So, last night was the second session of the My Life With Master game. I took the advice most of you put forth and played the master with more cruelty and well, it kind of backfired.

Quick recap first: There were four players. Dilette, the viscount's attache. Beau, the viscount's scribe. Marlaina the viscount's mistress. Franc the viscount's alchemist. At the end of the last session it seemd like Marlaina's player and Franc's player were both deliberately going for broke on the love points (those two players are dating in real life by the way). It wasn't yet clear what Dilette was up to and Beau was running around accumulating love points left and right.

There were a lot more scenes involving the master this session than the first session and as recommended I was very very mean to the minions. This had a very very strange effect.

Franc's player actually started going for a few love points. Very slowly and very subtlely. Mainly, he spent a lot of time rescuing his friend, the local grocer, from the revolutionaries who had discovered that he was a aristocracy sympathiser.

Dilette's player started having Dilette cower from the master and start acting wildy and erratically trying to make up for his "mistakes." He took this to the point of *killing his own connection (the only one harboring love points for him) WITHOUT orders from the master*!!!!

But where things really broke down was when I had the master order Marlaina to kill Beau's son. Marlaina did so without question and with quite a bit of enjoyment. After finding out his son was dead, Beau's player had Beau try to kill himself by setting fire to his home. I explained that I didn't think that was appropriate because My Life With Master carries a kind of implicit agreement that everyone plays until the end game condition is met.

It was at this point that I realized something was wrong. Beau's player was genuinely upset and seemed angry. He tried to cover it up with a lot of "my guy" arguments. "My character has nothing left to live for." "That connection was the pillar of my character's strength." etc, etc. Once I realized that this wasn't just an "in game" thing I just said, "Alright, we'll come back to you in a second." I quickly finished out the round of scenes and then ended the session.

Afterwards Beau's player admited that he was a little disturbed by Marlaina's player's behavior. Apparently, it wasn't so much that his connection was killed but that Marlaina's player genuinely enjoyed doing it. He pointed a couple of things out. He noted that Marlaina's player was genuinely surprised to discover that Beau's player lost all the love points associated with that connection (despite me making this very clear several times). He seemed to feel that this indicated that not only was the whole Love thing something Marlaina's player was avoiding but that it was a complete non-issue for her across the entire game.

He pointed out that when I ended the session she begged me (more than once) to keep going. He also pointed out that when I suggested playing My Life With Master sometime with Reason being higher than Fear that she prostested vehemently. You see it was becoming increasingly clearer to him (and to me) that her TOTAL investment in the game was her own ability to commit nigh unstoppable acts of violence, villainy and horror revealeds.

Thankfully, I don't have to make excuses for ending the game. You see one of our regular players is out of town and we made up Riddle of Steel characters just before she left and the My Life With Master game was only supposed to run in the two sessions while she was gone. The game COULD have ended last night if a) more players had gone for love points and b) this odd social altercation had not occured.

So, next week we begin a Riddle of Steel game but I'm not sure how the aftermath of this session is going to affect everyone.

Jesse

Wow! That's so cool!

I mean, yeah, having upset players is a bad thing. No argument there.

At the same time... having characters go bug-house to that extent is a powerful and novel new experience for most role-players.

So Marlaina got a kick out of doing evil by proxy. People have dark sides. I (for one) am not shocked. You want shocking? Go check out some of the Actual Play logs for people playing "Kill Puppies for Satan". Those people are sick :-)

So, if there's nothing inherently wrong with playing out evil and liking doing so, where did things go wrong? My best guess... people weren't on the same page about what the goals of the game are. It sounds (to me) as if Beaus idea was that everyone should be working, long-term, to achieve the end-game conditions, whereas some of the other players just saw the whole thing as a glorious, dark, twisted sandbox where they could go crazy for a while.

Wow.

That recount really chilled me to the bone. I agree with Tony, everyone has there dark sides (and with me and my stranger friends we let it out at every possible opportunity, but we are rather immature about it so that takes away some of the impact), but the total inability to avoid perpetrating evil acts within the game, especially when the game is meant to be about redemption leaves me cold. I like it. I don't mean that it is a good thing to have upsed players, but the power of that playing session cannot be denied.

