There is a whole school of thought out there that thinks rpg design is all about bribing your players to do what you want. This is a subject I've touched on before, and it's one that comes up now and again generally presented as if it was some great new insight.
The most current example I've ran across (located here) combines holier than thou moral relativism (i.e. killing the villian is the same as murder) with "Let's bride the players with XP awards to get them to do what we want, i.e. not kill villains".
So much is so wrong here, it's difficult to know where to start.
First up it must be noted that bribing players to act out of character is counter to what should be the primary goal of all role-playing games: role-playing a character. Good grief, one may as well just slip them five bucks under the table. The concept is identical- they trade you their ethic of correctly running their character for the bribe you're offering.
Well, almost identical. If I was a player, I'd want the five bucks. At least that would allow me to pay for something more interesting than the game I was stuck in for some reason.
The other side of this, the assumption that players 'killing the villain =murder' is somewhat amazing on its own. Maybe the author assumes 'villian' is some kindly old man who happens to refuse you a building permit or something, and not someone who presents a clear and present danger to life and limb; you know, like bad guys in rpgs tend to do.
Quite the devaluing of the word 'villain'.
At the end of the day, if your players arent interested in playing the kind of game you're running- you're not going to improve things by bribing them anymore than you can get good friends by paying them.
Rather you'll get an illusion of 'good players', and that someday will backfire on you. For it's not mutual respect or love of their characters that is driving their actions, but greed. And you were the one that set up the relationship that way.
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Okay. I think you're only seeing one side of things here.
Now I can't tell you exactly which one, but I think it's related to Top Secret, but there's a game out there that alters it's XP rewards according to methods used. It was a modern espionage game, so thieves got more xp for stealing, fencing, getting in and out without triggering alarms etc... while assassins got better xp for one-shot kills, not being seen, acting according to the client's wishes (high profile, low profile etc) but got far less xp for drawn out gunfights and got nearly no xp for the cops he might have to kill during a messy getaway, no matter how tough they might be.
To me that's a really neat way of doing xp incentives to promote PC class roles.
Now I know you're not a fan of morality systems, and I can understand why, there are very few morality systems that don't suck, and even the best one I know has some flaws. I however haven't written them off because morality systems augment social conflict systems which I'm a big advocate of. In that theme I think the best types of morality systems need a combination of carrot and the stick integration to not seem like an added-on rule that only comes into play when the GM remembers to be a dick. Be that through Fate Points/Karma Points, or through offering an extra bonus for heroic efforts that chime with the character's morality, or a likability/compatibility score in social settings, along with impediments to incompatible Role-Playing on opposing themes.
I get the impression that you have a minimalist preference to game mechanics which strikes me as inconsistent because you really like HERO (which seems anything but minimalist), so what do you define as OK to simulate/emulate through mechanics and what do you prefer to leave out?
STEPHEN J. SAID:
I'd suggest you may be misinterpreting the mindset you're criticizing.
In virtually all RPGs there is a fundamental supply-demand economy wherein players successfully carrying out (or sometimes even attempting) particular actions will receive rewards in the form of increased character-power currency -- XPs, to use the oldest term. The primary assumption among a huge body of gamers and designers is that it's those XPs, and the power increase they represent, which is what the players *really* want, and that all other actions and choices during gaming are valued only to the degree they facilitate acquiring those XPs; thus, character behaviour will inevitably arc towards those patterns which maximize XP gain. Therefore, if you wish to encourage certain patterns of behaviour for their own sake, give the greatest rewards for the behaviours you wish to encourage and the smallest rewards, or even penalties, to the behaviours you wish to *dis*courage. Basic economic theory: that which is profitable will be emphasized, that which is unprofitable will be abandoned.
Now if this thesis is wrong, if the players are really there just to play their characters and only value XP gain and increased character power insofar as they expand the frequency and variety of roleplaying opportunities, then their in-character choices will reflect their chosen roles, and it won't matter to them what the XP rewards are because the roleplaying is its own reward. This is where, as you say, it makes no sense to try "bribing" someone to make different choices, because you're paying them something valueless to do something they don't want to do.
The problem, however, is that most gamers in practice find *both* elements rewarding -- they enjoy the roleplaying for its own sake, but they *also* enjoy "levelling up" (to use another classic term), and most gamers expect to enjoy *both* kinds of rewards. Herein lies the conflict that the linked-to Piecemeal article tries to exploit: the fact that not all games clearly or coherently link their vision of optimum player (and PC) behaviour to the optimum success strategies of the game, so players can find themselves in situations where they have to make an unpalatable choice that either way can ruin their fun: integrity at the expense of effectiveness (which can reduce a PC's ability to participate, causing frustration) or effectiveness at the expense of integrity (which reduces the ability to play the kind of character you want, causing boredom and disappointment).
