What Does Sharing Narrative Control Show?
Callan S.:
Hi Cliff,
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When they went just as badly, I must have gotten a look on my face, because one of the players started pointing at me and yelling. "This is not over yet, and you are not ending this campaign! We are going to pull this out, even if a particular person at this table needs to get The Hand of Fate involved. You hear me?"
I was going to just say this is an awesome accolade! A grand result!!
But then the 'hand of fate'? Who's the particular person at the table and what is the hand of fate?
I'll just state my pesimistic fears (which could be wrong and I would actually prefer if they are wrong). Is the hand of fate simply fudging the rules and they are refering to you eventually doing it? Or is the hand of fate some sort of 7th sea mechanic thingie?
Cliff H:
Quote from: Callan S. on January 31, 2011, 11:56:33 PM
But then the 'hand of fate'? Who's the particular person at the table and what is the hand of fate?
You guessed right. "Hand of fate" in this case is his allusion to me having an NPC come in to save their collective butts. I never do this, as I've absolutely hated it when it's happened to me as a player. Normally this group feels the same as I do about it, and in fact a number have said this would be a cheap move. That includes the person asking for it, in fact. They all want a chance to correct course, but if they can't this one player thinks I should make things happen such that they can keep going, as opposed to the captured assassin being tortured into divulging the existence of his order and the 400 year secret finally being revealed to the world which would then precipitate a witch hunt. They don't dispute the plausibility of that world reaction, they just don't want to see it happen and think that if they can't prevent it, I should in this case. Before I do that, however, they want an opportunity to pull their own bacon out of the fire. Only after all is lost should I come in and save the day.
Callan S.:
I would read that as you saving the setting/saving the cool secret order from being unraveled, rather than saving them from losing as players. Which is cool for gamism, AFAICT, as it's just setting repair and not interfearing with the players own win/lose result.
What I wonder is that this is all pretty organic for them so far - as you say, you asked them what they wanted before and they just say 'to have fun' or whatever. They haven't really thought about these things they do as gamist goals or whatever - they just have naturally gravitated to them. Now in terms of the game as I understand it, there is no point in the rules that will say they have lost? I wonder when they will organically come to such a point, how many more battles and twists and turns? I just wonder if they'll undercut their own gamist agenda by continuing to play - because really if you can't die and you keep playing, eventually your going to meet the goal. And if the only thing you can do is eventually win, you've undercut gamism. Or have they already admitted to themselves that they failed the assassin task?
Anyway, did my idea on gear shifting from before seem applicable to any small degree?
Cliff H:
Quote from: Callan S. on February 01, 2011, 12:37:31 PM
Now in terms of the game as I understand it, there is no point in the rules that will say they have lost?
Like many RPGs, there's no specific win/lose metric. Winning is largely a matter of perspective. You move the story forward toward an end, and if you consider how it all turned out a victory, you won. What I'm noticing however, is that the players are invested in the story to a degree, but that what they're actually shooting to win are the smaller, self-made conflicts.
One player steadfastly refuses to let a potentially violent confrontation go without pushing it into a fight, and then will not leave, no matter what, until every last opponent is down. Only when confronted with a virtual god of the setting did he ever consider not pulling steel and going to town. When fights turn against him, he'll push on anyway, even when afforded the opportunity to flee. I believe these small goals, winning big fights, are his win/loss metric.
Another player is far less combat-worthy, but has built up a suave manipulator. He routinely seeks to sleep with any female NPC they encounter. For the longest time I thought that was just him being him, but as I've watched the game unfold with a GNS eye I noticed that he approaches this with what looks like a competitive eye. When they had a particularly bad time at sea, he came back to port, picked up some dice to roll seduction and declared he was making all sorts of raises to land a threesome, because he was good enough to get to ladies at once. Similarly, when he employs his social skills toward other ends, it appears to be largely confrontational or at someone else's expense, universally someone who annoyed him. He's become a slander king. If I introduce a villain, all it takes is one encounter before tales of all sorts begin floating around the globe (because he makes sure to spread them at port where ships can carry them elsewhere). While it looks like he plays a shallow character into debauchery and pettiness at first, I think these are actually his "win" metrics.
In neither case are these provided for in the rules outside of the raw mechanics of task resolution, or combat resolution in the case of the former.
