“There’s More Than One Way To Kill A Champions Character”
One of my favorite things about being a Game Master is watching players bring me their characters for the first time just before we begin to play. The sheets are clean and white, waiting for the pizza stains and other scars that they will acquire over the months and years of play. I carefully peek over the sheets as the player watches, anxiously biting their lip, because they know exactly what I’m looking for.
You see, I have a bit of a reputation.
I kill characters.
A lot of characters.
Even in my Champions campaign, those big whopping 250 point monsters don’t stand a chance. But I don’t kill characters with muscle-bound monstrosities or lonely, brooding cigar chomping maniacs with razor sharp claws. No, I kill characters in a very different manner all together.
I hit them where it really hurts: where they spend their points.
This article is designed to show Game Masters how to use a character’s Disadvantages, Powers and Resources against him. The examples listed here were used in my Champions campaign, but with a little creativity, a GM can use these ideas in just about any game. Now before we begin, let me introduce you to an old friend of mine.
Meet Jefferson Carter
“I’ve read dozens of books about heroes and crooks
And I learned much from both of their styles”
- Jimmy Buffett
Jefferson Carter is an NPC I use in a lot of my campaigns. As the head of Carter Enterprises, he is a model millionaire. He donates millions of dollars to charities, opens homeless shelters, fights for the rights of the working class and is always seen with the beautiful people. He is a handsome face with a charitable, giving heart.
Carter Enterprises is also responsible for the founding of United Superheroes (or, “US”). Using his vast funds, Carter brings together the most enterprising and resourceful superheroes to fight crime in the city’s streets and root out corruption in the city’s government. His involvement with US has always been a public matter: he doesn’t believe that a good deed should ever remain anonymous. He defends the rights of super heroes to help support the police department and other law enforcement agencies. He was instrumental in passing “The Vigilante Act” a few years back that made the acts of super heroes legal and has a staff of the best lawyers in the nation on payroll to keep his employees out of jail and on the streets.
In short, Jefferson Carter is the best friend a superhero could have.
And with friends like him … well, I think you finish that one by yourself.
Carter’s Secret
Hold your allies close to you,
but hold your enemies closer.
- The Tao of Shinsei
Jefferson Carter is a meta-human. Carter has many abilities that allow him to seek out a hero’s most precious secrets, then he uses those secrets against them.
In my Champions campaign, even if the heroes weren’t employed by US, Carter would still consider them “employees.” In fact, those heroes would be an even greater challenge to his intellect and resources.
Why has Carter gone to all this trouble?
The answer is simple.
Because he can.
Carter is a mastermind, a genius beyond mortal measurement. Ever since his childhood, he has played “human chess” with his teachers and playmates. His acquired fortune came about from his ability to manipulate the minds and lives of mortals, and now he has learned to manipulate the minds and lives of meta-mortals.
In short, he is causing pain, misery and conflict for his own enjoyment. And, don’t forget, he’s doing it for his employees. After all, he provided for the Vigilante Act. He provided United Superheroes. He equips and trains the supervillains they encounter. Carter is the reason they are living the life they are. And if his tricks and traps take out one or two heroes here and there … oh well. What is life without a little risk, eh?
The Method
Now down to the nitty gritty.
Carter looks for a hero’s greatest weakness and exploits it until the character breaks. Listed below some of the more popular Disadvantages Champions characters take. Under each one is a method I used (Carter used) to get at the character.
Just a friendly warning: some of these techniques may be considered by some GM’s to be “underhanded.” For those GM’s who feel that they should be fair and arbitrary (as I so often hear), I suggest they look up “fair” and “arbitrary” in the dictionary.
Then, we can talk.
DNPC
For those of you who don’t recognize DNPC, it stands for “Dependent Non-Player Character”. I understand it’s a fairly common Disadvantage among players, but after this little stunt, I had a severe shortage of DNPCs in my campaign.
One of my more resourceful heroes was a young lady named Malice. She was a martial artist who had a poison touch. She was fast, deadly and very lucky. She was also a big, fat thorn in Carter’s side. She was getting too close to his secret, so he decided to retire her.
When she wasn’t running around in black tights, Malice was taking care of her aging grandmother. Grandmama was not too fond of those costumed heroes, especially that Malice girl. She looked like a hussy in that tight little costume. And what right did they have to do a police man’s job? Grandpa was a police man, after all (and the main inspiration for Malice to turn to a life of adventuring). In short, it would break Grandmama’s heart if she found out about her granddaughter’s secret.
By now, you should be getting the picture. Just show Grandmama pictures of her granddaughter getting into the Malice costume and everything will be hunky dory, right?
Wrong.
When Carter does things, he does them with style.
