I've got a problem, and I have no idea how to handle it. I'm hoping you all could help.

I've been playtesting Crux for a while now. My group is playing a band that also investigates Plasmal (Otherworldly) influences on the Tell (this world) - sort of a Josie and the Pussycats meets Scooby Doo. One of the band members (characters) is the guitarist, who went to Juilliard, is incredibly focused on his music, etc.

In the interest of drama, I asked him if it was okay if he lost his hand, and that he'd get a better replacement at some point. I was sure to mention that he would lose his ability to play until the replacement occurred, and that I was doing this for drama's sake. I didn't want to just take it - that would piss him off, and I wouldn't be happy if some GM did it to me, so I asked.

He thought about it, and finally said yes. Woohoo! Yay! Cool drama as the guitarist loses his music in order to save the world!

So, in a fight, his hand was bitten off by a shark. Then the butthead did this: "It's okay, now we can get out of the contract." (Referring to a contract with what they think is a label started by the "bad guys").

No drama, not a tear, not a bit of angst or pain or worry at all.

In which case, I'm not giving him cool shit. If he's gonna turn what I pointedly said was for drama's sake into an excuse and rationalization for in-game purposes, basically removing all drama and using OOC knowledge inappropriately, he ain't gonna get the cool stuff.

So, I have a way to give him his hand back (and soon enough that the contract issue is still a problem).

But should I? How to handle this?

Ack. Wrongness is happening.

You are wrong because you're angry that the player doesn't know how to act appropriately, but all you told him was that the hand loss was for drama. So basically you're holding the player's behavior against the player unfairly. The player couldn't read your mind; how could he know you expected him to go all Luke Skywalker over his hand?

The player is wrong because his behavior was pretty lame. But! The degree of lameness should be measured against the group's understanding of how players should role-play drama and angst and loss and stuff. If the rest of the game has taken a more clinical approach to situation, then I can sorta see the reaction. Maybe the player didn't feel a need to go all Luke Skywalker, given the context of the prior game sessions.

But it's all speculation from where I'm standing. In the end, I think that despite your efforts there was a communication breakdown. If you can figure out where and how it happened, you can prevent similar problems down the line.

As for solving the current dilemma, go with your gut. If the contract is a Big Deal (tm) for the game, then I'd preserve it. If not, then you can make it a factor or not at your whim. As far as giving the player Cool Shit (tm), enh. I'd tone it down what you'd planned a bit just for the lameness, but I wouldn't screw the character over because of (what looks like to me) a misunderstanding.

Hello,

Aidan, I'm gonna be a bit harsher than Ethan and say it plainly:

If you want to be happy, stop playing that guy's character for him.

Yup, he is playing the character, and the group as a whole is handling play as they see fit. You're the one who wants his character to save the world - not him. He and apparently the others want to get out of the record contract.

In my own GMing, I call it "never quarrel with the word of God." That doesn't mean that players always get what they want, nor does it mean that they have Director-Stance power over the game-world. It does mean that I can't control what they think is the most important conflict at hand (ouch, no pun intended), and it's just plain more fun, over time, to accept their call about that.

Best,
Ron

Hmm..good points, but I think I need to explain a bit more.

Our guy (Cliff is the PC's name) has been doing okay as far as drama goes. He's not great, but he's been, historically, responding to stuff dramatically - freaking out when he finds himself and his guitar underwater and breathing fine, worried about the condition of his guitar and whether the water will ruin it, suitably shocked by the revelation of the truth about the world and how it actually works. Not excellent, but not bad either.

So the utter lack of any drama here is predicated on the fact that I asked him ahead of time. He (the player) knew what was coming, so his character isn't freaking out. I'm not playing his character and the rationalization would be fine, if there was some/any freakout about not playing music anymore first, but I am frustrated that he hasn't separated OOC knowledge from IC knowledge.

Also, the whole game has had these dramatic moments - will the Fae woman give her loyalty to the courts or to the band? Are the deaths at the concerts their fault? The mood of the whole game has been like this, so for Cliff to be suddenly "Oh, that's okay, now we can get out of the contract" is definitely not cool, as far as SC has been played so far.

It's not that I want him to "Do this!", but I do want something realistic from Cliff, based on hwo he's been played in the past. An analogy: you have a friend that obsessively measures EVERYTHING when they cook, down to the 1/2 teaspoon of water added to the gallon. And then suddenly, for no apparent reason, they decide to eyeball it, and badly, adding a cup of salt to the 8 eggs and the half-teaspoon of flour, trying to make cookies.

The issue isn't so much that there's no reaction whatsoever to the event, but that it's out of character for Cliff to react this way, and it seems to be directly related to OOC knowledge that everything will work out okay in the end.

Does that make more sense? Should I just say "Hey B, what's up with Cliff? Wouldn't he be freaking out, now that he can't play music anymore?" or otherwise talk with the player? Should I just let him destroy the dramatic moment and potential tension and move on?

