Finding the violent muse

[maddman75]

My girlfriend is feeling like she's in an RPG rut. She typically plays characters that are empathic caregivers or airheads. Both of these are lots of fun, but wants to expand her roleplaying chops to well, a more violent character.

So for our new Hunter game, she made a teenage barfly with fake IDs, lots of gun skills (intending to be a gun nut), and took Wrath as her vice. However, she finds herself falling back to her old sympathetic ways. Part of it may be my fault, as the monsters they faced so far have been a bit sympathetic.

How can I help her ratchet up the violence? They're headed to a small town in Missouri now, and I was thinking of a necromancer stealing souls and animating zombies. Give her some nice unambigious evil to blow away.

Any advice on helping a player become more violent? To be honest, not a problem I've had before. : )

[KidSnide]

Originally Posted by maddman75

Any advice on helping a player become more violent?

Several good choices:

1) Use villains that push the character's buttons, either through their background or by doing something in the adventure (like threatening someone who the character cares about).

2) Use villains that push the player's buttons. At least in my social circles, threatening orphans or libraries makes a villain instantly irredemable. For true ickiness, use villains who are creating a library made from orphans.

3) Use villains who do evil things, beg for mercy/forgiveness/understanding, and then take advantage of the character's empathy to perform even greater evil. If you really want to pour it on, have the villain mock her for being so guillable. As far as I can tell, everyone hates being taken advantage of and very few peopel can keep their cool when it's rubbed in their face.

-KS

[Theroc]

Not familiar with the system or your world, but if the majority of the world is hostile and oppressive, her character is more prone to falling into her vice, 'fighting fire with fire'

On another note: You can be sympathetic yet violent as well. She only because extremely violent when pressed... like a deeply buried, but very hot rage which she works hard at suppressing.

[Dannyalcatraz]

Humans are pretty disgusting killers when they set their (deranged) minds to it.

Watch a few episodes of Criminal Minds or some true crime shows like The First 48, New Detectives, Forensic Files or Crime 360.

Use what you learn from those shows to design BBEGs that push her buttons- baby killers, family annihilators, sociopaths, and so forth.

[Qwillion]

Opponents without a single redemptive quality is usually a good place to start. Yet really you want here to hate or fear such an oppoenent, you can do this by making it personal.

Have someone who steals from her personally (a favored signature item), uses it to blacken her name, taunts her with it, gives it back but broken.

A Rival is also another opponent that she can hate, someone who takes advantage of that sympathy so she will never want to be used like that again....then again I am evil.

[Asmor]

I'm going to suggest a different tack: betrayal.

Find something that she has a hard time hating. Repentant little-girl vampire, something like that.

Then after the character rescues the monster, it waits for an opportune moment and attacks.

Being betrayed by someone you trust can be a very, very powerful thing.

[RangerWickett]

More rudimentary, I suggest you have her listen to lots of rock and metal before each game. Make sure to include one or two tracks from the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack.

And if you design 'combat encounters' -- as in, this is a scene intentionally filled with combat, with lots of action -- it's pretty easy to get into the action movie mindset.

When you're a pugilist and there are plenty of interior windows in an office building, how can you not shove a guy through a window? If you're a gunfighter and you come upon a villain in a warehouse full of smuggled automatic weapons that in mere minutes will be delivered to a terrorist cell, I mean, it's just your proper civic duty to snatch an AK-47 out of one of those crates and fill the air with the thunder of your righteous fury.

[Celebrim]

The majority of players I have played with have a very hard time playing anything but themselves. That doesn't mean that they are bad roleplayers, just that they have somewhat limited range. So, if your friend has a hard time becoming truly violent in her characterization, it on the whole says good things about her. It's also not at all unusual. I'd say 80% of role players have a hard time playing someone with radically different emotional structure and beliefs than themselves (and generally have less fun when they try to).

