PC antagonism done right

[Derp]

@surreality said in PC antagonism done right:

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.

At the risk of potential thread derailment -- this is the kind of stuff that social systems are designed to do. In the WoD, for example, players have access to a slew of merits that they can use to call in favors, gather intelligence, send out goons, etc. While some people take exception to social stuff being used against other players, generally speaking, there are ways of determining just how much pull the little neonate can get, or how much influence that Elder Primogen can use to try and enforce their viewpoints. These systems should matter, and in many games, they simply don't.

Which I think is part of the real problem. we keep talking about things like 'empowering players with thematic backup' while we ignore the systems in place that already do that kind of thing, because as a culture we don't like the idea that a character might act in a way we don't want them to act. Until we can get past that hurdle, I'm not sure what else we can really do. But we can't call for a system to be put in place that does basically the same thing as a system that we choose to ignore. We can't have our cake and eat it too, so to speak.

[surreality]

@Derp I've actually only seen one instance of someone pitching a fit over the use of social merits (contacts/allies/etc.) in the way you're describing. That it was someone who had used them plenty herself more or less made it nothing more than eyeroll-worthy, and the actions went through (just like hers had for others before). I don't see any wholesale rejection of those systems or ick factor associated with them -- there really isn't one to have -- as much as I see people not grasping how they work or what their value can be.

They get used about as much as social combat does, but the reasoning behind that is more cluelessness and people having no real idea how to manageably implement that staff-side (similar to the issues people are having figuring out how to effectively implement all the new investigation mechanics from CoD) than any ick factor, since there's no ick factor associated with blocking someone's resource spend or preventing someone's status raise/etc. They work on a macro and less intimately personal scale, while social combat works on a personal scale; the difference is clear enough that I don't see the same sorts of objections to using those as I've seen (and sometimes have) re: what some folks try to do with social combat going around, really. I mean, sure, you could probably use allies somehow to prevent someone from buying food until they cave and kinky-TS somebody's brains out, but that's more... roundabout and impersonal (and let's be honest, more overseen/observed/is more work/is less appealing to people trying to abuse a game system to fulfill an RL kick than 'because I'm just so damn charming' on a raw ego level) than the social combat approaches that raise some hackles.

[Misadventure]

Social systems, if they are to be normative, need a norm. Staff needs to provide a market for the typical behaviors.

[Derp]

@Surreality - I would mostly agree that some of the more roundabout systems are okay. But even those social combat systems should be taken into account.

For instance, the Status merit. All it does, mechanically, is give you bonus social dice with the group you have status in. Thematically, they're seen as powerful, perhaps more worthy of respect/admiration/fear, whatever. Different statuses denote different thematic things. But the point is, it should mean something other than a fancy title, and if the only people in the group you have Status in are PCs, then social combat is pretty much the only time it's going to come up mechanically.

And I think that this is important to note, because if you are a newly turned neonate facing down a thousand-year-old elder, short of being batshit crazy with no self-preservation instinct, you're not just going to roll your eyes and think 'Jesus, this guy again'. He could realistically tear you limb from limb. People don't just walk up to lions and be like 'whatever, lion, I ain't skeered of you'. Or to the leader of an army, or whatever. They can make your life hell in a great many ways, and you should have some real concern there.

Social combat reflects a system that at least tries to mirror most-probable social scenarios. You might get some bonus dice or negative modifiers if you're an especially cheeky whatever-you-are, but those social combat system should still be respected, within reason. You're not going to Persuasion someone into suicide unless you've got some really serious leverage (pull the trigger or I rip the head off of this person you care about more than yourself), but for your standard social interactions, they should still mean something.

The fact that they -don't- mean much of anything on most games is a big reason why I think antagonism goes off the rails. There's no meaningful -mechanical- threat you can make to try and influence behavior without pulling out the nuclear options, most of the time. Physical rolls become the King of Things. And physical antagonism just turns into the Murderboating White Knightism we've been talking about the whole time here.

