Realistic Consequences vs Gameplay

[FrogReaver]

I can't (and won't try to) speak for the other two, but I'd find the behavior of the player whose character insulted the tyrant while I was negotiating with him to be literally infuriating. You're not only keeping my character from achieving the goal of the negotiation now, you're keeping my character from ever achieving that goal with this NPC. It has vibes of PvP to me--and I utterly detest PvP.

The problem is that it takes 2 to tango. I don't believe we can give the DM a pass for playing the NPC to their conception while condemning the player for playing his PC to his conception.

The player insulting the tyrant didn't cause the negotiation to end. The DM choosing to have the NPC react that way did. Was such a potentially realistic NPC reaction? YES! But it wasn't the only realistic NPC reaction.

IMO. A DM should strive to play an NPC such that one or two remarks by one of the players will not totally upend the other players fun (in this case if other players were having fun negotiating then the potentially realistic NPC reaction to the insult was the wrong potentially realistic NPC reaction to go with). IMO the NPC's reaction, which the DM controls, is the direct cause of the negotiating fun ending, so why not lay the blame on the DM where it appears to belong?

 

[Lanefan]

The PC is part of the shared world. The PC is being retired by the player. Therefore someone else (namely the DM) needs to operate the character.

Massive disconnect here.

The PC is being retired by the player thus is (for now or forever) no longer adventuring; but the player still controls what it does in its retirement. This can be as simple as saying "I stay in town and do spell research for a few years." (which really needs little if any further input from anyone until those few years are up) or as complex as "I hire a ship and a crew and where the map is blank, I go." (which probably means a night in the pub sometime where you and the player determine what becomes of this voyage).

Can the player decide to reprise his ownership?

Reprise his ownership? Ownership never left the player in the first place!

Maybe, depending on the reason for retirement. Can the player use the PC in a different campaign? Sure! But the currently operating campaign exists with that character in it. The world is not altered by the player taking a different PC.

Ah...something's beginning to dawn on me here - are you coming from a strict standpoint of "a player may only ever have one PC in the campaign world at a time"? Because if this is so, there's another big disconnect: as both player and DM I expect players to end up with several (or more!) PCs out there in the game world, of whom one or two are active at any given time.

In the game I play in, I currently have nine. One is in the party we'll (I think) be playing tonight. Another three are in three other active parties, each currently on hold while we play this one. One is retired for now; one is retired probably forever, but they are both still mine. One has in effect made herself a hench to another player's PC and if asked I'd hand her over either to that player or the DM. And two who I had thought were long-term dead were recently found and rescued (one) and revived (the other), so in that party I'll have three active PCs if-when we get back to it, at least for the remainder of that adventure. (I've good in-character reasons to split 'em up afterwards)

I as DM control the freaking universe outside the purview of the PC(s) directly under the players' control. If you retire your control over a PC voluntarily or involuntarily, that character now belongs to me.

Retiring my PC from adventuring is my choice, and a common enough occurrence. Retiring my control over that PC - particularly if I'm still otherwise in the game - is also my choice and mine alone, and is an extremely rare occurrence. The two choices are not tied together.

That, and often I'm retiring one PC in order to cycle another back in; and in a year I might reverse the process. Gets boring playing the same one all the time.

Most of the time there won't be conflict because I have no vested interest in controlling one particular NPC over another and in fact have a minor vested interest in reducing the spotlight on a former PC. Sometimes, crap happens though and a particular NPC is best suited to a situation. If that happens to be a former PC, OK. I'll try to portray the character sensibly and within its established history and characterization as I would any other character.

If that PC's player is still in the game the PC is the player's to control.

If that PC's player has left the game I'll only use it with the player's permission (if I can contact said player) or I won't use it at all. The exceptions to this are a) having old characters reappear in something like a dream sequence, that has no lasting impact on anything or b) active PCs touching base with retired characters to keep up friendships, exchange info, and the like.

The former player may or may not be invited to provide input as I deem appropriate.

Even if that player is still sitting there at the table?

The NPC may or may not be eligible to be promoted back to PC status depending on their new role in the campaign.