Moreover, players with different preferred balances between the two can get into conflicts without even realizing what they're really arguing over. If the actions that maximize one player's preferred rewards minimize by definition the chance for another player's rewards, there's bound to be conflict. Piecemeal's mindset isn't so much "let's bribe the players to be morally nonjudgemental of villains" but "let's create incentives for players whose only concern is the power and survival of their characters to behave in ways that don't disrupt what other players may want out of the game for its own sake - that way, everybody can get at least something of what they want."
One need not subscribe to nonjudgemental moral relativism, after all, to believe that capturing foes, or defeating them with the minimum of violence and destruction possible, is morally superior to killing them; nor to point out that players refusing to be satisfied with any degree of victory except the villain's final and ultimate death is almost always more a naked power-calculus about protecting the character from future threats than about being true to "concept".
Stephen J., that was a perfect rebuttal. Thank you.
Everything is a bribe. XP is a bribe, gold is a bribe, magic loot is a bribe, providing a forum for people to act out their fantasies/escape their realities is a bribe.
And bribing players to not kill monsters goes back a long way, to the beginning when monster xp was minor compared to treasure xp and it was far more advantageous to steal loots and avoid fights.
But that mechanic is too narrow and specific for my tastes. I like my bribes to be painted with a broader/subtler brush.
Brian, I think you need to start to read what you comment on more closely.
That being said, this is good:
At the end of the day, if your players arent [sic!] interested in playing the kind of game you're running- you're not going to improve things by bribing them anymore than you can get good friends by paying them.
But, take a closer look at that post you're commenting on. Is it really ok to kill someone just because they are a "villain"? That's the key.
STEPHEN J. SAID:
"Is it really OK to kill someone just because they are a 'villain'?"
Well, to be fair, many classic RPG villain/antagonists can't be dealt with any other way. Prison terms and fines aren't really applicable punishments or rehabilitation techniques for Krazgoth the Dark God. Sometimes that's even part of the tragic grandeur.
It *is* true that there are a lot of players who tend to err on the side of overkill whenever they can, purely out of character-protection paranoia, which is almost always a motivation of the *player* rather than the *character* (at least when taken to the degree these problem players take it). So the idea is to create a counterbalancing player motive in the form of XPs for the 'proper' choice (which the character can't "know" about, of course).
But Brian also is right; ultimately, if your players want one kind of game and the game system itself is designed to encourage another, you are as likely to wind up with frustration and rejection as you are any kind of learning experience or change in tastes. Whether the effort is worth the risk is something each group has to decide.
But Brian also is right; ultimately, if your players want one kind of game and the game system itself is designed to encourage another, you are as likely to wind up with frustration and rejection as you are any kind of learning experience or change in tastes. Whether the effort is worth the risk is something each group has to decide.
Definitely! Use the right tools, and as a GM the most important thing is to listen to your players.
BTW, I don't have an answer to if it's right to kill a villain. But, I do encourage everyone to ask themselves both as a GM and a player what "villain" means.
Sorry everyone, but I we dragged away after making my post and was unable to make replies. It seems that things progressed without me.
So some quick replies-
@Helmsmen: The short answer is that I'm minimalist at some things, and a fan of highly interesting and detailed mechanics for others.
In general HERO matches my taste although it does so with me doing a slight twist on disadvantages.
@Zzarchov: What you call "mechanics supporting" is to my mind anything but.
If you want villians to life through encounters with PCs- the mechanics would support this if they made it exceedingly difficult to kill master villians.
XP rules don't support- they bribe. The logic you're looking for is as simple as that.
@STEPHEN J. SAID (I think): Your point about a certain group of players wanting both the RP experience and the bribe is well taken.
We are too often a very profit motivated culture.
I'm suggesting however that at the end of the day this a negative approach. You shouldn't want these types of players, and you certainly shouldn't design for them.
Norman Harman: The joy of doing someting for a friend can in your view be called a bribe. But certainly you know the difference between that and paying someone you know to be your friend?
If not, we don't have any ground in common.
Andreas Davour: We seem to be on common ground here with respect to mechanical bribes.
The villian thing I'll take up in another Blog post I think. It needs it own room to play.
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