In a gamist D&D3E game I've run recently, the players complained several times about being betrayed by either NPCs or environment construction.

Hypothesis: In a Gamist/Illusionist game, betrayal of one or more PCs is the only possible plot twist.

True? False? Rubbish? ;)

I'm interested by the hypothesis, but I think we need a closer definition of 'betrayal' here. If you mean 'something goes against their expectation', then it's almost a tautology. :)

I will grant that I've seen a *lot* of Illusionism that resorted to "Aha! This was not as it seemed!" as a method of keeping things from being too predictable.

I've run a handful of D&D 'betrayals' in my time. One was actually a double flip. A necromancer (the last remaining member of a good party) from an important war a decade ago, had been tried and jailed for his undead experiments on living people. He escaped, and returned to his secret hideout. Over the course of nearly a year, the players grew a deep hatred for him. He tied into several plots, and was a continuous thorn in the PCs' sides. Finally, they confronted and defeat him, only to find out the entire time he was working to keep a deep evil from being unleashed. So, the party had to defeat the 60' undead zombie with the ability to manipulate bone, before it regained its full power.

I wouldn't say that every plot twist has to be betrayal. I would say that a plot twist could be facilitated by any new information that changes the players mental model of the situation. I had a situation where a player found out his heated rival wasn't resposible for the slaughter of his village. The rival was still the one who lead the attack on the elven fortress, and didn't regret it. However, he had no knowledge of the village slaughter during the attack, and considered it a disgrace of his honor. They remained rivals, but it proved that there was a far more dangerous threat behind him.

One of my classic plot twists (useful in or out of Illusionism) is to simply reveal more of an NPC's motives.

Their employer told the PCs that he wants to avenge the death of his son... but the PCs learn that the process of exacting his revenge will make him wealthier and more powerful as well.

A rogue geneticist has broken all laws regarding animal experiments, but now the players realize that she was doing it as a way to prevent the extinction of several key species on a certain planet.

Neither situation constitutes betrayal (since the new information doesn't contradict anything the players have learned), but they do twist the plot by revealing more of the original picture. Granted, both of these situations lend themselves more to Narrativism than Gamism, but the principle should work for any mode of play.

So I do not think betrayal is necessary in any form of game.

Edit: an example of a Gamist non-betrayal plot twist is: The players have been fighting to help a prince ascend the throne when they learn that one of his other backers intends to have the prince eliminate all magic items once he gains the throne. Would the players rather have a powerful ally (the new king) or their magic items? Do they risk trying to have both, by helping the prince and either hiding their weapons or eliminating the anti-magic backer?

Hello,

Before we get too deep in play accounts, Andrew's question is key: what do you mean by betrayal, hyphz? I mean, exactly.

Best,
Ron

I'm not goint to wait, and ignore this if it's a wrong guess. I think that likely what he means by Betrayal is an example of the GM stealing power from the players.

In the real world, we trust people because we have experience with them, or the situation seems to merit it. In a RPG, the characters really don't have that basis. We as players have our character's trust NPCs and the environment because it seems like what the characters would do. But the shared space doesn't include clues, neccessarily unless the GM puts them there. So we as players don't always have the same information that the characters rightly should...

I'm going to assume that this was a Gamist game for argument's sake (and because from Hyphz's previous descriptions, that seems likely). Gamist play is characterized by making play a tactical exercise. The players are out to "win" for their own self-esteem's sake. If the GM makes them lose, without giving them a chance, it's considered bad play on his part, right? Well, if I give you no clue that the pretty girl is an assassin, and then kill your character while sleeping in bed, then I've not provided you with a challenge. I've decided that you lose by fiat. Which is no fun.

That's an extreme example. But if "betrayal" means that the players in Gamist play had no chance to see it coming, no chance to turn the tables, no chance to really play, then they've got every right to complain. If that's their challenge, then that's no challenge at all.

Does this mean that you can't do betrayals? Not at all, I reject the hypothesis completely. You just have to do it in a way that allows for the player's to turn the tables somehow, and to win. It has to be part of the challenge. It can even be the setup for another, more interesting challenge. But it can't take their power away by relying on the fact that the player has too little data, and is playing their character plausibly.

Same thing goes for taking away Sim player's ability to explore, or Nar player's ability to create theme.

