Previewing next Myths of Gaming version

[Jeff Heikkinen]

Here's the changes I am currently planning to version 2.0 (if you don't
have it, Google Is Your Friend).

*********
reword what are currently Myths 2, 25a, 26a (word latter two in terms of
balance rather than rarity), and 29

All (or most) injuries should cause combat penalties (assuming realism
is desired)
Submyth: Hit points are inherently unrealistic

Roleplaying as paramount (even at the expense of the group's enjoyment)
{"It's what my character would do!" as excuse for disruptive behaviour,
etc}

PKing is [always / never] okay

The quality of the gameplay is [the most important part of a play
session / not important at all]

A rational argument will always (or usually, or even often) win out over
one that has nothing going for it but charisma / presentation. {In the
long run I think this tends to be true, but surely it is a myth when
applied to short-term goals}

Preventing players from abusing OOC knowledge -> keeping secrets from
them.

Railroading always bad
Sub: Railroading will always hit a continuation the players aren't
interested in
***********

This would bring the count to 42 or 60, I think, depending whether you
count "submyths". Also, a more detailed typology and paragraph
explanations of the most important and/or least clear ones are in the
offing. I can't immediately write this up in any detail, though - that
will have to wait probably until late in the third week of December at
the soonest, due to academic commitments until then.

[Jeff Heikkinen]

Jeff Heikkinen, worshipped by llamas the world over, wrote...

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Here's the changes I am currently planning to version 2.0 (if you don't
have it, Google Is Your Friend).

Possible further addition (definitely in the "not always true" category,
though, not the "flat wrong" category):

Starting at "1st level" or your system's equivalent is necessary /
always best / etc.

(I was especialy appalled by the 250 HP recommendation in the very first
edition of DC Heroes, if anyone remembers it - all MEGS games since then
that I am aware of moved up to a more reasonable 500. Granted, 50 of
those were for writing background, which shows that the designers
endorsed *another* myth, but at least for a superhero game it's
reasonable to expect to have your "origin story" worked out.)

[Wayne Shaw]

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
that I am aware of moved up to a more reasonable 500. Granted, 50 of
those were for writing background, which shows that the designers
endorsed *another* myth, but at least for a superhero game it's
reasonable to expect to have your "origin story" worked out.)

I think in a superhero game it's a bit more of a necessity, given some
of the stylizations in the genre.

[Neelakantan Krishnaswami]

Post by Wayne Shaw

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
that I am aware of moved up to a more reasonable 500. Granted, 50
of those were for writing background, which shows that the
designers endorsed *another* myth, but at least for a superhero
game it's reasonable to expect to have your "origin story" worked
out.)

I think in a superhero game it's a bit more of a necessity, given some
of the stylizations in the genre.

Doesn't Wolverine stand as a counterexample? :)

[Jeff Heikkinen]

Neelakantan Krishnaswami, worshipped by llamas the world over, wrote...

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami

Post by Wayne Shaw

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
that I am aware of moved up to a more reasonable 500. Granted, 50
of those were for writing background, which shows that the
designers endorsed *another* myth, but at least for a superhero
game it's reasonable to expect to have your "origin story" worked
out.)

I think in a superhero game it's a bit more of a necessity, given some
of the stylizations in the genre.

Doesn't Wolverine stand as a counterexample? :)

That's true. I think when I was reading comics as a kid, there were
quite a few characters that went for a long time without an origin
story.

But in most cases I would say Wayne has the right of it; it's just that
like so many other things, there are a few exceptions to the general
rule.

[Wayne Shaw]

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 23:25:31 +0000 (UTC), Neelakantan Krishnaswami

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami

Post by Wayne Shaw

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
that I am aware of moved up to a more reasonable 500. Granted, 50
of those were for writing background, which shows that the
designers endorsed *another* myth, but at least for a superhero
game it's reasonable to expect to have your "origin story" worked
out.)

I think in a superhero game it's a bit more of a necessity, given some
of the stylizations in the genre.

Doesn't Wolverine stand as a counterexample? :)

Ah, but they went out of their way to make Wolverine an amnesiac, and
even then he knew a lot of things he'd done. Amnesiac characters are
a fine old tradition in certain kinds of fiction.

[David Meadows]

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami

Post by Wayne Shaw

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
that I am aware of moved up to a more reasonable 500. Granted, 50
of those were for writing background, which shows that the
designers endorsed *another* myth, but at least for a superhero
game it's reasonable to expect to have your "origin story" worked
out.)

I think in a superhero game it's a bit more of a necessity, given some
of the stylizations in the genre.

Doesn't Wolverine stand as a counterexample? :)

But then you have to ask yourself, is he the most boring character in comics
*because* of this or in spite of it? ;-)

[Neelakantan Krishnaswami]

Post by David Meadows
Shaw

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami

Post by Wayne Shaw

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
that I am aware of moved up to a more reasonable 500. Granted, 50
of those were for writing background, which shows that the
designers endorsed *another* myth, but at least for a superhero
game it's reasonable to expect to have your "origin story" worked
out.)

I think in a superhero game it's a bit more of a necessity, given some
of the stylizations in the genre.

Doesn't Wolverine stand as a counterexample? :)

But then you have to ask yourself, is he the most boring character
in comics *because* of this or in spite of it? ;-)

Hence the smiley, of course. But his whole backstory reminds me of
nothing so much as a player who takes amnesia as a flaw for his or her
PC, which the GM then uses to hang his cool-idea-of-the-week off of,
with no particular regard for consistency or internal logic.

Although, I confess a sneaking affection for such characters precisely
*because* of the stark raving lunacy of their backstories. Since their
history basically makes no sense, we are free to add whatever seems
cool without worrying about whether or not it contradicts something
else -- the background is already nonsense, so it doesn't hurt
anything. :)

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Granted, 50 of
those were for writing background, which shows that the designers
endorsed *another* myth, but at least for a superhero game it's
reasonable to expect to have your "origin story" worked out.)

In my case it oftens ends up as "was born with the genetic potential
for these powers; said potential starts manifesting shortly before the
start of the campaign"; though I did play one character who _ended up
with_ a much more interesting backstory :)

[Wayne Shaw]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Granted, 50 of
those were for writing background, which shows that the designers
endorsed *another* myth, but at least for a superhero game it's
reasonable to expect to have your "origin story" worked out.)

In my case it oftens ends up as "was born with the genetic potential
for these powers; said potential starts manifesting shortly before the
start of the campaign"; though I did play one character who _ended up
with_ a much more interesting backstory :)

That's fine, as long as it's explicit that was all there was to it.

[Joachim Schipper]

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Here's the changes I am currently planning to version 2.0 (if you don't
have it, Google Is Your Friend).
*********
reword what are currently Myths 2, 25a, 26a (word latter two in terms of
balance rather than rarity), and 29
All (or most) injuries should cause combat penalties (assuming realism
is desired)
Submyth: Hit points are inherently unrealistic
Roleplaying as paramount (even at the expense of the group's enjoyment)
{"It's what my character would do!" as excuse for disruptive behaviour,
etc}

That's not always correct, but in some groups it may be the norm. Those
would be to the far end of the Dramatist scale, though.

Then again, a myth that is more common than one would expect is that
roleplaying at the expense of character power is inhuman stupidity...

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
PKing is [always / never] okay
The quality of the gameplay is [the most important part of a play
session / not important at all]
A rational argument will always (or usually, or even often) win out over
one that has nothing going for it but charisma / presentation. {In the
long run I think this tends to be true, but surely it is a myth when
applied to short-term goals}

Very true, but I'm not sure how much of a myth of gaming this is. It's
somewhat of a myth of politics here in the Netherlands, with the Fortuyn guy
and all. (Though nowadays it's sometimes more like 'a presentation brought
with flair and charisma will always win out over a rational argument', which
doesn't work either.)

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Preventing players from abusing OOC knowledge -> keeping secrets from
them.

This should be worded a little differently, maybe. To me, 'preventing A from
doing B' means making it impossible for A to do B, or at least take steps to
make it more difficult or advice against it. That is not what you mean, do
you? Maybe word it as

'the only way to keep players from abusing knowledge the players do, but
the characters do not, have is to keep it secret' (clearing up any possible
confusion as to OOC meaning 'metagame' or 'in-gamish' knowledge)

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Railroading always bad
Sub: Railroading will always hit a continuation the players aren't
interested in
***********
This would bring the count to 42 or 60, I think, depending whether you
count "submyths". Also, a more detailed typology and paragraph
explanations of the most important and/or least clear ones are in the
offing. I can't immediately write this up in any detail, though - that
will have to wait probably until late in the third week of December at
the soonest, due to academic commitments until then.

I'll be awaiting the next edition, for a critical read. I do hope you find
those comments useful - I only nitpick at such lists' wordings if I think
they are worthy of nitpicking, if that's any consolation...

Joachim


---
My outgoing mail is checked for viruses.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.545 / Virus Database: 339 - Release Date: 27-11-03

[Peter Knutsen]

[...]

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Roleplaying as paramount (even at the expense of the group's enjoyment)
{"It's what my character would do!" as excuse for disruptive behaviour,
etc}

That's not always correct, but in some groups it may be the norm. Those
would be to the far end of the Dramatist scale, though.

[...]

No it wouldn't.

Post by Joachim Schipper
Joachim

[Joachim Schipper]

Post by Peter Knutsen
[...]

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Roleplaying as paramount (even at the expense of the group's enjoyment)
{"It's what my character would do!" as excuse for disruptive behaviour,
etc}

That's not always correct, but in some groups it may be the norm. Those
would be to the far end of the Dramatist scale, though.

[...]
No it wouldn't.

Erm... do we differ in our definitions of 'disruptive', or do you really
mean a large part of all gaming groups allows 'roleplaying' as a bad excuse
for disruptive behaviour? There are, of course, inexperienced groups that
will 'grow out of it', which I sort of discounted.

I'm not sure I disagree - I just don't really understand what you mean.

Joachim


---
My outgoing mail is checked for viruses.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.545 / Virus Database: 339 - Release Date: 27-11-03

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by Joachim Schipper
That's not always correct, but in some groups it may be the norm. Those
would be to the far end of the Dramatist scale, though.

[...]
No it wouldn't.

Erm... do we differ in our definitions of 'disruptive', or do you really

I have no interest whatsoever in defining "disruptive". It is
irrelevant to this debate.

Post by Joachim Schipper
mean a large part of all gaming groups allows 'roleplaying' as a bad excuse
for disruptive behaviour? There are, of course, inexperienced groups that

No.

Post by Joachim Schipper
will 'grow out of it', which I sort of discounted.
I'm not sure I disagree - I just don't really understand what you mean.

You're giving the Dramatists credit which they don't deserve.

I'm opposed to giving any credit to Dramatits whatsoever, but I find
it *particularly* annoying when they get *undeserved* credit.

There was a FUDGE-chick in here last month who made the same mistake
you're making now, but I really believe that you, unlike her, have the
capacity to understand the Threefold. In fact I was very surprised to
find out that you do not currently understand it.

Post by Joachim Schipper
Joachim

[Robert Scott Clark]

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Roleplaying as paramount (even at the expense of the group's
enjoyment) {"It's what my character would do!" as excuse for
disruptive behaviour, etc}

That's not always correct, but in some groups it may be the norm.
Those would be to the far end of the Dramatist scale, though.

[...]
No it wouldn't.

Erm... do we differ in our definitions of 'disruptive', or do you
really mean a large part of all gaming groups allows 'roleplaying' as
a bad excuse for disruptive behaviour? There are, of course,
inexperienced groups that will 'grow out of it', which I sort of
discounted.
I'm not sure I disagree - I just don't really understand what you mean.

