[Middle Earth - home brew] - A really bad game night.

[Callan S.]

I think most cops dislike attending domestic disputes, because they know that often, when they go to split it up, the battered party will go to quite some lengths to resist that. Because they still have issues to resolve (though those issues will most likely never resolve if things remain the way they are).

But I'll just speak for myself here. I think that part of the draw of roleplay (for me), is that really great game you could imagine happening, where the game would also resolve certain long nurtured, pent up issues. That people would suddenly come to an understanding about my contributions and realise the shrug offs/ignoring/flat out applications of force they did in the past were just so foolish to do.

Thinking about it, I guess the problem with that is that the other person has to choose to try and understand you, regardless of your personal talent (unless your some sort of cult leader type personality). And rather than it being a matter of really, really applying yourself and getting through this time, the other person always has the option (for whatever reason) to simply choose to ignore you/not bother noticing. That'll block you, no matter how much you pour your heart out.

And it's hard to imagine a friend would ignore you at that heat felt level. It's much easier to imagine that you just didn't pour your heart out enough this time.

Hmmm, on a selfish note, it helped me to think this out! Heh heh! >:)

[Off topic thought]I wonder how much of an industry could actually run off people returning over and over, trying to resolve issues (from small stuff, like playing the same character type over and over, to larger issues).

[CSBone]

Jay,

Been lurking for a while on this one because I wanted to see what you response was going to be.

Short version. Listen to Ron.

Long version. I was in a game that was the same kind of thing as what you described. Different setting, homebrew version of D&D2E, blah, blah, blah. Similarity was in the play experience that DIDN'T make me wake up and walk away.

I was playing pop rocks sim because I was a new player to the group and my Characters  were 5-7 levels lower than everybody else(at one point I had three go poof in a single 12 hour gaming session), which didn't matter to me because I thought I was there for the immersion, the game. But I eventually got really into one of my Characters. I was so into it in fact that when I started pushing all of the GMs buttons from inside the Character, and choose not to notice because, "Its a Character, this is a Game", he short fused and in a circumstance that to this day gets shaking heads (32 36th-level Magic-users just hit me with 128 9th level maximized fireballs?!?! I've only got 28 hit points! You want me to roll to save?...for half?...against each ONE?!?) the GM took out his frustration with Me on my Character.

Let me be clear. GM=Person, Me=Person, NPCs involved and my Character = Proxies.

Me. Shell shocked for the evening thing and for several days later. I assure you I did not know what hit me. And then I started to try to justify what happened and when the GM "graciously" decided to let my Character be resurrected, but horribly scarred from the experience...I went along 'cause I was just playing a Character in a game, right, and I'd done something wrong enough to get kacked, right, so man didn't that suck but it was just the game, right?

Wrong. Let me repeat that, WRONG! I do not yet posses the necessary language to articulate in polite company how I was abused by the GM using the SIS and my CA against me. It should have been as clear as if he'd popped me in the eye. But it wasn't.

So, in your case it may not be the GM, it may simple be one of the Players...but...SOMETHING IS WRONG IN YOUR GROUP. Something is broken.

GROUP. Not game. PEOPLE. Not Characters. You need to address it at that level or you are going to loose some friends.

You're gut reaction was dead on. Your justifications of what happened are not. You need to rethink the whole thing from a People level.

C. S. Bone

[Walt Freitag]

I was planning this post to say that maybe -- just maybe -- Ron was going too far with his battered spouse analogy. That one could perhaps, instead, liken the course of events to a playground basketball game, ruthlessly but impersonally competitive, where two players go up for a rebound, collide, and one of them lands in a heap with a sprained ankle and bruised ribs -- and the rest keep playing for six hours while the injured one hangs around on the sidelines, fighting off shock. Okay, so not the nicest guys on the playground, but abusive relationship?

But on re-reading the thread, this thought struck me. Jay, you wrote:

The GM knew that I didn't enjoy playing "evil" but that I was willing to try and at least support/not hinder the other players at the table in the "scenario."

But you did do exactly that. You might have missed your cue to support them by maneuvering your characters into joining up with their characters, but you instead supported them extremely well by having your characters get all uppity, giving their characters the opportunity to effortlessly brush them aside like vermin, thus underscoring their own evil badassitudeness.

