Hi

I am still trying to grasp a lot of the theories around narrativism.  My question relates to one of my players.  I once presented him with a bang in our Heroquest game, 'If you kill that guy you will get a flaw, Killer.'  Now the player wears it like a badge and kills in the game fairly indiscriminately.  My concern came when I presented him with a bang and he immediately elevated it to murder.  My gut reaction was that this is 'my guy' dysfunctional play, but not in the way it is described elsewhere. 

Does anyone recoginse this behaviour and what it is a symptom of?  My view is to take it as a bad sign that he is detached from his character and therefore to some degree from the game.  We have until quite recently had a very heavy sim emphasis.  Could this be a residual effect of his rebellion to GM force in our heavy sim game?

As this guy is someone who attends our gaming group and do not know him personnaly I don't know whether its just his style of play.  Whenever I have encountered fairly extreme play of this nature its not normally been a good sign.

Thanks in advance for any help on this one.

Regards
Rob

Rob, could you give more detail? What was the bang you presented him with, and why did you force a flaw on him as a result of his decision? What does "indiscriminately" mean, can you give examples of situations in which he had his character kill people and why that posed a problem for you/for the group?

Kerstin

Hi Rob!

Lamorak33 wrote:
I once presented him with a bang in our Heroquest game, 'If you kill that guy you will get a flaw, Killer.' Now the player wears it like a badge and kills in the game fairly indiscriminately. My concern came when I presented him with a bang and he immediately elevated it to murder.

The Technique of introducing events into the game which make a thematically-significant or at least evocative choice necessary for a player. The term is taken from the rules of Sorcerer. See also Kicker.

Does anyone recoginse this behaviour and what it is a symptom of? My view is to take it as a bad sign that he is detached from his character and therefore to some degree from the game. We have until quite recently had a very heavy sim emphasis. Could this be a residual effect of his rebellion to GM force in our heavy sim game?

Kerstin wrote:
Rob, could you give more detail? What was the bang you presented him with, and why did you force a flaw on him as a result of his decision? What does "indiscriminately" mean, can you give examples of situations in which he had his character kill people and why that posed a problem for you/for the group?

Larry wrote:

You're going to have to descibe the circumstances around the NPC he killed before anyone can understand the significance of this action.

I think that it is important to note that the first bang I described above was 'accidental', and by that I mean not a concious attempt at narrativism, and was during a generally very sim heavy game, though that  particular session was entirely what I recognise as Narrativism - although I may be mistaken.  The reason I say that is the session began with them finding the crucified victim, and proceeded entirely based on the characters actions. I had no plot.  I merely wondered what they would do in that situation.

The latter bang was a concious attempt at Narrativism after long conversations with Mike and packing in a lot of reading at 'The Forge'.  I have also recently aquired a copy of Sorcerer.  I am trying to introduce Narrativism to my game, being open and not sneaking it in.  The players are currently involved in a massive 'railroad-sim-fest' classic Gloranthan scenario 'The Cradle', but I am trying to introduce under-belly play, as I think that can work well.

Best regards
Rob

The first bang I'm not sure is a bang, though I am not an expert.

Leaving aside terminology though, it does sound a bit deprotagonising.  "Do this or get a character flaw" sounds like a choice, but it's not much of a choice is it?  Go through door A and get a reward, go through Door B and lose a hand gives me a choice but I'm not sure it's a protagonising choice.  Is it possible he simply felt he was being railroaded and rebelled against it through his character rather than by discussing it with you?

I ask because I have a suspicion that in the same circumstances I would feel I was being forced by the GM to spare the guy or get a new character disadvantage, and I can well imagine rebelling by then going "fine, I'll take the disadvantage".  It could be him seeking to assert control of his character which he may feel you tried to usurp.  Or, I could be way off, please let me know if this all seems off beam or if any of it strikes a potential cord.

Also, it sounds like you are trying to introduce more narrativism focussed play into your group by stealth.  That rarely works, and people often sense something is up and rebel.  If you want to move toward more narrativist play then you need to say to your players what kind of play you would like to work toward, talk openly with them and see if it interests them.  Choosing a narrativism supportive system alone won't cut it, I prefer sim play generally and speaking from my own actual play experience can assure you that Heroquest is more than able to support sim priorities in actual play - if the group wish to use it that way.  It works extremely well for sim play, even though it also works of course very well for nar focussed play.

