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

[S'mon]

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?'

Thinking about this, with the most recent case. I definitely didn't see myself as running an OC style campaign. To me it was a Gamist/Sim sandbox where effectively navigating the political goals and the emotions/feelings of your (Mastermind Rogue) wife was just as important as navigating dungeon corridors or court politics (which the player was also very bad at). But there were three PC/player groups in the sandbox. One lot Old School Gygaxian geezers, one sort of very easygoing light OC, one went hardcore OC and started rejecting GM determined facts about the world/setting. They just went on a completely different page. But I certainly could have tried to head this off rather than let it run on for weeks.

 

[thefutilist]

Thinking about this, with the most recent case. I definitely didn't see myself as running an OC style campaign. To me it was a Gamist/Sim sandbox where effectively navigating the political goals and the emotions/feelings of your (Mastermind Rogue) wife was just as important as navigating dungeon corridors or court politics (which the player was also very bad at).

To me that explains everything. If you're on the Gamist/Sim thing then the GM must adjudicate as they will or the whole thing falls apart. This really is a creative agenda clash.

I do have a question about the Dwarf thing though.

If you'd approached the girl, all tongue tied and awkward. Then she'd listened patiently. Maybe said something like 'My brother had a stutter. I know how frustrating it is when you can't get the words out.'

Would you have the same response?

Or maybe Kimberly did play it that way and it was still unsatisfying?

 

[Tonguez]

Yeah its a hard one to have GM input into a Players NPC crew, it needs some clear tacit agreement on what 'the world' and the GM can do to such an NPC. Which is where random even tables can be useful as a neutral tool that allows the GM to impose 'conditions' that the PC needs to play their way out of. Even more fun when you have the Player roll the random event and designate the NPC which permits the GM to impose conditions

 

[S'mon]

To me that explains everything. If you're on the Gamist/Sim thing then the GM must adjudicate as they will or the whole thing falls apart. This really is a creative agenda clash.

I do have a question about the Dwarf thing though.

If you'd approached the girl, all tongue tied and awkward. Then she'd listened patiently. Maybe said something like 'My brother had a stutter. I know how frustrating it is when you can't get the words out.'

Would you have the same response?

Or maybe Kimberly did play it that way and it was still unsatisfying?

I think my courtship attempt was asking her to braid my beard in the bath.
I can't complain about how the NPC was played, she was super sweet and we had done some sort of heroic deed for the orphanage. I do remember my CHA 8 dwarf had already acquired another gf, a female warrior with 2 axes, and I had to tell her I was dumping her for the orphanage manager. And she was very nice and understanding.
All Kim's NPCs are extremely well played - she's a pretty successful author, she always makes fantastic characters. I just felt, well, shouldn't someone have told my Dwarf "I don't see you like that" and Friendzoned him? I did get my butt kicked by a cow, mind you... I guess I enjoy OC Cosy Roleplaying, it just doesn't quite scratch my Gamist/Sim itch - it's not hard enough. I gave my new Rogue PC CON 10 just so I could feel a bit threatened.

 

[S'mon]

The thing about OC play is that everything kinda "Just Works". The PCs try something - they succeed, almost no matter how unlikely. A lot of players like this. As a player I tend to want more challenge. As a GM I often want more challenge, but I do like a lot of things about running games in a more OC style. It's particularly good when stakes are relatively low. The biggest fails IME have been when the game gets into high level politics, Game of Thrones type stuff. Some players want Tyrion Lannister results while playing like Tyrion Lannister Season 8.

 

[pemerton]

The thing about OC play is that everything kinda "Just Works". The PCs try something - they succeed, almost no matter how unlikely. A lot of players like this. As a player I tend to want more challenge.

It's a little bit OT, although this post does tend to invite it and in any event I can't help myself: you need to find yourself a good game of Burning Wheel! (Or even Torchbearer.)

All the OC stuff around relationships, goals, character depth etc; but with more challenge than you can possibly imagine!

 

[S'mon]

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.

