Those imaginary "other kinds" of RPGers
Daniel B:
Hello folks,
I suppose this is more of an "Actual NOT Played" thread, because I discuss a kind of actual play I've NOT ever found myself in, and I'm curious about this.
I've only ever played RPGs with, basically, 3 cliques my entire life as I've gone from elementary school to adulthood, and only ever encountered two types of roleplayers. These roleplayers could be classified as gamists and, I suppose, simulationists? The gamists have always been obvious; they pick the fighter classes, with a little dash of magic if it boosts their overall power, and tend to choose races with high Str mods. The simulationists, if that's what they are, have been interested in exploring setting and colour usually. *Even* in this case, all the players I've ever played with never made obviously self-harming choices for their characters. Almost like "gamists-lite", their end goal is to increase the character's power, though they're willing to not exert themselves so hard towards this goal if it means they can do a bit of exploration. I put myself in this latter category: When I get to play, I virtually always play wizards or spellcasters because, although I love the increase of power, I enjoy the aspect of finding creative solutions to the problems we encounter as opposed to the mindless "hack hack hack" of fighters.
Here's the crux: since visiting the Forge, I've become aware that there may be players who do take actions that are obviously harmful to their characters, for the sake of making the scene or the game more exciting. Although, hypothetically, I think I could find myself in a situation where I would want to do that, it's quite simply never come up. Furthermore, I'm convinced it's never happened in any of the games I've run or played.
Is this the fault of the system? Is it just the groups I'm playing with? Maybe it's a result of only ever having played games where there was a 1-1 relationship between player and character?
Daniel
Lance D. Allen:
So, first question: Is this really about different types of gamers, or is it actually about the practice of making decisions that are harmful to the specific character in service to making the scene more interesting?
Understand that the types of gamer you're talking about are the tried and true types. Narrativism was the new hotness in the indie scene for the longest time, but it was slow in infiltrating the traditional gaming scene as a concept. That isn't to say that the play preference wasn't there; Many massive-story-arc GMs were frustrated narrativists, trying to make the game about something, but feeling they didn't have that power as a player. I'm also a big proponent of the idea that it's been a strong motivation in many coherent free-form communities. However, making decisions in service to 'the story' isn't a purely narrativist concept.
Moving more toward the practice you're talking about, it can be for a few differing motivations. It can even be gamist under certain circumstances (specifically, where there is mechanical reward for harshing your own character). Specifically in the free-form communities, exploration of situation was a very good reason to do this. I allowed my young bardy-roguey character to lose a hand so that I could explore what it'd be like to play a dexterity-based character with only one hand. Now, there wasn't anything mechanical about this, because it was free-form, but it was definitely detrimental to the character. I also 'killed' a character to explore the theme of loss, though it turned out through magical means that he wasn't really dead.
I'm like you. I like my characters to improve in proficiency over time, but that's certainly not in opposition to self-authored adversity. In one of my perpetually in-development projects, player authorship of challenges is a big feature, though that's somewhat different than what you're talking about, I think. I assume you're talking specifically about making the tactically non-optimum decision in the fiction, or maybe in character choices (putting points into Teamster, for instance).
greyorm:
Quote from: ShallowThoughts on April 19, 2009, 09:09:56 PM
Is this the fault of the system? Is it just the groups I'm playing with? Maybe it's a result of only ever having played games where there was a 1-1 relationship between player and character?
I don't think we can say, "Yep, system made that happen" and write it off as-such, but we can't ignore the role of system in setting-up that state of affairs, either. Though mainly I think this is a result of traditional gamer culture, not system, or even 1-1 relationships, wherein the culture has a lot of unstated dysfunction that is presented and adhered to as the acceptable and obvious way to approach play.
Things like "it is the GM's story, you'd better follow it because he worked hard on it and he's hosting/there would be nothing to do if you did not/GASPCHAOS!" and "(you are clearly power-gaming and/or if you can do that you'll ruin my story, so) while your character is sleeping, a bunch of thieves rob him blind" which result in the GM opaquely steering everything back onto a pre-set course for which there is no alternative or hosing the player through their character for being impertinent.
This leads to ingrained responses like "my guy" syndrome and "turtle" behavior, where the player becomes super-protective of the character and their own ability to have a real impact on the game because of the way the games they have been a part of have been run and are expected to be run, so they never do anything that might remotely give the GM an opening to "attack" them.
They know they can't deliberately walk off the GM's planned adventure path to pursue their character's own goals, because the GM's story is the game, not whatever they might want to do with it, and would certainly never make the GM's "job" (of hosing their character and putting them in their place) easier by volunteering themselves to get an extra helping of screwed.
They instead take what little personal control of the game they can have in the tiny moments it is allowed, or that they can fight for, and avoid anything that gives the GM an opening to further assault or push-around their character or reduce/subvert their already limited influence.
