Social Skills in RP
Rob Ciccolini
discussion at Arisia (a convention here in Boston). I
asked the panel how they would handle an NPC using a
seduction skill on a PC, or even another PC using the
seduction skill on a PC. This question could be
broadened to any social skill.
The members of the panel said that if, after applying
situational modifiers, the seduction skill roll was made,
they would enforce the situation. I disagreed, because I
felt that unless the "skill" was magical or psionic (ie
took the decision out of the players hand because of some
sort of mind control) that this was a player decision. I
might inform them that they greatly desired to do "x"
because of a social skill, but I would leave the decision
up to them.
How do you get the use of negotiation, seduction, and
other skills that enhance social abilities if the player
wants to roleplay it out? What if you feel the NPC would
be better at the particular social skill than the game
master/referee?
Leaving the whole dice versus diceless argument out of it
(assume you use dice to resolve situations where success
is not guaranteed) how do other DMs and players feel about
this?
RJC
"All I'm asking is that somebody tell me where my f%$#ing
camera is!"
A Lapalme
>I saw an interesting idea once for the use of rolls for Social Skills.
>
>If you succeed at (say) an Oratory roll the GM gives you a couple of hints
>on the best arguement to sway the audience. If yo get a critical
>success the GM tell you exactly how to sway the audience (ie you
>automatically succeed).
Which still comes out as the GM basically playing your character. Whether
the roll points to a success or failure or the GM tells you how to get a
success (depending on the roll), it still feels like a cheap victory to
me.
The problem I see with this is that the "hints" are OOC and have to be
ICed (nice verb!) to be used.
>If you fail the GM gives you no hints, and if you fumble/botch the GM
>gives you incorrect hints (or you automatically fail. Under this system
>critical success and failure are governed purely by dice, but the normal
>range of success and failure are governed by a combination of role-playing
>and dice. I like this idea and have seen it work well in play.
>
OH, it'll work. No question about that. However, I don't see any
roleplay involved.
>Leaving social skill rolls purely to dice is boring, but leaving them
>purely to the skill of the player means that only the truly charismatic
>can play charismatic characters. Both options seem remarkably limiting,
>so the goal would seem to be finding a way to combine the two techniques.
>
>Comments?
>
I agree with the principles outlined in the last paragraph. If a player
has a charismatic character but the player is a social boor, this doesn't
mean you have to accept every player word as being the exact same words
his character utters.
My take on this is a bit different. If a character is good at a social
skill, I simply am more lax for that character than I would be for the
lesser skilled character. For example:
character A is played by player X
character B is played by player Y
A is charismatic, B is a boor
X is a boor, Y is charismatic
If A tries to impress a crowd, I would still ask player X to tell me what
he says to the crowd. Then, I would take what was said, factor in the
character's charisma and produced a result (by whatever method).
If B tries to impress a crowd, I would ask player Y to tell me what he
says to the crowd. Then, I would take what was said, factor in the
character's lack of charisma and produced a result (same method as
above).
What I personally like about it is that the player is still being asked
to give it his best shot, ie to roleplay. The charismatic player should
have no problem being a boor while the boorish player, while he might
have problems being charismatic, will be challenged (and might learn a
few things in the bargain).
Alain
--
Alain
***My news feed is loosing posts. Why? I don't know. ***
***If you want to be certain that I see a post, please***
***CC it to me. ***
John R. Snead
If you succeed at (say) an Oratory roll the GM gives you a couple of hints
on the best arguement to sway the audience. If yo get a critical
success the GM tell you exactly how to sway the audience (ie you
automatically succeed).
If you fail the GM gives you no hints, and if you fumble/botch the GM
gives you incorrect hints (or you automatically fail. Under this system
critical success and failure are governed purely by dice, but the normal
range of success and failure are governed by a combination of role-playing
and dice. I like this idea and have seen it work well in play.
Leaving social skill rolls purely to dice is boring, but leaving them
purely to the skill of the player means that only the truly charismatic
can play charismatic characters. Both options seem remarkably limiting,
so the goal would seem to be finding a way to combine the two techniques.
Comments?
-John Snead jsn...@netcom.com
John Novak
>An interesting topic came up at a RPG roundtable
>discussion at Arisia (a convention here in Boston). I
>asked the panel how they would handle an NPC using a
>seduction skill on a PC, or even another PC using the
>seduction skill on a PC. This question could be
>broadened to any social skill.
Ah. One of the Age Old Questions.
I'll assume that we're very specifically _not_ dealing with any form
of mind control, be it psionic, magic, or whatever. Just plain old
character to character encounters, nothing special about it.
>The members of the panel said that if, after applying
>situational modifiers, the seduction skill roll was made,
>they would enforce the situation. I disagreed, because I
>felt that unless the "skill" was magical or psionic (ie
>took the decision out of the players hand because of some
>sort of mind control) that this was a player decision. I
>might inform them that they greatly desired to do "x"
>because of a social skill, but I would leave the decision
>up to them.
Speaking of NPC to PC oriented use (ie, an NPC is trying to seduce a
PC) then yes, I agree. If there is no magic, then the choice is
purely up to the player. A mitigating factor might be, for instance,
a PC with a known weakness for stunning redheads being hit upon by a
stunning redhead, in which case I'd at least want to see some
role-playing on the part of the character trying to decide whether to
give in or not as the case may be. My displeasure in that case would
be something of (if I understand the terms correctly) a metagame
concern.
But I would not _force_ the PC into anything, under ordinary
circumstances.
>How do you get the use of negotiation, seduction, and
>other skills that enhance social abilities if the player
>wants to roleplay it out?
This is the painful one.
I'm running a game right now which is, by request of the players,
politically oriented. Part of the group's duty is to act as
embassadors and negotiators for their provinces as they go about their
other duties. The player whose character is the main negotiator and
diplomat is nowhere near as good a diplomat as his character should
be.
What I try to do in these situations is:
o Downplay the effects of the minor fumbles of the PC.
o Even if it breaks play a little bit, ask the player "did you
_really_ mean to say that?" when he says something staggeringly
stupid. Often, I'll roll a die privately to see if I should do that.
o Try like hell to be instructive enough at my end of things,
both role-playing the NPCs and in those few game-breaking moments
where I ask if he's serious, that the _player_ improves his
role-playing ability through the game.
This, of course, is damned difficult, not always successful, and
time-consuming.
>What if you feel the NPC would
>be better at the particular social skill than the game
>master/referee?
Well, there, you've got some weapons up your sleeve.
Some may regard it as cheap, or not, but you as a GM are able not only
to role-play the NPCs, but to describe them verbally as well. The GM
is both a collection of NPCs and a narrator in this sense.
So while I do my best to convey both good and bad negotiators (to
extend the previous example) by my facial expressions and tone of
voice and gestures, I am also at liberty to sprinkle in the odd
comment of, "He looks you right in the eyes, saying '...'" or "His
eyes don't quite meet yours..."
>"All I'm asking is that somebody tell me where my f%$#ing
>camera is!"
Call information.
--
John S. Novak, III j...@cegt201.bradley.edu
http://cegt201.bradley.edu/~jsn/index.html
The Humblest Man on the Net
John R. Snead
: jsn...@netcom.com (John R. Snead) wrote:
: >I saw an interesting idea once for the use of rolls for Social Skills.
: >
: >If you succeed at (say) an Oratory roll the GM gives you a couple of hints
: >on the best arguement to sway the audience. If yo get a critical
: >success the GM tell you exactly how to sway the audience (ie you
: >automatically succeed).
: Which still comes out as the GM basically playing your character. Whether
: the roll points to a success or failure or the GM tells you how to get a
: success (depending on the roll), it still feels like a cheap victory to
: me.
: The problem I see with this is that the "hints" are OOC and have to be
: ICed (nice verb!) to be used.
: >If you fail the GM gives you no hints, and if you fumble/botch the GM
: >gives you incorrect hints (or you automatically fail. Under this system
: >critical success and failure are governed purely by dice, but the normal
: >range of success and failure are governed by a combination of role-playing
: >and dice. I like this idea and have seen it work well in play.
: >
: OH, it'll work. No question about that. However, I don't see any
: roleplay involved.
How so?
You succeed in your Oratory roll to convince a crowd to riot. The GM
tells you "talking about how wealthy and decadent the folks in the castle
are". From there it's up to you, pure role-playing, with hints.
-John Snead jsn...@netcom.com
Mary K. Kuhner
>If you succeed at (say) an Oratory roll the GM gives you a couple of hints
>on the best arguement to sway the audience. If yo get a critical
>success the GM tell you exactly how to sway the audience (ie you
>automatically succeed).
>If you fail the GM gives you no hints, and if you fumble/botch the GM
>gives you incorrect hints (or you automatically fail).
>-John Snead jsn...@netcom.com
Two caveats:
In my experience giving bogus hints is a seriously bad idea. No hints
at all, okay, but incorrect hints can get internalized as part of "what
the GM says about the world background" and cause no end of trouble.
"But you said that Klingons don't attach any importance to pronunciation
of names!" "You heard me say that to Peter, but I was lying because his
character rolled so low." "I didn't remember that--I thought it was
established background." Transfer of information from GM to player is
already such an overloaded channel that I'd hate to sully it with
deliberately misleading info.
For this system to work, the GM has to be a reasonably competant with
the social skill involved. If he doesn't know what he's doing, his
clues will tend to shatter suspension of disbelief--"What?! You think
they'd fall for that lame approach?" As with any area of specialization,
if one or more players are much better than the GM it is best to stick
to pure mechanics. The GM has to judge for himself whether his
"briefing" on what to say to the crowd will be taken as useful advice or
as laughable display of ignorance. What you want to avoid at all costs
is giving the player advice she finds ludicrously bad, then making that
advice the only way to succeed--this tends to feel like a bad kind of
railroading.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Mary K. Kuhner
PC, if the GM knows the PC's background very well, would be to say
something like:
"He is extremely appealing: he makes you feel like the lover you went
off to Europe with, or the boy you saw once on the train and dreamed
about for months afterwards. Now, what do you do?"
Then the player (who presumably knows something about what would make
the character decide to go to Europe, or what her dreams are like)
can make an informed decision.
If the background information isn't there, you could try something a
little more vague: "He hits you where your teenage heartache hit you,
as strongly as if you were a teenager again."
This works better for me than trying to describe what the NPC *does* to
get this effect, since different people have extremely different takes
on what's sexy, and the NPC with high Seduction skill is going to be
better at guessing what's needed than the GM is.
I'd rather make the ultimate decision, as a player, and not be forced:
I'd think of the die roll as determining how successful the NPC was in
being seductive, and then use my knowledge of my character to determine
how she reacted. I have had PCs go to bed with some *decidedly* unwise
people, so I don't share the common attitude that players will never let
their PCs be seduced.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Carl D. Cravens
>The members of the panel said that if, after applying
>situational modifiers, the seduction skill roll was made,
>they would enforce the situation. I disagreed, because I
>felt that unless the "skill" was magical or psionic (ie
>took the decision out of the players hand because of some
>sort of mind control) that this was a player decision. I
>might inform them that they greatly desired to do "x"
>because of a social skill, but I would leave the decision
>up to them.
This is the flip-side of the "the character can do things I can't"
discussion.
I'm a total flop at seduction, my character is James Bond. I roleplay,
then roll dice to see what happens... my roleplaying was fun, but didn't
have much affect on the outcome because my character is much better at
it than I am. (Most diced players will agree with this method.)
Personally, I have an iron will, but today I'm playing a lusty female
spy. The NPC James Bond attempts to seduce me. As a player I say, "I
resist" and that's that? Nope, no way. Just as my character's
strengths are not diluted by my weaknesses, my character's weaknesses
should not be bolstered by my strengths. A more extreme example is
torture:
GM: After hours of grueling torture, you're torturer has decided to try
the rack. As the torture-master turns the crank, you feel ligaments
stretch to their limit and you're in incredible pain.
Player: I ignore it. I won't tell them anything.
GM: Okay. The torture-master continues... your left hip pops out of
its socket. The pain is greater than anything you have imagined.
Player: So? I ignore it. They won't get nothing out of me.
See? It's silly. The player can't just go on ignoring effects that he
doesn't want to bother his character. In both the seduction and torture
examples, I'd make the player throw some Willpower checks to determine
if he can successfully avoid giving in to the situation... but I
certainly won't let him ignore something that should have an effect on
his character.
--
Carl (rave...@southwind.net)
* Old immortals never die, they just... don't.
Vanessa and Hans Dykstra
>How do you get the use of negotiation, seduction, and
>other skills that enhance social abilities if the player
>be better at the particular social skill than the game
>master/referee?
My favorite method is to use the roleplay of the
character to determine what kind of thing they are
saying, or what kind of approach they are taking.
Then roll the dice or use the character
description (whatever system you have in place for
judging skills) to determine how well they said
it.
If I feel that the situation of the character
entitles them to some additional information, I
might give them a hint or two.
For seduction, if a really crass player roleplays
it out by something crude like, "Hey babe, let's
you and me get it on," I'll interpret this as
saying that the character will make a direct
proposition in the best way his skill allows. (So
I might imagine a smoother, more genteel way of
saying essentially the same thing.) The die roll
determines just *how* smooth. But if the situation
is such that a direct proposition is just the
wrong way to go about it, a good roll might,
maybe, save him from getting slapped and no more.
In the same situation, if some other skill
(Etiquette or the equivalent) would give the
character reason to know this was not a good
approach, I'd try to drop a subtle hint.
In the case of an NPC using skills against a
character, I'd leave it up to the character, but I
would not be averse to trying to persuade the
player to take a particular action. Even to the
point of saying, "You feel tremendously attracted
to this [wo]man." (Or whatever is appropriate to
this skill. After that, you pretty much have to
rely on the player to roleplay his/her character
honestly.
***
hmd
(flaky news feed, please cc replies)
Carl D. Cravens
>I have seen PCs give into temptation by their players' free choice, and
>the resulting scenes were more intense than anything I've seen done with
>the roll-dice-for-it method. It does require developed characters and
>won't generally work early in a campaign.
Sure... a player properly roleplaying their character is going to be
better than the GM forcing them to roleplay. But that's what the player
is doing when they say "No, I refuse to be seduced"... they're refusing
to roleplay (in a general case). Now it's certainly possible that their
character might be able to resist the temptation... but not just
because the player wants it that way.
I would rather the player cooperated... but if it comes down to the
player refusing unreasonably (i.e. it goes against the character's
nature or the situation) I'm inclined to force it, via dice or other
persuasion.
--
Carl (rave...@southwind.net)
* Why get even, when you can get odd?
Xiphias Gladius
> An interesting topic came up at a RPG roundtable discussion at
> Arisia (a convention here in Boston).
Cool panel -- that was the "Sex and Marriage in RPG's", right? I was
there, too . . .
> I asked the panel how they would handle an NPC using a seduction
> skill on a PC, or even another PC using the seduction skill on a PC.
> This question could be broadened to any social skill.
> The members of the panel said that if, after applying situational
> modifiers, the seduction skill roll was made, they would enforce the
> situation.
Well, *a* member of the panel said that -- I didn't get the feeling
that all of them felt the same way. . .
> I disagreed, because I felt that unless the "skill" was magical or
> psionic (ie took the decision out of the players hand because of
> some sort of mind control) that this was a player decision. I might
> inform them that they greatly desired to do "x" because of a social
> skill, but I would leave the decision up to them.
First, I was there, and I didn't really hear anyone saying that you
were wrong to do it that way -- I actually saw a lot of people's faces
with expressions like, "Hmm, that sounds like a good idea, maybe I'll
try that a couple times and see how it works. . . "
I think that, in large part, that really depends on your personal
notions of free will, and thus, is not going to readily
resolvable. . .
No, actually I'm serious.
If I see an attractive example of a gender in which I am interested,
and I attempt to seduce it, and I *do* end up sleeping with it, what
just happened?
Did I succede in seducing? Did that person decide to sleep with me?
If I don't end up sleeping with that person, did I fail at my
attempts, or did the person decide to reject my offer?
If I had done things differently, would I have convinced that person
to sleep with me?
Is there always some sequence of events, some way to talk, some way to
present myself such that I can always seduce anyone I want?
Some would say yes. I've got a URL around here somewhere for the
"Speed Seduction" homepage, which purports to be a way to seduce
anyone, any time, anywere. I've read through it, and, well, I can
give it a solid "dunno".
But, I'm certain that if the people who wrote up that stuff were in a
roleplaying game, then, well, a simple skill roll would allow anyone
to sleep with anyone.
Is this realistic? I really have no idea.
Does this fit with how you want YOUR world to work? THAT's up to you.
[A somewhat tasteless paragraph was here in the original version of
this post that I canceled. It wasn't worth it. . .]
Now -- for me. . .
I really, honestly believe that it is POSSIBLE to convince anybody to
do anything. Just not easy. Maybe it would be beyond the abilities
of anyone who's ever lived to convince John Doe that it would be a
good idea to take his clothes off, and run up and down the street
singing "When The Saints Go Marching In," but there really is
SOMETHING that you could say to him that would convince him to do so.
And, if someone had a Fast-Talk skill of, like 30 in GURPS terms
(think way, really, really, superhuman -- beyond what is beyond what
is reasonable for characters to ever get), I would assume that they
basically could tell, just by looking at him, that John Doe had a fear
of spiders, and had once seen a movie on TV about tarantulas while
listening to "Saints", and would, somehow, be able to parley this
knowledge into some REALLY convincing reason for John Doe to do the
above.
And John Doe would do it.
Even if he was a PC.
But, for levels of skills that players will actually encounter, I
rather prefer your system.
> How do you get the use of negotiation, seduction, and other skills
> that enhance social abilities if the player wants to roleplay it
> out?
Umm, you make sure that every GM is a master negotiator, more
seductive than Lucifer, an expert diplomat and haggler, a brilliant
tactician, and so forth.
(If they can do all that, then why are they running a game?)
Okay, you gloss over it with, "After a while, you think that you've
got a pretty good treaty, but you're not really sure you wanted to
give up those trade concessions."
(But you wanted to roleplay it out. . .)
If you, as the GM, feel that you can make a good enough stab at a
particular action, roleplay it. Otherwise, gloss it.
> What if you feel the NPC would be better at the particular social
> skill than the game master/referee?
Gloss it. Or, start in roleplaying, and then, when you're over your
head, THEN gloss.
These are, naturally, all just ideas. I only GM Teenagers from Outer
Space, where Tactics consists of, "Well, if WE can get the drink
machine, we'll have strategic command of the Boy's Locker Room," and
Diplomacy consists of, "No, my dog really DID eat it -- he's specially
bred to eat tungsten." And all seduction is futile, because your
parents will come home. . .
- Ian
Mary K. Kuhner
>Personally, I have an iron will, but today I'm playing a lusty female
>spy. The NPC James Bond attempts to seduce me. As a player I say, "I
>resist" and that's that? Nope, no way. Just as my character's
>strengths are not diluted by my weaknesses, my character's weaknesses
>should not be bolstered by my strengths.
An alternative to using dice here is for the player to try to map his
character's weakness mentally onto one of his own weaknesses. If you
have a good enough feeling for the character, you can say "She wants
that really badly, just like I would want X if it were offered--now,
would duty be enough to stop me?" Or you can try to empathetically feel
her lustiness and judge her response from that.
I have seen PCs give into temptation by their players' free choice, and
the resulting scenes were more intense than anything I've seen done with
the roll-dice-for-it method. It does require developed characters and
won't generally work early in a campaign.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Anne B. Nonie Rider
> Sure... a player properly roleplaying their character is going to be
> better than the GM forcing them to roleplay. But that's what the player
> is doing when they say "No, I refuse to be seduced"... they're refusing
> to roleplay (in a general case).
WHAT?!? I refuse to let most of my characters be seduced because
they don't have the sort of personality susceptible to short-term
sexual liaisons, despite someone else's die rolls. And you call
that refusing to roleplay?
If someone really wants to seduce my character, they're going
to have to convince me through roleplaying that they can find
an approach that could appeal to my character. And it would
have to be a mutual personal bond, NOT a seductress's attempt
to add another notch to her dangling earrings.