First, let me say that before their were role playing games, if you looked up the term 'role playing' in a suitably broad dictionary or encyclopedia you would have discovered that the term was almost exclusively used to refer to psychology treatments intended to help a patient modify their real behaviors and attitudes. I don't want to sound like Jack Chick here, but it can't really be helped, so here goes: do be careful with this sort of thing. If the player has a hard time modifying their role play to act out anything other than themselves, be careful about how you push them. Role playing can if you are not careful become an unguided inadvertant behavior modifying pyscho-therapy. If she pushes herself into violent behavior while she's used to doing strong self-identification with the character, you can end up with that roleplaying expressing itself when they are out of character. I've seen it before. It's usually not a big deal, and usually if your friend can be gently reminded that they are being their character it goes away.

Ok, so that paranoid bit out of the way, you do this in one of two ways - just like you would if you were role playing in pyschotheraphy or else by teaching the person method acting. Or more likely because this isn't some formal course work and you are trying to have fun, by some ad hoc combination of both.

One of the first things you have to do which I don't think your friend has done is to imagine why this character is angry and why they want to lash out, intimidate, and hurt things. Then after carefully imagining why the character is angry, they have to build that anger in their mind and feed it - in exactly the way that you wouldn't feed a real anger. Your friend needs to in every situation in the game look for how she can relate what is going on to the source of her anger.

My advice is to give her some unambigious evil things to blow away not just because it will help her be angry, but because it will help her drop the anger or pack up her 'angry toy' when shes done with. That isn't always an easy thing to do, especially if you play with the toy regularly. Contrary to popular belief, an outlet like this for venting does not in fact make one more in control and less angry otherwise. She's fighting I would guess against her own reasonable psychological constraints for expressing anger (unless she's a person who is prone to being subservient and supressing her desires, in which case a little expressive training might be a good thing). In order to get around her minds defenses, she has to build this alternate persona that she is clearly labeling 'pretend' and then find a way to enjoy that anger release.

One way to do that is let her be the DM for a while. It's alot easier to do this when you don't have a strong identification with the character or with the character's success, and when you are switching roles all the time.

[Logos7]

Originally Posted by Celebrim

modify their real behaviors and attitudes. I don't want to sound like Jack Chick here, but it can't really be helped,

Not to derail, but this is . It was when Plato said it (as an excuse for facism) and it was when Jack Chick said it, and it was when you said it.

Althought Role Playing may be used as a tool in therapy, even therapy with behaviour modification as its goal, Role Playing does not in some way 'that can't really be helped' change you behaviour by itself. I would say that behaviour modification therapy changes behaviour and only then sometimes, if it is used sensically and in line with what we know about behaviour. I dont think the part if gonna magically do better than the whole. I dont think you learn anything playing these games, not even subliminal how to deal messages , because surprisingly its a ing game (or video game or power, or reinactment, fu plato).

[Celebrim]

Logos7: Ok. I hear your scorn, and I expected it. The problem you have, if you are in fact addressing me and not your audience, is that - as I said - to make your argument stick you'll have to convince me that I have not experienced what I believe I've seen and experienced.

But if you are just addressing your audience, then I'm sure your act of self-righteous indigination has earned you brownie points with someone.

[Rel]

First up, Logos7, thanks for testing the profanity filter. We appreciate it and you can stop now.

As to the OP, I think that you rather than immediately trying to push this character's violence into high gear you could let it evolve. What if you present another villain who has some sympathetic qualities and she lets them off easy? What if that villain then goes on to commit even worse crimes than they did before? Could the knowledge that she had it within her power to destroy this monster and lives would have been saved push her to be more hard core in the future?

Could be an interesting journey for the character.

Then again, I know you tend to run a lot of mini-campaigns so I dunno if your setup allows for this sort of thing in terms of time.

And say hi to Shell for me! Hopefully I'll get to see you guys at GenCon this year!

[Aus_Snow]

Sit her down in front of some violence porn, and turn it on. This, I hear, does wonders for such. . . delicate issues.

In particular, a bunch of things (whether TV episodes, movies, animated stuff or whatever does it for her) featuring kick-ass - but somewhat sensitive! - chicks blowing away guy after girl, after. . .

Or there are books! Books can work too, um, according to some.


But quite honestly, she sounds far too sane (i.e., a real sweetie; aww ) for what most gamers probably see as 'normal' roleplaying (e.g., violence - and quite possibly theft, burglary, vandalism, arson, slander. . . - being way high on the list of Things To Do.)

[Nifft]

1/ Violence against stuff, rather than against NPCs. Perhaps she'd be more happy destroying buildings while leaving people standing.