Hello,

I think you should merely move on, again, jettisoning your expectations for how Cliff is played. Therefore neither your hope for a certain kind of drama nor a need to punish its lack is necessary.

And I really want to emphasize that my post was about B. In other words, not: "If you want to be happy, stop playing that guy's character for him," but rather, "If you want to be happy, stop playing that guy's character for him."

That specifically includes any changes in how he wants to approach playing the character.

Best,
Ron

Talk with him.

Duh.

Oh, come on, Jonathan - that's not constructive. Communication is almost always good, yes, but the devil is in the details. Such a brusque response ignores the potentially more insidious issues at work here.

Ron,

That's probably what I will do. But you seem to be missing the point (or maybe I am).

Shouldn't there be repercussions if a player uses or reacts to things they know, but that the character doesn't? To me, this is very poor roleplaying, and not fun at all. Should I just let him get away with it? Won't that send the subtle message that it's okay to do that, when I feel most distinctly that it is not?

I'm not springing this on him out of the blue - it has been a clear part of the SC so far, and has even been discussed explicitly in regards to another player who is very good at keeping the two separated.

That's the issue. Not that his character changed, but that his character (or how he's played) changed in response to OOC knowledge.

Now, giving the player the benefit of the doubt, it may be that Cliff would respond this way to something that traumatic - I don't know. But it sure seems out of character, and as I said, directly tied to OOC knowledge.

Maybe I should take the issue to theory....

Aidan

Hi Aidan,

Let's keep it here, and thus concrete relative to this particular real-life thing.

Shouldn't there be repercussions if a player uses or reacts to things they know, but that the character doesn't? To me, this is very poor roleplaying, and not fun at all. Should I just let him get away with it? Won't that send the subtle message that it's okay to do that, when I feel most distinctly that it is not?

ethan_greer wrote: Oh, come on, Jonathan - that's not constructive. Communication is almost always good, yes, but the devil is in the details. Such a brusque response ignores the potentially more insidious issues at work here.

Shouldn't there be repercussions if a player uses or reacts to things they know, but that the character doesn't? To me, this is very poor roleplaying, and not fun at all. Should I just let him get away with it? Won't that send the subtle message that it's okay to do that, when I feel most distinctly that it is not?

quozl wrote: I say bull. The details and the issues are best discovered and resolved by talking to him, not us.

Hiya,

Jonathan & Ethan, as Ethan is implying, it's time to let this particular avenue of posting go. Thanks guys.

Aidan, it seems that Jonathan and I are aiming in the same direction. Your thoughts? What next?

Best,
Ron

I have to agree with you here, Ron. But I'm not sure you're getting the point across. I've had a lot of experience with this kind of thing and it took me a LONG time to overcome it. The first part of it was identifying it.

I think that you're not the one getting it. Sometimes your players aren't going to roleplay to the level you expect them. Sometimes it's going to be abhorrent. Just the other way in my best campaign I've ever had I had a Jedi teacher run away from a bunch of Sith (the Sith haven't been seen in the past 80 years) shouting "I have to pee! Don't kill me!" He had been playing a serious character for the whole campaign. Sometimes players don't roleplay. Sometimes GMs do stupid things. In fact they do it a lot.

All that you can do is give your players the best environment to roleplay that you can.

I've had players attack people for no reason and leave the game because I tried to scare them by turning to the lycanthrope section of the monster manual. I've had fellow PCs refuse to act in any special way when I was torturing them with illusionary magic.

No matter how much it ticks you off, all you can do is talk to them about it, maybe kick them out, or just deal with it.

Players oftentimes get better over time.

May the wind be always at your back,
-Pyron

I call mode drift, and incoherance.

Aidan, I think you were trying to set up a sort of premise:
"What would you give up for the world...how would you feel about it?"

And he's shifted into gamist...

"You've given me lemons, now I'll make lemonade!"

I'd say because you gave advance notice, he sat there thinking about it for far too long until (and I'll be sexist here) his male mind came up with a solution to it rather than just feeling something about it.

I'll just note that I admire his lemonade, though.

Typically I'd say that generally premise is addressed in other medias at exciting moments...you see how the heroes feel when they can't sit down, think about it, hide their feelings, etc. Like that guitar thing you mentioned, he too didn't have time to think and expressed himself instead.

What to do? About this? Let go, he didn't mean to kill the address of premise, he thought lemonade was more fun to make. Try and enjoy the lemonade with him.

Next time? In the spirit of system does matter, give some idea of what you wanted and state a reward for it. Lemonade wont get that reward.

Hi Aidan,

Just to chime in with Ron and Jonathan in my own key:

Whether a person separates "in character" knowledge from "out of character" knowledge when making a decision about what to do is not an absolute measure of good roleplaying. It doesn't define roleplaying - it is only one style of roleplaying.

