In the most recent Misery Bubblegum development thread, Callan posted:

Noon wrote: The next step is not to discover yourself, so much as to try and break yourself to fit in. Because without a choice to leave, you don't have a choice to be yourself.

....

Basically, rather than the proud nar games where you show your inner self to all, a simulationist game of watching your PC's inner spirit die.

TonyLB wrote: What type of need do I serve, for myself, by changing another person?

TonyLB wrote: Lisa: Gawd, Becky, I thought you were going to help! The red envelopes go to purchasing, the yellow ones go to accounting.
Becky: Uh... okay... but you never told me where these blue ones go...
Lisa: Oh forget it! You obviously don't want to help. It's easier for me to do it myself than to try to force you against your will.

I completely agree with Doug, people are driven to reinforce their own identity paradigms.

The parental figure reinforces their own identity as a protector.

The admirer reinforces that they adore someone worthy of adoration, and so are valid themselves.

The circle of friends want the vicarious thrill of being near trouble, and define themselves as good and mature in opposition to it.

Even when people recognize the destructive effects on themselves and others, they choose the security of their paradigm over freedom and acceptance of others. These are scary concepts that threaten ones feeling of individual identity.

Is there any room in this model for people to redeem themselves and accept others? Or does all socialization lead into this death-spiral?

Doug, I think you're right in analyzing one level of the pattern. But at that level you're also right that it is plainly irrational: You'd have to justify it based on trauma, and people being scarred and screwed up.

I think Allan has nicely identified a motivating factor that can explain the same behaviors rationally: Security vs. Fear.

A parent wants their child to be brave and independent and capable. But my God... the downside risks. If I let you climb a tree, twenty feet up above my arms, then maybe you wave at me gaily and then clamber back down, energized and alive. But maybe you tumble and crash to the ground with a sickening thud.

Do the other examples have the same idea of security vs. fear? Of willingly losing a dollar, rather than risking ten dollars for the slim chance to win twenty?

Well that depends: What does Lisa lose if she trusts Becky to help her, and Becky actually doesn't? Assume that Lisa gets no satisfaction out of being overworked, and genuinely would like help. Is driving someone away less of a loss than being rejected?

Ok, I was being a bit dark, I admit.

Security and Fear does it for me as well. In the Lisa/Becky example, if Lisa lets Becky help her deal with the filing, then Lisa has to deal with something else which she isn't confident of being able to deal with. Rather than face the difficult task, she prefers to spend her time filing inefficiently, because she is overworked (existential argument) and doesn't have time to do everything.

The existential statement "I am overworked" is actually an attempt to put a positive slant on things: it's more acceptable than saying "I cannot manage my workload."

And, yes, there is fear, but the fear has to be based on something. If the protective mother is scared of the child falling to the ground, isn't that based on trauma? Even if the trauma happened to someone else?

The circle of friends egg someone else on, because they want the thrill, but they are afraid of punishment. They have been punished before and they didn't like it (trauma).

The admirer one is more interesting, I'd have to think about that. But I think that most of these scenarios fit perfectly. It's just that the trauma isn't usually as severe as my first post made out.

TonyLB wrote: Doug, I think you're right in analyzing one level of the pattern. But at that level you're also right that it is plainly irrational...

Doug Ruff wrote: Ok, I was being a bit dark, I admit.

Yeah, it's a self-reinforcing cycle, but as Doug points out it needs to get started somewhere.

Okay, example time: I am watching back-episodes of Alias. Here's the situation of the current episode. Sydney Bristow, her father Jack, and her mother Irina, are infiltrating a facility. Irina married Jack as part of deep cover for the KGB, used and betrayed him, then escaped. He's not real keen to trust her, naturally.

In order to have any chance of infiltrating the facility, they need to split up. If they don't split up, they fail. Guaranteed, 100%.

And, of course Jack doesn't want to let her out of his sight. He is, indeed, quite ready to say "Okay then, we've failed." Sydney, who is more ready to trust her mother, forces the issue.