He means that dramatism has nothing to do with strong adherence to
character. If anything, the more common perception is that a strong
dramatist would be more likely to sacrifice character for story.
(personally I don't agree with that extreme either)

[David Meadows]

Post by Robert Scott Clark

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Roleplaying as paramount (even at the expense of the group's
enjoyment) {"It's what my character would do!" as excuse for
disruptive behaviour, etc}

That's not always correct, but in some groups it may be the norm.
Those would be to the far end of the Dramatist scale, though.

[...]
No it wouldn't.

Erm... do we differ in our definitions of 'disruptive', or do you
really mean a large part of all gaming groups allows 'roleplaying' as
a bad excuse for disruptive behaviour? There are, of course,
inexperienced groups that will 'grow out of it', which I sort of
discounted.
I'm not sure I disagree - I just don't really understand what you mean.

He means that dramatism has nothing to do with strong adherence to
character. If anything, the more common perception is that a strong
dramatist would be more likely to sacrifice character for story.

He *can't* mean that. It makes no sense.

I have no idea what he does mean, though. Possibly the most cryptic usenet
response I've ever seen.

[Robert Scott Clark]

Post by David Meadows

Post by George W. Harris
"Joachim Schipper"

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Roleplaying as paramount (even at the expense of the group's
enjoyment) {"It's what my character would do!" as excuse for
disruptive behaviour, etc}

That's not always correct, but in some groups it may be the
norm. Those would be to the far end of the Dramatist scale,
though.

[...]
No it wouldn't.

Erm... do we differ in our definitions of 'disruptive', or do you
really mean a large part of all gaming groups allows 'roleplaying'
as a bad excuse for disruptive behaviour? There are, of course,
inexperienced groups that will 'grow out of it', which I sort of
discounted.
I'm not sure I disagree - I just don't really understand what you mean.

He means that dramatism has nothing to do with strong adherence to
character. If anything, the more common perception is that a strong
dramatist would be more likely to sacrifice character for story.

He *can't* mean that. It makes no sense.

Of course he means that. What about that doesn't make sense?

What confuses me is why Joachim went back deeper into his post looking
for what Peter was commenting on instead of realizing he was commenting
on that last sentence.

"Those would be to the far end of the Dramatist scale."

"No it wouldn't"

Seems pretty straightforward.

Post by David Meadows
I have no idea what he does mean, though. Possibly the most cryptic
usenet response I've ever seen.

[Jens Egon Nyborg]

Post by David Meadows

Post by Robert Scott Clark

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Roleplaying as paramount (even at the expense of the group's
enjoyment) {"It's what my character would do!" as excuse for
disruptive behaviour, etc}

That's not always correct, but in some groups it may be the norm.
Those would be to the far end of the Dramatist scale, though.

[...]
No it wouldn't.

Erm... do we differ in our definitions of 'disruptive', or do you
really mean a large part of all gaming groups allows 'roleplaying' as
a bad excuse for disruptive behaviour? There are, of course,
inexperienced groups that will 'grow out of it', which I sort of
discounted.
I'm not sure I disagree - I just don't really understand what you mean.

He means that dramatism has nothing to do with strong adherence to
character. If anything, the more common perception is that a strong
dramatist would be more likely to sacrifice character for story.

He *can't* mean that. It makes no sense.
I have no idea what he does mean, though. Possibly the most cryptic usenet
response I've ever seen.

Is the threefold model really good for this? I mean I could easily come
up with situations[1] where players would sacrifice 'acting in
character' for story, world-exploration or challenge.

I dont think such PCs should be allowed, but then who's infallible?

[Jeff Heikkinen]

Joachim Schipper, worshipped by llamas the world over, wrote...

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Peter Knutsen
[...]

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Roleplaying as paramount (even at the expense of the group's enjoyment)
{"It's what my character would do!" as excuse for disruptive behaviour,
etc}

That's not always correct, but in some groups it may be the norm. Those
would be to the far end of the Dramatist scale, though.

[...]
No it wouldn't.

Erm... do we differ in our definitions of 'disruptive', or do you really
mean a large part of all gaming groups allows 'roleplaying' as a bad excuse
for disruptive behaviour? There are, of course, inexperienced groups that
will 'grow out of it', which I sort of discounted.

It happens there too, but I had in mind situations where you mix players
with very different expectations about a) the acceptability of
"asshole" characters and b) the relationship between, and/or relative
importance of, enjoyment versus character fidelity.

For example - and this is a simplified version of something that
actually happened in one of my games - you might have a group of players
that on the whole sees fidelity and enjoyment as unrelated, and doesn't
mind occasionally making minor compromises of fidelity if it results in
a more enjoyable game for all. Then you try to introduce a new player
who practically *equates* the two, **WILL NOT** compromise his vision of
his character in the slightest way come hell or high water, looks at you
like you're from Mars if you even suggest that such a thing is
concievable - and also has a character who is a bit of a psycho. End
result: attempted PKing in a group where none of the other Ps have the
slightest interest in being Ked.

Post by Joachim Schipper
I'm not sure I disagree - I just don't really understand what you mean.

I think they're (Peter and now RSC) getting at Dramatism being about
story, not character, and thus orthogonal to this issue. I on the other
hand do see the correlation you're talking about, but it's hardly a
*necessary* one.

Thanks for your comments, by the way. The wordings in the original post
were just taken from point-form notes, they were not meant to be the
finished product. Sorry if that was unclear, and I certainly do
appreciate being given possible ways to tighten them up. (That goes for
George too.)

[Arne Jamtgaard]

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Roleplaying as paramount (even at the expense of the group's enjoyment)
{"It's what my character would do!" as excuse for disruptive behaviour,
etc}

That's not always correct, but in some groups it may be the norm. Those
would be to the far end of the Dramatist scale, though.

No it wouldn't.

I'm not sure I disagree - I just don't really understand what you mean.

He's taking your classifying such behavior as 'Dramatist' to task, that's
all. I would say that the attitude is more Simulationist, myself.

Arne

[George W. Harris]

Arne Jamtgaard <***@cisco.com> wrote:

:Joachim Schipper wrote:
:> "Peter Knutsen" <***@knutsen.dk> schreef in bericht
:>>Joachim Schipper wrote:
:>>>"Jeff Heikkinen" <***@s.if> schreef in bericht
:>>>>Roleplaying as paramount (even at the expense of the group's enjoyment)
:>>>>{"It's what my character would do!" as excuse for disruptive behaviour,
:>>>>etc}
:>>>That's not always correct, but in some groups it may be the norm. Those
:>>>would be to the far end of the Dramatist scale, though.
:>>No it wouldn't.
: >I'm not sure I disagree - I just don't really understand what you mean.
:
:He's taking your classifying such behavior as 'Dramatist' to task, that's
:all. I would say that the attitude is more Simulationist, myself.

I would think such behavior isn't covered at all well
under the Threefold, sicne it concerns how a player
plays her character; I think it would fit better under the
Stances model, and I would call it whatever the current
name is for the stance that isn't Actor, Author or Audience.

:Arne

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by George W. Harris
:He's taking your classifying such behavior as 'Dramatist' to task, that's
:all. I would say that the attitude is more Simulationist, myself.
I would think such behavior isn't covered at all well
under the Threefold, sicne it concerns how a player

It is very well covered by the Threefold.

Post by George W. Harris
plays her character; I think it would fit better under the
Stances model, and I would call it whatever the current
name is for the stance that isn't Actor, Author or Audience.

Playing from in-character stance, even when the actions that your
character wants to take will be contrary to party cohesion, is very
much about *not* letting your decisions be influenced by metagame
factors, i.e. the need for the party to stay coherent because each
part member is a PC played by a player, and hence it is Simulationism.

It is an intensely harmful myth that Dramatists are likely to make
their decisions from an in-character point of view. A pure Dramatist,
as defined by the Threefold, would never do that, although a few
singular decisions might appear as if they were taken from that
stance. Anyone who does do that is a Simulationist, possibly a
Dramatist-Simulationist hybrid.

[George W. Harris]

Peter Knutsen <***@knutsen.dk> wrote:

:
:George W. Harris wrote:
:> Arne Jamtgaard <***@cisco.com> wrote:
:> :He's taking your classifying such behavior as 'Dramatist' to task, that's
:> :all. I would say that the attitude is more Simulationist, myself.
:>
:> I would think such behavior isn't covered at all well
:> under the Threefold, sicne it concerns how a player
:
:It is very well covered by the Threefold.

A strict interpretation of the threefold
restricts its bailiwick to decisions made by the
GM, so, no, it isn't.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Peter Knutsen
Playing from in-character stance, even when the actions that your
character wants to take will be contrary to party cohesion, is very
much about *not* letting your decisions be influenced by metagame
factors, i.e. the need for the party to stay coherent because each
part member is a PC played by a player, and hence it is Simulationism.

Peter, if this newsgroup is a way of letting off steam for yourself,
skip this message now and I'll trouble you no more. If however it's
representative of your real-life personality, you seriously need to
improve your mental age/testosterone ratio. (See my later post.)

[Wayne Shaw]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by Peter Knutsen
Playing from in-character stance, even when the actions that your
character wants to take will be contrary to party cohesion, is very
much about *not* letting your decisions be influenced by metagame
factors, i.e. the need for the party to stay coherent because each
part member is a PC played by a player, and hence it is Simulationism.

Peter, if this newsgroup is a way of letting off steam for yourself,
skip this message now and I'll trouble you no more. If however it's
representative of your real-life personality, you seriously need to
improve your mental age/testosterone ratio. (See my later post.)

This is Peter's fairly typical posting style I'm afraid. He makes me
seem positively non-confrontational.

[Robert Scott Clark]

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by George W. Harris
:He's taking your classifying such behavior as 'Dramatist' to task,
:that's all. I would say that the attitude is more Simulationist,
:myself.
I would think such behavior isn't covered at all well
under the Threefold, sicne it concerns how a player

It is very well covered by the Threefold.

Post by George W. Harris
plays her character; I think it would fit better under the
Stances model, and I would call it whatever the current
name is for the stance that isn't Actor, Author or Audience.

Playing from in-character stance, even when the actions that your
character wants to take will be contrary to party cohesion, is very
much about *not* letting your decisions be influenced by metagame
factors, i.e. the need for the party to stay coherent because each
part member is a PC played by a player, and hence it is Simulationism.
It is an intensely harmful myth that Dramatists are likely to make
their decisions from an in-character point of view. A pure Dramatist,
as defined by the Threefold, would never do that, although a few
singular decisions might appear as if they were taken from that
stance. Anyone who does do that is a Simulationist, possibly a
Dramatist-Simulationist hybrid.

See, now that's where the load of crap starts. A good story requires
consistent characters as much as anything else. Now, while consistency
does not require the decisions to actually be made from in-character,
they should all be indistinguishible from in-character decisions, because
to an external observer, the consistency is the only thing visible.

That's why the two have jack shit to do with one another. A good
dramatist - one who actually succeeds in creating good stories - is going
to appear to be making in character decisions much more than your "few
singular decisions" implies.

[Peter Knutsen]

[...]

Post by Robert Scott Clark

Post by Peter Knutsen
It is an intensely harmful myth that Dramatists are likely to make
their decisions from an in-character point of view. A pure Dramatist,
as defined by the Threefold, would never do that, although a few
singular decisions might appear as if they were taken from that
stance. Anyone who does do that is a Simulationist, possibly a
Dramatist-Simulationist hybrid.

See, now that's where the load of crap starts. A good story requires
consistent characters as much as anything else. Now, while consistency

But Dramatists are willing to sacrifice consistency for something
else, and so are Gamists. Simulationists, by definition, are *not*.
Consistency is valued above everything else.

