I hate compromises
Filip Luszczyk:
First things first.
I've run Mouse Guard again yesterday. This time, the player who previously pointed out we have to agree was absent. One of the players present had no previous experience with Mouse Guard (or anything with similar compromise rules), and he haven't read the manual. The other player had very little experience with other games (a few D&D sessions), and my previous Mouse Guard session was her first (she seems to quickly learn rules through play, though).
We had three conflicts, all of which ended with a compromise. The one time I lost with a compromise, nobody objected to my proposal. Here's what happened the two times they lost with a compromise: I've read their options and gave some examples where explanations were needed. They promptly went with those. So, effectively, those were my contributions.
It was uncomfortable for me. I felt as if I was robbing them of what they mechanically earned in the conflict mini-game. I never feel comfortable when an inexperienced player just takes my suggestion instead of trying to come up with something of their own along those lines. Here, I was particularly afraid they might develop an impression that it's actually always the GM's job to decide.
Now, the thread was developing quite rapidly. At the moment, I'm busy re-reading and re-thinking some possibly relevant APs, and it will take some time composing my responses to some of you. So, I'll start with some shorter answers, leaving the rest of the thread for later.
Callan,
Heh, it's only after I've checked your blog that it struck me we're more like nodding to each other rather than discussing the thing :)
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So what do we do here when individual behaviour is to deny their individual positions, denying whatever physical evidence you can bring to bear, and their individual action is to say it's 'the group' that does things?
Here's what I do. I roll my eyes. Got a better suggestion, I'm sure?
Ben,
This is very interesting.
I've run three campaign of Bliss Stage so far, and most of the persons in question were in at least one of those. The game works remarkably well for us, in general.
Polaris seems like it should work for me, procedurally, but I've only played it a few times and with only one of those particular players, so I lack reliable data. The game clearly isn't very good as a one shot, and the only campaign attempted so far fizzled. Every now and then we consider giving Polaris a shot, but there's always something more immediately appealing to play. It doesn't help that while I like the system, I don't really like what the game is about.
Luke,
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A campaign or two ago, my group got so heated up about a high-stakes argument, it took us another 30 minutes of wrangling to find the appropriate compromise. We had the words of the argument ringing our ears. Everyone knew what was at stake. And the mechanics told us the necessary scale of the concessions. But both sides refused to be generous. We had to toss out some bad ideas and let them die -- let tempers cool and vindicitiveness fade -- before a reasonable option presented itself. It was an intense moment at the table, but ultimately productive.
This. Productive or not, what you seem to describe is something I don't want in my gaming. I can only see it as a failure of the game. Like a video game crashing and returning to the operating system. Or like suddenly going into the debugging console. It feels out of game.
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Well, if you're referring to my designs, the formality of the procedure for compromise is the same as the formality for the baseline resolution procedure -- build context, state what you want from the context, operate the game mechanism, negotiate between all parties to ensure the result suits the context.
Is it possible... and stop me if I'm sounding crazy... that you didn't do it right?
In Mouse Guard specifically, I don't see how it's the same. Perhaps it's coded into other rules in a way that makes it invisible, I don't know. You lost me with that "negotiate" part. I don't see this in any other resolution procedure in this game. Frankly, that's why I find most of those other procedures strong.
I'm sure your mechanics tell you and your players the necessary scale of compromises*. Perhaps in this case the manual doesn't formalize what's going on at your table adequately, however?
I keep thinking how our Burning Wheel and Mouse Guard GM, who's big on podcasts, once noted that there's plenty of actual play recordings available, but none by your group. "I wonder how Luke actually plays this" was a recurring saying at our table. While the procedure in Mouse Guard seems generally clear, the examples provided often seem to only illustrate random bits of it. Other than those, though, we have no way to compare our actual play discourse with yours.
Well, in Mouse Guard's manual there's no example of a compromise at all. I don't know about BE (and I don't have the manual). I'm currently reading BW in preparation for our upcoming Jihad campaign, and while there are some examples, they're very sketchy and focus on fiction rather than what's actually going on between the people at the table. This manual doesn't even explain the scale, it just provides a pretty vague scale. It instructs the players to agree on fiction stuff, when they are likely not to have the same sense of "very minor", "legitimate" and "major" categories. Quantifying fiction is hard!
greyorm:
Callan, you're still putting anyone who can and does do this regularly into some weird/other/abnormal category. That's asinine. And pointless. Because Filip doesn't need someone defending his group as normal and labeling everyone else into the abnormal corner; what he needs is a solution, not repeated insistence that his group is just fine, or isn't fine, or other defenses of or attacks against.
I'm going to repeat myself in paraphrase from earlier: "Other folks can do this, and do so regularly; why can they and how can we use that to help Filip make it work, and better our game texts to account for the issue?"
Note: this is not a sneering, derisive statement of "Well, others can, so why can't you?" that needs righteous defenders of normalcy to leap into action and pat everyone on the head to tell them they're OK and alright and don't worry. It's just cold, hard fact and examination: "This bunch of people can. This bunch of people can't. Why? And how do we use that?" That is all I am saying.
Only a couple of people have come close to examining that. Everyone else has spun off into the atmosphere.
And I think Filip gets to the heart of this question, or perhaps rephrases it, in his post just above: "Perhaps in this case the manual doesn't formalize what's going on at your table adequately, however?"