Mike

hyphz wrote: In a gamist D&D3E game I've run recently, the players complained several times about being betrayed by either NPCs or environment construction.

Hypothesis: In a Gamist/Illusionist game, betrayal of one or more PCs is the only possible plot twist.

True? False? Rubbish? ;)

Damn it.

That's exactly why we need clarification. Are we talking about betrayal of players or characters?

Hyphz, you wrote, "betrayal of players by NPCs or environment construction." But that has one non-fictional set of individuals and a fictional set of individuals/things.

Which is it? Are the players being betrayed by the GM, or are the characters being betrayed by the NPCs/environment?

Is betrayal a matter of establishing trust explicitly first, then invalidating it? Or is this a matter of "what we expect" without explicit communication about it, and then just not getting what's expected?

Anyway. People, seriously, this thread will go badly wrong without more information. And your eagerness to post is exactly the symptom for that potential. So please, do back off until hyphz lets us know.

Best,
Ron

I'm sorry. So far I haven't worked out a way of defining betrayal, or more particularly of defining plot twist, that makes my proposition possible without making it an identity. Sorry for wasting folks' time.

No one wants an abstract definition of concepts. We just want to know if you are talking about players betraying each other, PCs betraying each other, or NPCs and the environment betraying a character.

Players betraying each other = players lying to each other and tricking each other. This is a Social Contract problem.

1)
PCs betraying each other = interesting gamist, narrativist, simulationist instance of play.
This is some bad social dysfunction.

2) Players explore Betrayal
Gamist response to clever trick: "You bastard! You had your cleric argue my god out of existence! I never thought of that tactic -- you rule, you bastard!
Narrativist response to betrayal: "That is so right on. Of course Squire Retmar would sell out Sir Traine to the Black Prince -- Retmar has been balancing his oath to Sir Traine against his desire to pay back Sir Traine for the disgrace his family heaped on Retmar's family. Now, how the hell do I get Sir Traine out of the torture chamber?"
Simulationist: "I should have expected it. A Ferengi will always go for the gold. Damn, how do we get out of this torture pod?"
This is all good, but it doesn't sound as if your situation is close to the good use of betrayal.

3) NPCs and Environment Betray PC's
What you mean to say is the Narrator is screwing over the other players. This is suckage.

Everyone senses that you are talking about important issues. Why not just go through them step by step?

Well lets see. I think I have something interesting to say despite the lack of deffinitions at current date time. One of the interesting things I've noted about gamist games is that they are filled with plot twists. I'll use AD&D as an example, because everyone knows about the random encounters.

I always considered random encounters to be a plot twist of some sort. They just never happened to tie into the rest of the main plot for me but still the potential is there. Questions such as, "Why were the orcs there, why did the kobalds make such a suicidal attack against us, why didn't the near by village clear out the path blocked by the big spider"

Asking questions like this usualy irritated my GM so I learned to stop but random encounters always made the world seem less cohesive for me, and my little stories that I made up behind them...made the world seem more cohesive.

Example: Kobalds attack and most of them die. One is still alive and explains that since the near by human settlement started up there has been less food. So they have to attack outlying farms and wandering people in order to survive. Upon further investigation, aided by the Kobalds it could be discovered that the town is involved in a whole range of neferiouse activities including, necromancy, slavery, and hiding raider bands. So the brave adventurers swoop in do the moraly right thing by removing the evil little town, and in the end they helped a buntch of kobalds. There really isn't any betrayal here because the town was doing moraly currupt bad guy things.

Even if you take away the moraly currupt bad guy things you are left with an interesting alighnment debate that I love to toss players into. Either way a standard plot "go kill kobalds" has been twisted in an interesting way...and evil people have been killed...no one has really been betrayed, and by uncoving the plot in the town you could move on to some sort of greater scheme.

This applies to all sorts of games in every genra of every type. Just a thought.

With regard to the OOC issue - in a Gamist/Illusionist game, if a PC winds up being betrayed, the *player* may feel betrayed too - because the PC was forced into this undesirable circumstance by the prescripted plot. Indeed, in many cases of in-character PC betrayal I've seen in the D&D game (monsters polymorphed into "hostages", etc.) the reaction of the players has been that they were predetermined to fail on that situation, and that had they gotten paranoid and (for example) slain the hostages, they would have either been OOCly berated for being unheroic, or it would have turned out ICly that the hostage they slew really was a hostage (but would have been a polymorphed monster if not slain). In fact neither of these is true (and if they want to go around slaying hostages, I'll just silently mourn the lack of a Self gauge to stack notches on) but I can see how they'd think they might be.

