head games
Paul Czege:
My current secret design project is a rich setting RPG aimed at longer term play. Thirteen sessions into internal playtesting I'm noticing a vague pattern of player behavior which I don't think is a mechanical problem I need to solve, but which I'm pretty curious about. Examples:
One character is in the employ of an NPC who desperately wants forgiveness from a woman he hasn't been able to find for his own inaction against an injustice a few years ago. He hired the player character to find this woman, and it turns out she is dead. But the player character has come to possess a seed that grew on a plant creature on the grave of the deceased woman, which will instill someone who consumes it with her personality for a time. Well, the player character meets with his employer, tells him the woman is dead, and about the seed, and then proceeds to fake consuming the seed, pretend to embody her personality, and argue that no forgiveness is needed, her own actions against the injustice weren't noble of purpose, but were out of revenge, and that the employer should just get over it.
The player enacted an elaborate head game on the NPC, with no real purpose, and which wasn't particularly creative or dramatic.
Another character is employed by an NPC who reveals that he wants a specific woman killed and then tasks the player character with the murder. Well, the player has his character intentionally flub the murder attempt. Then he makes an inquiry into the life situation of the intended victim, finds out she believes her deceased husband still might be trying to harm her, and starts an unfocused, low energy investigation of the husband. When he ultimately goes to confront his employer, the character he actually knows wants this woman killed, he attempts a bunch of weird head games on him. He suggests the employer's other employee might have been the one to flub the murder attempt. And then he suggests he's arranged a meeting between the employer and a friend of the woman he wants dead, because the friend "has information you need to hear". The arranged meeting is a spontaneous invention. He works hard to convince his employer to go to the meeting. But why, when it's not like the friend is actually going to be there, or that the player character is going to drag her there or something. All that he's going to do is confront, and probably fight the employer himself at the meeting. So why the investigations and weird fictions that just pad things out with delays without adding drama?
Do you see players doing these kinds of weird head tricks on NPCs in your games? Do they think it's dramatic? What motivates this stuff?
Paul
Caldis:
I'm getting a hint of a film noir tone to the game, old time detective shows with Humphrey Bogart. Those things always had bizarre twists and turns to the mystery, is it possible the players are trying to create those kinds of scenarios?
Chris_Chinn:
Hi Paul,
Ugh. Yeah, I've seen these, and usually I figure it comes to a couple of things.
First, abused gamer syndrome. There's a ridiculous amount of adventure/scenarios which involve "the big reveal" that the NPC you're working for, is actually evil. It's a pretty piss-poor plot device in rpgs at this point, but it's still common enough that a lot of players have learned to assume that NPCs are either against you or exist to be rescued. Hence the need to keep all info from NPCs as well as subvert any stated goals they give.
The second part of that, is an attempt to sabotage railroading, or at least, make the GM work very hard to succeed at it. "I am a skillful player because I outsmarted your plot and tweaked your nose!" The plots are always convoluted because the goal is to be as opaque as possible with regards to the GM. (Also, notice that these things are always a social mind game, something that for a lot of traditional games, you don't have to worry about mechanics getting in the way of this hustle.)
Obviously, if you're not playing a game that has either of these things going on, it's a very "Um what?" moment.
I remember a few years back, running a Legend of the Five Rings game, in which everyone wanted to play the sneaky, intrigue-y Scorpion clan. The player who was most enthused, and also very familiar with the setting, decided to play a character totally against type- honest, straightforward, cast out from his family, etc. etc.
I assumed the player either a) was going to play a tragic character against the world or b) had a really sneaky plan to use his honesty to outwit the problems.
Instead, he proceeded to do all that weird convoluted stuff, not at all focused on his stated goals in any way, and was both confused and frustrated when I followed up on all the plot hook/problems he set up for himself during character creation. The rest of the players were also wondering where he was going with it as well, and he ran out of the room in frustration at one point. I never managed to get him to articulate what he wanted or what he was trying to do in the game.
Overall, I see this kind of stuff as the example in the flesh of the problems of long term play under Illusionism, especially when it's promoted as the ideal method of storytelling. For players who want character agency, it builds up more and more frustration and the only coping mechanism most have developed is bizarre acts in the fiction that are "unreadable" as a form of "gaining agency" (or, the illusion of it).
This is one of the major issues I was thinking about during the giant kerfluffle about White Wolf play impairing the ability to create and interact with stories and fiction in a normal sense- people lose the ability to either trust the fiction presented to them as well as the ability to communicate honestly and clearly their own fictional input, and often, the thought processes or motivations in play.
Chris
Cliff H:
I run into this stuff a lot. The player who's the main perpetrator doesn't usually go so far out of his way as either scenario you describe, because he doesn't want to be responsible for intentionally derailing everything, but he does have a serious love of playing head games with my NPCs, and in some cases they're both elaboate and time consuming.
In his case, I'm pretty sure the reason is that it's his way of establishing superiority. He likes to be better than others, but unlike many people, has no particular interest in being the toughest fighter around. His characters are routinely frail and borderline incompetant when it comes to violence.
But put him in a social situaiton, and he's a terror. He loves to fast talk, and pairs excellent role playing with solid character builds to back it up. While he uses this to help the party, he also can't resist getting a "neener neener" moment on any NPC of importance. Where one of my players needs to beat down every even mildly hostile NPC, this one needs to out manipulate those with any kind of power.
I've taken it as quasi-gamist play, with the objective being establishing superiority over those who aren't immediatley subservient. Might your player be trying something similar. In the last situation you mention, for example, the character could just throw down with the employer, but by tricking him first he gets one additional kind of victory over him, besting him twice and proving himself that much better.
David Berg:
Hi Paul,
Responding to fictional situations in non-obvious ways sounds creative to me. In the right games, I've had immense amounts of fun doing exactly that. "Okay, GM, now what?" When the GM's enthused about that, the results are dramatic and interesting, with a nice "yes, and" vibe developing.
In my own case, head games were a natural (to me) offshoot of the fictional positioning. If my main leverage is an information advantage, one of the most fun things to do with that is to trick people. Caring that much about what NPCs know and believe also seems in keeping with a focus on "rich setting". Throwing around monkey wrenches to see how the world reacts is a nicely interactive form of setting exploration.
Without knowing anything else about your secret design project, it sounds to me like you just need to give the players more incentive to do whatever it is you wish they were doing instead of playing head games. Either that or help make the head games fun. (Or your players are just dicks who refuse to engage with the actual game, but I assume you wouldn't be posting this if you thought that was the case.)
Ps,
-David
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