Remember that most versions/editions of the rules have strongly
suggested that Seduction skill can't be used against PCs.
If you, as GM, overruled my roleplaying of the character and
ruled that my character was seduced by a bored player's die roll,
I'd be out of your house and your game in five minutes. Your
players' mileage must vary.
--Nonie
Mark Grundy
writes:
> An interesting topic came up at a RPG roundtable discussion at Arisia
(a convention here in Boston). I asked the panel how they would
handle an NPC using a seduction skill on a PC, or even another PC
using the seduction skill on a PC. This question could be broadened
to any social skill.
> How do you get the use of negotiation, seduction, and other skills
that enhance social abilities if the player wants to roleplay it out?
What if you feel the NPC would be better at the particular social
skill than the game master/referee?
A seduction scene is a very particular kind of play contract, in
which you ask the player to make the character vulnerable to some kind
of temptation. Before asking a player to commit to such a scene, it's
worthwhile asking yourself what the player will get out of it -- because
the player will likely be asking the same question. If you, as
narrator, haven't got an answer to this question, then players can quite
understandably resist your seduction scenes no matter how well you run
them.
The trick to making a seduction work is to make the player want it
to work. Then, whether you do it as dice or as a fully played scene
becomes just a matter of taste -- you play it to some mutually agreed
level of comfort.
What will please the player? Is it the chance to develop or grow
the character, or expose some new side to its nature? Will the scene
open new opportunities for the character's success? Will it affect the
character's social situation, material circumstances or reputation? Are
these things that the player wants?
If the answer is none of the above, then don't run that scene with
that player. It won't work. Find a player it will work for.
Recall that not all seductions are sexual. A seduction could be
about food, power, vengeance, wealth, even freedom or family love -- a
seduction occurs any time someone's heart is manipulated to dominate
their head. In stories, seduction scenes work best when there is
already evidence of strong feelings in the character. If the character
is mostly played as a sexless ascetic, then don't try seducing him with
wine, women and song -- the audience won't believe it. But if the
character has just burst out of three years confinement in some stinking
dungeon, you could seduce him with nothing more than a hot bath and a
glass of fresh water.
A seduction should never be a sure thing. Seductions are
temptations, and temptations are about the consequences of choice. If
you need a specific outcome and nothing else will do, then don't run the
scene as a seduction. Build it some other way. Seduce an NPC, or
spring a trap. Don't give the players the feeling that they have choice
when you won't deliver on that.
In short, my rules for running seductions are:
1) Make 'em credible. Find emotions already latent in the character,
build them up, then tempt them. Don't look to seduce emotions that
haven't been played.
2) Make sure the player trusts you to give value from a seduction scene.
Make sure they _get_ value when it's run.
3) Play 'em to the level of comfort of the whole group. Use dice if
necessary, cut scenes, or play it out moment by moment if the group
wants that -- whatever keeps the players involved.
4) Prepare to play out the consequences of refusing the seduction. A
properly seduced victim should initially kick himself if he says no,
but the players should decide for themselves at the end, whether the
decision was right or wrong. Don't make that decision for them.
-------
Dr Mark Grundy, Phone: +61-6-249 0159
Education Co-ordinator, Fax: +61-6-249 0747
CRC for Advanced Computational Systems,
The Australian National University,
0200 Australia Email: ma...@cisr.anu.edu.au
Mark Grundy
This time I'd like to write about negotiations.
In article <30FC00...@avid.com>, Rob Ciccolini <bob_ci...@avid.com>
writes:
> An interesting topic came up at a RPG roundtable discussion at Arisia
(a convention here in Boston). I asked the panel how they would
handle an NPC using a seduction skill on a PC, or even another PC
using the seduction skill on a PC. This question could be broadened
to any social skill.
> How do you get the use of negotiation, seduction, and other skills
that enhance social abilities if the player wants to roleplay it out?
What if you feel the NPC would be better at the particular social
skill than the game master/referee?
Recall that the final measure of plausibility in any story is the
audience's measure. In roleplaying, the players are the game's main
audience. In cases where the social skills are being used on a
player-character, I think it's essential that the player believes in the
scene. Otherwise, you may as well be writing stories just for yourself,
and leaving the players out of it.
It is credible to play negotiation skills against NPCs, and let some
abstract result determine the outcome, without going into details. Many
NPCs are flexible enough dramatic entities to go along with such devices
without hitches. Storywise, it can be dissatisfying, but at least it
doesn't cause arguments.
When it comes to playing negotiations against other PCs, though,
it's important that the players stay in touch with ther characters'
motives. If you insist that the character do things for which the
player can't find a motive, then the player loses faith in your game.
Having a character with high negotiation skills may give the player
unreasonable expectations for what can be achieved with other PCs. For
some games (like TOON, say), it's quite plausible to simply make a roll,
and ask the other PC to `act dumb' and go along with the fast-talk
schtick, because that's part of the play agreement underlying the genre.
For most games, though, PCs shouldn't be asked to do that. It's up to
the GM to give the players a clear understanding of what is possible
with the skill, and why.
If a player chooses a character with high negotiation skills, it may
be that the player is interested in negotiation itself. Roleplaying
offers one of the best means for learning negotiation that I've ever
seen. If, as GMs, we offer interesting negotiation opportunities for
players, and the chance for some honest discussion afterwards, I think
we're doing well both for our stories, and for the skills that our
players will take back with them into other parts of their lives.
Negotiation is about understanding motives (yours and others), about
working those motives into a vision, and then about communicating the
vision so other people will see it the way you want them to. We can
explore this very easily in roleplaying by discussing player and
character motives, by discussing visions out of character, and by
playing question and answer in character to help a player explain the
vision.
Something I do when a PC has high levels of Persuade and Intimidate
skills in my Cyberpunk games, or Oratory and Intrigue skills in my
Pendragon games, is to give the player a clear indication (in or out of
character) of what the victims want, and what they'd like to hear, or
else what they're afraid of, and will try to avoid. I lead my NPCs with
their chins, to give the player both confidence and understanding of how
to deal with them.
After a few scenes like this, I generally find that the player is
getting more confident in the character's negotiation skills, and is
rapidly working out how to apply them. The other players also begin to
see the character as successful, and start to play to it in that way.
Sometimes, they'll lead with their chins too, or skirt the character
cautiously. Sometimes they'll explain out of character, what their
character is feeling. Either way, it achieves the desired effect, and
perhaps the players learn a little from each other along the way.
--
Carl D. Cravens
>WHAT?!? I refuse to let most of my characters be seduced because
>they don't have the sort of personality susceptible to short-term
>sexual liaisons, despite someone else's die rolls. And you call
>that refusing to roleplay?
I'm referring to a reasonable situation. If the GM gives you a
reasonable situation in which there is a chance your character might be
seduced, I expect you to roleplay it properly... not say "my character
isn't seduced" because you the player doesn't want it to happen. It's
about as unreasonable as saying "my character isn't injured by that
sword blow" just because you don't want it to happen. If your character
happens to be immune to sword blows or seduction, that's fine... but
otherwise I'd expect the character to react appropriately to situations
presented. If the character's not the type to be easily seduced,
okay... but I expect a skillful seductress with the appropriate tack to
have a chance of success, no matter what the _player_ wants for the
character. Roleplaying is full of things happening to the character
that the player might dislike... I don't see why this should be any
different.
>Remember that most versions/editions of the rules have strongly
>suggested that Seduction skill can't be used against PCs.
I'm not much into what the rules of any particular system say. If I can
use my sword skill, fast talk skill, and torture skill on your PC, I can
certainly use seduction. It all depends on the situation as to whether
or not I should be successful.
--
Carl (rave...@southwind.net)
* It's only a hobby ... only a hobby ... only a
Lydia Leong
Mark Grundy <ma...@arp.anu.edu.au> wrote:
>In article <30FC00...@avid.com>, Rob Ciccolini <bob_ci...@avid.com>
>writes:
>
> necessary, cut scenes, or play it out moment by moment if the group
> wants that -- whatever keeps the players involved.
Jumping somewhat off-topic... Another thread in this group, recently,
argued the use of personality-determination game mechanics (Pendragon
and Ars Magica both offer these, for example).
I find that a Personality Trait game mechanic comes in very handy in
these sorts of situations, where the _player_ is not necessarily
comfortable making a "decision" one way or another. The "neutrality"
of the roll saves the player some potential embarassment of trying
to figure out what to do. (I find that there are times in many
groups when "getting into things" slips into "feeling vaguely
embarassed at one's actions.)
Pendragon has that useful Chaste/Lustful mechanic, as well as Flirting
and Romance, for those times when you don't really have a group or a
mood to talk out such things.
More on-topic... I think that the key to "seduction", in terms of
character development, is to give the character something he
desperately wants and knows he shouldn't have. Whether this is a
favored sword with a nasty curse attached, gold extorted from the city
treasury, or the married wife of his lord, you want something which
the character wants _really badly_, but will feel _really guilty_
about. Simple seductions don't quite have the impact of self-corruption.
-- Lydia
David Boatright
nri...@hadron.us.oracle.com (Anne B. "Nonie" Rider) writes:
> Path:
dboat.demon.co.uk!news.demon.co.uk!demon!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!usenet.eel.
ufl.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!inet-nntp-gw-1.us.oracle.com!hadron.us.oracle
com!nrider
> From: nri...@hadron.us.oracle.com (Anne B. "Nonie" Rider)
> Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
> Subject: Re: Social Skills in RP
> Date: 22 Jan 1996 18:55:24 GMT
> Organization: Oracle Corp.
> Lines: 28
> Distribution: world
> Message-ID: <4e0mis$4...@inet-nntp-gw-1.us.oracle.com>
> References: <dbEAxwIe...@southwind.net> <30FC00...@avid.com>
<3Jk/wwIeE7...@southwind.net> <4dp9jf$p...@nntp4.u.washington.edu>
> Reply-To: nri...@hadron.us.oracle.com (Anne B. "Nonie" Rider)
> NNTP-Posting-Host: hadron.us.oracle.com
>
> rave...@southwind.net (Carl D. Cravens) wrote:
>
> > Sure... a player properly roleplaying their character is going to be
> > better than the GM forcing them to roleplay. But that's what the player
> > is doing when they say "No, I refuse to be seduced"... they're refusing
> > to roleplay (in a general case).
>
>
> they don't have the sort of personality susceptible to short-term
> sexual liaisons, despite someone else's die rolls. And you call
> that refusing to roleplay?
>
> to have to convince me through roleplaying that they can find
> an approach that could appeal to my character. And it would
> have to be a mutual personal bond, NOT a seductress's attempt
> to add another notch to her dangling earrings.
>
> suggested that Seduction skill can't be used against PCs.
>
> ruled that my character was seduced by a bored player's die roll,
> I'd be out of your house and your game in five minutes. Your
> players' mileage must vary.
>
> --Nonie
>
>
Has none of your characters ever been seduced. Have your character's
personalities ever varied. Surely your falling into the same bad rolpeplaying
trap.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| David Boatright EMail da...@dboat.demon.co.uk
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mary K. Kuhner
>Has none of your characters ever been seduced. Have your character's
>personalities ever varied. Surely your falling into the same bad
>roleplaying trap.
>| David Boatright EMail da...@dboat.demon.co.uk
There's a difference between "my character won't be seduced because of a
GM decision" and "my character won't be seduced."
It's also true that most players have character types they prefer not to
play; if a particular player just doesn't do sexually active characters,
that doesn't strike me as bad roleplaying. Some people don't do mages.
Some people don't do pacifists. I have tried repeatedly, and failed, to
do convincing characters motivated by money. As long as the player isn't
constantly producing characters just like him/herself I don't see a
problem.
In any case, if the player doesn't go for the idea, is forcing them
really contributing to the fun of the game, for them or anyone else?
That's not been my experience.
One of the key turns of the _Paradisio_ campaign was one of the
characters falling in love with an enemy agent. I don't see any way the
GM could possibly have forced this to happen that would have been
satisfactory; but it did happen, despite the obvious prudential reasons
it shouldn't, because I felt strongly that that was what the character
would do. If I hadn't felt that way and the GM had said "Jay is in love
with Martha" I would have been baffled--how to roleplay something that
makes no sense to me? The character becomes mechanical, not alive.
The only way I could cope, I think, would be to assume that mind control
was involved--so the character's feelings didn't *have* to flow from her
personality.
Interestingly, the character didn't really understand why she felt that
way, and initially neither did I: I just knew she did. After some
thought I realized that what was going on was Stockholm Syndrome, the
tendency of kidnap victims to side with their captors; but the emotion
came well before the explanation.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Reimer Behrends
: In article: <4e0mis$4...@inet-nntp-gw-1.us.oracle.com>
: > WHAT?!? I refuse to let most of my characters be seduced because
: > they don't have the sort of personality susceptible to short-term
: > sexual liaisons, despite someone else's die rolls. And you call
: > that refusing to roleplay?
: Has none of your characters ever been seduced. Have your character's
: personalities ever varied. Surely your falling into the same bad
: rolpeplaying trap.
<SARCASM ON>
My, what on expert on character depth. You only role-play properly if
about half your characters are amenable to casual seduction attempts,
huh? Why didn't it occur to me earlier how much depth susceptibility to
seduction attempts will add to any character. Let me immediately check
out `Fanny Hill' - it must be the best novel in history.
<SARCASM OFF>
Now, not to be misunderstood - there can be much fun in playing a
character along the lines of, say, a Lorenzo da Ponte. But you should
perhaps read more carefully before you make such stupid accusations
(especially learning what the English word `most' means).
Reimer Behrends
Reimer Behrends
: On 22 Jan 1996 18:55:24 GMT, nri...@hadron.us.oracle.com (Anne B. "Nonie" Rider)
: wrote:
: >WHAT?!? I refuse to let most of my characters be seduced because
: >they don't have the sort of personality susceptible to short-term
: >sexual liaisons, despite someone else's die rolls. And you call
: >that refusing to roleplay?
Let me begin by stating that I'm more or less 100% with Nonie on this
one.
: I'm referring to a reasonable situation. If the GM gives you a
: reasonable situation in which there is a chance your character might be
: seduced, I expect you to roleplay it properly... not say "my character
: isn't seduced" because you the player doesn't want it to happen.
So would you react the same way to a refusal that is roleplayed properly?
: It's
: about as unreasonable as saying "my character isn't injured by that
: sword blow" just because you don't want it to happen.
Apples and oranges. Not only are sword blows and seduction attempts two
totally different things (external vs. internal results), but if you
were enforcing the success of a seduction attempt on my character I'd
be mightily annoyed. The character concept is my private property and I
won't allow a GM to ruin it just because he thinks he knows better, as
he quite possibly isn't in a capacity to make such a judgement.
: If your character
: happens to be immune to sword blows or seduction, that's fine... but
: otherwise I'd expect the character to react appropriately to situations
: presented.
Why should refusing a seduction attempt be inappropriate just because
the GM thinks the character should react favourably?
: If the character's not the type to be easily seduced,
: okay... but I expect a skillful seductress with the appropriate tack to
: have a chance of success, no matter what the _player_ wants for the
: character.
Nonsense. The area of personal attraction to other persons is a _wide_
field and depends on a lot of psychological and cultural factors, and
there is no such thing as a guaranteed chance of success at seduction.
A game where such things are resolved by a die roll is little better
than a dungoen crawl, for this works properly only for cardboard
characters.
: Roleplaying is full of things happening to the character
: that the player might dislike... I don't see why this should be any
: different.
See the discussion on autocratic GMs. This is just as bad as the case of
the GM saying that the Cessna couldn't be landed safely, despite
somebody else knowing better.
[...]
Reimer Behrends
G Benage
>But you should perhaps read more carefully before you make such stupid
>accusations (especially learning what the English word `most' means).
>
> Reimer Behrends
Mr. Behrends makes this comment just after his own misinterpretation:
>: If the character's not the type to be easily seduced,
>: okay... but I expect a skillful seductress with the appropriate tack to
>: have a chance of success, no matter what the _player_ wants for the
>: character.
>
>Nonsense. The area of personal attraction to other persons is a _wide_
>field and depends on a lot of psychological and cultural factors, and
>there is no such thing as a guaranteed chance of success at seduction.
Did the poster say *anything* about a "guaranteed chance of success at
seduction"? Nope. The poster believes that a skillfull seductress with
an appropriate angle will have a *chance* of success. Doesn't strike me
as particularly nonsensical.
Mr. Behrends, perhaps you should consider the distinction between the
words "guarantee" and "chance" in the English language before making your
own...er...less-than-brilliant accusations.
I don't want to flame Mr. Behrends...but I think that, if one is going to
be rude to another poster and ascribe "stupid accusations" to them, one
ought to be careful to avoid them in turn.
Regards,
Greg
G Benage
John R. Snead
: Reimer Behrends makes a few comments on the "seduction issue":
: >But you should perhaps read more carefully before you make such stupid
: >accusations (especially learning what the English word `most' means).
: >
: > Reimer Behrends
: Mr. Behrends makes this comment just after his own misinterpretation:
: >: If the character's not the type to be easily seduced,
: >: okay... but I expect a skillful seductress with the appropriate tack to
: >: have a chance of success, no matter what the _player_ wants for the
: >: character.
: >
: >Nonsense. The area of personal attraction to other persons is a _wide_
: >field and depends on a lot of psychological and cultural factors, and
: >there is no such thing as a guaranteed chance of success at seduction.
: Did the poster say *anything* about a "guaranteed chance of success at
: seduction"? Nope. The poster believes that a skillfull seductress with
: an appropriate angle will have a *chance* of success. Doesn't strike me
: as particularly nonsensical.
This doesn't strike me as nonsensical. There are numerous characters,
just as there are numerous folks in real life who simply cannot be
seduced. Many individuals who are happily married, or celibate by vow
are simply *not* vulnerable to seduction, no matter how skilled.
If the seducer is using magic or paranormal abilities then things are
much less certain, but simple skill will give the seducer a chance with
many people, but certainly not all. If someone's character concept
is a devote priest or a character who is happily married, or someone
in a similar position, then I see no reason to allow *any* roll, since
there is *no* change of success.
The concept of suing seduction rolls on PCs also bothers me quite a bit,
as does similar acts such as using rolls convince a PC to perform any
action. I prefer diced gaming, but I hate games where dice are used to
to determine personality or behavior of PCs.
-John jsn...@netcom.com
Mary K. Kuhner
>The poster believes that a skillfull seductress with
>an appropriate angle will have a *chance* of success. Doesn't strike me
>as particularly nonsensical.
I just don't think so. If the person being seduced has a strong sexual
orientation, for example, and it's the wrong one, the seductress may be
out of luck. I've seen a very attractive gay man flirt with my husband
and it just leaves my husband baffled because he doesn't see men as
sexually attractive. Women get a different reaction.
On the other hand, I don't have that strong orientation and a woman
might be able to seduce me. It really varies with the person, and I
tend to think that some people cannot be seduced at all, and many people
cannot possibly be seduced by a particular seducer or in a particular
situation, no matter what angle is tried.
I would not expect my PC with this skill to have a chance of success
against every target, either. I just don't see the skill as working
that way. You can't use money to bribe someone who doesn't want money;
you can't use sex to sway someone who isn't interested in sex, or who
finds you horribly unappealing. Those are the breaks.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Scott Olson
> The concept of suing seduction rolls on PCs also bothers me quite a bit,
> as does similar acts such as using rolls convince a PC to perform any
> action. I prefer diced gaming, but I hate games where dice are used to
> to determine personality or behavior of PCs.
Uhm, how about on NPCs? I can see using them in cases where the GM
is unsure about the NPCs reaction, but how about in a situation where the
NPC is fully developed enough that the GM would be able to make a decision
based on the NPCs character (not on dramatic considerations or advancing
some plot)?
Scott
Scott Olson
> In article <4ecdao$m...@newsbf02.news.aol.com> gbe...@aol.com (G Benage) writes:
>
> >The poster believes that a skillfull seductress with
> >an appropriate angle will have a *chance* of success. Doesn't strike me
> >as particularly nonsensical.