Which glaringly brings out two very important questions:

1. Given that you did exactly what you said you intended to do, by way of supporting/not hindering the other players at the table, why did the experience suck for you?

2. Given that you did exactly what they intended you to do, by way of supporting/not hindering the other players at the table, why did you feel the need to go out and offer apologies to them afterward (which is the only way I can interpret "...important to make sure that no fences needed mending")?

I believe that honest answers to these questions -- putting aside excuses like "it sucked because you were channling the death anguish of your 15-minute-old character" -- can only lead in the direction that Ron's already pointing.

- Walt

[Marco]

IME, "Party Evil" has, with one exception, turned out to be a warning sign for the people involved (and the exception was a con-game with pre-gens where everyone was Lawful Evil and we discussed turning on each other before play and agreed it was a no-go). I've seen purile evil D&D that sounds a lot like this and the only way I'd want to play in a group like that is as a fellow predator--on a person-to-person level. I wouldn't consider immersive play with other players who, on a OOC level, didn't care if their behavior was abusive (or, worse, enjoyed it) to be healthy.

-Marco

[Liminaut]

Jay --

You have had a horrible experience.  It was horrible because through the game and the character you were dehumanized.  Not your character, you.

Can you learn from this experience?

There can be many lessons of empathy here, but the big one is Let's Not Do That Again.  Now, I see you have three choices (1) Play a henchman.  An Ars Magica grog.  Even play a grog-o-the-week, that gets toasted every adventure.  0 emotional investment, a lot of humor content.  Will probably drive this GM nuts. (2) Be up front with the group about why you had a bad time -- waiting hours to play, getting toasted after deciding to help the other players.  Get them to agree to Not Do That Again.  You get to play as much as the others, the players agree to not hack each other. (3) Walk.  Just tell them that this game isn't for you.

==Ed
 

[Glendower]

This thread is disturbing, as it takes me back to my participation in some really abusive gaming sessions.  Stuff that almost made me leave role playing, that made me take a hard look at who I called friends. 

The expectation is for everyone to have a fun time when playing a game.  When that doesn't happen, something's wrong. 

Once, game night was a time for long periods of boredom mixed in with passive-aggressive abuse. 

Now game night is where I get together with people I like to have a good time.  I have a few scars from before, mostly trust issues, but I'm getting better.

My point is that I've been there, and it sucks.  I sympathize for the awful session.   Just remember that the awful session was because the people in that gaming group, not the characters, collectively turned their back on you.  Stand up for yourself, and don't put up with it.  Make it an issue. 

Some fences shouldn't be mended, they should be examined for weakness, torn down, and rebuilt.

[Precious Villain]

Let's get a grip, everybody.  Jay says he had one bad game.  He's not a battered wife - although I get the point Ron's trying to make.  But I see a lot of people projecting their bad high school/college early game experiences onto Jay and I think that's mistaken - we simply don't have the data set to get this.  That said, I'd like to hear more from Jay about this topic, because there's as much to learn from gaming failures as successes and I'd hate to miss out on that perspective.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I agree that it's Jay turn to contribute if he wants to.

However, I suggest that my posting in this thread has not been a snap judgment. If you're interested, read over the past two years of posting about this game. There are lots of theory threads and a couple of actual play ones. I'm working with an enormous amount of reports, explicit and implied. Do that before you decide whether my analogy is too hasty.

Best,
Ron

[Silmenume]

Hey everyone,

I've been wondering how to approach my response to the flurry posts here especially considering the direction they have been going/assuming.  I am nearly 8k words into this thread and I have not yet touched upon that which I had wanted to cover in the beginning and which has come back to haunt me.  I'm not good at the process overview thing, as was evidenced by my utter failure to effectively communicate in my response dated Jan 31, so I took some time to try and formulate a general and not a piecemeal reply.  Today I came across Walt's wonderful two questions as they "10 ring" a whole panoply of critical Social Contract issues that I was originally going to post about, but got lost in my trying to correct a bunch of what turned out to be minutia.

1. Given that you did exactly what you said you intended to do, by way of supporting/not hindering the other players at the table, why did the experience suck for you?