Just as they won't "bend the world", they won't "bend a characters"
either. If a character is sincerenly and severely phobic of tall
redheads, that's just how he is, no matter how much it may ruin the
storyline, or the conflictual efficiency of the PC party. He is the
way he is.

All decisions are, in theory, made before game start. In practice,
I'll keep adding NPCs to my setting to flesh it out (someone like
Warren, who has run his world for a quarter of a century, may no
longer need to do this, but Ærth is fairly new), and DIP players don't
actually have real characters at game start; but I do not take into
account particular potential stories when I add my PCs ("I want Bjarni
the PC to fall in love with this sorceress, so I'll make her speak
with a deep voice, since I know Bjarni finds that alluring"), and a
dippie Simulationist, even though I wouldn't want one in my campaign,
will not take particular potential stories into account when figuring
out who and what his character is ("the other PCs are all pagan Celts,
so I'll decide that my character is a pagan Celt too, to reduce
in-party friction, even though he feels more to me like a pagan
Scandinavian").

One can, of course, make decisions, before game start, which are wise
or stupid. Chronic loner-types are *not* good PCs in Simulationist
games, because they must not be bendable. So if you make a paranoid
loner, you have to play him that way, even when he's interacting with
the other PCs. Likewise worlds in which there is little conflict
potential may end up being boring (it's my vague impression that
Warren's world is like this, buit that he and his players enjoy it
that way), so you instead create worlds with built-in conflicts.

But those decisions, taking into account situations and characters
which have the potential to generate good stories, or support many
types of conflicts (a setting that can support many types of
adventures, or a character who has a wide and varied skill set) are
made before game start.

Post by Robert Scott Clark
does not require the decisions to actually be made from in-character,
they should all be indistinguishible from in-character decisions, because
to an external observer, the consistency is the only thing visible.

That's true. But it's just a lot easier to actually make the decisions
from an in-character point of view, because then you won't ever screw
up. It's a method that works 100% of the time, as opposed to
(depending on who you are) from 98% to 99.99% of the time.

Post by Robert Scott Clark
That's why the two have jack shit to do with one another. A good
dramatist - one who actually succeeds in creating good stories - is going
to appear to be making in character decisions much more than your "few
singular decisions" implies.

So what's the different between a Dramatist and a Simulationist again?

[Robert Scott Clark]

Post by Peter Knutsen
[...]

Post by Robert Scott Clark

Post by Peter Knutsen
It is an intensely harmful myth that Dramatists are likely to make
their decisions from an in-character point of view. A pure Dramatist,
as defined by the Threefold, would never do that, although a few
singular decisions might appear as if they were taken from that
stance. Anyone who does do that is a Simulationist, possibly a
Dramatist-Simulationist hybrid.

See, now that's where the load of crap starts. A good story requires
consistent characters as much as anything else. Now, while
consistency

But Dramatists are willing to sacrifice consistency for something
else, and so are Gamists.

Your own pet theories aside, everyone looking for a good story is not a
moron. What you suggest is that they would cut off their noses to spite
their faces. You make the story worse in one way to make it better in
another, not exactly the best plan given the wide variety of other
options that improve story without screwing with consistency.

There is a difference obviously, in that if the improvement gained were
great enough and the dis-storyness generated by the inconsistency small
enough, then the inconsistency might be introduced. The problem is that
in anything other than parody or slapstick comedy this is going to be
exceedingly rare. Go to any discussion forum about any television show
and you will see that the most heated topics are always about character
consistency. People who have begun to dislike the show will point out
how the characters are no longer consistent with what they once were,
while others will say that it's resonable character growth - often going
to the point of saying it wouldn't be realistic if they hadn't changed in
the way they have.

Consistency is a damned important part of quality storytelling in many
different forms and one of the primary qualities most people use to
measure the quality of a story. Because of that, the attitude that
strong pressure for story leads to a lack of consistency demonstrates a
noticable lack of knowledge about quality stories. (now, there are some
story types that do allow for a lack of consistency, pointing out the
incompatability of those with simulationism might be an interesting topic
if it weren't immediately trivialized by the overly broad and poorly
generalized tradeoff model of the threefold.)

Post by Peter Knutsen
Simulationists, by definition, are *not*.
Consistency is valued above everything else.
Just as they won't "bend the world", they won't "bend a characters"
either. If a character is sincerenly and severely phobic of tall
redheads, that's just how he is, no matter how much it may ruin the
storyline, or the conflictual efficiency of the PC party. He is the
way he is.

So?

It's not like that phobia ties you into one specific chain of events.
There are many different situations that could arise, because of, in
spite of, or totally unconnected with that phobia that would all be
consistent with that phobia and the rest of the gameworld. Some of those
situations will lead to better stories than others.

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by Robert Scott Clark
does not require the decisions to actually be made from in-character,
they should all be indistinguishible from in-character decisions,
because to an external observer, the consistency is the only thing
visible.

That's true. But it's just a lot easier to actually make the decisions
from an in-character point of view, because then you won't ever screw
up.

Sorry, Peter, you are not infallable. You will forget things. You will
misremember things. Even if you write it down, you will occasionally
mis-record things. It's part of being a human being.

Even if we postulate a flawless GM, It's still not going to be perfectly
consistent. "Consistent" needs scope to be meaningful. What is it
consistent with? To whom is it consistent?

Consistency is normally judged against what has happened in the past AND
the assumed rules of causation. But different people have different
views on how the laws of causation work (especially with regard to human
behavior) - what one person sees as the logical outcome of a situation,
the other sees as inconsistent behavior. And neither is more right than
the other.

This is important in games, because unless you somehow have discussed all
of the rules of causation in the world (meaning you have a pretty
simplistic world) then there will be times when from the player
perspective the world - or especially the behavior of certain characters
- is inconsistent. Now, certainly there are some players who would much
prefer that this type of inconsistency arise from the GM trying to
maintain an unbiased world than from trying to tell a story, barring some
metagame discussion the two inconsistencies are going to look the same.

To state that last point, hopefully more clearly, inconsistencies are
inconsistencies no matter how they happen to come to be - some people can
just accept some sources more than others. This makes "consistent" a
poor criteria to define simulationism by.

Post by Peter Knutsen
It's a method that works 100% of the time, as opposed to
(depending on who you are) from 98% to 99.99% of the time.

98-99% sounds significantly different than "few singular decisions".

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by Robert Scott Clark
That's why the two have jack shit to do with one another. A good
dramatist - one who actually succeeds in creating good stories - is
going to appear to be making in character decisions much more than
your "few singular decisions" implies.

So what's the different between a Dramatist and a Simulationist again?

Well, given that (although I don't have a problem with the terms
individually) I don't think the model that slaps them together is very
useful, I view that question akin to asking "what is the difference
between democracy and communism?"

Sure they are both description of how a particular government functions
and they occasionally interract in interesting ways, they aren't just two
different settings for one aspect of government, so the differences
between the two aren't going to be simple "X has A and Y has not A".
Simulationism is concerned with the decision making process. Dramatism
is concerned with the outcome - any discussion of a dramatic decisions
making process is nonsense. Any discussion of the differences between
the two is going to have to describe the difference from at least two
different angles.


The main difference I see takes place entirely in the head of the
decision maker. If a dramatist enjoys a scene, then how that scene came
to exist matters little. It would not affect the dramatist's enjoyment
to find out that the interesting/entertaining scene happened because of
simulationist methods or gamist methods or by consulting the I-Ching.
Hell, if it produced a good story, the dramatist wouldn't care if the GM
was actually trying to make a poor story

A simulationist faced with the same situation would enjoy the scene less
if he learned that decisions were made to make the story better. The
process is important while the outcome isn't.

That not something you're going to immediately see by observing what
happens in the game. In fact, a simulationist is either going to have to
engage in some serious meta-discussion or observe what happens in a game
longterm (looking for trends and statistical irregularities) to actually
know if a game is simulationist or not.


And you still have the issue of what the scope of "consistent" is.
Consistent with what the GM knows and consistent with what the player
knows are two different things. There is also "internally consistent".
A dramatist GM might be willing to change what he had originally planned
for the gameworld to make a dramatic outcome. Now, whatever he changes
it to may still be consistent both with what the players know AND might
still be internally consistent. What the world is like today in the GM's
mind is not like what it was yesterday in the GM's mind, but it's still a
completely consistent world within itself and consistent with what has
happened openly while the group is playing.

One way of wording this is to say that a dramatist GM is going to be more
willing to freely move from world design to play and back. It seems to
be one of the important traits of simulationism that there be a strict
division between design and play, but I think most simulationist fail to
mention that as a requirement because most don't even think about the
possibility that it could be otherwise. (This is also one of the big
flaws with the threefold. The threefold requires that you be talking
about only ingame decisions and not design decisions, but for a dramatist
GM, that is not only not an important distinction, but might not even be
a meaningful one.)


And even if a dramatist GM wishes to remain loyal to his initial vision
of the world, there is still room for altering world design in play. A
dramatist GM can leave much of the world undefined and when needed fill
it in with something that hopefully will lead to an interesting story.
One thing I have see stated a couple of times, but not given nearly the
exposure it deserves is the idea that simulationists need a more strictly
defined world than non-simulationists. It is not enough for the
decisions to be consistent with the world, but the world actually needs
to mandate a decision. With a loose world you are left with many
possibilities that are all consistent. With a more tightly defined
world, consistent options start dropping away. Until, in a perfect
simulationist world, the state of the world leads to a single consistent
result.

Now, I don't see how the world (especially a character's personality) can
be defined to that fine a degree, and in essence everyone is left with a
selection of consistent choices to choose from. At this point a
dramatist can make a decision with the intent of improving the story
without sacrificing consistency at all, as we have already established
that all of the choices are consistent. The simulationist cannot do
that. Whatever means is used to make the decision at this point must not
include metagame concerns. How exactly that is accomplished I do not
know, but then I'm not a simulationist.

Warren would word things differently. He would say that whatever that
tie-breaker method is is just part of the world definition. In essence,
when he rolls a die that picks one outcome, that outcome is the only one
consistent with the gameworld, because it is what happened in the
gameworld. Hopefully not misrepresenting him here, but he considers
being consistent with that roll to be just the same as being consistent
with the established "facts" of the gameworld. Now, if you can explain
to me how this is different from what I said in anything but semantics
AND without refering to the gameworld as an independant entity, I would
love to hear it.


Simulationism, as far as I can tell, involves a need to reason the
gameworld from cause to effect. Dramatism knows no such limitation.
Both methods can produce equally consistent results, but that does not
make the two methods indistinguishable.

[Charlton Wilbur]

RSC> You make the story worse in one way to make it better in
RSC> another, not exactly the best plan given the wide variety of
RSC> other options that improve story without screwing with
RSC> consistency.

This assumes _a priori_ that the goal of any roleplaying game is to
create a good story. False premise; conclusions suspect.

RSC> The main difference I see takes place entirely in the head of
RSC> the decision maker.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! When used in the context of the
Threefold, the terms 'simulationist,' 'gamist,' and 'dramatist' refer
to the considerations used in action-resolution.

But then you say things like this:

RSC> If a dramatist enjoys a scene, then how that scene came to
RSC> exist matters little. [...] A simulationist faced with the
RSC> same situation would enjoy the scene less if he learned that
RSC> decisions were made to make the story better. The process is
RSC> important while the outcome isn't.

you confuse things because you're willing to expand the definition of
'dramatist' to also mean 'someone who wants games to produce good
stories,' but not willing to expand the definition of 'simulationist'
to also include 'someone who wants games to be consistent.'

Charlton

[Robert Scott Clark]

Post by Charlton Wilbur
RSC> You make the story worse in one way to make it better in
RSC> another, not exactly the best plan given the wide variety of
RSC> other options that improve story without screwing with
RSC> consistency.
This assumes _a priori_ that the goal of any roleplaying game is to
create a good story.