Well, let's look at the type of game we are playing here. In some games, accidently slaying a hostage can be a strong central focus for a character's story, and many players would love to grab hold of this juicy plot element. However, I believe the type of game involved here doesn't encourage that kind of character growth. The characters are, simply put, doers of good, slayers of evil. Most can accept failure, so long as they failed chacing that goal. However, if the character is "tricked" into doing the opposite, the player is going to feel they are being railroaded away from playing that character. There is no room for roleplaying the sad and remorseful character, when your supposed to collect your treasure and move on. You could try, but it tends to grate the other players' nerves, when your not putting your best axe forward, because you want to RP.

hyphz,

I think this is mostly a trust issue between players and GMs.

In a Gamist mode, if the players see the GM as the enemy, you have a serious problem using traditional rules (like D&D). Because the GM is infinitely powerful, the players only have a chance to succeed if the GM gives them a chance. It's a little like winning a race against your dad when you're kid - you know he's faster than you and that he only let you win, so it saps most of the achievement out of it.

My experience with this has been with Gamist players who didn't get that I have a more Sim style of GMing. I simply explained "This is what happened because x y and z said it should." I think this will work in a Gamist sense as well. If they know that the "betrayal" will stem from earlier events, then they perceive it as another part of the challenge. You didn't just screw them over out of the blue... they were betrayed because they missed certain clues in the past (or are simply facing the consequences of an earlier decision).

Of course, you have to actually provide the clues, but they do fit in nicely with Gamist play (you have to make them vague enough to not be obvious, but clear enough to be potentially useful).

There's something to be said for letting players "behind the screen' occasionally... though I guess that would be making the game Participationism or force you to abandon illusionism.

Also, you have to remember that D&D rewards players for killing things, and pretty much nothing else. It doesn't really reward heroic behavior, even though the text talks about that a lot. If you want players to save hostages, you have to provide a reward. Providing experience is one option (in fact, I'd total up the experience value of the hostage takers, divide that by the number of hostages, and them have each hostage death deduct that amount of experience. If the hostages all die, the victory is worth no experience). You can also provide other rewards like grateful hostages, kings, peasants, etc. who can give players favors or special items in reward.

Now... to follow Ron's essay model, a tough question. Are YOU really playing Gamist? (your examples sound to me like a Nar GM trying to force Gamist players to address premise). If you are staying Gamist, why do the players expect/fear the GM behavior you describe? Perhaps they have baggage from previous games?

hyphz wrote: With regard to the OOC issue - in a Gamist/Illusionist game, if a PC winds up being betrayed, the *player* may feel betrayed too - because the PC was forced into this undesirable circumstance by the prescripted plot. Indeed, in many cases of in-character PC betrayal I've seen in the D&D game (monsters polymorphed into "hostages", etc.) the reaction of the players has been that they were predetermined to fail on that situation, and that had they gotten paranoid and (for example) slain the hostages, they would have either been OOCly berated for being unheroic, or it would have turned out ICly that the hostage they slew really was a hostage (but would have been a polymorphed monster if not slain). In fact neither of these is true (and if they want to go around slaying hostages, I'll just silently mourn the lack of a Self gauge to stack notches on) but I can see how they'd think they might be.

Heya,

So if I understand the definition for IC betrayl here, this would be a valid example:

"Lord Parlaman has been the patron of the PCs for some time. He has hired them to do jobs and payed them in gold each time. As the plot progresses, it turns out that Parlaman is the true enemy of the PCs and the gold he paid them was really chips of iron with an illusion enchantment cast on them."

Is that accurate? If so, I can see where gamists would be upset. Their characters have put investment in to a resource (developing thier relationship with their patron, Parlaman) and they have collected a reward (the gold). Now, as the plot twists, both the resource and the reward are taken away. The gamist sees it as losing and they had no real idea what was going on and no way to predict/prevent it.

Does this roughly described what you went thru, Hyphz?

Peace,

-Troy