Faction-Based Villain Policy Idea

[Lithium]

@surreality You're taking what I said to extremes I did not say.

I never said every fight has to be life or death, kill or be killed, and that a player should lose a character every single time there's a fight.

Just that it has to have some weight rather than the zero weight that is so common now.

Does every scene have to be mortality induced adrenaline rush? Gods no.

But... if your goal is to get information from the city council and some idiot goes in guns blazing, then swat should ventilate them, or they get dealt with by their own faction, or whatever.

People often escalate any scene to physical combat because they feel that way they are using their dice and sheets or because it's what they were made for and they don't want to be 'useless'.

If those types of characters are allowed to run willy nilly with /zero/ repurcussion... it's even worse.

[surreality]

@Lithium Then, seriously. Please clarify this: "Protagonists who are unwilling to risk character death, aren't fucking protagonists. They're couch warmers." -- because that's FPS mentality, and what I've been responding to.

None of the nuance being described now is remotely present in that statement, y'know?

I have seen how off-putting it is when players are told the only viable contribution they make to a game is when they're not just willing to risk, but are risking, death. I've come an inch from leaving places with that attitude toward the players, and have actually left others.

It has value, but it is far from the only challenge, the only risk, and the only approach. You can probably see why I consider that approach reductive, incredibly limiting, and unrealistic.

[Apos]

I was reading @Lithium's statement as 'Protagonists who are unwilling to risk character death <...oocly while still behaving in a manner that is very self-evidently risky are abusing the good nature of GMs who are unwilling to punish them for grandstanding behavior>'. I pretty much figure @surreality and @Lithium both agree that risk has to be meaningful and trivializing it in any fashion detracts from the environment.

I think it's so universal that everyone agrees, but there's just some bad eggs who ruin it by only wanting risk to be very risky for everyone else and not themselves, and some staff are just too nice to bring them back into line. Or worse the abusers are staff and punish everyone else while giving themselves or friends a pass. Environment just kind of collapses when people get away with that.

[surreality]

@Apos I think that's part of it -- and I couldn't agree more strongly that players who want to dish it and refuse to take it (in any level of consent-or-not system) are, without question, behaving in a way that's, at best, incredibly childish, but is more often downright abusive.

The other part is that combat-related challenges are simply easier. Other risks need to be tailored much more specifically to individual characters in a way that requires a lot of capable player scene runners, or a lot of time on staff's part.

Take two characters. One is a shady, grizzled smuggler, and the other an image-conscious socialite. Point a gun at either of them, and they're both going to be at risk. Threaten to expose a secret, and they're both going to be at risk -- but for each of those characters the secret is going to be profoundly different and needs to be individually customized in a way that pointing a gun at them does not require.

Basically, 'physical risk' is simpler. It's more universal. It's easier. It's one of the main reasons it's what we see the most of.

[ThatGuyThere]

@surreality said in Faction-Based Villain Policy Idea:

Basically, 'physical risk' is simpler. It's more universal. It's easier. It's one of the main reasons it's what we see the most of.

Let's not forget the other big reason we will see more of it. It is often the most defined part of the system.
Even WoD which is not particularly combat heavy spends more pages on combat then on skill use. (At least as of the base NWoD book. I have not counted up pages on the GMC edition nor do I have a copy of Chronicles.)
Fact of the matter is it is always easier to run a combat then another encounter at least on a MUSH, a lot of this is mechanical, a lot is cultural.

As far as character death, honestly I tend to be on the minimalist side of things when it comes to MUSHing and I have a rep for being a killer GM in table top. The big reason is what is lost. I am not talking about the character but the ability of the player to play.
In a tabletop you die you miss the rest of the session at most. (As both player and GM I have seen ready ideas get turned into Characters and back in the game by the end of the session.) And get to pick up basically from where you left off with being part of the group. Neither of this is true on a MUSH, even if you have your idea ready to go you are looking at a minimum of four days more likely a week plus before you get approved. Then what a good month of Hi my name is scenes, and if you, god forbid, join the same group your last character was a part of you are all manner of cheating asshole.
If you want death to be more prevalent and accepted those issues likely need to be fixed first.

