Adversarial Gaming Style

[Mercule]

If it's actually an adversarial situation (player vs. DM), how can the DM not win? How can the player possibly imagine that the DM is not going to win? Surely he knows that if he "wins" it's because the DM let him.

I know an adversarial GM (quote: "It's not fun for me if you have any easy fights."). He does things as more of a cat-and-mouse thing. It seems that the idea is to make the odds almost even, so that when the PCs blow it, he can tell us that our tactics just sucked. If we start becoming effective, some house rules get introduced to undercut our strengths, because, "You guys are taking out everything way too easily." (Forget the 10 sessions we got our butts handed to us while working out a good strategy.)

That is an adversarial DM. And it is a painful thing.

The DM should set up adventures/campaigns/scenarios where the PCs have a good chance of coming out heroes and a real chance of dying (if you can't really blow it, what's the point). He should then act as an impartial referee to the game mechanics and as moderator/narrator for all non-PC actions and events in the game world. Personally, I get a real charge out of seeing the PCs build up a following and look like heroes. I enjoy retelling their tales almost as much as the players do (or almost as much as I do my own PC tales, but as a DM I get more of them).

 

[Doug McCrae]

So, is he an adversarial player?

The original question was about competition between player and GM. Dhistan competes with the other players but co-operates with the GM (which is no doubt why you, the GM, have no problem with him). I, for one, wouldn't play with him but that's neither here nor there.

 

[MetalBard]

Hmm...I'm not sure that contentious is what they meant with the poll. Here, I'll submit a PC from one of my games and people please tell me if he fits the definition of adversarial (I'll call him Dhistan because that's his favourite PC):

The evil: In real life, Dhistan would be Lawful Evil if we had alignments. He enjoys creating evil characters, and his good characters always wind up merely doing good deeds that result in his own self-interest in some way. Dhistan's characters like money and power more than anything else. If he thought he could get away with it and that it would give him more of an advantage, Dhistan's characters would kill the rest of the party and sell their souls to Hell, but since his allies are formidable, he prefers to keep them alive. Nevertheless, when he wants to buy something, he does not hesitate to steal all their gold. In fact, they were trusting their treasure to his character's sister, so he stole it all, framed his sister (an NPC), convinced the party that she was an evil demonologist who was stealing their gold, and banished her to the shadow plane for all eternity. When the Frenzied Berserker swore to protect a barbarian village, Dhistan came in and massacred them all, women and children included, and sent the souls directly to Bel. He definitely sees the world as him-against-everyone-else, and he plans out his character 20 levels in advance in hopes of achieving even greater levels of power. Dhistan is in this for power and the fact that he loves seeing how his evil schemes turn out and affect the world.

The lawful: That said, when his evil schemes fail, Dhistan does not get upset. He justs comes up with a new one. He has a strong respect both for the rules of the game and for my authority as a DM to make calls that aren't specifically stated in the rules, whether they are for or against his character. In fact, he agrees with me on rules calls so much that he will often bring up my calls when he is playing with other DMs who have to make similar decisions to be helpful. Although he respects the rules, he is not a rules-lawyer and does not attempt to make rules-contentions to slow down the game. He does not metagame to destroy plots, although sometimes his actions lead into non-sequitirs to the main quest that must be dealt with, which is fine with me, as I can wing it. He is always polite to the other players and gives everyone a turn, even when he is trying to murder their cohort and blame it on his mother. In fact, if he feels that he has been taking too much time in the game's spotlight, he asks the other players their opinion, and if they agree, he voluntarily retreats out of the spotlight into the shadows, planning his next evil scheme.

So, is he an adversarial player? By Wolf's definition I would say "Yes." By your definition Metal I would say "No." That's what makes me think that they didn't mean contentious

Heh... the problems (and benefits) with differing perceptions. Maybe I'm not in the adversarial camp and I view any player in game playing in that fashion as contentious.

I wouldn't necessarily consider Dhistan contentious in the DM-Player relationship, but if I was a fellow player in that game, I might see him as contentious on a player to player level if my character's goals were getting crushed by his character's actions (the barbarian and the village example might be one of those). However, if all of that fits well into a plot or storyline (and doesn't dissolve into inter-party bickering) it could end up being a very fun game to play and Dhistan could be a very interesting person to role-play with.