No it doesn't. You should learn to read. That statement was explicitly
refering to the viewpoint of a dramatist GM. This is shown by the part
you snipped...

"Your own pet theories aside, everyone looking for a good story is not a
moron. What you suggest is that they would cut off their noses to spite
their faces."

Now, when you have reached

Post by Charlton Wilbur
False premise; conclusions suspect.
RSC> The main difference I see takes place entirely in the head of
RSC> the decision maker.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! When used in the context of the
Threefold, the terms 'simulationist,' 'gamist,' and 'dramatist' refer
to the considerations used in action-resolution.
RSC> If a dramatist enjoys a scene, then how that scene came to
RSC> exist matters little. [...] A simulationist faced with the
RSC> same situation would enjoy the scene less if he learned that
RSC> decisions were made to make the story better. The process is
RSC> important while the outcome isn't.
you confuse things because you're willing to expand the definition of
'dramatist' to also mean 'someone who wants games to produce good
stories,' but not willing to expand the definition of 'simulationist'
to also include 'someone who wants games to be consistent.'
Charlton

[Robert Scott Clark]

Charlton Wilbur <***@mithril.chromatico.net> wrote in news:***@mithril.chromatico.net:


OK, let's try that post again without my computer being a bitch...

Post by Charlton Wilbur
RSC> You make the story worse in one way to make it better in
RSC> another, not exactly the best plan given the wide variety of
RSC> other options that improve story without screwing with
RSC> consistency.
This assumes _a priori_ that the goal of any roleplaying game is to
create a good story.

No it doesn't. You should learn to read. That statement was explicitly
refering to the viewpoint of a dramatist GM. This is shown by the part
you snipped...

"Your own pet theories aside, everyone looking for a good story is not a
moron. What you suggest is that they would cut off their noses to spite
their faces."

Now, when you have reached the reading level where you can match up
"they" with "everyone looking for a good story" and both of those with
the generic "you" I'm using in THE SAME FUCKING PARAGRAPH then come back
and maybe we can engage in a meaningful discussion.

Post by Charlton Wilbur
False premise; conclusions suspect.

Stupid reader.

Post by Charlton Wilbur
RSC> The main difference I see takes place entirely in the head of
RSC> the decision maker.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! When used in the context of the
Threefold, the terms 'simulationist,' 'gamist,' and 'dramatist' refer
to the considerations used in action-resolution.

Then it is almost exclusively a simulationist model, as they are the only
ones really concerned with those considerations (and gamists to some
degree, but not dramatists at all.).

Post by Charlton Wilbur
RSC> If a dramatist enjoys a scene, then how that scene came to
RSC> exist matters little. [...] A simulationist faced with the
RSC> same situation would enjoy the scene less if he learned that
RSC> decisions were made to make the story better. The process is
RSC> important while the outcome isn't.
you confuse things because you're willing to expand the definition of
'dramatist' to also mean 'someone who wants games to produce good
stories,'

That is because that is what a dramatist is. There is no such thing as
someone who "wants game decisions made based on dramatist principals".

Post by Charlton Wilbur
but not willing to expand the definition of 'simulationist'
to also include 'someone who wants games to be consistent.'

Because all consistent games are not created by simulationist GMs. You
can wave the metagame want around with reckless abandon and still produce
a consistent world.

Authors write consistent works of fiction all of the time without ever
trying to block out attempts to make a good story.

Post by Charlton Wilbur
Charlton

[Bradd W. Szonye]

Post by Charlton Wilbur

You make the story worse in one way to make it better in another, not
exactly the best plan given the wide variety of other options that
improve story without screwing with consistency.

This assumes _a priori_ that the goal of any roleplaying game is to
create a good story. False premise; conclusions suspect.

That's not how I read that at all. I understood him to be talking about
dramatists here, not gamers in general.

Post by Charlton Wilbur

The main difference I see takes place entirely in the head of the
decision maker.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! When used in the context of the
Threefold, the terms 'simulationist,' 'gamist,' and 'dramatist' refer
to the considerations used in action-resolution.

He's trying to make the point that "how you make decisions" isn't
terribly important to non-simulationists. In many ways, the Threefold
Model seems more like the "All the Ways You Can Fail to Be a
Simulationist Model."

Post by Charlton Wilbur
... you confuse things because you're willing to expand the definition
of 'dramatist' to also mean 'someone who wants games to produce good
stories,' but not willing to expand the definition of 'simulationist'
to also include 'someone who wants games to be consistent.'

That's because "how you make decisions" is very important to a
simulationist but not particularly important to a dramatist at all.
That's probably why so many of them reject the model. It's a bit more
successful with gamists, because we do care somewhat about
decision-making. But haven't you ever noticed how the simulationists are
the only ones who seem to intuitively understand the "decision-making"
aspect? That's because they're the ones who really care about it. The
model isn't nearly as good for other gamers unless you switch from
decisions to outcomes, as the Forge crowd did (IIRC).

[Robert Scott Clark]

Post by Bradd W. Szonye

Post by Charlton Wilbur

You make the story worse in one way to make it better in another, not
exactly the best plan given the wide variety of other options that
improve story without screwing with consistency.

This assumes _a priori_ that the goal of any roleplaying game is to
create a good story. False premise; conclusions suspect.

That's not how I read that at all. I understood him to be talking about
dramatists here, not gamers in general.

At least someone gets a gold star today.

Post by Bradd W. Szonye

Post by Charlton Wilbur

The main difference I see takes place entirely in the head of the
decision maker.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! When used in the context of the
Threefold, the terms 'simulationist,' 'gamist,' and 'dramatist' refer
to the considerations used in action-resolution.

He's trying to make the point that "how you make decisions" isn't
terribly important to non-simulationists. In many ways, the Threefold
Model seems more like the "All the Ways You Can Fail to Be a
Simulationist Model."

I think that calls for an official name change for the model.

[Warren J. Dew]

Peter Knutsen posts, in part:

Playing from in-character stance, even when the actions
that your character wants to take will be contrary to
party cohesion, is very much about *not* letting your
decisions be influenced by metagame factors, i.e. the
need for the party to stay coherent because each part
member is a PC played by a player, and hence it is
Simulationism.

To the extent that the threefold can be applied to players, I would agree with
that. Players who play from the stance of the character are the ones generally
most supportive of a world oriented campaign.

It is an intensely harmful myth that Dramatists are likely
to make their decisions from an in-character point of view.
A pure Dramatist, as defined by the Threefold, would never
do that, although a few singular decisions might appear as
if they were taken from that stance. Anyone who does do
that is a Simulationist, possibly a Dramatist-Simulationist
hybrid.

I don't agree with that.

It isn't really possible, as far as I can tell, for the player to arrange for a
good story without the gamesmaster/director/storyteller. A good story really
needs to be a team effort.

Both actor stance and character stance can support the story, depending on the
gamesmaster's exact style. Actor stance, perhaps with some authorial input,
may be better if the story is seen as more of a cooperative venture. However,
if the gamesmaster takes full responsibility for setting up situations and
adjusting events so that the story will emerge from characters' personalities -
the approach that, as best I can tell, David Berkman took - character stance
may be at least as supportive of developing a good story.


Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software

[Robert Scott Clark]

Post by Arne Jamtgaard

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Roleplaying as paramount (even at the expense of the group's
enjoyment) {"It's what my character would do!" as excuse for
disruptive behaviour, etc}

That's not always correct, but in some groups it may be the norm.
Those would be to the far end of the Dramatist scale, though.

No it wouldn't.

I'm not sure I disagree - I just don't really understand what you mean.

He's taking your classifying such behavior as 'Dramatist' to task,
that's all. I would say that the attitude is more Simulationist,
myself.

That would be my assessment also, assuming you applied the terms to player
decisions.

[Robert Scott Clark]

Post by Peter Knutsen
[...]

Post by Joachim Schipper

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Roleplaying as paramount (even at the expense of the group's enjoyment)
{"It's what my character would do!" as excuse for disruptive behaviour,
etc}

That's not always correct, but in some groups it may be the norm. Those
would be to the far end of the Dramatist scale, though.

[...]
No it wouldn't.

In fact, it would be completely tangential to dramatism.

[Russell Wallace]

(Concerning "But it's in character!" as an excuse for behaving like an
arsehole:)

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 21:51:41 GMT, Robert Scott Clark

Post by Robert Scott Clark
In fact, it would be completely tangential to dramatism.

In my experience, it's at the opposite end of the scale from
dramatism. It shows up in the form of:

Player = 10 year old mind in the body of 18 year old male with too
much testosterone and defective social instincts.

Character = 10 year old mind in the body of 18 year old male with too
much testosterone, defective social instincts, big muscles and no
restraints (since PCs necessarily have to operate at least somewhat
outside normal legal order a lot of the time).

Player says quite truthfully: "But it's in character!"

Me: "Great, be in character in someone else's campaign." (Actually
these days I'm pickier than that about who I invite into my games in
the first place, but that would be my response.)

[Warren J. Dew]

Russell Wallace posts, in part, regarding using "But it's in character!" as a
reason for antisocial play:

In my experience, it's at the opposite end of the scale
from dramatism....

Player says quite truthfully: "But it's in character!"

Me: "Great, be in character in someone else's campaign."

Send 'em over my way, please. We could use another player or two like that.

Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Warren J. Dew
Send 'em over my way, please. We could use another player or two like that.

If you tell me what area you live in, I will if I come across any who
live reasonably nearby ^.~ (Assuming you don't run any games online;
that's where I do most of my gaming these days.)

[Warren J. Dew]

Russell Wallace posts, in part:

If you tell me what area you live in, I will if I come across
any who live reasonably nearby ^.~

Somerville, Massachusetts, U.S.A. - that's just north of Boston.

(Assuming you don't run any games online;
that's where I do most of my gaming these days.)

Not enough bandwidth for my preferences, much as I would like to be able to.
If I ever get a spare year or two to program a combat interface, maybe.

Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Russell Wallace
(Assuming you don't run any games online;
that's where I do most of my gaming these days.)
Not enough bandwidth for my preferences, much as I would like to be able to.
If I ever get a spare year or two to program a combat interface, maybe.

Yeah, for detailed tactical combat the way you do it, you'd want
something more sophisticated than plain IRC. There are a couple of
programs that provide maps-and-miniatures interfaces (WebRPG and
OpenRPG) but I don't know how well those features work.

[Doug Lampert]

Post by Russell Wallace
(Concerning "But it's in character!" as an excuse for behaving like an
arsehole:)
On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 21:51:41 GMT, Robert Scott Clark

Post by Robert Scott Clark
In fact, it would be completely tangential to dramatism.

In my experience, it's at the opposite end of the scale from
Player = 10 year old mind in the body of 18 year old male with too
much testosterone and defective social instincts.
Character = 10 year old mind in the body of 18 year old male with too
much testosterone, defective social instincts, big muscles and no
restraints (since PCs necessarily have to operate at least somewhat
outside normal legal order a lot of the time).
Player says quite truthfully: "But it's in character!"
Me: "Great, be in character in someone else's campaign." (Actually
these days I'm pickier than that about who I invite into my games in
the first place, but that would be my response.)

One of my old GM's (Eric Rowe) to a player in one of his games:
"Try to come up with a character who would have a chance of
surviving past age five".

I agree with your characterization of most disruptive characters,
IMAO it is the play that is the problem in that he has come up
with an unreasonable character.

18 year old male with the 10 year old mind, too much
testosterone, defective social instincts, big muscles, and no
restraints, is a pretty common type of disruptive character, and
it fails the survival past five test. Real sociopaths HAVE restraints
at least to the extent of knowing they need to hide it most of the
time, and most of the cultures in my RPG games are MUCH less
likely to tolerate an asshole of this sort than the modern USA.

