In your RPGing, who chooses the antagonists/opposition - players or GM?

[Umbran]

They both have overlap in the overarchaing Game Theory that the player would engage with as decision-points accrue, but there is also enough daylight between them that actuating them in play would lead to subtly different play and inhabited cognitive space.

Have you considered what this looks like to an audience that isn't already deeply steeped in one particular kind of conversation and jargon about gaming? Are you sure this leaves your discussion open to all the people you want it to be open to?

 

[pemerton]

I think Manbearcat's subsequent reply above does a great job of illustrating the dynamic of interplay between articulated or implied PC drives, mechanical resolution, and GM input in response to your inquiry, but I'm happy to elucidate further if you have lingering questions.

I'll also tag @Manbearcat here.

What Manbearcat has described reads to me like orthodox PbtA or even BW-style work: the player has established a drive for his/her PC which is stated in somewhat abstract terms but has a lot of thematic "hook" written into it; the GM introduces NPCs and attendant situations which are loosely sketched at the start but are not obviously irrelevant to the player-authored "hook"; the player makes moves that relate to the "hook" in some way or other (eg use detect evil to force the GM to try and force the GM to make a more precise call about the relationship of the GM-introduced element to the "hook"); the GM uses the mechanically-structured and guided consequence narration to fill in those details, some of which involves bouncing off the players via questions and discussion.

Is that fair?

It's certainly an approach that I've used in BW, including the oft-retold story of the PC at the market acquiring a cursed angel feather.

 

[S'mon]

In a campaign I create myself, I create the environment (with a bit of player input via PC backstory), I create a whole bunch of potential antagonists. The players decide who to go after, though they may be prompted by NPCs in some cases - "Let's you & him fight!"

 

[Manbearcat]

Have you considered what this looks like to an audience that isn't already deeply steeped in one particular kind of conversation and jargon about gaming? Are you sure this leaves your discussion open to all the people you want it to be open to?

Perhaps as much as you considered your audience when you decided to (a) put this confrontational element that is pretty much a thinly veiled attack on either my integrity or my self-awareness in a thread that doesn't have anything to do with Manbearcats/integrity/self-awareness instead of (b) (oh I don't know) PMing me directly...which would be the kind, considerate thing to do and the "most likely to reach your audience" thing to do (which was your preoccupation in your Public Service Announcement to me in this thread).

Its not a great look for a general participant to do this period. Its a worse look for a mod. You can do with that what you will.

But to answer your question directly:

Yes, I have. I consider the way I write and the way I think to be a flaw (not a character flaw...but an operational flaw). I've tried to repair it many times, but I can't make the repair stick. I've also had this conversation on here with other people who do exactly what you did above. I didn't take offense for challenging my integrity or self-awareness and not also not being kind/considerate enough to PM me directly about it then! And I won't do so with you now! And I'm sure I'll have to do this again with another poster down the road!

 

[pemerton]

My reply just upthread to @Manbearcat and @darkbard sketches one way of distributing player and GM roles in establishing opposition/conflict.

I thought in this post I would sketch a different one, which I've been using a lot in my Classic Traveller game: random rolls on system-prescribed tables, and then integrating those into the emerging and established fiction of the campaign.

When my group started our Classic Traveller game first the players rolled up their PCs - everything from stats to skills to starting money and gear is all rolled - which helped establish some PC backstory; and then I rolled up a starting world, and we worked out more backstory and PC interconnections that would make sense of that. Because one PC had Medic-1, and another PC had been mustered out injured and hence (it was decided) was just finishing up a stint in hospital, we determined that those two PCs knew one another (the first a carer for the second as a patient). The world I'd rolled was very high tech-level, so we all agreed that the medical equipment would reflect this.

I then rolled a random patron. Because she was a Marine Officer I decided she would be a former comrade of the Medic-1 PC, who was ex-Imperial Navy. And because the main thing we had determined about the world was that it had this hi-tech medical facility, I decided that her "mission" for the PCs would involve medical gear.

In addition, the hospitalised PC had Gambling-1 and started with a space-faring "yacht". The player decided he'd won it in a bet, and that the reason he was in hospital was because he'd subsequently taken a beating from the thugs who worked for the yacht's previous owner. So I decided that what the patron needed from the PCs was their ship - the previous owner had been her previous operative, and now she needed to recruit the PCs as her new operatives.

From there, details emerged via play in a fashion a little closer to the PbtA style Manbearcat has described.

In the fourth (or so) session, in the closing moments I rolled a random encounter with a Patrol Cruiser being used by pirates and decided that this was an Imperial vessel but connected to the Marine Officer's unlawful/irregular scheme (and hence "piratical" in that sense). In the between-session period I rolled up a crew for the vessel and established some backstory for them that fitted them into the established situation of the campaign. In the next session the players had some interaction with the vessel, and also intercepted some of its communications to the starport of the planet where this encounter occurred, and so some of the backstory I'd written came out - which led to the players choosing to ignore the vessel rather than interact with it, as they learned it was from the Marine Officer's "secret" base and they wanted to assault her base while he Patrol Cruiser was away from it.

