Should this be fixed

[pemerton]

Doug, thanks for the responses (can't XP you yet).

This seems to be the major difference between your play style and the 'standard narrativistic model' in the article. If I read it right, then in that model the player, during char gen, specifically and clearly chooses the crux of the ensuing conflict.

I think Edwards has in mind a more tightly focused sort of game then the traditional, sprawling, ongoing D&D campaign. One thing I'm trying to get across in this thread is that you don't have to go to funky games or avant-garde play to play narrativist - it's completely viable in classic gonzo fantasy!

In a typical D&D game it's not clear what a player is communicating by choosing the paladin class. Maybe he just likes the idea of being a knight in shining armour and is looking forward to jousting and damsel rescuing, rather than having to choose between his church and his faith, or whatever.

True. But a bit of preplay conversation, plus what the player reveals through play in the first session or two, can go a long way to sorting this out.

Interesting quote from Dogs In The Vineyard, which corresponds strongly with what pemerton has being saying

Yep.

In another thread you talked about Pendragon being drifted towards narrativism and I see now how that could easily happen, by using Passions.

That makes sense.

I'm pretty sure [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] means Exploration as defined in the Big Model.

Yep.

 

[Hussar]

But extreme's just another label, isn't it? One that will have repercussions. What's the big deal with having one more? So far, based on your posts and if I were to try to describe this in 4e power terms, I think we can put descriptors on the power "Act of Terrorism" of extreme, illegal, and violent. All of those will be certain to bring on negative consequences in a campaign run with any verisimilitude. Why's attaching evil as a descriptor railroading while the others are not?

Well, the big deal would be that point of play is to examine the morality of an act of terrorism. I would have no problems with adding "extreme", "illegal" or "violent" as descriptors, since that fits pretty much every possible act of terrorism I can think of.

But, if you add "evil" to the descriptors, you've just answered the entire point of play. See Doug McCrae's quote from DitV for a better worded answer than mine.

Not all acts of violence by civilians against a government body are really terrorism either, though quite often governments will brand them such in their efforts to control the public discourse. A more scholarly and less political definition would suit a game involving terrorists or insurgents well.

Ahh, but now you see the problem. If we define all acts of terrorism as evil, now we have to actually define whether or not a given act is actually an act of terrorism. That shifts the point of play from an examination of morality to one of semantics. All you have to do is look at the bajillion paladin alignment discussions on the Internet to see what kind of rabbit hole that is to dive into.

Because, now, in order for an action to be considered evil, it has to fit the definition of terrorism. IOW, it becomes all about semantics.

OTOH, if you don't pre-define terrorism as evil, then the discussion becomes about whether or not the given act is morally justifiable or not, not whether or not it's a terrorist act in the first place.

Oh, and just a point about the railroading thing... railroading really isn't the right term here. I totally understand why people don't consider it railroading at all. But, basically, the GM, by playing God and defining a given act's moral dimensions, the GM has taken away the ability of the players to work towards a definition.

It's only railroading if you kinda squint and tilt your head to the side.

 

[Nagol]

Well, the big deal would be that point of play is to examine the morality of an act of terrorism. I would have no problems with adding "extreme", "illegal" or "violent" as descriptors, since that fits pretty much every possible act of terrorism I can think of.

But, if you add "evil" to the descriptors, you've just answered the entire point of play. See Doug McCrae's quote from DitV for a better worded answer than mine.



Ahh, but now you see the problem. If we define all acts of terrorism as evil, now we have to actually define whether or not a given act is actually an act of terrorism. That shifts the point of play from an examination of morality to one of semantics. All you have to do is look at the bajillion paladin alignment discussions on the Internet to see what kind of rabbit hole that is to dive into.

Because, now, in order for an action to be considered evil, it has to fit the definition of terrorism. IOW, it becomes all about semantics.

OTOH, if you don't pre-define terrorism as evil, then the discussion becomes about whether or not the given act is morally justifiable or not, not whether or not it's a terrorist act in the first place.

Oh, and just a point about the railroading thing... railroading really isn't the right term here. I totally understand why people don't consider it railroading at all. But, basically, the GM, by playing God and defining a given act's moral dimensions, the GM has taken away the ability of the players to work towards a definition.

It's only railroading if you kinda squint and tilt your head to the side.

The way to avoid that to define a set of underlying behaviours and judge actions against that set. So you don't say 'terrorism is evil' you say 'deliberately acting with disregard for other life for personal gain is evil; the worse the ratio, the greater the evil'. So a bomb designed to go off in an empty building -- probably not very evil versus a bomb designed to go off in a crowded theatre -- probably very evil.

