Long time lurker, first time poster.

I am going to try to present this as objectively as I can, in order to (hopefully) get some useful feedback.

I am in a game played on a public message board. Recently, during a combat scene, the GM made a ruling that contravenes the rules in the rulebook of the roleplaying system in at least six different ways. I was one of the playtesters of that system, over fifteen years ago, so I know it pretty well. I also consulted with three other playtesters and veteran players of the game to make sure I wasn't crazy. The ruling makes absolutely no sense to me or the others I spoke to, as I said, in at least six different ways.

Now, I will point out that the GM has previously stated, on several occasions, a bedrock firm belief that the rules should never be thrown out the window, even when dramatically appropriate. They must always be followed. In fact, she has insisted that the rules be followed without interpretation. As such, this ruling, which I cannot see anyone guided by the rules arriving at, baffled me.

So, I outlined the factors in the ruling that contravened the rules.

The GM responded by saying that she had taken those factors into account, and that the ruling stands.

So, still baffled, I once again asked her to reconsider and explain her ruling. She told me that she would allow no debate on the subject.

Now, I should explain that I am not only baffled by the ruling itself, but I don't actually understand what happened within the game world. I know the end results of the ruling, but I don't know what my character experienced and saw that led up to that result. I have no idea, inside the game world, how things transpired.

So, I ask the GM to explain what, exactly, happened, so that I can understand both what my character has just experienced and so that I can understand her interpretation of the rules for use in the future.

She responds by telling me that one of my assumptions about the situation is wrong and that my character did not end up in as bad a situation as I was making out.

I respond by telling her that what's important is that the ruling doesn't make any sense and I want to understand it. Asserting that my assumption was incorrect wasn't relevant, since, per the rules of the game, what happened could not happen whether my assumption was correct or incorrect. In both cases, the rules were contravened, simply in different ways.

(I should note that I did get kind of nasty during some of these later exchanges, accusing her of screwing my character over and the like. The GM responded with no less than three ad hominem attacks on me, so I call it even).

Now, she is simply refusing to discuss the issue. I have already accepted the ruling within the game and let the game move forward as a show of good faith. I simply asked her for an explanation. Yet she refuses to give one.

So, I am left not understanding what happened, why it happened, or the logic the GM used to arrive at her ruling. I don't understand how she is interpreting the rules, so I can't know how things will be adjudicated in the future either. This will almost inevitably lead to more fights. Also, it's hard for me to know what my character should do, because, to her, it's like when film skips and suddenly everything is different. Since the GM won't explain what happened within the game world, I don't know what happened in the space between the time before the ruling and after the ruling.

Is it wrong for a player to expect some kind of explanation for a ruling that contravenes the rules in numerous ways? Especially when the GM has set the ground rule that the rulebook is law and shall always be followed? I mean, she hasn't even given me an alternate interpretation or anything. I have no idea how she arrived at this ruling. Shouldn't the GM have some measure of accountability to the players to be fair and honest, and thus be willing to give some kind of explanation for rulings that seem unfair and illegal? Am I crazy?

(I should note that I did get kind of nasty during some of these later exchanges, accusing her of screwing my character over and the like. The GM responded with no less than three ad hominem attacks on me, so I call it even).

Hello,

Well, let's see. What's the priority here, actually?

- Making sure that the game was "played right"? It's possible that, as a playtester and longtime veteran of the game, you have a sense of ownership about the system.

- Communicating successfully, between two humans, regardless of the content being communicated (i.e. disagreement)? I'll definitely spot you your current intent for this goal, albeit a little retroactive.

- Sharing "imagined space" successfully, which is to say, simply knowing and agreeing about "what when on"? This is usually what people reference when they're actually trying to resolve disputes about one of the above two, in my experience - certainly my experience from my Champions days, in which "what character perceives" and "how player understands X came about" were often thrown into conflict with one another.

- Setting up some guidelines for continued play with this person? Which is hard to suss out from your post, but for the moment I'll assume that the two of you are not quite, yet, in "Sammy Hagar vs. Van Halen" mode.

I don't think there's much point in talking about blame, agreed? It's all gone south, so now the real goal is (a) venting a bit, for which I think we should be supportive (supportive, greedo!!); and (b) parsing out which of the above seems to be the most important, or which fed negatively into which.

Given my outlook toward what role-playing is, I suggest that issues like GM vs. player or rules-authority vs. personal-authority are red herrings. I suggest instead that the issue is whether each of you are valuing the Shared Imagined Space for reasons/goals that the other can understand and respect. Does that seem like a valuable avenue of discussion to pursue?

Best,
Ron

Hello Capn Bateson, welcome to the show...

I am going to dip in here a bit to try and get a better understanding of whats going on. Although I know I would personally like (and others may as well) to know more specifics about which system AND which particular rule / ruling, I am not sure that either is relevant to what is really going on here.

First off let me try and understand the problem more. The GM explained and everyone (I assume, correct if wrong) that the parameters of the game would include the idea that the rules are law, period. That is fine, nothing wrong with it and only the most unplayable systems will give you issues with this style. The problem is that having set the parameters, the GM has subsequently ignored them for no apparent or explainable reason.

So she has broken the parameters that she herself insisted on and has subsequently nixed any discussion on the subject? Is this a pretty accurate state of affairs?

I also take it that she has not given any OOC clues along the lines of "I know its looks strange but work with me, all will be revealed."?

How have the other players reacted to this situation? Do they also feel that it is strange and unusual what this GM is doing? This could be nothing more then a big conflict of styles, though I think making a ruling as outside the box as you seem to imply, would be more then just clash of styles.

How have your communications been with the GM on other rulings? On any topic both IC and OOC, as well as off-topic (ie Lakers vs Pistons). Does she know you were a playtester for the system?

Finally a question on Shared Imagined Space as Ron was mentioning. We know that the RULES of the game are law, and that apparently this applies to everyone, including the GM. What about everything non-rules related ie character backgrounds, story ideas, and other items like that. I ask this because if she was given, by concsensus or just be no one ever questioning, full creative control as well, then she may see no need to explain her actions.

From what we know so far I would say if nothing else, you have a fair gripe with her communication abilities. Now its a far cry from bad communicator to Ruthless dictator and she could just be having a bad month, she could feel threatened by your previous experience, or she could be running the game the way she feels was agreed upon.

Feel free to invite her here as well, so that she can have a chance to explain her side / how she feels and maybe open a positive discussion in a more neutral setting.

Thanks

Sean

First off, let me note that the reason I wasn't more specific about the circumstances the first time around was that I was trying to remain in the game and worried about the GM's response were he (it is actually a he) to read this post. The GM in question has quite a temper and I feared he would hold it against me. However, I have subsequently quit the game, so that is no longer an issue. Now, I guess, it's more of an academic point. The GM of the game does actually come here, because it's through him talking about the Forge that I learned of this place.

I will be a bit more explicit about the ruling. This is an Amber game. The situation was like this:

My character, 1st in Warfare and 1st in Strength is backing away from a table at which sits another PC (I'll call him "Spear", not the character's real name) in order to leave the bar in which they've just had a stalled negotiation. My character is backing away in expectation that Spear, a Chaos Lord, will try to Shape Shift or use Logrus to keep her from leaving, so she is wary of either of those things happening.

Spear posts that he speaks with his assistant for a while, then stands up, halfway Shape Shifted into demonform, comes around the table, finishes shifting into demonform, and starts trying to summon the Logrus.

I respond that my character throws a chair at Spear and then rushes him, trying to cut him at the knee.

The GM then rules that Spear gets the Logrus up "in the nick of time" and blocks my swing, forgetting about the chair. My character threw the chair with express intent of keeping Spear from raising the Logrus. The GM then changes his ruling to say that Spear gets the Logrus up "in the nick of time" to stop the chair, which obviously would have arrived sooner than my character's swing.

The problems with this ruling are manifold. First, it takes 1-2 minutes for a full-body Shape Shift according to the ADR rules, when the character is well-rested and uninjured. Spear was up late the previous night and got stabbed.

So, as I see it, either my character, wary of Spear Shape Shifting or the like, failed to notice the shift for the 1-2 minutes it took, or, Spear shifted instantaneously. Also, unless the bar is inside an airplane hangar, I question how my character wasn't out the door and down the block by the time Spear finished shifting. I also wanted to know why my character wasn't allowed to attack as soon as she noticed the shift, as I had made abundantly clear she would have in previous posts.

When I challenged that Spear didn't have the Logrus up and should have needed time to raise it, the GM ruled that Spear had the Logrus up all the time. But, according to the ADR rules, a character can't do anything else requiring attention while having the Logrus up. Shape Shifting requires the character's full attention to prevent a bad shift or Chaos cancer or something.

So, he really couldn't have had the Logrus up that entire time. Spear's player seemed to know this, as he posted his character Shape Shifting first and then raising the Logrus, but he failed to speak up. (He also had "reeled in" all his tendrils as soon as my character, a Princess of Amber, entered the bar, and OOC agreed with a post of mine indicating that my character wouldn't notice the Stench of Chaos in the bar since he had dropped the Logrus as soon as my character entered).

On top of all that, Logrus tendrils fight with a Strength equal to the character's Psyche. He wasn't using Logrus Defense, which creates a shield, but tendrils, which he has to move around to block attacks. My character was 1st in Strength with three times (!) as many points as Spear had in Psyche (everyone's attributes are open in this game). Yet the chair shattered harmlessly against his tendrils instead of smashing through them.

Then, my character swung at Spear with her sword. Spear was 1.5 in Warfare while my character was 1st, which is still a big difference: according to the rules, the 1st in Warfare is superior to the other characters. So, given my character being a superior fighter AND having a three times greater Strength advantage, Spear blocked my character's blow completely and suffered only a bit of a headache.

But, since he wouldn't explain the ruling, I don't actually know what happened! Did Spear Shape Shift instantly? Why wasn't my character able to attack or leave the bar in the 1-2 minutes it should have taken? How was Spear able to Shape Shift and bring the Logrus up before my character could pick up a chair and throw it? Was my character frozen somehow of which I have absolutely no knowledge? I don't know.