Over the course of play in the campaign the random rolling has reduced somewhat as there are more established elements which make sense for framing and consequences. In our last session I reintroduced that Patrol Vessel at the new world the PCs were on, and they interacted a bit more. It is likely to figure as a prominent antagonist in our next session too.

Comparing this approach to the approach @Manbearcat described and that is familiar to me via Burning Wheel, I would say there is one key similarity and one key difference:

* In both approaches, colourful PCs with relatively rich backstories find themselves immersed in a world that cares about and responds to them in ways that reflect connections to rather than alienation from the setting. (A really obvious contrast here: the PCs in X2 Castle Amber, both the chateau and Averoigne.)

* In the Classic Traveller approach I've described, the action of the game is less thematically laden/character driven than in the PbtA/BW style. The action is driven more by external dynamics (a bit like a Mission Impossible film) and less by the deep dramatic/thematic needs of the characters (there is a contrast here even between the genre-similar MI films and Bourne films). I think this is a product of a few system features: what it is that the random rolls tell us; the lack of emphasis on "asking questions and building on the answers" which puts more responsibility on the GM to integrate the outputs of random rolls (we asked questions and built on answers in setting up the campaign, but it doesn't figure so much as a method once we pressed "play" and got going); where the system itself places emphasis in its resolution machinery; probably other stuff too.

 

[Manbearcat]

I think the juxtaposition of our approaches (myself hypothetically using a Clock and you using a reskinned Paladin Oath move) is really good stuff for this thread and for anyone interested in running a PBtA game.

They both have overlap in the overarchaing Game Theory that the player would engage with as decision-points accrue, but there is also enough daylight between them that actuating them in play would lead to subtly different play and inhabited cognitive space.

So let me unpack this a bit as my communication here clearly sucked.

@darkbard 's approach to the situation (a bargain with Death to do thing x in order to be restored to life) was to reskin the Paladin Quest/Oath move. This creates a Burden/Boon/Stick dynamic where the player is occupying this headspace of "I have to do this thing, I get this thing if I work on doing this thing, stuff sucks if I don't work on this thing until I atone for it and keep doing this thing."

My approach creates the urgency of a straight "Countdown to Doom" Clock. It ticks as play progresses broadly with heftier ticks as a byproduct of action resolution complications where the player isn't fulfilling "Death's Bargain." So its like the Wandering Monster Clock in Moldvay Basic (for those familiar with that) or the Light and Conditions Clocks in Torchbearer (for those that are familiar with that). Or, its just the orthodox Clock usage if you're familiar with PBtA games (for those that are familiar with that).

Slightly different headspaces and decision-point consideration for the players.

 

[DemoMonkey]

You have to consider the meta-subtextual elements vis-a-vis the a priori "Creation vs Evolution" paradigm of emergent game play.

...am I doing this right?

 

[Manbearcat]

You have to consider the meta-subtextual elements vis-a-vis the a priori "Creation vs Evolution" paradigm of emergent game play.

...am I doing this right?

You forgot to Dissassociate this from the Force Deprotagonization Proviso.

This is Elitist Nerd Talk 101.

YOU LOSE. GOOD DAY SIR.

 

[pemerton]

Slightly different headspaces and decision-point consideration for the players.

Agreed. And for what it's worth, my instincts lean @darkbard's way rather than your way - though my instincts are not PbtA-honed ones!

In Burning Wheel, when a PC was Force-of-Willed (= roughly Charmed/Dominated) by a dark naga, we implemented that by a change of Belief. That generates the carrot similar to darkbard's +1 forward (there's no stick in BW).

Though writing this post has made me think about how I would to this in Cortex+ Heroic. That could be via a Milestone, which would be a similar carrot approach. But it could also be via the Doom Pool, which would be closer to your clock approach.

So maybe my instincts are more malleable than I thought!

 

[Manbearcat]

Agreed. And for what it's worth, my instincts lean @darkbard's way rather than your way - though my instincts are not PbtA-honed ones!

In Burning Wheel, when a PC was Force-of-Willed (= roughly Charmed/Dominated) by a dark naga, we implemented that by a change of Belief. That generates the carrot similar to darkbard's +1 forward (there's no stick in BW).

Though writing this post has made me think about how I would to this in Cortex+ Heroic. That could be via a Milestone, which would be a similar carrot approach. But it could also be via the Doom Pool, which would be closer to your clock approach.

So maybe my instincts are more malleable than I thought!

Yup, that all looks right to me.

And for what its worth, after @darkbard relayed his approach, my brain said "OOOOOH....SHINY...I like that better."

But I've teetered back a bit toward..."my camp?"

I'm not sure which is more effective at what we're trying to do here. Its close.