"Oddities" in fantasy settings - the case against "consistency"

[hawkeyefan]

[emphasis mine]
Sometimes a scenic backdrop is all that is wanted or needed, and the said backdrop gives just enough flavour to make the campaign stand out as different.

Sometime a meaningful and immersive paradigm is desired instead, and the campaign will fail to stand out (in a positive way at any case) if players deviate too far from it.

I think there is room and legitimacy for both types of game.

I think this is often very true. Opinions on it can vary wildly… but I know my personal tastes tend to want to focus much more on character than on setting. I’m generally not all that interested in the GM’s unique setting… their pantheon and choices of race and the histories of the various settlements.

I don’t want to play to explore that stuff, except in ways that are meaningful to the characters. For me, the setting is meant to serve the characters. It's not meant to be the point of play.

I know that’s far from a universal truth among RPGers, though. And while there’s certainly nothing wrong with people wanting to explore setting, I think that different focus is (at least partially) to blame for some of the conflict in this thread. For many, the setting is the point.

That’s just not the case for all games.

 

[Faolyn]

Another determinant would be just how well-known this last-mage's existence is or has become. If she just recently came into her talent and only the rest of the party (if even they!) know about it, that's far different - and far easier to deal with in play - than if it's known far and wide that Jocasta is the last known mage in the world.

My point is that it doesn't matter what I write adventures about. The adventures could ignore the last-mage piece entirely and yet most of the time it'd still be top-of-mind for all involved: "We have to protect Jocasta, she's the last mage." "Does anyone in this town know what Jocasta is, i.e. how much care do we need to take?" , and so forth.

You're making a lot of assumptions. Why would the PCs automatically think to protect her? Why would they even care about her? Depending on what the world thinks about magic--decided by the GM and other players during world creation--their viewpoints could be anything to "she must be protected" to "she must be killed" to "who cares?"

In the Discworld novels, for instance, wizards are generally considered to be fairly useless--they perform amazing deeds, sure, but most of those deeds are utterly useless from the point of view of the populace and they can be safely ignored unless they happen to tear open a hole in reality, in which case they better fix it before it spooks the horses. Discworld wizards the equivalent of theoretical physicists--what they do has practically no bearing on anyone's day-to-day lives, no matter how awesome it might be. Even most of the wizards themselves tend to put more stock in their staves, which they can use to bonk their enemies on the head, then in the spells they cast.

In a more prosaic, RPG sense of the world, what if the reason there are no more mages is because they all killed each other off in the wizard wars? People won't care if there's only one left, as long as she doesn't start killing non-casters. If casters had been snobbish to non-casters, then good riddance to bad rubbish. If casters had been known to dabble in dark forces and unleash horrible things upon the innocent populace, then the faster Jocasta dies, the better.

The GM is also going to have to give some thought as to how - or if - Jocasta's abilities can increase or expand in step with the rest of the PCs. The improvements among the other PC can be easily explained in the fiction through training, practice, and so on; but any new abilities or spells for Jocasta are probably going to have to come to her spontaneously...which, depending on system, might force the GM into using or devising mechanics she otherwise might have not.

That's really easy: she now has new spells and magic points. I'm pretty sure 99% of GMs will do it that way, and the idea of creating an entire subsystem for an NPC mage seems laughably useless and outdated. It's not "more fair." It's just more work.

In this case it wasn't just the one player. That, and I'm fully in the "do what the character would do" camp both as GM and player; and when what two (or more) characters would do is diametrically opposed then I've no problem with that being sorted in-character to whatever extent is required.

Firstly, "do what the characters would do" just means you need to make characters that aren't jerks to the other players. (and by jerk, I mean something a lot coarser)

Secondly, in our group's D&D game, I've managed to play a chaotic neutral tiefling rogue for quite some time without being a jerk to the other players. Why? Because chaotic neutral does not mean that I force my decisions on other players.

Thirdly, there is no "what my character would do," because you, the player, are making that decision. Your character is just a bunch of numbers on a page. You control their opinions and actions.