Aside from getting myself kacked was not really "supporting" them, I'll start off with the first issue that got me going.  It was 3-4 hours into play before I got to start having "stakes relevant" input on the SIS – that is before my character was brought into play.  I was already frustrated by my inactivity by the time I got to do "something."  Then when I started to "play," I was out of play again within 20 or so minutes via character death.  So I waited a number of hours not being able to have input only to lose that means of input shortly after gaining the very ability!  Not only that, but the manner in which it happened was made possible by a sloppy reasoning process on my part.  I was furious that I didn't see it coming – and because of that I just lost my window into play and the potential of said Character.

Blah...blah...blah...

Within the hour the character who did me in was dead too!  Gaaaah!  Not only was I did in, but I couldn't even salve my wounds with the lie that the character was big and bad!  Oh no!  He was a shmo... more salt in the wound!

Blah...blah...blah...

Total lag time between my first character getting pasted, his betrayer being pasted and the introduction of my 2nd character was about an hour, give or take.  So I'm waiting, very impatiently, to either get another character into play or just up and go.  Obviously I waited and another character was brought into play.  This one more bad ass and tougher than the first with a number of bells and whistles that I was hoping for in the first character.  In addition I'm "higher level," (read – more capable) actually have a rather large party of very competent NPC's with me and I am in command of them.  This time I, as a player, am in a rather cranky mood.  I just want to get in and play and not get pasted right off.  IOW I want to feel a bit of empowerment.  Plus I am a little embarrassed by the earlier episode...

Not 10-15 minutes after I get into play the player playing, Nicodemis, (the necromancer/black mage) dominates the mage (read - big gun, the "magic vs magic" weapon.) in my party.  In my mind I become totally unglued thinking, "What the f*** is this assh*** doing?  Can't he see what he just did is a provocative act?  I have to read this act as hostile or else I'm not playing this character right."  You see, there was no inciting incident framed into this meeting for the player to choose to act that way.  Both groups of players are supposed to finds plausible ways to integrate and this idiot just effectively "killed" a lynchpin party member of mine.  I as a player start to panic thinking I don't want to lose face – again.  The problem was that I just got slapped in the face and if I don't figure out how to make things right soon, my play experience is only going to get worse.  Circumstances being what they are in and out of game, I decide to retreat to either a better place or a better "time" where I can figure a way to demonstrate that I am capable and not a chump.  Yet, within a couple of minutes bad personal judgment, miscommunication and awful die rolls lead to another character death.  I'm thinking, "What the f***?  I have no successes in my personal life and now in my game space I have no successes with anything in there as well?"  So now we are nearing 6 hours into play, I've had maybe 40 or so minutes of "screen time" and I've suffered through the humiliation of having two characters die.

NOTE –

no one was giving me a bad time about losing my characters.  As a matter of fact as a comic would say, "the air was sucked out of the room."  However, a socially celebrated/reinforced aspect of the game and thus a matter of personal pride is the keeping of a character alive.  This does not mean we are playing "pop rocks" Sim.  Exactly the opposite, actually.  To lose a character is to fear to be tainted with the stink of incompetence.  Because of the amount of character identification that occurs in game an extremely important rule at the table is that NO ONE is permitted to haze any player over the loss of a character – and that is a rule that has never been needed to be enforced on a "regular" player.  It is a part of the ritual proclamation of the "social contract rules" that happens every couple of games before the game proper commences – i.e. no cheating on die rolls, etc.[/list]

One might ask why a game would allow character "death" if so much character identification is both encouraged and experienced.  Simple.  The "intensity" of play evaporates if there is no "real world" consequence to our actions "in game."  Just as in gamist play where "losing" wasn't permitted so it is with our game if character death wasn't a "real" possibility.  Character death is one of the singularly most powerful "stakes" in our game.  I lost 2 in the span of an hour or so.

2. Given that you did exactly what they intended you to do, by way of supporting/not hindering the other players at the table, why did you feel the need to go out and offer apologies to them afterward (which is the only way I can interpret "...important to make sure that no fences needed mending")?

Wow!  This is phenomenal question that cuts to the heart of what I've been trying, but failing, to get at.