>
> I just don't think so. If the person being seduced has a strong sexual
> orientation, for example, and it's the wrong one, the seductress may be
> out of luck. I've seen a very attractive gay man flirt with my husband
> and it just leaves my husband baffled because he doesn't see men as
> sexually attractive. Women get a different reaction.
> On the other hand, I don't have that strong orientation and a woman
> might be able to seduce me. It really varies with the person, and I
> tend to think that some people cannot be seduced at all, and many people
> cannot possibly be seduced by a particular seducer or in a particular
> situation, no matter what angle is tried.
Heh, I think the operative term here is 'appropriate'. The wrong
sex, to someone with a strong orientation, might be enough to prevent the
existence of that appropriate angle for that seducer.
> I would not expect my PC with this skill to have a chance of success
> against every target, either. I just don't see the skill as working
> that way. You can't use money to bribe someone who doesn't want money;
> you can't use sex to sway someone who isn't interested in sex, or who
> finds you horribly unappealing. Those are the breaks.
Sure, but seduction isn't necessarily sex. That's the common form in
this culture, but there's others: the seduction of power (see Darth
Vader's attempt to seduce Luke in The Empire Strikes Back), wealth, etc.
Most people have angles that can be exploited, IF you know them. Finding
them can be rather difficult, though.
Scott
Andy Gibson
[snip]
>There's a difference between "my character won't be seduced because of a
>GM decision" and "my character won't be seduced."
>It's also true that most players have character types they prefer not to
>play; if a particular player just doesn't do sexually active characters,
>that doesn't strike me as bad roleplaying. Some people don't do mages.
>Some people don't do pacifists. I have tried repeatedly, and failed, to
>do convincing characters motivated by money. As long as the player isn't
>constantly producing characters just like him/herself I don't see a
>problem.
>In any case, if the player doesn't go for the idea, is forcing them
>really contributing to the fun of the game, for them or anyone else?
>That's not been my experience.
Hmm. Whether this is going to contribute to the fun or not must, IMO,
be a GM judgement issue at the time, but I do have real problems with
allowing the PCs some sort of "immunity". I have, on one occasion,
seen a boor who claimed (in an argument about criminal confessions)
that no-one innocent would ever confess without extreme physical
torture. Two opponents in the discussion then proceeded to
"interrogate" him until he "confessed" to jumping a red light on his
way to the venue. No torture (not even any physical contact). No
magic. No mysterious mental powers. Just skill at human psychology
and "interrogation" techniques (both "interrogators" had, I
understand, been in the army). Many gamers seem to be quite happy
that their character might be affected by a "magic spell" or some
such, but seem horrified at the idea that a skill might have similar
power. Maybe they need to feel that *they* themselves are immune to
such skills. A word of warning: you're not. I don't see why PCs in a
roleplaying game should be, either, but the area certainly needs
careful handling if it is not to make players feel threatened and
endanger SOD/IC.
Andy
Thomas Lindgren
: Did the poster say *anything* about a "guaranteed chance of success at
: an appropriate angle will have a *chance* of success. Doesn't strike me
: as particularly nonsensical.
This doesn't strike me as nonsensical. There are numerous characters,
just as there are numerous folks in real life who simply cannot be
seduced. Many individuals who are happily married, or celibate by vow
are simply *not* vulnerable to seduction, no matter how skilled.
First of all, "seduction" as a simple skill roll seems a bit daft.
Seduction skills usually seem a bit too much like "Ummm ...
I take'er/'im out on a date ... Do I score?". I'd say you are
right in that respect.
But, there's been good books written about blackguards seducing the
virtuous (I'm thinking in particular of the book of Choderlos Laclos (hmm,
I think) that became the movie Dangerous Liaisons). This is often
the _point_ of many a play or book, esp. from times past: Is such a
thing possible? What are the consequences?
So, I'd say there is a chance, but over a longer period of time.
Yeah, yeah, call me a cynic :-)
Thomas
--
Thomas Lindgren, Uppsala University "Scientists now consider the rhino
tho...@csd.uu.se, lind...@sics.se to be extinct" - TV4 News, 27/12 '95
http://www.csd.uu.se/~thomasl/ We'll miss you.
Copyright Thomas Lindgren, 1996. Distribution on Microsoft Network prohibited.
A Lapalme
>
> Hmm. Whether this is going to contribute to the fun or not must, IMO,
> be a GM judgement issue at the time, but I do have real problems with
> allowing the PCs some sort of "immunity". I have, on one occasion,
> seen a boor who claimed (in an argument about criminal confessions)
> that no-one innocent would ever confess without extreme physical
> torture. Two opponents in the discussion then proceeded to
> "interrogate" him until he "confessed" to jumping a red light on his
> way to the venue. No torture (not even any physical contact). No
> magic. No mysterious mental powers. Just skill at human psychology
> and "interrogation" techniques (both "interrogators" had, I
> understand, been in the army). Many gamers seem to be quite happy
> that their character might be affected by a "magic spell" or some
> such, but seem horrified at the idea that a skill might have similar
> power. Maybe they need to feel that *they* themselves are immune to
> such skills. A word of warning: you're not. I don't see why PCs in a
> roleplaying game should be, either, but the area certainly needs
> careful handling if it is not to make players feel threatened and
> endanger SOD/IC.
>
little problem in making me admit I ran a red light even though I hadn't.
It's just not that important. OTOH, something critical to me, such as
making me admit that my daughterh committed a hideous crime which she
didn't do, would be an entirely different thing.
As somoene else posted, we all have our price. Sometimes, though the
offer isn't worth it, so we don't sell our soul.
*********
I can see the problem of character immunity. However, I've come to the
conclusion that my job as GM does not require that I force a moral outcome
on a character. That's the players's job to decide on the outcome. My
job is to force them to make a choice.
Alain
Kevin Lowe
: I have, on one occasion,
: seen a boor who claimed (in an argument about criminal confessions)
: that no-one innocent would ever confess without extreme physical
: torture. Two opponents in the discussion then proceeded to
: "interrogate" him until he "confessed" to jumping a red light on his
: way to the venue. No torture (not even any physical contact). No
: magic. No mysterious mental powers. Just skill at human psychology
: and "interrogation" techniques (both "interrogators" had, I
: understand, been in the army). Many gamers seem to be quite happy
: that their character might be affected by a "magic spell" or some
: such, but seem horrified at the idea that a skill might have similar
: power. Maybe they need to feel that *they* themselves are immune to
: such skills. A word of warning: you're not. I don't see why PCs in a
: roleplaying game should be, either, but the area certainly needs
: careful handling if it is not to make players feel threatened and
: endanger SOD/IC.
: Andy
An excellent point, and one, I think, that needs further exploration.
In our real world, mind control and brainwashing are real, well
understood and widely applied mental phenomena. The communists used it
during the cold war, fringe religious groups use it to gain converts, the
military uses it to create controllable killers, and I'm sure it goes on
in many other places and ways. Having seperately researched domestic
violence and mind control for different projects, I noted widespread
similarities in what goes on in both situations.
(Sorry if tenses and forms got a little screwy there, my sentences were
getting complicated. I hope I was clear, anyway.)
So, what if a PC is captured by the enemy and brainwashed? Or decides to
go to a fortnight retreat with the Moonies, or the Family of Love
(Children of God), or the Boston Church of Christ? Or joins the
Marines? Or marries and lives with a violent partner?
In all of these situations, perfectly normal people act in predictable,
maladaptive and (from an external point of view) irrational ways. If a
magic spell of some sort can coerce a PC into doing something they
normally would never consider, I think it is a very short step to
allowing a PC to be controlled by purely psychological means.
The problems this would cause are obvious, I think. Especially if either
the player or referee involved didn't know a whole lot about the mental
phenomena involved, and most people don't.
I can't think of any constructive advice on how to handle such situations
right now, so I'll throw it open to discussion...
Kevin Lowe, (Brisbane, Australia, had most of a psychology degree before
realising he had no desire to be a psychologist, now pursuing a
philosophy degree, if you really want to know, which you probably don't.
Oh well).
Mary K. Kuhner
> Scott
If a player in my game were using Seduction, as a diced skill, against a
well-developed NPC, I would ask for a roll and think about the
situation. Perhaps this seduction is impossible: if so, the roll
determines how quickly the PC realizes and how much offense s/he causes
in the process. Perhaps it's possible: then the roll will give me some
indication how well the PC does at finding the right approach. I'll
listen to what the player says and think about what the dice say, and
decide accordingly. Detail level will depend on what the player is
comfortable with.
It's analogous, in some ways, to a Search roll. If there is
nothing to be found, even a 100% roll won't find anything; but it can
make the search quick, efficient, unobtrusive and certain. If this PC
can't seduce this NPC no matter what, the roll does the same sorts of
things. If the player tells me a really good guess where the hidden
object is, or how the NPC can be seduced, I'll interpret the die roll
more favorably.
I don't mind, as a player, a similar approach applied to seduction of my
PC, except I'd like to make the final determination myself. NPC rolls
85%, GM says "Tanith takes Chernoi out to dinner and makes a very
stylish, very appealing pass at her. Chernoi finds her unexpectedly
attractive. What does Chernoi do?"
As it happens, Chernoi said "I just killed a man, and I'm too shaken up
to think about sex tonight; but I'm terribly flattered...and there might
be an opportunity in the future." But I really can't expect the GM to
know that, so I needed to have the last call. As it happens, the GM
didn't even know whether Chernoi was interested in women: the answer
might as well have been "Heavens, you should try that line on my
husband; you're just not my type."
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Mary K. Kuhner
>In all of these situations, perfectly normal people act in predictable,
>maladaptive and (from an external point of view) irrational ways. If a
>magic spell of some sort can coerce a PC into doing something they
>normally would never consider, I think it is a very short step to
>allowing a PC to be controlled by purely psychological means.
>The problems this would cause are obvious, I think. Especially if either
>the player or referee involved didn't know a whole lot about the mental
>phenomena involved, and most people don't.
>Kevin Lowe
Players and GMs who are willing to do very in-depth roleplaying and
really get into it can actually rediscover some of this stuff without
formal knowledge. I got a first-hand lesson in how Stockhold Syndrome
works in a game once; it was startling, since I had never understood
that and the GM had never even heard of it. It took several months of
one-on-one roleplaying of the PC's captivity to accomplish, though.
It was fascinating, in an upsetting way. As I think I understand it in
retrospect, what happens is that people define themselves by those
around them--they know themselves by the reactions of others. It's very
hard to be a human being in a vacuum. After a point it was
psychologically easier for Jayhawk to engage herself with her captors
than to be engaged with nothing. And it's not that far from relating to
them to caring what they think of you, and what happens to them.
Scary stuff. I was particularly impressed that the GM, although he was
obviously willing to use GM decree, never actually had to do so.
The question you have to ask is: does this, for a given group of
players, make a good game? In the game I was referring to,
when the PC was captured the GM said "The party think's she's
dead, so rescue is terribly unlikely; and you know Paradisio's
reputation for turning their prisoners. Are you interested
in playing this out?" Had there been other players, I would probably
have said No....the needed detail work would take too much time away
from them. I don't think it can be done without detail work, unless
both GM and player are intimately familiar with psych-warfare tactics:
the results are just too counterintuitive.
Many psych-warfare situations really remove the PC from playability;
a half-starved, dazed cult member is more of an object to be rescued
than a person to be played, in most games. So this needs to be handled
circumspectly, or the player may rightly question why she's bothering to
play.
If the detail work can't be done, I'd use dice--that's how I handle
interrogation under torture, because the details make me ill. But I'd
also shy away from putting a PC in that situation unless I had no
choice: both using dice and making decrees interfere with player
understanding of character, while detail work may be too painful to
be part of a fun game.
I think I'd be willing to accept a die roll followed by "You talk under
torture" for most of my PCs, but I can see why many players wouldn't.
If you've never encountered the bits of your own psyche that would
cause *you* to talk under torture, it's hard to understand. Even harder
when only psychological pressure is involved. The GM can't really say
"Go out and read some cult-survivor accounts" just to make a scenario
run smoothly (though you'll certainly get more intense results if you
do).
A tricky topic, indeed. I think it's really important to bear in mind
that just because something *can* happen in the game doesn't necessarily
mean it's a good thing to depict, or even allow, for a particular
group. It's almost never bad to ask, as my GM did: Can we really enjoy
doing this, or had we better not?
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Reimer Behrends
: Reimer Behrends makes a few comments on the "seduction issue":
: >But you should perhaps read more carefully before you make such stupid
: >accusations (especially learning what the English word `most' means).
: >
: > Reimer Behrends
: Mr. Behrends makes this comment just after his own misinterpretation:
Eh, let's drop this formality, yes? By the way, you don't debate the
accuracy of my criticism, do you?
: >: If the character's not the type to be easily seduced,
: >: okay... but I expect a skillful seductress with the appropriate tack to
: >: have a chance of success, no matter what the _player_ wants for the
: >: character.
: >
: >Nonsense. The area of personal attraction to other persons is a _wide_
: >field and depends on a lot of psychological and cultural factors, and
: >there is no such thing as a guaranteed chance of success at seduction.
: Did the poster say *anything* about a "guaranteed chance of success at
: seduction"? Nope.
I still think that I was more or less paraphrasing what Carl said (who
is more than welcome to correct me).
: The poster believes that a skillfull seductress with
: an appropriate angle will have a *chance* of success. Doesn't strike me
: as particularly nonsensical.
It is, because the situation may be one where there simply is no chance
of the seductress being successful. The victim may just find her
unattractive, no matter how appropriate her angle is, to give a simple
example. He may not have the desire to enter a casual liaison (even
to the point of finding this detestable).
: Mr. Behrends, perhaps you should consider the distinction between the
: words "guarantee" and "chance" in the English language before making your
: own...er...less-than-brilliant accusations.
I wasn't talking about a `guarantee', but about a `guaranteed chance',
which is a different beast. Fairly synonymous to `definite possibility'
or `minimum probability' in this context. An adjective, for your
information, qualifies the noun to which it is attached, it doesn't
replace it.
: I don't want to flame Mr. Behrends...
Then you're sailing under false colours. Your article is quite obviously
a flame (especially considering your previous paragraph). Now if you
want to write a flame, go ahead, but at least you should have the
courage to stand by it, instead of weaseling out of it in a way that
would be the pride of Black Adder.
: but I think that, if one is going to
: be rude to another poster and ascribe "stupid accusations" to them, one
: ought to be careful to avoid them in turn.
<shrug> I've never claimed that I am perfect (although I happen to
think that in this particular case you are barking up the wrong tree),
but I was just replying to a particularly nasty article (namely David
Boatright's) and therefore didn't concern myself overly with politeness,
as I made quite clear.
Reimer Behrends
Reimer Behrends
: mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) writes:
[...]
: >In any case, if the player doesn't go for the idea, is forcing them
: >really contributing to the fun of the game, for them or anyone else?
: >That's not been my experience.
: Hmm. Whether this is going to contribute to the fun or not must, IMO,
: be a GM judgement issue at the time, but I do have real problems with
: allowing the PCs some sort of "immunity".
Nobody here is saying that the PCs should have immunity, just that
having the GM enforce such reactions usually is a bad idea.
: I have, on one occasion,
: seen a boor who claimed (in an argument about criminal confessions)
: that no-one innocent would ever confess without extreme physical
: torture.
Which is obviously wrong (too many counterexamples). However, if he had
said that there are innocent people who wouldn't ever confess, even
under extreme physical torture, I would have to agree with him.
: Two opponents in the discussion then proceeded to
: "interrogate" him until he "confessed" to jumping a red light on his
: way to the venue. No torture (not even any physical contact).
Torture doesn't need to be physical. The former East-German
`Staatssicherheit' (their secret police) specialized in psychological
torture. The only thing that is remotely unrealistic about how Orwell's
`1984' ends is that they probably wouldn't have needed the rats
(although it makes the scene far more convincing to the average reader
and is also excellent use of dramatic techniques).
: No
: magic. No mysterious mental powers. Just skill at human psychology
: and "interrogation" techniques (both "interrogators" had, I
: understand, been in the army).
Well, of course. After a few weeks in a `Staatssicherheit' prison, the
average person was glad to confess everything the interrogators asked
him or her to confess. Sometimes simply because he was the only
one who showed some compassion. But I digress ...
: Many gamers seem to be quite happy
: that their character might be affected by a "magic spell" or some
: such, but seem horrified at the idea that a skill might have similar
: power. Maybe they need to feel that *they* themselves are immune to
: such skills. A word of warning: you're not.
Right. (Although it depends on what is done to the character; for
instance, I myself would probably be fairly immune against the
psychological torture mentioned above, because I know a lot about how to
counter such attempts.)
: I don't see why PCs in a
: roleplaying game should be, either, but the area certainly needs
: careful handling if it is not to make players feel threatened and
: endanger SOD/IC.
Precisely. Inappropriate handling of such a situation is what I was
arguing against primarily (and also that the character may indeed not
fall for it).
Reimer Behrends
russell wallace
>If a player in my game were using Seduction, as a diced skill, against a
>well-developed NPC, I would ask for a roll and think about the
>situation. Perhaps this seduction is impossible: if so, the roll
>determines how quickly the PC realizes and how much offense s/he causes
>in the process. Perhaps it's possible: then the roll will give me some
>indication how well the PC does at finding the right approach. I'll
>listen to what the player says and think about what the dice say, and
>decide accordingly. Detail level will depend on what the player is
>comfortable with.
I think this approach is quite reasonable, though as it happens I don't
make rolls for skills like Seduction (I do allow PCs to take them, but I
take them into account in a diceless manner. Same for the Charisma
stat.)
>I don't mind, as a player, a similar approach applied to seduction of my
>PC, except I'd like to make the final determination myself. NPC rolls
>85%, GM says "Tanith takes Chernoi out to dinner and makes a very
>stylish, very appealing pass at her. Chernoi finds her unexpectedly
>attractive. What does Chernoi do?"
>As it happens, Chernoi said "I just killed a man, and I'm too shaken up
>to think about sex tonight; but I'm terribly flattered...and there might
>be an opportunity in the future." But I really can't expect the GM to
>know that, so I needed to have the last call. As it happens, the GM
>didn't even know whether Chernoi was interested in women: the answer
>might as well have been "Heavens, you should try that line on my
>husband; you're just not my type."
>Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Agreed, but more strongly. Having the GM tell me outright what my
character does or does not do is almost the only thing I can think of
that could immediately break a game for me. What I mean is, my response
to a GM *telling* me that an NPC's seduction attempt (or other use of
social abilities) succeeded could very well be: "I'm sorry, but that's
not acceptable. NPC actions are determined by the GM; by definition PC
actions are determined by the player. If this character is still a PC,
by definition, my decision about how he reacts is definitive. If you
want to take him over as an NPC, I'll give you the character sheet and
find another game."
Does anyone else feel this strongly about the issue?
--
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem"
Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin
rwal...@vax1.tcd.ie
G Benage
<behr...@buran.fb10.tu-berlin.de> writes:
"Definite maybe," eh? Whatever. In any case, the poster already
bracketed-out the cases in which there was *no chance*: those
cases in which the seducer does not have an appropriate angle.
This "angle" will have to include the factors you mention, and the
degree to which they do will influence the probability of success.
As you unintentionally point out, the "angle" might be very simple--
if you're attempting a sexual seduction, you'd better make yourself
attractive to the target of your affections; if the target is simply not
interested in a casual encounter, you'd better offer (at least the
illusion) of something more, something the target *does* desire.
As has already been noted, that is the nature of temptation and
no human being is immune to it.
: I don't want to flame Mr. Behrends...
>Then you're sailing under false colours. Your article is quite obviously
>a flame (especially considering your previous paragraph). Now if you
>want to write a flame, go ahead, but at least you should have the
>courage to stand by it, instead of weaseling out of it in a way that
>would be the pride of Black Adder.
Is it so obviously a flame? You misinterpreted a post in the process of
ascribing "stupid accusations" to its author, and I pointed it out. I
sincerely apologize if my comments were received as an unwarranted
attack.
However, I don't consider this "weaseling," I consider it an attempt to
qualify what might otherwise appear as a personal attack...I consider it
an attempt to maintain civility. Perhaps the attempt is misplaced.