To me a player who acts disruptive and claims it is in character is
almost always violating this "five year old" rule, the character is
not one who could survive or get advanced combat training in
the culture of the gameworld, and since he "acts in character" all
the time we know he was not just hiding it until now (otherwise
hiding it would be even more in character).

I have no objections to fights or killings within a group of
characters, I have serious problems with a player who has
his characters act in ways that make no sense within the game
world and tries to claim "it is in character".

DougL

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by Doug Lampert
"Try to come up with a character who would have a chance of
surviving past age five".

In *freedom*. Apart from highly agressive (typically male) characters,
you've got the typical, extremely provocative nympho female. On Ærth
she'd end up as someone's sex slave (if not in a slave brothel). Or
married at a very early age, with five kids. Neither are at all good
adventurers (a clever courtesan-type slave would be, but this type of
player would not make her clever).

Post by Doug Lampert
I agree with your characterization of most disruptive characters,
IMAO it is the play that is the problem in that he has come up
with an unreasonable character.

Yes. Simulationist play requires a lot of wisdom on behalf of
everyone, because if you make a wrong decision, it ruins the fun for
everyone. You have to make a character who works in the game, both
capabilitistically (the GM will not step in and save your character's
life, if he lacks a vital skill like Speak Latin or Dodge) and
psychologically (don't make a chroninic paranoid, and don't make a a
character whose religion is violently opposed to that of the other
player characters). Make a character with some flexibility, and with a
good potential for cooperating with a close-knit group of comrades (or
following the orders of a superior, if it's a more military style
campaign).

Same for world design, just even more so. A badly constructed
character ruins a single campaign, but a badly designed world means
you have to start over from scratch.

Post by Doug Lampert
18 year old male with the 10 year old mind, too much
testosterone, defective social instincts, big muscles, and no
restraints, is a pretty common type of disruptive character, and
it fails the survival past five test. Real sociopaths HAVE restraints
at least to the extent of knowing they need to hide it most of the
time, and most of the cultures in my RPG games are MUCH less
likely to tolerate an asshole of this sort than the modern USA.
To me a player who acts disruptive and claims it is in character is
almost always violating this "five year old" rule, the character is
not one who could survive or get advanced combat training in

Not always true. The Vikings were particularly fond of fighting, and
had dozens of wandering duelliests. These were often psycopaths.

On the other hand, in low-tech societies you really need to belong to
a community, for all sorts of reasons. Being too nasty means you get
excluded, and that's a death sentence unless you are extraordinarily
self-sufficient. Wandering duellists, like adventurers, live outside
of normal society, and thus has to put up with appalling accomodations
at times. I used to have an NPC adventurer who, if a farmer needed her
help but didn't have any money, would happily accept payment in the
form of milk, cheese, bread and eggs, eaten at a table while she sits
on a chair, and a warm bath and a bed to sleep in.

A lone wanderer in a savage low-tech world is easy prey for a band of
robbers. (It helps a lot if lone wanderers are sometimes exceedingly
dangerous wizards!).

Post by Doug Lampert
the culture of the gameworld, and since he "acts in character" all
the time we know he was not just hiding it until now (otherwise
hiding it would be even more in character).
I have no objections to fights or killings within a group of
characters, I have serious problems with a player who has
his characters act in ways that make no sense within the game
world and tries to claim "it is in character".

Me too. I'll crack down very hard on a player who fails to achieve
consistency between his character's in-game behaviour, and the
character's past history (that's also one reason why I
uncompromisingly expect all PCs to *have* a past history).

As long as realism is maintained, anything else goes. I'll encourage
the players to sit down together and achieve consensus on some ground
rules for the party composition, such as "all pagan" or "all Moslem",
to ensure that they won't end up disagreeing lethally with each other,
but if the players refuse to do this, that's their problem. I'll have
some fun watching and GMing as they kill each other, and they'll be
learning a lesson as to what kind of characters they should create for
the next campaign.

Post by Doug Lampert
DougL

[George W. Harris]

"Joachim Schipper"
<***@wanadoo.nl> wrote:

:This should be worded a little differently, maybe. To me, 'preventing A from
:doing B' means making it impossible for A to do B, or at least take steps to
:make it more difficult or advice against it. That is not what you mean, do
:you? Maybe word it as
:
: 'the only way to keep players from abusing knowledge the players do, but
:the characters do not, have is to keep it secret' (clearing up any possible
:confusion as to OOC meaning 'metagame' or 'in-gamish' knowledge)

How about "The only way to keep characters
from acting on knowledge they shouldn't have is to keep
that knowledge from the players." With your wording, it's
unclear what's meant by keeping the knowledge secret,
since it's part of the premise that the players have this
knowledge.

[David Meadows]

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
PKing is [always / never] okay

Excuse my ignorance, but *what* ?

[Warren J. Dew]

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
PKing is [always / never] okay

Excuse my ignorance, but *what* ?

"Player Killing."

I think it originated in online games, where it's a term for playing your
character to kill other players' characters; it's a style of play that is
widely hated, for the obvious reasons.

I think Jeff is using it to mean basically the same thing - a player character
killing another character - in a noncomputer game, though the fact that the
players usually know each other in face to face play tends to put a different
spin on things.

Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software

[Jeff Heikkinen]

Warren J. Dew, worshipped by llamas the world over, wrote...

Post by David Meadows

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
PKing is [always / never] okay

Excuse my ignorance, but *what* ?
"Player Killing."
I think it originated in online games, where it's a term for playing your
character to kill other players' characters; it's a style of play that is
widely hated, for the obvious reasons.
I think Jeff is using it to mean basically the same thing - a player character
killing another character - in a noncomputer game, though the fact that the
players usually know each other in face to face play tends to put a different
spin on things.

Yes, exactly. Sorry if it was unclear. I occasionally forget which
bits of terminology I picked up here, and which ones elsewhere.

I suspect Warren is correct about the etymology of "PK," which would
explain people here not being familiar with it.

[Rupert Boleyn]

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Warren J. Dew, worshipped by llamas the world over, wrote...

Post by David Meadows

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
PKing is [always / never] okay

Excuse my ignorance, but *what* ?
"Player Killing."
I think it originated in online games, where it's a term for playing your
character to kill other players' characters; it's a style of play that is
widely hated, for the obvious reasons.
I think Jeff is using it to mean basically the same thing - a player character
killing another character - in a noncomputer game, though the fact that the
players usually know each other in face to face play tends to put a different
spin on things.

Yes, exactly. Sorry if it was unclear. I occasionally forget which
bits of terminology I picked up here, and which ones elsewhere.
I suspect Warren is correct about the etymology of "PK," which would
explain people here not being familiar with it.

I think he is in this case. It confused me because my group has always
used it for "Party Kill". This new-fangled "TPK" (for "Total Party
Kill") seems redundant to us.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
PKing is [always / never] okay

If by "PKing" you mean one PC killing another without the consent of
the second PC's player, I will assert "PKing is never okay" as a
universally true statement.

Other than that, I agree with your list in the sense that everything
on it would have counterexamples if asserted as a universally true
statement, though there are some entries that I'm not sure I've ever
met anyone who believes, so I'm not sure I'd count them as myths :)

[George W. Harris]

***@eircom.net (Russell Wallace) wrote:

:On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 21:45:36 GMT, Jeff Heikkinen <***@s.if> wrote:
:
:>PKing is [always / never] okay
:
:If by "PKing" you mean one PC killing another without the consent of
:the second PC's player, I will assert "PKing is never okay" as a
:universally true statement.

I would dispute that. In a systemless one-shot I
was in recently, my character was a cop, and another PC
grabbed the gun away from another policeman. It would
be unreasonable for my character *not* to try to kill the
other PC.

[Russell Wallace]

On Tue, 02 Dec 2003 01:54:38 GMT, George W. Harris

Post by George W. Harris
:If by "PKing" you mean one PC killing another without the consent of
:the second PC's player, I will assert "PKing is never okay" as a
:universally true statement.
I would dispute that. In a systemless one-shot I
was in recently, my character was a cop, and another PC
grabbed the gun away from another policeman. It would
be unreasonable for my character *not* to try to kill the
other PC.

Yes, but in my experience, the fact of the PCs being so lethally
opposed to each other, would preclude the game continuing much past
the one-shot.

[George W. Harris]

***@eircom.net (Russell Wallace) wrote:

:On Tue, 02 Dec 2003 01:54:38 GMT, George W. Harris
:<***@mundsprung.com> wrote:
:
:>***@eircom.net (Russell Wallace) wrote:
:>
:>:If by "PKing" you mean one PC killing another without the consent of
:>:the second PC's player, I will assert "PKing is never okay" as a
:>:universally true statement.
:>
:> I would dispute that. In a systemless one-shot I
:>was in recently, my character was a cop, and another PC
:>grabbed the gun away from another policeman. It would
:>be unreasonable for my character *not* to try to kill the
:>other PC.
:
:Yes, but in my experience, the fact of the PCs being so lethally
:opposed to each other, would preclude the game continuing much past
:the one-shot.

But this *is* an exception to your 'universally
true' statement above; if another PC is stupid enough
(by acting in a manner which will be perceived as
lethally threatening to those charged with enforcing
the law), then killing him may be the only reasonable
course of action.

[Russell Wallace]

On Tue, 02 Dec 2003 21:58:26 GMT, George W. Harris

Post by George W. Harris
But this *is* an exception to your 'universally
true' statement above; if another PC is stupid enough
(by acting in a manner which will be perceived as
lethally threatening to those charged with enforcing
the law), then killing him may be the only reasonable
course of action.

It still has very bad consequences. In the situation you describe, the
consequences of doing anything else might be even worse, but I
wouldn't therefore describe the act of PC-PC killing as "okay", I'd
describe it as "bleah, I don't like it but I don't see I've got much
choice... I wish the characters had been vetted more thoroughly before
we started playing".

[Wayne Shaw]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
PKing is [always / never] okay

If by "PKing" you mean one PC killing another without the consent of
the second PC's player, I will assert "PKing is never okay" as a
universally true statement.

Unfortunately, I can't entirely agree with this, as it's possible to
find situations where it's "not okay" with the second player, but his
actions have essentially forced it as the only in-character and
consistent decision.

I used to see the same opinion on MUSHes, and I never entirely bought
it. While it's only reasonable to try and find a way out, actions
should have consequences, and unless you're in a game with script
immunity in the first place (and maybe not even then) some of the
consequences are potentially lethal to a character.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Wayne Shaw

Post by Russell Wallace
If by "PKing" you mean one PC killing another without the consent of
the second PC's player, I will assert "PKing is never okay" as a
universally true statement.

Unfortunately, I can't entirely agree with this, as it's possible to
find situations where it's "not okay" with the second player, but his
actions have essentially forced it as the only in-character and
consistent decision.
I used to see the same opinion on MUSHes, and I never entirely bought
it.

I played MUSHes extensively on both sides... and I can see both sides
of the argument.

<gratuitous boast> I cracked the Masquerade five separate times,
fairly, on MUSHes where if you were caught peeking, a supernatural PC
could just kill you. Came damn close one time, but never did get
killed. </gratuitous boast>

Okay, I made a provocative statement [1] which I will now amend to:

If one is considering a human-moderated roleplaying campaign, that is
intended to extent to multiple sessions, and have enough emotional
content to be reasonably defined as a _roleplaying campaign_ rather
than a tabletop wargame with small unit numbers, then I proclaim my
above statement.

