PC antagonism done right

[Lotherio]

@Arkandel said in PC antagonism done right:

@Lisse24 said in PC antagonism done right:

In my opinion one of the main hurdles in MU* is we can have our pie and eat it. It's more fun when we can't.

This right here. Lots of us enjoy overcoming the hurdle of failure. We go to do something, but end up in med bay. Some realizes its a well spring of RP more than the one win would of been worth. We know some players thrive off this. Its a string of failures after another such that the one time it is someone elses turn to fail, they are upstaged by the regular.

Not my point, but failure is fun. More so, for everyone one that has more fun with failure, there are those who just want to win. The game mechanics/rules lawyer that gains mathematical superiority, the player who thinks their RP logic is superior and can win by pose alone.

For those who can accept failure and make it fun, there are those who just want to win. Both are great RP'ers. A day late and a dollar short as this thread has derailed but I'm in the boat. Long term sustained PC antagonism doesn't work even if the player is good, separates OOC/IC, tries their best to get along with everyone OOCly.

Not everyone agrees on what makes successful PvP conflict. If it worked it would need to be in the system and I don't think staff have time to monitor this as a playable system - PCs choosing to be antagonist to other PCs and both sides playing it up. Its a question of could staff maintain control, at the loss of their own RP?

[Tinuviel]

The problem with adding failure as a probability (rather than something that is merely possible, but unlikely in the long run) is that many people turn to online roleplaying as an escape from their lives, in which everyone fails at something all of the time.

Now, I'm not saying that's a good thing just pointing out that it is a thing.

How do we mitigate the sore feelings of failure? Do we even want to?

[Seraphim73]

@ThatGuyThere Oh, I've seen a few scenes where the NPC opposition was resolute, powerful, and a real threat. But often it seems (at least to me) like the player expectation is that the NPC opposition be a speedbump--when the PCs start to get pushed around in a scene, their players tend to panic from what I've seen, and many get grumbly if they get too beat up (physically or politically) or fail to accomplish something. It's one of my least favorite trends in "modern" MU*ing.

[Ganymede]

@Tinuviel said in PC antagonism done right:

How do we mitigate the sore feelings of failure? Do we even want to?

We offer benefits to failure. CoD does this with giving you Beats. Similarly, if you fail at something by choice, the benefits ought to increase.

So, what's the penalty? Failure is failure. There will always be an incentive not to fail, but if you provide an incentive for allowing or choosing failure you will make the game much more interesting.

[Lotherio]

@Seraphim73 said in PC antagonism done right:

@ThatGuyThere Oh, I've seen a few scenes where the NPC opposition was resolute, powerful, and a real threat. But often it seems (at least to me) like the player expectation is that the NPC opposition be a speedbump--when the PCs start to get pushed around in a scene, their players tend to panic from what I've seen, and many get grumbly if they get too beat up (physically or politically) or fail to accomplish something. It's one of my least favorite trends in "modern" MU*ing.

People don't like to lose, or perceive a loss. Even if back and forth, players would hope to have some wins. Eventually PC vs PC antagonist, one side would feel a need to have a win, or the do-gooders would want resolution. Getting PC and PC Antagonist to agree, or to disagree and avoid each other. A big gripe on Realms was too many PC deaths; 5 total, realistically a small amount given the volume of players and the number of combats (actual not tourney) that did take place. Even while the players accepted their deaths, the rest of the players felt beat up on too, like PCs couldn't win.

[Bobotron]

@Ganymede
Yeah, but are there options to incentive failure other than MOAR DOTS?!

[Seraphim73]

@Bobotron Well, as I suggested, how about NPC support for those who stand up, make their opposition known, but still fail? Makes it more likely that they will come out on top next time.

Of course, that still requires that there be an actual, measurable system to track influence/politics/resources/whatever.

[Arkandel]

@Bobotron said in PC antagonism done right:

I think the person who talked about people not being able, or willing, to 'lose' when faced with an opposition or antagonist is one of the core problems. Especially when it's not a factionalized game. People want to have only the good things, not the bad things.

My suspicion is that, while that may be true, we might be able to at least sweeten the pot a little bit more.

