Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them
-
@wizz said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:
It's fun to play a villain, but if you're not ultimately there to serve the story in the long run and give the "good guys" the big win in the end, things tend to go pretty sour pretty quickly.
Why do the "good guys" have to win? Plenty of pretty remarkable stories end with the good guys losing. There is nothing in the rules that says that good has to triumph over evil. Hell, if anything, evil is really the more likely to triumph anyway, because they aren't bound by any kind of limitation on their actions other than what they set for themselves.
Going into it with 'well the good guys are clearly going to win, duh' as the starting point is more the problem here, I think.
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
-
@derp said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:
Going into it with 'well the good guys are clearly going to win, duh' as the starting point is more the problem here, I think.
Perhaps a step before that, going into it with the idea that there are definitely good and bad guys is a problem, too. Sure, some genres basically require it, but it's not absolutely necessary much of the time.
He/Him
-
@derp said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:
Why do the "good guys" have to win? Plenty of pretty remarkable stories end with the good guys losing.
Because these aren't novels? There's a person behind every single character whose bottom line at the end of the day is a little wish fulfillment, and for a lot of people that means saving the day and riding off into the sunset. Not always literally, and not in every scene, or plot, but in the grand scheme.
That's just...it is what it is. If you find a group of people that actually wants to tell the other side where everything ends in misery, more power to you, but it isn't the norm. Accepting that has still lead to great stories and a lot of fun for me.
️^_______^
(@_____@)
---|---
/\ -
Perhaps a little nuance between the idea of antagonistic to range from total death/absorption(genocide/borg), complete conquest and rulership (roman empire/colonization), violent flare ups (organized crime, class and culture conflicts), strong rivalries (partisan political parties, zero sum situations) and competition for shares (business or social rivals) could help.
-
@wizz I think that greatly depends on genre, too. If you're playing a super hero, you're expecting to eventually win. Or if it's plucky underdogs vs evil empire, then the underdogs should eventually come out on top.
But if you're playing urban horror, like WoD pretends to be, or Cyberpunk, or "everything sucks, you get to make it suck less briefly" kind of genres then the opposite is often true. You're going to lose eventually, make it count while you're here.
He/Him
-
It's great and works when the majority of the playerbase buys in to those themes. And that's not impossible or even super rare? But it's my experience that it's more common for the average MU player to want to play what is essentially a "good guys triumph" story even in those settings. You tend to be fighting the tide on that one, unless staff is completely dedicated to the premise and make it part of the culture.
^_______^
(@_____@)
---|---
/\ -
@derp said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:
Why do the "good guys" have to win?
To the point, who are the "good guys"?
-
You can do just about anything and make it fun if the attitude behind it is right and if you're not just out to get players. I think it's not so much the good guys must win is that there must be somewhere to go other than the doom hammer dropping on the character and the character being taken out of play.
Death is the absolute most boring thing you can do. Imprisonment is fine in the short-term, if you're providing some sort of RP experience to go with it (perhaps a fight in the prison, etc).
"Win" also has a lot of different definitions. If "win" means death or imprisonment and that's all it means to anyone then yeah...problems.
Destroying a reputation/career. Stealing something important. Blackmail. Forcing your rival to work for you/do your dirty work for you/give up something important. Humiliating your rival. Being the bad guy who stands up and donates a huge amount to charity while smiling smugly at the good guy who is about to show up and shout "j'accuse." Driving someone insane. There's a lot of room for story here. Force the other side into a bad deal or bargain.
If you can get folks out of the cycle of capture/jail torture/beat up kill/kill then you can tell a wider variety of stories that everyone is a lot happier with and both sides can walk away with wins and losses. And yeah, characters might just die eventually, it's a risk, but it doesn't have to be first-off go to.
And the harder it is to make the world a better place the more satisfying it is when you finally do.
And this is germane both to PvP and PvE environments, since...GMs/STs/area leaders/IC authorities could also at times stand to get a little more creative in these areas, and to check their attitudes. When I sense someone is just extra excited about "getting" my character or bringing the doom hammer down on them or whatever I shut down; I'm not in it for people to dole out what they consider to be some sort of punishment for whatever. If I sense they want to tell a great story with me and that means my character gets totally screwed for awhile or suffers a major loss? Then yeah bring it on, I'm here for it. Trust is pretty key, building that trust is pretty key. Building on "Yes, but," or "no, but" (in addition to 'yes,and' and 'no, and') is helpful.
