This is a question inspired by the basic conflict described in this thread:
[Long] GM Refusal to Explain Ruling

I am not making any comment on the actual discussion on that thread, but I am rather interested in something that arises in my mind from the original argument between the player and GM: something that has come up for me numerous times in my previous games, and which remains a thorny issue. This is what we used to call the "intraparty conflict".

When two player characters engage in a physical conflict where the life of one or both of the characters is at stake, something happens to the GM role in the Social Contract. I have found that players demand that the GM remove himself as much as possible from his role as "Game Master" and only apply rules in the strictest sense. This arises, I believe, from a basic mistrust of the GM as a neutral arbiter in the case of intraparty conflict, and a reduction of the GM's role to a minimal interpretation of the rules. When this has happened in my games, small rules issues have become the subject of heated debate, and I find myself far more on the defensive as a GM. I feel the need to fully explain every decision and try to remain scrupulously neutral to both players. Playing out these conflicts also takes far longer than typical conflicts against NPCs.

Is this experience typical for everyone, and is there some way to keep these situations from becoming such a strange, different experience in play?

I think, to a certain extent, all of the things I describe stem from a strong proprietary sense in players for their characters, and dropping back to a strict legalistic standpoint (heavy reliance on rules) is a way to avoid out of character conflict between players. Any other thoughts on this?

inthisstyle wrote: This is what we used to call the "intraparty conflict".

inthisstyle wrote: Is this experience typical for everyone, and is there some way to keep these situations from becoming such a strange, different experience in play?

inthisstyle wrote: I think, to a certain extent, all of the things I describe stem from a strong proprietary sense in players for their characters, and dropping back to a strict legalistic standpoint (heavy reliance on rules) is a way to avoid out of character conflict between players. Any other thoughts on this?

Mega-short-post: There's a difference between "character vs. character" and "player vs. player".

In general, the problem is that the form of play has changed, possibly only momentarily. That is, what you're describing outside of the PvP play (I've used the other term, too, but PvP is currently popular, and short), is play in which the players consider the GM to be an adversary in a way. That is, it's his job to play the adversaries, and provide adversity. As such, when the PvP conflict starts each player worries about the GM being against them and handing over the victory to the opponent with a fiat ruling.

That is, it's OK for a GM to suddenly have more orcs appear to challenge the party, but when the player is competing against another player, the playing field has to be level, and the GM sending in orcs to aid player A would seem unfair to player B.

There are lots of ways to solve this. The first is to get some better trust between all of the players and the GM.

Another thing to consider:

Is this experience typical for everyone, and is there some way to keep these situations from becoming such a strange, different experience in play?

Hi Brennan,

As you know, I've had a lot of success running PVP scenarios at cons this past year. I've found that players really having tangible opponents and allies at the table.

But I have noticed a little retreat on my part. I conduct these scenarios in a very hands off manner. I only arbitrate rules, there's very little narration or scene manipulation on my part.

At home, our group is very accustomed to PvP rivalry, but we have a fairly well-spoken code that outright murder is supremely frowned upon. There has to be acknowledgement on both sides of the fence before I'll allow players to draw swords on each other in BW. Unlike Hero Quest, death comes swiftly to the unwary.

But aside from that limit, we have a long tradition of intraparty conflict. I encourage it. Hell, in our current game, two players were playing up being buddies. Behind the scenes they were both manipulating each other, prepared to offer the other up in exchange for their final goals.

hope that helps,
-L

inthisstyle wrote: I think, to a certain extent, all of the things I describe stem from a strong proprietary sense in players for their characters, and dropping back to a strict legalistic standpoint (heavy reliance on rules) is a way to avoid out of character conflict between players. Any other thoughts on this?

<joke>

When two player characters engage in a physical conflict where the life of one or both of the characters is at stake, something happens to the GM role in the Social Contract.

Is this experience typical for everyone, and is there some way to keep these situations from becoming such a strange, different experience in play?

xiombarg wrote: This is nearly always a clear warning sign of dysfunction, and that the issue should have been addressed before it became dysfunctional in-game behavior. Often, once the incident happens, it is tough to get the real OOC issue out in the open, because in discussing the incident people will retreat into "my guy" mode as a way of covering their ass. "No, there was no issue with Bob there, that's just what my character would do."

To make a point again, I think that the confusion over the arena is what causes the OOC conflicts. That is, one player assumes that PvP is not a suitable arena for conflict, but then another player takes advantage of the player's trust, and competes. Then the competed against player feels betrayed. Causing the OOC problem.

That is, I don't think that these things start out as OOC problems, but they develop into them. Because the CA isn't stated such that everyone is on the same sheet of paper.

Mike

Mike,

Yes, your point seems very relevant. I think it is a problem with incoherence, and since the players have different goals the conflict between the two characters is interpreted differently by each player. This leads to the bad blood between the players and can even break up a group (as has happened to me).

