PC antagonism done right
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Do a thing where you have to Build the (sweet taste of) Victory with a sequence of (the bitter dregs of) Challenges, Setbacks and Defeat?
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Part of PC Antagonism done right is acknowledging to yourself that you're playing an antagonist, and when you're doing it. In the scheme of a MU, these are not necessarily the evil and bad characters (though it can be), they're as often the white knight hero. The thing is that every PC is also the protagonist of their own story, so which hat you're wearing at any one time often changes. Even the most antagonistic character is often in a situation in which they're not the antagonist in the exchange.
If you're playing a concept in which other PCs are the obstacle that you're set upon overcoming, you're the agitator in that scenario. Say the Carthian crusading for equal ghoul rights in Vampire society. Similarly if you're playing a concept in which you set yourself up to be an obstacle to be overcome.
While some games might have a very easy delineation of protagonist/antagonist, say if you're in a Harry Potter game and you're playing on Voldemort's side, or if you're in a superhero game and by default one side are righteous and the other side isn't, on most games out there its probably a mistake to get into thinking that this character is the antagonist that you are now entitled to overcome.
From which is born @mietze 's white knight syndrome mention, which is as (if not more) pervasive than the behavior blind cliche antagonist who can't accept losing. From an OOC perspective it may be easy to discern an objective good guy/bad guy dynamic, but unless everybody agrees that the story and game is about the good guys winning, from the game's perspective, exactly who's in the right or wrong is usually more complex.
Ultimately a lot of it comes down to respect, and whether it works out or not generally in my experience comes down to whether the players involved are willing to put themselves into the other side's shoes.
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@lordbelh & @mietze Ugh. Yes. White Knight Syndrome drives me batty and insane. Especially when it goes as far as "You were mean to <person>, so you must be punished!" "Yeah! I agree!" "Me too!"
This is especially bad when the White Knights are espousing some modern belief that flies completely contrary to the theme of the setting.
What the White Knights don't seem to realize is that when they do this, THEY become the antagonists--and not (usually) good ones, either.
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I think a lot of the time it's less intentional bad intent but more of the "wow finally I get to DO something actiony and important and my PC gets to be The Hero!" without thinking of things as collaborative story. Which is why I think staff is key to make sure there's lots happening for people to do and 15 people don't need to glom on to everything perceived as a scrap. Will there be scene/plot/action hogs no matter what? Yes, but. I think things are compounded when people have to fight and pounce on everything if they ever want to be in on action not of their own Temp Room making.
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@Seraphim73 said in PC antagonism done right:
What the White Knights don't seem to realize is that when they do this, THEY become the antagonists--and not (usually) good ones, either.
I wish that was the case but in all honesty it's not.
A White Knight in MU* doesn't do the right thing, he/she does the popular thing.
I'm not sure someone who has the clear majority on their side ("ghouls are people too, guys!") no matter what theme says can be considered an antagonist.
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@Arkandel Why not? Granted, I was pretty certainly using the term incorrectly, but I was going for the idea that they're becoming the ones causing the conflict.
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I don't think there is a specific meaning on a MU* to White Knight/Hat beyond they gather up and take on the bad people, whether anyone wants them to or not.
It can refer to being a bully for "good" IC, or the dogpile of good folks all looking for something to do because they are do-gooders.
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@Misadventure said in PC antagonism done right:
...they gather up and take on the bad people, whether anyone wants them to or not.
It can refer to being a bully for "good" IC, or the dogpile of good folks all looking for something to do because they are do-gooders.
Caveat: I've only had experience with WoD MU's, not Superheros or anything else, so my opinion here probably has some bias.
But this is a thing I see happen a lot. Like, way too much. Even a rumor of an antagonist faction PC/NPC gets around, and suddenly fifty people are on the Murderboat. It doesn't matter that normal people don't go around killing people. It doesn't matter that it's a Morality sin, and totally out of line with their character. An 'antagonist' shows up, and someone needs a-killin', and people write it off like it's not a big deal. DnD Fighters and Wizards go in, blow shit to hell, and then cheer each other over beers.