It's no coincidence that so many RPG horror stories start with players who are jerks but try to excuse their behavior with "it's what my character would do."

Er...you might have missed that the PC that was forced to continue play was mine; which means it did affect me.

No, I saw it. But the thing you balked at having your character "guard" another character by forcing them to remain "safe" at home, because that meant your character wouldn't be able to do other, presumably more fun, things.

And the bodyguard piece comes back to doing what the charcacter would do. If I'm playing a warrior-type who's at loose ends and looking for a place in the world and you present me with this task/duty then sure, I'm your bodyguard as long as you need one. But if I'm playing a free-thinking scout type with her own goals and ambitions and who doesn't want to be tied down being someone's protector then you can - how did that old song go? - take that job and shove it.

So why even bring it up? Jocasta here doesn't need to be guarded unless Jocasta (meaning, her player) decides she wants to be. And if you aren't interested in playing bodyguard, then you have no business forcing the player to stay at home.

Sure it would. In the end (and if it comes down to it; ideally, it doesn't), as a more ordinary warrior or scout (or whatever my function is) I'm far more expendable than is the only one of something that any of us will ever see again. Your bodyguard PC is a perfect example: in that role, if things get desperate, my job as bodyguard is to take that metaphorical bullet and sacrifice myself so that the last mage can survive.

This makes no sense. Just because there are a million warriors doesn't mean they're expendable. They're not nameless NPCs; they're player characters. Unless the people at your table care so little about their characters that they don't bother to come up with any sort of characterization or background for them. There's bunches of chaotic neutral tiefling rogues out there, but there's only one Rime.

Also, you're completely misunderstanding my example. In my example, two players would mutually decide that one of them would act/be hired as the other's guard. The bodyguard's character may think that they're more expendable, but that's only because the player is choosing to have them that way.

Some characters work well in teams, others don't. Most often it's a mix. Betrayal, double-crossing, hidden agendae, or just pure chaos (benign or otherwise) - it's all fair game.

It's poor teamwork, and there's no reason why those characters would work together if they couldn't trust each other. The only reason why you do work together is meta-reasons, because most RPGs are for groups of 3-5.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm not exactly sure what you're disagreeing with, as the section of my post which you cited is framed largely as a question, but if you're disagreeing with the idea that genre fidelity must either yield to player autonomy or vice versa then I would suggest: in a no-magic world where the player's character is a mage, it seems that the genre has yielded. Note that I am not making a hard distinction between genre and setting, here, as I see that boundary as rather fluid.

Bad phrasing on my part, sorry.

As I've said, though, it depends heavily on why there's no magic. If you're playing a historical, modern day, or science fiction game, it makes sense that there's no magic. Ditto for playing in a fantasy world where there's no magic because you're using it as an analogue for the real world. Someone who demands to play a wizard while everyone else is playing regular people in a frontier town in the Old West or big-city cops in the 1970s or workers on a genship to 55 Cancri E is being disruptive. But if the idea is "this is a fantasy world and there used to be magic, but it went away," then it doesn't wreck the game for one player to ask to be the last mage.

My broader point, is that - although it sounds like a blast - if the characters consist of Lady Elen, Brother Grazadragam the Dragon, Taira no Masakado and Patrique du Fe - the Mage from Atlantis - then has the game, at this point, essentially departed too far from the genre? "Arthurian Romance" runs the risk of becoming a scenic backdrop, rather than a living paradigm in which the characters are meaningfully immersed.

At this point, you have to ask if the players really want to explore Arthurian Romance? If three-fourths of them are going for wacky ideas like this, then that's a clear indication that the players don't want to play typical Arthurian Romance.

 

[clearstream]

I think this is often very true. Opinions on it can vary wildly… but I know my personal tastes tend to want to focus much more on character than on setting. I’m generally not all that interested in the GM’s unique setting… their pantheon and choices of race and the histories of the various settlements.

I don’t want to play to explore that stuff, except in ways that are meaningful to the characters. For me, the setting is meant to serve the characters. It's not meant to be the point of play.

