Hey folks! Please remember this is the constructive (<winkwink>) section so let's pretend to be mature, civilized people.
I've been sorta kinda hijacking threads about this for a while and maybe it's better if we have a thread for it. So this is my objective: How do we do IC conflict between characters right? I don't necessarily mean bad guys - although that's possible - but handling concepts which are thematically supposed to clash for ideological or practical reasons.
Here are my assertions regarding PC antagonists going into this:
- It's a good thing IC. It creates dynamic, shifting political environments where different factions can prevail. Everyone getting along perfectly all the time is boring.
- It's a good thing OOC. It lets people create RP by playing off against each other, be driven to recruit new players into the game to play their allies, compete for IC goals and support a wider variety of roles.
- It very often turns to drama. Common accusations (people collaborating OOC, cheating, etc) can be difficult to prove, and paranoia can lead to toxic environments. Staff need to dedicate resources handling complaints instead of running the fun parts of game.
Now, we get the kinds of games we reward. In most games there is nothing positive about having opposition to your IC actions in any conceivable way other than the joy of roleplaying. But that's not enough for everyone - clearly. At the same time games offer incentives for all sorts of other collaborative things which also fall under the 'joy of RP' umbrella (allies +vote each other more often, for example). So conflict is always a net negative and conformity is always a net positive - by inadvertent design.
In my mind the main problems here are:
- Mitigating the negative impact having an antagonist has on an individual
- Reducing the positive impact OOC factors - metagaming on Skype for example - can have on the game
- Letting staff stay as fair and transparent as possible without impacting on their ability to keep certain things from players (metaplot secrets, for example)
So, what do you think? For starters do you agree with the general premise of having PCs antagonistic to yours being a good thing or do you believe it's a lost cause, and games should stay purely collaborative?
Either way, what can we come up with to do something about the problems I listed? Do you have other ones to add?
On a tangent, I would like to not need to depending on 'good, mature players' for things to work as what kinds of players we get either can't be systematized or falls outside the scope of this exercise. Ideally we can design systems where great players thrive, okay players improve, and bad players are marginalized.
Any takers?