[Bobotron]

@ThatGuyThere
This is one of the cruxes of what I've been debating on replying to the thread. It's funny that it came up almost simultaneously with a facebook thread about 'how do we stop everything from devolving into killboxes' in LARP that I'm participating in. The mechanical portions of combat have teeth. They have detailed X does Y rules. The mechanical portions of social and other methods of 'conflict' often don't, or when they do, they're extremely unenforceable (or get so much blowback from players that it's not worth enforcing them).

As far as villains/factions, I don't think that they can work well on a non-condeath MU* for the simple reason you provided: investment and ability to play. You rarely ever see a faction-based conflict media where the 'main characters' (which is what I consider PCs on MU*s to be) die regularly (well, okay, Game of Thrones, but even then it's not every episode). Even if red shirts and extras are dying left, right and center.

In Underworld, Selene gets shot and injured and nearly dies, but doesn't die, while lesser vampires get eaten by Lycans and shredded by UV bullets. In TF comics, Optimus Prime gets blown to slag and recovered to rebuild, while Gyro the flyingbot explodes into bits of flotsam in space, never to be recovered. In Gundam, Amuro Ray blows up Zakus by the dozens, but Char vs. Amuro is a showdown with neither dying while their Gundams get disabled.

I still haven't come up with a really GOOD way other than try to determine quick, painless approval processes (which won't work on games as complex as WoD, because of everything that has to be fact-checked and notated and all of that). And that requires something that I think a lot of MU*s are lacking: trust in, and communication with, their playerbase. The WoD game I was working on, I planned to have a policy of 'you can go IC and play, staff will review and some retcon may happen' and I even wondered then if it was a workable.

I've often wondered if a game that is set up with an in-built reason for characters to die, and then come back, would work. Like the Phantasy Star II genesis game cloning chambers, or a game where characters can be rebuilt like on Transformers. But that's something that cheapens death and, to some people, is probably no better than condeath scenarios.

Perhaps mechanics baked into the MU*, separate from the tabletop or other gaming system that exists, to mitigate PC 'death' scenes, while still allowing for villains to be defeated. In the Buffy RPG, doesn't the Drama Point mechanic allow you to skip death by spending them? In the Final Fantasy tabletop I run, there's Destiny that you can use to 'cheat death' when a monster with Killing Blow would kill a KO'ed character. I wonder if building something like that into the game would help; make it a limited resource, but dramatically appropriate.

[faraday]

Where in the world does this concept that "protagonists must risk death or it doesn't matter" come from???

I think MUSHes are most like book/TV series, because of their longevity/multiple storylines. Character death in this sort of series is infrequent and mostly played for shock value. Series like Game of Thrones / Walking Dead made a name for themselves for their body count precisely because it was rare.

We can enjoy Firefly and Star Trek knowing that the crew will almost certainly get out of whatever peril they're currently in. Why do folks rail so much against the same standard being applied to MUSHes?

(Side note: I don't mind if you have a preference for one way or the other. Everyone has their own style. It's the rather vehement statements that death is necessary or lack of death is "couch warming" that I'm reacting to.)

[Ghost]

I think we've been here before @faraday and the conversation (last time) segued into whether or not people are the main character of their own story.

I apologize if I stirred up a storm, I'm just promoting defeat as being healthy ya knows? I often work defeat/back on horse into when my tabletop players lose.

[Bobotron]

@Ghost

I think the difference is, some people are saying 'death is the only outcome' and some are saying 'defeat, setback, loss of resources, etc. is an outcome, not JUST death'. OR at least treating things like all fights between hero/villain factions should come down to 'Do I kill this guy who is in my opposing faction, and what is the logic behind why I -DON'T-.'