Luke:
Filip,
Page 90, Passed Tests. "Describe your success or let the GM embellish." Right there, you're negotiating the results in the fiction. Pages 91-92, Conditions of Success. This is the basic building block of negotiated compromise -- you get what you want, but...
These basic exercises are expanded upon in the conflict compromises.
Negotiation is the very heart of a roleplaying game system. Not in a "I roll my Negotiations skill" sense, but in terms of people at the table are jockeying for position at the table, using the system to tell them who has authority over what when.
BWR, BE and MG have been around the block enough, been played so far outside of my group, that this isn't a case of the missing text. People who have never played with me, never even met me, manage these rules just fine. Based on what you said about you presenting options to players and having the players accept the options without discussion, it seems like there's something going on in your group dynamic that is making accepting compromises difficult.
And what you view as a failure of the game, I view as a strength. The players use the game to pound out a space in which very intense, very difficult decisions can be made. The inspiration for these decisions comes from the iterative conflict mechanic, but the nature of the decisions springs straight from the gut. This is vital to my designs. The game can only do much. I want my games to create the space in which you have to make the meaningful decision about the direction of the story before we dive back into the nitty gritty. It's very hard to do in the design of a roleplaying game, I admit.
And if you don't like the mechanics for Mouse Guard and Burning Empires, forget Burning Wheel. It's the loosest of the bunch. There's very little guidance, if any, on how to structure a compelling adventure, let alone on how to come to a compromise.
If you have questions about the rules, you should post over on burningwheel.org
Good luck!
Filip Luszczyk:
Luke,
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Page 90, Passed Tests. "Describe your success or let the GM embellish." Right there, you're negotiating the results in the fiction. Pages 91-92, Conditions of Success. This is the basic building block of negotiated compromise -- you get what you want, but...
I still don't see this. I don't see how this is the same as conflict compromises. I see a very concrete procedure that gives the player a choice between two options. The same goes for the "twist or condition" rule. Options. Buttons. There's no moment to moment group agreement necessary here. We've all agreed to play this here game. The game has these here buttons, pushing them does this and that. At any point it's generally clear who can push which button.
With compromises... there is a button, but there is only a single button and there are two or three or four or more players reaching for it simultaneously. Also, there's this special player who is given a hammer and instructed to smash the button should too many reach at once. Incidentally, the hammer guy is the target here, but in the end, he is the only one who has real say in how the button is used. Well, how is that even a compromise at this point?
I don't see how this is the same.
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And if you don't like the mechanics for Mouse Guard and Burning Empires, forget Burning Wheel. It's the loosest of the bunch. There's very little guidance, if any, on how to structure a compelling adventure, let alone on how to come to a compromise.
Luke, read closely, please. I like Mouse Guard. There are only three things I don't like in Mouse Guard, compromises being one of those, and the only one that poses actual problems in play. In contrast, there are perhaps three things I like in many other games on my shelf.
Burning Empires... never again. However, whether Burning Wheel proves playable enough for my purposes, I'll decide after our Jihad campaign. Note that I purchased BW with hacking in mind, so in this case, I only really need it for spare parts. Specifically, my plan is to run Fading Suns later this year. Initially, Mouse Guard hack seemed like a good idea, but that's a lot of work. When Jihad was proposed, it occurred to me BW already has a lot of the detailed content I need, so it might be easier to just substitute what I don't like with its Mouse Guard equivalents, and to patch subsystems as needed. For now, I need that Jihad campaign to assess actual compatibility.
Also, to be clear. I don't really expect you to be helpful here. I have little trust in you as the designer. Here, my trust ends at the product. All being said, Mouse Guard's manual is very solid, and it proves sufficient in most other respects. If it's not already there, well, if you couldn't put it there in the first place, then I doubt you can help me now.
Raven,
Your posts are next in the queue and I guess I'll try to answer tomorrow.
Luke:
Filip,
I know you're Polish, so I'll let the snark pass.
I admit, I've clearly failed to make the procedure clear to you. But I ask you to reassess your position -- reexamine your habits at the gaming table. The design is functional, clear and important. Why didn't your players step up and offer a compromise of their choosing? And when they failed to hold forth, why didn't you stop and encourage them to utilize their power?
Bad analogies in second languages don't help the matter either.
The whole point of the conflict mechanics in BE/MG/BWR is to build consensus around a specific issue. The mechanics recognize, however, that consensus is unlikely to happen. Thus, the system works to build a context and then stops at a certain juncture and says, "Now you come to an agreement based on these parameters that you've created." Sometimes the result is obvious -- one side wins outright. Other times, the result is nuanced and must be carefully instructed lest the game fiction be disrupted.
It's the same procedure as fundamental roleplaying. The GM says, "You go down this path." You say, "No, we go down another." You discuss a bit and decide which action makes the most sense in the context of the game.
Which builds into rolling dice to overcome obstacles: Later you say, "I do this thing like this!" You roll the dice and do not get the number of successes needed. The GM says, "No, instead you do this thing." You say, "But my guy would never do that." The GM says, "You're right. You do this other thing instead." You agree that that's acceptable and move on.
This is how Mouse Guard is played. There is constant negotiation and compromise. It's easy to overlook this aspect of the smaller, sharper rolls since they happen so quickly and the stakes aren't usually so high.
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