head games
jburneko:
Paul,
I think what you're seeing is a variation on what I sometimes think of as Therapist Play. I'm very fond of anxiety-ridden, obsessive, and guilt-ridden NPCs. Then what happens is that there comes this point in play where the PCs stop taking action and engage in an attempt to persuade, deceive, intimidate or otherwise emotionally manipulate the NPC into giving up his "stupid" emotional dysfunctions. And yeah, it of sucks from a dramatic perspective. It took me a while to figure out what was going on.
Here's the conclusion I came to. The problem is that often these NPCs would make better PCs. But what I end up doing is attempt to have these NPCs *project* their neurosis on to the PCs by asking them for favors or hiring them for jobs that will fulfill their obsessions. Then wonder why the PCs (a) say "No" and (b) turn around and attempt these weird psychological plays to try and get the NPC to "get over himself."
What would be *better* is if these NPCs took clean, directed action *on their own* and let the PCs decide what to do about that. When I catch myself doing the weird psychological projection thing, stop, and course correct into direct action what I sometimes discover is a big gapping black hole of play. Suddenly, I realize that the NPC is either perfectly capable of solving the problem on his own, the resulting problems his actions cause are only of relevant to himself, or his actions will ultimately result in his own self-destruction. Effectively, I'm playing with myself and there really isn't any reason for the PCs to get involved at all unless they decide to buy into the NPCs psychological problems.
Paul, are you GMing these games or otherwise running these "employers"? I would like to make the suggestion that what you're seeing may be the result of you and I sharing this problem.
Jesse
David Berg:
I should amend my last post to note that in addition to using an information advantage, lies are a way to create an information advantage. Confusing your enemies and potential enemies often seems like a good way to stay one step ahead of them while you figure out what to do next. Specifically, I'm remembering a game where my group got the werewolves to think that the vampires were behind the government nuking Staten Island. We didn't know what this would accomplish, but it seemed generally advantageous to hide our own involvement and to get other factions mad at each other or pulling in the wrong directions. The GM responded by having the werewolves hire us to kill vampires. Not exactly what our characters wanted, but as players we loved seeing the consequences of our machinations ripple outward in that fashion.
Paul Czege:
Jesse,
Yes, I'm running the game and roleplaying the NPC employers. And I can see how this may be true:
Quote from: jburneko on March 04, 2011, 02:48:17 PM
What would be *better* is if these NPCs took clean, directed action *on their own* and let the PCs decide what to do about that. When I catch myself doing the weird psychological projection thing, stop, and course correct into direct action what I sometimes discover is a big gapping black hole of play. Suddenly, I realize that the NPC is either perfectly capable of solving the problem on his own, the resulting problems his actions cause are only of relevant to himself, or his actions will ultimately result in his own self-destruction. Effectively, I'm playing with myself and there really isn't any reason for the PCs to get involved at all unless they decide to buy into the NPCs psychological problems.
If so, what's your solution?
Paul
Ron Edwards:
Hi Paul,
Jesse's answer is right there in the text you quoted:
Quote
What would be *better* is if these NPCs took clean, directed action *on their own* and let the PCs decide what to do about that.
This is a big part of playing Trollbabe for me, and also Sorcerer. I'm finding it hard to answer some of Moreno's questions in the Adept forum for exactly that reason. He seems to be asking me about how to keep making Trollbabe players get their trollbabes to buy into NPCs' problems. And I spent pages of text in the book repeating that this is not how to GM, to do X, Y, and Z, in which Z is extreme and desperate action on the NPCs' parts, and let the trollbabe involve herself however she wants to, whenever she wants, including not at all. And there are explicit instructions about how to deal with the latter, all aimed at not trying to force the player, and letting the scenario's chips fall where they may without her, and that's OK.
I think a lot of people GM at two arms' length, or maybe it's better to say, through a double thickness of if's. The first if is whether the PC buys into the NPC's problem. The second if is if the PC does what the NPC wants/tells them to.
I threw out both if's long, long ago. Now I have NPCs do stuff, say stuff, and affect stuff, and I say to myself, fuck the PCs anyway. I don't GM player-characters any more, not one little bit. If they want to do something, they do. Then I only respond mainly by scene-framing, crossing, and weaving, i.e., making paths and effects come into contact with one another to provide maximum opportunity for doing something. But that's all. If they do nothing, I don't stall out. If they do some kind of weird pseudo-mind-game shit, I don't flounder there with them. My NPCs aren't codependent; they're active, and if they get fucked with in the way you're describing, they'll most likely decide they have bigger problems than they were originally working with, namely the player-characters themselves, and take action toward them. This isn't a punishment for the players - it's just the way things go based on what they did or didn't do.
All that said, I do wimp about doing this every so often. My Dice Dojo GMing is often quite poor in this regard, as I described in the Rustbelt thread.
Best, Ron
Paul Czege:
Hey Ron,
I think Jesse lays out the potential play consequence of your strategy as well:
Quote from: jburneko on March 04, 2011, 02:48:17 PM
Effectively, I'm playing with myself...
And I've definitely had that in the current game, when I have handled NPCs as self-directed characters. I've had to roleplay whole conversations among groups of two and three NPCs while players just observed. In one case I had to roleplay a conversation between a woman and her lover who were trying to decide what to do about her deranged husband. It's not un-fun when it happens. But it feels like a weird violation of group expectations somehow.
Paul
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