AMMF?
John Adams:
I should be clear that this was an UNSTATED goal of some players in my group. We talked around it for years but never really expressed it as clearly as I did in the OP above. As the GM I was pursuing other goals (usually several at once, to our detriment) so naturally this never had a fair chance regardless of the system we used.
Ron Edwards:
Hey John,
I found another older thread that might be relevant: [Sorcerer] I'm a clueless newbie with broad questions. It's kind of a mess, but we talk about the bad-asses in film and literature on page 2. My point is that they're only excellent bad-asses because they're really Big Softies underneath.
Here, I'll say that's a major contrast to the AMMF character, who is created largely to deny or (most positively) give a little escape from any sort of softness or vulnerability to influences from others.
All of which is to lead up to my response to your very useful post, which is, how often or well have you seen the bad-ass characters go all soft and become even more bad-ass because they cared about someone in the story which, actually, they didn't have to? It may not be a fair question because as you say, the AMMF stuff never did manage to fire on all cylinders in the first place, but I think it's an interesting idea to mull over.
Best, Ron
John Adams:
Jonas Negron was a total bad-ass thief. His character-defining adventure was a solo bit where he seduced the rich and beautiful wife of a Noble in order to steal her necklace. But it turned into something more when he realized how unhappy she was in her marriage and stole her away to another city and married her.
This was by far the exception that proved the rule. For whatever reason my players go out of their way to have NO meaningful relationships. Family? Dead. Friends? Nope, I'm a loner. Lovers? Love em' and leave 'em babe. So why are you in this group of adventurers if you're such a loner? Well, I'm also a TEAM PLAYER. Or some such nonsense.
Why is that? Are they afraid the GM will use those relationships to screw them over? Or is it a clear message (which I always missed) that I don't want the game to be about relationships?
John Adams:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on August 24, 2008, 07:33:05 PM
Here, I'll say that's a major contrast to the AMMF character, who is created largely to deny or (most positively) give a little escape from any sort of softness or vulnerability to influences from others.
Heh. You answered that question before I asked it. Nice.
greyorm:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on August 24, 2008, 04:51:31 AM
In my role-playing experience, people who are committed to the idealized/mutated Conan + Wolverine goal have a terrible time with this. The character is the best. Always. So how can he be forced to "go around" a problem? No way! Coming out on top at the end is not good enough. He has to be depicted and experienced exactly as Conan is at the end of The Scarlet Citadel, all the time.
Yep, I recognize that, and I recognize the "badass Wolverine" archetype as a problem. It seemed to me John was asking how he could go about making the AMMF thing be challenging/insightful-interesting despite already knowing the outcome, which isn't really an answer to the "how do I be badass all the time" problem. On reflection, I think my response was more geared towards Eero's "I don't get power fantasy" and Filip's ideas at dealing with "knowing the outcome" than John's actual issue, so I'll step out unless I have something better to add to his insights/troubles with the ego-play he is describing and ways to deal with it.
And then I immediately realize I believe I do have one relevant bit to add: it seems to me we're just talking about the "Mary Sue" phenomenon as it expresses itself in gaming.
That is, a self-insertion into the story (or by way of proxy via a character who serves) to provide wish-fulfillment for the author. Such a character is usually exceptional, flawless (or nearly so, with all flaws just making them more likable), exotic and/or powerful (beyond the other standard characters), the center-of-attention, easily-fixes-everything-that's-wrong, well-liked by everyone (except the bad guys, and even then, grudgingly respected or feared), and no matter if any of these other traits exist, is always absolutely "lucky" (that is, everything always goes their way as they would want it to).
Mary Sues are bad because they do not allow any real conflict to be provided, and serve only to stroke the ego; they are personifications of perfection: what the individual wishes they were, in a safe world with empty conflict that never actually endangers anyone or anything the individual cares about. The problem with them is that they are illusions: the hard, cold exterior of the "badass" doesn't exist, because it doesn't need to. There's nothing there to actually challenge or upset it, the whole world is a set-up that will never expose the "hard" exterior to anything harder than freshly-spun cotton candy.
But I think it important to note criticisms of the Mary Sue idea and the real dangers of its usage, given its too-broad definition: it's too easy to call everything a Mary Sue that does not conform to our own expectations and desires, and makes it easy to quickly dismiss something as broken/wrong by using a "sophisticated argument" (ie: when we accuse someone of expressing some "obvious" trait or irrational behavior as a form of counter-argument, especially any highly specialized claim, when we disagree with or dislike them without adequately showing our accusation to be true -- it becomes an easy, generalized criticism).
Thus a "Mary Sue" (or "AMMF") is also a simple and irrational way to dismiss a character or plot or whatnot that we personally don't like or want to deride, and is often unfairly used as such: "Oh, that's just a Mary Sue!" or "Ugh. That would only happen in Mary Sue fic." and we don't notice our biases or own faulty logic in supporting that statement or following arguments about why it is. Meaning not all "badasses" are empty caricatures in safe, personalized worlds.