So sorry for making that such a roundabout point, but that's part of what I think we should be looking at. There should be meaningful mechanical interactions available for people who don't want to throw down and brute force their way through things most of the time. It would take some of the shiny off of the Brute Force options.

[Ganymede]

@Derp said in PC antagonism done right:

There should be meaningful mechanical interactions available for people who don't want to throw down and brute force their way through things most of the time.

Let me add something to this.

If you intend to have a political game, there must be meaningful mechanics for people who don't want to throw down. There also must be a meaningful penalty for throwing down.

And at the risk of being repetitious, this is what RfK did well for a time. You could see it in action: when the Invictus tried to fuck with @lordbelh, he went up and stole their territory from them, which caused the Covenant to lose ascendancy. No violence or physical force; just a well-coordinated assault with influence.

[Alamias]

@Ganymede said in PC antagonism done right:

@Derp said in PC antagonism done right:

There should be meaningful mechanical interactions available for people who don't want to throw down and brute force their way through things most of the time.

Let me add something to this.

If you intend to have a political game, there must be meaningful mechanics for people who don't want to throw down. There also must be a meaningful penalty for throwing down.

And at the risk of being repetitious, this is what RfK did well for a time. You could see it in action: when the Invictus tried to fuck with @lordbelh, he went up and stole their territory from them, which caused the Covenant to lose ascendancy. No violence or physical force; just a well-coordinated assault with influence.

That happened a couple of times on TR as well. I remember the Crone getting the shaft a few times because all the territory around them got taken up by the LS, and they couldn't leave the island they were on.

[Ganymede]

@Alamias said in PC antagonism done right:

That happened a couple of times on TR as well. I remember the Crone getting the shaft a few times because all the territory around them got taken up by the LS, and they couldn't leave the island they were on.

For a brief moment, TR's Vampire Sphere was actually political. That was when the Prince decided to let people claim their own territory, provided they had the right votes from Primogen and Prisci. Players scrambled to get the territories they wanted and thought they could hold. And it was fun.

[Alamias]

@Ganymede Yeah, it was. I was amazed that more people didn't come for Kaleb's easily bought Priscus vote... I think there was only one person I denied, and that was because they were trying to mess with my 'family' in the process.

BTW, in case I never said it. I enjoyed the RP we had together on your various characters. It was always quality.

[surreality]

@Derp Yeah, I'm with you on things re: respecting status merits and similar. Those things exist for a reason and they shouldn't be ignored.

In the situation you're describing, though -- the example earlier re: domain is a good one.

Some of it is supported, but people don't use it. A lot could be done with resource blocking, for instance; use contacts to figure out JoeAdversary's money comes from his graft, get Allies in the PD to look into it and freeze the assets for investigation, etc.

One of the problems is that this isn't horribly action-packed or exciting, really. That said, one of my favorite scenes in The Originals (shut up, errybody ) involved having an enemy's residence declared a historical landmark and had the city claim it to gain access to the building without invitation, for instance. That was great to see make it on screen as a great social mechanic in action, and it stands as an ideal example. (Sure, it was 'gain access and then full steam ahead on the murderboat', but it's still a neat example of something we rarely see on screen or in games.)

[Coin]

This is why, iof you´re running a political game, holding positions of power and holding territory should require you be able to do certain things or have other things. For example, maybe holding territory in the financial district requires that a vampire have X amount of disposable income per month, abstractly represented by their Resources 5. If someone can use their social merits to attack that vampire's Resources, they may start having trouble if they can't sustain what they require to keep that territory. If they can't find the culprit and cause and put an end to it soon, they lose the territory. That's just the simplest example I could come up with, and it can be complicated easily by making thatt erritory the requirement for their position, which they then lose if they lose the territory, etc., etc.

[Arkandel]

@surreality said in PC antagonism done right:

@Derp Yeah, I'm with you on things re: respecting status merits and similar. Those things exist for a reason and they shouldn't be ignored.

In the situation you're describing, though -- the example earlier re: domain is a good one.