So, Greedo, while I did become nasty at a certain point, the GM had already made it clear the he wasn't going to explain his ruling by then. Looking back, though it wasn't the most mature thing to do, I think I was actually trying to provoke a response, that is to say, if the GM really had logic for the ruling, then maybe I could get him to defend the ruling by telling me the logic if I got him angry enough. Not a good strategy, I admit, but I was pretty much at the point of either quitting or doing that, since the GM was totally stonewalling me.

As to charms, illusions, drugs, etc., there is no indication either in or out of game that such a thing was happening. My character is actually a sorceress herself and thus likely to notice such a thing. And, even so, he didn't give me any clue to indicate such a thing, like, "Spear is suddenly before you like the film skipped" or anything. Nor did he say, OOC, "There's something going on you don't know about, so you're going to have to trust me." So, as far as I know, no, there was no such thing going on and no hint whatsoever that there was. In fact, this game is supposed to be totally open, with IC secrets simply not used by players who read about the OOC, and there was another PC in the bar. The GM didn't give him a description of what happened either. If my character were drugged or something, he would probably have noticed and/or seen my character's odd behavior, but no.

Ron, I guess my priorities changed through the conversation. At first, my priority was that the game be "played right," not only because I am a playtester and longtime Amber veteran, but also because of the GM's fiery rhetoric that, and I quote, "We don't throw the rules out the window, even when dramatically appropriate." So, I had an expectation that he would obey the rules closely. I could not figure out how he arrived at his ruling by the rules, so, yes, I felt like he was "playing wrong" and wanted him to fix what he had done.

Then, when it became apparent that he was not going to change the ruling no matter what I said, I gave up on the game being "played right" and my priority became combination of "sharing imagined space," wanting to know what happened, and "setting up some guidelines for continued play with this person," because I wanted to keep playing. I felt that, if I couldn't get an explanation for the ruling and continued not to understand the ruling, I would have to leave the game (as I have now done) because I wouldn't understand the rules of the world the GM was using, and thus would keep getting disappointed and frustrated by the GM's rulings and get into more and more fights with him.

After I posted the first post in this thread, the GM answered my newest request for an explanation with a proclamation that he didn't have to explain his rulings now or in the future. For me, that breaks the contract for the GM to be fair, because the GM is not accountable to anyone and can do whatever he wants (the old saw about the DM's screen being where the DM claims to be fair but actually just makes every NPC "to-hit" roll a 20, you know?) It meant I couldn't trust him, and therefore couldn't play with him.

ADG: Yes, exactly. The GM said the rules were the law, then ignored the rules and refused to explain why. He just kept saying the ruling was "fair" and he wouldn't "debate" it. Now, he's claiming that it's a game where he has ultimate authority to make any ruling he wants without explaining it or being held accountable for it, and that the game was always like that (though he never said that before).

And yes, he has "broken the parameters that [he] insisted on and subsequently nixed any discussion on the subject." That pretty much hits the nail on the head.

No, no OOC clues. I was looking for some. I was hoping he would at least tell me there was a reason for it or that there were factors going on that I didn't know about, but he didn't.

The other players, by and large, have not reacted to the situation. We were almost all in separate threads, and some of them may not have even been reading my threads to see what was happening. But they never seem to stand up for each other when the GM flies off the handle (he has a well-known temper). Reading back before I joined, there were a number of run-ins between the GM and a player, and never did another player step up to his or her defense, and the same is true now, except for me (I have come to others' defenses a few times, which I think drew the GM's ire and my have contributed to this situation). Also, both before and during my time in the game, the GM attacked players and/or made some pretty incredible (at least according to me) rulings that the players just laid down and took. They don't seem a bunch to stand up to the GM.

Spear's player, of course, laid low, because he (I am 99% sure) knew the ruling was wrong. The other PC in the bar seemed about ready to step up and say something several times. He kept PMing me for more clarification about my position, saying he was trying to make sure I was right or something. But he never did. The rest said and did nothing. But, of course, most of them, being in their own threads, have not been subject to very many, if any, of the GM's rulings, so they may just think it's something between me and the GM, as you suggested, not realizing they will be on the business end of such a ruling sometime in the future.

He knew I was a long-time veteran. Not sure if he knew I was a playtester. Our communications, frankly, were terrible before this. He started a fight with me right after I joined the game and then seemed to blame me for fighting with him. It's been rocky ever since. He seemed to enjoy taking me to task for breaking rules he had never promulgated, then not understanding why this upset me. I dunno. I haven't had a single fight with the GM in another, similar Amber game I joined around the same time.

Re: creative control, no!!! In fact, it's supposed to be a cooperative storytelling thing where players can adopt the Author stance and decide what happens and where the story goes. That's part of why I joined. It seemed like this cool, laid back experiment in cooperative storytelling. But then, when I joined, the GM seemed very authoritarian for such a style of play, for instance, crapping all over people's plotlines if he didn't liek them and such. And now the, "I don't have to explain my rulings" thing makes it seem even worse. As far as character backgrounds, we had pretty much complete control, except for having the GM crap on your background if he didn't like it.

Hmmm.

Well I have to say I'm not entirely sympathetic to your position Captain.

If this were d20, then maybe I'd feel differently, but geeze...Amber?

So much of Amber relies on GM interpretation anyway I can't imagine getting all rules lawyery with it. I mean, quite honestly when I played Amber all of those "rules" were treated as just "rules of thumb" anyway. Rules like "it takes 1-2 minutes" or "can do nothing else while doing X" seem custom made to be violated at will to me...otherwise you wind up with a bunch of carbon copy characters.

I really can't imagine anyone I've ever played Amber with throwing up the rule book and saying "that should have taken 2 minutes, he couldn't have done it instantaneously...its in the rules". I mean...come on...its AMBER...you're practically gods fer chrissake.


Secondly, what makes me a little wary here is your indication that your character was first in Warfare and first in Strength. That immediately raises red flags with me. Are you sure the issue was really a rules interpretation? Based on what little you've told us, I'm thinking the rules thing was just the arena you were using for your real issue...which is that you perceive your character to be something of an ueber ass kicker and were somewhat torqued that some mere Chaos Lord brushed off your attack.

Does the real issue perhaps have more to do with you perceiving the GM to have violated your character's image as a bad ass. This seems to me to fit more with your somewhat hostile confrontation with the GM and unfortuneate baiting tactics. Character integrity is generally a far more emotionally charged issue than pedantic rules interpretations.


Finally, what was the Chaos Lord's Psyche compared to yours? If it was higher, then the most obvious interpretation was that the character did obey all of the "rules" and you were simply too distracted and misdirected by him to have noticed it until it was too late. After all Psyche is the most important characteristic...

Valamir,

Hmm. So you see Amber as a game in which there are no rules at all and the GM can make any ruling under the sun and no one can complain about it? You're not alone. A lot of people refuse to even try Amber for fear that the GM can just screw them all the time. But Amber does have rules, whether they are the hard and fast rules of the book, rules established from reading the novels, or other rules agreed upon by the players and GM. In this case, the GM has stated that the rules will be the rules from the ADR rulebook, in all cases, no exceptions.

As such, don't I have a reasonable expectation that those rules will be followed? If the GM said that he was using his own, home-brewed rules, in which powers are faster than Warfare, that would be fair. But he didn't. He gave me the expectation that the rulebook guidance would be used, in which Warfare is much faster than powers.

The Chaos Lord's Psyche, BTW, was one point higher than my character's. And the Chaos Lord wasn't first. He was like fifth.

Yes, in Amber, the characters are godlike. In this situation, only one character was godlike: the Chaos Lord.

Also, this game uses this weird rolling auction, in which people bid on attributes as they need them, so my character wasn't first in Warfare because of character conception or that I bid a whole ton of points to get them. I just happened to be 1st in both at the point in time when the action happened.

My character, if I didn't make it clear, was trying to escape. There were two PCs there whom she fully expected could kick her ass together. That's why she was leaving. When the Chaos Lord was allowed to Shape Shift and about to get the Logrus up before my character could act or get out of the bar, as she was trying to do, she no longer could run, because he would just use his Logrus tendrils to grab her and pull her back.

She couldn't have an extended fight with the Chaos Lord because the other PC would then just put a stilletto in her back while she was occupied. Her only option was a quick strike and then to flee. So, this is not some big Warfare, "I shoulda been able to kick his ass" thing. If anything, it's, "I should at least have been able to hurt him a little so that I could get away."

I was, as you say, "torqued" that the Chaos Lord brushed off my attack, because he shouldn't have been able to according to the rules. But I didn't need to kick his ass or anything. I actually posted a compromise at one point saying that if the chair had hit him in the face, stopping his summoning of the Logrus, and my character could then flee, that would have been okay. But, I felt the GM bent the rules to give the other player an unfair advantage so that the Chaos Lord wouldn't get hurt, in turn, causing my character to get hurt when she gets double-teamed. So, I wasn't happy about the situation. But, I was willing to listen to an explanation, which the GM would not give me.

And, before the GM stonewalled me again last night, I had already accepted the ruling and was simply asking for an explanation to understand it. He wouldn't even give me that.

I don't know. Maybe you're right and I'm the jerk, Valamir, but it really doesn't seem that way to me. I feel like I had a right to expect a GM whose stated position on the rules was that we follow them by the letter to actually follow them. Maybe that was wrong of me. I feel that giving another player an advantage in order to help that player's character, sacrificing mine, by violating the rules was not something the GM should do. But maybe I'm wrong there too.

I'm interested to see what else you and everyone else has to say!

(If anything in this post came off as angry, I apologize. I'm not angry anymore, since I quit. I'm just in a hurry to get to a FTF game!)

Hey captain,

It honestly sounds like a social contract violation on the part of your GM. For whatever reason he decided it would run this way, and isn't going to talk about it. You've tried to give him opportunities to explain his reasoning and he's demurred. You say he's got a history of that sort of thing.

