[IaWA] Breaking Bad Habits
Valvorik:
Thanks Vincent, I think I was misreading "decisive". Your patience and willingness to discuss all this stuff that is probably "blindingly obvious to you" is great.
Am I correct seeing the ideas of best interests player realizes but not character, ones at odds with character's apparent goals etc. that the "best interest" is the "transcendent author/audience view of this character's best destiny/happy ever after"? This may be the character's goal but doesn't have to be it.
So for the Conanesque character "my best interest is to endure hardships that teach me lessons of kingship" even if my goal is "wine, women and song, and taking guff from no one".
Are there examples in play to cite for how a player position the character (when GM asks, "so what were you doing while...") as doing something explicable by goal that also positions them vis a vis best interest at odds with goal?
The games I have been in have all had people using character best interests as driving goals, and have mostly seemed to work fine, but I definitely see the potential for great stories and characters in the conflict and I can recall at least one PC who might have "worked better" done that way.
Mike Holmes:
Rob's right, thanks for the patience with this, Vincent.
To address a side point... are we saying that it's bad play to have a character goal that happens to be his best interest? Or just that the game might work better if you choose an interest that is like this?
On the main question, thanks to Rob for his question, and it clarifies things for me on what's meant by "round" in this context. Good example, Vincent.
I have to say that I don't recall precisely what I said my character was doing to get the treasure. I think it was something like, "I'm going to the tower to search it for the treasure." For purposes of this discussion, I think we can assume that it was this. John's response was probably something like, "Oh no, no way that ogre's coming into my tower and tearing it apart."
(By the way, my character was part of a culture of "ogres," people who eat other people to become monsterously strong. The twist I put in was that he was raiding to get the treasure so as to buy a "Cure" for his people.)
I don't recall the precise mechanical details, other than that I won eventually. I'm sure narration was stuff like, "I leap at her threateningly" (my character's violence was not as high as his Direct, and his Specific Strength was "Monsterously Intimidating.") And, on succeeding, "I pin her down." Negotiation was something like me offering, "I'll help her get what she wants later, if she shows him where the treasure is."
What's interesting is that in a statement like that, it's clear that the "I'll help her" is a promise, and unenforcable, while the "She shows me" is an automatic consequence that goes into narration (he gets his best interest) if John agrees. And he did, in this case. Again, reluctantly, if I'm recalling correctly. And I felt bad that I could not commit somehow.
What I'm understanding is that my narration could, instead, have been as a result of coming out ahead on the first round, "Before she can find me, I find the treasure in the basement" ?
Can I narrate that if I lose? Does winning give you narration rights?
In any case, let's say that I get to the end of the contest, and have won, and the last narration is that I have the thing I want, I've found the treasure. Let's say for argument's sake that it's the ring (the treasure in my case was non-portable by even an ogre - barrels of olive oil), and my character is in possession of it. And let's say that John says that he's going to take an injury or exhaustion instead of giving in to me.
Do I keep my treasure in that case? Or no? The other thread seems to say no. This thread seems to say yes.
Mike
lumpley:
My pleasure. I like answering rules questions.
Side point: No, it's not bad play at all. If playing with your characters' best interests and immediate goals closely aligned were bad play, I'd disallow it.
Instead, I'm saying that if you only and always play with your characters' best interests and immediate goals closely aligned, you'll always get those same effects on how the game plays out. My recommendation is that you mess around with how closely your characters' best interests and immediate goals lign up, to see the range possible within the rules.
Main point: Before I go further, are you following this thread about blocking, dodging and taking the blow?
-Vincent
Mike Holmes:
Hi Vincent,
Yes, I'm reading that other thread avidly, since it seems to be about pretty much the same thing, if from a different angle, perhaps.
What I get from that thread is this:
My only limit on what's narrated is that whatever is narrated, it cannot be considered to be the end of the contest. So in my example, if I narrated finding the treasure, that doesn't mean the conflict is over.
But it does mean that I found the treasure, right? We're not going to later have to explain how my character somehow forgets about the treasure? I assume I'm right because, again, no stakes. Meaning that it's OK for me to obtain what I'm after through narration.
Yes, of course, in following rounds more narration might reveal that, in the case of the grabbed ring, that I then lose that ring. But that's not the point of the conflict, it's only to determine who gets to negotiate with the stick, right?