 

[Hussar]

The way to avoid that to define a set of underlying behaviours and judge actions against that set. So you don't say 'terrorism is evil' you say 'deliberately acting with disregard for other life for personal gain is evil; the worse the ratio, the greater the evil'. So a bomb designed to go off in an empty building -- probably not very evil versus a bomb designed to go off in a crowded theatre -- probably very evil.

I would say that you're missing the point though. If you define that set before play starts, then you've removed the primary motivation for the game. The whole point of the game is to explore the situation and see if any definitions can actually be made.

Once you've pre-defined the morality of the situation, you've removed the primary impetus for play in this style of game.

Now, in other types of games, that's perfectly groovy. If I am running a more traditional game, for example, then pre-defining morality makes sense - after all we don't want to bog the game down in endless morality debates. The point of a more traditional game is to explore the situation, not from any specific point of view, or even with any really specific thematic goal in mind, but, to explore the event for its own sake.

But, in the type of game I'm outlining, "endless morality debates" IS the game.

 

[Celebrim]

As far as I can tell, providing answers to fundamental ethical questions is the most important thing a player does in Dogs In The Vineyard. It's what the game is primarily about. So for the GM to answer those questions is a major no-no.

It would be the equivalent of an OD&D referee deciding which route the PCs take thru his mega dungeon, or a Tomb of Horrors DM lobbing the module over his screen and letting the players read it. It would go against the basic aim of play.

I understand this point in the context of 'Dogs', but surely even in 'Dogs' this depends on the group having some consensus about what valid ethical responces might be and addressing the problems posed in a way that the group finds to be mature and sophisticated.

What happens if one or more of the 'Dogs' play like psychopaths, using their position to abuse and terrorize people?

To a large extent I think this quote, "The GM can’t give or withhold dice for the state of a PC’s soul, and thus never needs to judge it.", entirely misses the point. Even in D&D I seldom (if ever) am giving or withholding dice on the basis of 'the state of a PC's soul', and the game is unbiased with regards to which alignment stance is the correct one. I never go, "Since your CE you get a -2 penalty on all actions." Yet, presumably, D&D is one of the systems which 'Dogs' is judging in that quotation.

When I think of holding a player to the consequences of their actions, I'm rarely if ever thinking about this in terms of mechanics rather than narrative. The narrative develops according to the players actions and the dictates of the setting. A player that acts like a psychopath is going to be feared and resented by most, and admired or groveled before by a some others. They are going to attract the attention of those that hunt down psychopaths, and they are going to be subject at times to rebellion by a few that refuse to be intimidated. This is going to occur regardless of my judgement upon the evils (or lack there of) of being a sadistic sociopathic killer. It's just a natural consequence of the actions. If you threaten a person, society, or community then at some level they'll try to defend themselves. If there is any chance they've been so threatened in the past, then they are probably pretty good at defending themselves.

When I play D&D, for every diety out there willing to judge someone deficient for any action, there is almost certain another diety that looks on the action approvingly. I have my own feelings on the matter, but I know more try to impose those directly than I cheat on the dice. I usually have much less to worry about me judging the players actions, than I do have to worry about one player judging another player's actions as incompatible or unacceptable.

I would presume that that is the far more likely conflict in Dogs as well.

 

[Gentlegamer]

So do you think the fair thing would be to find a way to give us more treasure?

The fair thing would be to 'meta-game' and kill the offending player character. If that's too harsh, how much would a dwarf fetch on the slave market? You might be able to recoup some of those lost gee-pees.

In all seriousness, the DM has no responsibility to 'fix' anything in this situation, in my opinion. If anything, the DM could create another adventure to give your party an opportunity to obtain more treasure. Of course, no promises it will be obvious stuff like coins or gems.

 

[Gentlegamer]

This way of approaching the game is all fairly foreign to me. I'm used to the GM having the primary responsibility for presenting the gameworld, but the players having the primary responsibility for interpreting it in moral/political terms - so, for example, if the GM establishes a group of wizards who are both necromancers and (ostensibly) lawful good I assume that it is up to the players to decide whether they morally approve of those wizards or regard them as wicked defilers of corpses.

The keyword here is players. If the group decides to go against the grain of the campaign world on some matter and play that way, cool. If a single player decides to lone wolf his character to the detriment of the group - Not. Cool. At. All.

