@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.