Poison'd: cooperative pirates, and fleshing out NPCs?
Ron Edwards:
Do you want me to speak bluntly to you about your GMing?
Best, Ron
Joel P. Shempert:
Go for it.
Ron Edwards:
Hi Joel,
I apologize for the tease. I thought I'd have more time to get back to this yesterday.
GMing balls-out Narrativist games is a lot more like GMing balls-out Gamist games than people realize. The key is adversity, adversity, and more adversity. But unlike Gamist play, the real-world stakes are much more risky.
In a short game I ran a while ago, a female player had a daughter-of-the-Don type character who'd just inherited the leadership of the mob, and I confronted the character with a small group of guys led by her cousin, a guy who felt quite strongly that he should be the new Don and wanted to "teach her a lesson." The dice went a little risky on the player for a bit there, and I realized with a chill that I was possibly about to GM a rape scene. I looked at the player in a kind of "uh oh" way and she looked me straight in the eye and nodded, then picked up the dice with a fired-up look. In a Hero's Banner game Tim ran back in its playtesting days, a female player stated that her character was turning to confront her two armed pursuers in an open, plains/field type landscape. Tim blinked. "You understand ...," he began, and the player nodded. "Of course," she said in a tone which carried an undercurrent of "Don't try to take care of me, I'm totally into this setting and situation, and I'm tougher than you dream." Neither scene actually became a rape situation, but in each case, everyone playing had to grasp that the dice were going to be the primary determinant for yea or nay.
To play a game like this, the Social Contract is not "No one gets hurt." It is the alternative: "I will not abandon you." The first one says the SIS is going to be kept within limits of the group's immediate sensibilities. The second one says that if the SIS hits those limits, we will all go past them together and possibly discover what it's like out there. (Note for clarity's sake: Lines and Veils are details to be managed within either of these larger-scale approaches; I am not talking about Lines and Veils.)
I am frankly unsure whether this kind of play is even on your radar. I saw the same issue in your Cascadia Sorcerer game: as GM, you sought to nurture the characters in what might be thought of as a "story cocoon," and simply did not bring any of the Kickers to bear upon them in terms of raw threat, either emotionally or physically. There was a lot of running 'round the landscape and skirmishing without information or confrontation.
The above paragraph may be completely mistaken, however. I have written about how I committed exactly the same errors quite recently in [The Rustbelt] Kid gloves are the sux. Pussyfooting can trip anyone up at a given moment and I want to point out that I used the word "unsure" literally, not as a euphemism for "I doubt" or for "I am sure," as people often do. It looks clear to me that you softballed them in this game, and in the Cascadia game. I am indeed unsure whether this is a general thing for you or not.
GMing Poison'd is not a skill I have developed. I don't know the game all that well, and have some trouble understanding how to keep the whole laundry-list of "if then" circumstances in my head at all times. The one time we tried to play it, I wasn't GMing, and play sank like a stone before a single resolution was managed. Going strictly off what I can glean from the rules, and from threads like [Poison'd] Trying to understand Currency and Reward Systems, my current call is that Poison'd is exceptionally directed toward this adverse-GM technique - if the GM isn't literally and constantly threatening the very existence of opportunities to fulfill Ambitions, then he or she is falling down on the job.
I'm looking at your narrations of player-character failures in particular. The crew's discontented and they get to vote for captain. Why did you let that solve the discontent? The discontent is supposed to impose nasty, unstoppable pressure upon the Ambitions, not suddenly evaporate. I understand your logic of the moment, that you'd already said they're discontented because they have no captain, so it seems reasonable that getting a captain will settle them down ... but that is bogus logic, and ignores the purpose of the Cruel Fortunes as rules, as I understand them anyway. I think their purpose is to be disasters that specifically negate, block, or otherwise problematize Ambitions right this second. And your way to use those rules is to continue to narrate them as disasters.
I will address that specific example more carefully because I confess I'm a little boggled about how it was resolved mechanically. You said "the crew votes," and I don't remember whether that's a specific kind of rule or not. What I'm saying is that the unanimous election of Red Charlie should become nothing more than another way for them to be discontented, unless I'm missing a mechanic which absolutely and definitively removed that particular Cruel Fortune from play.
I'm on more solid ground with the next example. The guy wants to snip the dude's vocal cords, and fails. What do you do? You narrate that he snips his vocal cords! OK, that's by the rules, right? I'm saying, look again - you inflicted no disadvantage to the acting character. In other words, you narrated a success. It doesn't matter that you gussied it up with a spectral voice. That is what I mean by story-cocooning, always letting the player-characters get what they want and confining adversity to spooky atmosphere. If you use that resolution option, you gotta find a disadvantage that really hammers that player-character hard.
What all this means for players, in my experience, is that they realize their characters are in no particular danger and thus propose negotiatory solutions that keep them away from the dice, which, in such a situation, are all that can hurt them. Whereas if they understand that you, from the get-go and in all ways, are perfectly comfortable with hurting those characters to any extent at all (and in the case of Poison'd, determined to do so), and if they can grasp that insulating their characters is simply not on the table for this game, then they enter into the maelstrom with their knives between their teeth.
I do not want to speculate about personality and psychology particularly. The only bit I can offer in this regard is to refer to a phenomenon called "people-pleasing," characterized by constant adjustments, day by day and moment by moment, to what one is saying and doing in order to gain approval ... or more accurately, not being able to see approval or lack of approval, and maneuvering for it without being quite sure what it would look like. The compulsive pleaser is simultaneously and constantly both cheerful and desperate. My point is that, as with a lot of pathologies, I think any of us can slip into a minor version of it occasionally. I know I can. I do not know whether this applies to you, but I offer it in the spirit of a shoe which you can assess for yourself.
Best, Ron
Ron Edwards:
Hi Joel,
To follow up: I do own a copy of The Dreaming Crucible, and I do think you've struck hard at the I Will Not Abandon You mode of play in it, textually. I've also read your relevant blog posting on the issue. I'm not saying that you personally cannot apprehend that kind of Social Contract or are somehow inadequate or not up to the task of doing it or designing toward it.
What I'm saying is that GMing in this particular context is especially hard to get into and maintain. I don't think that's because it's intrinsically hard as a topic, even socially - to the contrary, I've been a bit alarmed by how well a table can enter into it in contrast to all predictions that "only the best players would do it" or "gee you better watch out so you don't hurt anyone." I think that it simply flies in the face of so much of our training as GMs, and even of internalized values about GMing, specifically that we are responsible for others' safety and enjoyment.
Again, I'm speaking about more known criticism of myself-GMing that of possible criticism of you-GMing.
I would be greatly interested in reading about your experiences in playing the Dreaming Crucible, especially those which resulted in grim endings and how they came about in contrast to those which resulted in happy or maturation-type endings.
Best, Ron
Joel P. Shempert:
Thanks, Ron. I have read and am mulling over your comments. I've been pretty swamped with convention stuff and life stuff and don't have time to process fully or reply in depth. I hope to do that soon.
I'll probably make a second post out of the Dreaming Crucible stuff since if I get thinking along those lines it'll probably be pretty involved.
Thanks for giving me some meaty stuff to think about!
Peace,
-Joel
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