I know some folks claim these kinds of gamers/groups/play doesn't exist, but I just spent eight hours with a big, pretty standard group of gamers who talked about all these things as though that's just the way games go, discussing various groups they played in during high school and various ones they play in now. They complained about certain tactics as players one minute, then glorifyied in using those same tactics as a GM the next, and never really saw the problem.
They slung around ideas like "we don't bother with the rules, we just describe stuff and the GM decides if it happens, because that's REAL role-playing!" followed by "but such-and-such a game has the best system for intrigue and stories" (and failing to notice the disconnect); also "everyone wants me to GM because they say I write the best stories" (the GM's planned plot-story is the game) with "I can't believe he tried to tell us what the game would be about" (again, fail); and "there was this stupid guy in our group who kept telling me 'I search the brush to find a bag' and always told ME what he wanted! So I showed him" (completely failing to see a player engaging with the game environment as an excited co-creator, and ensuring they would never try to have input again) and "but this other guy is the only one who really likes to describe things and get into character and do interesting things" (again).
Now, I simply gritted my teeth and bore it quietly, because previous attempts with these guys to segue into a conversation about how there other ways to run a game, or ways to avoid the problems they would complain about then praise (or even attempts to ask why they were using tactics they hated), have been met with disbelief backlash the level of a fundamentalist Christian responding to the idea that something might be more fun than/as acceptable as the missionary position and that homosexuality isn't perverse.
But all of that is traditional gamer culture--they didn't sound any different than any other traditional gaming group I've played with or hung out with and swapped gaming stories with over the past two-and-a-half decades I've been playing--and I think its a good part of the reason you see that behavior you're commenting on of players never harming their own character or putting themselves in a position to have their effectiveness injured or pride or input punished/demeaned.
System does have a bit to do with that, I think, in that many traditional systems only reward you for growing more mechanically powerful and for tactical/strategic thinking in overcoming obstacles, neither of which is served by injuring or penalizing your own character during play (especially given that the GM is already doing that "for" you) -- and also not by providing any rewards for developing an interesting narrative and exploring human issues complete with rising action and (narratively-fortunate) setbacks, especially in that environment (where overcoming obstacles and clever tactical thinking or puzzle-solving is the point of play).
Quote from: Wolfen on April 19, 2009, 11:31:59 PM
It can even be gamist under certain circumstances (specifically, where there is mechanical reward for harshing your own character).
An interesting form of Gamism might be Stepping Up to see "oh yeah, just how bad did your character have it? MY character had it so bad..." I haven't played Drowning & Falling, but from what little I've read of it, it seems to be a game where how badly your character is hosed is one of the most desirable and fun parts of play.
Which I only mention because Gamism isn't only about mechanical rewards and punishments, just goal-related success and failure, whatever that particular goal might happen to be, and whatever happens to matter to the people at the table in relation to the people at the table.
Possible illustrative case: I think the one time I played At Death's Door at Forge Midwest, I played it very Gamist (too much so, on reflection, and I think it spoiled my experience in some ways). I was trying to win narratively, to have the story go my way, or be the best story there with the character being just who I wanted him to be. But I wasn't thinking along Narrativist lines--I wasn't thinking about how best to do story right now--instead I was thinking in terms of the people at the table as they related to me and my performance: was I good enough to narrate this stuff and produce the same quality and impress them/myself? Will this do it? And also could I win my Situation (not, could I make it interesting, could I WIN it) by making sure it happened?
Tying that back to Daniel's question, I think one of the reasons you don't see players hurting their own characters in traditional gaming is because there is a large element of Gamism therein, and there's nothing in the game play itself--not as a point of esteem or envy between the people at the table, and ignoring as toothless any systemic attempts to add those things like Flaws and such mechanics--that rewards such behavior, so the players don't even think of doing it.
Daniel B:
Quote from: Wolfen on April 19, 2009, 11:31:59 PM
So, first question: Is this really about different types of gamers, or is it actually about the practice of making decisions that are harmful to the specific character in service to making the scene more interesting?
...
Specifically in the free-form communities, exploration of situation was a very good reason to do this. I allowed my young bardy-roguey character to lose a hand so that I could explore what it'd be like to play a dexterity-based character with only one hand. Now, there wasn't anything mechanical about this, because it was free-form, but it was definitely detrimental to the character.
...
I assume you're talking specifically about making the tactically non-optimum decision in the fiction, or maybe in character choices (putting points into Teamster, for instance).
Indeed, it's those non-optimum decisions that interest me. Now that you mention it, I have seen these types of decisions made in free-form communities and in MMO games. I suppose any type of game-playing that doesn't specifically power up the character, even including simple idle in-character conversation, is an example of this type of game playing. Your one-handed bard-rogue sounds to me like a fun character to play.. but were you able to get away with it only because the game was freeform? If you had been forced to accept a serious mechanical penalty, would you have stuck with the character? I'm not sure I'd have been comfortable with that.