[1] Declension of Usenet posts: "I post provocative/thought-provoking
statements, you post controversial/off-topic statements, he posts
trolls" ^.~

[Wayne Shaw]

Post by Russell Wallace
If one is considering a human-moderated roleplaying campaign, that is
intended to extent to multiple sessions, and have enough emotional
content to be reasonably defined as a _roleplaying campaign_ rather
than a tabletop wargame with small unit numbers, then I proclaim my
above statement.

I still can't agree. Even in a roleplaying campaign, if you insist on
provoking a fellow PC to lethal force, you have no reasonable
expectation of him not responding with it.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Wayne Shaw
I still can't agree. Even in a roleplaying campaign, if you insist on
provoking a fellow PC to lethal force, you have no reasonable
expectation of him not responding with it.

I agree. The conclusion I draw from this is that provoking a fellow PC
to lethal force is a bad thing to do.

[Wayne Shaw]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by Wayne Shaw
I still can't agree. Even in a roleplaying campaign, if you insist on
provoking a fellow PC to lethal force, you have no reasonable
expectation of him not responding with it.

I agree. The conclusion I draw from this is that provoking a fellow PC
to lethal force is a bad thing to do.

Generally true, but terminal conflicts of interest can happen.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by Russell Wallace
I agree. The conclusion I draw from this is that provoking a fellow PC
to lethal force is a bad thing to do.

No. The bad thing to do is making a PC who has a significant
probability of provoking another character to use lethal force.

Once you've made your character, play him as he *is*.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Peter Knutsen
No. The bad thing to do is making a PC who has a significant
probability of provoking another character to use lethal force.

Agreed. The best time to solve this problem is at the start.

Post by Peter Knutsen
Once you've made your character, play him as he *is*.

Or, if that's going to screw things up for everyone and get you kicked
out of the group, retire him and bring in someone more appropriate.

[unknown]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by Wayne Shaw
I still can't agree. Even in a roleplaying campaign, if you insist on
provoking a fellow PC to lethal force, you have no reasonable
expectation of him not responding with it.

I agree. The conclusion I draw from this is that provoking a fellow PC
to lethal force is a bad thing to do.

What is special about PC's? If provocation to lethal force is bad
for fellow PCs, why is it allowed for NPC's?

In my current Amber game, which we've been playing for about a year
now, there are NO fellow characters that I can categorically say that my
character would not kill if the circumstances demanded it, and I expect
(though can't be sure) that that's just as true for my fellow PCs thoughts
about my character. Admittedly, it IS an Amber game, so we're not a
`party', merely a group of individuals at varying amount of
cross-purposes, but that doesn't mean it's not a role-playing game. As my
character has killed other characters (so far NPCs only), there's no
reason to believe he has a particular qualm over doing so. Would he hire
an assassin to kill another PC or would he kill them from ambush?
Probably not, because he wouldn't do that to an NPC either. Would he kill
a PC in a duel or in open battle? I have no doubt about it.
Would I, the player, be unhappy if my character was killed by a PC?
Yes, but I can't see why I would be more unhappy about that than if my
character was killed by an NPC. Either way, that character is deceased.
And, of course, this being an Amber game, if my character was killed by an
NPC, the NPC could have been set in motion by another PC, so you just
don't know. :)

Scott

[Robert Scott Clark]

Post by unknown

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by Wayne Shaw
I still can't agree. Even in a roleplaying campaign, if you insist
on provoking a fellow PC to lethal force, you have no reasonable
expectation of him not responding with it.

I agree. The conclusion I draw from this is that provoking a fellow
PC to lethal force is a bad thing to do.

What is special about PC's? If provocation to lethal force is bad
for fellow PCs, why is it allowed for NPC's?

Players tend to be more attached to and tend to identify more with PCs than
GMs are to/do with NPCs. It's a perception thing. Many people take things
like that personally because player/character seperation isn't perfect.

(personally I'm with you - it doesn't matter much to me who kills my
character; although, I can see some additional problems that might make the
PC death more likely in a PC/PC conflict than in a PC/NPC conflict
depending on the other game choices.)

[Warren J. Dew]

'Scott' posts, in part:

In my current Amber game, which we've been playing for
about a year now, there are NO fellow characters that
I can categorically say that my character would not
kill if the circumstances demanded it, and I expect
(though can't be sure) that that's just as true for my
fellow PCs thoughts about my character. Admittedly,
it IS an Amber game, so we're not a `party', merely a
group of individuals at varying amount of
cross-purposes, but that doesn't mean it's not a
role-playing game.

Indeed, there are indications that Amber was intended to be an adversarial
roleplaying game, where the whole point of the game was to defeat, if necessary
by killing, your rivals, the other player characters. I actually think it's an
interesting idea, if not perhaps what most people are looking for in
roleplaying games.

I've also heard that Vampire: The Masquerade was intended to be played
adversarially as well. In that case, I think actually playing that way might
be the only thing that could tempt me to try it.

Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software

[Robert Scott Clark]

Post by Warren J. Dew
Indeed, there are indications that Amber was intended to be an
adversarial roleplaying game, where the whole point of the game was to
defeat, if necessary by killing, your rivals, the other player
characters. I actually think it's an interesting idea, if not perhaps
what most people are looking for in roleplaying games.
I've also heard that Vampire: The Masquerade was intended to be
played adversarially as well. In that case, I think actually playing
that way might be the only thing that could tempt me to try it.

Given the extreme nature of some of the mind-control powers and how common
they are, I can see playing Vampire that way getting very old, very fast.

[Doug Lampert]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by Wayne Shaw

Post by Russell Wallace
If by "PKing" you mean one PC killing another without the consent of
the second PC's player, I will assert "PKing is never okay" as a
universally true statement.

Unfortunately, I can't entirely agree with this, as it's possible to
find situations where it's "not okay" with the second player, but his
actions have essentially forced it as the only in-character and
consistent decision.
I used to see the same opinion on MUSHes, and I never entirely bought
it.

I played MUSHes extensively on both sides... and I can see both sides
of the argument.
<gratuitous boast> I cracked the Masquerade five separate times,
fairly, on MUSHes where if you were caught peeking, a supernatural PC
could just kill you. Came damn close one time, but never did get
killed. </gratuitous boast>
If one is considering a human-moderated roleplaying campaign, that is
intended to extent to multiple sessions, and have enough emotional
content to be reasonably defined as a _roleplaying campaign_ rather
than a tabletop wargame with small unit numbers, then I proclaim my
above statement.
[1] Declension of Usenet posts: "I post provocative/thought-provoking
statements, you post controversial/off-topic statements, he posts
trolls" ^.~

I still think you are wrong, especially in a long running campaign with well
established characters, if killing another character is in character how can
you possibly claim that it is a bad thing to do?

Most RPGs involve characters who routinely solve problems by lethal
force, unless you are allowing the Glow of the PC Rune on the forhead
of every PC (and none of the NPCs) to blind everyone how the heck
can good roleplaying forbid killing some people do to purely metagame
concerns?!?

PCs should not get any special concern from other players, it makes
for bad worldbuilding, bad gameplay, bad roleplay, and bad drama.
It makes sense only from narrow social goals, and even there is a
poor solution. If part of the goal is not to use Out of Character info,
how can the Characters reactions be dependent on PC/NPC?

DougL

[Robert Scott Clark]

Post by Doug Lampert

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by Wayne Shaw

Post by Russell Wallace
If by "PKing" you mean one PC killing another without the consent
of the second PC's player, I will assert "PKing is never okay" as a
universally true statement.

Unfortunately, I can't entirely agree with this, as it's possible to
find situations where it's "not okay" with the second player, but
his actions have essentially forced it as the only in-character and
consistent decision.
I used to see the same opinion on MUSHes, and I never entirely
bought it.

I played MUSHes extensively on both sides... and I can see both sides
of the argument.
<gratuitous boast> I cracked the Masquerade five separate times,
fairly, on MUSHes where if you were caught peeking, a supernatural PC
could just kill you. Came damn close one time, but never did get
killed. </gratuitous boast>
If one is considering a human-moderated roleplaying campaign, that is
intended to extent to multiple sessions, and have enough emotional
content to be reasonably defined as a _roleplaying campaign_ rather
than a tabletop wargame with small unit numbers, then I proclaim my
above statement.
[1] Declension of Usenet posts: "I post provocative/thought-provoking
statements, you post controversial/off-topic statements, he posts
trolls" ^.~

I still think you are wrong, especially in a long running campaign
with well established characters, if killing another character is in
character how can you possibly claim that it is a bad thing to do?
Most RPGs involve characters who routinely solve problems by lethal
force, unless you are allowing the Glow of the PC Rune on the forhead
of every PC (and none of the NPCs) to blind everyone how the heck
can good roleplaying forbid killing some people do to purely metagame
concerns?!?

Because for many people the purpose is not "good roleplaying" at any
cost, but instead the enjoyment of the group as a whole.

Post by Doug Lampert
PCs should not get any special concern from other players, it makes
for bad worldbuilding, bad gameplay, bad roleplay, and bad drama.

And often for the players having a better time than they otherwise would
have.

Post by Doug Lampert
It makes sense only from narrow social goals, and even there is a
poor solution.

Is there supposed to be some connection between this ^ sentence and the
one that follows v?

Post by Doug Lampert
If part of the goal is not to use Out of Character
info, how can the Characters reactions be dependent on PC/NPC?
DougL

[Warren J. Dew]

Doug Lampert posts, in part:

PCs should not get any special concern from other players, it
makes for bad worldbuilding, bad gameplay, bad roleplay, and
bad drama. It makes sense only from narrow social goals, and
even there is a poor solution. If part of the goal is not to
use Out of Character info, how can the Characters reactions
be dependent on PC/NPC?

I personally agree with you on 'PC glow' - I hate it. I also agree that one
consequence of ignoring that glow is that player characters killing other
player characters is not necessarily a bad thing.

However, we should realize that there are some for whom refraining from using
out of character information is not a goal. Some people seem to prefer games
where PC glow is visible, either to the characters, to the players, or both.
The fact that I'd never want to play in such a game doesn't make it
automatically bad; for example, I can imagine it being useful in helping to
identify 'sides' in team gameplay, and perhaps who gets script immunity in
certain kinds of drama.

Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software

[Peter Knutsen]

Warren J. Dew wrote:
[...]

Post by Warren J. Dew
However, we should realize that there are some for whom refraining from using
out of character information is not a goal. Some people seem to prefer games

Sure, but the result of this is that the stories they create are bad.
*Unbelievably* bad, in fact :-p

Post by Warren J. Dew
where PC glow is visible, either to the characters, to the players, or both.
The fact that I'd never want to play in such a game doesn't make it
automatically bad; for example, I can imagine it being useful in helping to

But they say they do it because that way, they create *better* stories.

[...]

Post by Warren J. Dew
Warren J. Dew

[Doug Lampert]

Post by Doug Lampert
PCs should not get any special concern from other players, it
makes for bad worldbuilding, bad gameplay, bad roleplay, and
bad drama. It makes sense only from narrow social goals, and
even there is a poor solution. If part of the goal is not to
use Out of Character info, how can the Characters reactions
be dependent on PC/NPC?
I personally agree with you on 'PC glow' - I hate it. I also agree that one
consequence of ignoring that glow is that player characters killing other
player characters is not necessarily a bad thing.
However, we should realize that there are some for whom refraining from using
out of character information is not a goal. Some people seem to prefer games
where PC glow is visible, either to the characters, to the players, or both.
The fact that I'd never want to play in such a game doesn't make it
automatically bad; for example, I can imagine it being useful in helping to
identify 'sides' in team gameplay, and perhaps who gets script immunity in
certain kinds of drama.

All fine, but the statement that I am arguing with was made as a universal,
explicitely and repeatedly.

If part of the goal is not to use OOC information then PKing may well be
unavoidable, and a solid rule against it is bad. There are clearly styles
where PKing comes out of character and is in character.