Dhistan just seems to be role-playing a character motivated solely by the drive for power. I don't see that as a bad thing. The only problem would be claiming that Dhistan was playing a good character. Since you're not using alignments, I guess each character he plays falls to the darkness consistently and early on, so it's not a problem.

I guess if I were DMing that particular situation, I'd be very concerned about the other players' enjoyment of the game vis a vis Dhistan's in-character actions. I do see the distinction you are making, Rystil (and it's a very insightful and useful one), but I can see where an adversarial character could easily become a contentious player.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Interesting perspectives! Doug, I would say that Dhistan is not adversarial to the players, but is adversarial to their characters. Additionally, he is not adversarial to the DM (as you mentioned), but he is adversarial to my NPCs (like his poor sister, and also the enemy NPCs).

However, if all of that fits well into a plot or storyline (and doesn't dissolve into inter-party bickering) it could end up being a very fun game to play and Dhistan could be a very interesting person to role-play with.

This is precisely Dhistan's view.

I'll clarify a bit more to keep it interesting:

Dhistan never really crushes main goals of the players. The Frenzied Berserker's character swore to protect the barbarians because he felt bad that the drow were killing them and it was his fault (the FB had claimed to be the Uthgar, the god of these barbarians and then slain an Aspect of Lolth, not realising that this would entail vengeance against them). The player of the FB didn't really care so much, but he mentioned out of character that his character would kill Dhistan's character when he found out. Dhistan always finds a good reason to join in on the party's adventures (like I said, he doesn't ruin my plots, although sometimes his evil causes sidetracks), though not for the same reasons. He tends to build grudges against the party's enemies (if not camaraderie with their allies), which helps. Additionally, the players discovered the source of the all the world's magic and an empire (the Vandolians) who want to gain control of it. Dhistan's view is, "I know what would happen if I got that power, and it certainly isn't safe for any NPC to have it, so I will fight to seal it up with the other PCs but try to see if I can take control at the last minute in a well-timed and thematically appropriate betrayal." When I told him that complete control leaves the possessor vulnerable to having the control wrested, he then decided that the power needed to be sealed up (like the other PCs wanted) and asked me what it would take to safely seal the power away but still give himself some slight link to it to give him an edge. I told him he would need to decipher the runes of an ancient mage (DC 80 Decipher Script check) and make a DC 100 Spellcraft check to create a ritual. Instead of complaining that "that's impossible," (and it nearly is since he is level 21), he has one epic level feat right now, and he took it in Epic Skill Focus [Decipher Script]. He is looking for a marshal (Minis Handbook) for the Int-skill aura and an epic Loremaster he can hire to aid him, plus a squadron of loyal bards to continually sing up Inspire Competence...

I do see the distinction you are making, Rystil (and it's a very insightful and useful one), but I can see where an adversarial character could easily become a contentious player.

I absolutely agree. Its very easy for this to happen.

 

[Mr. Kaze]

Personally, I love finangling with the DM to move the story in strange and unusual ways to make the game more creative for both of us, typically outside of combat. I'm in the game for the storytelling, so frequent arbitrary random encounters with random creatures (which usually come from deus ex-sized holes the storytelling) irk me.

Current DM, however, materialized an EL 8 encounter in the exit path (it was clear 15 minutes ago) of a level 5.6 party that had already had three spell-consuming fights that day and was taking the direct route out of the dungeon at an encounter distance of 50'. (We avoided a TPK by handing our recently purchased big Bag o' Tricks around under the cover of a Sleet Storm scroll the wizard hadn't gotten around to copying into his spell book yet -- managed to pull out a tiger and a brown bear to cover for the fact that both of our fighters were out of HP and bleeding out. Tiger was dead on its second round, but the bear bought us the additional round we needed...)

Fine, that settles it, I'll take an XP penalty and drop my current character for one that's useful in this kind of game to keep the DM's creature arrivals in check. Result? "Oh, and that party member that wandered off is found dead and mutilated in a ditch a few days later." Thanks, DM! Great storytelling!