This touches on a whole different can o' worms, that being adventuring NPCs and their status within the party. I treat 'em just like PCs, as do the players; mostly because the PCs in the fiction would treat them as just one of the team.

If the players come back a few months later to recruit a former PC, assuming it is available and still appropriate for PC status, the player will be faced with a choice: which PC does the player wish to control? The new PC or the old PC. Pick one. The other is a NPC.

Again a hard one-PC-per-player stance; I'd almost always allow the player to run both; even more so in this case because it's the other players (as PCs) seeking out that character.

 

[prabe]

The problem is that it takes 2 to tango. I don't believe we can give the DM a pass for playing the NPC to their conception while condemning the player for playing his PC to his conception.

In principle, I'm willing to agree with you, except for the description of the player's motivations as being (paraphrasing) "probably boredom" and not any deep conception of his character.

IMO. A DM should strive to play an NPC such that one or two remarks by one of the players will not totally upend the other players fun (in this case if other players were having fun negotiating then the potentially realistic NPC reaction to the insult was the wrong potentially realistic NPC reaction to go with). IMO the NPC's reaction, which the DM controls, is the direct cause of the negotiating fun ending, so why not lay the blame on the DM where it appears to belong?

Yes, that's a reasonable way to prep an NPC, but it's not the only way to prep an NPC. And I think it's cute that you think the player would have stopped with just the one insult. I'm probably more than a little twitchy, here (I've played with someone like this, I think) but a player willing to insult the NPC I'm negotiating with is willing to insult that NPC again; how many insults is it realistic for a tyrant to tolerate? I blame the player who was "probably bored" and decided to spit on someone else's fun. Yes, there were probably GM-side alternatives, but once a player decides to be disruptive it tends to turn into an out-of-game problem with in-game implications.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, we generally don't run the types of characters that can't be trusted by the party, as it puts a serious strain on the credulity of why the characters are even tolerating this person in their group. Obviously, it's simply because that character is a PC, but that's based entirely on meta information, not on what the PCs would actually do. So we don't really do that these days. The PC can be untrustworthy towards people outside a party, but they don't violate the party's trust.

That the party knows about.

Only an idiot PC would break a party's trust in such a way as to allow the party to find out about it.

Then again, look at the first three Pirates of the Caribbean. In the end nobody trusts anybody in that series, but when they have to they work together - until the danger has passed at which point they stab each other in the back. Great stuff!

"I'm not sure I want rescue from you lot. Four of you have tried to kill me in the past; one of you succeeded." - Jack Sparrow, while in Davy Jones' locker.

 

[FrogReaver]

In principle, I'm willing to agree with you, except for the description of the player's motivations as being (paraphrasing) "probably boredom" and not any deep conception of his character.

1. Did the player himself say it was boredom or is that just speculation?
2. What does it matter if the player was bored and also had their PC do something that was realistic for their PC to do? It seems to me that could just as easily be categorized as good play.

I think what often gets pushed as disruptive player behavior isn't actually disruptive behavior at all.

Yes, that's a reasonable way to prep an NPC, but it's not the only way to prep an NPC.

It is if you want the group as a whole to have fun. 1 dimensional NPC's that have to be solved as a puzzle are always going to lead to situations like what we had here.

And I think it's cute that you think the player would have stopped with just the one insult.

1. You never gave him a chance with clear stakes to see where that path led.

I'm probably more than a little twitchy, here (I've played with someone like this, I think) but a player willing to insult the NPC I'm negotiating with is willing to insult that NPC again; how many insults is it realistic for a tyrant to tolerate?

I think the best answer there is he would tolerate as many as the other players talk him into tolerating.

I blame the player who was "probably bored" and decided to spit on someone else's fun. Yes, there were probably GM-side alternatives, but once a player decides to be disruptive it tends to turn into an out-of-game problem with in-game implications.

The DM chose the NPC reaction. That's at the DMs feet. You keep calling the player disruptive with nothing to support that notion - nor whether it was justifiable for him to be bored in the first place.