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I wonder when they will organically come to such a point, how many more battles and twists and turns? I just wonder if they'll undercut their own gamist agenda by continuing to play - because really if you can't die and you keep playing, eventually your going to meet the goal. And if the only thing you can do is eventually win, you've undercut gamism. Or have they already admitted to themselves that they failed the assassin task?
The considerations you raise above are exactly why I brought up the idea of removing the safety net from the campaign. I'd put one in for the individual PCs with an agreement that unless I established a scene placed them in "grave danger" (using those exact words), they wouldn't die. I'd hurt them, maybe permanently, but never kill them. I say "grave danger" and death became a possibility. I was asked to remove that and place them in grave danger all the time.
Yet when the assassination mission began to go bad, stray comments here and there began filtering their way to me. How are you going to save this situation? No game this week on account of snow (we've had a lot of that lately), well, you've got another week to figure out how to get us out of that. Etc. I'd come back to them with the idea of removing the safety net from the campaign overall as well as the characters. That is, you screw up badly enough, and the game ends badly for you. I said I wouldn't be specifically gunning for them, but that I wouldn't take specific action to course correct a bad outcome due to player action.
That was not met well. I got everything from "You created a story and we should see it through to the end," to "I think that would lead to a disconnect from games, all of which would be ridiculously short." Maybe it's a matter of trust, since they feel like I do in fact put them in the crosshairs all the time, but if they want that thrill of potential death to be with them constantly, this seems to be a natural extension of that. I'm very seriously considering pushing the issue back into discussion, because I find this assumption that I'll always right their boat more unsatisfactory the more time I think on it. It removes any sense of victory, as you note, and more than that, it takes all responsibility and consequence out of their hands. No matter what they do, no matter how inane the action, it'll all ultimately turn out okay for them. That, more than the potential that the story could come out badly for them, seems like it would create a disconnect from the game.
As to whether they've failed their assassination mission, not yet. Weather's been a bear for us, and we've cancelled twice in a row due to icy driving conditions, so what should have wrapped up two weeks ago is still out there in limbo. We've all got our fingers crossed next week will work out better. No one has high hopes coming into this final phase of the mission, but they do think they have a way to still achieve their objective, if only partially. It'll cost an ally his life, but half the party is inured to that sort of thing, so in the end I think it won't be a rough decision for most. If that fails, there's still the expectation that I do something not necessarily to complete the mission for them, but to keep them out of trouble enough to keep the game going. If one or two people need to switch characters, however (which they freely admit may be necessary), they're okay with that.
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Anyway, did my idea on gear shifting from before seem applicable to any small degree?
It does, though I wonder how that would go over. Any time I've tried to bring up slightly deeper elements of role-playing I get a lot of pushback. One player seems quite interested in those discussions, and he said he's actually learned a lot about his own play style and grown because of it. For everyone else, we go back to "It's just a game Cliff. Play." They're content to come up with their own metrics for victory and work at those. And really, that's fine by me. I just wonder if there's a better way to do it, because with multiple players pursuing multiple divergent goals, it can make for scattered play. Unifying them in a single win/lose campaign goal would be ideal.
A related question: I'm unfamiliar with gamist games in general. Are there any particularly good examples of this design out there?
edited to fix tags - VB
Jeff B:
Cliff - D&D (all versions) is considered a gamist design. In my own opinion, it is more accurate to say "almost all D&D games are carried out in gamist fashion", but I think the more savvy members here would simply state that D&D itself is gamist by nature. So that gives you an easy example (and also a very large straw dummy for battering with narrativist weaponry).
This thread highlights two especially valuable insights (my opinion, of course). One is that vesting the players with control over the adventure gives a huge burst of energy and participation from them. I think this would prove true in general, in any group where players were accustomed to having little control over setting and plot.
Eero identifies the volatile caveat to player control: They feel obliged to make the adventure 'larger than life'. Suddenly they have a chance to make gaming as it should be (in their minds), and they have perhaps no experience at designing a large-scale or high-power adventure. The more ambitious their characters are, the grander the scale of action, regardless of the system's ability to support that level of action. They see it as a shortcut to long-term success, perhaps, and fall into the same trap as any GM who tries to make a single adventure that is far beyond the scope of the "normal". There is simply too much power in play, goals that are too large in scope to be handled in a practical manner, short of creating an entire campaign around those goals.
I enjoy gamist play but would like to see *some* elements of narrativism included, and especially of player involvement (and investment) in the story world. Given the pitfalls of your example, I think it shows the great potential in opening up campaign control to players at different levels.
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