First off, I would like to note that I did not go out and offer apologies, but rather I went out to make sure that none were needed.  IOW, "Hey, is everything cool?" kind of stuff.  But that rephrasing does not answer the question of why I went through the trouble to see that no fences needed mending.

Here's the short of it.

Nobody at the table likes player character on player character killing.  No one.  That's a major convention of our contract with each other at the table.  This does not mean it cannot happen, but that we work extremely hard to avoid it as much as it is possible to do so while maintaining the integrity of our characters.

So I went out to make sure that no one thought I was purposefully trying to create conflicts that would lead directly to PC on PC death...

...and here is where I found that "fascinating" post-mortem that I had indicated in my first post.  Talking to the other players was like living the movie Rashomon.  How we read the sequence of events was very different.  The one question that came up all three times was, "Why was I (Jay) doing everything I could not to integrate into the group?"  I wasn't floored by this take but rather, given the all the theorizing I've been doing over the last couple of years, I was spellbound!  How did we come to have such differing (opposing!) "takes" on the same events?

Since I can't think of a better way to go through this I'll indicate the events and how we read them differently leading to the conclusion –

1.   Durizon, the Numenorean Lich, "picked up" strangers (my party) in "his house."  He arrays himself and his party, including the other PC's, in an arc in the middle a 4 way intersection.  He sends a "death knight" to cover each flank.

2.   I arrive with my new character and my party.  Seeing the arrangement of the other party I decide to stay within the narrower passage I had just traversed and keep my flanks protected by the walls.  I basically say, "Get out.  I have come for the heirlooms of my people."

3.   Durizon asked in return, "Who are you?"  To the GM he asked the question if anyone in my party was "of the blood of Númenór."  This was a leading question bordering on the edge of the grey zone of what could be termed "cheating."  His character had no reason to suspect that any of us were of the blood of Númenór just by looking at us.  I found out later, in the post-mortem, that this was his opening gambit at trying to find a reasonable in character way to justify "befriending/allying" my party.  I, at the time, was a uncertain why he would ask such a question of the GM and thus missed that "cue."

4.   Sometime during this first meeting and about bullet 7 my Kabalist was dominated by someone, walked to about the midpoint between our parties and kneeled before the Lich group.  As the Kabalist was walking by I called out to him, but he did not acknowledge my call.  The player of Nicodemis had asked the GM if he could detect that the Kabalist was a "spell caster."  The answer came back, "Yes," the player initiated a "wizard's combat" and subsequently crushed my Kabalist's "will" in seconds.  I, as the player, not "my character," was fuming.  This was a provocative act that had to be addressed.  I couldn't just ignore it.  Now my character was no "spell caster" but I was knowledgeable about "spell casting" and was able to surmise that "someone" had just dominated and thus stripped me of my "big gun."  I don't know who, but since no one on the other side was in the lead bit perturbed by my Kabalist's behavior I concluded that his actions were "expected."  Nicodemis' player claimed that he was going to have the Kabalist suggest that it would be mutually beneficial for both parties to "unite."  Given how the Kabalist's actions I would have given that character zero credibility to anything he said as it was plainly obvious he was not in his "right mind."  I have NO idea how Nicodemis' player could have thought that I would have reacted with anything but suspicion to outright hostility to the Kabalist at this point.  The Kabalist had disobeyed a direct command by my Black Numenorean character and the Kabalist was obviously compromised.  The player of Durizon explained that he did not have any in character reason to suspect that Nicodemis was doing "anything" untoward my character and thus could not justify any rebuke.  Though the player of Durizon was not at all happy with what the player of Nicodemis was doing.  All I know is that at this point this particular encounter has just taken the big dumper.  "I" can't read this act as anything but hostile.

5.   Durizon then asked, "Who are you to claim this birthright?"

6.   I as the player, being upset about the Kabalist just having his mind pulped, was not in the frame of mind to make something up so I just let the question hang in the air.

