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Paladin just committed murder - what should happen next?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7814859" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Ok, I'm going to put on my "lecturer hat" here because I'm starting to think I know what is going on here.</p><p></p><p>Over the years I've been a DM I've had a lot of players whose primary aesthetic of play was self-validation or if you like affirmation. The aesthetic of play of self-validation involves enjoying the experience of approval, affirmation, and the illusion of success. In other words, they are playing because playing makes them feel good about themselves, particularly within a social setting where they can receive this approval and affirmation from others.</p><p></p><p>That's not a bad thing. There is nothing at all wrong with having self-validation as your primary aesthetic of play, and indeed everyone has self-validation as an aesthetic of play. It's one of the most universal reasons that humans play and enjoy playing, whether we are talking RPGs or anything other sort of game. It's I think a 'Good Thing'.</p><p></p><p>However, self-validation is also one of the most dangerous and potentially destructive aesthetics of play when applied to social gaming because it is so easy to get addicted to that pleasure and frustrated when you aren't getting your endorphin hits to adopt dysfunctional strategies for getting your self-validation. For example, every player that cheats is adopting a dysfunctional strategy for receiving self-validation. That need to experience affirmation and the illusion of success has become so strong that they are no longer able to accept delayed gratification, and they use cheating as a way to avoid the disappointment of failure, increase their spotlight in the game, and get that regular hit of self-validation by winning pretty much everything that they do.</p><p></p><p>And the problem with all of these dysfunctional strategies for getting self-validation from the game is that are self-defeating. Not only does for example cheating reduce the pleasure that you get from succeeding because you always no at some level it wasn't earned, but almost certainly everyone at the table soon knows you are a cheat because they observe that your dice rolls never fail, and at that point even if they don't speak up because they don't want the drama, they stop offering the affirmation and validation that you enjoy. You rolling a 20 is no longer cool. You winning big is no longer cool. And so you end up in a downward spiral where the cheating becomes pretty much all you do.</p><p></p><p>So what does that have to do with the thread?</p><p></p><p>Leaving aside the morality questions a lot of the focus on how to advance from this situation are based on dysfunctional techniques for achieving the self-validation aesthetic of play. I can tell a lot of you have that as your primary aesthetic of play by just what you are focusing on in this situation, how you describe what is important to you about the game, and how you word what you think is going on in the game. And again, I want to affirm that I think self-validation as an aesthetic of play is a 'Good Thing' and I don't discourage people with that aesthetic of play from playing at my table and pursuing it. But you have to pursue it with a functional strategy.</p><p></p><p>So many of the problem players I've had to deal with over the years have developed these dysfunctional strategies via play at other tables, where some combination of their own youthful immaturity and/or the DMs immaturity has meant that the only way available to them to achieve their aesthetic of self-validation was a dysfunctional one. Essentially, they are coming to me out of an abusive relationship where they have expectations that they are going to be abused, and I have to untrain them out of those expectations - if I can - before they are really going to enjoy the game.</p><p></p><p>So when you start talking about ways to go forward out of this that empower self-validation as an aesthetic of play, you can't start talking about 'take backs'. Because 'take backs' undermine self-validation, because - like cheating - at some level you know that they aren't earned. And don't ultimately get you that social approval and affirmation. Likewise, browbeating the DM into giving you your dose of self-validation is also a dysfunctional strategy. This is not about how the DM is trying to entertain himself at your expense, and you have to wring the fun out of the DM through some sort of act of dominance or emotional manipulation.</p><p></p><p>Ironically, I think the OP was trying to help a player fulfill an aesthetic of self-validation and just in his inexperience assumed that the OP would follow along with the cues and act like a cinematic hero and the player didn't go along with that. But the solution here is not to undermine the integrity of the game because if the game doesn't have integrity it can't really create that feeling of success. Even if everyone knows that the all successes in the game are illusionary, if you undermine that illusion of success enough there no self-validation aesthetic left in the game.</p><p></p><p>UPDATE: And that what I'm describing is exactly the central theme of 'The Gamers II: Dorkness Rising'. In the movie there are a bunch of players with Self-Validation as their primary aesthetic of play. And they've each adopted a dysfunctional strategy for getting that Self-Validation. Right now the whole party is stuck and frustrated and they can't see a way forward because approaching the problem through the same tired dysfunctional strategies and it's not working for them. And the GM can't seem to get them out of their comfort zone, however dysfunctional it is. They bring a new player into the game, which allows the social dynamics to change a bit, because the new player has a more mature approach to the game. One of the players though decides that the DM's scenario is screwing them, and that it is unwinnable and when his normal dysfunctional brow beating strategy fails to achieve the results he wants because the DM refuses to destroy the integrity of the game, he storms away from the group in a temper tantrum. The remaining players however push through and advance the story, and it is resolved with a Shiny Moment of Awesome that was what they all really wanted in the first place - but the one player who most wanted self-validation wasn't there to receive it because he'd left the game.