Players are perfectly capable of this, of all of this, but it does take work to set up a game culture that promotes it.
-
@wizz Oh, yeah, I'm operating in the fantasy world where players care about story over victory. It's never going to happen and players are going to fuck up perfectly good games every time.
He/Him
-
-
In my experience the problems start to happen when the only make your own fun on a game ends up pretty much being horrible/blocking to other players, or being kind of mean oocly (ooc criticism of player run things instead of just not participating and letting others enjoy it, ect.)
I have noticed am explosion of this even on mostly PvE games when there is a perception or a reality that in general access to story advancement (either metaplot or player run things that require approval/assistance) is extremely limited or closed for a really long time--almost inevitably at some point people will start to pick at each other out of frustration/boredom and frankly create antagonists where there aren't or where they haven't been active.
I think if you are wanting antagonist factions on a game (by that I mean oppositional to each other NOT good guys/bad guys) that really needs an involved and active staff because you will have even less of a grace period than you do with a PvE game.
Antagonist factions will scapegoat each other over ooc frustration/FOMO/perception of the other side getting "more" attention when everyone is on a starvation diet.
-
@tinuviel said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:
@wizz Oh, yeah, I'm operating in the fantasy world where players care about story over victory. It's never going to happen and players are going to fuck up perfectly good games every time.
Naw. It happens all the time. Thing is, they care about their story, not their role as a bit part in yours. There's a significant difference between "wanting to win" and "wanting to roll."
"... you'll find the story doesn’t end how you think, and the most important characters aren’t who you expect.” - Penny 40 to Derek, The Magicians S04E07 ‘The Side Effect’
-
I think that if you're going to have PvP (where you have actual 'antagonists' rather than just people whose goals are sometimes mutually exclusive) then you need to build that into the theme from the bottom up.
Think about what kind of conflict you actively want to promote. Build a reason to engage in that conflict, tools to use that facilitate that sort of conflict, and rewards for succeeding OR failing at that conflict (since you want to open options for people whether their characters win or lose - an IC loss should not necessarily be a loss FOR THE PLAYER, but rather just another milestone in their play).
Communicate all of that to the players in clear, concise, and actionable OOC form. Be upfront about the mechanics, the risks, and the rewards.
And then spend a lot of time bringing the hammer down on people who attempt to game the system to try and ruin the play of players they don't like for whatever reason. Bring it down mercilessly, be open about why, and give no quarter.And also spend time promoting an OOC culture that doesn't silo off players into their character's factions, but encourage players to mingle and form bonds and communicate openly across factions, even if (especially if) their IC factions are diametrically opposed.
-
@il-volpe said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:
@tinuviel said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:
@wizz Oh, yeah, I'm operating in the fantasy world where players care about story over victory. It's never going to happen and players are going to fuck up perfectly good games every time.
Naw. It happens all the time. Thing is, they care about their story, not their role as a bit part in yours. There's a significant difference between "wanting to win" and "wanting to roll."
Yeah, I'm just a grumpy old man. This is why I don't run games, I write stories instead.
-
The longer I participate in this hobby, the more I come to the conclusion that this platform is bad for competitive play. It does cooperative very well, but actual players competing with other players, due to the distance between people and how human brains work, actual competition is ultimately poison.
This can be partially mitigated by completely removing the human judgment element (reducing it to objective code), but ultimately a whole lot of time and effort has to be put in to adjusting for the problems the platform introduces.
Note, I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it's trying to climb a mountain barefoot. There are completely valid reasons to do it, but holy crap it's too much work for me.
eta: Also, I'd like to make the distinction between actual competitive play and cooperative play that involves antagonistic/antagonist characters, because they ARE different things.
-
@sunny said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:
The longer I participate in this hobby, the more I come to the conclusion that this platform is bad for competitive play. It does cooperative very well, but actual players competing with other players, due to the distance between people and how human brains work, actual competition is ultimately poison.
I agree. It is sad, because having a good antagonist can really add to an environment, but the cons outweigh the pros.
