the preservation of antagonism
Paul Czege:
I was thinking over the weekend about various ways that games preserve antagonism (in the form of significant antagonist NPCs) from untimely ruin. Of course not all games are concerned with the kind of story arc that husbands its antagonists for a thematically satisfying conclusion. I've played trad games that let the chips fall where they may; if someone manages to soak the evil wizard in burning oil, well, he's dead, regardless of what the GM had planned for him. And I've played nar games that simply whip up a thematically satisfying climax and conclusion from whatever's still standing at that point in the game. But when a game concerns itself with the preservation of antagonism it seems to me it does it in one of four ways:
1. It makes the antagonists really tough, in hopes they endure until the end. (And maybe there's some tacit support for the GM fudging results so they do.)
2. The mechanics have a threshold that must be crossed before the game can have a climax involving the main antagonist. My Life with Master and Extreme Vengeance do this. And I think With Great Power as well. Though I could maybe be convinced that With Great Power is actually type #1: the antagonist just starts with an overwhelming advantage.
3. The game mechanics enlist the players in appreciation of the value of the antagonist as a force that protagonizes their characters, and so there's player investment in the preservation and usage of the antagonist. Often, but not always, this is done by giving players some control over NPCs, including the antagonist.
4. The game has some sort of genre convention, or in fiction constraint. Most superhero games fall into this category.
Am I missing some other major way that games do this? Also, I'm particularly intersted in type #2 and type #4 games. What are our other type #2 and type #4 games?
Paul
agony:
Interesting topic.
Other #2 games include:
-Geiger Counter: The Menace cannot lose dice until has reached its maximum threshold
-Dust Devils: You must enter the End before you can be removed
I think it could possibly be worthwhile to discuss whether the preservation of antagonism is in fact necessary, but that's not really suitable to this thread.
Moreno R.:
Hi Paul!
The way The Shadows of Yesterday do it (to kill a major antagonist, you have to enter BDTP and risk the death of your character) could be seen as a different category, or as a particular case of #2...
In the 4th category, as "fiction constraint", you would consider even setting constraint? (as for example, in Ars Magica, the Order of Hermes law that prohibit enemy covenants to destroy each other). Often they were rather crude and force-based ("don't destroy the GM's toys or he will have the entire setting come after you, HARD!) and difficult to use with players who didn't care to learn anything about the setting.
In Jonas Ferry's "One Can have Her" the GM can veto any conflict that has as stakes the death of a character's named enemy, but it could be said that in that game the true opponents are the other player's characters (and any player can veto the death of his own character as stakes in a conflict), and no Player character or Enemy can be killed without using a conflict with that as stake. It's the most explicit (as "in-the-rules") matter-of-fact protection of any guy someone designed as his "enemy" that I remember at the moment without having the enemy protected by some endgame conditions as in MLWM.
Christoph Boeckle:
Hi Paul
Care to share some experiences that could inform us on why you appreciate a type more or less? Also, how do you analyse antagonism in GM-less games and in Polaris in particular?
Michael S. Miller:
With Great Power... definitely falls into #2. The villain's Aspects explicitly CANNOT be devastated (that is, affected in any lasting way) until the final space on the Story Arc is filled.
The old TSR Marvel Super Heroes game had an easily-missed rule that any supervillain could spend 50 karma points to escape certain death. I'd put this in your category #4, primarily.
I'd say that Extreme Vengeance bridged #2 and #3, because players got XP for rolling more dice against the bad guys AND for having the bad guys roll more dice against them. Even though players had no control over NPC villians, they got more points the longer the bad guys could put up a fight. A great idea that was, unfortunately, extraordinarily tedious in practice. Someone had to write down every die roll in the game!
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