7.   Durizon, after the silence, proclaimed his heritage.  The problem was that my character knew that his line had perished some 3800 or so years ago.  IOW his claim was outlandish... but there was a countenance about him that strongly suggest that he was more than just a lesser man.  The player of Durizon at that moment felt that his proclamation should have resulted in an immediate capitulation by my character once I saw that he was of the line of the Kings of Númenór.  What the player of Durizon didn't understand nor account for was the impossibility of his character's claim!  We're not in the habit of dealing with 4 millennia old Lich's!  So apparently when I didn't have my character give obeisance Durizon's player read that as me, the player, making an overt act to resisting joining the party.  I ask the player during the post-mortem, how can I in character just fold at such an apparently absurd claim?

8.   My #2, Culnamo, a Black Numenorean more capable than I (read - higher level) relinquished our claim to any items in this complex.  What is going through my head at this point is that not many people have any history of my people.  Second I know that the Númenóreans at the end of the second age were dabbling in life extending magics.  Third this Durizon has one heck of a presence, something that only "kings" have.  Forth I can see with my second sight that his soul is profoundly black.  Given all the above I choose to give some credibility to Durizon's claims but I can't figure out a way to give full credibility to his claims without damaging character integrity.   

9.   Somewhere in here, I think M's Vampire, Eglambar, made the effort to smooth a path between the two groups by saying that he had been in the Númenórean citadel and that he might have met my character or my #2.  At this point I was pretty pissy about the whole Kabalist thing and refused that "cue."  I didn't say anything.  A, "Hey were all chums here," here wasn't going to cut my mood.  Upon reflection I wanted someone to acknowledge the "theft" of the Kabalist and offer an act of contrition before I was just slapping backs.  M did bring up my refusal to accept his offer during the post-mortem and did read my action as balking at joining.  In return I told him where I stood and how I read the situation and while he didn't say he agreed with my choice, he did understand where I was coming from as I explained it.  That was OK in my book!

10.   Durizon then proclaimed, "There is plenty here.  I claim all that is mine and my house, but I would not beggar my people."  During the post-mortem I come to realize that I had not even registered the player saying this.  I was quite shocked when D insisted that he made the above statement and that he was baffled as to why I did not accept his offer.  I told the player that I don't even remember his offer as I was so wound up in the loss of the Kabalist and the cowing of my #2 (who was more powerful than me) by M's vampire sometime earlier in our exchange.  At that point all I felt was that my house of crumbling and I wanted out.  I knew that there was a spell caster somewhere on his side and that he had taken hostile action against me.  I knew that my big gun was out.  We've just relinquished our claim to anything Numenorean here so I wasn't seeing any justifiable reason to stick around.  However, in the metagame I knew that we were supposed to be allying, so rather than fleeing or attacking so ... 

11.   I called out to an NPC in my party to, "take care of the traitor."  At this point I had concluded that the Kabalist was a security risk with regard to any information regarding the Black Númenóreans.  Both in game and out of game I needed the ability to affect something of mine with hindrance.  Since the Kabalist had refused to acknowledge my authority in front of both friend and foe alike I felt that given this character and his background that exercising "discipline" upon him was the out I was looking for.  I had reasoned that since the Kabalist was a little strategic importance to the other side that "doing him in" would be of little interest to them.  I would reestablish the legitimacy of my authority over my people and plug a security hole at the same time.  I would "save face" and fix a problem at the same time – I could conceivable continue the parlay.  M didn't see it that way.  A female NPC from my side stepped forward to the Kabalist.  I was staggered by this as I figured that a bowman would take care of him.  I mean why walk forward into even more danger when one could do the work from the safety of numbers.  This I found to be very disappointing as these NPC's were supposed to be competent.  Before she could raise a weapon M's vampire moved at blinding (super human) speed to move from the back of his party to stay the NPC's arm.  I have no idea what M was thinking here as his side had no stakes in this as no one knew what was going on with the Kabalist.  So not only am I prevented yet again from exercising a modicum control over the situation it is now clearly demonstrated to me that they have a person on their side that can move at super-human speed.

12.   Seeing the situation as worthless, but not looking to put everything to an instant end, I order a "measured retreat."  This would allow time for me or another PC to figure a way so that we can come to a common understanding.  As we start our retreat I command a bowman in our party to "take care of the traitor."  I'm not sending anyone in to get the Kabalist, not with a grabby mage and the flash running all about. 