I know that’s far from a universal truth among RPGers, though. And while there’s certainly nothing wrong with people wanting to explore setting, I think that different focus is (at least partially) to blame for some of the conflict in this thread. For many, the setting is the point.

That’s just not the case for all games.

This morning I reflected on this sort of question in the light of the autotelic nature of game play. Which is to say that playing a game isn't primarily instrumental: it's not done toward some other ends, but for the sake of the play itself. Play is process, not product.

In that light, what obligations do we have toward one another? Does a participant who wants to experience play of a certain sort have any obligation to join play with another who wants to experience play of another sort? That seems trivially ruled out: if I want to play Monopoly and you want to play Dark Souls, you've no obligation to join me in Monopoly. In fact, you cannot have, as it would defeat your autotelic purpose in playing at all.

Thus it seems to me that it has to go one of two ways -

I. Either there is no harm to A's autotelic purpose in B joining their game, and thus they can proceed with joint play.​

​

II. Or there is harm to A's autotelic purpose in B joining their game, and neither of them can be under any obligation to proceed in joint play. To do so would be self-defeating: it would remove the point of playing at all.​

​

To my reading so far, the posts about this are either a claim that I. prevails, or an observation of II. However, it seems reaching too far to claim that I. will always prevail, and thus there must be cases where one accepts II. However, based on II., one can frame a positive principle -

II'. Where A's autotelic purpose would be enhanced by B joining their game, A ought to prefer that B joins their game.​

That illuminates the possibility (for those whose intuitions lean toward I.) that A might not always be able to accurately judge whether B's involvement will harm or enhance their game, prior to play. Is the possibility of enhanced play worth the risk of finding out later that it doesn't work out? On that, one cannot set aside the imagination and ingenuity of players in course-correcting their play toward whatever works... and one can spot a mistaken assumption that play is a fixed and final product in some of the concerns raised.

Due to the nature of play - what it is to play a game - A cannot always be committed to joint play with B, as that would be self-defeating. A's game play as such serves no ends other than A's experience of play. I put that this way in order to provoke doubt concerning one of the more longstanding assumptions about game play. Is it right that the autotelic nature of game play is always self-serving, as seems to be implied?

 

[pemerton]

@clearstream

Your II' seems, at least superficially, like the apparently trivial: If A's enjoyment of play would be enhanced by B joining in, then A ought to prefer that B joins their game.

That is in fact not trivial, because it rests on a premise that A ought to do things that will enhance A's enjoyment, and I don't think that premise is true. People who thwart their own chances of greater enjoyment may be unusual (eg some forms of ascetism) or even embittered or self-damaging, but I don't think they are doing anything wrong.

But in any event it is not equivalent to II', because II' is stated in terms of enhancement of A's autotelic purpose. And of course A is free to trade of attainment of that purpose against other purposes and values. Eg maybe B is boorish, or has intolerable political opinions, or whatever, and for that reason A rationally prefers to avoid association with B even at the cost of enhancement of A's autotelic purpose.

There is very little that A ought to prefer when it comes to the play of games.

 

[clearstream]

@clearstream

Your II' seems, at least superficially, like the apparently trivial: If A's enjoyment of play would be enhanced by B joining in, then A ought to prefer that B joins their game.

That is in fact not trivial, because it rests on a premise that A ought to do things that will enhance A's enjoyment, and I don't think that premise is true. People who thwart their own chances of greater enjoyment may be unusual (eg some forms of ascetism) or even embittered or self-damaging, but I don't think they are doing anything wrong.

But in any event it is not equivalent to II', because II' is stated in terms of enhancement of A's autotelic purpose. And of course A is free to trade of attainment of that purpose against other purposes and values. Eg maybe B is boorish, or has intolerable political opinions, or whatever, and for that reason A rationally prefers to avoid association with B even at the cost of enhancement of A's autotelic purpose.

There is very little that A ought to prefer when it comes to the play of games.