Maybe you should have a talk with both players, and see if you can try to find out what they really wanted to do within the game. Maybe convince them that doing what they (or the other) are doing isn't necisarily wrong, just that they are going to have to deal with the other's goals thoughout the game. Maybe try getting Marlina's character to take responsibility for her actions, show her the results, how horrible they were and see what happens. Crank up the horror for her until she can't bear it anymore. This would be interesting at least to see where her limit goes.

I for one look forwards to more information. Keep the game going.

Kirk

I feel almost weird because I think what happened wasn't cool. It seems to me that the one player felt deprotoganized in a big way, and the player going around having her character be eeeevil was breaking the social contract by veering so widely off premise.

Obviously the session was pretty intense, but intense is not a synonym for "good." As a youth I was in a knife fight. Intense in a very bad way. It sounded like the whole thing was this side of a disaster.

Wow. That´s absolutely NOT cool!

I don´t know how the others come to that conclusion, because the first thing that came to my mind was: well two players just didn´t want to play the game! MLwM is a game about redemption, about dysfunctional relationships. And about reaching an end-condition. So if two players didn´t play the game that way, Beau´s player (wanting to play the game the way it was meant to) was probably rightly pissed!
This feels to me like a player throwing over the chess board and then claiming that he didn´t know this wasn´t allowed.
This leaves two possible explanations:
1. The players in question really didn´t understand the point of the game. With MLwM this is definitely possible, especially if the players have not been exposed to non-standard games before.
2. The players did place their own enjoyment above that of the other players.

Well, probably it is a combination of 1 and 2. So definitely nothing cool here in my eyes...

I know it's Monday-morning quarterbacking, but I feel I must comment.

jburneko wrote: But where things really broke down was when I had the master order Marlaina to kill Beau's son. Marlaina did so without question and with quite a bit of enjoyment.

Yikes! Yeah, I'm in the not cool camp, but the experience is interesting and I thank you for sharing with us. I wonder what effect having the master order Marlaina to do good things would have had?

Is there any chance that Marlaina's player actually didn't know that Beau's love would be lost? It sounds like the player didn't know Beau's player would be upset and was grasping at straws.

How much did you outline the inevitable conclusion with the players before play began? Had they read the rules?

Did Franc's player react to Marlaina's behavior and the player's response to the situation?

Bummer,

Chris

Hi,

I don't get it. What's the big deal?

1. When Beau tries to kill himself, why go into some big "oh, you shouldn't play like that" diatribe? The rules are clear: the minion should roll Violence, and he'll get some Self-Loathing and might get some Weariness. That's all! Just play the game, man. Let the guy try to kill himself; the rules won't let him die right away, but when Endgame comes, he'll probably be racked into the "suicide slot." Everyone wins, and the suicide eventually succeeds. He just has to wait for Endgame, that's all.

2. Same with Marlaina. Go bonkers with evilness? Go ahead! She'll just end up with becoming a force of Fear in Endgame, which would obviously float the player's boat, or possibly get killed by the townspeople or whoever. Easy as pie. Although I do also agree with Michael (see below)

I think the players are bullying you. It seems to me that you knuckled under to Beau's player pressuring you ("Yeah! Sniff! Then I kill myself, see how you like that!") by trying to negotiate with him about what his character does - something you should never have to do when playing something this Narrativist; it shouldn't even be a glimmer of an option. It also seems to me that you knuckled under to Marlaina's player by having the Master cater to her. Michael's advice is spot on.

Best,
Ron

Hello Guys,

That's an interesting interpretation of suicide. But following that interpretation it would still leave the character in the game since minions can't kill each other (and by extention themselves) via those rules. They'd just gain Weariness. And I'd be fine with that and will keep that in mind for future but this wasn't some sort of grand thematic gesture the player felt appropriate but a deliberate attempt to exit the game.

