Abused Player Syndrome

[Dr. Velocity]

I would like to add, though I made it fairly clear in my post, unintentionally, I believe, from my experiences so far, and the other posts here, that Abused Player Syndrome and My Guy Syndrome are SYNONYMOUS - they are *one* and the *same*.

This means that after enough abuse or unfair treatment is given to a player, who really enjoys rpgs, or thinks he would - he basically develops a neurosis, a way of seeing things ONLY this ONE way - he is convinced, either consciously or unconsciously, that this is the ONLY way rpgs CAN be played - this is their nature, and so, this is the point where we divide the people who have gamed into "Yah I played D&D a few times but I decided it was stupid" and "Yah you just don't know how great it was when I rolled my natural 01 on 1D1000 and sliced the Seven Headed Dragon God's arm off with my Giant Battleaxe of Deicide, lucky I was wearing my +18 girdle of Titan Strength and 3 Rings of Unlimited Wishes!"

The first type played, got abused, probably time and again, maybe just once, 'saw' there was no other way to play, and realized 'gee, this sucks'.

The other type played, got abused, went back for more, became clever, possibly a rule-book lawyer, and bagan to finally be rewarded for his insistance, for whatever reason - either the ref felt bad for doing all those horrible things to his character for so long, or maybe the ref was that style too, and enjoyed the munchkin aspect of laying waste to everything regardless of plot, etc.

There are as always, exceptions, some people play RPGs with a good ref, good other players and basically just don't enjoy it - thats valid. But for those that have these kinds of volatile, knee-jerk reactions... well, besides the ones that claim D&D originally came with a Ouija board. I think it boils down to Abused Player/My Guy Syndrome - I just can't see ONE instance of these two being seperate enough to point to - though I will gladly admit I'm wrong if it could be presented. I'm not even trying to make a point really, just sort of narrow down and help peg Abused Player mentality.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Dr. V.,

I agree. That's my reading of the situation as well.

Best,
Ron

[ejh]

And lately I've gotten hooked on a comic book series which is about an Abused Player Universe -- you've all heard of it, it's Knights of the Dinner Table.  Nothing invokes the old "paradigm shift without a clutch" brain-shear syndrome quite like reading comics on the KODT website and then reading discussions here on the forge. :)

"Hackmaster" as portrayed in KODT seems to be the epitome of deadly serious, mutually distrustful and abusive play.  But in the comics, it seems to fill a need for the characters and to reward them for all that it invokes paranoia and fear as well.

When I was reading this thread I kept thinking of the KODT players telling each other "Never trust an NPC!" and the like.

(One thing I have not looked into is the real-world Hackmaster game, which seems to be AD&D+ somebody's house rules... there's no way it can compare to the imaginary Hackmaster game in the comics.  Of course, the fact that there are people out there taking it seriously and playing it kinda stuns me....  You're playing a simulation of an imaginary roleplaying game???)

[Lxndr]

Would you call the DM in KoDT an abused GM?

[C. Edwards]

I don't know, I'd be more likely to call B.A. an abused GM than call Bob or Brian abused players. Those two seem to look at a game as a gauntlet to be run, and if the game seems subpar in the challenge area they will call B.A. on it. Basically, there's no room in 'their game' for a 'weak' GM. Not that they want a 'killer' GM, but they do expect a certain level of challenge. As for B.A., he is almost forced to come up with traps and schemes just to try and keep up with players that will make minced meat out of any 'unworthy' challenge.

-Chris

[ejh]

Remember, in the story, B.A. was originally a player in Brian's game, before "the incident" (never discussed) which caused Brian to quit GMing forever...

[Comte]

Those days are over. I usually only kill a PC every other session now adays. But my players take so long to DO anything. There has to be plains on stratigys on preperations. There are endless discussions on how to do things to remove any uncertanty. Mind you this isn't the "is there a trap here? How about here?" kind of game. It's usually you have to sneak into this city, how do you do it? This is a map of everything you can servail from a distance. So I do give them the ball its just they're often too afraid to do anything with it until they've done multiple recons and such.

I think the pros and cons of this style of play have already been discussed enough so that if you took everyone's opinion on it so far you will find mine in there.  

However, about the taking to long to plan.  In some of the games I run I like to throw in sticky moral situations, most of the time these compound tactcal difficulties but not always.  They almost always prompt some sort of discussion which can last for quite awhile.  I used to let my players make plans/ discuss ethics untill the solution was reached by everybody.  I stopped doing that recently and instead I started to force the issue right when the dicussion was most heated but before anyone could reach a logcial conclusion.

This forces the players to act, usualy unharmoniously and can lead to marvelouly fun RP events which are talked about long afterwards.  So set time limits, only allow for 2 recons max, and you could have information change between recons.   This way the players get to have all the paranoia they want, but it keeps things moving fowards.  If you are smart about it then it won't be railroading either.  I mean just because your players want to take all the time in the world dosn't mean your world has to stay still.