If that's the case - then it seems like there's probably not much we can offer you. You can either continue to be in this game and accept that sometimes this is just going to happen, or you can quit it.

JD

Hiya,

QUICK SIDE NOTE
I really, really don't think the discussion is going to get very far with dissecting the actual moment of play involved in terms of whether "the rules" justified anyone in doing anything. I'm getting an eerily reminiscent vibe of hundreds of conversations in which a friend is trying to re-play a dispute with his or her estranged lover to me, and trying to enlist my support in assigning just how terrible or bad or wrong the person was, per sentence of re-play. It's pretty wearing.

Anyway, although this thread hasn't gone there, I'd like to point to the possibility of such storm clouds on the horizon and hope that everyone will work to veer elsewhere. It really isn't a question of who was the jerk. None of us was there, and arguably, since it was an internet interaction, no one was "there."

RANTING WITH LUMPLEY
I do think this: it's quite likely that one or more people are not prioritizing "how to have fun" out of the Shared Imagined Space. There's something else that's more important, like who's-in-charge and don't-you-get-me-angry, or similar.

Let's take a look at this statement:

don't I have a reasonable expectation that those rules will be followed?

At first, my priority was that the game be "played right,"

Then, when it became apparent that he was not going to change the ruling no matter what I said, I gave up on the game being "played right" and my priority became combination of "sharing imagined space," wanting to know what happened, and "setting up some guidelines for continued play with this person," because I wanted to keep playing.

After I posted the first post in this thread, the GM answered my newest request for an explanation with a proclamation that he didn't have to explain his rulings now or in the future. For me, that breaks the contract for the GM to be fair, because the GM is not accountable to anyone and can do whatever he wants (the old saw about the DM's screen being where the DM claims to be fair but actually just makes every NPC "to-hit" roll a 20, you know?) It meant I couldn't trust him, and therefore couldn't play with him.

Hi captain_bateson,

Rons post would probably be a bit exhaustive if I were new to the board, so I'll quickly say this:

You say that the GM said he was going to go by the rules. Basically he made a gentlemans agreement with you (called social contract around here).

Not going by the rules does not matter in the least. Breaking them or whatever, it doesn't matter.

Breaking a gentlemans agreement is very, very, very bad.

I'd suggest really seperating in your mind the difference between tiny little rules printed in a book and living, human agreements made between real people. The latter is whats important. You need to let go of the former, forget about it as an arguement.

Your problem is this: Your trying to determe if the very important thing (the gentlemans agreement) was broken by checking whether the very unimportant thing (rules) were broken.

What IS important is if the other person acts the gentleman. If they DO NOT, no amount of talking/bickering about rules will make a difference. All that matters is a gentlemans agreement, and that takes two gentlemen in this case. But in this case, the other isn't acknowledging the agreement, isn't being a gentleman.

So in the spirit of that, QUIT talking about some rules written in a book somewhere. Its like talking about the high price of tuna to stop someone punching you in the face! It's not the right conflict to talk about! :)

And on a final note, from your mentioning of you becoming terse, be careful not to think that if someone else stops being a gentleman, you can stop too. It wont help, even if it feels good in the short term.

Hi all! I'm the GM in question.

I hope it's understandable that I'm a little leery of getting into this discussion. Ron rightly points out that it has been emotonally charged for both sides. But I certainly don't feel like I've yet learned how to do better in future, so I either have a choice of ignoring the incident and hoping it never happens again, or trying to learn. Here's to learning!

I tried to clearly communicate my Social Contract/Lumpley issues to the Captain in-game. Clearly I failed, as he responded by calling me a liar and proclaiming that the only reason I wouldn't explain my ruling is that I had made it in bad faith. Still, what I wrote is the most refined idea I currently have of where I stand, so:

In some games it is agreed that the GM has a responsibility to explain any ruling to the satisfaction of all involved. But it's far from universal. Plenty of GMs simply make the decision and expect everyone to accept it and move on. I think that both views on the appropriate level of negotiation are useful, in different types of games.

Some games make it a priority to let people show how well they can manipulate the rules. By extension (insomuch as the rules correspond to game reality) this is a matter of game-world tactics. Players have an incentive to learn and master the rules in order to achieve victory for their characters.

But some games use the rules only to avoid such discussions. Players and the GM agree that they do not enjoy arguing out of character about the rules and the world. They want to devote their energies to telling the story, not manipulating the system. Because that is their priority, they agree that the GM will interpret the rules. Though a player may often disagree, and may voice it, they accept that the goal of playing the game without substantial interruption is the top priority. They'd rather live with a decision that went differently than they expect (or even understand) than bog down the game with incessant negotiations.

We're playing that second type of game. I came in with that bias, and with the exception of you everyone has seemed pretty comfortable with it.

Tony, if I'm reading you right, you're taking sort of a competitive approach to the game, as in, "he who masters the rules masters the game."

As such, I can see why you'd be reticent to explain your ruling.

However, there's also the Scrabble principle, in which anyone can challenge anyone else's word and seek a higher authority (in Scrabble's case, the dictionary). Problem here is, as GM, you're both the participant and the higher authority.

So, as I see it, you have a dual responsibility. First, you're a participant in the competition. You're supposed to give as good as you get and provide the players with challenge. Second, you're the umpire. This dual role is fraught with peril.

What to do, then? I suggest that the Captain (welcome, by the way!) was right to leave the game. Seems like there was a communication breakdown as to the style of play, and it turned out that the Captain didn't enjoy the kind of game you were running. So, giving the players a clearer idea of what you mean when you say "no exceptions to the rules" would be a good move.

Also, I would suggest having an OOC "area" where rules and rulings can be discussed. This area should be carefully moderated to keep things civil. You and the Captain getting snippy with each other was a bad thing, as I'm sure both of you are aware. While it's true that as GM you have the right to make any ruling you please for any reason without providing explanation, that doesn't mean you should always exercise that right when questions arise. It would be a good thing to set aside a forum where discussions and disclosures can be made, and where players (and GM for that matter) can reassure one another that yes, things in-game are staying fair.

Particularly in a more competitive style of play, the GM needs to establish trust between him or her and the players - the players need to trust that the GM will generally be fair, and the GM needs to trust the players to do the same. In my opinion, Tony violated that trust by refusing to elaborate on a ruling in the face of reasonable objections, and Captain Bateson violated that trust by lashing out in response.

Of further trouble in this situation is that the Captain had the perception that Tony was violating a completely different trust than he was due to misunderstandings of the social contract. So, Tony's there saying, "I'm the umpire and that's my call!" and the Captain's saying, "Rules predicate the in-game reality, and you're circumventing that!"

Gah. Big mess. Hopefully positives can be drawn from the experience.

Those then are my thoughts on this matter. Of course, all this is predicated on my assumption in the first sentence being correct.

TonyLB wrote: But some games use the rules only to avoid such discussions. Players and the GM agree that they do not enjoy arguing out of character about the rules and the world. They want to devote their energies to telling the story, not manipulating the system. Because that is their priority, they agree that the GM will interpret the rules. Though a player may often disagree, and may voice it, they accept that the goal of playing the game without substantial interruption is the top priority. They'd rather live with a decision that went differently than they expect (or even understand) than bog down the game with incessant negotiations.
We're playing that second type of game. I came in with that bias, and with the exception of you everyone has seemed pretty comfortable with it.

Callan,

Hmm. I'm trying to understand the practical implementation of what you are saying. When I felt the gentleman's agreement (to follow the rules) had been broken, what should I have done, in your estimation? I did ask for the GM to reconsider his ruling before I started getting into the specifics of the rules that had been broken. When you say:

If they DO NOT, no amount of talking/bickering about rules will make a difference.

Hiya,

Captain, your discussion of "rights" is a bit weird to read, for me. I look at role-playing very much like playing music in a band, socially and creatively speaking.*

With that analogy in mind, there are no "rights." Referring to them is like ... well, it's like talking about who has the right to interrupt. No one does, and everyone does, or some do and some don't, depending on the circumstances. The concept of "rights" simply doesn't apply.

Does that cast us into a relativist universe in which whatever anyone wants is OK, and everyone else has to like it or go find their own corner of the universe? Are there no standards anywhere?

Nah, I don't think it's that squishy. I think that people in other social and creative activities arrive at meaningful accords, in order to get the work (or "work") done and in order to enjoy themselves. People bowl together, they play music together, and they manage to organize potlucks without always being in full-agreement vs. schism thinking.

That accord is what we tend to call Social Contract 'round here. I suggest that you folks simply didn't have one, in part because of the medium (on-line play very often fizzles, I think largely due to a variety of inadequacies in the social circumstances), and in part because role-players tend, in my view, to apply a number of social fallacies into their hobby, first among them being that the other people involved must automatically be working from some kind of universal and known accord.

Best,
Ron

* "So are we using sheet-music, Ron? And who's the conductor?" "It's a social and creative analogy, not a 1:1 detail analogy. Work with me here."

So, Tony's there saying, "I'm the umpire and that's my call!" and the Captain's saying, "Rules predicate the in-game reality, and you're circumventing that!"

Hello,

All right, stop.

I am not going to permit the actual reply-to-reply discussion between the Captain and Tony to become a topic here. I stated that above, and I strongly recommend that both principals abide by that.

To be clear: if you post a quote from that discussion, as Tony did, or paraphrase an exchange, as the Captain did, and ask for opinions about who was justified or who was obviously out of line, no one is going to tell you. We are not here to participate in such an exchange.

I'd very much like some indicator that both folks have read my earlier post (June 24, 22:15). The third point in it is crucial: Captain, since you have made your decision about your goals for this thread, and acted upon it, then we are done here, unless there's another avenue you or Tony would like to examine.

But that avenue cannot be a blow-by-blow dissection of the exchange you two had about the situation. Bluntly, I don't think either of you were engaged in any sort of meaningful interaction - it was a fight between two people who felt injured, dressed up in a competition to see who could appear most reasonable, and best left behind. It certainly won't continue here.