In most games losing is just that - you gain nothing in return; maybe doors are shut in your face because of it (you didn't become Primogen so no getting into those top-end meetings), maybe you lose your character.

Obviously we won't fix human condition here, but perhaps there are steps we can take to ensure people don't feel that bad. Take death out of the equation by an adjustable level of consent, offer rewards for having long-term enemies, removing the veil of paranoia ("are they out to get me?" is a common one, even if the sad truth is most of the time no one gives a shit about us ), etc.

But what's important here is figuring out how to do these things. Come on guys, we mostly agree here; we know what we want to achieve. How, though? Let's put more thought into methods, systems, actionable systems staff can put into play to tilt the scales back into sanityville.

[Bobotron]

@Arkandel
Yeah, that's the thing. Finding something that works. I come from a MU* history and game history where failure is just... part of the story. It may close one road, but other roads open and spread out from it.

[SG]

@Arkandel said in PC antagonism done right:

But what's important here is figuring out how to do these things.

Become more mudlike, I think.

[surreality]

@Arkandel I have some things I'm going to try for the pirate place along these lines.

Negotiated outcome is absolutely an option, and there's an XP benefit for even trying to accomplish this, even if no agreement is reached, even if it's (initially) small. It grows if a resolution can be agreed on, and there's a bonus for taking a loss that scales some on the magnitude of the loss. If I have to essentially 'pay' people to collaborate/play well/be mature adults with each other in this regard, I have precisely zero qualms doing that.

One option is absolutely, "Let's see what the dice say, but cap maximum damage at X," because there's no sensible reason to not include that option. If you can cap the 'worst case', people chill considerably, and there's good reason for that. That so many games completely ignore this option in favor of one extreme or the other makes me shake my head enough that one of these days, I'm gonna get whiplash.

[Gilette]

I love playing antagonistic characters, from flat-out bad dudes to edgy 'dark knight' types within groups of shining heroes. I agree with a lot of what @Lisse24 said. I've usually recieved a lot of good words about how I play antagonists, so, I think I can provide some helpful guidelines.

On the player level:

*Clarify, check and disclaim - you need people to be comfortable around you and understand that you are playing a character. This means you may need to be more friendly OOCly than you normally are!
*Be willing to lose. If you're not doing this, then you have no business doing any sort of PvP conflict, even on a sandbox MU.
*Be willing to jump in to all sorts of ideas. Your antagonist needs to be able to do multiple things and you, the player, need to be able to quickly think on your feet to come up with reasons why they might be, one day, robbing a bank and, the next day, fighting for mutant rights and, the day after that, trying to blow up New York, for example.
*Your antagonist has a shelf-life and will need to be defeated at some point. An intense antagonist who does a strong 2-3 months of RP and goes out with a bang will be remembered more fondly than one who exists for years and does very little beyond seem to be a prick to people.
*What does your antagonist want? Are they willing to compromise? Every antagonist is just the hero of their own story.
*Dangle hooks in front of the more heroic types. Whether that's the secret of pushing through your anti-hero's edgy exterior, or the first seeds of defeating your evil villain, dangle those damn hooks with the fury of a thousand suns because a lot of good guy players are incredibly dull and need to be led like a horse to water. A lot of my antagonism hinges on a bit of clever, fun 'metaposing'. The Dark Lord laughs behind his helm, glowing scepter held aloft! "With this power, I will be invincible!" The power that radiates from his incredible power gem at the head of his scepter is incalculable, but, surely not invincible! If only he wasn't holding that scepter...
*Similarly, build plots around players. Reach out to players and find out what they want or might be looking for. Maybe there's someone who wants to have an NPC taken hostage, or someone who wants to get badly beaten down, or someone who wants to put their character through a test of their character, but you need to do the looking.
*This one is more for anti-hero edgy antagonist heroes, but: have an off-switch and an understanding that you can't be on all the time. A lot of the time, you need to shut your mouth unless your comments will heighten the drama or be particularly relevant. An anti-hero with a sarcastic biting wit can be a lot of fun, but it becomes less fun when they're always doing it, day in and day out, and it seems like it's a vehicle for the player to be a snarky asshole.