 

[pemerton]

The way to avoid that to define a set of underlying behaviours and judge actions against that set. So you don't say 'terrorism is evil' you say 'deliberately acting with disregard for other life for personal gain is evil; the worse the ratio, the greater the evil'.

There are at least two problems here.

First, this seems to capture personal self-defence - which is, after all, acting with disregard for the life of another in pursuit of personal gain. The standard move to distinguish pesonal self-defence from the impugned conduct would be to define "personal gain" relative to some sort of moralised baseline - so that protecting myself from wrongly-threatened harm doesn't count as personal gain - but this just pushes the question of evaluation back one step. And there are other difficutlies with this sort of moralised baseline which have been explored a lot in the literature on coercion (which gives rise to a similar issue in distinguishing threats from offers).

Second, even if a definition is settled upon, there is the problem of determining whether any given act falls under the definition. This is almost always non-trivial and controversial.

And generalising: I'm a professional philosopher. The morality of political violence is one area where I've done a fair bit of work. At both high and low levels of abstraction, the area is rife with disagreement. I have published defending the moral equality of soldiers (ie that the typical soldier fighting in an unjust cause is no more a murderer than the typical soldier fighting in a just cause). But there are many other leading scholars who argue the opposite (eg Jeff McMahan, probably the leading contemporary author in the field). I used to hold the view that terrorist violence can be analysed in a very similar framework to warfare, and this is still a common view (eg I think Tony Coady still holds it). But my work on moral equality of soldiers has led me to the view that terrorism probably is different (as per the arguments of eg Michael Walzer, Raimond Gaita). And then when we drill down to particular cases, most authors in the field regard attacks on civilian targets as unjustified, but there is always dispute over who counts as a civilian (eg Coady argues that police and political officials are not, but not everyone agrees) and some authors (eg Ted Honderich, writing in response to the second Intifada) argue that attacks against civilians sometimes may be justified, at least where there is good reason to believe that they may produce a just political consequence.

Once you've pre-defined the morality of the situation, you've removed the primary impetus for play in this style of game.

<snip>

in the type of game I'm outlining, "endless morality debates" IS the game.

I think of it slightly differently. If the game rules prevent the game progressing unless an authoritative evaluative classifiction of PC action takes place, then there are two main options - endless morality debates, or deference to a GM's judgement ("passing judgement on the state of PC's soul"). The former can grind the game to a halt - if you want that, go to philosophy seminars! The latter shuts down the point of play, and undoes the meaningful part of the players' choices for their PCs (which in my view is a problem, whether or not you want to call it railroading).

The way you make this sort of game work is by removing the need for endless debate. Instead, the players' choices for their PCs are allowed to speak for themselves. Players and GM, as participants, can have views, and express them - but that is metagame stuff. It is not part of resolving or adjudicating actions in the game.

surely even in 'Dogs' this depends on the group having some consensus about what valid ethical responces might be and addressing the problems posed in a way that the group finds to be mature and sophisticated.

What happens if one or more of the 'Dogs' play like psychopaths, using their position to abuse and terrorize people?

The same question could be asked of Hussar's terrorism-oriented game. Or of a typical D&D game - what happens if a player has his/her PC rob the merchants and slaughter all the villagers? In my view this is not a problem about the adjudication of PC action - it is a metagame/social contract problem. It's solved by finding out whether or not the player is actually interested in playing the game.

 

[Celebrim]

The same question could be asked of Hussar's terrorism-oriented game. Or of a typical D&D game - what happens if a player has his/her PC rob the merchants and slaughter all the villagers? In my view this is not a problem about the adjudication of PC action - it is a metagame/social contract problem. It's solved by finding out whether or not the player is actually interested in playing the game.

This to me seems like judging the PC's far more harshly than any in game judgment is likely to be.

"Ok, that's it, you aren't playing the game [I envisioned], so either get back to playing the game [I envisioned] or we quit.", is simply applying the moral judgment of the players actions at the metagame level.

 

[S'mon]

This to me seems like judging the PC's far more harshly than any in game judgment is likely to be.

"Ok, that's it, you aren't playing the game [I envisioned], so either get back to playing the game [I envisioned] or we quit.", is simply applying the moral judgment of the players actions at the metagame level.

I can just imagine it:

"What do you mean your terrorist/freedom fighter PCs like killing people? You're supposed to be agonising over the moral consequences of blowing up minor political officials of a regime you regard as oppressive, not enjoying it! Get out of my group!"