NeoTrad/OC Play, & the treatment of friendly NPCs (++)

[GobHag]

Ofc, that'd fall under what I feel I described; the issue is the subversion on part of the other player? If the game provides a rule set that discourages that or the table has that as an understanding, then that will occur less, or not at all.



In my mind, this is an expectation of a player or players who desire to play in this style for the game. They should advocate for that, and the table person should attempt to facilitate it.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'that' in the first para. But assuming you mean subverting chracter concept--like being a true pacifist in DnD--then either they(that single player or the table as a whole) trudge along by ignoring the rule system in question or find another ga,e/table/system

 

[Piperken]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'that' in the first para.

The behavior described in the example you provided, the subverting another players' npc? "My own perspective is that subverting the supporting cast's 'purpose' is generally considered bad form, having a PC's wife/son/battle butlet be a secret vampire all along is very much bad form..."

...These characters need to be treated with a certain degree of respect, a bit like the respect a GM should afford the Player Characters. So I was thinking a bit about how this works best in practice. If Goblin Slayer is the PC, is it ok to threaten Cow Girl or Guild Girl. To what extent is it ok to have disagreements, hostility, amusing misunderstandings, even have them fall in love with a rival. When would a player feel aggrieved, that the social contract is broken? Conversely, I think players probably get more annoyed if the GM deliberately ignores the supporting cast, perhaps from fear of doing it wrong, and focuses entirely on the Adventure.
If you enjoy this play style, what do you think?

OP is interested in seeing what best practices might look like that facilitate/promote OC play style -- specifically treatment of npcs. As has come up elsewhere, there are games with rules that do that.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

There's a really good thread about OC play (Vincent calls it sim) on Anyway.

anyway: Explaining the Right to Dream

lumpley.com

It's worth reading in its entirety but you only really have to read up to post 20 maybe to get the gist.


The social reward/cohesion in OC play is about affirming the rightness of a character. You show to the other person that you 'get it'. Having the wife call out the PC's actions is 'not getting it'. Then you have a genuine aesthetic disagreement in the group, how do you resolve it?


If I was doing OC stuff now. Then I'd just concede to the player. The GM is playing the wife wrong and should correct based on the players conception of her. The same with the Bugbears, concede to the players.



Contrast to:

In Narrativist mode, screw the player, the wife is mine (The GM's) and I get to say what's what. There shouldn't be an expectation of the GM playing her in the way I've conceived her. Same with the Bugbears.


Here's another, more congruent difference.

In oc/sim, Batman doesn't kill and that should work out for him.

In Nar, Batman is making the choice not to kill and it might not work out for him. Maybe killing really was the best option.


Back to the Bugbears. If I think the world we are in should reward my mercy with trust and faith. Then the Bugbears should be loyal. It's less about wanting control and more about our shared moral vision that we're re-enacting.

If a moral choice actually is up for grabs, then we're playing Narrativism and we might not want that.

I'd go in a different direction and say that its about thematic agreement between participants-- the conflict isn't coming from the conflict between the character and the GM, its coming from the conflict between the player and the GM.

It was also possible for the player to ham up a jerk, or deliberately want their OC to suffer for their flaws (seen it a lot actually.)

In OC batman does or doesn't regret not killing based on the direction the player and GM mutually think would be best, but OC becomes a kind of contract about what kind of story this ought to be. This can mean social conflict if they disagree bad enough about those themes.

In Nar, we're instructed to not preempt the direction in the first place and that the punches you roll with are the point. Assuming I'm not term drifting too far into Story Now, but im trying to echo you.

 

[S'mon]

There's a really good thread about OC play (Vincent calls it sim) on Anyway.

anyway: Explaining the Right to Dream

lumpley.com

It's worth reading in its entirety but you only really have to read up to post 20 maybe to get the gist.


The social reward/cohesion in OC play is about affirming the rightness of a character. You show to the other person that you 'get it'. Having the wife call out the PC's actions is 'not getting it'. Then you have a genuine aesthetic disagreement in the group, how do you resolve it?


If I was doing OC stuff now. Then I'd just concede to the player. The GM is playing the wife wrong and should correct based on the players conception of her. The same with the Bugbears, concede to the players.

Yeah, I find that really painful to contemplate. The player is subverting the character of the NPC wife, the very personality that made the PC-player fall in love with her in the first place! Players tend to fall in love with the strong smart independent thinkers, not the ones who just validate anything the PC does.

With the bugbears, it feels like it's doing violence to the world to go along with player assertions. But in true OC play the world isn't that important anyway. I can definitely see how this one makes sense within the OC social contract.

 

[S'mon]

Maybe one reason the Bugbear-capturing OC player in my sandbox Forgotten Realms game was so pissed off, was that we were also playing Odyssey of the Dragonlords at the same time. Odyssey is set up for OC type play, the world very much revolves around the PCs and their relationships, including divine parentage and save-the-world destinies. The FR game was intended as mostly a pretty OSR status quo sandbox type game, with multiple competing PC adventurer groups, no particular PC anything special. I don't think I made the difference sufficiently clear.

 

[S'mon]

Yeah, I find that really painful to contemplate. The player is subverting the character of the NPC wife, the very personality that made the PC-player fall in love with her in the first place! Players tend to fall in love with the strong smart independent thinkers, not the ones who just validate anything the PC does.

With the bugbears, it feels like it's doing violence to the world to go along with player assertions. But in true OC play the world isn't that important anyway. I can definitely see how this one makes sense within the OC social contract.

Re the wife NPCs, I think a player subverting the personality of a major campaign NPC is as bad form as the GM doing the same, or otherwise disrespecting the NPC, eg having her arbitrarily murdered* to motivate revenge. It would be different if the player created the NPC as an appendage to their PC, then the NPC is a Pepper Potts type minor character largely within the player's purview. But if you marry Black Widow you don't suddenly get to determine exactly what she thinks of you.