How do you communicate creative agendas effectively in a DnD type OC game where there is little or no mechanical support for this? With Kim I might tease her a bit for all the NPCs being "too nice". But it's very hard to say "I want to fail more", when the rules chassis is so strongly oriented around seeking success. And I don't much want to be playing on a harder difficulty mode than the other players, who mostly are more passive types with a light OC orientation. Stuff they find challenging I often find too easy to feel very satisfying. I deliberately sub optimised my new PC's survivability in creation in exchange for high interpersonal and thiefly skills, eg low CON and taking Prodigy for my level 4 Feat. That makes combat, a relatively objective system, feel more threatening while also justifying easy success at the social stuff.

 

[innerdude]

So I'm in an interesting . . . boat, so to speak, regarding neotrad/OC play, in that I can fully see and recognize it definitionally, and have seen it in play several times (one particular player comes to mind).

(I just re-read the original 6 Cultures of Play essay just to remind myself).

My problem is that as a GM, I'm not sure that I would know how to support it well, or if I'd even want to.

If you adhere to the original 6 cultures as a baseline, OC works best, I think, as a drifted "trad" baseline, but where the GM and players can agree on some basic social contract rules (as you've described).

Open discussion around what's core playground space for the GM versus this stuff is sacrosanct and off-limits player-character realm seems to be the main starting point.

Frankly I'm with you, @S'mon -- I think on the whole OC play tends to be too . . . easy? Convenient, perhaps? for my sensibilities.

I'm far more likely these days to push hard on Story Now / narrativist leanings, and that stuff doesn't play well with OC. Narr play kind of demands to much open / flexible / mutable fiction states. You can't really lean into exploring premise when the player can turn to you as GM and say, "Umm, yeah, sorry, that doesn't work for my character." OC kind of demands some quite firm, hard edges around aspects of the fiction, particularly around the PCs.

But this is an interesting topic for sure.

 

[thefutilist]

How do you communicate creative agendas effectively in a DnD type OC game where there is little or no mechanical support for this? With Kim I might tease her a bit for all the NPCs being "too nice". But it's very hard to say "I want to fail more", when the rules chassis is so strongly oriented around seeking success. And I don't much want to be playing on a harder difficulty mode than the other players, who mostly are more passive types with a light OC orientation. Stuff they find challenging I often find too easy to feel very satisfying. I deliberately sub optimised my new PC's survivability in creation in exchange for high interpersonal and thiefly skills, eg low CON and taking Prodigy for my level 4 Feat. That makes combat, a relatively objective system, feel more threatening while also justifying easy success at the social stuff.

Probably the best approach is just to say you want your character to feel more challenged.


'My character gets everything he wants a bit too easily. I'd like it if things were harder on him. In a lot of stories the characters really have to go through the ringer, I'd like a bit more of that.'


If you want actual challenge based play where real permanent failure is on the line, then you need the group and the GM to all be on board with it.


So is your dissatisfaction more:

A) In fiction the main characters tend to suffer horribly. 'Turns out the father you thought was dead is actually a commander in the enemy force, and he's just cut your hand off, and he wants you to join him.' 'You've been given a ring that corrodes your soul and you need to destroy it before the world is consumed by darkness. and you've just been stabbed by a ghost.' A majority of stories have far more failure than success or lots of set backs before success.

B) There is no strategic challenge. You as a player don't have to work to get what you want , you don't have to figure things out and strategize. Or to the extent you do it's easy.


If it's B (which it seems to be from what you've said) then I think you're probably out of luck if Kimberly doesn't understand that mode of play. The issue is that even if you manage to explain it, there is no guarantee she'll be interested or even capable. Where as A is probably a cake walk for an OC GM.

I tend to be pessimistic about mixed agendas though, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt.

 

[pemerton]

So is your dissatisfaction more:

A) In fiction the main characters tend to suffer horribly. 'Turns out the father you thought was dead is actually a commander in the enemy force, and he's just cut your hand off, and he wants you to join him.' 'You've been given a ring that corrodes your soul and you need to destroy it before the world is consumed by darkness. and you've just been stabbed by a ghost.' A majority of stories have far more failure than success or lots of set backs before success.

B) There is no strategic challenge. You as a player don't have to work to get what you want , you don't have to figure things out and strategize. Or to the extent you do it's easy.

I'm going to go out on a limb and conjecture that @S'mon's issue is closer to B than to A.