However my caveat here is that competition kind of... comes with the hobby, too, whether there are black hats involved or not. Many players want to be special and stand out (which I won't analyze) but MU* social systems are often designed a bit like dancing chair games; your playerbase of 30 may only have 10 'ranks' - there is only one Prince, 5 Primogen, etc - so there you have it... competition.
My anecdotal example in this regard was from years ago when someone rolled a new chef into a sphere and the existing chef complained OOC about it. There can only be one!
Sometimes even where no antagonism intended we go ahead and invent it anyway.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
-
@arkandel said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:
Many players want to be special and stand out (which I won't analyze) but MU* social systems are often designed a bit like dancing chair games; your playerbase of 30 may only have 10 'ranks' - there is only one Prince, 5 Primogen, etc - so there you have it... competition.
And yet I can count the number of times I have seen players with the crown fulfill the responsibilities that come with it on my fingers.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
-
@arkandel said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:
My anecdotal example in this regard was from years ago when someone rolled a new chef into a sphere and the existing chef complained OOC about it. There can only be one!
I remember this happening at least twice, actually.
@ganymede said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:
And yet I can count the number of times I have seen players with the crown fulfill the responsibilities that come with it on my fingers.
Pretty much. It's why I don't allow PC leadership, and why people whine at me so much. They promise promise promise they will do it better than the other guys. (Spoiler: They don't.) So now all top-tier leadership is NPC, and I let PCs have middle management.
-
@ganymede said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:
And yet I can count the number of times I have seen players with the crown fulfill the responsibilities that come with it on my fingers.
Yup. This falls under the same clause as people who want to be staff but not do anything.
It's the perceived prestige they want, and the access to 'inside circles', not the work associated with the positions.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
-
@arkandel said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:
However my caveat here is that competition kind of... comes with the hobby, too, whether there are black hats involved or not. Many players want to be special and stand out (which I won't analyze) but MU* social systems are often designed a bit like dancing chair games; your playerbase of 30 may only have 10 'ranks' - there is only one Prince, 5 Primogen, etc - so there you have it... competition.
Oh, absolutely. People are going to be competitive no matter what you do, which is one of the contributing factors as to why a competitive framework is so problematic. People are going to compete for time, attention, limited energy, and other resources -- now when your game sets up resources to be scarce, or more importantly something they can gain by removing resources from somebody else, now you have the environment itself saying "if you cooperate OOC, you are taking a risk".
This is actively unhealthy when you have a game of 30, 50, or 100 people, because you cannot ensure fairness of outcomes at that level, and when you remove fairness in a competitive situation, that's when toxic behavior explodes all over everything. This is why having everything coded like muds do mitigates it to a certain extent; when you have the code itself managing these things, the upset involved with Sally getting a mansion....well, it was the code, everyone has the same outcome with the code. It's also why there is such INTENSE screaming when it turns out that yet another one of these MUDs has cheater-bits in the code: it's the arbiter of fairness for their competition.
eta: I do want to note that I think all of this can be addressed, mitigated, taken into consideration, and worked with -- there are ways to like, handle all of the associated problems (there's a lot of them). I just don't think the juice is worth the squeeze, and I think the time is better spent on how we can improve engagement with cooperative play and lean into the hobby's strengths, rather than mitigating weaknesses.
Like, antagonists. If you set your game up to be cooperative, a lot of the sting of this comes out. You can set antagonist characters' players up to succeed, and create a culture of them working WITH the "protagonist" PCs to tell the best story, by rewarding them for leaving themselves vulnerable in X way. We ALL agree that antagonist characters add a world of good to EVERY game, provided they are in the hands of a good player.
The secret here is, though -- look back even at this thread, and the posts from good antagonist-characters's players, and you'll notice a common theme from them: they all played their antagonist PCs as if they were cooperating with the protagonist players. If you set it up to reward these people for doing the things that make that work, you hobble them for actually competing, right? But you make the experience more fun for everybody involved.
This is what I mean, and why I think it's super important to start divorcing "antagonist" from "competitive". If we start intentionally/mindfully setting antagonist characters' players up to succeed (OOC), the whole culture around it becomes more healthy. But that doesn't just HAPPEN save for a small handful of people, you have to actually build for it.