But... OK... that's one way I could understand the system. But it seems to me that it's contradicting the threads in which you say that if a player does not give, that the other player doesn't get what they want. Now, certainly they don't get their proposed deal. But does the narration that's gone by already stick? Or do we have to counter it in order to make that something that's not gotten, too?
Example:
Round 1: I win, narrate my character getting the ring.
Round 2: You win, you narrate getting the ring back.
Round 3: I win the round and narrate getting the ring back again from your character, and win the overall contest.
Now we go to Negotiation, and there are two ways to play that I can see:
A: I now get to negotiate with a stick, but even if the player is determined to take the hit, and not accept my terms, I still get the ring, because we narrated me getting it during the contest.
B: I now get to negotiate with a stick, but if the player is determined to take the hit, we must narrate that I lose the ring, because that's what he was saying, "ONYDYA" about, and I can't get that if he takes the injury or exhaustion.
Again, in multiple examples it seems like you're saying both of these things. Here it seems like you're saying A is right. In the thread with the ring example, it seems like you're saying B. I'm not saying a dichotomy does exist, but that it seems to, from what I've read.
Mike
lumpley:
A is how the game works. B is not. If I have the ring at the end of round 3, and I win round 3, I have the ring AND the stick.
You remember when I first answered about the ring? The question I answered was "if, through all three rounds, nobody grabs the ring, and we just leave it lying in the mud, and then I win the third round, and the loser insists I injure him instead of negotiating that I get the ring, do I get the ring anyway?" The answer is "no, it's lying in the mud where you left it, right? Go pick it up if you want it, you may have to fight him off again." That doesn't imply B or contradict A at all.
So, A. But we have to clear up narration. Like I say in the other thread, the answerer, not the winner, says what happens.
Your example as written is valid if all three rounds are upsets against the challenger:
Round 1: You challenge, I win, I narrate my character getting the ring.
Round 2: I challenge, you win, you narrate getting the ring back.
Round 3: You challenge, I win the round and narrate getting the ring back again from your character, and win the overall contest.
Supposing that in all three rounds the challenger wins, though, your example would look like this:
Round 1: I challenge, I win, you narrate my character getting the ring.
Round 2: You challenge, you win, I narrate your character getting the ring back.
Round 3: I challenge, I win the round, you narrate my character getting the ring back again from yours, and I win the overall contest.
This super matters. In the other thread, you know how I say that whether to take the blow, or block it, is the answerer's call? That's the difference between me having the ring and me not having the ring. In my second example round 3, you are under no mechanical obligation to narrate my character getting the ring back from yours. You MAY be under obligation to do so from the game's fiction's time-space-and-physics (and we can talk about that if you want, but after we get the procedures down).
So here's another possible example, also valid:
Round 1: I challenge, I win, you narrate my character getting the advantage, but -not quite- getting the ring.
Round 2: You challenge, you win, I narrate my character getting the ring, but -only just-, and now your character has the advantage.
Round 3: I challenge, I win the round and the overall contest, you narrate. You can't justify taking the ring away from me on a loss, so you propose a bargain, which I accept or reject and so it goes.
And here's another, also valid:
Round 1: I challenge, I win, you narrate my character grabbing the ring, but mine having yours off-balance and vulnerable.
Round 2: I challenge, I win, you narrate my character punching yours repeatedly (which was my character's action), but yours still holding onto the ring.
Round 3: I challenge, I win the round and the overall contest, you narrate. I'm stomping your character but he's curled up fetal around the ring.
In negotiation, I propose that you just give me the goddamn ring already, but you'd rather be exhausted or injured, so I injure you.
Fine, I say. I stomp you unconscious. No way! you say. I stop you! And off we go again. Notice that a) the situation and our investment in it has escalated, it's not a simple repeat, and b) pretty soon you'll fear for your character and negotiate with me, or die. (After all, I just won 3 straight rounds against you, and that was before I took some of your dice away.)
Take home point: how you get the ring is to seize it when you're the answerer, because that's when you have the narrative authority to do so, and hold onto it until the end.
The answerer is the one with the power to decide things. The winner is the one with the stick. When you answer and win, you're golden (but it's the least likely outcome). When you challenge and win, you try to use the stick to get what you want. When you answer and lose, you get hit with the stick or else give up what you want.
-Vincent
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