how to analyse game systems but, with respect, I feel that taking a character out of play for an act might be very different from taking a character away from a player. If my character isn't in the scene at least I know that the character is still mine, I'm the guy that calls the shots, the one that comes up with the character's history, personality, motivations and intentions (perhaps at the permission of the GM). In other words the token is still in my hand, I'm just waiting for my turn to play. My character is still reserved for my use.

I personally see a difference between that, and somebody else actually playing my character - I'm not waiting for my turn to begin, somebody else is actually taking my token and playing out my turn for me. If the character is my sole token in the game then that hurts. Its not just a "wait your shot" issue, it becomes a "I'm taking your shot" issue.

With character death, I'm immeadiately awarded a new character - it may be a while before I can introduce that token and take my turn in the game, but I think that's different from somebody else using my token to take my turn for me.

And GMs do, regularly, as part of play take control of a character away from another player. In CoC, if you miss an insanity check, the GM will dicctate the player's actions, for instance. Mind control is another example. And that doesn't even cover the sort of case where the GM forces an action by, say, surrounding the character with cops, and requiring surrender. Or hitting them with lightning bolts or a disease. Whatever. Now, in most of these cases, it's true that there's some external impetus that causes these changes in the character.

True - you've exposed my bias in that I dislike games where the GM can take control of characters without negotiating with players. Personally I'd argue its because I've been deprived of my token and have no means of influencing play, the GM has taken my shot for me. Why did I come out tonight if the GM is going to (excessively) play for me? I need recompense!

What I'd suggest is to ensure that the system provides there is fair compensation for the fact that the GM (or another player) is taking my token. In Xiombarg's game I'd hazard a guess that the compensation is the coolness of seeing your character flip and getting to explore how it feels to be a person that momentarily has no control over their actions. He reported that for one of his players, that wasn't sufficient reward. I'd argue that the issue is to do with the character as token. You can either up the compensation until the player finally says "Ok, you can take my token and play my turn for me", or you can ensure that the player's character is not their sole means of influencing play, so taking someone's character is not actually taking their "turn". Their confidence that they can influence and participate in the game is not focused soley on their character, so they are happier to yield character control.

I mean from my perspective, this would never be a problem in Universalis. It happens all the time in that game that in the middle of a scene that people rip away control of one character from another, and then narrate all sorts of bad things happening to the character in question. And everyone is cool with it.

In Universalis could you say that coins, not characters, are the true means by which players interact and participate with the game? That might make a player's bank of coins their token. Would you agree that perhaps that backs up what I'm saying, in Universalis you can take my characters away from me but you're not actually depriving me of play - its my coins that enable me to play in the game. If you take all my coins and use them yourself, then you're depriving me of my token and effectively taking my turn for me. So I would say that rather than using rewards to promote shared authorship of characters, Universalis does it by ensuring that characters are not the sole means by which players actually play the game. If I was to say to someone "Give me all your coins and let me play with them" I would expect to encounter the same nervous tight-fistedness that can happen when I say "Give me your character for this scene, I've got a great idea for them" to someone in a regular rpg.

I think that if the system ensures that your token is more than just a character (for example: your token could be a character, some NPC villains you made, some locations you created, some meta-game plot dice, and the benefit of a receptive GM and group that you can openly discuss the game's progress with) then you're more happy to let somebody play your character. Using a character isn't the only way you play that game, so letting someone borrow it doesn't mean they're taking your shot with your token.

My second suggestion was bump the rewards until they are sufficient to convince the player to give up their character. Everyone has a price and if setting that price has the players negotiating and clarifying what they want to see happen in the game then that might help to improve everyone's experience of play.