Quote from: greyorm on April 20, 2009, 04:05:20 AM
This leads to ingrained responses like "my guy" syndrome and "turtle" behavior, where the player becomes super-protective of the character and their own ability to have a real impact on the game because of the way the games they have been a part of have been run and are expected to be run, so they never do anything that might remotely give the GM an opening to "attack" them.
...
But all of that is traditional gamer culture--they didn't sound any different than any other traditional gaming group I've played with or hung out with and swapped gaming stories with over the past two-and-a-half decades I've been playing--and I think its a good part of the reason you see that behavior you're commenting on of players never harming their own character or putting themselves in a position to have their effectiveness injured or pride or input punished/demeaned.
System does have a bit to do with that, I think, in that many traditional systems only reward you for growing more mechanically powerful and for tactical/strategic thinking in overcoming obstacles, neither of which is served by injuring or penalizing your own character during play (especially given that the GM is already doing that "for" you) -- and also not by providing any rewards for developing an interesting narrative and exploring human issues complete with rising action and (narratively-fortunate) setbacks, especially in that environment (where overcoming obstacles and clever tactical thinking or puzzle-solving is the point of play).
I certainly can't write off the influence of gamer culture, but I'm skeptical that it has had a noticeable effect on the people I've played with. We don't really interact with the gaming community at large (at least, most of them don't, and I didn't until I started doing research for an RPG project.) I've heard of stories of turtle behaviour, but I don't think I've ever actually seen this kind of behaviour, at least towards the GM. I'm hoping this is a sign that myself and the people I've gamed with are at least half-decent GMs. In my case, I learned very early on not to try and direct the stories; I was a very shy person in the old days and my friends at the time were strong-willed (..not in a negative way, though we did get into a couple of good scraps over rules-interpretations).
If anything, I have seen turtle-behaviour result between the players themselves. In a disturbingly recent game, one player was controlling a fighter and another a thief. The players have long had a certain amount of tension between them because of their differing opinions on how to play, and at one point they had a disagreement over what to do next. The fighter's player simply asserted his position, using his character's physical superiority as leverage. The player of the thief simply had his character wander away, which made things a lot more difficult for me as a GM. (As I mentioned, I don't like to control the game as GM; there was no Hand-of-God preventing him from wandering away.)
To give this context with the thread, the fighter's player is a gamist through-and-through, while the thief's player enjoys being clever (be it through manipulation of environment, situation, or NPCs). The latter player is also more like me, preferring to savour the game content versus plowing through it. He would be the type to make less-than-optimal decisions if he decided it was the fun thing to do. However, despite this, he has never actually made a less-than-optimal decision in a live game, even those games that the Gamist-players didn't attend. There seems to be something more restrictive in pen-and-paper RPGs, or something more dangerous, that has driven our players to play not sub-optimally even with our GMs being open to the idea.
Quote from: greyorm on April 20, 2009, 04:05:20 AM
Tying that back to Daniel's question, I think one of the reasons you don't see players hurting their own characters in traditional gaming is because there is a large element of Gamism therein, and there's nothing in the game play itself--not as a point of esteem or envy between the people at the table, and ignoring as toothless any systemic attempts to add those things like Flaws and such mechanics--that rewards such behavior, so the players don't even think of doing it.
This is slightly tangent, but your comments on the rewards or lack thereof in traditional systems are interesting, and a question occurs to me; I don't know why it didn't before. Why would one need to be rewarded for doing what one enjoys? Hypothetically, the fun of the activity should itself be the reward. If I were to play a one-handed bard-rogue, I would do it because the idea of playing such a character sounds like fun, rewards be damned. Along this line of reasoning, maybe games like D&D are better for gamists because it provides them with something they enjoy: winning conditions. Gold and XP would simply be validation; i.e. like a little trophy saying "Good Job, you win." By this logic, maybe the reason my players never choose to play sub-optimally is not because this kind of play is or is not rewarded, but because the actual need itself is left unfulfilled??
Opinions? Disagreements?
Daniel
John Adams:
Quote from: ShallowThoughts on April 20, 2009, 11:30:56 PM
Why would one need to be rewarded for doing what one enjoys? Hypothetically, the fun of the activity should itself be the reward.
In a word, Effectiveness. Specifically, the player's ability to play the game is tied directly to the reward cycle; if you run counter to the reward cycle you diminish your ability to contribute to the game.
Also, don't overlook the importance of structure. "Role-playing" is such a wide open concept, without some kind of formal structure you simply can't do it. Players need something to latch onto, a set of cues to guide play, and a lot of that comes directly from the game text. The reward cycle is a natural place for players to hook in, it's a big flashing sign that says "here's what this game is about".
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