Best,
Ron

Sorry. I wasn't trying to go into a blow-by-blow account of what happened. I phrased my question badly, but I was really just asking, "Is the statement I made about the Social Contract like I think it is?" Not that anyone needs to answer now: I'm fine if this is an off-limits topic.

I guess I was continuing the discussion because I don't completely understand the practical ramifications of some of the ideas being brought up, so I was asking for clarification. Just as you, Ron, see me talking about "rights" weird, the fact that you don't think there are "rights" as such is difficult for me to wrap my head around (I've just always thought there were...maybe it's the constitutionalist in me or something!) I've read a lot of the articles here, but couldn't really seem to understand how the concepts in them work on a practical level. I was using this as a sort of in-road into understanding the viewpoints that exist here, since I now had a concrete example to work from.

I am (as you may have guessed) a very black-and-white thinker, though I try not to be. But, as much as I try, it's not always easy. For example, I'm not sure where the "not that squishy" area between rights and relativism is and what it's like. It's hard for me to see the middle ground between "I have the right!" and "If you don't like it, go play another game."

But maybe I'm asking the wrong questions. I dunno. Sorry I continued the discussion and treaded into forbidden territory. I wasn't trying to rehash the fight with Tony with my last couple posts, just understand the practical ramifications of the responses.

Sorry to continue this thread. I'll be quiet now.

See there's alot of stuff all mixxed in here, and while the discussion of the social contract and player's rights and such are all good and relevant, I don't think they're getting at the root issue...the real source of the problem.


What we have is a scene between 2 PCs. Events were described in that scene that upset the player of one of those PCs. THATS the problem. A player (Captain bateson) got upset by how events in the scene unfolded.

I contend pretty firmly that the whole rules interpretation question is a giant red herring. The issue is not over the rules. The rules are just the lever being used to pry at the real problem.

Now whether Tony recognized that the rules were just a red herring and refused to debate them for that reason, or whether Tony feels that he made a mistake and misremembered how the rule worked and now is embarassed and afraid he'll lose GM cred if he backs down now, I don't know. But I submit that while the answer to that is highly relevant for Tony's own self analysis of his GMing, its not really material here.


What you have here is a very simple, basic disagreement over what should be happening in the shared imaginary space, where "should" is a matter of personal opinion.

Captain B wanted the scene to go in one direction. Tony wanted the scene to go in another direction. That's it. That's the issue. Bringing the rules into it is a red herring because all that is, is an appeal to authority in the classic logical fallacy sense. Rules are only ever invoked in discussions of what "should happen" when they happen to align with what the invoker wants to happen.


So the question that remains is what in Tony's ruling in that scene triggered captain b's reaction. What was so horrible that it would lead to such a row?

I'm going to enter speculative mode here a bit and see if anything here triggers any thoughts.

I'm thinking that this whole issue boils down to trust: whether Captain B trusted Tony to not use his GM power to hose him and whether Tony was deserving of that trust.

Clearly the answer to the first part is that the Captain did not trust Tony to not hose him. Very plainly he thought Tony's ruling was hosing him.

The question then becomes, should he have felt that way? Was Tony hosing him? If so, then yes, this is clearly a violation of the social contract and the Captain's response is understandable.

But if not, the the Captain's response is an overreaction based on a misconception about what was about to happen.


For instance, that scene could have been over. The GM may already have resolved that the Captain's character would successfully escape. At that point the shape changing and logos became simply flavor allowing the scene to end in a dramatically colorful fashion with the smashing of a chair by a logos tendril as the character flees. Under this scenario argueing over whether or not the Chaos Lord could have transformed that quickly is pointless and Tony would have been right to simply dismiss such a discussion out of hand as being unnecessary.

Clearly, however, that option is not what the Captain believed was happening. He was clearly in tactical combat mode trying to get himself an edge in what he expected to be an upcoming confrontration. The nature of such play is that the player must be able to rely on the rules to be consistantly enforced because otherwise it becomes impossible for the player's skill at using the rules to have a reliable impact on the events of the game. Under this scenario Tony's ruling was clearly inappropriate because it effectively robbed Capt B from an edge that he had (by the rules they had agreed to play to) earned. Now if the scene was effectively over as in the above possibility, it wouldn't have really mattered. But if his character's very survival was on the line as the Capt clearly thought it might be, then we can see how the issue arose...poorly handled, but understandable.


I don't know what the real scenario is, it may be far too late ever know for sure (retroactive revisions being somewhat unreliable). If the real scenario was similar to the second one above, then you have a clear (but quite common) incident of a GMing mistake followed by an equally common reluctance by the GM to admit a mistake which lead to a wildly unnecessary and exaggerated confrontation which damaged the game. This last fact alone points to even deeper social issues since this kind of result is fairly dramatically out of proportion to actual events.

If on the other hand, something similar to the first scenario was more accurate, then what we have is nothing more complicated than a break down in communication leading to a divergence in how two people were envisioning the shared imaginary space caused quite likely by conflicting Creative Agendas.

Is any of that remotely close?

I don't think I am supposed to respond, Val, so please don't take my silence as a snub.

Ron Edwards wrote: To be clear: if you post a quote from that discussion, as Tony did, or paraphrase an exchange, as the Captain did, and ask for opinions about who was justified or who was obviously out of line, no one is going to tell you. We are not here to participate in such an exchange.

I don't mind you being in the thread, Tony, if it is going to continue (not sure about the continuing part, though I would like to respond to Val...)You aren't hampering me and, like you, I wasn't trying to turn this into a tit-for-tat thing, so neither of us wants that anyway.

Actually, Tony, while I agree that a "who shot JR" argument is non-productive, I think there's much to be gained from your participation. Valamir has asked a good question, that I think will get to the meat of your disagreement with the Captain.

He phrased it as 'was the GM hosing Captain', but a better way might be "Why did the GM prefer his version of events over Captain's".

I'd like to hear how the scene ended and if Tony was satisfied with the ending (the argument notwithstanding). Captain said that he accepted the ruling and only later decided not to continue. I suspect that Tony had a reason he made the ruling in that manner (I'm not making a value judgement--it could be a "good" or a "bad" reason). I think hearing his thought process would enlighten us as to where their expectations (the gentleman's agreement) didn't match up.

If that seems out of line, or to encourage further "what REALLY happened was" discussion, please feel free to shout me down. I'm coming late to the thread.

Note that I don't expect that we will then judge who had the better version of events--what I would like to get at is priorities.

captain_bateson wrote: So, what rights does the player have when the GM tries to enforce an assumed contract ex post facto to avoid explaining a violation of an existing contract? Does the player, once again, have to just walk away from the game? Doesn't the player have some ownership, some right to expect the GM not to make up new contracts midstream that, ex post facto, allow him or her to break existing contracts?

I am going to risk Ron's ire <cringe> and go ahead and answer some things from Val's and Loki's posts. I hope that's okay, but I also feel that there may be more to be gained from this discussion, especially with Tony remaining in it.

Val: I think it's a bit more complicated than the choices you set down. But maybe I'm adding unneccesary baggage or something and it is simple. Let's see.

My reaction to the ruling had to do with a number of factors. First, I had an expectation of what would happen because of knowing the rules. Not specifically what would happen, but a range of possibilities. But I also had a great fear of what would happen, based on my long-time experience with the game.

A Warfare character is about to wipe the floor with a power character. The GM doesn't want anyone to get hurt, so, even though the power character doesn't have time to active his or her powers, the GM allows the power character to bring all his or her powers to bear in an instant and deflect everything the Warfare character can throw. Which does prevent either character from getting hurt, at least, right then.

But it devalues the choices the players are making, it makes points spent on Warfare or Strength of less value than points spent on powers (thus making players playing Warfare/Strength characters chumps), and it usually comes back to bite the Warfare character when the power character later decides to get revenge. The GM very rarely puts the 'GM Forcefield' around the Warfare character at the later date (I don't know why).

That was my fear. It's happened to me sooooo many times in Amber games. And soooooo many times the GM has put the Forcefield around another character but then failed to put it around mine. So that was a fear too. That I was going to hosed, yes, but not by the GM directly. By suddenly facing two other PCs in the bar because my character hadn't been able to disable one of them. I did not trust the GM to put the Forcefield around my character when the time came. I feared that the rules would suddenly reinstate themselves when it was my turn (which has happened to me sooooo many times as well).

There's also the fact that power characters can do all kinds of cool stuff that Warfare/Strength characters generally can't. So, it's very irksome when power characters get to use their abilities to their fullest, zipping around the universe and always knowing everything going on, and then, when your character gets the chance to use his or her Warfare or Strength, the GM lets the power character's abilities neutralize your character's abilities. Then, I'm left thinking, as I noted above, that I was a chump to buy Strength and Warfare, because I don't get to create Logrus tendrils or teleport or have Logrus sight or draw Trumps like the other characters, but they can effectively fight as well as my character can.

So, it is about rules. It's also about expectations created by the rules and by the GM's statements about obeying the rules. And about not trusting the GM not to hose my character. And, once I realized that the GM was not going to change the ruling, it became about getting an explanation of the ruling in order to understand "shared space" so that I could feel at least a little comfortable moving forward in the game.

Val, the scene didn't end (for me, at least). I quit in the middle of it while still fighting with the other PC, when the GM let me know that no explanation would be forthcoming. At that point, I felt that the "social contract" had been broken and so I could not continue playing. I had provisionally accepted the ruling on the proviso that I get an explanation.

That you feel you have additional rights that were violated implies that you feel you should have additional recourse beyond negotiation or leaving. But what?

Hello,

Captain B, there's no ire. The only thing I'm disallowing is a recap of the exchange you and Tony had after the event, especially if it's an appeal for agreement or justification regarding some detail of that exchange.

Everything else is still a fair Go, with full participation from you both. Folks have brought up some outstanding points for you guys to consider, and I for one am very committed to learning about how these points strike you.

Best,
Ron

I think an interesting factor in non-FTF games generally is that the social contract is often much less of a living outgrowth of nuanced communication, and much more a result of ad-hoc decisions that get calcified into precedent.