 

[Lanefan]

Because I expect the insulted character to remember that insult, and I probably used all of PC B's good mojo not getting roped into PC A's idiocy?

Maybe PC A thinks the whole talky idea is idiocy in the first place, guesses (rightly or wrongly) it's doomed to failure, and starts what he sees as the inevitable brawl before someone else starts it for him...

And sure, if it's in PC B's nature to remember this and take it up with PC A later, that's fine too. Maybe they argue over it. Maybe they even fight over it. So what? Let 'em.

Because I expect goals passed up or missed not to be available again via the same path?

Assuming they were ever available on that path to begin with; but you-as-player likely have no way of knowing that.

It's clear we have pretty wildly different expectations of play in most cases, in terms of the fiction and in terms of the rules of the game and in terms of player behavior around the table.

Not sure what the different expectations around the fiction would be - I think there's general consensus here that we all want the fiction to be more or less consistent with itself and have at least some amount of internal logic such that outcomes that do occur usually fall with the predictable range of outcomes that could occur.

As for player behavior around the table: as long as it stays in character, follow your character wherever it leads you.

 

[Lanefan]

The problem is that it takes 2 to tango. I don't believe we can give the DM a pass for playing the NPC to their conception while condemning the player for playing his PC to his conception.

The player insulting the tyrant didn't cause the negotiation to end. The DM choosing to have the NPC react that way did. Was such a potentially realistic NPC reaction? YES! But it wasn't the only realistic NPC reaction.

IMO. A DM should strive to play an NPC such that one or two remarks by one of the players will not totally upend the other players fun (in this case if other players were having fun negotiating then the potentially realistic NPC reaction to the insult was the wrong potentially realistic NPC reaction to go with). IMO the NPC's reaction, which the DM controls, is the direct cause of the negotiating fun ending, so why not lay the blame on the DM where it appears to belong?

I say we give them both a pass for playing their characters to their conception, and that there's no real blame to lay on either.

Something that's come up here a few times is concern for a DM sticking too rigidly to what's in her mind as to how a scene might play out; but note the same can also be said about players either individually or as a group: sometimes one or more players won't let go of a plan* even after unfolding events show that plan isn't the best.

* - often it's the players most involved with making said plan that are the most reluctant to let it go.

 

[FrogReaver]

I say we give them both a pass for playing their characters to their conception, and that there's no real blame to lay on either.

I agree with the rest but this sentence I don't.

I agree with the general notion that players sticking to rigidly to their character conception and not considering alternative courses of action that are also plausible for their character is often a detriment to the game. And the same most definitely applies to DMs.

But in this scenario and in general also - a single insult from a single PC shouldn't solely derail and escalate an otherwise peaceful negotiation to violence. So I think we have enough from this situation to show that it's the DMs whose action should have been different to potentially change the outcome.

That said in general, the player typically could have also chosen a different plausible course of action thus it's usually the case that the blame rests equally on both the DM and the player.

Something that's come up here a few times is concern for a DM sticking too rigidly to what's in her mind as to how a scene might play out; but note the same can also be said about players either individually or as a group: sometimes one or more players won't let go of a plan* even after unfolding events show that plan isn't the best.

* - often it's the players most involved with making said plan that are the most reluctant to let it go.

This I agree with.

 

[Fanaelialae]

@prabe @billd91 @Fanaelialae

I personally find that level of group coordination extraordinary. I do not think it should be taken as a given.

For my part a good deal of how I learned to run games is focused on getting players to play their characters as individuals. If a character is present on the scene during a social interaction I would expect that they would be actively involved in the negotiations. If they were not NPCs would bring that up. I might also ask them questions about how they see things.

Now if they are like not in the scene because they are doing other things or are on the other side of the room that's one thing. If they interrupt when I am specifically addressing someone else that's another. If your character is physically present you are in the scene.

Of course at the end of the day a lot of this confusion comes from the lack of instruction provided to players and GMs by the game. There is no meaningful sense of where your priorities ought to be so unless that is resolved by group explicitly you are apt to run into mismatched play priorities.