Some of it is supported, but people don't use it. A lot could be done with resource blocking, for instance; use contacts to figure out JoeAdversary's money comes from his graft, get Allies in the PD to look into it and freeze the assets for investigation, etc.

Bits and pieces are, but it goes back to what I was saying earlier; such elements are add-ons, they're not integral to the game from the ground up and thus they only affect it so far.

So for instance many Vampire/Werewolf games do support claiming domains, they have colored maps on the wiki to show who's got what, the idea of Status does exist and in some (correctly) there are even different ways to achieve it based on your Covenant; being well regarded among Carthians for instance might have a lot to do with notoriety or popularity but the Ordo have an strict, codified ranking system. Furthermore city-wide Status has been a thing ever since HM.

However the missing gaps is where the magic should happen. Domains don't give you anything and thus, they don't really take anything away when they're absent; they're not tied to city Status for instance, or to hunting (which in turn woulhas to be designed very carefully as to not starve out every newbie and neonate), and thus neither social warfare or resource deprivation are viable tactics.

Boons, which would generate a currency system among Kindred and enable Harpies to actually have a role are usually gone (I understand RfK had a system) so there's no bartering as part of politics like it's described in the books and the main part of what legitimizes Elders in the nWoD - it's not their sheer power (that's mostly an oWoD concept) but the respect, connections and treasure trove of favors they've accumulated over time that matters the most, but what do any of those things mean without the systemic support structure? Exactly as much as Gangrel punches in a statless, consent-based system.

My point stands. For this to work it needs to be part of the initial design. Everything has to be tied together cohesively.

[Bobotron]

All this is beautiful discussion, but one thing to bring up: how? Or rather, how without it turning into the massive staff overhead that RfK handled?

Like, one of the things that I feel makes it work in my LARP is that downtimes are done as a 'period' thing. It needs to not become something that requires tons of back-and-forth, and also not something that is sudden, instant gratification; it takes a little time, and people seem to want things to go 'oh, I put in this Allies action, WHY HASN'T IT HAPPENED IN THE LAST TEN MINUTES?!'

[Lotherio]

@Bobotron said in PC antagonism done right:

All this is beautiful discussion, but one thing to bring up: how? Or rather, how without it turning into the massive staff overhead that RfK handled?

I think it still comes down to it, its improbable to have open acceptance and adherence to long term pc antagonists.

I think part of the culture is everyone wants beginning, middle and end. Even MU*s, more and more there is some planned end, or season that have a conclusion before going to the next.

Old allegory, we played Dragonlance Mux until 2002~? It was the same dragon war, for a ~decade. Everyone wanted it to develop, but it stayed constant, same bad guys, same background conflict. If that opened today and played out that way, everyone would give up after a few months because it is too stagnant in today's environment.

And on the other hand, I know a few long term players out there that stick to their stories and play them through. I'm pretty sure if I went to Chicago Mush, the same 2-3 people would be there playing out their stories. Some people can play out character development longterm, some do not prefer it. I don't think any system will address this or culture change will make it more wide spread.

Play out antagonists with those you know and trust. If you try it with someone new, you're open to everything pointed out in this thread as potential pitfall, from bad PC antagonism to the white hat burn and murder stuff, burn and murder stuff.

Edit: grammar.

[Tinuviel]

@Bobotron The massive staff overhead suffered by RfK was due, in perhaps small but not inconsiderable part, to the behaviour of the headwiz. Without her it would have taken a fair slug of work, certainly, but at least they'd be able to get the work done without her going over everything to ensure it fit "her vision."

[surreality]

@Bobotron said in PC antagonism done right:

It needs to not become something that requires tons of back-and-forth, and also not something that is sudden, instant gratification; it takes a little time, and people seem to want things to go 'oh, I put in this Allies action, WHY HASN'T IT HAPPENED IN THE LAST TEN MINUTES?!'

I agree with this.

You probably could work something up with a system that involves X number of 'action points' per week -- could be a stock number for everybody, could be based on stats of some kind (different game systems might want to go about this in different ways). Action A normally costs X of those action points for the week, but it gets done over the course of a week.