I know that I was very concerned about setting the precedent that every ruling must satisfy every player. But that concern didn't actually filter its way up to my conscious consideration until many things had been said on both sides.

In retrospect, I believe that I should have said "Okay, I've been caught off guard by what this means about our social contract. I'm punting this particular decision in a way designed to appeal to everybody, not to be our forever-decision. Once we're not dealing with an emotionally charged actual example, I'd like to discuss the general issue that this raises."

Dang 20/20 hindsight :-( Still, hopefully a useful technique that I can apply in future.

[ Posted and immediately edited to deletion, because I'm talking too much. I'll get back to the point later :-) ]

"Okay, I've been caught off guard by what this means about our social contract. I'm punting this particular decision in a way designed to appeal to everybody, not to be our forever-decision. Once we're not dealing with an emotionally charged actual example, I'd like to discuss the general issue that this raises."

TonyLB wrote: In retrospect, I believe that I should have said "Okay, I've been caught off guard by what this means about our social contract. I'm punting this particular decision in a way designed to appeal to everybody, not to be our forever-decision. Once we're not dealing with an emotionally charged actual example, I'd like to discuss the general issue that this raises."

Tony, to clarify something, you said that you were caught off guard by what Captain's actions meant about your social contract.

Were you taken off guard by Captain's PC's actions, and the extent to which he'd gotten the drop (rules-wise) on the other character? If so, what was it about letting the other character counter Captain's PC's actions that was important?

I think I'm having a tough time getting my head around what the issue was from your perspective.

[ Edited to reduce confrontational tone. ]

No, his characters actions themself gave me no pause. The issue was that, having issued a ruling, I was a little surprised to have the Captain insist that I justify it to his satisfaction.

Not that it's an unreasonable thing to ask if the social contract supports it, just that I hadn't had any other PCs asking it to that point in the game. I had fallen into a complacent assumption that we had tacitly agreed that people would accept that final rules-authority rested with the GM, even when they didn't agree with the particulars of how I'd interpreted the rules.

But it was only one incident, and I extrapolated immediately to the hypothetical case where every ruling would be treated that way. That's entirely my fault, and something I deeply regret having handled so poorly.

It never even occurred to me that you were surprised by my request for an explanation. In fact, while I was waiting for the ruling, you popped in and out a couple of times without posting, and I told a friend of mine on the phone, "Uh-oh. I think he's going to pull a GM Forcefield and he doesn't want to post it while I'm here, because he knows how quickly he'll hear about it."

I actually assumed that you knew I would say something, given both my propensity to question things throughout my time in the game, and the abundance of GM Forcefields in Amber games. That's kind of interesting. Had you ever seen a GM Forcefield before, or used one before as a GM? I'm just wondering if you knew how common it is. That could be a difference in experience at work: I've seen GM Forcefields over and over again for over fifteen years and it never occurred to me that you might not be aware of how common and frustrating they are. Thus, it never occurred to me for an instant that you would be surprised by my response. As I said, I rather thought you expected it.

I would like to as a couple of questions. I don't mean them to be confrontational, but if they come across that way, please feel free to ignore them. I don't need an explanation anymore, but I am still curious.

When you posted the ruling, were you aware that it would be difficult for me to understand in the context of the rules?

And,

When I challenged the ruling, did you ever make the connection between your hard-line stance about never throwing out the rules and why I was challenging?

I ask in part because, I believe, you are aware of the scene in the Pattern room in the other game in which you and I both play (yes, Tony and I are both players in another game together). Did you happen to notice that when I tried to knock Tybalt out in the Pattern room, and he supposedly had both a physical AND a mental Pattern defense up, so I couldn't hit him, that I didn't challenge the ruling? (Even though it was overturned anyway).

That was because, in that game, we're using that goofy partial-powers system, and I didn't know whether or not he could do that. I thought it seemed awfully powerful and unbalancing (especially since he was also on a Trump at the time), but I couldn't tell if the rules forbid it or not (the rules we're using from this website are really, really, ill-defined). I'm guessing you never put together the fact that I didn't challenge that ruling but challenged this one, though my character was foiled by a power character in both instances. The difference being, simply, that in the other game the established rules seemed to allow it, but in your game, the established rules (in this case, the actual ADR rulebook rules) didn't.

Of course, that's probably not fair. It's not like you sit around thinking about my characters all day. :^)

Anyway, Tony (or anyone else, of course), answer if you so desire. Thanks!

captain_bateson wrote: When you posted the ruling, were you aware that it would be difficult for me to understand in the context of the rules?

When I challenged the ruling, did you ever make the connection between your hard-line stance about never throwing out the rules and why I was challenging?

Tremont duels with Benedict. In the course of having all of his internal organs perforated in alphabetical order, Tremont manages to score exactly one miniscule scrape on Benedict's pinky.

Now the fun part: This having been established, Tremont reminds the GM that his blade is covered with a deadly and instantaneous poison.

Hard Karma: "Ah, well then you didn't even manage to get the pinky wound." The pole star of the ruling is that Tremont loses because of the attributes. The question of whether or not Benedict gets cut is secondary.

Hard Cause & Effect: "Benedict gasps once and keels over, dead." The pole star of the ruling is that Benedict was cut. The question of whether this implies a band-aid or a pine box is secondary.

Wow. It never occurred to me, not once, that it wasn't obvious to you before you posted that the ruling didn't fit the rules. Uh... I've been trying to figure out what to say for twenty minutes, but I've got nothin'.

I, uh, don't understand your examples. Um... it seems to me that the difference is that in hard cause and effect is that the GM's mistakes can effect the game? I don't think that's your point, is it?

The balance of attributes and relevant powers would control outcomes, who wins and how quickly,

You seem to be implying that you read the ADRPG rules as a system of cause and effect rules for simulating reality, and that I had promised to objectively apply those rules, starting from first causes and proceeding mathematically to the final result.

Hey,

Captain & Tony, the last few posts are grading back into "justify what you said to me earlier" territory. If you want to go that route (which I, anyway, think is only destined for suffering), then it's gotta be by private message or email.

Unless either of you can raise an issue that's suitable for community discourse, we oughta call the thread closed. Let me know.

Best,
Ron

I agree, Ron. I understand what happened now and that all I could do was walk away.

As the player of the Chaos Lord in the scene under discussion, I've been loath to enter the discussion, but I wanted to add this: I think Capt B. is an excellent player, and Tony is an excellent GM. It's unfortunate that things didn't work out, but they obviously didn't.

Thanks. I enjoyed playing with you. It's really too bad it worked out this way. Other than when Tony and I were talking past each other, I really enjoyed the game. I miss it.

Wait! Wait! I've been too fascinated by this discussion to want it to end with a whimper of 'well, we'll just agree to disagree'.

Captain, it seems like an (initially) simple situation to me. You, through your character's actions, tried to affect the game world in a particular way, and were told that it wouldn't work.

It seems like your initial reaction to may reveal a deeper fear: that if your character's abilities are less important within the game world then your creative input (as a player) will be curtailed.

Is that fair?

I've run into that frustration in other games, usually because the system is broken, but here it seems like you are afraid that your character's attributes are being made less important (the GM Forcefield -- great phrase).

Hence your appeal to 'the rules', which in this context you felt offered you (or any Warfare-using PC) more opportunity for creative input than Tony was willing to allow.

I don't know why Tony wasn't willing to let you have that creative control -- maybe he thinks Warfare abilities are inherently uninteresting, maybe he thinks your ideas of where you want the story to go are totally the wrong direction, maybe he doesn’t like you personally – or maybe he has some reasons that really aren’t dysfunctional at all. I’m going to ask him some things in another post.

Am I onto something here? I get the sense that you put a lot of time into this character and into creating the setting for this game. Could your reaction to what happened in game be motivated by the fear that your input is being devalued?

[edit. eh. damn double posts. sorry]

Tony, I understand your distinction between Hard Karma and Hard Cause and Effect, and I think they imply two different approaches to running games and creating game worlds. I even think I prefer your approach to the one that Captain seems to prefer.

However, I think that issue is a red herring.

I agree with Valimir, and I’d like to see you address this :

I'm thinking that this whole issue boils down to trust: whether Captain B trusted Tony to not use his GM power to hose him and whether Tony was deserving of that trust.

DannyK, I have a question for you, too. It doesn’t sound as if you played any part in these negotiations (this argument, as it turned out). I’m not at all familiar with the Amber system, but it seems (from reading this forum) that rulings are meant to be negotiated between participants, which might certainly include you.

Why did you not get involved?

It sounds like Captain’s action, had it succeeded, would have put your character at grave risk, and so Tony’s ruling (possibly) saved your character’s butt.

Maybe I’m making an unfair assumption here, but is it possible that your complacency about a dispute about a situation which involved your character is just a little bit like hiding behind the GM to protect ‘your guy’.

I don’t know what kind of player Captain is, but could you have offered to resolve the dispute between him and Tony by saying something like ‘hey, guys, let’s say he hits me once and runs away’? Do you think he would have taken advantage of this opening to kill your character?

Eszed,

I don't think it's about creative control or input. I think it's mostly about transferrence: I hate feeling impotent. I feel impotent all the time in real life, since there are so many things I can't control. So, when the GM Forcefield comes up, I feel like my character has been rendered impotent and thus, at least within the realm of that game, I have been rendered impotent as well. I like my characters to be active and have control of their own destinies (which is why I play Amber and not Call of Cthulhu), and when I feel that is taken away, I become angry. If bad things happen to my character fair and square, I don't complain or mind. But I do mind when I feel that the GM ruled against me in order to accomplish some metagame agenda and my character is being sacrificed for it. Does that make sense?

Probably not. I'm kind of complicated. I'm not even sure why I do things sometimes. But I think it's something like this.

Eszed, I dunno; I try very hard to be a peaceful person and I think that, a lot of the time, agreeing to disagree is a damn fine idea, in gaming and elsewhere. In fact, that's part of why I like gaming: my characters are usually highly verbal and opinionated, even spiteful. When the spitefulness spills out of the game into the gaming group, I don't like it. And I'm comfortable with being that way, honestly.