It was clear (from body position, tone of voice, etc) that it was a huffy attempt to quit. The equivalent of "Fine! I'm taking my toys and going home now." He pointed at the three remaining players and said, "Game will go faster now." And as I said, I don't think it was *just* because his connection was killed but rather that this was the last straw in a growing sense of disgust with the other player's behavior.

Now on the other side of the coin I recognize that going for zero-love is also a valid choice. It wouldn't be on the sheet if it wasn't. (Note: One player thought that perhaps that shouldn't be an option because in terms of raw "cool-factor" it so greatly outweighs all the others and if everyone is going for it the game never ends.) But there's a difference in my opinion between what Dilette's player was doing and what Marlaina's player was doing.

Dilette's player was playing to the horror and tragedy of it all. There was a self-awareness about everything he was doing about just how sad and horrible it was. With Marlaina's player there was this giddy undercurrent of private wish-fullfillment.

Now I DO take responsibility for the bad call of ordering Marlaina to kill Beau's son in the first place. It wasn't a call I made lightly and it was something I weighed very carefully for a few days before the session. I simply came to the wrong decision. But you guys present an alternative I simply hadn't thought of. The corner I felt backed into is: How do you hurt the minions when then player's Wants and the Master's Wants are identical? You can throw all the physical and verbal abuse in the world at them but that didn't seem to be having any effect.

The suggestion made above about the Master deliberately NOT using Marlaina effectively just to hurt her simply had not occured to me. It seemed a bit like removing your own queen from the chessboard just because she had a bit of discoloration on her crown, which now that I put it that way seems totally appropriate for My Life With Master but it just didn't occur to me.

I'll take all of this into account for next time. If there is a next time.

Jesse

Hey Jesse,

Can I ask, was it obvious to you during chargen that Marlaina's player actually had no interest in engaging with the Connections she'd created?

Paul

Paul,

It was obvious that she greatly wanted the Zero Love condition after looking at the epilogue conditions. If not engaging her connections was how she was going to achieve it then that's what she was willing to do. It was less about not wanting to engage the connections and more about wanting to be her own Master by the end game.

Jesse

I'm personally of the mind that knowing the end game epilogue parameters in advance is not desireable. I know *I* don't want to memorize what they are. I prefer when I and the other players are just playing and the epilogue just falls out as a surprise...as opposed to having someone drive towards a specific outcome.

In order for My Life with Master to work, two things need to be achieved by chargen:

• The Master must be embraced by all participants as the game's antagonist. Group Master creation powerfully facilitates this: "Hash out a Master you can all love to hate."

• Connections must describe relationships players really care about.

Which isn't to say a player can't create an evil minion. You create connections like:

Edmund, the orphan boy who enjoys pouring boiling water on cats

And so a minion's activities, his Overtures, are colored by evil behavior. But there are things he still cares about.

That is, there's no linkage between disregarding Connections, evil behavior, and achieving the Love equals zero Epilogue constraint. That constraint is easy to achieve. You just author a motive at some point for killing your Connections. Evil behavior is fine, within the context of character protagonism, that is, as long as your eye is fixed on managing the interest of the other players in your minion's personal struggle. But disregarding Connections is a Social Contract issue. It takes the Fear out of the Master.

Advice to beat and abuse the minions is good, I think, when the Social Contract is intact. But I'd be surprised if it had any effect when it's not. I don't think you can impose adherence to Social Contract, or teach it, through the use of in game force.

Paul

Hey Jesse...one more question: did Beau's player have the opportunity to Provide Aid to his son in resisting Marlaina's player's Violence against him?

Paul

Ralph,

That's how Dilette's player was operating. He had just decided to play the perfectly whipped minion. He was earning Love Points for Blaise because he kept warning him to leave to town. But since he kept failing these overture rolls and Blaise kept mocking him he decided to kill Blaise himself in order to prevent the master from killing him first. Kind of a sick way to be kind.

Paul,

There's something I didn't mention and may represent another place that I made a mistake. I was operatering under the assumption that Love Points were earned for Overtures to Connections that were genuinely humanizing. The kind of thing that makes the whole group go, "Awww", instead of "That's sick!"