Now there are two ways to look at this, I think:

• Jack has, as part of his identity, the notion "Irina Derevko is not to be trusted." He's so very, very, invested in this I can't even describe.
• If he doesn't trust her then he knows the outcome: Mission failure. If he does trust her then there are a range of outcomes, one of which includes "Mission failure + Betrayal." Mission Failure + Betrayal is worse than just Mission Failure.

So, yeah, his tool for approaching the situation is "Irina betrayed me." He's vested, and he uses it (as Sydney F. aptly puts it) as a club. Using it increases its power and reduces his freedom. So on some level, his actions may be foreordained... if he wants to maintain control then he needs to swing the club.

At the same time, he has rational reason to pursue a risk averse strategy, even if that strategy is a guaranteed loss. He's mitigating the possible damage that can be done to him. So long as he doesn't trust her, Irina cannot betray him again.

I can likewise see the Lisa/Becky example from two angles. Yes, she's got the "I'm overworked" thing going, it's an easy tool to hand, and that influences what paths she'll choose to pursue. But at the same time there's an issue of vulnerability and risk involved: If Lisa lets Becky in, lets her help, then the worst-case-scenario is worse than simply being overworked, right?

Tony,

That's not a bad analysis: now let me put a twist on it.

Jack's reasoning is only partly rational - he's been burned before, and he's weighing up the possible angles. However, is his analysis based on the actual likelihood of betrayal (and assessment of the relative costs) or is it skewed by his fear that Irina will betray him again? I haven't watched, but I'm guessing the latter.

Lisa's reasoning is even less rational: deep down she knows that she'll be much better off if she can get this job done, and she needs the help. However, to do so would mean facing up to her own bad choices, and that isn't an option she wants to take (so it gets projected away.)

Oh, and Sydney is spot on, as usual. Misery is power. Unless you're a goth, in which case it's a lifestyle choice.

We're all right!

Tony has a perfectly rational game-theory approach: "If I don't trust her, we definitely fail; if I do trust her, we might fail and be betrayed; therefore I can't risk trusting her." But Tony, you know what? I think the players will naturally take care of that aspect as they strategize.

I think the thing you have work into the mechanics is the crazy, disfunctional part: "I'm so unhappy that I'm making you unhappy, and I'll keep making us both unhappy until you do what I want!" Because players won't naturally have the right reaction to the suffering of other people's characters. If we're playing, say, D&Dand I start griping and whining about how I have the least hit points and gold piees and magic items and on and on and on and on, everyone (DM included) might start throwing me extra goodies just to get me to shut the hell up; but if I-the-real-person am sitting there happy and roleplaying how my fictional character is a whiny passive-aggressive shmuck, you-the-other-real-people are more likely to chuckle and throw me more grief -- unless my character's whining will mechanically affect your characters in some way.

Doug: Yes! Yes, yes, yes... Damn fine point!

We're talking about a Gamble here (in the Step On Up sense, though not necessarily in a Gamist context). The thing is that you are Gambling not with known quantities like dice, but with the far less easily analyzed question of "What is this other person going to do?"

That's what makes it so exciting, and simultaneously so heart-rending. Jack thinks that there is a zero percent chance that Irina will not betray them. Sydney B. thinks that there's probably a 50% chance that Irina will not betray them. We'll suppose that Irina knows there is a 100% chance that (in this case) she is trustworthy. So his choice looks irrational to everyone but himself, and their objections look irrational or naive to him.

Now that's completely absent in the basic Lisa/Becky example, and so the only reasonable conclusion is that it's a power issue. I see what you mean about that. There isn't any history defined that would put Becky's intentions in doubt, and therefore the unknown/random element necessary for a Gamble isn't in place in that example.

Anyone have thoughts about how you would put the Lisa/Becky example into a context that makes Lisa's decision one about how much to Gamble? I'm blanking on a way to do it, but I think that knowing what element needs to be added... that could be helpful.