"That radar array / robot prototype / geomantic menhir ring is a vital strategic asset, but it's fallen into the hands of the enemy! You must terminate the asset with extreme prejudice, and perhaps with a sledgehammer."

Arson is just as fun as murder!


2/ Try conflict without violence. Pick up some social combat rules and see how you can fit them into the game, or adapt the Skill Challenge rules to encompass debate -- as in, opposed rolls rather than just rolls against a static DC, and rolls made by competitive, trash-talking NPCs rather than against an indifferent environment. See if you can get her to enjoy winning, because hat's half the fun of violence anyway. She's been avoiding both conflict and violence, but there is no necessary coupling between the two.

What is best in life? To triumph over your political rivals, see their proposals shredded before you, and hear the lamentation of their constituency!


3/ Non-lethal combat. Duels to the first blood are just as tactically interesting as duels to the death, but nobody has to die. Use the Bloodied condition to represent "first blood" if you wish. Might make her feel better about stabbing people.

It's low-commitment violence: the anti-social equivalent of "let's get coffee some time".


Cheers, -- N

[StreamOfTheSky]

1) Read the Marquis de Sade's Justine.

2) Recreate that world in your campaign.

3) Make her regret every act of kindness she ever does, royally, until she's a bitter, angry hollow shell of the human being she once was.

4) Profit?

[pawsplay]

Develop a sympathetic antihero character, one of the "good guys" who is on the right side and wants to do the right thing, but pushes things too far... then turn them on the PC and level the NPC's full measure of moral judgment, bigotry, and severity. For instance, let her have a somewhat friendly interaction with the local sheriff, then have him run into her while she's in the bar... he invites her outside for a stern talk and then beats the snot out of her with his backhand for drinking underage and living a "trashy life." Later, let him be implicated as being a dupe of the Big Bads, and when he discovers the pit of evil driving events, let him not repent but instead embrace his doom and try to take everyone down with him.

Sadism tends to frighten. I think judgmentalism and bullying actually make people more angry.

EDIT: Bonus point to consider: Are you setting the bar? How much Wrath are you willing to display in your villains?

[Aeolius]

Watch "Sweeney Todd" for a bit of inspiration.

[maddman75]

Thanks for all the tips! Here's my thoughts

- I opened the game with some Dread-style questionnaires. I might do a couple more and ask everyone what sets them off, what gets them angry.

- As far as winning, I think that may be part of the problem too. She's got a lot of social skills and a fair amount of research skills. So she likely can and does 'win' by those routes. Need a less ambiguous situation.

- The betrayl of someone that she showed mercy on is great - especially if it hurts one of the other PCs.

- The game is Hunter: The Vigil, and one of the themes is that those who hunt monsters risk becoming monsters themselves. A Hunter that has gone over the edge might make for a great adversary.

- I'll be sure to tell her hello, Rel. And I don't want to hear any excuses about GenCon next year!

[Oni]

How much are you rewarding her more sympathetic approach to things?

If you want to reinforce her character concept, then reward (at least in the short term) actions that reinforce the concept and punish (though I would recommend how being careful about overdoing it) actions that are against the concept.

As for what she can do on her end, well this might sound flippant, but if she wants to play a more violent character, then all she needs to do is have her character act more violently. The best you can tell her is not to worry about the consequences, or winning and losing, and just play the character she envisions.

[Canis]

Originally Posted by Oni

As for what she can do on her end, well this might sound flippant, but if she wants to play a more violent character, then all she needs to do is have her character act more violently. The best you can tell her is not to worry about the consequences, or winning and losing, and just play the character she envisions.

I had a similar problem a ways back. I tended to think about everything in game a LOT. Actually, I do that in general, but I digress.

Tell her to try NOT to think. Just have the character do the first thing that pops into her head, before she has a think about its consequences.

Alternatively, take a "What would Worf do?" approach. Honorable, but definitely violent. But it allows you to think and ratchet up the butt-kickery.

[cmbarona]

Others have suggested movies, so I'm going to recommend Sin City here. Especially "The Hard Goodbye" with Marv. It does a great job of portraying the way a gritty, violent psychopath interacts with those in his way.