A lot of it is very similar to what @Ghost said, really.

[GangOfDolls]

I think @Lisse24 , @Ghost , and @Thenomain have called out the same thing in different ways, which I happen to agree with:

Antagonism is best when its motivations in the character are pure.

And much of antagonism might maaaaaybe start as character pure motivations, it rapidly dissolves into motivations in the player being less pure and those lines getting utterly blurry if not outright motivated in OOC butthurt.

Much of antagonism as I've witnessed it recently are players through their characters being big time, small time dicks and taking obstructionist actions in game that have no end. They don't want to move a story along, they just want to stop something in its tracks. They just want to stomp on a toy that doesn't belong to them. They mostly play checkers moves motivated by out of game spite instead of chess.

[surreality]

There's also something to be said on the negotiation front to prevent the kind of buttmonkey behavior @GangOfDolls mentions -- if people are discussing the forms a potential loss can take, it's easier to find a 'loss' that's going to be a more productive RP outlet than might be possible otherwise.

For instance, "I'm going to throw him in a cell where no one can get to him for the next month!" is an RP-killer. "I'm going to blind him for his insolence!" might be a harsher and longer-term horror for the character to suffer, but it doesn't close off the character's RP opportunities in the same way, even if it may be a permanent loss rather than a temporary one.

[GangOfDolls]

@surreality

I agree with this a lot.

That said, alot of my experience with antagonism including a mild form of it this week didn't come with negotiation. I think if it had, then it wouldn't have occurred the way it did but a lot of antagonism on games that I've seen is NIMBYism on the part of the player. They just don't want something to happen on the game, often irrationally because they equate it happening to a sense of loss.

I think if that player who is having that NIMBY reflex in reaction to something asked more questions out of character and negotiated the situation it might be avoided or at least made somewhat interesting.

Or it just hangs a flashing neon sign around the person you should just avoid in the future.

[mietze]

I have seen rivals/antagonists played well.

I've been fortunate enough to get to have that RP with others (that I did not know oocly before, even).

While this can be done organically, I think it's most likely to happen either with very mature RP groups (very rare) that can fend off rescuer players (and even then it's a huge risk--I've seen a single PC destroy months of setup and wonderful RP between two other PCs because they wanted to throw their big bad/white knight dick around, unasked)...or more realistically it's only going to happen with very attentive and active staff.

That's a very high bar to clear, especially being fair to all. Staff are people too and they're likely to let some people (unlinked or less likely to ask for help etc.) slip through the cracks.

Also I think a lot of people like the idea of pc antagonists but aren't willing to give up the agency and control and extend the ooc trust that you must to really make that stuff work. When it happens it's golden though.

[Ganymede]

@Bobotron said in PC antagonism done right:

Yeah, but are there options to incentive failure other than MOAR DOTS?!

If you are of the mentality that failure is an important part of character development and storytelling, then failure is simply another facet of success. Good for you.

If you are not, then whatever carrot works may incentivize you to consider failure as an option.

If failure simply is not an option, so be it. Some of us might find you to be a horrid bore.

[surreality]

@Ganymede said in PC antagonism done right:

If failure simply is not an option, so be it. Some of us might find you to be a horrid bore.

These folks are the ones I am still really not sure how to handle: the spotlight hogs/can't ever fail types.

I have notes in policy re: 'consent options don't mean you always 'win' and can never be on the losing end of a particular conflict', but when it comes to this particular crowd, I feel like I'm going to end up writing a monster of a long-winded thing about 'how to play nice with others' as a general advice/resource file on this specific point. (This is stuff that isn't policy, but gives examples, some of the reasoning behind why things are set up how they are, general advice to help someone find play, style guides, and general resource whatnots; that glossary thing is an example of the kind of thing that lives in 'resources' vs. The Rules, which live in 'policy'.)

[Gilette]

@surreality

Well, how else do you handle someone with a fragile ego? Kid gloves.

[Goyim]

all you need is a pragmatic reason for conflict like maybe there's only one gun and no one trusts anyone else with it

often on mu games you tend to see antagonists for the sake of antagonism and it usually just comes off as being hamfisted