I did talk a little OOC with Capt B about possible ways the combat could go and try to assure him that I had no intention of trying to kill his character or keep her from her mission. I was just looking for a good barroom brawl scene, actually. I'm a simple man. :)

Just to speak to the situation: the combat had not really gone very far, it seemed to me that neither character was in serious danger of death -- there were too many options for escape on either side. I genuinely think it was a disagreement about "the way things oughta work", not a matter of people pushing or bending the rules because they were afraid of losing their guy. In fact, both Capt B. and I had already shown admirable willingness to let our characters get screwed with in the service of a cracking good story.

And that's about all I have to say about the matter, I think.

Edit: just noticed that Capt. B. cross-posted with me. I think he put his finger on the most important issue here, and probably the biggest difference in play styles between him and I. Almost all of my characters, by design, either want something impossible for them or are dreaming of something they lost... the Chaos Lord in this game, for example, is working for Amber against Chaos, even though his sympathies are basically the other way around. He's a walking contradition that can never get straightened out. Almost all my characters, in whichever game I play, are broken in some essential way. Seeing them get hosed a little more adds to the fun. Despite what I wrote above, I'm guessing Capt. B. doesn't feel that way.

Eszed, I'm sorry, I won't be answering your specific questions. Let me talk instead about the general issue of trust.

Trust is huge in roleplaying. It goes hand in hand with communication. If you trust that your core goals for a game are not under assault, you communicate more effectively. If you communicate more effectively it is easier to convey your core goals for a game. Synergy, that.

More importantly, trust that is built upon having communicated your goals and understood those of others is bedrock, worthy to build upon. Trust that comes from hope, or the mere appearance of agreement without deeper understanding... that's quicksand.

Internet roleplaying has only a shadowy parody of real human communication. You have to be a really, really good writer to convey in words the sort of emotional nuance that can be gotten across by a single lazy wave of a hand, or a raised eyebrow.

Unfortunately, this lack of communication does not, in fact, lead to a lack of trust. I don't know why, but people are very ready to place their trust in most anyone who shares their interests.

I had a nice little mathematical exercise worked up, but it's boring. I'll skip to the conclusion: An unchanged level of trust, coupled with much less effective communication, creates an environment which disproportionately drives people into situations where misunderstandings are viewed as betrayals.

I'm beginning to wonder whether my motto for internet gaming should be "Do not trust me! You couldn't possibly know what I'm thinking!" A bit over-the-top on drama, but it does get across my general point: Making first contact with a person or group is a tricky matter of establishing a shared language and probing for cultural booby-traps. Underestimate its difficulty at your peril. The friendly natives who keep offering you wonderful food may assume that you know you're being fatted as a sacrificial offering :)

Many Indie games (Sorceror, Inspectres, MLwM, presumably others I haven't yet investigated) share a common feature: The opening of the first session (or the entire first session) is composed of out of character discussion where nothing "in-game" is at stake. In short, people have a chance to acclimate to each other socially before being called upon to live up to most responsibilities of the social contract. Good gaming wisdom there. I wish I'd paid more attention to it.

Whenever I have a problem with this while running games I first listen to the player's complaints, and often I'll change to rule in their favor. If not, I'll often roll a die or flip a coin to determine which way to go. Most players accept this. I get good results mostly because I usually let my players talk me out of my position if it's logical.

On the other hand, most RPGs have a rule someplace that says "the GM is the final authority", etc.
I usually don't try to dominate the players because if I abused it they would all quit.

The other factor to think of is that from a storytelling point of view, perhaps the events have to go a certain way to tell a story. If it wouldn't work mechanically, often the GM will "force it".... but players tend to hate that.

I'd suggest that the GM simply think of another way to advance the story, without forcing the issue.

It's all about "pulling" the players along instead of "pushing" them.

Also, since the game is being played online, the dynamics are a bit different...

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

Hey Tony, I think your comments on trust in internet gaming is spot on.

I was having this exact discussion recently and my conclusion was internet gaming is most successful when there is an established sense of community that exists outside of the participants themselves.

By this I mean for example, long running chat room play where (for the long time members at least) there is something personal at stake that is at risk (ostracization) and thus encourages members to operate within the boundaries that have been established in that community.

Or MMORPGs like EQ or DAOC. In these cases its not the game itself that provides the community but the various guild structures who provide a community within the game enviroment very similiar in structure to chat room RPG sites.

When you don't have such a community Internet play works best IMO for 1 shot and comedic play, primarily because there is less at risk. If the game is only 1 session long, or if mostly its alot of clowning around, then there really isn't anything to be betrayed that's meaningful.

Long term PBEM or chat based roleplaying, however, that is based primarily on the pick-up model ("hey I'm running a game, anyone interested in playing") I think are very very difficult to pull off successfully consistantly for exactly the reasons you indicate.

I'd love to have you start a thread on your experiences with PBEM play and your notions of trust in the game and how you've dealt with it. I think that would be a great topic of conversation.

Oooh. More and more interesting, guys. Thank you for playing along, and being so open. This is exactly what make the Forge so great.


Captain, I think you and I are actually on exactly the same wavelength, here. "I like my characters to be active and have control of their own destinies", looks to me like another way of saying 'I, the player, want to have creative control over (some) events that happen ingame'. If the GM sacrifices your character for his own metagame agenda it means he is exercising WAY too much creative control over the story/world and completely devaluing your quite proper creative input.

Semantics, semantics. Do you see what I mean?

Now, here's the interesting bit. DannyK writes that you "had already shown admirable willingness to let our characters get screwed with in the service of a cracking good story"?

Do you know what moment he's talking about, because I'm curious what felt different to you about that time, compared to this one where the wheels fell off.

See, I think we each come to the table with our own metagame agendas. Finding a way for them to coexist is the essence of the 'Social Contract' everyone is always on about.

My suspicion is that the three of you (or maybe just you and Tony) failed to understand or to respect each other's metagame agendas.

So, I'm trying to figure out from each of you what those agendas might be.

Does that make sense to you?

Making "a cracking good story" sounds like DannyK's metagame agenda; and what he wrote about walking contradictions and so forth hints at what sorts of tales are most interesting to him.

What you wrote about being active and controlling your own destiny sounds like it is hinting at yours. Can you expand on that? Are there particular types of characters you tend to play? What moments (in this or another game) made you feel the least impotent?

Again, thanks for keeping this up, and for being so honest. Very cool.

Tony, Please do open a forum to discuss PbP gaming. I've not done much (and always with people with whom I also game FtF), so hadn't thought much about the inherent 'slipperiness' of the social dynamic in that context.

However, that's getting off topic here.

I think you are absolutely right that only

trust that is built upon having communicated your goals and understood those of others is bedrock, worthy to build upon

I'm not detached enough to discuss the specifics without advocating my position.

It reflects well on you that you want to make peace, but all the same I'll stick to generalities.

Tony, OK. Fair enough. What, in general then, are your metagame goals?

And slightly more specifically: What are (were?) your goals for this campaign? What themes did you build in from the beginning? Who are your favorite NPCs? Which scenes did you get jazzed about every time you imagined how they might occur? Where were you hoping the characters would end up?

(None of that need reference Captain, or the altercation you've been having, right?)

(Have you opened that other thread? Not sure what forum it should go in . . . RPG Theory? I don't usually spend much time there. hm.)

cheers,

I'll be lambasted, likely for doing this, as I do often when I assign this diagnosis, but this is simply yet another case of incoherent play, in the Forge sense of the term.

Worse, I'm fearful that Erick is reading this, because I think that I'm about to insult his game. Amber leads to these sorts of problems with great frequency from what I've seen. I love many elements of it's design, but the one thing that it does not do is to get the players on the same sheet of music in terms of a creative agenda.

And that's what happened here. Captain complains that he felt "impotent." I've never heard a better term for the feeling that a player gets in an incoherent game when the GM isn't allowing the character to have the effect on the game that he feels that the he should be allowed throught the vehicle of the character.

Captain, the reason you can't understand Tony's post is because it's espousing a different CA than you understand Amber to support. This is why Tony can say that the play in question "followed the rules" and you can say that it did not. The rules say two different things. Making the two different interpretations completely valid.

And these interpretations (and a few more, I might add) are so common, that it's no surprise that players have problem with other players as often as they do. You'll note that Amber groups tend to segment off by certain self-selected criteria. This is because they've noted this phenomenon. Unforunately they don't understand it quite perfectly because they're using fairly undefined terms, or phraseology that can be interpreted in multiple ways by different people.

For example, if someone says, "What I like about Amber is creating stories." That tells you precisely nothing, because what constitutes creating a story is different to every RPG player alive.

So, don't blame each other, blame the system which lead you inevitably to this problem. If you ever want to play together again, I suggest that you learn the GNS theory to the point that you can communicate your ideas to each other. Only then will you know if you are combatible enough to play with each other.

Simply agreeing to use the Amber rules is not enough.

Mike

Yeah, yeah, Mike. I was getting there. I was trying to get all Socratic first, though. Thought it would be more convincing to go by baby steps, you know? Kind of clever. Yeah.

Busted! :)


Anyone still care about this thread, or should I go back to rotting my mind on Baldur's Gate?

yrs,

I wholly agree that it's a difference in CAs. But part of the interest of this for me personally has been trying to decide from my own experience whether differing CAs are something that can ever be overcome, or whether (as you seem to recommend) the only thing to do is to go your separate ways.

I've been fascinated to see, in this experience and this discussion, how powerfully people (myself most certainly included) filter the actions of others through the lens of their own modes of play.

Indeed, in this case, I think that I made matters much worse in the game itself when I figured out that we had a problem of incoherence, and tried to explain it in those terms.

Understanding that somebody else is thinking in ways fundamentally different from your own requires going well outside your mental comfort zone. That's just not going to happen, I think, when both sides are already feeling under attack.

Which leads me to a more general application of the previous idea I had about "Don't set precedent, just solve the problem". Generally speaking, I think that for problems of incoherence it is better to slap a band-aid on the specific symptom, and give everyone a chance to cool down, before trying to address the underlying malaise.