I have had a player lose a character he had played for over a year, and
had substantial emotional investment in, PKed, and agree it was in
character and the right thing to do. Then he made a new character.

DougL

[Russell Wallace]

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 16:36:11 -0600, "Doug Lampert"

Post by Doug Lampert
All fine, but the statement that I am arguing with was made as a universal,
explicitely and repeatedly.

That's true, I did :) I intend to continue believing in it as an
absolute rule, too, but I can understand how some people may disagree
with me based on the experiences you're reporting here.

[Wayne Shaw]

Post by Russell Wallace
On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 16:36:11 -0600, "Doug Lampert"

Post by Doug Lampert
All fine, but the statement that I am arguing with was made as a universal,
explicitely and repeatedly.

That's true, I did :) I intend to continue believing in it as an
absolute rule, too, but I can understand how some people may disagree
with me based on the experiences you're reporting here.

Russell, not to put too fine a point on it, but unless you think we're
lying, how can you claim it's an absolute rule?

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Wayne Shaw
Russell, not to put too fine a point on it, but unless you think we're
lying, how can you claim it's an absolute rule?

Because that's not the way human psychology works. A perfect logical
inference engine, given "For all X, Y is true" and "For this specific
X, Y is false" will conclude that it cannot continue to hold both
beliefs simultaneously. Humans aren't perfect logical inference
engines.

Now, you and Warren are honest and intelligent people, who've quite
clearly articulated how your experience contradicts the rule I
suggested, so I don't believe you're lying; and in the abstract, I
therefore believe you have counterexamples.

However, no amount of second-hand input is going to change my belief
based on sixteen years of experience. I could say "okay, I no longer
believe it's a universal rule", but then _I'd_ be lying, because the
fact is, I really _do_ still believe it's a universal rule, and my
behavior (in the form of, for example, an absolute ban on incompatible
PCs in games I run) will prove that.

So: no, I don't think you're lying; no, that doesn't change my belief
that my original claim is a universal rule; but no, I don't expect you
to agree with me about said rule :)

[Warren J. Dew]

Russell Wallace posts, in part:

Now, you and Warren are honest and intelligent people,
who've quite clearly articulated how your experience
contradicts the rule I suggested, so I don't believe
you're lying; and in the abstract, I therefore believe
you have counterexamples.

If you really believe there are exceptions, I'd say you don't actually believe
it's a universal rule; you just think you believe that.

I could say "okay, I no longer believe it's a universal
rule", but then _I'd_ be lying, because the fact is, I
really _do_ still believe it's a universal rule, and my
behavior (in the form of, for example, an absolute ban
on incompatible PCs in games I run) will prove that.

Er,

(1) People act in ways contrary to their beliefs all the time.

(2) Even if you were acting in accordance with your beliefs, it would only be
evidence that you didn't believe that player character conflict could ever be a
good thing in games you run - and indeed, your experience would be much more
directly applicable to games you run than would Wayne's, my own, or anyone
else's.

(3) Even if you really do believe it's a universal rule, it's polite on rgfa
to pretend you don't if counterexamples are demonstrated.

Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Warren J. Dew
If you really believe there are exceptions, I'd say you don't actually believe
it's a universal rule; you just think you believe that.

This would probably make an interesting topic if one felt like
exploring the epistemological status of what one believes versus what
one believes one believes...

Post by Warren J. Dew
(3) Even if you really do believe it's a universal rule, it's polite on rgfa
to pretend you don't if counterexamples are demonstrated.

But I'll refrain from making further claims here to the effect of its
being a universal rule ^.^

[Robert Scott Clark]

Post by Warren J. Dew
(3) Even if you really do believe it's a universal rule, it's polite
on rgfa to pretend you don't if counterexamples are demonstrated.

I don't know, nor care, what you people are talking about, but if we're
going to start including lying to avoid conflict under the definition of
"polite", can I now, officially and publicly, opt out of the whole
politeness thing? I have a severe allergy to misrepresenting my beliefs to
make others feel good about themselves.

[Warren J. Dew]

Responding to me:

(3) Even if you really do believe it's a universal
rule, it's polite on rgfa to pretend you don't if
counterexamples are demonstrated.

Robert Scott Clark:

I don't know, nor care, what you people are talking
about, but if we're going to start including lying
to avoid conflict under the definition of "polite",
can I now, officially and publicly, opt out of the
whole politeness thing?

You don't need to; it won't come up for you, since you - like Wayne and myself
- hold that "if there's a counter-example, something's not universal."

I have a severe allergy to misrepresenting my beliefs
to make others feel good about themselves.

I think the purpose in this case is more to facilitate logical thought and
logical exploration of roleplaying gaming, by putting a damper on universal
positions that have been disproven.

I do recommend "the whole politeness thing" in certain other cases as well,
though not when it involves misrepresenting logically held beliefs.

Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software

[Wayne Shaw]

Post by Russell Wallace
Because that's not the way human psychology works. A perfect logical
inference engine, given "For all X, Y is true" and "For this specific
X, Y is false" will conclude that it cannot continue to hold both
beliefs simultaneously. Humans aren't perfect logical inference
engines.

I guess on this grounds I'm not human, then. If I genuinely believed
someone was telling me the truth about something that contradicted
something I've claimed is universal, I'd stop believing it's
universal. I might still believe it was the common case (and as such,
the default assumption I should work off of) but I'm not capable of
combining both sets of beliefs the way you describe it. One or the
other has to go.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Wayne Shaw
I guess on this grounds I'm not human, then. If I genuinely believed
someone was telling me the truth about something that contradicted
something I've claimed is universal, I'd stop believing it's
universal. I might still believe it was the common case (and as such,
the default assumption I should work off of) but I'm not capable of
combining both sets of beliefs the way you describe it. One or the
other has to go.

I don't think that proves you're not human, only that you're an
_unusual_ human ^.^

[unknown]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by Wayne Shaw
I guess on this grounds I'm not human, then. If I genuinely believed
someone was telling me the truth about something that contradicted
something I've claimed is universal, I'd stop believing it's
universal. I might still believe it was the common case (and as such,
the default assumption I should work off of) but I'm not capable of
combining both sets of beliefs the way you describe it. One or the
other has to go.

I don't think that proves you're not human, only that you're an
_unusual_ human ^.^

Have to agree with Wayne here, if there's a counter-example,
something's not universal. It might be a commonly held belief, it could
be the most common case, but it's not universal.

Scott

[Warren J. Dew]

Doug Lampert posts, in part:

All fine, but the statement that I am arguing with was made
as a universal, explicitely and repeatedly.

Agreed, and I argued against that statement, too. Your initial response
sounded like the opposite universal, and I was just a little tired of arguments
with people on both sides holding mistaken universals from the 'gamesmaster is
god' thread. Sorry if I jumped too quickly.

I have had a player lose a character he had played for over
a year, and had substantial emotional investment in, PKed,
and agree it was in character and the right thing to do.
Then he made a new character.

Are you willing to tell us the whole story? Details might make your case -
which I agree with but may not have as good an example for - more convincing.

Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software

[Doug Lampert]

Post by Doug Lampert
All fine, but the statement that I am arguing with was made
as a universal, explicitely and repeatedly.
Agreed, and I argued against that statement, too. Your initial response
sounded like the opposite universal, and I was just a little tired of arguments
with people on both sides holding mistaken universals from the

'gamesmaster is

Post by Doug Lampert
god' thread. Sorry if I jumped too quickly.
I have had a player lose a character he had played for over
a year, and had substantial emotional investment in, PKed,
and agree it was in character and the right thing to do.
Then he made a new character.
Are you willing to tell us the whole story? Details might make your case -
which I agree with but may not have as good an example for - more convincing.

I do not remember the whole story, years ago and niether player bothered to
talk it over in my presence afterwards beyond a brief postmortem.

Argument over whether to attack openly or by stealth, the guy who wanted
stealth had no way to stop the guy who wanted openly other than violence,
and felt that an open attack would get everyone killed for nothing.

We had a more recent case where a player turned in a character to be
used as an NPC because he had decided to switch sides in a war where
the PCs were on the other side and he did not want to play the opposition.

DougL

[Russell Wallace]

On Wed, 3 Dec 2003 12:57:03 -0600, "Doug Lampert"

Post by Doug Lampert
We had a more recent case where a player turned in a character to be
used as an NPC because he had decided to switch sides in a war where
the PCs were on the other side and he did not want to play the opposition.

*nods* That's how I would recommend handling that situation if it gets
to that point and there's no way to change the character's mind.

[Bradd W. Szonye]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by Doug Lampert
We had a more recent case where a player turned in a character to be
used as an NPC because he had decided to switch sides in a war where
the PCs were on the other side and he did not want to play the opposition.

*nods* That's how I would recommend handling that situation if it gets
to that point and there's no way to change the character's mind.

My first PC in our current campaign did something like that. We'd been
chasing down a local bandit, and it turned out that he might actually be
the legitimate ruler. It wasn't entirely clear, but it looked like the
current ruler (a relative of the bandit) may have been a usurper.

My PC was evil, of the "charismatic, make friends, find allies, and
someday implement the Master Plan" variety. She wanted to back the
bandit and oust the usurper, because (1) it would create a powerful
ally, and (2) the bandit seemed much easier to manipulate than the
current ruler. Unfortunately, the rest of the group didn't want to mess
with local politics, and it almost turned into a fight with the group
leader (played by my wife). I decided that it was best to retire the PC.

That said, I'm not generally opposed to PKing, so long as it's clear
that it's a character thing and not a symptom of player conflict. My
last PC had a conflict with our employers and another PC, and that time
it did turn into open violence. My PC had been upset with the other
characters for a while -- she was a generous Robin Hood type, and they
were slavers -- but she tried to find non-violent solutions. Eventually,
however, her patience wore thin, and she snapped when our employers
tortured a prisoner. This time around, I stayed, and the other PC left
the party.

[Neelakantan Krishnaswami]

Post by Doug Lampert

Post by Russell Wallace
If one is considering a human-moderated roleplaying campaign, that is
intended to extent to multiple sessions, and have enough emotional
content to be reasonably defined as a _roleplaying campaign_ rather
than a tabletop wargame with small unit numbers, then I proclaim my
above statement.

I still think you are wrong, especially in a long running campaign
with well established characters, if killing another character is in
character how can you possibly claim that it is a bad thing to do?

Easy: if it's not fun, and causes serious social disruption and bad
feeling among the players, it's a bad thing to do.

Personally, I think Russell is wrong: I think that PC/PC conflict is
some of the most tense and exciting conflict there is. The PCs are
generally the best-developed characters in the game, and the players
have the highest stake in them to boot.

However, in all the games I've played in with these conventions, the
players have worked /very/ hard at making clear that PC/PC conflict is
not a covert channel being used to express player-level hostility.
This does not automatically happen; it takes work to establish that
level of trust and to maintain it. If that mutual understanding isn't
present, then PKing is a bad idea because it can easily lead to
player-level recriminations.

Personally, I consider PKing ill-considered in any game in which my
main interaction with the other players is through the game. If I
don't have a rich enough history of friend-type activities that can
demonstrate that in-character hostility is solely in-character, then I
won't do it. If I am already friends with the other players, then I
will advocate that we play without the net, so to speak.

[Russell Wallace]

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 13:51:38 -0600, "Doug Lampert"

Post by Doug Lampert
I still think you are wrong, especially in a long running campaign with well
established characters, if killing another character is in character how can
you possibly claim that it is a bad thing to do?

I claim if killing another PC is in character, then something has
already gone wrong - at least one of those characters shouldn't be in
the game.