It's why, in my experience, nobody even bothers with those antagonists anymore. Fifteen people dogpile on it, and either a PC ends up dead, and you get -thirty- people dogpiling on it for revenge and honor and bullshit, or the NPC gets away and it's a gamewide manhunt. There's no way to make them recurring, threatening things because everyone wants an all-out, no holds barred war, and no matter how much you say 'this is not how it actually works', people are unwilling to listen.
I think that antagonism only works in a game if the staff are willing to say 'this is how the actual antagonism is going to go down, and if you step out of line with that, there will be serious consequences from both sides'.
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@Derp said in PC antagonism done right:
I think that antagonism only works in a game if the staff are willing to say 'this is how the actual antagonism is going to go down, and if you step out of line with that, there will be serious consequences from both sides'.
"Let's keep it Cat & Mouse, not Cat & Missile." - The Mighty Monarch.
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@derp Two things going on there, the White Knightism, and the Only Killing is Winning.
It's been said before, but few players want to see their characters as the truly bad people, AND many people are adverse to "starting something" first. So they play the nicest vampire who ever had to murder an innocent because well they didn't want to, and if this one didn't die, many more would have to die later. And you know those vicious faction enemies, well they exist no matter what, and you can't fault their players for wanting to be on the grid. And there might be peace based on assured mutual annihilation.
Until The Incident.
Then you have unleashed the Hounds, and the more people are involved the more likely the path of Final Victory will be selected, and achievable.
I'd say make it pay off more to be more diverse forms of bad, and to hold relationships with entities you don't like. And then damage your goals when something you (unhappily) relied upon falls apart. Chaos happens, new players arrive who don't have sustainable goals. More is lost. Etc.
That's right, don't fix a social problem with code, fix it with game systems and story. TAKE THAT Tweed Robot!
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@Misadventure said in PC antagonism done right:
@derp Two things going on there, the White Knightism, and the Only Killing is Winning.
It's been said before, but few players want to see their characters as the truly bad people, AND many people are adverse to "starting something" first.
Although I can agree with @Derp that people are eager to jump on the murderwagon and that's a problem, my own issue with this has been different historically.
When I think to run an antagonist, and in many cases that includes NPCs for my plots, I consider theme and then play a purist. Sure, a moustache-twirling villain has a time and a place but there's a shorter shelf life - and it's a much more niche kind of PC to play if that's the wanted direction.
So let's say (to steal @lordbelh's example) that it's a political Vampire game and I'm playing a conservative, traditionalist Elder who happens to be Primogen or whatever. He's Someone. He spots them ghouls walking around Elysium as if they were real people or something and he makes his mind known about them; even if there's no kill squad in response, the chance of everyone, and I mean almost everyone being liberal about them and ganging up on an influential Kindred (who could presumably be a good friend and a bad enemy) to defend someone else they can't gain almost anything from, is very high. If the ghoul's player happens to be popular OOC? You just got fucked.
Look, that can be grating for many players to play out. It can be fun to be the guy everyone's mouthing off to but it can also isolate you pretty fast; it's easy to get the feeling there's a page party going on you're not invited to, and no matter the theme or even your PC's position, you can also end up IC isolated very quickly. Being outnumbered, even over an issue where you're supposed to be representing the majority or at least be on the side of authority on, can be pretty frustrating in the long run. Not only does it limit your RP but it can also derail it - suddenly you're not playing the savvy, respected statesman.
Now, part of this issue is just the average player's nature. But part of it is systemic; if you give nothing up by being a white knight (say, opposing that Elder doesn't penalize you in tangible terms in the least) then it's a win/win. That, to me, speaks of poor game design where they are fewer interesting choices to make.
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@Thenomain said in PC antagonism done right:
"Let's keep it Cat & Mouse, not Cat & Missile." - The Mighty Monarch.