*Joss Whedon did that a lot in Buffy, for the shock value. I never liked it much.

 

[thefutilist]

Re the wife NPCs, I think a player subverting the personality of a major campaign NPC is as bad form as the GM doing the same, or otherwise disrespecting the NPC, eg having her arbitrarily murdered* to motivate revenge. It would be different if the player created the NPC as an appendage to their PC, then the NPC is a Pepper Potts type minor character largely within the player's purview. But if you marry Black Widow you don't suddenly get to determine exactly what she thinks of you.

*Joss Whedon did that a lot in Buffy, for the shock value. I never liked it much.

Yeah it's an issue of shared artistic goals, whether we're on the some page.

I doubt the player is trying to subvert the wife or retroactively change her personality, that's just how you see it, not how it is. Which is a problem with all art and shared artistic vision. People are going to have different views on things and if those views aren't compatible then there's no point in playing together.


If I was in the same position I might just ask 'So your wife is a strong willed woman and it seems like you're treating her as a servant, what do you think?'


The response might be 'Yeah you're kind of right.' Or maybe they try and correct you 'my conception of her character was that she has the same values as me, so it's not as if I'm controlling her as such.' Or maybe they just don't see what they're doing as controlling and this would raise some red flags to me about whether we're on the same page and compatible.


It's why the Bugbears and the wife are the same. You hit the nail on the head in the post where you say...


"OC oriented players often hate the idea that the GM has sole authority over the world beyond the PC, and they often hate the idea that the player/PC can make a "wrong" moral choice"


The player treats the wife in a certain way and hates the idea that they can make a wrong moral choice. They expect their actions to produce results in line with what they expect. Being on the same page as to what those results are is the very core of OC play.


Or if moral choice is too restrictive then...

I'd go in a different direction and say that its about thematic agreement between participants-- the conflict isn't coming from the conflict between the character and the GM, its coming from the conflict between the player and the GM.

@The-Magic-Sword gets at the core issue.

On a systematic level I think OC play needs a way to determine why we're not on the same page. If it actually is irreconcilable differences about important things, we're done playing together. The best way to determine that is probably having a conversation about it but like a lot of roleplay stuff, that conversation has to be on the level of shared artistic appreciation. It's futile arguing about whether Black Widow would 'really' accept the PC's controlling behaviour or not (or whether it is really controlling and so on).

 

[thefutilist]

Yeah, I find that really painful to contemplate. The player is subverting the character of the NPC wife, the very personality that made the PC-player fall in love with her in the first place! Players tend to fall in love with the strong smart independent thinkers, not the ones who just validate anything the PC does.

I reflected on this a bit more. I'd cede to the player in so much as I could but there's a point where it would just lead to the breakdown you mentioned. I was thinking of a player where I know we're mostly on the same page. There are people you play with where both ceding or not is going to ruin the game either way.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I do want to key in and say, yeah, even in OC the player isn't always the winner-- sometimes the GM's own OC feelings towards the World, or an NPC, even a player created one can win out.

 

[S'mon]

Yeah it's an issue of shared artistic goals, whether we're on the some page.

I doubt the player is trying to subvert the wife or retroactively change her personality, that's just how you see it, not how it is. Which is a problem with all art and shared artistic vision. People are going to have different views on things and if those views aren't compatible then there's no point in playing together.


If I was in the same position I might just ask 'So your wife is a strong willed woman and it seems like you're treating her as a servant, what do you think?'


The response might be 'Yeah you're kind of right.' Or maybe they try and correct you 'my conception of her character was that she has the same values as me, so it's not as if I'm controlling her as such.' Or maybe they just don't see what they're doing as controlling and this would raise some red flags to me about whether we're on the same page and compatible.


It's why the Bugbears and the wife are the same. You hit the nail on the head in the post where you say...


"OC oriented players often hate the idea that the GM has sole authority over the world beyond the PC, and they often hate the idea that the player/PC can make a "wrong" moral choice"


The player treats the wife in a certain way and hates the idea that they can make a wrong moral choice. They expect their actions to produce results in line with what they expect. Being on the same page as to what those results are is the very core of OC play.


Or if moral choice is too restrictive then...




@The-Magic-Sword gets at the core issue.

On a systematic level I think OC play needs a way to determine why we're not on the same page. If it actually is irreconcilable differences about important things, we're done playing together. The best way to determine that is probably having a conversation about it but like a lot of roleplay stuff, that conversation has to be on the level of shared artistic appreciation. It's futile arguing about whether Black Widow would 'really' accept the PC's controlling behaviour or not (or whether it is really controlling and so on).

I think you have a strong grasp of the play style and the issues around it. Thanks! It definitely helps me understand issues I've had.

My friend Kimberly is a very OC type GM. I think maybe I'm not a very OC player, because sometimes I find it a bit frustrating when the universe seems to keep giving me/my PC what I want, like that Twilight Zone "other place" episode. In the current game I built a very Persuasive (Persuasion +7) Half-Elf Rogue PC (based partly on a rakish actor I knew IRL), so it makes sense he can chat up a girl at the bar, but in the previous campaign I had an I think CHA 8, Persuasion -1, tongue-tied Dwarf Barbarian PC. So it seemed a bit odd that any girl I spoke to would fall for me without much effort. I think this raises the issue of effective communication of Creative Agendas in OC play. In this case my agenda as a player was not entirely aligned with my dwarf PC's agenda of getting the sweet girl he fell for (AIR she ran an orphanage, and was incredibly nice) - I felt he should have had to work hard at it, and possibly fail. Finding a way to communicate that sort of thing effectively in OC play seems to be a particular challenge, I think.