[Ghost]

I really do think that there is a "if you show me yours, I will show you mine" factor when it comes to two players putting their characters at risk in this hobby. No one wants to be the only one risking their character. We want other brave souls to make the charge with and against us...but the last thing we want is to be the only, stupid character ever getting PKd because we were the only ones foolish enough to consent.

One thing that has been a problem with me (du temps en temps), is that people will page me and ask "why are you ruining your character?" when I purposefully allowed characters to fail, or be slandered, or be humiliated. The answer? It's all part of the show, but the sheer number of times that I have been asked that has led me to feel like there may be a very large many in this hobby that don't play to roleplay failure, they play to be awesome, and that doesnt bode well for faction based settings in whole numbers want to avoid failure altogether.

[ThatOneDude]

I've found if you do monster of the week events, over and fucking over and fucking over that sure... You're going to get the people that will do stupid shit just to make SOMETHING happen.

Think about real life in how people behave and act out when there is nothing to do. What's needed is engaging story where skills can be used. If PCs are up against a raging creature downtown there is little use for my specialty in origami dinosaur making, right? I can opt to turn around and walk away but then what's my story?

I know engaging stories can be had that utilize skill sets of PCs in game systems in Mu*'s. I've seen it and participated in it. It takes time and effort on the part of the ST and on the part of the players. At the same time good story usually pushes a PC in some way.

But I think I'm digressing from the point of the thread.

I love being a bad guy, on a Mu* I played on in the past myself and two of my friends were the "evil trio" that everyone gunned for. The risk in the conflict was alway fun for me and my friends and the terror we wielded IC just with the sheer number of PKs under our belts was a great tool to use in RP.

As people have stated here you need something to fight over or a reason for the conflict for it to all make sense. For us it was all political in that game. It was first edition WoD in a multisphere game and there was an all out war between two of the spheres. Things would escalate, PCs would die and then cooler heads would work to calm things down IC. It was a great time.

[dontpanda]

I played a really evil villain in a faction of villains - he stood out, you know? - and had a blast. We'd plot bad things to do and then go do them. We didn't even try to PK every time, knowing sometimes the best victory is one where you leave your opponent alive with the knowledge you took everything else from him.

In the end, there was a chance for my PC to go out with a bang at the climax of an internal power struggle. It was one of the best arcs I've ever been a part of.

Being the antagonist, in my opinion, is way more fun, especially if you can work with the protagonists to create something truly remarkable.

[faraday]

@Ghost said in Faction-Based Villain Policy Idea:

I apologize if I stirred up a storm, I'm just promoting defeat as being healthy ya knows? I often work defeat/back on horse into when my tabletop players lose.

Nothing to apologize for. I wasn't reacting to your original point. I agree that protagonists frequently suffer setbacks/defeats in good fiction and that makes for more interesting stories. But as you yourself have said, setback != death. I see a lot of the posts saying that the stakes don't matter unless the stakes are life or death, and I find that notion to be rather bizarre in light of most fiction out there.

[surreality]

On the original point, I think this idea would actually help avoid the 'everything is life or death' issue, and allow people to get into the nitty gritty personal details that non-combat risk requires.

With more 'free roaming' antagonists on grid, there's a lot more personal interaction with them during day to day activities, which is a profoundly different dynamic than encountering NPC staff-run antagonists only in events or by request. This is huge.

[Ghost]

I think the genre of the game applies, too. In Game of Thrones, being the victim of a villain or facing justice for being one, usually isn't a pretty sight. Whereas Darth Vader's TIE fighter can get beaned and float off into space "CURSE YOU, LUKE SKYWALKERRRRrrrr...."

How this could be implemented highly revolves around the IC stakes of the game. WoD, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, etc would require a lot more creativity to determine what kinds of defeat don't equate to death, but if you look closely these genres DO have villains that are defeated, evolve, return, etc.