Greg
Dave Flowers
>really get into it can actually rediscover some of this stuff without
>formal knowledge. I got a first-hand lesson in how Stockhold Syndrome
>works in a game once; it was startling, since I had never understood
>that and the GM had never even heard of it. It took several months of
>one-on-one roleplaying of the PC's captivity to accomplish, though.
If anyone would like to read about what happened, Mary wrote up the
adventure and posted it to Usenet a while back. You can read it at
Mary K. Kuhner
>What I mean is, my response
>to a GM *telling* me that an NPC's seduction attempt (or other use of
>social abilities) succeeded could very well be: "I'm sorry, but that's
>not acceptable. NPC actions are determined by the GM; by definition PC
>actions are determined by the player. If this character is still a PC,
>by definition, my decision about how he reacts is definitive. If you
>want to take him over as an NPC, I'll give you the character sheet and
>find another game."
>Does anyone else feel this strongly about the issue?
>Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin
>rwal...@vax1.tcd.ie
While I don't feel that strongly, I do see where you're coming from. I
had a character once, a fighter/mage, who decided that using unenchanted
steel was more stylish and truer to the warrior's art than using a magic
sword. The GM said, in essence, "NO, that's not how fighters feel."
This essentially doomed that character, and quickly the campaign.
The only way I have found GM determination of PC decision (outside of
mind control, etc.) to work is when there is an element of negotiation
and compromise involved. I played PBeM with someone who felt fairly
free to say "Catalina feels such-and-such" but the understanding was
that he could be wrong, and I would cut what he'd written and put in the
real response if necessary. (Similarly, I could extrapolate NPCs and
background beyond what he gave, but he'd cut things that were wrong and
replace them.) It was strange, but it helped make the PBeM go faster,
and that was very important to us, so we stuck with it. It also allowed
some exploration of PC insanity--in particular memory lapses and
multiple personality--that I've not seen done in a more conventional
game.
I picked up the habit after that game and tried it in face to face
games. It's risky at best--the player may well feel more pressure to go
along in FTF than in PBeM because of pacing differences and the social
issues of really being able to see and hear each other. But it can
work, and there are some neat effects you can get that way. The
essential element is the player's right of refusal. The GM must not
push her point after the initial statement, or it rapidly becomes
coercive.
For players who've been burned by coercive GMs or who are naturally
touchy on this point I just wouldn't do it. Also, player and GM have to
be on the same wavelength most of the time--unless the GM's suggestions
are generally good ones, it's more distracting than helpful.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
James
D. Cravens) writes:
> Why is it we can accept a Call of Cthulu GM saying "Your character has
> gone insane" but we can't accept the GM suggesting that your character
> might do something you would rather he/she didn't? Why don't we say,
> "No, my character doesn't go insane (isn't seduced)! He resists the
> effects of the mind-twisting horror (tantalizing offer) he has
> experienced"?
Well a lot of people don't like the sanity rule in CoC for precisely the
same reason. Perhaps someone who knows the literature better (I've never
been fond of Lovecraft) can explain this more clearly, but I'll give it a
shot. CoC, like a few other Chaosium games are geared to reproduce very
specific type of atmoshpere. You can run CoC as a generic horror game, hell
I've seen it run with gun fights against cultists. But it is designed to
reproduce a very dated, romantic, dare I say even quaint,
concept of horror in which losing sanity points is very appropriated.
This argument goes hand in hand with are monthly Pendragon personality trait
argument. You can run a feuadal knights campaign easily just scrapping the
traits. The traits are there to help recapture those specific elements
portrayed in the literature. I've got not first hand experience with the
Elric/Stormbringer rules, but I understand they follow the same principle of
closely emulating the books which in the specific case I am told results in
a very unbalanced game.
Regards,
--- James ---
Carl D. Cravens
>social abilities) succeeded could very well be: "I'm sorry, but that's
>not acceptable. NPC actions are determined by the GM; by definition PC
>actions are determined by the player. If this character is still a PC,
>by definition, my decision about how he reacts is definitive. If you
>want to take him over as an NPC, I'll give you the character sheet and
>find another game."
I don't exactly agree with this. PC actions are determined by the
CHARACTER, empowered by the player. PC actions, as well as NPC actions,
should be in-character. This should not be a question of "Do I want my
character to be seduced," but a question of "Should my character be able
to resist this particular enticing proposal?" (Whether that proposal is
a bribe, job offer, offer of relief from torture, or a seduction
attempt.)
Not everything that happens to the character is at the player's
choosing. Granted, I advocate a certain amount of OOC decision based on
the needs of the campaign and group-play. And I'm certainly not
suggesting that the GM should be able to make characters perform
inappropriate actions. I've said that the character should act
appropriately. If the GM expects a seduction attempt to be successful,
the player should be able to explain why it's not. Simply saying, "I
refuse to let my character be seduced" is not an acceptable answer. If
the player has a good reason (the character isn't that type, the player
is not comfortable roleplaying such situations, etc.) then I don't have
a problem with it. But making PC's automatically immune to NPC social
skills is unfair to the GM.
Why is it we can accept a Call of Cthulu GM saying "Your character has
gone insane" but we can't accept the GM suggesting that your character
might do something you would rather he/she didn't? Why don't we say,
"No, my character doesn't go insane (isn't seduced)! He resists the
effects of the mind-twisting horror (tantalizing offer) he has
experienced"?
--
Carl (rave...@southwind.net)
* I was internet when internet wasn't cool.
John Novak
>Agreed, but more strongly. Having the GM tell me outright what my
>character does or does not do is almost the only thing I can think of
>that could immediately break a game for me.
>Does anyone else feel this strongly about the issue?
Yes. I've walked out of games where the GM said, "No, that's _not_
how your character would act!" and tried to make me do something else.
Sorry, no. I know my character better than you do. I left.
That sort of thing can even make me abandon entire game systems.
Champions has silly-assed rules about that sort of thing, and the
first two Champions campaigns I played in, the GMs used them.
I will not play Champions.
--
John S. Novak, III j...@cegt201.bradley.edu
http://cegt201.bradley.edu/~jsn/index.html
The Humblest Man on the Net
John Novak
>the player should be able to explain why it's not. Simply saying, "I
>refuse to let my character be seduced" is not an acceptable answer. If
>the player has a good reason (the character isn't that type, the player
>is not comfortable roleplaying such situations, etc.) then I don't have
>a problem with it. But making PC's automatically immune to NPC social
>skills is unfair to the GM.
I'm more inclined to take the player's side, and demand that the GM
have a particularly good excuse to nudge a character in the irection
he wants, over the wishes of the player.
A recovering alcoholic resisting a drink is a lot different than a
normal person refusing a drink. A character with a history of one
night stands and parties resisting a seduction attempt is different
than the average guy on the street resisting a seduction attempt.
If the character is defined with a clear bias in one direction, so be
it. If a character is designed and has a "grey" area in te realm of
seduction (ie, no previous tendencies either way) then the decision
should be left with the player.
Vanessa and Hans Dykstra
I
>had a character once, a fighter/mage, who decided that using unenchanted
>steel was more stylish and truer to the warrior's art than using a magic
>sword. The GM said, in essence, "NO, that's not how fighters feel."
>This essentially doomed that character, and quickly the campaign.
This is an interesting case of assumption clash
that I have had happen to me from the other side.
Suppose that as GM, I've worked out the details of
this culture as far as possible, and communicated
to the players everything I could think of. But
one of the things I neglected to mention is the
attitude toward enchanted items. Basically, in
this culture, the usual attitude is that
enchantment is simply an enhancement of the item,
and using a magic sword, in this case, would fall
in the same category as making sure you had the
best tools available. You wouldn't ask a warrior
to use an inferior sword to be more stylish, so
why would you expect him to turn down enchantment
when it was available?
Now suppose that after a couple of sessions, it
turns out that a player has been harboring the
attitude that Mary described above. This violates
my understanding of the culture I have created,
but if I force the character to change, it
violates the player's understanding of the
charactr that s/he has created. What to do about
this case?
I generally try to say something to the effect of,
"This is a very unusual belief in your culture,
and you can't expect others to share this belief.
They may think you somewhat eccentric." Given that
the clash of assumptions has occurred and
progressed beyond the point of bringing the
character's beliefs in line with the GM's
expectations, this seems like the best way. But it
is still unsatisfactory. There is still no
understanding of how or why the character acquired
this unusual idea, and this creates problems both
for the GM's and the player's understanding of the
situation.
Any other ideas?
***
hmd
(CC: me on replies, I often receive posts late if
at all.)
Mary K. Kuhner
>Why is it we can accept a Call of Cthulu GM saying "Your character has
>gone insane" but we can't accept the GM suggesting that your character
>might do something you would rather he/she didn't? Why don't we say,
>"No, my character doesn't go insane (isn't seduced)! He resists the
>effects of the mind-twisting horror (tantalizing offer) he has
>experienced"?
>Carl (rave...@southwind.net)
Why assume that the player only wants the right of final refusal because
s/he plans to abuse it?
Generally, among the good players I have heard speak on this, the
argument is more like "I need final say on psychological matters,
because if my mental model of the character is too discordant with her
actions it will break down, and I will stop being able to play
the character." (Nonie said this very eloquently a week or two ago.)
I have seen such players have their characters be seduced, and go mad,
and succumb to temptation in fascinating ways. I know several players
I'd happily run CoC scenarios for with no SAN rules--and I would expect
crazy PCs, vividly and horribly crazy ones.
Sure, there are lots of players who don't do this, and maybe it's best
to use forcing rules for them, but that's not universally true.
And I'm a little skeptical of the forcing rules--if the player hates
depicting these things, does it make a better game if you twist their
arm? My experience of CoC is that the SAN rules don't help if you have
players who are not in tune with the genre. The formal results may be
"right" but the mood is still not there.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Carl D. Cravens
>Why assume that the player only wants the right of final refusal because
>s/he plans to abuse it?
Bad habit, I guess. And that was the attitude of the original post that
sparked this thread... that the PC was immune to these kinds of things
because the PC is only affected by things the player allows.
>Generally, among the good players I have heard speak on this, the
>argument is more like "I need final say on psychological matters,
>because if my mental model of the character is too discordant with her
>actions it will break down, and I will stop being able to play
>the character." (Nonie said this very eloquently a week or two ago.)
I don't disagree with this... but not everyone is a "good" player. I
play with a lot of "pure recreational" players.
>And I'm a little skeptical of the forcing rules--if the player hates
>depicting these things, does it make a better game if you twist their
I did mention that this is one of my acceptable reasons.
What it comes down to is I expect such things to be done basically by
agreement between player and GM. Not because the player thinks (OOC)
this would be an inconvenient or bad thing to happen to the character
(and maybe even makes decisions based not on the character's
personality, but on the player's). And certainly not because the GM is
bound and determined to have that character seduced, despite reasonable
reasons against it.
This attitude is greatly affected by the player... good players won't
be a problem here unless we happen to be dealing with a bad GM.
This is a poor topic to be making sweeping generalizations, but it's
certainly been done by both sides of the discussion. Have I made my
point clear enough on this topic so far or should I elucidate a bit
more? (It's been interesting... having caused me to explore my feelings
on this and determine why I feel the way I do about it.)
--
Carl (rave...@southwind.net)
* ...and BTW, OTOH (FWIW), IMHO it's OK.
Andy Gibson
[snip Marys original example]
>Agreed, but more strongly. Having the GM tell me outright what my
>character does or does not do is almost the only thing I can think of
>that could immediately break a game for me. What I mean is, my response
>to a GM *telling* me that an NPC's seduction attempt (or other use of
>social abilities) succeeded could very well be: "I'm sorry, but that's
>not acceptable. NPC actions are determined by the GM; by definition PC
>actions are determined by the player. If this character is still a PC,
>by definition, my decision about how he reacts is definitive. If you
>want to take him over as an NPC, I'll give you the character sheet and
>find another game."
I fully understand your antipathy to having the GM take over your
character, but on another level your responses intrigue me. How would
you feel if your character was subjected to mind affecting magic? or
drugs? In essence these are the same as seduction attempts (except
that the "mind control" is done through accessing the subjects
subconscious triggers and stimulating their body to produce its own
hormonal "drugs"). Now I can quite see that a characters personality
and state of mind might mitigate either for or against any seduction
attempt (or, for that matter, against a magical or drug-induced
effect), but to say that a character is invulnerable to such
approaches is pretty far fetched. Maybe the answer is to allow them
to resist at will, but have them take some sort of penalty for the
effects of the emotional and chemical imbalances caused. As a matter
of fact I have considered doing this as a form of "morale"; research
shows that fear and fatigue are more or less interchangeable, so why
not have the players subject to morale effects but able to ignore them
at the cost of bodily chemical imbalances which cause in-game
penalties? Not suitable for all genres, obviously, but quite
"realistic" for gritty games, I would think.
Cheers,
Andy
Andy Gibson
>Andy Gibson (an...@yarm.demon.co.uk) writes:
[snip interrogation story]
>>
>I think it depends a lot on the situation. Interrogators would have
>little problem in making me admit I ran a red light even though I hadn't.
>It's just not that important. OTOH, something critical to me, such as
>making me admit that my daughterh committed a hideous crime which she
>didn't do, would be an entirely different thing.
>As somoene else posted, we all have our price. Sometimes, though the
>offer isn't worth it, so we don't sell our soul.
No, the light was not really the issue (admitting he was wrong was),
and the point applies to any offence, up to and including murder. Of
course the methods used would generally not be used by police because
they might prejudice a jury who knew of them, but... The point is
that a skilled psychological manipulator could screw around with your
mind until you did not even recognize yourself. After 72 hours with
only minimal sleep and not knowing what time of day it was, in the
company of a lunatic who, you have come to believe, would cheerfully
rip your lungs out if the questioner guy finally loses patience with
you and with constant dreams when you *are* asleep of rivers of blood,
believe me, you will admit to *anything* unless you have successfully
resisted the mind-mucking that has been going on. That resistance, of
course, is a skill, that can be learned.
>*********
>I can see the problem of character immunity. However, I've come to the
>conclusion that my job as GM does not require that I force a moral outcome
>on a character. That's the players's job to decide on the outcome. My
>job is to force them to make a choice.
Yes, I agree, but in order for this to be a meaningful choice I would
think that there must be some sort of price for resistance. Without
this the player can, either for meta reasons or simply because they do
not understand or appreciate what their character is going through
(and how many of us *really* do, in this case?), ignore the
questioning/seduction/whatever with impunity. For me, at least, this
could begin to stretch SOD because of its potential ludicrousness
(*yawn*, nope - still not gonna break >chuckle<).
Cheers,
Andy
Andy Gibson
>Andy Gibson (an...@yarm.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>: mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) writes:
>[...]
>: >In any case, if the player doesn't go for the idea, is forcing them
>: >really contributing to the fun of the game, for them or anyone else?
>: >That's not been my experience.
>: Hmm. Whether this is going to contribute to the fun or not must, IMO,
>: be a GM judgement issue at the time, but I do have real problems with
>: allowing the PCs some sort of "immunity".
>Nobody here is saying that the PCs should have immunity, just that
>having the GM enforce such reactions usually is a bad idea.
Agreed. How about imposing realistic or plausible penalties for the
psycho-physical screwing up of the characters metabolism caused by the
rejection of the temptation?
>: I have, on one occasion,
>: seen a boor who claimed (in an argument about criminal confessions)
>: that no-one innocent would ever confess without extreme physical
>: torture.
>Which is obviously wrong (too many counterexamples). However, if he had
>said that there are innocent people who wouldn't ever confess, even
>under extreme physical torture, I would have to agree with him.
Yes, this is also true, but I don't accept that there would be *no
way* of making them confess. One just has to know which are the
"right buttons" to press - what sort of temptation *are* they
susceptible to? GMs may define NPCs this way, players may define PCs
this way but none will have *no* weaknesses.
>: Two opponents in the discussion then proceeded to
>: "interrogate" him until he "confessed" to jumping a red light on his
>: way to the venue. No torture (not even any physical contact).
[snip large section of post where we essentially agree (!)]
>Precisely. Inappropriate handling of such a situation is what I was
>arguing against primarily (and also that the character may indeed not
>fall for it).
True, all characters should have a chance to resist and also should
probably have the option to resist even if their avoidance attempts
fail BUT in order for such decisions and scenes to have meaning there
must be a price for simply resisting by player dictat (e.g. phobias or
paranoia after interrogations, short term perception and/or social
skill penalties for spurning seduction attempts due to rampant
hormones, etc. - all assuming that resistance using alternate
preferences, love for another or skill in countering psychological
manipulation have failed).
Cheers,
Andy
Mary K. Kuhner
>Yes, I agree, but in order for this to be a meaningful choice I would
>think that there must be some sort of price for resistance. Without
>this the player can, either for meta reasons or simply because they do
>not understand or appreciate what their character is going through
>(and how many of us *really* do, in this case?), ignore the
>questioning/seduction/whatever with impunity. For me, at least, this
>could begin to stretch SOD because of its potential ludicrousness
>(*yawn*, nope - still not gonna break >chuckle<).
>Andy
You can deal with this to some extent by cranking the detail level up,
if the player is imaginative and really IC (and if the GM has the
knowledge to pull it off). But you can run into other problems. In the
_Paradisio_ Shadowrun game, battle fatigue was a real issue, and it
wasn't hard for me to represent as a player: I was emotionally
exhausted by the protracted hide-and-seek with the Paradisian assassin,
so I knew pretty well what my characters were feeling and how much it
worsened their performance. The trouble was, one of the PCs ought to
have been, by virtue of training and temperment, relatively immune to
the fatigue and morale problems the others were having. When I was
running him, I needed to act fresh, crisp and confident, and it was
terribly difficult. I knew that in his position I'd collapse. I had
some trouble imagining how he managed not to; and since my own reactions
were no guide, I wasn't at all sure what his breaking point would be.
With that character we tended to resort to player-imposed mechanics.
Your idea about imposing penalties in other areas (fatigue, etc.) for
resisting torture or temptation is an interesting one, and might well be
useful when the player can't or doesn't want to assess the effects from
the IC standpoint. It might be a much better way to deal with extreme
torture, for example. I don't really *want* to know in that much detail
what such an experience does to one's psyche.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Mary K. Kuhner
>mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K.
>Kuhner) wrote:
Anne B. Nonie Rider
> I generally find that it's a very good idea to sit down with each
> player individually for at least the first hour or two of character
> generation. <...> By doing this, you ensure that the player understands
> any repercussions or benefits that a given part of the character concept
> will have
Yeah. That's how I like to do it, especially since I tend to run
somewhat focused campaigns that may not have all possible genre
flavors.
It also helps adjust the difference between character and world.
I often end up saying, "You can do that if you mean it," and make
sure the player understands what they're getting into.
"Okay, you want to run a Captain America type. You do understand
that the rest of the PCs are shades-of-grey types? If you want
to run an earnest patriot, you'll have to deal with some
cynicism, but that would give you a chance to explain your
position. However, if you want to run a Flag Boy for laughs,
this might not be the place for it; the group hasn't been very
receptive to comic relief."
"Okay, you don't believe in magic. That's likely to be quite
a handicap at this point, since the group is currently fighting
demon-summoning cultists. Do you want that sort of disadvantage?"
"Well, you can make him afraid of UFOs if you want, but since
this world doesn't have any, it would be a delusion rather
than a reasonable fear. What do you think?"
--Nonie
russell wallace
>On Wed, 31 Jan 1996 20:55:28 GMT, rwal...@tcd.ie (russell wallace) wrote:
>>social abilities) succeeded could very well be: "I'm sorry, but that's
>>not acceptable. NPC actions are determined by the GM; by definition PC
>>actions are determined by the player. If this character is still a PC,
>>by definition, my decision about how he reacts is definitive. If you
>>want to take him over as an NPC, I'll give you the character sheet and
>>find another game."