Incidentally, I do note you say you are introducing it openly but you also refer to getting it in under belly, which may have confused me.  What did this player say about you introducing nar style play?

On the second example, I'm not especially surprised at your player's response.  He's playing a bad guy, a worshipper of a stealth deity who has a reputation as a killer.  What he did was entirely in character, the question then is whether being entirely in character is important (and it may be more important to him than to you depending on your play preferences) and if it is important whether that is a good choice of character to play.

Sometimes folk play unpleasant characters to be disruptive, then say "I'm just playing in character".  Sometimes people play characters who turn out to be disruptive, but the player values playing in character so much they would rather then be disruptive than play out of character.  The first guy I don't think you can do much with, the second you can ask to play a different character as that one is disruptive and you will damage their fun by asking them not to play it as it is envisaged.

Does that make sense at all?

Thanks Rob. Let me try and look at this step by step. The bang isn't where you think it is.

Lamorak33 wrote:
Returning home from a long journey they had resuced a clanmate who had been crucified.  When they found out the enemy soldiers (Lunar Tax Collectors) would be back in 7 days to check, and said they would torch the village and crucify everyone there if the person was not still on the cross. 

The 'heroes' said they would procure a member of the enemy culture (Lunar, and many could be found at a local town) and butcher them to make them look like the clanmate and nail them up in place, hoping the enemy soldiers would not notice.

Aren knocked down from behind an unarmed merchant looking fellow.  His declared action was that he would cut the merchants throat. 

As killing was not a feature of our game to that point, and was thematically important to the premise (what would you do to remove the occupying force from your homeland) I said that killing someone in such a cold brutal manner would be a character defining moment.  Hence if he proceeded he would have a flaw 'killer' if he spared him, then we would find something out about the character/ player. Hence bang.

I had guy A say to Aren that he wanted this ornate dagger from guy B.  Guy A had lost the dagger in a game of chance to Guy B and he refused to trade it back.  Aren likes poison so Guy A offered him some very potent poison.  Aren then offered to steal the dagger AND murder Guy B!

Rob, I saw that you gave additional detail in another thread as to what happened in play which made me want to add to my comments.

You said in that thread that when the player considered poisoning Mr B you considered telling him if he did that his Killer trait would get changed to Murderer.

That slightly sets of alarm bells in my head, and I think could be very counterproductive.  It suggests to me that when you offer choices you have a preferred outcome and a punishment in mind if the player chooses the "wrong" outcome.  That I don't think is quite what you are actually aiming for though, so I think you will be disappointed in your goals.

The reason I think that is that what it seems to me you want is meaningful player choice driving play.  For that to work there must not only be two or more possible outcomes and you don't know which, there must be two or more valid outcomes.  I think without realising it you may be trying to invalidate one outcome, in the other thread you said that you hinted heavily about how useful guy B could be which is seeking to influence the player's decision and then considered hitting his character with a worsened negative trait if he didn't go as you hinted.

Whether you mean it to or not, I suspect many players would feel railroaded at that point.  Do as the GM suggests, or have your character nerfed.  That leads to rebellion.  Having read your other more detailed post I think this really may be an issue of perceived (and maybe actual though I'm sure inadvertent) railroading leading to a player rebellion.

Try giving him a choice where both outcomes are equally valid, where neither carries a punishment, see how that goes.

Oh, one other thing strikes me, gaining a trait in HQ is a bonus because it increases character effectiveness.  Killer arguably is great, I can augment almost any combat with that, if I have a more gamist play agenda then that is a real boost to my character and if you offer it to me I'll do whatever I can to get it.  That could also be the problem, you may be actively rewarding precisely the thing you'd like to discourage.

I think your first bang had nothing to do with the actual murder incident. Rather, I think the bang was "So you just rescued your crucified friend, but what are you gonna do so the Lunars don't catch on?" If the players conceived of the plot to find a patsy to replace the body, and you didn't somehow "push" this idea on them, then the question of the murder is actually the resolution of this bang.