Thoughts?

Eszed, sorry to have jumped your gun. :-)


Tony, I think you have to handle these things on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes the game will disintigrate on the spot, no matter how you try to gloss things over (has happend to me). So, sometimes you do have to stop and address the issue right there. You can't wait for a break. It's not always the best policy.

What you definitely can't do is continue playing and not expect further problems to occur at some point. At the soonest possible break in the action, it has to be discussed. Since this was online and PBP (if I understand it) there were no breaks in the foreseeable future. So you'd have to create one of your own. Given that, I'd think that stopping right then and there would be the best way to go.

If I had to present evidence that your method was incorrect, it's the result that occured. Remember that Captain isn't at all in the wrong here. That's not to say that you're wrong in your CA, but I think that you were wrong not to straighten it out in some way immediately. If you saw that as the problem at that point, you could have realized that the problem would not go away.

For instance, you didn't say that you were going to give an explanation later, did you? That is, it seems to be captain's position that you seemed to be saying that there would never be an explanation. So, to him all that he sees is that the game is broken and will not be getting fixed ever. How can he continue to play?

OTOH, this perception could have been due to the both of you communicating poorly - I can't say for sure.


In any case, it's not absolutely impossible to play with people in different modes. It all depends on the players willingness to accept different modes of play. Typically, however, this means that the GM has to cater to each player's mode. Given the power that the GM typically possesses, if the GM does not cater, then that player will almost definitely feel Impotent.

This is one (albeit very difficult) way to "overcome" a CA disparity. The usual way, however, is to select one CA for all, and try to stick to it. That is, the problem is "overcome" by getting all of the players to agree to one CA. In this case, it means that either you or the Captian, will have to change your outlook on how to play. Which requires that one of you bend here to fit.

Are either of you willing to do so?

Actually that's not a fair question, because I think that the both of you probably still do not understand each other's mode preference yet.

But that's the point. Unless one of you is willing to try to understand the other's perspective, and then to change to it, then you're probably not going to be able to play with each other. And none of this considers the other players in the game. I'm not sure how many there are, but, unless they're all tight into one mode for some reason, then the problem is wider than can be solved by either one of you in the short run.

Possibly the best thing would be for you, Tony, to rewrite the rules so that they support your vision of play directly. Then players can decide if they want to play that game based on the clearly presented vision of play. Optimistically, they'll see what you're trying to do and see that it'll be fun.

Mike

Eszed,

Yeah, I wondered, as I was typing my last post, if I was saying the same thing with different semantics. But I decided to see what the response was rather than guessing on my own.

Now, here's the interesting bit. DannyK writes that you "had already shown admirable willingness to let our characters get screwed with in the service of a cracking good story"? Do you know what moment he's talking about, because I'm curious what felt different to you about that time, compared to this one where the wheels fell off.

Hey guys,

This is for Tony and Captain B specifically.

If you are primarily concerned with being understood, then you are almost certain not to understand the other fellow. That is, if over and over, you are not getting the feedback you want from explaining your position, then you're going to try to explain it again, and not listen to word one from the other fellow which isn't the feedback you want.

It happens a lot in the GNS forum, and I have to ask the person, "Look, are you sticking with this discussion because you want to understand others, or because you're frustrated that you don't feel you're being understood?"

Most of the time, the person says, "The latter! If you-all would only understand me, I wouldn't be so stubborn!" So then I try to paraphrase their position as best I can, and usually the person realizes that they're being understood after all.

But unless I'd stuck that stick in the spokes, no matter what I'd said, the person would just keep re-explaining, because he'd already decided no one was listening.

Speaking as a third party, then, and looking over this whole thread, I think Tony is currently a wee bit further along the path of acknowledging where the Captain is coming from. You just posted that you feel as if you've provided tons of explanation and Tony hasn't, but actually, go back and read the thread - Tony's actually copped to the idea that he contributed to the problem. Sadly, Captain, right now, I think you're still out for blood, a little bit.

Just a wee bit, you want Tony to be wrong: wrong then, wrong during your later discussion, and wrong now. You want him to say it. I've seen way too many people act on this feeling: wanting the other person to feel just as bad and frustrated as one felt during play and thereafter -"See, see how it feels?"

'Course the other person isn't going to give satisfaction on that score. Who would?

Well, speaking not as Forge moderator but merely as a fellow role-player who's seen every possible permutation of the phenomenon which prompted this thread, I think you should give it up. Just let it go. You didn't get what you want, and getting some sense of reparation for it isn't going to happen.

What I haven't seen from you - and this is distinct from "explaining your position" - believe me, we get it already - is to acknowledge that you contributed to the problem. Not big mean GM-Tony picking on you, who was "only" playing according to his "rights," but you. Yeah, you, contributing to the problem. Completely independently of Tony. It could have been the Sunbeam Savior GMing - whoever.

Tony has acknowledged the responsibility on his part. What more could you want from him? Should he wear a big sign for a week that says "I was a bad GM"? C'mon, man. Accept some responsibility. That's the only help the Forge can offer you.

Best,
Ron

Mike,

We cross-posted. I can't think of any way to answer your post without blaming Tony. I will just say, yes, if I had known about the difference in CAs, I would have been willing to adapt. But I didn't know, so it was never an issue.

Ron,

Nope. Not trying to be understood. Not trying to get Tony to admit anything. I just thought the questions being posed to me were interesting and that I would answer them, either in the hopes of learning something by answering them, or learning something by what others thought of what I said.

I thought this discussion, per your words, wasn't about blame (another word for responsibility). I haven't talked about whether I was responsible or not because you told me no one here would validate which one of us, Tony or me, were wrong. So, the whole issue seemed irrelevant, and I have not broached it, either in regards to Tony or myself.

Also, I didn't word my previous post well. When I said, "but never seemed to get enough of an explanation in return, sort of like here," by here I meant in the case of the ruling that lead to this thread, not here on the Forge. Sorry about that. Tony has been very forthcoming in this thread, which I appreciate. I was talking about during the game.

I've already gotten what I wanted out of this thread and was willing to end it earlier. But I thought I might learn something by answering Eszed's and Mike's posts. I no longer have an agenda for this thread and I'm not trying to accomplish anything other than learn something I haven't yet.

TonyLB wrote: I had declared that I would not contravene the rules in order to achieve "desirable" story outcomes. In Forge terms, I intended to make it clear that the Karma system wasn't going to have a whole lot of wiggle room. The balance of attributes and relevant powers would control outcomes, who wins and how quickly, and details like what weapons and tactics you're using, or how important it is to your character to win the battle, would have little if any effect.

But there's this other thing that I think you may be saying which is quite different, and which I really wasn't geared to hear. You seem to be implying that you read the ADRPG rules as a system of cause and effect rules for simulating reality, and that I had promised to objectively apply those rules, starting from first causes and proceeding mathematically to the final result.

John,

Within the game itself, I don't think the idea of the strict Karmic combat resolution was explained. However, I had read a thread on an Amber website where Tony had put forth such an idea. But, from my reading of that thread, I still wouldn't have expected the system that was actually used.

He'd proposed that when two warfare characters faced off, the fight would be determined entirely karmically, ie, the character with the highest warfare wins, no matter tactics or strategy. The idea is intended (and please speak up, Tony, if I am misrepresenting anything here) to prevent someone with greater fencing knowledge, for instance, talking his or her way into beating a player with higher Warfare but no fencing knowledge. And to prevent a player from babbling on and on about what his character is doing in the fight in the hopes of hitting some magic phrase that will make the GM allow his or her actions (I dislike this in Amber too, mostly in regards to powers). I, personally, have a lot of problems with this method of resolution, but that's not relevant here (maybe a thread...?)

Anyway, I still thought that, even using this strictly karmic method of combat resolution, that things like the amount of time to raise the Logrus and such would be in play. I don't necessarily think that strict karmic resolution means that those kind of factors are left out, since they are factors within the game world affecting the resolution, not things outside the game world affecting resolution (such as a player's fencing knowledge).

So, ultimately, I never realized that we were using a strictly karmic system, but, even if we were, I would still have expected the combat to go much differently, because it was not obvious to me in any way that a strictly karmic system would get rid of things like the time to raise the Logrus and such. Does that make any sense?

And yes, since I didn't think we were using a strictly karmic system, I did think that my character's actions in the combat would matter. That is true. I did think that throwing a chair in order to more quickly hit my opponent and keep him from raising the Logrus would have an effect. Even under the strict karma system, as I understood it, the chair still would have hit my opponent, based on my character's superior warfare, just not any faster than had I just ran up to attack him. But I never understood that the system would take out the priniciple limitation on powers, their time factors.

Assuming that's what happened or how the system worked. I'm not even sure that's what happened. I think so, but I still don't really know what the ruling really was, but this is my best guess.

captain_bateson wrote: The idea is intended (and please speak up, Tony, if I am misrepresenting anything here) to prevent someone with greater fencing knowledge, for instance, talking his or her way into beating a player with higher Warfare but no fencing knowledge.
...
Anyway, I still thought that, even using this strictly karmic method of combat resolution, that things like the amount of time to raise the Logrus and such would be in play. I don't necessarily think that strict karmic resolution means that those kind of factors are left out, since they are factors within the game world affecting the resolution, not things outside the game world affecting resolution (such as a player's fencing knowledge).

Hey,

Cap, thanks for clueing me in - it was indeed the phrasing that you spotted (and clarified) that had me squinting suspiciously.

Anyway, I think it's now time for this thread to spawn little threadlets and be permitted to rest in peace. The karma system topic seems like a good one for its own thread somewhere (Theory, maybe, or maybe here in Actual Play if it's specific to the game in question).

Thanks everyone,
Best,
Ron

John,

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, but let me try to be a little clearer. I thought that, in a strict karmic system, if I attack someone it would be Warfare vs. Warfare. Warfare is faster than powers. Unless the other character has powers ready to use, then Warfare would decide things.

I don't think that's what Tony's idea of a strict karmic system means. All I am saying is that a strict karmic system of resolution seems to mean different things to different people.