>I don't exactly agree with this. PC actions are determined by the
>CHARACTER, empowered by the player. PC actions, as well as NPC actions,
>should be in-character. This should not be a question of "Do I want my
>character to be seduced," but a question of "Should my character be able
>to resist this particular enticing proposal?" (Whether that proposal is
>a bribe, job offer, offer of relief from torture, or a seduction
>attempt.)
Oh, absolutely. But if the player and GM disagree on whether a PC
should be able to resist the proposal, the player's opinion is
definitive IMO by the definition of a PC. Just as in the case where a
player and GM disagree on whether an NPC should be able to resist the
proposal, the GM's opinion is definitive by the definition of an NPC.
>Not everything that happens to the character is at the player's
>choosing. Granted, I advocate a certain amount of OOC decision based on
>the needs of the campaign and group-play. And I'm certainly not
>suggesting that the GM should be able to make characters perform
>inappropriate actions. I've said that the character should act
>appropriately. If the GM expects a seduction attempt to be successful,
>the player should be able to explain why it's not. Simply saying, "I
>refuse to let my character be seduced" is not an acceptable answer. If
>the player has a good reason (the character isn't that type, the player
>is not comfortable roleplaying such situations, etc.) then I don't have
>a problem with it. But making PC's automatically immune to NPC social
>skills is unfair to the GM.
Well, I think it's perfectly reasonable for the GM to ask the player why
the attempt is not successful, and to point out his reasons for
believing that it would be, provided the player has final call.
Remember, the player is the one who has to continue attempting to RP
this character thereafter. For me, at least, you can't jerk my
character out of my hands, have him do something that's completely
inconsistent with *my* model of his personality, then give him back to
me and expect me to be able to continue roleplaying him. It just
doesn't work that way.
>Why is it we can accept a Call of Cthulu GM saying "Your character has
>gone insane" but we can't accept the GM suggesting that your character
>might do something you would rather he/she didn't? Why don't we say,
>"No, my character doesn't go insane (isn't seduced)! He resists the
>effects of the mind-twisting horror (tantalizing offer) he has
>experienced"?
>--
Something of a borderline area this; I think more people are prepared to
accept the SAN rules because it's clearly stated in advance precisely
when and how they'll be applied. I would add that while I'm prepared to
participate in a game that uses them, I've always loathed them and I
find that my suspension of disbelief generally goes out the window the
first time SAN rolls start being used, *not* because I don't want my
character to become frightened and mentally unbalanced where the genre
calls for this to happen to the PCs, but because the SAN rules enforce
this in such a ham-fisted and ridiculously unbelievable way. (Real fear
is not about seeing big ugly monsters, and Lovecraft himself used them
far more subtly and sparingly than most CoC GMs do.)
--
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem"
Scott. A. H. Ruggels
>rwal...@tcd.ie (russell wallace) writes:
>
>[snip Marys original example]
>>Agreed, but more strongly. Having the GM tell me outright what my
>>character does or does not do is almost the only thing I can think of
>>that could immediately break a game for me. What I mean is, my response
>>to a GM *telling* me that an NPC's seduction attempt (or other use of
>>not acceptable. NPC actions are determined by the GM; by definition PC
>>actions are determined by the player. If this character is still a PC,
>>by definition, my decision about how he reacts is definitive. If you
>>want to take him over as an NPC, I'll give you the character sheet and
>>find another game."
>
>character, but on another level your responses intrigue me. How would
>you feel if your character was subjected to mind affecting magic? or
>drugs? In essence these are the same as seduction attempts (except
>that the "mind control" is done through accessing the subjects
>subconscious triggers and stimulating their body to produce its own
>hormonal "drugs"). Now I can quite see that a characters personality
>and state of mind might mitigate either for or against any seduction
>attempt (or, for that matter, against a magical or drug-induced
>effect), but to say that a character is invulnerable to such
>approaches is pretty far fetched. Maybe the answer is to allow them
>to resist at will, but have them take some sort of penalty for the
>effects of the emotional and chemical imbalances caused. As a matter
>of fact I have considered doing this as a form of "morale"; research
>shows that fear and fatigue are more or less interchangeable, so why
>not have the players subject to morale effects but able to ignore them
>at the cost of bodily chemical imbalances which cause in-game
>penalties? Not suitable for all genres, obviously, but quite
>"realistic" for gritty games, I would think.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Andy
>
You are steering into a control issue here. Now falling under the effect of a
mental domination spell is one thing. There is an effect, a mechanical
process to follow through. However, having an NPC use a spell of Mental
Domination to make the character disrobe and submit to sex, is something
else entirely differently. This ties into the rape issue, it also drops into
the character capture thread. and where there is a commonality is the hatred
of the loss of control among players of their characters. This sort of thing
has to be handles extremely carefully. Most of the time, I tend to avoid
stepping on the controll issue when I GM, and I am very hard headed about the
issue as a character.
Scott
Reimer Behrends
: In article <4emovr$h...@brachio.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE>, Reimer Behrends
: <behr...@buran.fb10.tu-berlin.de> writes:
[...]
: >I wasn't talking about a `guarantee', but about a `guaranteed chance',
: >which is a different beast. Fairly synonymous to `definite possibility'
: >or `minimum probability' in this context. An adjective, for your
: >information, qualifies the noun to which it is attached, it doesn't
: >replace it.
: "Definite maybe," eh? Whatever.
I thought it was generally considered to be bad style to criticize a
non-native speaker for his command of the English language. Even more so
after I've double-checked with a few friends who had no problem with
terms like `definite possibility'.
: In any case, the poster already
: bracketed-out the cases in which there was *no chance*: those
: cases in which the seducer does not have an appropriate angle.
No, he only excluded those cases where the victim was immune to
seduction attempts (and it wasn't exactly clear whether he really
excluded these cases).
`Look, I've got to hand this paper in tomorrow or all hell will break
loose - perhaps another time?'
: This "angle" will have to include the factors you mention, and the
: degree to which they do will influence the probability of success.
: As you unintentionally point out, the "angle" might be very simple--
: if you're attempting a sexual seduction, you'd better make yourself
: attractive to the target of your affections; if the target is simply not
: interested in a casual encounter, you'd better offer (at least the
: illusion) of something more, something the target *does* desire.
And all of which may be impossible or completely unrealistic, not to
mention overinterpreting the `appropriate angle' clause. And then, when
the _GM_ starts to decide what an appropriate angle is, I'm getting
serious problems.
: As has already been noted, that is the nature of temptation and
: no human being is immune to it.
A rather sweeping generalization, don't you think? No, probably there
is no human being completely immune to temptation, but I understood
the situation in question to be a fairly normal seduction attempt (no
matter how appropriate the angle is), not one where the above-mentioned
seductress has spent a couple of months investigating her intended
target's life to spot potential weaknesses.
From what I've seen, all of a sudden everybody seems to be talking
of the latter case, whereas we started out with more down-to-earth
assumptions, not a clever plot to entrap the character. And I dislike it
if somebody changes the basis of a debate in the middle of it.
I have no problem accepting the possibility in the latter case; but I
have a hell of a problem with people saying that everybody is (to some
point) susceptible to casual seduction attempts, however appropriate the
angle.
: : I don't want to flame Mr. Behrends...
: >Then you're sailing under false colours. Your article is quite obviously
: >a flame (especially considering your previous paragraph). Now if you
: >want to write a flame, go ahead, but at least you should have the
: >courage to stand by it, instead of weaseling out of it in a way that
: >would be the pride of Black Adder.
: Is it so obviously a flame?
Yes. You wrote:
# Mr. Behrends, perhaps you should consider the distinction between the
# words "guarantee" and "chance" in the English language before making your
# own...er...less-than-brilliant accusations.
A flame by any other name ...
: You misinterpreted a post in the process of
: ascribing "stupid accusations" to its author, and I pointed it out.
I am getting a rather bad taste im my mouth now; you are mixing up two
posts, and I sincerely hope this is unintentional. I was ascribing
stupid accusations (rightfully, I think) to David Boatright, who wrote
in reply to Nonie:
# Has none of your characters ever been seduced. Have your character's
# personalities ever varied. Surely your falling into the same bad
# rolpeplaying trap.
And Nonie had simply stated that _most_ of her characters are not the
type to be susceptible to short-term sexual liaisons. (And even if
she had said that none of her characters were susceptible to it, an
out-and-out accusation of bad-roleplaying is still in bad, bad, bad
taste.) On the other hand, my supposed `misinterpretation' was in a
reply to an article by Carl Cravens. Please get your facts straight.
: I
: sincerely apologize if my comments were received as an unwarranted
: attack.
Apology accepted.
[...]
Reimer Behrends
Carl D. Cravens
>Ok, this makes your position a _lot_ clearer (and more understandable).
>However, is this really a common problem in your games? In my case
>players usually have been more than willing to have their characters
>fall prey to their flaws; and anyway, I think that discussing the
>problem with them would be more helpful than heavy-handedly forcing a
>particular reaction.
It's not too much of a problem because I avoid such situations. I've
got several insecure players... a couple of which get annoyed or upset
when things don't go their way in areas the character has no control
over. Some of my players aren't too cooperative, but they're my
friends. (Sometimes I wanna kill 'em, but that's the nature of
friendship.)
--
Carl (rave...@southwind.net)
* If you don't support shareware, who will?
Alain Lapalme
> ai...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (A Lapalme) writes:
>
> >Andy Gibson (an...@yarm.demon.co.uk) writes:
> [snip interrogation story]
> >>
> >I think it depends a lot on the situation. Interrogators would have
> >little problem in making me admit I ran a red light even though I hadn't.
> >It's just not that important. OTOH, something critical to me, such as
> >making me admit that my daughterh committed a hideous crime which she
> >didn't do, would be an entirely different thing.
>
> >As somoene else posted, we all have our price. Sometimes, though the
> >offer isn't worth it, so we don't sell our soul.
>
> No, the light was not really the issue (admitting he was wrong was),
> and the point applies to any offence, up to and including murder. Of
> course the methods used would generally not be used by police because
> they might prejudice a jury who knew of them, but... The point is
> that a skilled psychological manipulator could screw around with your
> mind until you did not even recognize yourself. After 72 hours with
> only minimal sleep and not knowing what time of day it was, in the
> company of a lunatic who, you have come to believe, would cheerfully
> rip your lungs out if the questioner guy finally loses patience with
> you and with constant dreams when you *are* asleep of rivers of blood,
> believe me, you will admit to *anything* unless you have successfully
> resisted the mind-mucking that has been going on.
I'm not arguing any of that. I'm just saying that some adjustments should
be made to how important one considers a certain thing.
>
> >I can see the problem of character immunity. However, I've come to the
> >conclusion that my job as GM does not require that I force a moral outcome
> >on a character. That's the players's job to decide on the outcome. My
> >job is to force them to make a choice.
>
> Yes, I agree, but in order for this to be a meaningful choice I would
> think that there must be some sort of price for resistance. Without
> this the player can, either for meta reasons or simply because they do
> not understand or appreciate what their character is going through
> (and how many of us *really* do, in this case?), ignore the
> questioning/seduction/whatever with impunity. For me, at least, this
> could begin to stretch SOD because of its potential ludicrousness
> (*yawn*, nope - still not gonna break >chuckle<).
Totally agree. If a character is put under torture and refuses to talk,
either the torturers will make things worse (which could permanently maim
or kill the character) or they will resort to other methods (like
blackmail, threatening loved ones, etc).
Alain
Andy Gibson
>an...@yarm.demon.co.uk (Andy Gibson) wrote:
[snip Russell Wallaces example]
>>
>>I fully understand your antipathy to having the GM take over your
>>character, but on another level your responses intrigue me. How would
>>you feel if your character was subjected to mind affecting magic? or
>>drugs? In essence these are the same as seduction attempts (except
>>that the "mind control" is done through accessing the subjects
>>subconscious triggers and stimulating their body to produce its own
>>hormonal "drugs"). Now I can quite see that a characters personality
>>and state of mind might mitigate either for or against any seduction
>>attempt (or, for that matter, against a magical or drug-induced
>>effect), but to say that a character is invulnerable to such
>>approaches is pretty far fetched. Maybe the answer is to allow them
>>to resist at will, but have them take some sort of penalty for the
>>effects of the emotional and chemical imbalances caused. As a matter
>>of fact I have considered doing this as a form of "morale"; research
>>shows that fear and fatigue are more or less interchangeable, so why
>>not have the players subject to morale effects but able to ignore them
>>at the cost of bodily chemical imbalances which cause in-game
>>penalties? Not suitable for all genres, obviously, but quite
>>"realistic" for gritty games, I would think.
>>
>You are steering into a control issue here. Now falling under the effect of a
>mental domination spell is one thing. There is an effect, a mechanical
>process to follow through. However, having an NPC use a spell of Mental
>Domination to make the character disrobe and submit to sex, is something
>else entirely differently. This ties into the rape issue, it also drops into
>the character capture thread. and where there is a commonality is the hatred
>of the loss of control among players of their characters. This sort of thing
>has to be handles extremely carefully. Most of the time, I tend to avoid
>stepping on the controll issue when I GM, and I am very hard headed about the
>issue as a character.
I certainly agree with you that this needs to be handled carefully;
definitely an area to consider when "drawing up" the group contract!
My inclination is to treat the Mental Control spell in the same way;
such effects are fine if allowed by the group contract, but (depending
on the view you take of magic in the game world) they may be
essentially no different from emotional responses and effects; they
are simply *triggered by* magic. I must say that, for "realistic"
games, my SOD is increasingly challenged by PCs apparently not having
psycho-physical responses which hinder their performance under some
circumstances. This is IMHO a very good point brought up in the
dice/diceless debate, even though I actually don't see it as an
inherently diceless phenomenon - a characters emotional and mental
state DO HAVE an effect on their effectiveness. To me this means that
*if you want a gritty, realistic game* (NB: I don't, always) these
factors should be taken into account.
Cheers,
Andy
Andy Gibson
>In article <8234765...@yarm.demon.co.uk>,
>an...@yarm.demon.co.uk (Andy Gibson) wrote:
>>Yes, this is also true, but I don't accept that there would be *no
>>way* of making them confess. One just has to know which are the
>>"right buttons" to press - what sort of temptation *are* they
>>susceptible to? GMs may define NPCs this way, players may define PCs
>>this way but none will have *no* weaknesses.
>I see no allowance for genre here. Is this what you mean to say?
Good point, but as I see it genre (except the ridiculous ones - Toon,
for example) will certainly affect the range and scope of this, but
the basic point that no one will have *no* weaknesses would still
apply. A character with no weakness would be boring, surely, in any
genre?
Cheers,
Andy
Andy Gibson
>Andy Gibson writes:
[snip debate about interrogation and how seriousness of "charge"
matters]
>I'm not arguing any of that. I'm just saying that some adjustments should
>be made to how important one considers a certain thing.
Ah, OK I certainly agree here.
>>
>> >I can see the problem of character immunity. However, I've come to the
>> >conclusion that my job as GM does not require that I force a moral outcome
>> >on a character. That's the players's job to decide on the outcome. My
>> >job is to force them to make a choice.
>>
>> Yes, I agree, but in order for this to be a meaningful choice I would
>> think that there must be some sort of price for resistance. Without
>> this the player can, either for meta reasons or simply because they do
>> not understand or appreciate what their character is going through
>> (and how many of us *really* do, in this case?), ignore the
>> questioning/seduction/whatever with impunity. For me, at least, this
>> could begin to stretch SOD because of its potential ludicrousness
>> (*yawn*, nope - still not gonna break >chuckle<).
>Totally agree. If a character is put under torture and refuses to talk,
>either the torturers will make things worse (which could permanently maim
>or kill the character) or they will resort to other methods (like
>blackmail, threatening loved ones, etc).
Precisely. As you might gather from some of my other posts here, I
find this a fascinating area with a lot of scope for development in
RPGs. BTW, for this subject in general, a book called "The Face of
Battle" by John Keegan is well worth a read. It is basically a
historical treatise on the actions and reactions of the men in battle
at Agincourt, Trafalgar and the Somme (? - IIRC). Interesting stuff
about psychological barriers which have to be overcome to actually
close with an armed foe, mental resilience and breakdown and so on.
Quite readable style, too (better than mine, at least...8-) ).
Cheers,
Andy
Andy Gibson
>an...@yarm.demon.co.uk (Andy Gibson) writes:
[hack!]
>You can deal with this to some extent by cranking the detail level up,
>if the player is imaginative and really IC (and if the GM has the
>knowledge to pull it off). But you can run into other problems. In the
>_Paradisio_ Shadowrun game, battle fatigue was a real issue, and it
>wasn't hard for me to represent as a player: I was emotionally
>exhausted by the protracted hide-and-seek with the Paradisian assassin,
>so I knew pretty well what my characters were feeling and how much it
>worsened their performance. The trouble was, one of the PCs ought to
>have been, by virtue of training and temperment, relatively immune to
>the fatigue and morale problems the others were having. When I was
>running him, I needed to act fresh, crisp and confident, and it was
>terribly difficult. I knew that in his position I'd collapse. I had
>some trouble imagining how he managed not to; and since my own reactions
>were no guide, I wasn't at all sure what his breaking point would be.
>With that character we tended to resort to player-imposed mechanics.
True, you can use this sort of detail (imposing an out of character
price? 8-) ), but there are times (torture, violation) when I really
would rather not go into detail.
>Your idea about imposing penalties in other areas (fatigue, etc.) for
>resisting torture or temptation is an interesting one, and might well be
>useful when the player can't or doesn't want to assess the effects from
>the IC standpoint. It might be a much better way to deal with extreme
>torture, for example. I don't really *want* to know in that much detail
>what such an experience does to one's psyche.
Exactly. Actually, the main reason I would like to see a system is
that it might be useful for someone with some real knowledge of the
research in this field (or who has time to acquire it) could give some
guidelines about what is reasonably correct as a simulation of RL
(preferably in terms I understand, like roleplaying system terms).
Even a poorly researched system would at least spark debate...
Cheers,
Andy
Frank Pitt
>
>In <DM2Cs...@news.tcd.ie> rwal...@tcd.ie (russell wallace) writes:
>
>>character does or does not do is almost the only thing I can think of
>>that could immediately break a game for me.
>
>
>Yes. I've walked out of games where the GM said, "No, that's _not_
>how your character would act!" and tried to make me do something else.
>Sorry, no. I know my character better than you do. I left.
You wouldn't get on too well in our games then.
:-)
Often our characters are so well defined that not only the GM,
but the others players, will tell me that my character wouldn't
act that way.
Most of the time they're right, I just haven't thought it through
enough, or missed a detail that my character wouldn't have,
or, more importantly, missed a far more interesting story idea.
However the tenor of our games is such that these statements are
effectively suggestions, if I really want my characetr to act in
a particular way, I can, I just don't usually feel the need.
Sometimes other people will say that my character shouldbn't
do something, but if I say I have an IC justification
for the action that may not be obvious to them, they'll usually
accept it. Though I'll also often explain it, unless I want to
maintain suspense, because the players enjoy the story more when
they know more about the thought processes of the characters.
In fact, this may be _why_ they can tell me that my character
wouldn't act that way, because we tend to "share" the characters
by explaining their motives and feelings.
Makes it much easier for the GM when some player can't make it too,
because the GM just plays the character (in a toned down way,
not to much spotlight grabbing) and the absent player can rely on
the other player's preventing the GM from making character mistakes.
>That sort of thing can even make me abandon entire game systems.
>Champions has silly-assed rules about that sort of thing, and the
>first two Champions campaigns I played in, the GMs used them.
>I will not play Champions.
Er, which rules are those ?
Sure there are psychological disadvantages, but if you took them,
then _of_course_ the GM should enforce them, that's part of the
contract you agreed to when you took the disadvantage.
Other than that and the "mind control" power which is part
of the genre and shouldn;t cause you any problems, I fail to
understand your problem.
Frankie
Karen J. Cravens
an...@yarm.demon.co.uk (Andy Gibson) wrote:
>rave...@southwind.net (Karen J. Cravens) writes:
>
>>In article <8234765...@yarm.demon.co.uk>,
>>an...@yarm.demon.co.uk (Andy Gibson) wrote:
>>>Yes, this is also true, but I don't accept that there would be *no
>>>way* of making them confess. One just has to know which are the
>>>"right buttons" to press - what sort of temptation *are* they
>>>susceptible to? GMs may define NPCs this way, players may define PCs
>>>this way but none will have *no* weaknesses.