(continued in next post... ->  )

[Silmenume]

(...continued from previous post)

13.   Durizon, upon hearing my command, called out, "Do not do this in my house."  At this point I read this as yet another affront to my free will as a player.  The player of Durizon claimed that he was exercising the role of a sovereign and chose to not permit violence in his "house."  If I recall properly this was a player issue where he did not like to see any "PC" on "PC" or in this case Player related NPC's killed for "no good reason."  My thoughts were, this is my person who was under my command who disobeyed a direct question was under the control of hostile forces and knew sensitive information.  Do NOT tell me how I shall exercise authority over my people.  When I told D this during the post-mortem he said he say my act as yet another attempt to block their efforts to join parties.  I related to him in great detail my fury about the whole Kabalist thing and how that really limited my responses.  His response was, "Why didn't you ask for him back."  I was stunned, but I told him that a conqueror and a people built on pride and seizing things I could not just "ask" for that which was already mine.  Upon reflection I could have "demanded" the Kabalist back, but at that time I read, through actions, that Durizon's group was very powerful, extremely quick and duplicitous/hostile.  They had humiliated my character a number of times and the last thing I was going to have him do was humble himself to ask for his "toys" back. 

14.   My bowman hesitated upon hearing the voice of Durizon.  He does have the charisma of the Kings of Old, you know!  However, I had had enough of being impotent and I commanded the bowman to fire immediately.  I mean, for crying out loud, can't I get anything accomplished here?  M via his vampire, decided that he was going to enforce Durizon's command and made like lightning towards my bowman.  F*** that and F*** you.  "FIRE!"  I WILL have one thing work out the way I want it to.

15.   I roll a '1', the arrow goes wild and flies directly toward the other group.  They justifiable see that as a direct attack upon them and commence an attack in earnest.  I am totally impotent – I can't set out and accomplish one single thing to my satisfaction.  Durizon called "darkness" upon my group just as Eglambar came crashing in.  I hear screaming and I decide that there is nothing left at all.  I was overmatched and there was no way I was going to get out alive so I lunged at Durizon who was walking towards me and plunged my sword into his belly up to the hilt.  D claimed that he cast darkness to prevent any further violence and was puzzled why I "came after him" when he had stopped his advance at 20 feet.  I told him as he was the closest visible target and that I was going to engage someone as the rest of my party was in the process of being mulched in the dark.  He was a target of opportunity.

So until I went through with all the players what had happened to make sure that we were all on the same page as to what happened and why.  So it was that we were all signaling and cuing one another, but that we completely misread each other.  They felt I had driven them into a situation where they had not choice but to kill a PC, which is something of a violation of an agreement among the players.  This is exactly what I had set out to discover and address if need be.

This had nothing to do with what it means to play an "evil character."  That is old school teenager bullshit.  A complete red herring to this whole event.  MY problems were the interminable wait and the piling on of the humiliation of losing 2 characters back to back.  IOW impotence heaped on with two more big steaming plies of impotence served up in a delightfully frustrating ensemble.

I have not yet attempted to address any of the other posts - I have not ignored them, but seeing as how so many of the issues being batted around centered on the above I felt it important to post this first.  I will address them later...

[Glendower]

This account lends a lot to the idea that on occasion, it's good to jump out of character, and communicate how you feel about how things are going, to the other players.  This would really help to address any problems that crop up. 

"ok, fellow player, how do we keep our two characters from killing each other?  Here's my idea, let's hear yours."

Now there are two quotes here that I want to talk about.

MY problems were the interminable wait and the piling on of the humiliation of losing 2 characters back to back.  IOW impotence heaped on with two more big steaming plies of impotence served up in a delightfully frustrating ensemble.

So now we are nearing 6 hours into play, I've had maybe 40 or so minutes of "screen time"

These problems would have been solved by stopping play about 5 minutes in and asking "where do I fit in, how do I fit in, how can I get introduced, how will I be useful, and what relationship will we all have?"  What makes me a little confused is why that didn't happen.  The concept that one player sat around for six hours and got about 40 minutes of play is mind-boggling to me.  It sounds, from what I've been given in terms of information, really dysfunctional.

The post-mortem discussion is too late.  If something like this happens again, I say interrupt play and deal with it when it's relevant.