You're arguably right. My group certainly wasn't like that when we first got together something like 20 years ago. It was something that developed over time, and was nurtured in newcomers as they joined our game.

That said, I don't think it's an unreasonable thing to expect from mature players (if they're teenagers or something, it probably is entirely unreasonable). That's not to imply that not playing this way is immature. Mature players might enjoy non-cooperative play, and if that's their dynamic then sure, why not.

I mean, to me the fact that you should play a cooperative game cooperatively is not that much different from being aware that you shouldn't "accidentally" trip your own teammates in basketball just because you want the ball to be passed to you. It's not obvious to everyone, but I feel like for most people it is reasonably intuitive. Even back before we reached our current level of coordination, there was a general acknowledgment from most players that antagonistic play wasn't... ideal. If only because it tended to cause real world arguments and bad feelings.

It's one thing for the players to riff off each other and decide that the barbarian is going to cut the boring negotiation short by attacking the mad tyrant. It's another thing for the barbarian to pull the rug out from under the negotiator by ruining a scene that the negotiator was engaging with. Even in groups where players don't side bar to come to an agreement on the direction to go, you still often see this kind of play. It might be the DM looking at the other players and asking "are you going to let him do that". Or the negotiating player might look at the barbarian player askance and say, "come on man, let me do my thing". Certainly not every table does this, but I don't think it's a rare playstyle. We just cut out the risk of clashing egos by having a polite OOC conversation about it, which is a slightly more direct way of going about the same thing.

That the party knows about.

Only an idiot PC would break a party's trust in such a way as to allow the party to find out about it.

Then again, look at the first three Pirates of the Caribbean. In the end nobody trusts anybody in that series, but when they have to they work together - until the danger has passed at which point they stab each other in the back. Great stuff!

"I'm not sure I want rescue from you lot. Four of you have tried to kill me in the past; one of you succeeded." - Jack Sparrow, while in Davy Jones' locker.

No, because either it's such a trivial act that no one cares, or it eventually comes to light, at which point the only reason they stick together is that they're PCs (or the equivalent of PCs in the case of the pirates movies, which I've watched because my wife likes them but aren't exactly my favorite movies).

We once played an evil campaign where one of the players was a homebrew torturer class who could make a person or animal into their minion by breaking their will. My character was a medic who always found the good in everyone, especially those who didn't deserve it, and was also the leader of the party. The torturer played it up that he had rescued his minions from terrible conditions (explaining the injuries he had inflicted). It worked as an excellent dynamic at the table, and everyone was greatly entertained. But the thing is, he wasn't acting against the party's interests. He was simply doing his own thing, which might have caused the party to view him in a different light had it been known. Even had it come to light, my character would have argued his case since he was the worst kind of apologist.

Contrast that with another guy in that same campaign, who was jealous that I was party leader (it was determined by a homebrew reputation system, but I honestly never used it to force anyone to do anything). Ultimately, when it became apparent that he couldn't seize the leader position, he tried to get my character killed and instead caused a TPK that ended the campaign. We don't game with that guy anymore. We used to be more tolerant but eventually came to the conclusion that we don't get enough game time to waste it with people who are willing to ruin everyone's fun for their own selfish reasons.

YMMV

 

[FrogReaver]

A couple of other points.

When we were playing in CoS the burgomaster social encounter was one of the most frustrating I've ever been a part of. So I'm going to go out on a limb and say the adventure itself in that particular aspect probably is the true source of everyones frustration. A DM running an officially published module and trying to be true to it is hard to fault. A truly exceptional DM may have recognized the potential issue with this part and modified it a bit.

I also think DM's and players both are very bad with handling social interactions and part of that is because the social interactions in our sources of inspiration are often quite different from person to person. Perhaps approaching social interaction more from a action/goal methodology would be helpful.
I think if the PC had said "I say X insult to the NPC to show my allies that he is more afraid of us than we are of him". Failure in that context may simply be that the NPC demands more. Extreme failure may be that the NPC arrests the PC and uses him as part of his leverage. Success may have been that allies get advantage.