>
>>I see no allowance for genre here. Is this what you mean to say?
>
>Good point, but as I see it genre (except the ridiculous ones - Toon,
>for example) will certainly affect the range and scope of this, but
>the basic point that no one will have *no* weaknesses would still
>apply. A character with no weakness would be boring, surely, in any
>genre?
Not no weaknesses, period. No weaknesses *that could be exploited
by torture*. There's quite a difference there, and I don't see why
it would make it ridiculous... I think plenty of characters have
certain "absolutes" in their conception. I can readily accept a spy
character so devoted to his country that no torture will cause him
to betray it, frex.
Silver
--........................................................................
There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed
fools. -- Nicholas Chamfort
John Novak
>You wouldn't get on too well in our games then.
'Parently not.
Don't take any of what I say in this article as flame.
It's not meant to be, but you've touched on some nerves that go right
to the heart of my gaming philosophy.
>However the tenor of our games is such that these statements are
>effectively suggestions, if I really want my characetr to act in
>a particular way, I can, I just don't usually feel the need.
Suggestions (maybe Ark the Aardvaark might see it this way) or
questions (would Ark the Ardkvaark _really_ do that?) are one thing.
Flat out GM fiats (no, the Ark the Aardvark would not/will not do
that!) are entirely another.
I can deal with suggestions, and quite happily. I cannot, and will
not, deal with with fiats, whether GM fiats or dice fiats, when it
comes to the playing of my character. _I_ am the player. The GM is
not the player. The dice are not the player. The other players are
not the player. None of these people and objects knows the character
better than I do.
>Sure there are psychological disadvantages, but if you took them,
>then _of_course_ the GM should enforce them, that's part of the
>contract you agreed to when you took the disadvantage.
Horse snot.
GURPS has similar rules for certain disads, and I've never played in a
campaign where the GM actively enforced through die rolls, nor have I
ever enforced them actively through die rolls.
In a reasonable campaign with reasonable players and GMs, one should
not be resorting to dice rolls every time, even if something runs up
against a psych lim. I am a competant enough player that I can be
trusted to play in character with the psych lim often enough to make
it worth the points I got out of it. I am a competant enough player
to know when a character can or cannot resist a temptation or an urge,
and I bloody well know better than the _dice_ when a given decision is
going to make for a better story line or avenue toward character
growth.
>Other than that and the "mind control" power which is part
>of the genre and shouldn;t cause you any problems, I fail to
>understand your problem.
Mind control is different.
Though I'd rather roleplay it myself (once the dice have determined
the magnitude of the success or the failure) I can deal with it.
Rob Ciccolini
> Not no weaknesses, period. No weaknesses *that could be exploited
> by torture*. There's quite a difference there, and I don't see why
> it would make it ridiculous... I think plenty of characters have
> certain "absolutes" in their conception. I can readily accept a spy
> character so devoted to his country that no torture will cause him
> to betray it, frex.
I agree. Braveheart would have been pointless as a gaming session,
for example, if the game master decided that the main character did
give in and could not be defiant when tortured in the last scene...
RJC
Andy Gibson
[sniphack]
>Well, as I stated before, I am not too comfortable with the CoC rules
>myself - they enforce arbitrary reactions where I sometimes have
>problems with integrating them with the character concept. One reason
>why I don't reject them out of hand as a player is that insanity in CoC
>can be understood to be similar to magical influences.
So why are "magical influences" OK wheras being persuaded is something
your character just doesn't do? How are "magical influences"
different?
Andy
Andy Gibson
Ah, well, I disagree. To my way of thinking, Braveheart would have
been an excellent roleplay session, and even if he had succumbed at
the end there would still have been value to it. Of course, it would
have been better if he died defiant to the last, but even that would
have had no value if there had been *no chance* that he would give in.
The drama of the last scene, surely, was in the "will he cave in or
not?".
Oh, and as for the spy, it is possible to break anyone through some
form of torture; some just take longer than others and some die before
the torturer realises that the potentially fatal method they are using
won't work.
Cheers,
Andy
Andy Gibson
>In <82gExwIe...@southwind.net> rave...@southwind.net (Carl D. Cravens) writes:
[preamble snipped]
>Well, I think it's perfectly reasonable for the GM to ask the player why
>the attempt is not successful, and to point out his reasons for
>believing that it would be, provided the player has final call.
>Remember, the player is the one who has to continue attempting to RP
>this character thereafter. For me, at least, you can't jerk my
>character out of my hands, have him do something that's completely
>inconsistent with *my* model of his personality, then give him back to
>me and expect me to be able to continue roleplaying him. It just
>doesn't work that way.
Really? How about if I say that a magic spell has caused a berserk
fit? Or a demon ridden sword has taken posession of the character?
And how are these different from seduction or temptation (except,
perhaps, by degree)?
Cheers,
Andy
Karen J. Cravens
I disagree... you appear to be exclusively talking about the real
world, while I'm talking about a game and Rob is talking about a
movie.
Silver
--........................................................................
We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and
congratulating ourselves on their defects. -- William Hazlitt
Mary K. Kuhner
[responding to a comment about the player needing final say in character
decisions]
>Really? How about if I say that a magic spell has caused a berserk
>fit? Or a demon ridden sword has taken posession of the character?
>And how are these different from seduction or temptation (except,
>perhaps, by degree)?
I keep saying this over and over....this is the last time, I'm too
frustrated....
The player has a mental model of what the character is like as a person.
This allows her to play him in a convincing fashion. If the GM forces
too many actions that do not fit the model, it collapses and the player can
no longer play the character. Magic spells and so forth are not a
problem: the actions they produce are not *supposed* to be coming out
of a model of the character's personality, since they are externally
imposed. But seduction and temptation always, by their nature, work
with the personality of the character.
Suppose my character has had gobs of money all her life, and has never
known need or even really craved something she couldn't afford. As a
result she is totally indifferent to money--she just doesn't care about
it, since she's never had any reason to. It's a joke to her--she gives
it away casually.
Now, the GM says "You accept a money bribe and betray your friends."
I no longer have a character who makes sense. I can't fit this
GM-imposed fact into any coherent picture of who the character is;
it just doesn't make sense. What should the character do next time
someone offers her money? She remembers being bribed, but why?
Under what circumstances could she be bribed again? How does she feel
about it? Suddenly I'm lost. In a fundamental way I no longer know
how to roleplay the character. Maybe, just maybe, a characterization
could survive one or two of these events; surely not a whole series.
I am not a hard-liner about GM intervention into character decision. I
was once involved in a *very* striking scene in a PBeM in which the GM
said "You murder the person whom you have been trying to seduce, and
drink her blood." I had right of refusal, and I knew it. I allowed
the action to stand because it was right, though I wouldn't have thought
of it; it flowed horribly well out of what we knew about that
character. But had it not flowed, I would not have agreed.
(No, mind control was not involved; the character was insane, but in a
quite coherent fashion; her behavior was far from purposeless.)
The situation is a little different in Pendragon, because there the
decision, while made by mechanics, is supposed to take the character's
defined personality into account in a very direct way. Opinions may
differ on how well that works, but I'd be willing to try it. I'm not
willing to accept the GM having final say in a system which lacks
Pendragon's personality system.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Mary K. Kuhner
>So why are "magical influences" OK wheras being persuaded is something
>your character just doesn't do? How are "magical influences"
>different?
>Andy
Why does having your character jump a 50' chasm strain suspension of
disbelief, whereas having him thrown across by a catapult seems
relatively plausible?
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
John Novak
>So why are "magical influences" OK wheras being persuaded is something
>your character just doesn't do? How are "magical influences"
>different?
Because there are some things you simply _cannot_ convince me of,
without brainwashing me and completely changing me as a human being.
Kulustan
anything you do, on purpose. They live to frustrate you and ruin the
campaign. The only problem is that they recognize reverse psycology, and
then sulk when you try and coax them. We have a paladin, who refuses to
act like one, and expects the benefits of the class. He then goes on to
whine and sulk, complaining taht we all can do everything better than his
character. I have one guy in my game who's character frequently gets drunk
and runs around, yelling about Holy Quails and stuff like that. That
sidetracks my whole group, messes up any seriousness we had achieved, and
generally pisses me off. Any advice on what to do with him?
Taylors
To: kulu...@aol.com
Subject: Re: Social Skills in RP
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
References: <8239918...@yarm.demon.co.uk> <4g7mpg$t...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>
In rec.games.frp.advocacy you write:
I had a problem character like that, played by my younger brother. I was
trying to run a serious game and he brought in a talking squirrel who
acted like a Toon. He was only fifteen at the time so I let it go for a
while and tried to ignore him but he was just too disruptive. Finally I
took him aside and told him that he was disrupting my concentration and
spoiling my enjoyment of the game by making fun of it with his jokes.
Notice: I didn't say anything about how the other players felt or if he
was affecting them. I can't make that judgement call.
He was pretty cool about it and made up another character which was more
serious, still a bit of a jokester but in an appropriate way. Perhaps
your player will be as reasonable. After all, you are the one who is
doing all the work for the campaign. IMO the players are "reaping" the
rewards of your labor. I've met a lot of players who think that it's the
GM's responsibility to entertain the players, and even to make sure that
the game is enjoyable to them. It really pisses me off when they refuse
to admit that they have the same responsibilty to their GM.
I've played and I've GMed and I can unequivocally state that I had I lot
less work, less stress and less of a time expenditure element when I was
playing than when I GMed. When I'm a player I try to be very courteous of
my GM and to be sensitive to the way *he* wants the game to go. Some GMs
don't care; they just toss things out and have fun watching their players
go at it. Others have a very definate flavor they are trying to achieve,
or paths which they try to lead players down. It does indeed boil down
to the individual "campaign contract"; many of the postings I've seen on
this net group have convinced me of the need to draw up my own personal
version of this contract *before* the game starts and present it to the
players. Then everything will be up front before the game starts, and
players who don't like the terms can bow out with no hard feelings.
This seems fair to me; does anyone else have thoughts about it one way or
the other? I can even see to making up a player contract; this is what I
expect (want) out of a game. I'd appreciate seeing something like it
from my players before running them so I can let them know whether I am
willing and able to provide it.
Back to the original post; If a player is doing something which spoils
your game, ask him to stop. If he won't, decide whether you want him in
your game badly enough that you're willing to put up with him. If not,
ask him to leave. This is a little harsh but unless you are desperate for
players it will be better for you and for the game in the long run.
If a player isn't enjoying the game, he has the right to leave. If a GM
isn't enjoying the game, he has the right to stop running. He also, IMHO
has the *right* to remove from the game those aspects which would
otherwise cause him to stop running. This is a one sided right; the
players don't have it. The situation of player and GM is different; a
player can leave without affecting the game and the other players much
but if the GM leaves the game is over. Nobody should have to participate
in a game they are not enjoying.
Specifically addressing the characters you mentioned; if the
un-paladin-like paladin were running in my game I would explain to him
that his behavior will cause his god to turn his back to him (either in
person or through the medium of a soothsayer, senior paladin, etc) and
that he will lose his powers unless he shapes up. If he refuses to
conform to his class rules, take his powers away. Then give him a "quest"
which must be undertaken to get them back. If he doesn't like that, or if
he still whines that other characters are better than his suggest that he
create a new character.
Here's a sneaky way to deal with the drunkard. Have the party find a
magic fountain. Everybody drinks (who can resist that?), and his random
magic effect ;) is Immunity To Drunkenness. Heh. Problem solved and
nobody is the wiser. If he complains...hey...it isn't a curse so you
can't have it removed :)
--
crys...@teleport.COM Public Access User -- Not affiliated with Teleport
Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 220-1016 (2400-28800, N81)
John Novak
>::Steps into the conversation timidly:: Well, I know players who oppose
>anything you do, on purpose. They live to frustrate you and ruin the
>campaign. The only problem is that they recognize reverse psycology, and
>then sulk when you try and coax them. We have a paladin, who refuses to
>act like one, and expects the benefits of the class. He then goes on to
>whine and sulk, complaining taht we all can do everything better than his
>character. I have one guy in my game who's character frequently gets drunk
>and runs around, yelling about Holy Quails and stuff like that. That
>sidetracks my whole group, messes up any seriousness we had achieved, and
>generally pisses me off. Any advice on what to do with him?
There's not much you _can_ do.
If they simply don't realize that you want to run a serious campaign
(as opposed to a beer and pretzels game, or a munchkin campaign) your
problem might be solved by simply talking to the players, as players,
before or after the game. Take them aside and gently explain that
their actions are disturbing you and the other players.
(Do make sure your players agree with you, though!)
If they simply don't realize _how_ they're being annoying, then you
might want to have a chat with your other, more cooperative players,
and make something of a show of solidarity. For your whining Paladin,
let him lose the benefits of his class through action or inaction, and
then have both the NPCs and the PCs treat the fallen Paladin _as_ a
fallen Paladin-- and let them roleplay both the treatment and the
explanation for it.
Likewise, for the drunken character, let the NPCs and PCs treat him
like a drunk. This demands player cooperation, though.
The final recourse, if you can't get through, is simply to bounce
these players from your campaign. However, you might not be able to
do that, for reasons outside the game.
For myself, if a player begins consistently disturbing my game, he
will either be invited to leave, or at best not invited into the next
game I run.
John Novak
>>Mind control is different.
>Really? Why?
I would think the difference between blatant, measurable mind control
and attempted eprsuasion would be obvious. Mary Kuhner gave a better
reasoning-type answer than I could give, but one with which I agree
wholeheartedly.
Rather than repeat or paraphrase what she said, I'll give examples.
Basically, there are some things of which I _cannot_ be convinced (by
conversation alone, at any rate.) I cannot be convinced that the
Earth is flat. I cannot be convinced to let a stranger borrow my
car. I cannot be convinced that God created the Earth in 4004 BC. I
cannot be convinced that censorship is a good thing.
These are all positions which are simply Not Open For Discussion with
me.
Anyone who knows me, and sees me agreeing with these ideas is going
to wonder what form of psycho-cosmetic pharmeceutical I've ingested.
>This really does fascinate me. Why is it that you can confortably say
>"Oh, that's just mind control" or "ho, hum, she got me with a Thrall
>spell again" but the idea that your character has a psychology or
>emotionally triggered body chemistry which might limit them in any way
>is anathaema? How are they different?
One is a completely external influence, one is very much an internal
influence. If there are limits to the character persona, _I will play
them_. Mind control widgets and spells, brainwashing techniques, and
psycho-cosmetics all act to override the basic decision making
processes of the character's psyche. Simple disucssion, persuasion,
and what-not, do not.
> Sure, you know the character
>batter than anyone else, but do you know how they, being presumably
>human or pseudo-human in most cases, will react in extremis?
Better than a handful of dice?
Absolutely, unequivocably, undeniably, yes.
You see?
You can't convince me of this, either... :-O
Glenn "no relation" Patton
>
> ::Steps into the conversation timidly:: Well, I know players who oppose
> anything you do, on purpose. They live to frustrate you and ruin the
> campaign. The only problem is that they recognize reverse psycology, and
> then sulk when you try and coax them. We have a paladin, who refuses to
> act like one, and expects the benefits of the class. He then goes on to
> whine and sulk, complaining taht we all can do everything better than his
> character. I have one guy in my game who's character frequently gets drunk
> and runs around, yelling about Holy Quails and stuff like that. That
> sidetracks my whole group, messes up any seriousness we had achieved, and
> generally pisses me off. Any advice on what to do with him?
One of two things:
1. The most obvious is to take the offenders aside, and tell them your
concerns. Make it abundantly clear that they are disrupting your game,
and give them the choice: Shape up, or leave. I had one player who
would not play nice with the other children, despite all of my efforts
and the efforts of the other players. He ended up not playing with our
group.
2. Roll with the flow. Lighten up. Maybe they don't want to play a
"serious" game. Maybe they want something a little lighter. Throw in a
little bit more humor. Start a lighthearted campaign... Who knows,
maybe you'll enjoy it.
Glenn
--
************************************************
Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.
************************************************
Andy Gibson
[scrunch]
>>Other than that and the "mind control" power which is part
>>of the genre and shouldn;t cause you any problems, I fail to
>>understand your problem.
>Mind control is different.
Really? Why?
>Though I'd rather roleplay it myself (once the dice have determined
>the magnitude of the success or the failure) I can deal with it.
This really does fascinate me. Why is it that you can confortably say
"Oh, that's just mind control" or "ho, hum, she got me with a Thrall
spell again" but the idea that your character has a psychology or
emotionally triggered body chemistry which might limit them in any way
is anathaema? How are they different? Sure, you know the character
batter than anyone else, but do you know how they, being presumably
human or pseudo-human in most cases, will react in extremis? I don't
know about you, but *I* don't know how I would react in some of the
situations we come across in RPGs myself, and (I think) I know me
better than just about anyone else ;-).
Cheers,
Andy
Andy Gibson
To all of you who have posted things in reply to my posts recently, I
do intend to reply but I'm going to be away on business for much of
this week, so I'm afraid there will be a delay. This one post I must
reply to now, tho':
mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) writes:
>an...@yarm.demon.co.uk (Andy Gibson) writes:
>[responding to a comment about the player needing final say in character
>decisions]
>>Really? How about if I say that a magic spell has caused a berserk
>>fit? Or a demon ridden sword has taken posession of the character?
>>And how are these different from seduction or temptation (except,
>>perhaps, by degree)?
>I keep saying this over and over....this is the last time, I'm too
>frustrated....
Sorry I frustrated you, I have just posted to a lot of what seemed
like strange statements to me until I saw this excellent post.
>The player has a mental model of what the character is like as a person.
>This allows her to play him in a convincing fashion. If the GM forces
>too many actions that do not fit the model, it collapses and the player can
>no longer play the character. Magic spells and so forth are not a
>problem: the actions they produce are not *supposed* to be coming out
>of a model of the character's personality, since they are externally
>imposed. But seduction and temptation always, by their nature, work
>with the personality of the character.
[snip examples and further explanation]
Here, at last, I find a coherent definition of what is and what is not
a justifiable occasion to remove a players control over a character.
When the situation (spell, skill use, whatever) involves an in-game
mechanism by which the characters personality is modified, then
dictating the character actions/reactions is allowed; where no such
alteration exists dictat is not acceptable. This seems to me to be a
fair basis upon which to operate.
My only remaining question, then, is: What about spells which work
with the character personality? And skills that alter the
personality, albeit temporarily? Fast talk, for instance, often aims
to do this... "You're a reasonable guy..." (actually, he's not but
pressure to be considered a reasonable guy may make him one, for a
short period of time. Then all you have to do is make what you want
sound "reasonable"!). Can we, perhaps, define some models of psyche
which facilitate understanding of how these personality changes might
work? Can we, while ensuring that the player remains empowered
vis-a-vis their character, find a way to make such skills meaningful?
I'm really *not* trying to advocate a "GM is god" position here, I'm
just saying that I think that if we restrict the range of effects
which can be used between characters to the purely physical we miss
out on a whole range of possibilities. To leave this entirely to play
acting limits us to the capabilities of the GM and players which,
while it might be considerable in some areas will inevitably be
constrained in others. Is there no way that we can more deeply plumb
the characters of our characters (if you see what I mean) by
broadening the range of challenges they face, without compromising
them as characters *and* without limiting them by the abilities of the
players? Personally, I *want* to play characters who excel at things
I can only dream about, and who simply cannot do things I consider
routine. As a GM it is doubly important that I have tools to deliver
such characters, since they surely exist in the game world. In the
end, I suppose I just have a nagging feeling that we are *missing*
something - possibly something important.
Cheers,
Andy
Mary K. Kuhner
>My only remaining question, then, is: What about spells which work
>with the character personality? And skills that alter the
>personality, albeit temporarily? Fast talk, for instance, often aims
>to do this... "You're a reasonable guy..." (actually, he's not but
>pressure to be considered a reasonable guy may make him one, for a
>short period of time. Then all you have to do is make what you want
>sound "reasonable"!). Can we, perhaps, define some models of psyche
>which facilitate understanding of how these personality changes might
>work? Can we, while ensuring that the player remains empowered
>vis-a-vis their character, find a way to make such skills meaningful?