Pretty much exactly this, yes. As @Arkandel points out:
if you give nothing up by being a white knight (say, opposing that Elder doesn't penalize you in tangible terms in the least) then it's a win/win. That, to me, speaks of poor game design where they are fewer interesting choices to make.
Antagonist PCs should be at least somewhat numerous and/or powerful. Those two work on a sliding scale, really. The point is, there should be enough of them, or they should be powerful enough, that a full-force direct assault on them would be the height of stupidity. And vice-versa. They shouldn't be able to wipe the protagonists off the map either.
But more importantly, there should be some sort of advantage for keeping up the antagonism. World peace is boring. Look at some of the existing games where the PC faction is the only one. There's no threat. No threat means nothing really happening. PCs languish in obscurity. And you can't even move a threat in, because PCs have had months and months to set up every kind of alarm bell there is. And then:
@Misadventure said:
Then you have unleashed the Hounds, and the more people are involved the more likely the path of Final Victory will be selected, and achievable.
The status quo should not be 'we've won'. The status quo should be 'we need to tread carefully here'. Make there be some incentive for keeping the peace. Generally speaking, neither side wants a bloody conflict. The reality is that they don't go as cleanly as most MU conflict tends to go. They're long, and bloody, and messy. They take resources, and they drain everyone involved on some level, because nobody wants to be dealing with that shit when there are other issues they could be attending to. So if someone steps out of line for no good reason whatsoever other than they got a wild hair up their ass and wanted to go pick a fight, there should be consequences from both factions.
That's not to say that conflict can't happen. But conflict shouldn't be murder-first, question-later. It should be give and take, back and forth. They should both act as the foil to each other, and occasionally things can get heated, sure, if there's some real big piece of the pie on the line. But all in all, they should be trying to screw each other over, not trying to plot ways to annihilate the other in some kind of Final Solution BS.
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My ideas for playing engaging antagonists boil down to three things, essentially:
- Cultivate a good OOC attitude. Be nice. Be friendly.
- Be willing to poke fun at your antagonist.
- Don't shit where you eat.
I managed to do it once, and it was really really fun and I'm not sure I could ever have the right conditions ever again. I really appreciated how other players supported me by playing up 'don't mess with that guy'.
I hope it was entertaining for others as well. I think it was? Anyway, I couldn't have done it without the support of other players.
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@Derp said in PC antagonism done right:
Antagonist PCs should be at least somewhat numerous and/or powerful. Those two work on a sliding scale, really. The point is, there should be enough of them, or they should be powerful enough, that a full-force direct assault on them would be the height of stupidity. And vice-versa. They shouldn't be able to wipe the protagonists off the map either.
In the case of PCs in particular neither needs to be the case. After all players are (usually) free to play dark horse antagonists; say, a handful of Crones trying to make it in a Sanctified-dominated Praxis. There's no mandate for them to be either numerous or strong there.
What concerns me the most is when PC politics don't agree with the way the game is written. For instance thematically - in the wiki, NPCs, etc - suggests ghouls are suppressed but the situation on the actual grid doesn't support that; what then?
It's important that there are opportunities offered to both political sides when friction such as this comes to exist - traditionalists should have options to flex their good ol' boy club muscles, dissenters to try and disrupt existing operations to try and force concessions over time - else there is almost no point to the conflict. It'll just come down to people exchanging empty poses in rooms, and the most numerous camp will absolutely win 100% of the time, no matter any other factors.
That's bad. Several elements are missing in such a situation; staff thinks the political situation is A but in truth is B, players lack viable options to play out strong thematic elements, and resolution is decided by the least IC mechanism of them all - CGen demographics - which marginalizes any minorities regardless of their theoretical impact on the game.
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Thinking about the Conservative Primogen vs Ghoul As Person, I'd have to say that folks who are willing to fight for a no gain cause would be noted as non-pragmatic as reputation, and easy marks for distraction. So real deal makers would avoid them unless useful and possibly set up bad things to help "fix" as bargaining points from those sad sucker liberals.