Want to bump it up in priority? It'll cost more -- that old saying about 'fast, good, cheap -- pick two, tops' comes to mind. 'Rush orders' always cost more -- because they're more hassle. In game terms, telling that cop you know owes you a favor over that week's poker game about how you need help with something is a different animal from calling him at 4am and waking up his cranky newborn and exhausted wife with an emergency in the real world -- you need to either be a much better 'bud' or be offering something more -- which is fairly easy to represent in terms of the added 'cost' for the rush.

I gather this is fairly similar to what Arx is doing with 'action points' or whatever it is (I don't play there so I couldn't say for sure) and while I can't speak to how good or bad their implementation is, something along these lines could likely be managed in some way.

[lordbelh]

@Bobotron RfK had a lot of staff time sinks, though; a sprawling metaplot: the (admittedly great, but seriously time consuming) way they handled beats. The influence system itself might theoretically have been limited by Down Time hours, but it didn't take very long for a character to have so much Down Time that it no longer really mattered. It was all scaled for a small game with relatively low powered characters, not 100+ characters, some of whom had thousand + beats. If I were to make a game, or advise someone who was making a game, with a political angle, it would be to take inspiration from RfK, but not copy the mechanics.

[Tempest]

@lordbelh said in PC antagonism done right:

some of whom had thousand + beats.

Games need XP caps. Seriously.

I don't care how much people want to cry about 'omg character growth'.

There is a level of XP these games were not meant to ever be played at, and if you just let people accrue XP on characters for RL years+, they will get to that level unless there's a flat, hard cap, even if you think your xp rate is slow.

[Pyrephox]

@Tempest I'd agree with that, and furthermore say that political games need more stringent XP caps that more adventure/physical conflict based games. One of the fundamental points of a political game is that no one can go it alone, AND that no one can get everything that they want. People need to feel vulnerable, hungry, and need to know that they can't cover all their bases alone, so that they reach out to others. As soon as people feel secure, the game stagnates, because they no longer feel the need to make deals or take risks.

[Bobotron]

@lordbelh
Oh, I'm aware, I tried to staff there for a while and the combination of SO MUCH INFLOW plus an absentee headstaffer during peak hours made doing anything difficult that headstaff needed input on (most of it involving busted codes and such they were working on). I am specifically referencing it in relation to the discussion about attacking things that aren't exploding someone's face with a rocket launcher. There were a lot of good ideas on RfK during both periods, I just think they made themselves untenable.

@surreality
Speed surcharges are an interesting concept. Based off of a stat and limited (or having a baseline, and then adjusting that via stats or powers) is best.

@Tempest and @Pyrephox
I agree completely. Perhaps a decently high cap but also diminishing returns (like, XP under A, you get X per month max; XP under B, you get Y per month max; and XP under C, you get Z per month max). It works out well in LARP, we've used the suggested rates from the new MET book for our Masquerade LARP and it's done nicely.

[Gingerlily]

My total apologies if this has been covered elsewhere and my question is redundant. I've been following this thread but wasn't on the computer for a few days so lost the flow of conversation a little bit.

Are we talking here about 'antagonism' meaning there is a PC or several who are the antagonists for a large group? The 'bad guys' in a story or whatever? Or is this also looking at other kinds of conflict? I -love- conflict in my rp, I always have, probably the background of starting on MUDs where there are a lot of factions and thus people constantly working against one another or competing for the same goal. One of the things I tried to do when I was staffing on a MUSH was to create that kind of natural conflict, situations where characters would be working against one another for a variety of reasons but reasons that were in the realm of grey, not 'good guys/most PCs' vs 'bad guys/designated NPCs/maybe some PCs willing to take on that role'. I had no skill at making it happen though, I think it falls into the realm of details/big picture working that I have not built up much experience or talent with.

I love hearing about people's experiences on other games where conflict or competition rp has been satisfying and has sustained itself over time.