The first time I can ever remember my character attacking another player character was in a Rolemaster game where the GM told the other player, "If you fire your bolt, it will hit [my character] in the back." The GM told him that about ten times. The other player chose to ignore him and shot my character in the back. I attacked, though did not kill, the other player's character. There were clear IC reasons for my character's attack. Of course, there were clear OOC reasons as well, but they developed from the same incident as the IC reasons. It wasn't a prior OOC conflict brought into the game.

I have seen my share of OOC conflict played out within games as well. I used to play with a guy who inevitably, no matter the character, tried to kill the rest of the party whenever he felt that he wasn't taken seriously enough by the rest of the [OOC] group. I also once had a player in a game I was running start cutting off the heads of the other player characters because he was upset with me for OOC reasons. It certainly does happen.

However, I once played in Amber campaign in which my character killed two other player characters. One of my best friends played the first character. There was no OOC animosity or issue. It was strictly IC. And, in fact, I felt terrible about it during and afterward. I apologized to my friend profusely. It was a big victory for my character, but it was a nerve-wracking event for me.

The second character I killed I also felt bad about, because the other player character was no threat to mine and was, in fact, trying to escape into Shadow when my character caught and killed him. But my character thought (for various IC reasons) he was a threat. Once again, I had no OOC issues going on with the other player. It was completely and IC thing.

So, both do happen. Why is it so strange? First, because the stakes are so high for both of the players. Even if the fight isn't to the death, one person's character is going to get one up on the other, which will be a blow to the character's ego, and, therefore, with some players, the player's ego as well. The player's image of the character is suddenly at risk in a way it's not when fighting an NPC villain. The group (if there is one) will talk about the fight forever, both IC and OOC, and one person's character may well be stained for the rest of the campaign for losing. Also, no one likes losing in front of a group of their peers.

It's strange for the GM because he or she probably doesn't want to upset either player. But will almost certainly have to. If the GM applies the rules fairly and impartially, the player with the weaker character (in whatever field of battle being used) will be upset when his or her character loses (or dies). If the GM fudges or cheats, the player whose character has the upper hand according to the mechanics will be upset. Also, depending on what happened IC to cause the fight, one or both players will feel that the other is getting away with not facing the consequences of his or her actions, making player character actions seem unimportant. A player may complain, "There's no reason for him not to pee in my canteen every night if you're going to protect him when I try to kick his ass." Either way, someone feels slighted, either because the other player was protected or because their own character wasn't.

Also, in a normal PC vs. NPC encounter, the GM is only dealing with two sets of interpretations of the rules: the player's, and his or her own. In a PvP conflict, there are now three interpretations of the rules that the GM has to juggle: his or her own, and those of each player. Even if the GM does his or her best to remain scrupulously neutral and follow the rules to the letter (or the house rules, as the case may be), one or both players is still likely to feel cheated if the GM does not rule in his or her favor, no matter what the rule says.

Oh, and another thing that has been a big issue for me: If I sense the GM is protecting the other player, I get angry because I fear negative consequences on my character that wouldn't happen otherwise. For instance, if the GM protects the other character so no one will get hurt, I fear that the other character will come back for revenge later and that the GM won't protect my character. (I have actually seen this a lot. It's not usually malicious. The GM decides, in the interim, that he or she was wrong to protect the other character, and vows not to do it again). Since the 2nd bout is often arranged by the other character to his or her advantage, things often go poorly. Player A has Player B on the ground and wants a coup de grace. The GM obviously saves Player B (teleports him out, lets him scurry away, whatever). Later, Player B poisons Player A's character and Player A dies because the GM protected Player B. That's happened to me a number of times and is very frustrating.

So, there's a lot going on. How to make it less strange? Do it a lot, as noted above. Eventually you'll get used to it. Maybe make explicit how you will handle PvP conflict before one ever happens, particularly outlining how things will and will not follow the normal rules and the normal way of handling things OOC (like, for instance, if players can challenge rulings normally but not in PvP, they should know that before they ever get into PvP). You know, the best PvP combat I ever had was one where the other player didn't know he was fighting me (for various reasons) and so there was no OOC weirdness. Obviously, most PvP fights won't be like that, but maybe separating the players into two different rooms so that you can go between them to get their actions and tell them what's happened without them shouting at each other or any kind of OOC conflict happening on top of the IC... and the GM with a third room to think... Bringing in an impartial GM to adjudicate PvP? Not very practical...

On the other hand, it occurs to me that maybe PvP being weird is good. Maybe that keeps players from attacking each other more than necessary. Food for thought.

Sorry for the novel.

Whoa, lots of issues. You caught me on something. I do believe that primarily OOC reasons do lead to problems in these areas, you're completely right. And we can talk about frequency of occurance and all of that. But the thing is that the only "solution" for the OOC reasons are social. That is, the remedy is for people to be properly social first. This is axiomatic for play. If people don't behave in a social fashion that everyone can enjoy together, then there's no use playing at all. You can't fix this in the game, you have to fix initially OOC issues out of play entirely.