Exactly! As I appended after your post

Due to the nature of play - what it is to play a game - A cannot always be committed to joint play with B, as that would be self-defeating. A's game play as such serves no ends other than A's experience of play. I put that this way in order to provoke doubt concerning one of the more longstanding assumptions about game play. Is it right that the autotelic nature of game play is always self-serving, as seems to be implied?​

One can say (as I think you do) that it is right, but that it can nevertheless be traded against other purposes. To which one can point out that making trades against an autotelic purpose risks annihilating that purpose. I word II' as "ought" to frame it as a regulatory ideal. Something to have firmly in mind, even while making those other considerations you outline.

See also my response to @Lanefan #479 around the kinds of arguments thus far presented. That is, none of the - you ought to allow it because he's your boyriend - sort. Which isn't so much to deny your point, but more to tie my argument to those it was addressing.

 

[Lanefan]

You're making a lot of assumptions. Why would the PCs automatically think to protect her? Why would they even care about her? Depending on what the world thinks about magic--decided by the GM and other players during world creation--their viewpoints could be anything to "she must be protected" to "she must be killed" to "who cares?"

If it's "she must be killed", hopefully the last-mage's player heard that caveat and took note.

But if we lived in a world where fantasy magic is or was a known thing and someone walked up to you and a) said "I'm the last living mage" and b) was able to prove the 'mage' part, I suspect your reaction would be anything but "who cares?". Depending on a host of factors I cold see reactions ranging from "protect the mage" to "kill the mage" to "run for the hills!" to "how can I/we profit off this?"

In the Discworld novels, for instance, wizards are generally considered to be fairly useless--they perform amazing deeds, sure, but most of those deeds are utterly useless from the point of view of the populace and they can be safely ignored unless they happen to tear open a hole in reality, in which case they better fix it before it spooks the horses. Discworld wizards the equivalent of theoretical physicists--what they do has practically no bearing on anyone's day-to-day lives, no matter how awesome it might be. Even most of the wizards themselves tend to put more stock in their staves, which they can use to bonk their enemies on the head, then in the spells they cast.

I've tried reading one Discworld novel, ever. Got halfway through it and gave up.

In a more prosaic, RPG sense of the world, what if the reason there are no more mages is because they all killed each other off in the wizard wars? People won't care if there's only one left, as long as she doesn't start killing non-casters. If casters had been snobbish to non-casters, then good riddance to bad rubbish. If casters had been known to dabble in dark forces and unleash horrible things upon the innocent populace, then the faster Jocasta dies, the better.

Ditto if there's any risk Jocasta could train up more mages. However, your previous posts seemed to suggest that even turning Jocasta in to keep her safe is poor play; I'm surprised (and impressed!) that you're putting the idea of killing her on the table.

That's really easy: she now has new spells and magic points. I'm pretty sure 99% of GMs will do it that way, and the idea of creating an entire subsystem for an NPC mage seems laughably useless and outdated. It's not "more fair." It's just more work.

I thought she was supposed to be a PC. And yes, there would need to be rules around how a mage could or would work in a game in the complete absence of any other mages (or enchanted items e.g. scrolls and spellbooks etc.) to learn from.

Unless, of course, the campaign spends some time chasing down ancient scrolls and spellbooks etc. for her; but then we're back to things centering on the one character again.

Firstly, "do what the characters would do" just means you need to make characters that aren't jerks to the other players. (and by jerk, I mean something a lot coarser)

Or you need to accept that once the puck drops it ain't always all going to be candy and spice; and that sometimes one or more of the other PCs might very well be out to get you.

Secondly, in our group's D&D game, I've managed to play a chaotic neutral tiefling rogue for quite some time without being a jerk to the other players. Why? Because chaotic neutral does not mean that I force my decisions on other players.

Thirdly, there is no "what my character would do," because you, the player, are making that decision. Your character is just a bunch of numbers on a page. You control their opinions and actions.

It's no coincidence that so many RPG horror stories start with players who are jerks but try to excuse their behavior with "it's what my character would do."