Lamorak33 wrote:   I thought a good 'bang' would be to find out, given the nature of the situation they were all in, would Aren 'steal' from a fellow defender.  A good bang, as I understand it, is something you have no idea which way the player will go. 

I had guy A say to Aren that he wanted this ornate dagger from guy B.  Guy A had lost the dagger in a game of chance to Guy B and he refused to trade it back.  Aren likes poison so Guy A offered him some very potent poison.  Aren then offered to steal the dagger AND murder Guy B!

Its the escalation that bothers me here, and concerns me that it is a symptom of dysfuctional play.  Do you need any more detail?

What Kerstin said is all good, too.

Balbinus wrote:
Rob, I saw that you gave additional detail in another thread as to what happened in play which made me want to add to my comments.

Balbinus wrote:
You said in that thread that when the player considered poisoning Mr B you considered telling him if he did that his Killer trait would get changed to Murderer.

That slightly sets of alarm bells in my head, and I think could be very counterproductive.  It suggests to me that when you offer choices you have a preferred outcome and a punishment in mind if the player chooses the "wrong" outcome.  That I don't think is quite what you are actually aiming for though, so I think you will be disappointed in your goals.

Balbinus wrote:
Whether you mean it to or not, I suspect many players would feel railroaded at that point.  Do as the GM suggests, or have your character nerfed.  That leads to rebellion.  Having read your other more detailed post I think this really may be an issue of perceived (and maybe actual though I'm sure inadvertent) railroading leading to a player rebellion.

Balbinus wrote:
Oh, one other thing strikes me, gaining a trait in HQ is a bonus because it increases character effectiveness.  Killer arguably is great, I can augment almost any combat with that, if I have a more gamist play agenda then that is a real boost to my character and if you offer it to me I'll do whatever I can to get it.  That could also be the problem, you may be actively rewarding precisely the thing you'd like to discourage.

Hi Rob,

Kristen is right.  As far as I can tell, the bang...i.e. the 'real human delimma question' is the first part.

Lamorak33 wrote:
Returning home from a long journey they had resuced a clanmate who had been crucified. When they found out the enemy soldiers (Lunar Tax Collectors) would be back in 7 days to check, and said they would torch the village and crucify everyone there if the person was not still on the cross.

The 'heroes' said they would procure a member of the enemy culture (Lunar, and many could be found at a local town) and butcher them to make them look like the clanmate and nail them up in place, hoping the enemy soldiers would not notice.

They went into town to find someone to 'nail up'. Aren knocked down from behind an unarmed merchant looking fellow. His declared action was that he would cut the merchants throat. As killing was not a feature of our game to that point, and was thematically important to the premise (what would you do to remove the occupying force from your homeland) I said that killing someone in such a cold brutal manner would be a character defining moment. Hence if he proceeded he would have a flaw 'killer' if he spared him, then we would find something out about the character/ player.

On monday we continued our game where we are on a giants cradle (c/w 10metre giant baby) trying to defend it against overwhelming odds. The character Aren worships a god of stealth and 'taking things' (Desemborth). I thought a good 'bang' would be to find out, given the nature of the situation they were all in, would Aren 'steal' from a fellow defender. A good bang, as I understand it, is something you have no idea which way the player will go.

I had guy A say to Aren that he wanted this ornate dagger from guy B. Guy A had lost the dagger in a game of chance to Guy B and he refused to trade it back. Aren likes poison so Guy A offered him some very potent poison. Aren then offered to steal the dagger AND murder Guy B!

I have a strong suspicion I played at one of your games at a con Rob, I played HQ under a guy called Rob with my character being an old lady with an amazing nag ability.  It was cool, the GM (maybe you) let me use my nag ability in combat to shame our opponents into rethinking their actions.

It was what HQ is all about to me, about letting my character shine for that moment and about allowing something that in most games mechanically couldn't happen.  My character was faced with the enemy, and I chose as a player to emphasise her crotchety old woman streak and focus on that in play.  It was fun and I was able to play the character as I wanted to, which for me at least made for a better game.  It also meant I maintained her thematic integrity, which is important to me, many games would have forced me to make her fight or not participate which would have jarred.