In my experience, if the players have any emotional attachment to
their characters - i.e. unless the "characters" are really just tokens
in a war game - serious PC vs PC conflicts _always_ end up with the
players getting pissed off with each other. It's not a question of
immaturity or lack of firewalling skill - it happens with _everyone_
I've ever seen, regardless of age or ability. It's always, always,
always utterly destructive.

Post by Doug Lampert
PCs should not get any special concern from other players, it makes
for bad worldbuilding, bad gameplay, bad roleplay, and bad drama.
It makes sense only from narrow social goals, and even there is a
poor solution.

I agree. If someone has to start acting out of character to stop their
character killing another PC, something has already gone wrong. A much
better solution is to make sure PCs who are likely to become mortal
enemies don't end up in the same campaign in the first place.

Post by Doug Lampert
If part of the goal is not to use Out of Character info,
how can the Characters reactions be dependent on PC/NPC?

_Part_ of the goal is not using OOC info to cause PCs to act out of
character. But that part of the goal becomes pretty irrelevant if
pursuing it causes the gaming group to tear apart - the usual result
of letting PC vs PC hostility get to lethal levels.

[Wayne Shaw]

Post by Russell Wallace
In my experience, if the players have any emotional attachment to
their characters - i.e. unless the "characters" are really just tokens
in a war game - serious PC vs PC conflicts _always_ end up with the
players getting pissed off with each other. It's not a question of
immaturity or lack of firewalling skill - it happens with _everyone_
I've ever seen, regardless of age or ability. It's always, always,
always utterly destructive.

Then you've defined me as either nonexistant or a token player. I've
had characters killed by other PCs, accepted it was in character, and
in fact knew it was a possible result of my actions before I did it.
It wasn't frequent, but it doesn't take frequent to shoot a hole in a
gross generality.

Post by Russell Wallace
I agree. If someone has to start acting out of character to stop their
character killing another PC, something has already gone wrong. A much
better solution is to make sure PCs who are likely to become mortal
enemies don't end up in the same campaign in the first place.

"Likely" and "capable of" aren't the same thing. And in at least one
of the cases I mentioned the characters weren't mortal enemies; in
fact the character doing the killing was quite regretful but knew my
character was simply not going to stop trying to do something the
other found unacceptable unless killed.

Post by Russell Wallace
_Part_ of the goal is not using OOC info to cause PCs to act out of
character. But that part of the goal becomes pretty irrelevant if
pursuing it causes the gaming group to tear apart - the usual result
of letting PC vs PC hostility get to lethal levels.

And I think the key word here that you've avoided in the past is
"usual".

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Wayne Shaw
Then you've defined me as either nonexistant or a token player. I've
had characters killed by other PCs, accepted it was in character, and
in fact knew it was a possible result of my actions before I did it.

Then your experience differs from mine - I've never once seen that
happen in 16 years of roleplaying, but if you say you have I'll take
your word for it, in which case I can see how you might come to a
different conclusion.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by Russell Wallace
I claim if killing another PC is in character, then something has
already gone wrong - at least one of those characters shouldn't be in
the game.

It is often, but *not* always, because one of the players (either the
one playing the killer, or the one playing he killed) made a serious
mistake at the character design phase, yes.

If you're going to exclude metagame factors, you have to be extra
careful with the game situation setup, including character personalities.

Post by Russell Wallace
In my experience, if the players have any emotional attachment to
their characters - i.e. unless the "characters" are really just tokens
in a war game - serious PC vs PC conflicts _always_ end up with the
players getting pissed off with each other. It's not a question of

Wrong.

Post by Russell Wallace
immaturity or lack of firewalling skill - it happens with _everyone_

No it doesn't. If another player has his valid character kill my
character for a legitimate in-game, in-character reason, I have no
problems with that.

If it happens because he created a paranoid or sociopathic PC, i.e. a
non-valid PC, then I'll be strongly disinclined to ever play with him
again.

Post by Russell Wallace
I've ever seen, regardless of age or ability. It's always, always,
always utterly destructive.

You haven't seen enough, then.

[...]

Post by Russell Wallace
I agree. If someone has to start acting out of character to stop their
character killing another PC, something has already gone wrong. A much
better solution is to make sure PCs who are likely to become mortal
enemies don't end up in the same campaign in the first place.

Yes. The setup becomes more and more impotant, the less willing you
are to accept metagame influences.

[...]

Post by Russell Wallace
_Part_ of the goal is not using OOC info to cause PCs to act out of
character. But that part of the goal becomes pretty irrelevant if
pursuing it causes the gaming group to tear apart - the usual result
of letting PC vs PC hostility get to lethal levels.

You're assuming immature players.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Peter Knutsen
You're assuming immature players.

No, Peter, I'm assuming you're a fuckwit.

Correction: I'm noting as an empirical fact that you're a fuckwit, I
don't have to assume it.

[George W. Harris]

***@eircom.net (Russell Wallace) wrote:

:On Tue, 02 Dec 2003 23:54:45 +0100, Peter Knutsen <***@knutsen.dk>
:wrote:
:
:>You're assuming immature players.
:
:No, Peter, I'm assuming you're a fuckwit.
:
:Correction: I'm noting as an empirical fact that you're a fuckwit, I
:don't have to assume it.

I can't resist pedantry, for which I apologize.
What you note as an empirical fact is Peter's behavior;
from this observed behavior you infer that he is a
fuckwit (I'm not commenting on your observational
acuity or reasoning).

[Russell Wallace]

On Wed, 03 Dec 2003 01:28:19 GMT, George W. Harris

Post by George W. Harris
I can't resist pedantry, for which I apologize.
What you note as an empirical fact is Peter's behavior;
from this observed behavior you infer that he is a
fuckwit (I'm not commenting on your observational
acuity or reasoning).

True; I stand corrected ^.^

[Warren J. Dew]

Russell Wallace posts, in part:

In my experience, if the players have any emotional attachment
to their characters - i.e. unless the "characters" are really
just tokens in a war game - serious PC vs PC conflicts
_always_ end up with the players getting pissed off with each
other.

Well, you know the rgfa rule of thumb about how dangerous it is to judge based
on any single person's experience, even (maybe especially) one's own.

My experience is not as different from yours as some of the others here, but it
is different. My most recent experience with this didn't involve a player
character death, but it did involve his being forced out of an adventuring
group. Actually he was forced out of two adventuring groups, ending up not
being able to be played.

The player was quite unhappy about it, as he really enjoyed playing the
character, but he didn't end up getting upset at the other character's player.
In the first case, one of the leaders of the people who forced the character
out was one of that player's other characters; the player did not, so far as I
know, get upset at himself for this. In the second case, the player got upset
at the other character and didn't like playing with her for a while, but he
didn't get upset at the other character's player.

In earlier cases, some of which involved character deaths, players sometimes
got upset at other players, but there were enough players, and they were
diverse enough, that not all the players were going to be happy with all the
others all the time anyway. And there were some cases where all involved
agreed 'it was an accident' - though in most of those cases it was an accident
on a character level as well as a player level.

A much better solution is to make sure PCs who are likely to
become mortal enemies don't end up in the same campaign in
the first place.

That's perhaps easy for a short term campaign, but over the course of two
decades of player time and five decades of character time, characters can
change: good friends can become deadly enemies in ways that were not
predictable at the start. The choices then are to be false to the characters,
to end the campaign, or to allow the character conflict to happen, and the
latter can be the best of the three.

But that part of the goal becomes pretty irrelevant if
pursuing it causes the gaming group to tear apart - the
usual result of letting PC vs PC hostility get to lethal
levels.

In the extreme case, if two of the players can't play with one another any
more, it may be possible for the group to keep playing the same campaign after
one of the two players leaves.

Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software

[Warren J. Dew]

Russell Wallace posts, in part:

If by "PKing" you mean one PC killing another without the
consent of the second PC's player, I will assert "PKing
is never okay" as a universally true statement.

It's not true of my campaign.

I and all my players have a very strong preference that characters be allowed
to play in character, even in cases of intercharacter conflict. I would
actually be somewhat disappointed if a player refrained from having his
character kill another player character just because it was a player character.
Player characters do not have special status in my campaign - if it's okay to
kill gamesmaster characters, it's also okay to kill player characters.

Yes, but in my experience, the fact of the PCs being so
lethally opposed to each other, would preclude the game
continuing much past the one-shot.

While it's rare that a player would be happy about their characters being on
the receiving end of such an event, I think some would be able to accept the
situation and get over it.


Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Russell Wallace
If by "PKing" you mean one PC killing another without the
consent of the second PC's player, I will assert "PKing
is never okay" as a universally true statement.
It's not true of my campaign.

Fair enough; your campaign seems to be the one that's the exception to
_everything_ else that I've ever seen or heard of in roleplaying games
:)

[Peter Knutsen]

[...]

Post by Russell Wallace
Yes, but in my experience, the fact of the PCs being so
lethally opposed to each other, would preclude the game
continuing much past the one-shot.
While it's rare that a player would be happy about their characters being on
the receiving end of such an event, I think some would be able to accept the
situation and get over it.

I would, if the character killing my character was a serious one, i.e.
a completely viable adventurer, able to pass the "survive past the age
of five" test with flying colours.

But of course I am assuming that the killing of my character by
another PC occurs at a point where the campaign has run for a dozen
sessions or more, and his character has been well established as a
fully rounded (and sufficiently rational) personality.

The earlier the incident occurs, the more likely I'd be to assume that
the player in question is just screwed up about how to create a
proper, campaign-viable PC.

Post by Russell Wallace
Warren J. Dew

[Bradd W. Szonye]

Post by Russell Wallace
If by "PKing" you mean one PC killing another without the consent of
the second PC's player, I will assert "PKing is never okay" as a
universally true statement.

Please report to termination booth three. Have a nice day!

[Russell Wallace]

On Thu, 04 Dec 2003 17:48:22 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye"

Post by Bradd W. Szonye

Post by Russell Wallace
If by "PKing" you mean one PC killing another without the consent of
the second PC's player, I will assert "PKing is never okay" as a
universally true statement.

Please report to termination booth three. Have a nice day!

I did at some point explicitly except the case where the players don't
care about their characters :)

[Bradd W. Szonye]

Post by Russell Wallace
On Thu, 04 Dec 2003 17:48:22 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye"

Post by Bradd W. Szonye

Post by Russell Wallace
If by "PKing" you mean one PC killing another without the consent of
the second PC's player, I will assert "PKing is never okay" as a
universally true statement.

Please report to termination booth three. Have a nice day!

I did at some point explicitly except the case where the players don't
care about their characters :)

Well, you could also argue that players implicitly agree to PKing when
they pledge allegiance to the Computer. But it was still a good joke,
no?

[Robert Scott Clark]

Post by Bradd W. Szonye

Post by Russell Wallace
On Thu, 04 Dec 2003 17:48:22 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye"

Post by Bradd W. Szonye

Post by Russell Wallace
If by "PKing" you mean one PC killing another without the consent of
the second PC's player, I will assert "PKing is never okay" as a
universally true statement.

Please report to termination booth three. Have a nice day!

I did at some point explicitly except the case where the players don't
care about their characters :)

Well, you could also argue that players implicitly agree to PKing when
they pledge allegiance to the Computer. But it was still a good joke,
no?

Or you could argue that by agreeing to play in a game where killing of
other PCs isn't forbidden you have tacitly agreed to it, thereby making it
not PK by Russell's definition.

Following from that, the only thing that would ever qualify as PK would be
killing of PC in campaigns where killing between PCs is forbidden in the
game contract. That would actually make the statement correct, because all
it would say is that breaking a game contract is bad.

[Jens Egon Nyborg]

Post by Jeff Heikkinen
Here's the changes I am currently planning to version 2.0 (if you don't
have it, Google Is Your Friend).

Why not call it version 0.3?

As in major release "0" = not yet "." minor revision "3".