One person's horror story is another person's evening of entertainment. Our characters occasionally do awful things to each other; meanwhile we at the table just sit back and laugh at it all.

Just because we're all frineds at the table doesn't for a second mean our characters are friends in the fiction.

So why even bring it up? Jocasta here doesn't need to be guarded unless Jocasta (meaning, her player) decides she wants to be. And if you aren't interested in playing bodyguard, then you have no business forcing the player to stay at home.

The idea of making my character Jocasta's bodyguard came from you, not me.

The player doesn't have to stay at home. Not at all.

The character, on the other hand, might. That's the risk its player took when deciding to play the last known mage in a non-magic setting; and while I'd like to think someone would have mentioned this when the character was first suggested, even if it wasn't it's still one of numerous possible (and IMO quite reasonable) in-character reactions* to learning you've got the last of the mages in your crew.

* - most if not all of the others would still render the character unplayable in one way or another, unless the rest of the group took on support roles.

This makes no sense. Just because there are a million warriors doesn't mean they're expendable. They're not nameless NPCs; they're player characters. Unless the people at your table care so little about their characters that they don't bother to come up with any sort of characterization or background for them. There's bunches of chaotic neutral tiefling rogues out there, but there's only one Rime.

There's only one Rime but if Rime dies there's nothing stopping you from coming right back with another CN Rogue if that's what you enjoy playing in that campaign. If our hypothetical Jocasta dies, however, that's it. No more mages, for that player or anyone else, for the duration of that campaign.

As for characterization, there's usually some of that right out the gate and then it develops further as play goes on. Backgrounds, particularly at low levels, I don't worry about nearly as much until the character's lasted a while; low level play is pretty lethal round here.

Also, you're completely misunderstanding my example. In my example, two players would mutually decide that one of them would act/be hired as the other's guard. The bodyguard's character may think that they're more expendable, but that's only because the player is choosing to have them that way.

Well, one player unilaterally (or with the GM) decided to play the last mage; so what's the difference if I unilaterally decide that mage will be stuck with me as its bodyguard? We can sort out the arguments, if any, in-character once the game starts.

It's poor teamwork, and there's no reason why those characters would work together if they couldn't trust each other.

Oh, that's very true; and characters leaving parties for just that reason has certainly happened. There's no law against it.

Characters, note; not players. The player is always welcome to roll up something else, or bring one in if she alreeady has it from a prior adventure or part of the campaign and wants to cycle it back in.

The only reason why you do work together is meta-reasons, because most RPGs are for groups of 3-5.

And that meta angle bothers me every time it rears its head and interferes with being true to the character.

 

[Lanefan]

Autotelic?

Sounds like a brand name for a robotic phone dialler.

(I guess I'll have to google the actual meaning...)

 

[clearstream]

Autotelic?

Sounds like a brand name for a robotic phone dialler.

(I guess I'll have to google the actual meaning...)

It just means we do it for its own sake. Say I build a wooden table, but not because I need a wooden table but because I enjoy carpentry. That would be autotelic. The process is the ends in itself. Hence I describe game play as process, not product. That has useful implications.

As @pemerton points out, I can (and regularly do) make trades against my autotelic purpose. However, when considering the isolated question - ought I include B in my play if B's inclusion would come at cost to my autotelic purpose? - then barring external motives a reasonable answer is no. That would be self-defeating.

I did not take us to be discussing external motives here, as then we would see arguments such as "The last mage should be permitted because he's your boyfriend." There's no obvious way to draw a boundary around what might - aside from our purposes in game playing as such - lead us to admit the play-disrupting-last-mage-desiring-player to our game. Rather, in the main folk have denied the play-disrupting part. Hence the salience of the argument I presented.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There's bunches of chaotic neutral tiefling rogues out there, but there's only one Rime.

No no! I assure you, from personal experience there's also Rime I, Rime II, Rime... all the way up to maybe Rime VII, usually after that people get bored and either invent another name or quit playing.