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7814859, member: 4937"] Ok, I'm going to put on my "lecturer hat" here because I'm starting to think I know what is going on here. Over the years I've been a DM I've had a lot of players whose primary aesthetic of play was self-validation or if you like affirmation. The aesthetic of play of self-validation involves enjoying the experience of approval, affirmation, and the illusion of success. In other words, they are playing because playing makes them feel good about themselves, particularly within a social setting where they can receive this approval and affirmation from others. That's not a bad thing. There is nothing at all wrong with having self-validation as your primary aesthetic of play, and indeed everyone has self-validation as an aesthetic of play. It's one of the most universal reasons that humans play and enjoy playing, whether we are talking RPGs or anything other sort of game. It's I think a 'Good Thing'. However, self-validation is also one of the most dangerous and potentially destructive aesthetics of play when applied to social gaming because it is so easy to get addicted to that pleasure and frustrated when you aren't getting your endorphin hits to adopt dysfunctional strategies for getting your self-validation. For example, every player that cheats is adopting a dysfunctional strategy for receiving self-validation. That need to experience affirmation and the illusion of success has become so strong that they are no longer able to accept delayed gratification, and they use cheating as a way to avoid the disappointment of failure, increase their spotlight in the game, and get that regular hit of self-validation by winning pretty much everything that they do. And the problem with all of these dysfunctional strategies for getting self-validation from the game is that are self-defeating. Not only does for example cheating reduce the pleasure that you get from succeeding because you always no at some level it wasn't earned, but almost certainly everyone at the table soon knows you are a cheat because they observe that your dice rolls never fail, and at that point even if they don't speak up because they don't want the drama, they stop offering the affirmation and validation that you enjoy. You rolling a 20 is no longer cool. You winning big is no longer cool. And so you end up in a downward spiral where the cheating becomes pretty much all you do. So what does that have to do with the thread? Leaving aside the morality questions a lot of the focus on how to advance from this situation are based on dysfunctional techniques for achieving the self-validation aesthetic of play. I can tell a lot of you have that as your primary aesthetic of play by just what you are focusing on in this situation, how you describe what is important to you about the game, and how you word what you think is going on in the game. And again, I want to affirm that I think self-validation as an aesthetic of play is a 'Good Thing' and I don't discourage people with that aesthetic of play from playing at my table and pursuing it. But you have to pursue it with a functional strategy. So many of the problem players I've had to deal with over the years have developed these dysfunctional strategies via play at other tables, where some combination of their own youthful immaturity and/or the DMs immaturity has meant that the only way available to them to achieve their aesthetic of self-validation was a dysfunctional one. Essentially, they are coming to me out of an abusive relationship where they have expectations that they are going to be abused, and I have to untrain them out of those expectations - if I can - before they are really going to enjoy the game. So when you start talking about ways to go forward out of this that empower self-validation as an aesthetic of play, you can't start talking about 'take backs'. Because 'take backs' undermine self-validation, because - like cheating - at some level you know that they aren't earned. And don't ultimately get you that social approval and affirmation. Likewise, browbeating the DM into giving you your dose of self-validation is also a dysfunctional strategy. This is not about how the DM is trying to entertain himself at your expense, and you have to wring the fun out of the DM through some sort of act of dominance or emotional manipulation. Ironically, I think the OP was trying to help a player fulfill an aesthetic of self-validation and just in his inexperience assumed that the OP would follow along with the cues and act like a cinematic hero and the player didn't go along with that. But the solution here is not to undermine the integrity of the game because if the game doesn't have integrity it can't really create that feeling of success. Even if everyone knows that the all successes in the game are illusionary, if you undermine that illusion of success enough there no self-validation aesthetic left in the game. UPDATE: And that what I'm describing is exactly the central theme of 'The Gamers II: Dorkness Rising'. In the movie there are a bunch of players with Self-Validation as their primary aesthetic of play. And they've each adopted a dysfunctional strategy for getting that Self-Validation. Right now the whole party is stuck and frustrated and they can't see a way forward because approaching the problem through the same tired dysfunctional strategies and it's not working for them. And the GM can't seem to get them out of their comfort zone, however dysfunctional it is. They bring a new player into the game, which allows the social dynamics to change a bit, because the new player has a more mature approach to the game. One of the players though decides that the DM's scenario is screwing them, and that it is unwinnable and when his normal dysfunctional brow beating strategy fails to achieve the results he wants because the DM refuses to destroy the integrity of the game, he storms away from the group in a temper tantrum. The remaining players however push through and advance the story, and it is resolved with a Shiny Moment of Awesome that was what they all really wanted in the first place - but the one player who most wanted self-validation wasn't there to receive it because he'd left the game. [/QUOTE]
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Paladin just committed murder - what should happen next?
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