>Andy
I've had good success using mechanics for these things, but having the
results of the mechanics be advisory rather than binding. This gives
the player guidance as to how his/her character might behave in this
strange and perhaps unfamiliar situation (*I've* never been hit on by
James Bond), without risking breaking the internal model with an
inexplicable result.
In the _Paradisio_ campaign we replaced Shadowrun's essence (humanity)
rules with an advisory scale: at values 0-3 you're a fairly normal
person, at values 4-6 you're showing distinct effects but still
functioning within human normals, at 7-9 there is something profoundly
abnormal about your behavior and thinking, etc..... We had a set of
worked-out examples for cases where the essence score was based on
magic, on invasive technology, or on a mix. This helped me immensely in
figuring out, for example, how Jayhawk reacted when she got a lot more
headware than she'd originally had. The scale suggested strongly that
her way of thinking ought to change: I fished around and found a way
that it could change which made sense.
Consider a use of a skill such as Seduction in an advisory-mechanic
context. The GM might say (example from our space opera game):
"Tanith turns the conversation delicately to the idea that you and she
might have an affair. Something about her approach is unexpectedly
appealing: she captures that elusive al-Fariz quality that you find
attractive, and she has a keen insight into how to make the conversation
erotic rather than embarrasing.--And that's five successes on a
Seduction roll."
This lets me say in character: "Chernoi thinks: Goodness, I can't
believe a woman is making a pass at me--much less that I find her
attractive! I recoil and cut the conversation short. This one's going
to bother me for quite a while."
Or (as happened in the game):
"Chernoi says: I killed a man yesterday, and my nerves are too sore to
enjoy it; but perhaps we'll have another opportunity. Will you still be
on station in a few months?"
Or (as I think will happen if Tanith tries it again):
"Chernoi says: Can you be discreet? I'd hate to have my husband become
the target of the station's gossip. And thinks: Goodness, I'm
surprised at myself. I guess if getting married didn't stop Markus from
enjoying this kind of situation, I shouldn't have expected it would stop
me."
I know there was a darned good Seduction roll in here, so my response
needs to take into account that Chernoi really does feel something
towards Tanith: but how she reacts needs to come from the internal
model. I don't have to be able to model exactly how Tanith is being
attractive to her, as long as I have enough grasp to see that there is
some way this could happen.
Basically, the idea is to provide as much information to the player as
possible about how the character might be expected to act, but not
overrule player insight into how she *does* act.
With practice you can internalize a character model that's quite
different from yourself: I find advisory mechanics a useful tool in
doing so. They may point out reactions you wouldn't have thought of
(honestly, I'd never even asked myself if Chernoi might find Tanith
attractive) or give a hint, when the internal model isn't fully
developed, of how it ought to work. You can look at an advisory Bravery
check and say to yourself "This is a sitaution in which my character
might well be expected to panic. Can I see how he'd do so?" which I
find easier than just deciding without mechanics support, in some
situations.
Of course, you need to trust your players to do this kind of thing (even
to the character's detriment). The player has a nagging suspicion
that Tanith is actually a vampire, but is trying not to let that
influence Chernoi's decision....here the roll helps in saying to me
"Whatever thoughts Chernoi might have had about why Tanith is doing
this, they seem relatively unimportant at the moment because she really
is quite aroused."
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Mark Grundy
(Kulustan) writes:
> Well, I know players who oppose anything you do, on purpose. They
live to frustrate you and ruin the campaign. The only problem is that
they recognize reverse psycology, and then sulk when you try and coax
them. We have a paladin, who refuses to act like one, and expects the
benefits of the class. He then goes on to whine and sulk, complaining
taht we all can do everything better than his character. I have one
guy in my game who's character frequently gets drunk and runs around,
yelling about Holy Quails and stuff like that. That sidetracks my
whole group, messes up any seriousness we had achieved, and generally
pisses me off. Any advice on what to do with him?
It sounds like everyone's trying to manipulate everyone else in your
game, instead of talking it out. If your group is very manipulative,
you can sometimes feel like Mom or Dad with a carload of unruly kids,
and that's what your group sounds like -- you've got the Sulker and the
Brat in fine form in your article. Trying to manipulate them, as with
reverse psychology, just confirms that manipulation is what the group
runs on, and I think you're better off dropping such tricks in favour of
honesty and respect.
A good picture for a functional roleplaying group is a bunch of
equal partners in a joint venture, even though each partner may have a
different role. As GM you don't have to run a game you don't enjoy, but
your partners also don't have to play a game they don't enjoy. That's
why you're all equal, even if you have different jobs to do. Everyone's
say counts.
Maybe next session you could get together and talk about what
everyone wants. It's healthy to talk these things through periodically,
because player needs change over time. Also, players may lose interest
in a game, but stick around because they don't know what else to do. If
you've got such players in your group, you could arrange to do other
social activities with these friends, and hunt up new blood to replace
them in the game. Your friends will be happier, and your game will
improve for it.
The kinds of things you could talk about next time might include:
* What the original idea was,
* What the group has done so far,
* What bits people enjoyed the most,
* What bits they didn't enjoy at all,
* Any ideas for things to do differently.
--
Dr Mark Grundy, Phone: +61-6-249 0159
Education Co-ordinator, Fax: +61-6-249 0747
CRC for Advanced Computational Systems,
The Australian National University,
0200 Australia Email: ma...@cisr.anu.edu.au
Thomas Lindgren
In article <4g8p6g$9...@cegt201.bradley.edu> j...@cegt201.bradley.edu (John Novak) writes:
> Sure, you know the character
>batter than anyone else, but do you know how they, being presumably
>human or pseudo-human in most cases, will react in extremis?
Better than a handful of dice?
Absolutely, unequivocably, undeniably, yes.
You see?
You can't convince me of this, either... :-O
Welcome to the diceless camp :-)
Thomas
--
Thomas Lindgren, Uppsala University "Scientists now consider the rhino
tho...@csd.uu.se, lind...@sics.se to be extinct" - TV4 News, 27/12 '95
http://www.csd.uu.se/~thomasl/ We'll miss you.
Copyright Thomas Lindgren, 1996. Distribution on Microsoft Network prohibited.
Lorene Turner
: un-paladin-like paladin were running in my game I would explain to him
: that his behavior will cause his god to turn his back to him (either in
: person or through the medium of a soothsayer, senior paladin, etc) and
: that he will lose his powers unless he shapes up. If he refuses to
: conform to his class rules, take his powers away. Then give him a "quest"
: which must be undertaken to get them back. If he doesn't like that, or if
: he still whines that other characters are better than his suggest that he
: create a new character.
The best way of doing this, IMHO, is to make ANY religious character take
a God Test in order to get their powers in the first place. This has been
successful for my game. I have someone who is trying to be a Paladin,
who just hasn't made lawful good decisions during his god tests. (Eg:
Letting a peasant die so that he could chase a thief). I don't know if he
will ever be a paladin (his actions are more Chaotic Good or Chaotic
Neutral), but in any case it is a great character, the Paladin Wannabe...
a character who wants to achieve honor and power, but is betrayed by his
inner nature. This is the stuff that novels are made of! :)
Another option is to make clerics take a god test before getting 3rd
level spells. Make sure, however, that you discuss the God with the
player beforehand, so that you both know what the GM thinks the god is like.
For example, I once had a Drow fail a god test because I thought of Lolth
as evil and cowardly, whereas in the GM's point of view she was evil and
brave. So my character ran when she should have fought. D-oh. Here today,
tomorrow a drider...
Lorene
John Novak
> Better than a handful of dice?
> Absolutely, unequivocably, undeniably, yes.
>Welcome to the diceless camp :-)
Only on the subject of the inside of my character's head.
For combat or other physical things, I can be happy either diced or
diceless. I rather suspect I sit the fence on the whole issue, if
there's a competant GM, as I _hate_ making die rolls for things that
should be trivial.
"I drive away in the car."
"Roll driving skill."
"Come on! It's a car!"
"Roll the skill."
"The character owns a similar car, and drives it to work every day!
He has a driving skill of 15! This isn't a pursuit or a tricky bit!
It's just street driving!"
"Roll the skill, already!"
<Clatter>
"Argh."
"Okay, you accidently throw it in reverse, and back up through the
building."
<Thud Thud Thud> (Sound of John's forehead hitting the gaming table.)
Anne B. Nonie Rider
Not only do I think the player needs to have input into
whether the character is successfully seduced; the player
also needs input into the result and after-effects.
Let's say I feel like the circumstances and the roll
succeed; my character is seduced. Fine.
But what does that mean? Most of my characters are pretty
stable, but I've got a couple of psychos. Tobin is scarred
on nearly half his body surface after too much PLO questioning,
and the other players have good reason to believe that 1)
he was brutally and repeatedly raped, and 2) he hasn't had
normal sexual reactions since. So, what happens if you seduce
him? Do either of you survive?
Paul, meanwhile, is a vampire, although half his team
doesn't know it. And Shadowstar's never learned to trust;
if you can seduce him, you've probably gotten close enough
that he'll give his life defending you.
Savage is pretty close to the edge. She might relax, or
claw someone apart, or fall in love, or kill, or quit
patrolling the night streets.
Rangefinder's had one brief affair "since she was old
enough to defend herself." Seduction would offer her
some interesting sensations, but any love she's learned
to feel just goes directly to her daughter.
Kaye's barely 15. Try seducing her, and see what her
teammates do.
Arc? Well, if you assume she has enough control over her
powers that she doesn't damage you physically, you just
have to survive that knife-edged nagging tongue she's
used on people she cares about.
And Ghost is, well, a ghost. Her body's only real when
she thinks about it, and nobody's figured out whether
she's actually got a gender. If you seduced her, she
might vanish forever, possess your body, or become real.
Want to take the chance?
Not only are some characters almost impossible to
seduce; others are impossible to have a casual affair
with, so any successful seduction has real consequences.
--Nonie
Andacar
(Taylors) writes:
>If a player is doing something which spoils
>your game, ask him to stop. If he won't, decide whether you want him in
>your game badly enough that you're willing to put up with him. If not,
>ask him to leave. This is a little harsh but unless you are desperate
for
>players it will be better for you and for the game in the long run.
It's not harsh at all. GMs aren't carpets and are under no obligation to
run games for people like this. I wrote a couple of additions to Aaron
Aliston's "Player Types" which appears in the Champions hardcover book.
One of my additions was "the Destroyer" who is precisely what you
describe: a person out to wreck the campaign (you can see the whole list
on Mr. Aliston's web page if you're interested). I had to deal with people
like this and you can't be too men to them if that's their real purpose.
Get rid of them, that's my advice.
Darrell Leland
Scott A. H. Ruggels
>::Steps into the conversation timidly:: Well, I know players who oppose
>anything you do, on purpose. They live to frustrate you and ruin the
>campaign. The only problem is that they recognize reverse psycology, and
>then sulk when you try and coax them. We have a paladin, who refuses to
>act like one, and expects the benefits of the class. He then goes on to
>whine and sulk, complaining taht we all can do everything better than his
>character. I have one guy in my game who's character frequently gets drunk
>and runs around, yelling about Holy Quails and stuff like that. That
>sidetracks my whole group, messes up any seriousness we had achieved, and
>generally pisses me off. Any advice on what to do with him?
Well with the general philosophy, that life is too short for bad games, I
have a few suggestions.
The next time you game, don't instead rent some movies or anime or something
and watch ot without comment. Make snacks, and sit in the couch. When whiney
or drunk ask why you are not running the game, tell them flat out, that you
are tired of gaming, and decided to watch something instead. (have some
popcorn).
If they press the issue. Tell them that you are tired of gaming, because it
is no fun gaming with them. and go down the reasons. Do it with the others
there, and solicit them for supporting examples of their disruptive
behaivior.
If they threaten to leave, say "goodbye" and let them. Don't think of it as
permanent yet. let them decide that. This shock treatment may make them shape
up, and make them behave. If not no big loss to your game, and don't be nasty
about it, and don't cut them off. Just tell them that this is where the
carpet ends and the bathroom begins.
Murder is right out though. no matter how satisfying it is to watch his
surprised expression when you cave in his skull with a baseball bat, it is
messy and illegal, and the class of people found in penitetiaries are not
likely to produce good gamers.
Scott
Michele Ellington
> The player has a mental model of what the character is like as a person.
> This allows her to play him in a convincing fashion. If the GM forces
> too many actions that do not fit the model, it collapses and the player can
> no longer play the character. Magic spells and so forth are not a
> problem: the actions they produce are not *supposed* to be coming out
> of a model of the character's personality, since they are externally
> imposed. But seduction and temptation always, by their nature, work
> with the personality of the character.
I agree wholeheartedly. I have had a number of bad experiences
with GMs who ramrod inappropriate character actions or massive
changes in a character. I carefully researched pre-white
Nez Perce culture to build my character for an historic game.
The GM treated the character as a TV injun stereotype from
the start. The character was introduced to the game thus:
"You have been left on watch to guard the village while the
men are out hunting. Instead of manning your post, you are
having sex with one of the village girls when the village is
raided by an enemy tribe. Everyone is killed but you."
Great. I hadn't envisioned the character as an untrustworthy
slut who carried the burden of the deaths of every woman and
child in his tribe. I spent the rest of that brief campaign trying
to regain some semblance of identification with the character.
This is just one overt example of situations wherein the GM
has elected to banish scars, erase historical events, cure
crippling defects, invent past actions which don't jive with
the character's personality, and dictate actions not appropriate.
> Suppose my character has had gobs of money all her life, and has never
> known need or even really craved something she couldn't afford. As a
> result she is totally indifferent to money--she just doesn't care about
> it, since she's never had any reason to. It's a joke to her--she gives
> it away casually.
> Now, the GM says "You accept a money bribe and betray your friends."
Or you are playing a character who is celibate or faithful to
a spouse, and the GM forcibly "seduces" said character? This
is a problem in a lot of games I have seen, the presumption, especially
for male characters, that casual sex is a welcome offer.
> I no longer have a character who makes sense. I can't fit this
> GM-imposed fact into any coherent picture of who the character is;
> it just doesn't make sense. What should the character do next time
> someone offers her money? She remembers being bribed, but why?
> Under what circumstances could she be bribed again? How does she feel
> about it? Suddenly I'm lost. In a fundamental way I no longer know
> how to roleplay the character. Maybe, just maybe, a characterization
> could survive one or two of these events; surely not a whole series.
A lot depends on how inappropriate the behavior was, and how unethical.
My elf mage, deeply mourning the death of his beloved, has been
celibate by choice for a century. The GM declaring a seduction would
leave me frustrated and the character confused, but he could blame it
on the wine or long denied physical desire overwhelming his will.
But the cleft jawed hero with the patented gleam in his eye whom
the GM declares to have beaten the villain to death will never
again be the person he was before that event. If the player is
willing to face such dramatic changes to the character, it can make
for great role-playing. But this should be an agreement between
GM and player.
--
Michele Ellington
AD...@rgfn.epcc.edu
Andy Gibson
>In <824691...@yarm.demon.co.uk> an...@yarm.demon.co.uk (Andy Gibson) writes:
>>>Mind control is different.
>>Really? Why?
>I would think the difference between blatant, measurable mind control
>and attempted eprsuasion would be obvious. Mary Kuhner gave a better
>reasoning-type answer than I could give, but one with which I agree
>wholeheartedly.
Leaving aside that, as my concurrent post in reply to Mary says, I
agree with your position on PC actions being decided absolutely by the
dice or the GM, I can only repeat my query here. You see, as I see
it, the difference between spells, drugs or brainwashing and skilled
persuasion is one of degree, not of quality. A skilled persuader will
affect your body chemistry - just as drugs will. Your body is
perfectly capable of manufacturing powerful performance enhancers,
sedatives, painkillers and narcotics - and under a variety of
circumstances it can be induced to do so. A skilled communicator may
attempt to do just that. This does not, I agree, mean that you will
change deeply held views willy nilly - but it does not mean that any
attempt to change such views will have *no effect at all* on the
character. Confusion, angry outbursts and avoidance behaviours are
all possible outcomes, besides grudging acceptance that the other guy
has a point.
>Rather than repeat or paraphrase what she said, I'll give examples.
>Basically, there are some things of which I _cannot_ be convinced (by
>conversation alone, at any rate.) I cannot be convinced that the
>Earth is flat. I cannot be convinced to let a stranger borrow my
>car. I cannot be convinced that God created the Earth in 4004 BC. I
>cannot be convinced that censorship is a good thing.
No, but I bet a skilled debater could leave you tongue tied and angry,
without words to express why you can see that she is "obviously
wrong"...
>These are all positions which are simply Not Open For Discussion with
>me.
>Anyone who knows me, and sees me agreeing with these ideas is going
>to wonder what form of psycho-cosmetic pharmeceutical I've ingested.
If you were nodding your head and grinning vapidly, yes - but what if
you were storming off shouting "Well, if *that's* your initial
premise, of course what you say is true!! Bah!".
>>This really does fascinate me. Why is it that you can confortably say
>>"Oh, that's just mind control" or "ho, hum, she got me with a Thrall
>>spell again" but the idea that your character has a psychology or
>>emotionally triggered body chemistry which might limit them in any way
>>is anathaema? How are they different?
>One is a completely external influence, one is very much an internal
>influence. If there are limits to the character persona, _I will play
>them_. Mind control widgets and spells, brainwashing techniques, and
>psycho-cosmetics all act to override the basic decision making
>processes of the character's psyche. Simple disucssion, persuasion,
>and what-not, do not.
It will, of course, depend how magic and minds work in the milieu, but
in most of my games spells and so forth do not "override the decision
making process", they simply apply (possibly heavy) pressure to it -
same as persuasion attempts, drugs and brainwashing.
>> Sure, you know the character
>>batter than anyone else, but do you know how they, being presumably
>>human or pseudo-human in most cases, will react in extremis?
>Better than a handful of dice?
>Absolutely, unequivocably, undeniably, yes.
Perhaps you misunderstand me; what I am arguing for is not that the
dice should decide a PCs actions, but that they should decide the
degree of success of a practitioners attempt to apply pressure to the
characters decision making process. In other words, the player is not
told "your character does this", but "this guy is pretty convincing -
you feel irritated; you don't have to acquiesce, but even if you don't
you cannot continue a rational argument effectively (-X to debate
skill, etc.) and you feel pretty pissed off (your judgement in other
skills may be affected, too)".
>You see?
>You can't convince me of this, either... :-O
I haven't finished trying, yet ;-).
Andy
Andy Gibson
[big snip of nice player self-regulation example]
>Of course, you need to trust your players to do this kind of thing (even
>to the character's detriment). The player has a nagging suspicion
>that Tanith is actually a vampire, but is trying not to let that
>influence Chernoi's decision....here the roll helps in saying to me
>"Whatever thoughts Chernoi might have had about why Tanith is doing
>this, they seem relatively unimportant at the moment because she really
>is quite aroused."
Yes, this is one issue - not all players will do this voluntarily.
Additionally, though, it sometimes feels right to me that a character
act under some sort of special penalty after resisting an influence
attempt due to the mental confusion and body chemistry after-effects
(a poor example being perhaps if Chernoi thought "Great scott, what am
I thinking? I actually *want* to do this! How can I?! No! No! It
was wrong of Markus, it would be wrong of me! Hells teeth, I must
pull myself together!" and felt confused and disturbed, as well as
aroused but shocked and suppressive). Drifting to another thread for
a second (8-) ) this is why I sometimes like dice as a player; when I
get carried away they can remind me that the character has human
drives and frailties. I agree one hundred percent that I don't want
the dice to take actual decisions from me - but I do want them to tell
me that my character is affected by this approach, physically and
mentally, so resisting it is going to be a wrench.
Andy
Andy Gibson
[snip my original post]
>And under anything remotely resembling normal circumstances, I still
>retain basic control over my own body and thoughts. I'm sorry, but
>the idea that any and all human beings have these semi-magical buttons
>that can be pressed by a mythical manipulator, and make any person do
>whatever this mythical manipulator wants strikes me as highly
>farfetched.