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@Misadventure said in PC antagonism done right:
Thinking about the Conservative Primogen vs Ghoul As Person, I'd have to say that folks who are willing to fight for a no gain cause would be noted as non-pragmatic as reputation, and easy marks for distraction. So real deal makers would avoid them unless useful and possibly set up bad things to help "fix" as bargaining points from those sad sucker liberals.
How?
I'm not disputing this is what should (probably) happen, but what's the system which produces that outcome?
Ideally that's the main question I'd like to see addressed in this thread; not just what (which I feel most of us agree with) but how. And remember, such systems need to be as easy to use on an everyday basis and require as little direct staff intervention as possible .
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@Derp The All-Aboard-the-Murderboat situation you describe is the next step along the path of the White Knight (after "getting in peoples' faces for being meany-pants"). It's definitely a problem, but it can also be just fine, so long as Staff is willing to back up the threat from the antagonist to a level that gives the fifteen (or thirty) people something to do against it... just in order to hold it off, not to annihilate it (as you yourself mentioned).
@Arkandel Exactly. Until the consequences for bringing anachronistic modern societal views into a different setting are actually codified and applied, people will keep White Knighting because they get to feel good, they get to act as their player would, they get to be part of the popular group, and there aren't any penalties for acting wildly out of theme.
As to the point @Arkandel made about PC demographics versus NPC demographics... that's always problematic, and, in my opinion, tied in to the White Knight Blight. A ton of players want to be cool and hip and forward-thinking, and they forget that EVERYONE ELSE on the game wants to do the same thing. Often the best way to stand out and to be "different" is to represent the majority NPC viewpoint. I've had a ton of success playing Stormtroopers, Clone Troopers, Imperial Officers, patriotic (toward the Republic, then Empire) Senators, uptight knights, dogmatic Children of the Light, and other "generic" character viewpoints, because everyone wants to RP with them because they ground the other PCs in the world by representing that majority NPC viewpoint. Unfortunately, they also rather require Staff to be willing to back up that majority NPC viewpoint with... you know... majority NPCs... or else you get actions taken because of PC population, not universe population.
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@Arkandel said:
Ideally that's the main question I'd like to see addressed in this thread; not just what (which I feel most of us agree with) but how. And remember, such systems need to be as easy to use on an everyday basis and require as little direct staff intervention as possible.
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What the Players Want Isn't Necessarily What They Should Get - I mean, let's face it. We've all felt similar situations before. Just because a kid -wants- ice cream for dinner, because that makes them just the happiest of campers, doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea. There are lots of unhealthy things that happen if they get their way all the time. The same goes with a MU. Just because the players want the game set up a certain way, doesn't mean it's a good idea. Lots of games lately have tried to custom tailor their stuff to exactly what the players of the game want. And it's ended up with stagnant games where this is nothing to do, and people RP in little cliques instead of going out and interacting with the world. Because there is largely nothing in the world that can hold their attention long enough to really engage with it. It becomes monster-of-the-week plots and social scenes, instead of long-term planning and any real kind of strategy.
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No Top-Tier PC Leadership - PC Leadership is always problematic, because then staff has to negotiate things with the PC leaders, who can essentially hold the game hostage while they issue mandates from on high. Mandates from on high should come from the staff, the storytellers, whoever. But it shouldn't be in the hands of players. You might let PCs get middle-management positions. It could be fun to play the Provost of a Councilor. But PCs shouldn't be on the Council. Or if they are, the HIerarch should be NPC, and should have veto power. Because that's how you keep the game from becoming some kind of boring, conflict-less Nirvana. The players should always have something to work toward, and keeping the top-tier 'governance' of the IC world out of their hands goes a long way in making sure that there are always ways to introduce dynamic conflict and meaningful consequences.
Fundamentally, I disagree that the systems used need to have as little direct staff intervention as possible. I think that staff are ultimately the ones who tailor both the world and the story, and while PCs can do meaningful things inside of it, the 'hands off' staffing approach is really not a great idea for making sure that this sort of things comes to pass.
