The question of free will - part two

So, I started off with the situation where a PC want to convince a NPC to to do something. Let's now look at the much thornier issue, influencing a PC.

To begin with, can they do it? It's very easy to say that since that would rob a player of his free will, it can't be done. But, once again we have the question of how to model in a game the situation of a player with very limited social skills playing a character that is a fast talker. How do you do it?

I can see the argument that this is not part of the game. If someone like to play a smooth talker he should talk the talk. If it's not stats, AC or HP it is in the domain of the player. I don't agree. Also, someone might say that skills can do a lot, and it's ok to use Charm as a skill to make a NPC do something, but that it is not applicable to player characters. I don't agree.

The way I see it, if there are skills in the game for social interaction, they are to be used for social interaction! If you start to exclude some characters from effects of the game system, then the next step of course is to exclude the Boss monster or the NPC crucial for the story the GM has planned.

Yeah, I know I couldn't help myself. I slipped that one in. Deal with "story" another time. For now, just accept it exist.

Anyway. I was saying? Yeah, plot immunity. So, I think it makes more sense to have everyone in the game be affected by social interaction skills. Also, remember all those moments when the dice fell like they did and you talked about it for weeks? Now it can happen in more ways than combat! In addition, having your character be affected by an intimidation attempt will probably make that character behave like it really would, not like you would. That is, after all, what roleplaying is about. Regardless if you like to speak in funny voices or use your character like a chess piece, I might add.

So, if anyone can be charmed and intimidated I suggest everyone have skills to counter and handle such issues. Ideally you would have some influence over the way your character behaves, I'm not urging you to abandon that wholly. Instead, if there is a trait to roll for a specific kind of social interaction, that can also be used to defend against it. Needless to say, I think these should be capabilities that all characters should have.

To give you an idea of what this could mean, I present TORG as an example.

In TORG everyone have stats, skills and a set of numbers for Approved Actions. those are Maneuver, Trick, Test, Taunt and Intimidate. Those are all classes of actions that show up on those fancy cards you play to jazz up scenes in the game. Charm, Persuasion and Intimidate have their own chapter in the rules, and all these abilities are resolved on a specific chart, showing the result of the attempt. I think that even if you don't have a game system where there are cards in play, the idea of having these actions be clear and present options in every moment at the table is a great. Everyone has the abilities, everyone can defend against them, and everyone is always reminded that apart from rolling to whack that guy over the head I can also use these abilities. I think it suggests a more interesting and varied play experience.

This is becoming a very long post, I have not yet said anything about how to implement it in a game that is not TORG. Let's see if it can be done.

The question of free will - part one

I saw a new episode show up in the feed from Happy Jacks rpg podcast and downloaded greedily to devour my new favourite show. It turned out that it was a few days too early, and due to a hiccup in the feed, it was an episode from season two that showed up. I listened to it anyway, and not only was it as good as the last episodes, the guys talked about an issue which I find interesting and am thus going to post on. It is the question of to what extent you are allowed to influence other characters in the game, regardless of they are played by a player or the GM. Let's dive into it.

So, let's say you want your PC to convince the guard to let you in to the castle, how do you do it?

• 1. You roll your skill roll for bluff/persuade
• 2. You bring out your thespian skills and make it sound good. The GM then let it succeed if it was convincing/funny/dramatic appropriate enough.
• 3. You bring out your thespian skills, and the GM then gives you a bonus/penalty for the bluff/persuade skill roll.
• 4. You convince the GM that it would make sense for the character you are playing to succeed in these circumstances.

There might be more variants, but those illustrate some different approaches to the problem.

1. The issue here is that it is pure game mechanics and player skill and immersion is severely limited. The good thing is, this helps a socially disadvantaged person play a suave bard, or what not. That is one of the reasons we play make believe with dice after all, to be somebody else.

2. The issue here is obviously that it is all down to social skills, intangibles like friendship with the GM and all possible issues of power play at the social level. Also, this is the territory in which the free form pretentiousness dwells, beware.

3. This looks like a middle of the road choice from the two above, right? Some immersion, some feedback from the game system and both gamers and thespians gets to play to their strengths. I like this option.

4. This is kind of the social douche bag version of option one. It's what can happen if you have no game mechanic to fall back upon, and you try to rely on player skill but there are only rules lawyers and people playing the rules around. This as bad as option two, I think.