Anyway, sorry if you're a different Rob but if that is you then I can at least say that you can do this stuff even if it's not yet working out on this occasion.  Don't lose heart here.

I don't think HQ is incoherent by the way, but I don't really understand incoherence either.  I think HQ is very flexible, which is great in a way but dangerous too if people have different expectations.

Anyway, one question, how much have you talked to this guy as a player about what he wants for his character and how he perceived those scenes?  Others better qualified than me have spoken well to the bangs issue, it seems to me you understand them but on the day I think confused what the bang really was.  I can't add to what those guys are saying much but what I would like to help with if I can is the question of how the player perceives this and whether he is addressing premise in a way you didn't expect or rebelling against perceived railroading.  There is only one way to find out, and that's to talk to him.

Ask him if he enjoyed that stuff, ask him where he sees the character going and what interests him in the character (carefully though, it would be easy to inadvertently make it sound like you were asking him why he found the character interesting because you couldn't see it yourself which isn't the idea) and ask him if he was cool with the way all that played out.

To be honest, I am a little concerned the player may just be one of those who play psychopaths because they don't really invest in the game.  That he might be ok slitting the NPCs throat not because it's dramatically powerful but because NPCs just don't matter to him.  Again, the best way to find out is to ask him whether he thought that throat cutting scene was cool and if he sees it having any long term effect on his character. 

Talk to the guy, it's the only way forward really.  When are you next playing?

Lamorak33 wrote: Yeah I know what your saying.  I am not trying to pass a moral judgement, but I am trying to reflect that certain actions mean certain things.  Thus in the absence of somekind of humanity or karma mechanic the way is to say if you do this it will mean that.  I don't see hcanging the ability from killer to murderer as a punishment, but I can see how it could be taken to mean that.  I guess its like losing humanity, yes its bad, but if it is a means to an end.

Trevis wrote:
Hi Rob,

[snip]

hope that is helpful.

Trevis

crossposted, but it sounds like we're all saying similar stuff.

Balbinus wrote:
I have a strong suspicion I played at one of your games at a con Rob, I played HQ under a guy called Rob with my character being an old lady with an amazing nag ability.  It was cool, the GM (maybe you) let me use my nag ability in combat to shame our opponents into rethinking their actions.

Lamorak33 wrote:
I guess what I want to do is say to the player, you may kill at any time but it will have an effect on your character and how your character relates to other characters.

jburneko wrote:

Lamorak33 wrote:
I guess what I want to do is say to the player, you may kill at any time but it will have an effect on your character and how your character relates to other characters.

The advice in this thread has been great so far but this particular quote set off alarm bells for me.  If you are truly interested in Story Now play then I would like to point out that what you have stated in the above quote is not your responsibilty as GM.  You have no authority to say how a conflict affects a character or hwo they relate to others.

I have a perverse feeling the player did make a narrativist address here. As GM you try to imply a penalty goes along with killing the guy. The player then takes that supposed penalty and turns it into a shiny badge "Look, I'm a killer! It says on this badge/flaw! My character decided to become a killer/made an address...and now I can show that address off to everyone with my nifty badge!"

If I'm right, I find it perverse, because it seems wondefully functional! Anyone ever thought of making rules revolving around writing down addresses of premise on a character sheet, like medals or trophies or something?

Fallout in Dogs in the Vineyard could be seen in exactly this light, I think.

Jaik wrote:
Fallout in Dogs in the Vineyard could be seen in exactly this light, I think.

Whoa, didn't see this thread. Rob, next time when you ask a question you've asked in another thread, include a link.

Interestingly, I posted in the other thread pretty much what y'all have here. And still I have more to say somehow. How like me that is.

Rob, did you get the idea of using assignment of traits as a deterrent to killing from the book? Because it's right in there in a sidebar looking really suspect. Frankly, that sidebar is one of the many things in the HQ text that leads to incoherent play of HQ. The HQ text speaks strongly to both sim and nar, and I do think that this is what causes most of the problems in play of it. For practical purposes, it should suffice to say that what we do here at the Forge is drift to nar supportive rules from the rules as written.