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@Derp said in PC antagonism done right:
- What the Players Want Isn't Necessarily What They Should Get - I mean, let's face it. We've all felt similar situations before. Just because a kid -wants- ice cream for dinner, because that makes them just the happiest of campers, doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea. There are lots of unhealthy things that happen if they get their way all the time. The same goes with a MU.
This probably falls outside the scope of the thread but I can't foresee good things happening if staff wants thematic control of their game and can't have it. It's one thing to say it's ran as a sort of sandbox and things are fairly freeform and another to try and run an explorative, adventurous Mage game but end up with hardcore politics on the grid; it's been known to happen, in fact.
Now, what I think a problem is in these cases isn't (only) that many players play to 'win', which leads to white knights and cliques and... all that stuff. I think an even harder issue is that they try to play every game as what they expect it to be - what they've played before elseMU* - and not as intended in the MU* they're actually at.
This isn't solvable with rules and pages on the wiki. It can be helped by having the right system in place rewarding what staff actually wants to see, but the best way to set a direction, pace and ambience for their game is to actually make sure plot is ran that contains those elements. I can write up all the "ugh, so grimdark!" I want but if the actual PCs land in a faerie tale paradise where resources are bountiful and pretty princesses meet dashing noblemen in taverns to flirt then good luck with that.
It's also kind of a hilarious fallacy to expect the exact kinds of players who if asked "so what plot do you want me to run for you?" typically answer "I dunno" to know what themes the MU* should have. They won't. Give it to them, make it fun and it'll work out.
Fundamentally, I disagree that the systems used need to have as little direct staff intervention as possible. I think that staff are ultimately the ones who tailor both the world and the story, and while PCs can do meaningful things inside of it, the 'hands off' staffing approach is really not a great idea for making sure that this sort of things comes to pass.
Staff should absolutely be able to intervene to steer the boat, and I have little love for positions of leadership being taken up by PCs for a lot of different reasons; what is suicidal is having a system in place which requires staff to have a hand in each everyday move made by characters; every snide comment made by hapless neonates or baseborn peasants to their betters.
What I'm thinking for instance, in a very general overview, is a system where each character has a degree of influence on the IC world. Some people have more, others less based on their positions, skills and attributes - it could be political sway over NPCs, judicial power, economic backing, criminal leverage, physical or military superiority, whatever. If that's in place then all you need is carrots for PCs to chase, which can only be achieved through utilizing those kinds of influences - because suddenly you're giving them what I called interesting choices; sure, you could alienate the Elder today to get on the hot blonde ghoul's good side, but tomorrow when you really really want to get your domain expanded to include that new mall (which gives you access to more influence in turn and opens up options for RP in the future) he can back one of your opponents instead. Oops.
That's an example of tangible choices. But the whole game needs to be set up from scratch to support it, it can't just be an addendum on top as an afterthought. Because then yes, you can still be a White Knight... but it'll cost you, man.
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@Derp said in PC antagonism done right:
@Arkandel said:
Ideally that's the main question I'd like to see addressed in this thread; not just what (which I feel most of us agree with) but how. And remember, such systems need to be as easy to use on an everyday basis and require as little direct staff intervention as possible.
Fundamentally, I disagree that the systems used need to have as little direct staff intervention as possible. I think that staff are ultimately the ones who tailor both the world and the story, and while PCs can do meaningful things inside of it, the 'hands off' staffing approach is really not a great idea for making sure that this sort of things comes to pass.
I yanked the two bullet points here because I agree with them -- I just don't necessarily think they're reason to think there isn't a lot more that can be done to empower players with thematic 'backup' of sorts for the ICly NOT trendy (but OOCly popular) viewpoints present in game without doing the equivalent of handing nuclear warheads (or something like the Spear of Destiny from the recent Legends of Tomorrow story arc) out to all and sundry with no oversight.