Aha, an assumption clash 8-).
>Maybe I'm particularly more strong-willed than the average human
>being, but I just don't see this happening on the scale of time I
>generally associate with a typical "persuasion" roll. That being
>anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. If we extend the time
>frame from several hours to several months, I might be willing to
>concede somewhat, since I've seen a master manipulator encourage
>behaviour I still don't understand-- but that was quite literally over
>a period of three and a half _years_.
The timescale and so on depend on what is being changed in the
"target" mind and how firmly the view (or whatever) is held,
obviously. I certainly have a high willpower; but those ignorant of
this peerless virtue call me stubborn ;-). Even so some people can
put pressure on me about some things - whether their doing so causes
me to acquiesce or to tell them to go fish depends, at least in part,
on the quality of their approach.
>And I think any time span outside a few hours is well beyond the scope
>of any system of rules or single die-roll.
OK, but long term actions are usually just the ones I *don't* want to
roleplay in detail...
[chop]
>>No, but I bet a skilled debater could leave you tongue tied and angry,
>>without words to express why you can see that she is "obviously
>>wrong"...
>Personally, having been accounted a skilled debator by many, I find
>this less than likely. But aside from that, we're verging far, far
>outsde the original topic of this discussion.
>You've changed the topic from "Can this person be persuaded to do
>something he is not inclined to do," to "Can this person be guided
>to one particular set of actions, if that set of actions is one of
>several which he is likely to perform?"
No, actually I've changed the topic from "can PCs be persuaded to do
something their player thinks is not what they would do" to "can any
person *not* be emotionally and/or mentally affected *in some way* by
a sufficiently effective use of a persuasion skill". Put it down to
the fact that I am exploring this as I go and sharing my thoughts with
you all, so sometimes I contradict what I said earlier 8-).
>The question of whether someone can insult me effectively enough to
>make me angry, is in _no way_ the same as the question of whether
>someone can convince me to do some specific, arbitrary task.
I wasn't talking, necessarily, about insulting you to get a reaction
(although that might work).
>>Perhaps you misunderstand me; what I am arguing for is not that the
>>dice should decide a PCs actions, but that they should decide the
>>degree of success of a practitioners attempt to apply pressure to the
>>characters decision making process. In other words, the player is not
>>told "your character does this", but "this guy is pretty convincing -
>>you feel irritated; you don't have to acquiesce, but even if you don't
>>you cannot continue a rational argument effectively (-X to debate
>>skill, etc.) and you feel pretty pissed off (your judgement in other
>>skills may be affected, too)".
>That's far more acceptable than the first handling of it, but still
>not quite palatable to me. I prefer to see these things role-played,
>and not handled by dice.
That's OK, but to do this successfully would require fairly deep IC
and is subject to the problem that I, as GM, am not a stunningly
charismatic and highly skilled seductress (for instance). Or even
vaguely reminiscent of one 8-).
>>>You see?
>>>You can't convince me of this, either... :-O
>>I haven't finished trying, yet ;-).
>Nice try, but still, no.
>At least you didn't say, "But I convinced you to keep arguing!"
No, but I might now! Actually, I have found the debate stimulating
(meaning it triggered some things I would otherwise probably not have
thought of).
Cheers,
Andy
Mark Grundy
> And under anything remotely resembling normal circumstances, I still
retain basic control over my own body and thoughts. I'm sorry, but
the idea that any and all human beings have these semi-magical buttons
that can be pressed by a mythical manipulator, and make any person do
whatever this mythical manipulator wants strikes me as highly
farfetched.
This continued discussion hinges on a serious psychological or
philosophical question -- why we do stuff.
There are times when we are very clear on our motives, and feel that
we can account for every action in every instant of some event. There
are times when our motives are all consistent, and when we feel
confident that we can compare what we did to any other option and say,
``I didn't do that thing because it wasn't what I wanted'', or ``I
didn't do that thing because I didn't know about it''. Recalling these
times, it's hard to credit that we have any magic buttons to push.
There are also times when our motives aren't clear, or our actions
are inconsistent with what we want, or we want a mixture of things, or
we're confused about our choices and don't have the time to decide
rationally. Instead we do *something*, but it's hard to account later
for what we did and why.
These two kinds of circumstances are separate -- as though different
parts of our minds are in control. If we want to sustain the myth of
constant rationality throughout, then we can. We can make up stories
about what our motives really were (motives are little different from
stories -- we can make them up whenever we want), and we can colour our
memories of the situation to justify our acts as rational. You've
probably seen people do this, and may remember doing this yourself.
It occurs to me though, that either way we can be manipulated by
someone who knows more than we do. At times when we're governed
entirely by logic, then the flow of information governs our actions in a
predictable way. If you understand someone's motives, and if they're
acting rationally, then the right flow of information can guide them.
This is the principle of espionage and disinformation.
At times when we're creatures of intuition, the manipulation takes a
different form. Our intuitive self has patterns that we're not aware of
(as we become aware of them, they become part of our rational self
instead), and these patterns can be manipulated. A person who knows
those patterns better than we do can take advantage of them.
This is part of the craft of drama, for instance -- to know patterns
of behaviour that evoke responses in the audience. The audience comes
willingly to the play, but falls under the spell of the story anyway.
It's not rational to cry about fictional tragedies or to laugh about
fictional situations, but we do. We don't decide to laugh *now* in a
movie -- we let the action decide for us. We are always ourselves, but
we are ourselves in response to a crafted environment.
Our behaviour is flexible, though. If we think we're being
manipulated and decide to resist, then we generally can. But reverse
psychology works too, so nothing is certain. :)
Hope this may help with the discussion,
Mark
Kevin R. Hardwick
On 13 Mar 1996, Mark Grundy wrote:
> This is part of the craft of drama, for instance -- to know patterns
> of behaviour that evoke responses in the audience. The audience comes
> willingly to the play, but falls under the spell of the story anyway.
> It's not rational to cry about fictional tragedies or to laugh about
> fictional situations, but we do. We don't decide to laugh *now* in a
> movie -- we let the action decide for us. We are always ourselves, but
> we are ourselves in response to a crafted environment.
I want to amplify what Mark has written here. If you believe, as I do,
that humans by their nature organize experience via narrative, then
knowlege of how narratives are produced--the craft of drama, to which Mark
refers above--can be deployed powerfully *in the service* of simulation.
Or, put somewhat differently, there is no necessary distinction between
dramatic and simulationist games
It certainly is the case, IM(own personal possibly idosyncratic, YMMV,
caveat caveat cavet yada yada yada)E that the best simulationist games I
have played in are those that most selfconsciously used dramatic
techniques to organize and structure the game.
All my best,
Kevin
John H Kim
question is about the use of "dramatic techniques" in a "simulationist
game".
Kevin R. Hardwick <krhr...@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>On 13 Mar 1996, Mark Grundy wrote:
>> This is part of the craft of drama, for instance -- to know patterns of
>> behaviour that evoke responses in the audience. [...] We are always
>> ourselves, but we are ourselves in response to a crafted environment.
>
>I want to amplify what Mark has written here. If you believe, as I do,
>that humans by their nature organize experience via narrative, then
>knowlege of how narratives are produced--the craft of drama, to which Mark
>refers above--can be deployed powerfully *in the service* of simulation.
>Or, put somewhat differently, there is no necessary distinction between
>dramatic and simulationist games
While I agree that emotion-manipulative techniques which will
work for simulationist games, I find the terminology here to by
muddying rather than edifying. The techniques I use for games styled
after fiction have some overlap with, but are not identical to, the
techniques I use for simulationist games.
I would say that there certainly is a distinction between
dramatic and simulationist games. I would define it as:
1) A "dramatic game" is patterned after works of fiction. For example,
there are usually inspirational works which it seeks to emulate -- and
it can often (but perhaps not always) be said to have a genre.
2) A true "simulationist game" is defined by its GM/players purely in
terms of the game world and the nature of the reality.
Obviously this is rather vague, but I think the point is clear
enough. My current campaign involves superpowered beings in the modern
world -- it is patterned after such comics as _Sandman_ and _The Books
of Magic_. Seven years ago, I ran another campaign involving
superpowered beings in the modern world which was simulationist --
it had no such inspirational works, but was more driven by my ideas
on "what if" regarding those powers.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
>
>It certainly is the case, IM(own personal possibly idosyncratic, YMMV,
>caveat caveat cavet yada yada yada)E that the best simulationist games I
>have played in are those that most selfconsciously used dramatic
>techniques to organize and structure the game.
Hmmm. Let me try this:
As a GM in a simulationist game, I would certainly choose which
scenes to skim through and which to play out in gory detail taking into
account the players reactions. I may tailor the wording and tone of
my descriptions to reflect the player's and the character's attitude.
However, I would never consciously choose between two gameworld results
on the basis of the player's expected reaction -- unless one of them
violated group contract (i.e. if it would overly offend or upset the
player, etc.).
Thus, for example, if a PC was alone lining up for a difficult
sniper shot, I might switch over to other players before he shoots. That
would increase the player's tension, and perhaps even represent the way
that time seems to contract at important moments for his character.
However, I would *not* rule that his first shot misses in order to draw
out the dramatic tension of the scene. Rather, I would probably make
my best estimate of his chances and roll some dice.
Both of these techniques might be called as "dramatic" -- but I
think there is an important distinction between them. Do you think that
techniques like the latter were used in the simulationist games you
enjoyed??
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Kim | "Faith - Faith is an island in the setting sun.
jh...@columbia.edu | But Proof - Proof is the bottom line for everyone."
Columbia University | - Paul Simon, _Proof_
John H Kim
"fiction". This is branching off into a new thread, I think, but
I don't know what yet so I'll hold off renaming it.
Kevin R. Hardwick <krhr...@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>On 15 Mar 1996, John H Kim wrote:
>> The techniques I use for games styled after fiction have some overlap
>> with, but are not identical to, the techniques I use for simulationist
>> games.
[...]
>I can understand the distinction you are making--between games that
>attempt to model the particular fictive rality in a particular work of
>fiction, as opposed to games that attempt to model reality per se. But
>in another sense *all* rpgs are works of collective imagination, and
>hence are works of fiction. That was the sense in which I was talking.
Well, naturally. RPG's are works of fiction because they
are about events which haven't really happened -- that's the definition
of fiction.
-*-*-*-
>
>> 1) A "dramatic game" is patterned after works of fiction. For example,
>> there are usually inspirational works which it seeks to emulate --
>> and it can often (but perhaps not always) be said to have a genre.
>>
>> 2) A true "simulationist game" is defined by its GM/players purely in
>> terms of the game world and the nature of the reality.
[...]
>It has been my experience that games of the second sort (I'm not
>sure that your definition above is completely adequate, btw--it seems
>incomplete or imprecise somehow to me--maybe when my mind is fresher I
>will have a better sense of what is bothering me there . . .) *can* be
>improved by self-consciously treating the game for what it is--an
>exercize in fiction.
Hrrrm. The definition as written is undoubtably imperfect,
but I think you have grasped the concept I was trying to convey.
The question is: what do you mean by "improved" and what do you mean
by "self-consciously treating it as fiction"?
Obviously you *must* treat the game as a work of fiction --
that's what it is. It is nonsensical to treat it otherwise. However,
treating it as a work of fiction does not neccessarily mean approaching
it the same way as, say, a typical novelist or scriptwriter approaches
writing. A GM is not neccessarily an entertainer who is directing a
story to engage his players. That is one view of his role, but not
the only one.
Something which is neglected in the dramatic-based descriptions
of RPG's is the often burning curiosity of "Yes, but what would have
_really_ happened." It is, perhaps, the same drive that gives me
great interest in reading dry history books or science articles.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
>
>> Both of these techniques might be called as "dramatic" -- but I
>> think there is an important distinction between them. Do you think
>> that techniques like the latter were used in the simulationist games
>> you enjoyed??
>
>I honestly don't know--the particular games I was thinking of
>were produced by Mark Wallace and Rachel Schmutter, ...
Well, could you ask them? @-)
>
>My immediate impression of the game was quite powerful, however--they
>stand out as some of the grittiest, most realistic, believable games
>in which I have ever played.
Hmmm. Just to be pedantic, I would point out that "believable"
is not entirely congruent with "simulationist". There are lots of
phenomena which are _real_ which are nevertheless not very believable
compared to works of fiction (i.e. "truth is stranger than fiction").
In a gaming situation, you can come up with a "believable" result
by using common sense and following the players' expectations -- but
this is different than the simulationist model.
A Lapalme
> Hmmm. More words on the nature of RPG's as "drama" versus
> "fiction". This is branching off into a new thread, I think, but
> I don't know what yet so I'll hold off renaming it.
>
>
>>
>>> 1) A "dramatic game" is patterned after works of fiction. For example,
>>> there are usually inspirational works which it seeks to emulate --
>>> and it can often (but perhaps not always) be said to have a genre.
>>>
>>> 2) A true "simulationist game" is defined by its GM/players purely in
>>> terms of the game world and the nature of the reality.
While I accept the second definition, I'm not sure exactly what you mean
in the first one. Are you saying that a dramatic game is emulating other
works of fiction as opposed to using dramatic techniques to pattern the game?
>
> Obviously you *must* treat the game as a work of fiction --
> that's what it is. It is nonsensical to treat it otherwise.
To the ever growing disappointment of many! :(
However,
> treating it as a work of fiction does not neccessarily mean approaching
> it the same way as, say, a typical novelist or scriptwriter approaches
> writing. A GM is not neccessarily an entertainer who is directing a
> story to engage his players. That is one view of his role, but not
> the only one.
OK.
>
> Something which is neglected in the dramatic-based descriptions
> of RPG's is the often burning curiosity of "Yes, but what would have
> _really_ happened." It is, perhaps, the same drive that gives me
> great interest in reading dry history books or science articles.
>
I don't understand where you are going here. "Yes, but what would have
_really_ happened" in a dramatic game is, well, a non-question. X
happened. As long as X is consistent with the setting, "X is what really
happened".
I'm kind of jumping in here, so maybe I missed some crucial previous post.
Sorry if I'm asking questions already answered.
> Hmmm. Just to be pedantic, I would point out that "believable"
> is not entirely congruent with "simulationist". There are lots of
> phenomena which are _real_ which are nevertheless not very believable
> compared to works of fiction (i.e. "truth is stranger than fiction").
> In a gaming situation, you can come up with a "believable" result
> by using common sense and following the players' expectations -- but
> this is different than the simulationist model.
>
Hmm...I would agree that following the players' expectations is more in
line with the dramatist model than the simulationist one. However, how
could using common sense not be simulationist?
Alain (the man of many questions)
Kevin R. Hardwick
On 17 Mar 1996, Andrew Finch wrote:
> John H Kim (jh...@merhaba.cc.columbia.edu) wrote:
> : The problem is that here in this forum and elsewhere we have been
> : discussing in theoretical terms the nature of RPG's, and it has been
> : dominated by the "dramatic paradigm" (to borrow from Kuhn here). Thus
> : the stances are "author", "actor", "audience", and "in-character", and
> : so forth.
>
> : It just seems to me that it is easy to neglect another view of
> : RPG's by approaching it from that theoretical understanding.
This is true. When I wrote the article proposing the dramatic stances as
useful modes for understanding rpg, I was quite specific that the terms
derived from the master metaphors that game designers used to describe
what rpg *is*. That is, the article was based ultimately on an empirical
analysis of every game system on which I could lay my hands :) In general,
those metaphors were all variations on "RPG is like narrative;" there
were obviously many specific variations--"RPG is like myth," "RPG is like
cinema," "RPG is like interactive theatre," and so on.
I did look at some games that did not make explicit use of that master
metaphor, but they were few and far between--such games (eg. Cyberpunk)
did not contain any statement at all on what rpg is, and thus there was
little for me to analyze (unless I wanted to conduct an exegesis of the
text at a much greater level of detail and personal effort than the
project warranted :) So while I agree with you that the dominant
paradigm is narratalogical, I don't see *any* alternative paradigm out there
that has been expressed in sufficient depth as to warrant analysis.
> Sure. But it is a representable theoretical framework. I would be happy
> to see the 'simulationst' perspective through its own framework. However,
> that framewrok should rest on a philosophical foundation that makes it
> approachable as a way of thinking and being. I've yet to see such a
> construction, but I would be happy to find one, or to help create one.
>
> The problem is that I don't think you can start with shaky assumptions
> which attempt to map 'objectivity' onto the game world. We are not
> simulating or modeling. So, what is it that fires the simulationist
> viewpoint?
I would think you would have to start with Scientific Realism. You could
certainly do worse :) Maybe Greg Benage can assist here?
> Heck, what is the 'simulationst' viewpoint. What stances and perspectives
> make it up. What's the psychological/philosophical basis for them?
>
> I'm certainly interested. It was exactly these questions which lead me to
> the dramatist viewpoint. I didn't start as a dramatist. I found one
> coherent set of answers for myself that became a set of tools. I'm
> willing to explore another to see if it becomes useful.
I would also be very interested in this project. Start the thread and I
will contribute my share (as if I wouldn't anyway :)
All my best,
Kevin
Scott Taylor
: John Morrow (mor...@newton.texel.com) wrote:
: : A player
: : in a dramatic game wouldn't expect a meaningless death like the one
: : inflicted on Tasha Yar (one that the _Star Trek_ people seemed to be
: : so uncomfortable with that they kept bringing her back -- again and
: : again -- to add meaning to her character's life) while a player in a
: : simulationist game would expect a meaningless death to be as possible
: : as a meaningful one.
: Interesting example. I wonder if that scene would be a good way to
: test whether your players would prefer a dramatic or simulationist
: game? "Would you like that kind of result in our game?" Personally,
: I always liked the off-handed way in which Yar was killed.
And (again) personally, I couldn't stand it, for the most part ( I
thought it took guts, on the one hand, but on the other hand I disliked
the way it was handled; I mean, C'mon; killed by a sadistic, eveil
*oilslick* fer crying out loud...).
I'm not sure how applicable it would be as a general test, however. I
wouldn't accept such a death in Trek; but I would in Space Above and
Beyond (my secret guilt; I actually *like* this show on occasion :-), or
in a modern "Grim and Gritty" realistic show/genre. I guess I accept as a
genre convention that in certain shows/genres/whatever the heroes don't
die for no reason, and if they do, it breaks my SOD; in others, I can
accept people kicking off and their death meaning nothing.
But I've always said I'm weird.... so YMMV :-)
Scott Taylor
Once again leaving his .sig in his other suit at home
Jeff Stehman
: A player
: in a dramatic game wouldn't expect a meaningless death like the one
: inflicted on Tasha Yar (one that the _Star Trek_ people seemed to be
: so uncomfortable with that they kept bringing her back -- again and
: again -- to add meaning to her character's life) while a player in a
: simulationist game would expect a meaningless death to be as possible
: as a meaningful one.
Interesting example. I wonder if that scene would be a good way to
test whether your players would prefer a dramatic or simulationist
game? "Would you like that kind of result in our game?" Personally,
I always liked the off-handed way in which Yar was killed.
--
Jeff Stehman Senior Systems Administrator
ste...@southwind.net SouthWind Internet Access, Inc.
voice: (316)263-7963 Wichita, KS
URL for Wichita Area Chamber of Commerce: http://www.southwind.net/ict/
A Lapalme
Nancy M. Sauer (nsa...@unlinfo.unl.edu) writes:
> Scott Taylor (izzy...@faerealm.roc.servtech.com) wrote:
>
> : I'm not sure how applicable it would be as a general test, however. I
> : Beyond (my secret guilt; I actually *like* this show on occasion :-), or
> : in a modern "Grim and Gritty" realistic show/genre.
>
> Bablylon 5?
>
I accepted it (didn't like it - I was looking forward to the relationship
between Talia and Susan but, as someone told me, everything Susan touches,
she destroys). However, in B5, Talia's fate was internally consistent;
Yar's fat was because the actress wanted to leave the show (meta reason
versus plot reasons).
Alain