[contracycle]

Not 10-15 minutes after I get into play the player playing, Nicodemis, (the necromancer/black mage) dominates the mage (read - big gun, the "magic vs magic" weapon.) in my party.  In my mind I become totally unglued thinking, "What the f*** is this assh*** doing?  Can't he see what he just did is a provocative act?  I have to read this act as hostile or else I'm not playing this character right."  You see, there was no inciting incident framed into this meeting for the player to choose to act that way.

Right, but did there really need to be one, given everyone present was "evil"?

Anyway, the real issue is this:

So until I went through with all the players what had happened to make sure that we were all on the same page as to what happened and why.  So it was that we were all signaling and cuing one another, but that we completely misread each other.

OK, so you recognise that during ther events themselves, you were not on the same page.  Which is not really that surprising - its always hard to know whats going on in another persons head, extremely hard.  And everyone is also speaking not as themselves, but as a fictional persona.  So yes, you were cueing and signalling, and it  didn't really work, because you were still not talking to each other as players.

Now I suggest the issue of "evil" is not as irrelevant as you think, inasmuch as you have probably had similar scenes in the past that worked out ok.  But probably, based on my experience, the reason those occassions worked is that the default Good Guyness of the characters served as a safety net against escalation to lethal force over trivial misunderstandings.

Absent the good guy restraint, and absent a player-to-player agreement about how play a rleationship was to be established, you defaulted to allowing the SIS to determine the outcome, in effect.  But the SIS itself is the created artifact of the players - you still have ownership of the problem, its just that now you are trying to solve it at one remove, through the proxy of the characters.

This becomes clear in item 7:

Durizon, after the silence, proclaimed his heritage.  The problem was that my character knew that his line had perished some 3800 or so years ago.  IOW his claim was outlandish...   What the player of Durizon didn't understand nor account for was the impossibility of his character's claim!   ....  I ask the player during the post-mortem, how can I in character just fold at such an apparently absurd claim?

And what was the  answer?

Certainly  your CHARACTER  "knew" the line had perished, but you the PLAYER knew that Durizon was right.  Worse, should Durizon's player really have anticipated and accounted for your characters reaction, when he was telling the simple truth as he understood it?  To construct blame here is innapropriate, but in recognising that the at the time this happened, blame was apportioned and people held to their words, we see one of the potential failures in sim - when adherence to in-character play becomes counter-productive for the game as a whole.  The tail wags the dog.

All that said though there are some other issues, such as, this conflict of perceptions, if it really was predictable, should have been predicted by the GM who constructed at least one and possibly both the characters.  Again one wonders what the real intent behind the scene was, does the GM really think that if Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan bumped into one another they would immediately strike up an alliance?  Seems implausible to me, our vampire dude here is specifically in fear of his unlife from the ultimate badguy and likely to be suspicious.  It does not seem me that the GM has much interest in whether this works out or not.

Somewhere, I think in a previous post, you said it was not necessarily the case that an alliance would occur or characters get along until it actually happened.  In play.    However, this kind of outcome is a real possibility from that practice, for the reasons outlined above about not talking to each other as players.  So you have to decide, isn this sort of furball a worthwhile price to pay for ther sake of not agreeing to get along in a player-to-player discussion?

[Silmenume]

Hi Jon!

Thanks for taking the time to wade through my verbal excesses!

This account lends a lot to the idea that on occasion, it's good to jump out of character, and communicate how you feel about how things are going, to the other players. This would really help to address any problems that crop up.

"ok, fellow player, how do we keep our two characters from killing each other? Here's my idea, let's hear yours."

This is an interesting "problem" for Sim.  You see we did spend time between game sessions acknowledging our desire to "keep from killing each other."  One problem was that the specifics of the encounter were not known to us prior to our encounter.  This would include such things as to who my character would be.  Now as to your suggestion, which is notable, I think there are some conflicts with it and the process of the Sim CA.  I believe that the very act of trying to work out problems in play is the core action of Sim.  Imagine, by analogy, in Gamist play a player saying, "Hey!  You're strategy is too effective and I can't figure out a way to address it."  This complaint which is quite valid does come into conflict with the notion of Step on Up.  It might "fix" the local problem, but it would do so ultimately at the expense of watering down Step on Up.  So the question becomes how to balance these two competing interests.