::Kaze (notes that you, too, can be a contentious, adversarial, and even just plain rude DM without bringing in a random assault squad from BlackDirge's creature thread... just punish your PCs for doing the best they can in the world you told them to prepare for that exists first and foremost in your -- not their -- heads.)

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Sorry to skew the data, but I voted for each option.

Just because I try to "cooperate" with the DM doesn't mean that I don't want a challenge. Not only do we give tips to the DM on how to challenge us, he gives us tips on how to build better characters and is very honest when giving advice on which feat to pick, or what Prestige Class to shoot for, etc.

When I DM, I have one player who tends to be very adversarial, so I picked that option. And one of my games has a lot of children playing in it, so they just don't know any better (yet).

But, on the whole, most players I game with are cooperative. And I'm trying to "train" the kids in that direction.

So, I picked both the player options.

 

[MetalBard]

I'll clarify a bit more to keep it interesting:

Dhistan never really crushes main goals of the players. The Frenzied Berserker's character swore to protect the barbarians because he felt bad that the drow were killing them and it was his fault (the FB had claimed to be the Uthgar, the god of these barbarians and then slain an Aspect of Lolth, not realising that this would entail vengeance against them). The player of the FB didn't really care so much, but he mentioned out of character that his character would kill Dhistan's character when he found out. Dhistan always finds a good reason to join in on the party's adventures (like I said, he doesn't ruin my plots, although sometimes his evil causes sidetracks), though not for the same reasons. He tends to build grudges against the party's enemies (if not camaraderie with their allies), which helps. Additionally, the players discovered the source of the all the world's magic and an empire (the Vandolians) who want to gain control of it. Dhistan's view is, "I know what would happen if I got that power, and it certainly isn't safe for any NPC to have it, so I will fight to seal it up with the other PCs but try to see if I can take control at the last minute in a well-timed and thematically appropriate betrayal." When I told him that complete control leaves the possessor vulnerable to having the control wrested, he then decided that the power needed to be sealed up (like the other PCs wanted) and asked me what it would take to safely seal the power away but still give himself some slight link to it to give him an edge. I told him he would need to decipher the runes of an ancient mage (DC 80 Decipher Script check) and make a DC 100 Spellcraft check to create a ritual. Instead of complaining that "that's impossible," (and it nearly is since he is level 21), he has one epic level feat right now, and he took it in Epic Skill Focus [Decipher Script]. He is looking for a marshal (Minis Handbook) for the Int-skill aura and an epic Loremaster he can hire to aid him, plus a squadron of loyal bards to continually sing up Inspire Competence...

It seems that Dhistan is managing a Raistlin-esque style of play that's actually workable within a D&D campaign (I've seen many campaigns fail because one or two people wanted to be the "Raistlin" of the group). I do think it's both a stylistic and an understanding thing. Stylistic because I think a lot of players simply wouldn't enjoy this style of play (the vast majority, I would say). It also requires a certain level of understanding and maybe a little detachment among the players and DM that most D&D groups simply don't have and many don't want to have. It's great that your group can manage this, Rystil.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Yeah, now I'm only curious as to the opinions on Dhistan of people like Wolf who called adversarialism a "sinister" trend of gaming. I saw the thread that he based this one on (a guy gloating about making his 1st-time DM cry by ruining the adventure), and I agree that this kind of adversarialism is sinister were it a trend. However, I think that Dhistan is both adversarial and not screwing up the game, so I'm wondering about that.

 

[Umbran]

Challenging your players and being adversarial are two completely different concepts that are unrelated.

Or at least only tangentially related.

Sometimes, it is the GM's job to be cooperative, to help work with players to create story. Sometimes, though, the GM has to be a hard case, the uncooperative brick wall that players must scale. If you always cooperate, you don't extract the best from your players. Frequently, in order to urge your players to the heights of creativity and ingenuity, you must be uncooperative and unforgiving.

This is separate from being "adversarial" - when one is adversarial, the point is personal ego. When one is challenging, the point is extracting great story.

 

[Kanegrundar]

It depends on the type of game we're playing. If it's just straight Hack n Slash D&D, it's players vs. the DM. If we're trying to build a story, then everyone works together. Now if we're playing something like Mutant Chronicles or Doom, then it's obviously me vs the players...

Kane