But, I do think the "badass Conan-Wolverine" description Ron provided has a clearer definition than Mary Sue, indicating not just a "macho badass", but a character that exists solely to look badass, all-the-time, never suffers setbacks, and would, if such a setback occured, cause the player real emotional upset and injury beyond what should or could be expected from such a situation (and I think that is the important distinction). Which is unlike the real Wolverine and the real Conan, both of whom are strong, cold, strutting, nigh-unkillable, and also deeply, humanly, flawed characters with human connections and interior struggles as difficult as their exterior ones, which can't be solved by titanium bones, bulging muscles, or a steely-eyed stare -- completely the opposite of a MS or AMMF.
The former--the MS/AMMF--is a problem, even though playing a cool, hard-nosed, (self-)destructive, badass isn't. So, what kind are your players?
You say: Quote
My players NEVER retreat, it's victory or death. Important NPCs are impossible, my players treat the Emporer of Mankind like some guy they met in a bar: "he had better treat me with respect or I'll kill him."
and I've been there: I had one player who thought it fine to mouth off to an ancient dragon, fully expecting that whatever happened, her character would get out of it alive. At the time, I went with it because I thought I had to keep the characters alive because it was expected, but it never felt right. When I started realizing that wasn't what I wanted, that it was boring and broken, and when I expressed that the next game we played would involve no player-coddling and characters would die if it were appropriate because of situation and/or player choices, that player left the group with haste.
And there's the difficulty: MS players will expect that they can and will kill the Emperor if he mouths off to them, while players of the cool badass will expect they can try to kill the Emperor and not necessarily succeed, just as long as they look badass in the attempt.
Or, to return to the Conan example: players of badasses will expect to end up crucified to a tree, biting the heads off vultures trying to kill them, while players of MS never expect they will be crucified to a tree and put into a situation where they really failed, unless they design it to happen that way.
There's the difference: "No matter what happens, I'm cool under pressure." vs. "No matter what happens, there is never any real pressure."
The former is doable, the latter is not.
But I'm not sure there's a way to fix that with "the right system" or "clear expectations", because it really isn't about the system and "I'm really great and cool all the time, watch me be great and cool and have the answer to everything in a snap" isn't much of a game. However, if you can shift those expectations towards the other type, the one where "failure isn't an option" but setbacks are OK and help drive the story, help set the mood, help make the character that much more cool and awesome when he brings down the pain in the final scene, then you have a chance.
You also stated you had one exception that proved the rule, which possibly shows your players can and do want to do something other than a bad AMMF, and can see how to get there, but it seems they might be scared of something jumping in their way: "If I open myself up to injury and failure, the GM is going to hose me with those damn rules of his and destroy my badass image with some aggravating sight gag or humbling moment."
You can't humble the badass: he gets pounded into the dirt, and looks like a badass doing it. He doesn't lie there twitching. He is sprawled heroically, coughing blood and grimacing. See the difference?
Conan gets hit in the head with A GIANT FUCKING HAMMER. And DOESN'T DIE ON THE SPOT. Badass. Then he's NAILED TO A TREE and BITES OFF A VULTURE'S HEAD. Badass. And then he COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD because he's too STRONG and COMMITTED and ANGRY to die. Badass.
What happens in a normal game? Conan gets hit in the head with a regular old warhammer. And his skull is crushed so he drops to the ground. And the cleric heals his lame ass so he can get up and get smacked in the head with a hammer again. And if he ever ends up nailed to a tree? The vultures peck at him until he fails a saving throw from bloodloss and shock and passes out to die, even if he gets to roll to attack the vultures to do 3hp of damage with his teeth. And if the rest of the party can't get there in time to save him, the cleric just casts Raise Dead on him and he gets up like someone turned on a lightswitch. Maybe spends a couple days resting and healing. woo.
That might be fixable with the rules, but it's more how the shared space is being imagined and interpreted by the group and particularly as it is being distributed and colored by the GM in his choice of environments, scenery, and (especially) presented conflicts.
Ultimately, then, denouncing "Mary Sue" or "AMMF" is a cop-out, because it doesn't do anything but label and grouse. You have to go further. The real issue here is asking your players, and being a part of the process, "How can we make Mary Sue interesting?" and asking yourself, "How do I avoid deprotagonizing your concept in the process?"
That is, the player wants his character to be someone who can mouth off to the Emperor, without you hosing him for doing so, because the character wouldn't be hosed or humbled, only given another chance to show off how bad, cool, and strong he is even if he fails to kill the Emperor for trying to humble him. He shows the Emperor and the audience that's the kind of guy he is. That's the concept. You need to be able to run with that: helping the players showing strength and unflinching persistence even when in full retreat, because that's what the player (hopefully) really wants, a chance for the concept to shine without the GM knocking the concept down. Task success is secondary.
Well, that was much longer than intended, but hopefully valuable.
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