The whole rule about narrators being able to assign abilities to characters is...well way too much a fiat thing. There is a nigh mechanical suggestion that when you have a Major or Complete Defeat that you could be given a permanant trait to represent it. But other than that, there's just this one clause in the narrator section that says you can do it. Unfortunately that's always seemed to be one of the many clauses in the book that seem to have this unwritten clause attached to them: "which power you, of course, have, because you're the GM, and the GM has the ability to do whatever he wants to make the game fun because of the Maximum Game Fun rule."

Obviously this really bugs me.

Is there a game that does this well mechanically? Well, um, Universalis? Not to mention even more directly to the question Synthesis? I'm very fond of the idea of traits being the outcome of conflicts. As is Hegel (Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis). As opposed to Thesis + Antithesis = something if the narrator feels like it and remembers that it's an implied option.

There are no penalties in narrativism play of Heroquest, everyone got that one right. Flaws are rewards. I have to laugh every time somebody points out to me that the fetish release power is "limited" by the fact that the fetish goes away. In all the games I've seen, players get more story distance out of the fetish once it's been released than before that time. Power means nothing. It's all about how interesting your character is. Flaws make a character more interesting.

A flaw like "killer" as I mentioned in the other thread, is a liscence to kill. As it were. Ron has said this explicitly and nearly exactly before. Players looking to abuse a game like Hero System will take Psych Lims like "Psychotic Killer" all the time, not just for the points, but because they intended to play the character that way anyhow. The rules are just giving the player an excuse to hide behind when he has the character do something reprehensible without considering the ramifications.

So, if "killer" is a reward, then how do you balance the choice in question? Well, it has to be completely in-game. That is, all consequences of choices have to be in terms of in-game reactions to the act chosen. My favorite thing to do is to have a contest based on the choice, the outcome of which gives thematic weight to the choice. So instead of assigning "killer" to the player, have a contest to see if the town accepts his action (per Brand), and if he fails, then perhaps he's -50% on all interactions with everyone until he "heals" his reputation somehow (which could take a long, long, long time).

Even this is a reward. I'm not saying threaten. I'm agreeing with everyone to apply the consequences, however.

Jesse is right, of course, and it's a point I've already tried to make to you, Rob. Dichotomies are easy to make, but not the only form of bang. And some have more routs out than one realizes. Dog's In the Vinyard is all about discarding the previous options presented, and escallating to higher stakes.

Something you said has me thinking that the problem is deeper here:

althought the real push has been having a number of players who are clearly not sim orientated - they tend to look for the hook and go in the opposite direction.

A flaw like "killer" as I mentioned in the other thread, is a liscence to kill. As it were. Ron has said this explicitly and nearly exactly before. Players looking to abuse a game like Hero System will take Psych Lims like "Psychotic Killer" all the time, not just for the points, but because they intended to play the character that way anyhow. The rules are just giving the player an excuse to hide behind when he has the character do something reprehensible without considering the ramifications.

You're right, Callan. You know, APS is really sort of a bad term in this case, because the problem really stems less from the GM abusing the player, so much as trying to enforce a coherent mode. So the GM may have a good motive in trying to get to coherent sim play, and the player is just used to doing what he does in order to maintain the sort of narrativism control that he wants.

In any case, the source of the problem is rather moot at this point. The problem is that the player in question feels that to maintain their ability to make the sorts of decisions that they want to make, they have to steer clear of things that look like GM attempts to get them to play sim.

In any case, I wasn't suggesting at all that the player in question was using "My Guy" as the example you quoted is about. Just that the technique used has the additional danger of playing to anyone who does happen to be in "My Guy" mode.

Mike

Mike wrote:
You're right, Callan. You know, APS is really sort of a bad term in this case, because the problem really stems less from the GM abusing the player, so much as trying to enforce a coherent mode. So the GM may have a good motive in trying to get to coherent sim play, and the player is just used to doing what he does in order to maintain the sort of narrativism control that he wants.