These problems would have been solved by stopping play about 5 minutes in and asking "where do I fit in, how do I fit in, how can I get introduced, how will I be useful, and what relationship will we all have?"

That is true that it would have "solved" all the problems in about 5 minutes, but again it does so at the expense of "living" the Dream.  If this problem is solved at the meta-game level what "problems" remain to solve in play and how do we conceptually define "these types of problem can be solved at the meta-game level while these types of problems must remain in game?"  I'm not saying you're ideas are without merit, but I'm not seeing how one can reconcile this with the process of Sim play.  This would be the converse of Nar's 96%ing "which can be functional, but it tends to play safe to a degree that undercuts the process."  (Quote drawn for the essay – Narrativism: Story Now by Ron Edwards.)  Sure one could "solve" these issues out of play, but it undercuts the Sim process.

The concept that one player sat around for six hours and got about 40 minutes of play is mind-boggling to me. It sounds, from what I've been given in terms of information, really dysfunctional.

It was terribly dysfunctional.  I had an awful time of it.  That was a central issue of this whole thread.  But how does one solve this problem without "undercutting the Sim process?"  We strive for an intense game and just like Nar and Gam that means sticking to the core processes as much as possible.  In Sim "cutting and pasting" character/events would be just as disruptive to Step on Up as "do overs" in Gamist play.  However I do recognize, that like Gamism, there are "dials" regarding the intensity of play.  In the case of Sim, that would be maintaining the integrity of the contiguous flow of events.  Frequently it works, sometimes it fails.  But again this issue is very similar to the Hardcore in Gamist play.  Big stakes sometimes means big painful losses, but the flip is really powerful rushes as a result of such play.  Again, how does one resolve the one issue without diminishing "the Dream" on the other?

Once the break and repair is made there is no repairing the damage to the other.  So are we willing to sacrifice the long term for the short term?

I'm not sure how to effectively resolve that conundrum at the moment.

Cross posted with contracycle.

[Rob Carriere]

Jay,
Thanks for the posts, they clear up a lot of things. Earlier I could only understand what the characters were doing, which is not enough; I know players who would have told your story of in-character events with a happy smile on their face. I think I'm now relatively clear on what the other character players were doing. I'm still completely baffled about about what the GM thought to get out of this session and befuddled beyond completely about what you thought you were going to get out of it.

I understand what you did and I understand your explanations of why you did what you did. I don't understand why you wanted to be there in the first place. Nor do I understand why the GM wanted you to be there, especially not given your protestations about playing evil.

I'm also deeply suspicious of anyone wanting to play evil in a Sim Middle Earth game. (That goes for both the GM and "M"). You're either going to break the Dream of Middle Earth, or be limited to "scrawling with a black crayon", or both. So again there's a question of motivation there.

Could you help out and shed some light on that?

Thanks,
SR
--

[Glendower]

I really don't think I understood the issue behind this particular post until your reply.  This particular post crystallized it for me. 

Again, how does one resolve the one issue without diminishing "the Dream" on the other?

Aha! I get it.  And I agree with you, resolving this problem without violating the precepts of "Living the Dream" is really sticky. If you do try something I said, take the 5 minutes out, it may break the social contract regarding the Sim play.

All I can think of in terms of a possible solution is to discuss this stuff before the Sim "Play" button is pressed.  I think the big problem was that for a game that focuses on "living the dream", you weren't given the tools to do this.  The Gm would have needed to hand you far more tools for you to use and developed some kind of background that complimented, or at least gave you a passing knowledge of the other characters.  You had nothing, and your character was comparatively under-powered, so he wasn't going to contribute much to the overall dream.  You sensed that, I think, and tried to do something about that lack of power.  The other two players were maintaining the Dream, and because your character had nothing to benefit their characters, well, the rest is history. 

What a mess.  My hope is that analyzing the session leads to more effective Sim play, keeping in mind some of the possible pitfalls.  I thought of saying something pithy like "you followed the dream into a nightmare", but that's just being dramatic.  *chuckle*

Regardless, these are some interesting insights into Sim play, and I thank you for being willing to share an unfortunately negative experience.