What I'm saying is that the problem of not having a shared Creative Agenda leads to player animosity here with great fecundity. Since, as you put it, the stakes are high. This is a really good point. In most play, the stakes really aren't as high as the character's life. That is, if the character's life were really threatened regularly, then they would die regularly. What happens instead is that an entire adventure or some other block of play may constitute a threat to the character. For instance, in D&D, Hit Points act as a buffer. In most cases, the only question is how many hit points you lose. If things are timed correctly, the only threat to the characters life occurs, if at all, right at the end of the adventure. In Amber as you point out, the GM can provide plot immunity to any character, and, in general, they have immunity from the setting (being paragons within it).

So, in both of these games, and many others, having a player suddenly escalate the stakes to death is an unwelcome shock. Usually the player has a chance to retreat before the character is in that situation. But players can engineer the situation such that retreat is impossible. In general, play is usually set up so that the player has some sense of the gambles that he's taking. Having a PC suddenly become a potentially lethal enemy isn't usually calculated for, because the assumption is party play (I'll get back to that later).

They might even manipulate things to make the PvP confrontation "unfair." Consider the use of poison. In that case, the defending player may not be able to take steps other than to roll a die to save his life. Meaning that you've not only put your characters into conflict, but you've done so in a way that doesn't actually allow competition. Basically you've altered the arena so that a player may eliminate another's character at will. The question then becomes how can you trust another player if this is possible?

You can't. At that point you'd be playing all out against each other, and no "party" play is possible. This, again, can so alter the CA that people can get beyond annoyed with players doing so. And, see, this is where the intrinsic problem lies. In "traditional" play, the PCs are part of a "party." Meaning, essentially, that there's an unspoken agreement that the characters will be around each other for what is really an OOC reason. That is the idea that if you break up the party that play drags. Being OOC, that means that the player has to subvert his character's own motives to play party style to an extent. If he feels that his character wants to go north, and the rest of the party is going south, usually he'll go south just to keep the party together.

Since the player is subverting his own character's motivations, we now have this OOC agreement about how to play that involves keeping the party together. When a player decides to attack somebody, he's failing to subvert his character's motives for the purpose of party unity, and, hence, breaking that contract.

The problem is that most games seem to indicate that the player is supposed to do "what the character would do." Meaning that the player has an instant, "My Guy" defense, built in. Herin lies the means by which many games promote incoherence. They tell the player to have the character "do what the character would do," but then in subtext tell the player to play in party mode. Leading inevitably to this sort of problem. It's only highlighted by actual PvP conflicts such as lethal character confrontations.


Now, one simple solution seems to be simply not to do party play. This is what I do, and what I think that the Amber games in question do for the most part, actually. Is it a complete solution? No, because that merely eliminates one of the ways in which the problem can arise. The problem manifests on a lower level with the distinction between Gamism and Simulationism. Again, any text that tells you to "do what the character would do" is suggesting that you leave your personal preferences behind in making the decision. But competition based Gamism means that the players are comparing themselves to each other - preference has to be a part of it. The player is saying that they prefer to win over losing in this case.

So, again, you typically see this behavior in G/S incoherent designs. In D&D, for instance, the game is obviously about killing things as a group and taking their stuff. But then it also says that it's about having your character "do what the character would do." So, as soon as a player goes to PvP, he's voiding the more functional mode for the game, and going sim on the party. Again using the "my guy" excuse for any problems that occur.

In the HQ game above, it's not because the players are "used to" PvP, there is no PvP. There is character vs character, but no player vs player (as mentioned). Because in the mode of play we espouse, the players do not associate directly with the character in that ego-linked manner that you indicate, Captain. They not only accept that their characters will fail, they expect and even desire failure. Much in the way that we find the ups and downs of watching a movie to be exciting. As such, they want their protagonists to get beaten up, and don't take it at all personally when it happens.

Yes, if thier characters died in these conflicts, that would be a problem, as the player would actually lose something important - their ability to continue to participate in the creation of that character's story. But, fortunately, I use Hero Quest, where character death as a random result of the system is an impossibility. In HQ, the only way a PC can die is if the GM thinks its a good idea, dramatically. Meaning that, in practice, nobody dies unless the player feels that their character should meet an untimely demise (it's even rare then), in which case the player loses nothing.

So, can you see how important system is in ensuring that PvP does not become an issue? Coherent play, and rules that do not militate against themselves are key in making sure that this problem doesn't rear it's head.

Mike

Mike:

Because in the mode of play we espouse, the players do not associate directly with the character in that ego-linked manner that you indicate, Captain. They not only accept that their characters will fail, they expect and even desire failure.

But competition based Gamism means that the players are comparing themselves to each other - preference has to be a part of it. The player is saying that they prefer to win over losing in this case.

captain_bateson wrote: Mike:

(Personally, I don't like party games much. But, when I have to play one, I try to make up a character who WOULD stay with the party so that I don't have to violate my character concept in order to participate in the game. I think getting players to do that might help a lot in party games.)