Marlaina's player is the one who created the little girl who killed the town drunk during a horror revealed. She then declared the little girl as a connection, mainly to protect her from other people's horror revealeds.

Now there were two scenes Marlaina had with this little girl and both consisted of Marlaina instructing this little girl (her name was Silvie) in how to be a better spy and killer, including how to frame someone else for the murder she commited.

Should I have counted this as an overture despite its incredibly disturbed and DEHumanizing qualities?

Is an Overture mearly the attempt to relate to another human being AT ALL, regardless of the functionality of that relationship? That seems counter to the whole point of Love standing out in contrast to Self-Loathing and Weariness.

As for Beau's opportunity to Provide Aid that's a tricky question. Certainly Beau's player knew what was going to happen but there was no opportunity for Beau to find out. Beau's player is fairly an actor stance kind of guy. He does use author stance but almost unconciously. He would never simply do something like:

Master: "Kill Beau's Son!"
Marlaina: "Yes, Master!"

Beau's Player: "I want to be there when it happens!"

Legal of course, and I would have allowed it but that just isn't in his play style.

Jesse

To drift the thread a little....

jburneko wrote:
But where things really broke down was when I had the master order Marlaina to kill Beau's son. Marlaina did so without question and with quite a bit of enjoyment. After finding out his son was dead, Beau's player had Beau try to kill himself by setting fire to his home. I explained that I didn't think that was appropriate because My Life With Master carries a kind of implicit agreement that everyone plays until the end game condition is met.
--snip--
Afterwards Beau's player admited that he was a little disturbed by Marlaina's player's behavior. Apparently, it wasn't so much that his connection was killed but that Marlaina's player genuinely enjoyed doing it. He pointed a couple of things out. He noted that Marlaina's player was genuinely surprised to discover that Beau's player lost all the love points associated with that connection (despite me making this very clear several times).

jburneko wrote:
There's something I didn't mention and may represent another place that I made a mistake. I was operatering under the assumption that Love Points were earned for Overtures to Connections that were genuinely humanizing. The kind of thing that makes the whole group go, "Awww", instead of "That's sick!"

Hey Jesse,

I was operatering under the assumption that Love Points were earned for Overtures to Connections that were genuinely humanizing.

Yeah, Steve's right, the rules don't give the GM any decisionmaking power over a minion getting Love. Any attempt that a player calls an Overture to a Connection results in a one point Love increase. Only the acceptance/rejection of the Overture by the Connection is uncertain, and left to the dice.

What you've described from Marlaina sound like gorgeous Overtures to me.

Paul

Hello Again,

I'll bare all this in mind for future games of My Life With Master but I guess I really don't see the point of Overtures and Love points if they aren't stark humanizing contrasts to the violence and villiany. I mean if beating puppies and teaching little girls to kill and taking your best friend on an arsonist road trip count as "Overtures of Affection" then what makes getting Love points any different from doing the master's bidding?

Is it JUST the nature of getting out from under the thumb of the master? "I'm a psychopathic killer, but damnit, I'm a psychopathic killer on my own terms!"

Now another issue is that most of the player's weren't directly making Overtures. They'd start doing something with an NPC who was one of their connections and what they were doing seemed kind of nice and friendly and so I'd say, "Is this an Overture?" and they'd shrug and say, "I don't know. You tell me." So very early on I got in the habit of arbitrating whether a scene was violence, villainy or an overture simply because the players were just "playing their characters" and expecting me to arbitrate the appropriate resolution mechanic to apply.

Jesse

I think that part of the point is to break down the sense that there is a dichotomy between "bad people" and "people who need love".

If anything, Marlaina's desperate attempts to connect are (to me) made more poignant by the fact that violence and hatred are the only things she has to offer the object of her affections.

The game just isn't treating with anything as simple as Love being good, or Villainy being bad. It's dealing with people who are so fundamentally broken that they're never going to be made right again... but they're still people, they still want love, and they will still risk the possibility (indeed, the near-certainty) of rejection and scorn in order to seek it.