I think it's not a general gaming problem. It's an amber specific problem, like the one that happen to friends of mine a feww years ago in a very similar way. Let me sum the thing up :

- in Amber, you play godlike beings
- every attribute is the more important, so everyone is the biggest badass
- rules are contradictory : warfare is the only attribute relative to combat but metamorphosis gives you awesome combat powers.
- ...

So basically evreyone envisions his character as the ultimate guy, which of course is impossible (like something elese before breakfast in Ron's articles). That's why, in my opinion, Amber is COMPLETELY ill suited for strongly gamist play with high competition among participants.

Captain bateson seems to enjoy a powergaming, high competition gamist play that Ron's article describe as "can stay functionnal with very adequate rules and participants". The trick is that the rules are not adequate.

But the worse of it is taht, while every system has a random element, the random element of Amber is the GM's call, thereby transforming in game conflicts on rules points into out of game's conflict about GM's fairness. Or, to use Ron's terminology, rules problem are transferred on the social contract level. The trick is that, as the rules are contradictory, rules problem are unavoidable.

As I practiced LARP vampire, which can also become quickly competitive and rules based, I can assure you that this game could be translated in an forum based game much more apppropriated to the style of play you are looking for.

That was just my 2 cents.

Emmanuel

EDIT : some of the numerous spelling mistakes

Hello,

My previous post actually was angling toward closing the thread, but you know what? At 65 and counting, it's still damn good reading. So cool - let it continue.

I may still split it apart from an earlier point. Not sure yet.

Best,
Ron

Okay, then, I will dive back in!

calebros: Is it an Amber-specific problem? I've sat through a lot more rulings arguments in other games than Amber. In fact, this was the first time that something like this has happened in my over fifteen years of playing Amber. I've never come to such loggerheads with a GM.

And, most of the time, even in PC vs. PC conflict, there's not really much difficulty determining who will likely win. In fact, I think that is what makes the GM Forcefield so obvious in Amber. A character doesn't have six or ten attributes, ten feats, and fifty skills that make it hard to judge against another character with six or ten attributes, ten feats, and fifty skills. Yeah, there are some judgment calls from time to time, when certain combinations of powers and attributes come into play, but those aren't when the arguments happen, by and large. The arguments happen when it is pretty obvious who should win and he or she doesn't. Most of the time it's because of a GM Forcefield, which I'm still not clear wasn't the case here, since I still don't understand the ruling, but here it was also not because of the Amber rules (in my opinion), but because we were using alternate rules and I didn't know it.

I think most Amber players realize that no character is the "ultimate" character, especially after sitting through the auction, which makes clear all the ways in which your character sucks if you didn't win all four auctions (which I have never seen happen). Especially if they've read the books. The characters are godlike with respect to most of the denizens of the universe, but not each other. Corwin can kill hundreds of men going up the face of Kolvir, but Gerard can beat his ass with superior strength. No, I rather think most Amber players have an understanding that Amber characters have weaknesses. At least, the people I play with do! I certainly didn't think my character was invincible: I was trying to get away! I just thought she was easily good enough to do what I wanted. Not any different than any other game, really.

I don't think I'm actually that much into powergaming or gamist play, though I see how mostly knowing me through this thread would give you that impression. I don't really like Vampire or Vampire LARPs. I played in Vampire LARPs a long time ago when the game was brand-new, but now I don't find them fun at all. No, I love Amber, actually, and this is the only time it has gone bad for me (well, there was one other, a loooong time ago, but that wasn't just me -- the players as a group quit all at once because the game was so bad).

I guess I have disagreed with pretty much your entire post. Sorry about that. If you could expand on any of your thoughts or bring some new ones, I'm more than willing to consider and discuss them.

There is no problem with you disagreeing on my post. I don't think I am the supreme RP authority.

Now more seriously, I can see height parameters that affect the outcome of a battle, six of wich are somewhat gamist. All of these parameters are rulewise correct, though they may determine different outcomes for a battle.

1 - Strength in the relevant score. Presently warfare.
2 - Strength in a non relevant score used as a substitution. Example : Benedict atacks Gerrard who uses awesome blows with a solid hallberd to make his strength be the deciding factor
3 - Use of a relevant power, which is not necessarily quantified. For example, maetamorphosis can trump warfare.
4 - Superior karma
5 - Situationnal advantage (your character is exhausted, your opponent prepared himself for the fight)
6 - Clever tactics (ouch, this one is the more open to endless and pointless arguing)
7 - Story interest, which can often be interpreted as 8 by the loosing side
8 - GM preference

Points 6 and 7, though relevant, are fully open to discussion. There seems to be a consensus around here to ban point 6 (a very clever idea IMHO, which will put play forward and assume both character's are somewhat skilled tacticians, with far above human tactical intelligence)

7 is very relevant, especially when a character uses a very cheap tactic that is contrary to story interest, an example of which could be : so I have human rank in warfare but I use a 16 points armor that fucks everyone else. However it's not the default situation.

8 is of course what you might complain about

However, points 1 through 5 are equally valid. You consider point 1 to be relevant. GM used point 3 and 4. Both of you have opinions that are legally defendable according to the rules. Which puts the discussion at social contract's layer.

That's why I think that Amber's system must be highly refined before bieng used for highly competitive play, whereas I see Vampire rule being suitable for competitive play even though being flawed (there are a few holes in "Laws of the night", none of which is gameblocking). Because any vmapire LARP argument could be decided at rules level.

calebros: What does "#4, Superior karma" mean? That one I'm not clear on.

Well, since I still don't really know what the ruling ultimately was, it is difficult for me to respond. Let me see if I can put together something coherent here.

Umm... hmmm. Okay. I don't agree that the ruling delivered was legal by the ADR rules. I think the GM has to be using a variant system to come up with that ruling. I'm not sure exactly what the system is, so don't ask. I still don't understand the methodology used to arrive at the ruling.

But, as such, I don't know whether it's really about Amber or not. I rather think that this problem would develop in a lot of games if the GM was using an alternate conflict resolution system ("home rules") of which the players were unaware. Saying, "the Vampire LARP system is better than Amber at handling highly competitive play," doesn't make much sense to me when I don't think we were using the Amber rules.

Let's say you show up at a Vampire LARP. You get into a fight, a fight which you were willing to risk getting into because, under the Vampire LARP rules, you should win. Then, the GM doesn't use the system, but does something else, and rules that you lose. Would you call that a problem of the Vampire LARP rules or a problem of not using them?

By the normal ADR rules, with all the factors in play, I think the outcome of the conflict under discussion was pretty clear. Tony was just using a different system and I didn't know it.

There certainly are flaws in the Amber system, but I'm not sure this situation resulted from one of them. I rather think it had more to do with communication, trust, Creative Agendas, and the Social Contract.

I don't know anything at all about the Amber system, so I can't comment on the last few posts.

BUT, I'm happy to see that both of the principals in this discussion, Tony and Captain, agree that there is/was a mismatch in their Creative Agendas. I say I'm happy, because that's the area of discussion that is relevant to all gaming groups, so I'm going to try to wrestle this thread back to my original line of inquiry:

What were everyone's CAs?

We've seen a pretty clear answer from Captain. He likes to play straight ahead fighters because he wants to feel powerful in ways he does not in everyday life.

I haven't yet seen Tony lay out his Creative Agenda like that, nor has he answered any of the questions I (or Valimir or Mike) asked that might reveal what it might be.

I don't know, Tony, maybe you have something clearly in mind which you haven't shared with us. I'd love to know what it is -- or, at the very least, to hear why you are wary of laying it out in the open for everyone to look at.

Maybe, though, you don't have a clearly articulated CA -- that's fine, though it might (MIGHT) be a reason things broke down between you and Captain -- in which case, tell us more about the game and the world and then let Ron and Val and the other posters here with even more experience than you and me help us understand how you can make your ideas and Captain's (or someone like him) work together into a kick-ass game.

cheers,

The reason I am wary of getting into any discussion of specifics here is that I believe it will inevitably drag me back toward discussing the actual facts of the case.

We had a serious, emotionally charged, misunderstanding. It colored everyones interpretation of events. I believe it has caused everyone to remember some things accurately, unconsciously edit others, and to forget (or never perceive in the first place) yet different things completely. I really need to go out and rent Rashomon.

The net result is that I do not agree with Caps portrayal of what happened, much less his imputation of motives. And what good can possibly come of thrashing through that? Cap will feel under attack, I'll feel obligated to defend my statements, and as the armor goes up both of us will be less able to hear the useful things being said around us. The cost is too high.

Tony,

Don't worry about me. If you want to continue this discussion, then do so. If not, then you're right to stop. I have little emotional attachment to the subject anymore. It might be different for you since you're still running the game in which it happened. But I'm pretty much discussing this out of intellectual interest and because I get bored at work a lot. If you want to forward a different interpretation from mine, feel free, at least in terms of worrying about me.

Thanks!

Tony,

I don't care about the actual facts of the case between you and Captain -- as you point out they are likely being mis-remembered, re-edited, and/or selectively forgotten by everyone involved.

I'm trying to figure out your respective CAs.

I feel like I have a pretty good handle on Captain's, but so far you've dodged every question I (and others) have asked you that might have revealed something about your goals for play.

Are you willing to tell us ANYTHING else about your agenda for the game?

I thought I'd asked questions that couldn't possibly involve your misunderstanding or characterising anyone's motives, but maybe I was wrong.

How about this: How's the game gone since Captain left? What's happened and how satisfied have you been with play?

cheers,

captain_bateson wrote: Let's say you show up at a Vampire LARP. You get into a fight, a fight which you were willing to risk getting into because, under the Vampire LARP rules, you should win. Then, the GM doesn't use the system, but does something else, and rules that you lose. Would you call that a problem of the Vampire LARP rules or a problem of not using them?

Miskatonic wrote: Can systems (or perhaps more accurately, social contracts) be designed so as to prevent it from coming to this?

New thread, please. This one really needs to be left alone, just treated as a spawner.

Best,
Ron