Now let's consider something more complicated. Imagine a player wishing to influence another player character. How do you handle that?

I have some ideas, which I will post next.

What are the strength of a table top rpg anyway?

I was pondering the ways people approach their rpg sessions lately. One brain child of that was my previous post about Rifts. Now I have been thinking about that roleplaying aspect again, and more specifically the immersion some of us crave.

For some they see the game session as an opportunity to wind down, kill some orks and hang out with their friends. Yet others play it as they would chess or a game of bridge, they sit down with some strangers, maybe in a game store, and try to manipulate they rules and procedures in order to grow and develop their in game persona. There are more than one way to approach a rpg session.

Like you might know by now, I love the old school games with their relaxed attitude and how they are first and foremost games. But, I also like the new school games, the story games which focus on enforcing themes and crunchy parts for things like relationships.

It's not unheard of the latter to focus on more emotionally engaging subjects and themes. A game of that school might actually be intended to emotionally engage and challenge not only the character, but also the player. I find that interesting, in more than one sense.

When you sit down to play a game with strangers in a game store, you might prefer a game which lets you sit in your comfort zone. You do stuff which anyone can understand and follow along, without getting their panties in a twist.

Compare that to a game of Rifts, playing Coalition soldiers. For some that is just as abstract as playing chess. You gain XP by wasting the opposition, fair deal. For some others it might make them sit up straight and wonder what it means to play racist bigots with guns.

A few years ago I could see and hear how gamers I used to play D&D with now talked about how they had a "raid" or a "run" to attend with their guild in World of Warcraft. They had been hooked and online gaming took time out from planning a face to face session with friends. Personally I thought it was nuts!

Now, consider that WoW probably does that part of "playing an abstract logical game of chess with strangers" part quite well, what is left for the table top?

Maybe, just maybe, those games which plays best with friends, or at least with people who might like to get somewhat emotionally engaged, is what is uniquely well done by a table top rpg?

Could it be, that when immersion is key, is where these peculiar games really shine? I have a very varied view of the would be thespians at the table, but I do think going that extra step while engaging the game is what WoW will not let you do. For good, or bad...

Old School games and thespians

I've been thinking about the conversations had following James Malisewski posts from OSR Con in Toronto, and him playing with Ed Greenwood. Many peoples seem to have an instant dislike of any would be thespians at the game table. It reminded me of a poll at Dragonsfoot way back, when the level of engagement in the game was the focus of the poll. The result was that most people there treated AD&D as if it was chess, or Monopoly.

From what I have gathered, the prevailing wind in these parts are kind of the opposite but with a healthy dose of simulationism as a side order. Way back the periodicals had articles espousing the values of acting, talking and being in character. Add to that an influential designer who seem to value realism really, really high and you have a bunch of kids who grow up to be either sim earthers or drama queens. Yeah, I am exaggerating.

But, what about me? Well. I have found that I becomes quite bored if all I do is roll the dice and have to treat my character like a chess piece. Outrageous accents just makes me more engaged. Now, if you are to treat the characters as game pieces, having many and detailed choices to make in the game makes it far more fun. Actually, I think this is where 3rd and 4th D&D really shines. You can happily play without any hint of "acting", and still have a game where you have a lot of things to do. On the other hand, a game like the older editions of D&D or T&T where combat rounds are minutes long and everything is abstract I think the game becomes boring unless I get to engage in a little extra like at least yell something in a funny voice when rolling to hit.

Now, with more abstract games, and more up to GM fiat and player inventiveness you would gather that those games should leave more opportunity for the players to express themselves by doing more thespians experiments. I mean, they do have less rules baggage to weight them down, and more freedom to interpret what abilities and limitations their characters suffer from, right?

Maybe I am off on a totally wrong track here. There's not like there's any strong causality involved or something like that. Somehow the world is not the way I expected it to be.

Let me also add that I think the level of pretentiousness is important. Even when I was quite enthusiastic about it (yes, I was!), Vampire: The Masquerade was a game I liked best when I never met the guys (and gals!) who played it. The same thing is true about things like freeform and "jeepform" which are way to game which makes my stomach turn. That's when I think the would be thespian ought to go to drama class and leave me to my roleplaying game. I just hate the combination of acting, pretentiousness and RPGs. When I act out a bit I goof off. It might be serious, but I am playing a game.

There's more to it than rules density.