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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7632854" data-attributes="member: 16814">Re: challenging the character conceptI was using risk earlier, because it's a better framing for the issue.  Are you risking your character.  Challenging is so vague as to mean anything.  Heck, the example of chastity versus a sword is being used, but that doesn't challenge the character at all, it challenges the player to make a choice as to what character they want to play.  This isn't anything like risking the characterization.  Instead, it's a choice the player is making as to whether or not they value their characterization over the mechanical advantage of a powerful magic item.  Even if the example is using Excalibur in it's broader fictional sense and offering a choice between playing a chaste knight that honors their vows versus being the Once and Future King, this is a choice for the player to make -- which characterization do I want to play.  Nothing is actually risked here, it's just a choice.  And, this is the kind of choice that's confused for characterization risking by those steeped in gaming culture where the DM has loads of authority and the player has little because it represents the limited amount of authority the player has in these games -- choosing what kind of character they want to play.In games where the character is actually risked, as in the very nature of the character is at risk in play and not in the players sole choice, you have a different concept going on.  Here, the character can be changed in the game without the player's choice.  The player risks a loss of power over their choices for the character.  Like anything, this gets very bad with excess, but most games that do this use explicit tells to show what's at stake and what isn't in a given scene.  To return to the maiden's wink example, here's a possible way that it could play out in one of these kinds of games, absent specific mechanics.Firstly, the character of the knight is set up with what's at stake up front.  The quest, for one, is clearly at stake.  The vow of chastity is at stake.  We know these things because the player has stated them as driving forces and thereby opened them to being at stake.The GM would frame a scene where one or more of the player's stakes are risked.  Let's imagine a courtly ball, being held in honor of the knight as he quests through this noble's land.  At this ball, the GM frames a winsome young lady, the maiden, who approaches the knight and invites being courted.  The knight has to refuse the courtship without insulting anyone (it's chivalry, after all), and so a challenge begins.  Let's say the knight fails the challenge, and so has either managed to insult the maiden or invited another problem.  Let's say the GM decides to widen the conflict, and has the noble become involved, accusing the knight of insulting his house with his boorish behavior.  The knight now has to negotiate this challenge -- how best to placate his host while maintaining his honor.  Let's again say the knight fails.  At risk now is his quest -- he's offended a noble who's offered succor and the stain on his reputation will be hard to overcome and significantly increase the difficulty of his quest (again, chivalry as trope is assumed).  But, the GM decides to go a different route with the failure, and has the young maiden put up a sudden a spirited defense of the knight's honor, pointing out his vow of chastity, and stating no offense was given or taken.  This placates the noble.  Then, the lady looks over at the knight an gives a conspiratorial wink and it's this wink that has the knight realize that he's fallen for this maiden.  Now the result of the failures here is that the knight has fallen in love and must decide how to deal with this complication to his honor and his quest.  Certainly, this will come up again.So, in this example, the player of the knight chose what aspects of their character where at risk, but has no control of how that risk occurs.  The player of the knight has choice regarding what they attempt in a scene, but no choice as to the outcomes if they fail.  If a failure condition occurs, then what the player has put at stake is, well, at stake.  It's perfectly fine play to actually attack those things.What I think one side is missing in this discussion is that the character can actually be at stake in more ways than just alive/dead (which is the default in D&D).  This works best if there's some mechanics in play to announce what is at stake and how those stakes are resolved.  The player is still the authority for what's at stake, even if these choices are made at character creation.  What they don't have choice over is what happens to those stakes if they lose a contest.  I think one side here is holds on far too tightly to character not being at stake because it has been, traditionally, the one thing the player has authority over.  It's hard to overcome this ingrained defensiveness of your one thing.  Especially since many bad play examples in D&D operate by reducing or removing that authority (railroading, etc.).  So, it's hard to see that there are games and ways of playing where you intentionally risk these things as part of play, and that it can happen without bad play occurring.  The focus in these games isn't (often) figuring out the GM's plot, or if you can win this fight, but rather is this character who I think they are.  And, it's quite often that they aren't, and this is fun.Not the only way to have fun, nor am I saying that playing in the traditional way is less fun or less in any way.  It's different, that's all, and the point of this thread, and my participation in it, is to hopefully get one more person to open their eyes to more ways to play, even if they then choose to not change.  Understanding other ways to play almost always improves how you play however you choose to play, because you're more aware of what's at stake in the game you play and how best to bring those stakes forward.  My D&D games got better after I tried some other ways to play, not because I brought things from other games in (although I did), but more because I recognized better what it is that D&D does well and made my games about that rather than about the things it doesn't do well.  For games involving those, I use other systems.</blockquote>

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