Sydney: I cross-posted, but, basically, yep! I think that the players will naturally do the game-theory in their heads once you have them engaged in analyzing that Gamble.

So I want to identify what the actual risk factor is, to the characters, so that I can match it with a risk factor to the players.

The most simple one I can think of: Seth loves Ginny. Seth tells Ginny that he loves her. Right there, that's that Gamble. His initial situation is "Ginny is not my girlfriend", value 0. His hoped for outcome is "Ginny is my girlfriend", value 100. His feared outcome is "Ginny rejects me", value -100. But how is that -100 arrived at? How is having been rejected tangibly worse than his starting position? He still has no girlfriend.

Clarification: (Boy, I'm posting like crazy)

I get the misery-power issue. Cluelessness is also power, and a whole host of other things that are usually thought of as ineffective are actually very effective because they draw reactions from people indirectly.

Yes, absolutely yes. That's got to go in. I don't want to act like I don't think it's an insight, just because I think I understand it. It's good thinking, and I definitely think it needs to be part of the game.

TonyLB wrote: How is having been rejected tangibly worse than his starting position? He still has no girlfriend.

P.S.: Actually, what often happens is she knew she had power over you already (he or she, of course, but in real life it's pretty girls who are most aware of their effect on others). I'm envisioning the player of Character A piling resources into "A loves B" on A's character sheet, and then there being two ways of that whole pile moving to B's sheet and coming under B's control:
(1) Character A tells Character B "I love you" and Player A hands the resources over to Player B, or
(2) Character A says nothing but Player B makes a good "social perception" role and Player B just takes the resources. Ouch.

TonyLB wrote: Anyone have thoughts about how you would put the Lisa/Becky example into a context that makes Lisa's decision one about how much to Gamble? I'm blanking on a way to do it, but I think that knowing what element needs to be added... that could be helpful.

TonyLB wrote: But there's one important point: The spirit doesn't just die. People kill it. And not (always) out of malice, either. So I've got a topic for discussion: What type of need do I serve, for myself, by changing another person?

That is some extremely cool stuff, and I have taken several hours contemplating. Let me see if I can weave things together.

Sydney Freedberg wrote: Because the situation is NOT

Before: I have no girlfriend
After: I have a girlfriend OR I have no girlfriend

The situation is really

Before: She has power over me, but she doesn't know it
After: She has power over me, and she knows it

Hey Tony,

I've only been following this and Dulcimer Hall casually, so excuse if it's repetitious, but when I read this:

Tony wrote:
# If I put myself in her power, and we fail, then she might dump her Fallout onto me. <snip> So my perception is that she's likely to dump on me if I give her the chance.
# That would mean that I get both my Fallout and hers. Frankly, I'd rather take just mine. So screw letting her try to help!

You give people the power over you... then, once they have it and they know they have it, they decide how to use it. It's all out in the open, but because the decisions aren't simultaneous, the first person is still acting in the absence of information.

I see the similarities. It's more like iterative Prisoner's Dilemma, actually... which, sadly, is a theory-construct I haven't really gotten my head around fully.

Followup questions:

Tony wrote: So really, fallout means giving them traits in antipathy to the goals you're prescribing for them

Hi Tony,

Ooops, I thought I was so off topic in the previous post, I didn't check back until now.

So I want to identify what the actual risk factor is, to the characters, so that I can match it with a risk factor to the players.

The most simple one I can think of: Seth loves Ginny. Seth tells Ginny that he loves her. Right there, that's that Gamble. His initial situation is "Ginny is not my girlfriend", value 0. His hoped for outcome is "Ginny is my girlfriend", value 100. His feared outcome is "Ginny rejects me", value -100. But how is that -100 arrived at? How is having been rejected tangibly worse than his starting position? He still has no girlfriend.

I get the misery-power issue. Cluelessness is also power, and a whole host of other things that are usually thought of as ineffective are actually very effective because they draw reactions from people indirectly.