Many great games are played with players having their characters act on OOC knowledge. Someone has mentioned a gamist style of play where the character does what's best from the player's point of view. Well, there's also decisions such as directing a character into trouble beause it gives the player a chance to play out something interesting.

Style expectations CAN be part of an expected standard of play - but these are issues of social contract. The group can agree that, for this particular game, we're all going to try to play to certain standards, such as internal consistency, tactical astuteness, thematic relevance, etc. As someone pointed out, these are the standards of the creative agenda (GNS) mode you've agreed on for that game. (IC/OOC separation is typically an element of simulationist play - but is not atually definitional of that agenda, only of one style of simulationist play.)

Now, even if you all agree on a set of standards, you may find other players have different perspectives on what you think are cut and dried measures. You might also find that some players just can't get away from standards they're used to. In both these cases, just as with any mental process, communication may fail to change them. You can't make the other person change - and expecting them to do so will cause you a lot of pain.

So, sure, talk to him - but first examine your own prejudice and understand his position so you don't come across with unwanted evangelism.

I guess I didn't phrase the question right, because most of the answers have been pretty unhelpful. I am talking to him, for example.

Nevertheless, Callan answered my question, which is better phrased "what's going on here, and how do you deal with it best?" Mode drift is exctly what's going on (as he's a hardcore, self-identified Gamist).

Ron et al. were somewhat helpful with the "let go" sentiment, but without the cause behind what's going on, it wasn't enough. Hard to let go when you don't know what it is you're letting go of.

So, thanks all! That answered my question (as poorly phrased as it was).

It seems to me that the answer might be simpler than all that. It's basic human psychology, in my opinion. Put a lot of expectations on a person in a field that they aren't particularly skilled. And there's a good chance that they'll ham it up rather than really trying and looking stupid anyway.

You've already said, quite openly, that he's not a great roleplayer. So when you look very seriously at him and say "this is going to be a very dramatic thing", what makes you think he won't crack under the pressure? I know I'd feel a lot of pressure to perform. And I'm afraid I might handle it in much the same way. Try to diffuse it by being 1) silly, 2) pragmatic, or 3) non-immersive. (Not sure that last one's a proper word, but hopefully you get the idea.)

Did you make this big a deal of it when you got the reaction you wanted in the past? When he was under water and not drowning, did you set up lofty expectations ahead of time?

I think all that happened is that you put the stage light on him and turned it up too high. That's all.


LLTh

Well, the hoped-for drama came and went. What it ultimately was - expecting too much too fast. I didn't give him time to have a reaction. It all worked out fine in the end.

Aidan

Hello,
I've been running games for 26 years and have never needed to mutilate a character for "dramatic purposes."

Why cut off his hand in the first place?

I once played in a game where the GM decided to kill my character and then ressurect me for the purpose of "drama." It was one of the worst games I've played in. Players don't like getting mutilated. Sometimes it leaves a bad taste in their mouth and they don't want to play their character any more.

I know you asked him first, but I really think you should have come up with a better way to advance the plot.

Its often difficult trying to figure out how to take players along a story path without forcing them. I've developed a way to draw them along instead. Pulling as opposed to pushing......

Some players don't bite, and then "pulling" won't work....

So what I do is to create a list of scenes. Each scene ends with a clue to one or more other scenes that follow it (the scenes don't all have to be in order). I then place the players in the scene and let them go. They eventually find the clue and go to the next scene on their own. The story advances and in the end there is a big battle and its all over.

Another way of doing it is not to ask him, but to do something where he would voluntarily choose what you want within the story.
For instance,

- A character sees a glowing crystal floating in the air. When he grabs it, his hand turns into an articulated diamond!

or

- A character walks into a shop and there is a demo of a person using a mechanical hand with all sorts of cool stuff attached. The player asks him about it, and the guy starts unscrewing his hand, disconnects it and offers it to the player... He says that he'll trade it for the character's real hand.

Just a few ideas.


Anyway, I hope this gives you something to chew on...

I think Ron Edwards' comparison of gaming to playing rock 'n' roll is an incredibly handy mental yardstick.

Using that comparison, I'd say that I'm not sure it's necessary or helpful to analyze and fix this unsatisfying play experience. Sometimes it's better to check in with each other and then just start jamming again.

Aidan, while I agree with Callan on the analysis of the situation, I too probably wouldn't have started out with the theory behind the problem. The end result is always the same, the player did what they did because they thought it was the right thing to do (barring social problems which the theory does not address outside of "play nice"). So the answer will always be the same, "just keep playing."


This gets back to some of the latest discussions that we've had on the list about the design. You have what I consider a design that should produce narrativism. But you're trying to use simulationist scenario design, and other elements to work with the system. Which leaves me, for one, unsurprised at the incoherence of the result. I mean, with narrativism supporting methods of play, you'd never have needed to ask the player to lose a hand in the first place. You could just do it, and there would be no problems.

Mike