On Grandmama’s seventieth birthday, Malice took her out to her favorite restaurant. In the middle of the meal, one of Malice’s most hated enemies showed up on the roof with a bomb. Of course, Malice made an appearance. Her enemy (who knew she would show up) was prepared. He had a single agenda and he stuck to it. In the middle of the fight, he hit her with a paralyzing ray, ripped off her mask and threw her through the glass ceiling – right in front of Grandmama. The combined shock of seeing her granddaughter get thrown through the glass ceiling, fall fifty feet and slam to the floor was shocking enough. Add to it the realization that her granddaughter was that masked hussy was a bit too much for Grandmama to handle.
Her heart seized, and as Malice watched on, trapped in her paralyzed body, her grandmother died.
Malice retired the very next day and nobody ever bought a DNPC again.
Berserk
I love this one. Whenever I get to take a character away from a player for a while, explain that they’ve been unconscious and then have them wake up with blood on their hands is a chance to have some real fun.
I had one of those berserking scrapper guys in my campaign for a short while. His name was Scrapper (I didn’t pick the name, guys) and he got hired on at US for only a short while. The player knew all the Champions loop-holes and he exploited every one. Instead of asking “What kind of idiot do you think I am?” I let him have his little combat monster, keeping a steady eye on his Berserk Disadvantage.
After a couple of sessions, I got complaints from players. They complained that the character was nothing but a walking bundle of powers, a glory-hound and a bad role-player. I agreed, but asked them to be patient. After seeing a familiar wicked glint in my eye, they smiled quietly to themselves and waited for the hammer to fall.
The next session, they encountered one of my favorite villains. His name is Mindbender, and you can figure out the rest. Mindbender took one look at Scrapper and he knew what to do. He invoked a little mental heavy artillery and before Scrapper knew it, I was rolling dice, making a regretful look and asking him to make his Berserk roll. Now Scrapper only goes Berserk when he sees red trolley cars (his mother was killed by a run-away red trolley car). He knew there were no trolley cars in Minneapolis and asked me why he was going Berserk. I told him he was seeing trolley cars wherever he looked and he had no choice but to make the roll – and make it at -5, at that. After all, he was surrounded by the bloody things.
He failed the roll, went nuts and I took away his character sheet. At that moment, Scrapper starting attacking everything in sight, including his buddies. They had no chance but to defend themselves against a little rule-bending combat monster who was going at them full tilt. His little rampage caused a whole lot of damage and took out a small child’s eye before they got him under control. The parents sued US, Scrapper was brought up on charges of negligence and reckless endangerment of life and spent the next twenty years in prison.
I suggested to Scrapper’s player that he should be more careful with his Disadvantages. Surprisingly enough, the next character he made was a little more respectful of the rules. Go figure.
Psychological Limitations
Some of the most powerful Disadvantages are “Psy Lims.” Codes of Conduct are always fun to play with. One of our heroes, a guy named Tristan Thomas who went by the name of “Paladin,” had a pair of interesting Limitations. He would not strike a woman, no matter what the circumstances, and he was a firm believer in The Law. He would not tolerate any infringement of the law, not in himself and not in others. Of course, this provided me with a whole bunker of ammo to use against him.
The first thing I did was have him fall in love with a pretty little librarian Angie Isolde. That should have been enough of a clue for him, but unfortunately (for him), he didn’t pick up on it. You see, Angie was a “renegade super” named Vengeance. She had no license to practice and often found herself at odds with US. Neither of them knew their Secret Identities, and Paladin was beginning to develop a nice, healthy hatred for Vengeance. She had picked up on his “don’t strike women” code (thanks to Mr. Carter’s agents) and would somehow always know where Paladin was. She would chose the day and date of her attacks carefully, embarrassing him at every opportunity.
As the rivalry between Vengeance and Paladin heated up, so did the romance between Angie and Thomas. When the time was right, Carter arranged for a subtle drug to get slipped into Paladin’s system that would drive him to the edge just at the right moment. He met up with Vengeance (right on schedule) and as she prepared for another opportunity to humiliate him, the drug kicked in and he started in on the unprepared super-babe. Needless to say, under his drugged state, he demolished the poor girl (he had 50 more points to play with, after all). When he gained control, he realized what he had done and watched as the police (who were conveniently called in on the scene by an anonymous tip) took off her mask and carted his beloved off to prison.
Luck
“Okay,” you say. “That’s just fine taking advantage of a character’s disadvantages. That’s no new trick. So what?”
All right, how about using a character’s advantages against him?
“Talents” can be a Champions character’s worst enemy. Luck is a great example. Players buy Luck for their characters all the time. Its like a little security blanket. It makes them feel as if they have something to fall back on if everything goes bad.
The definition of Luck is “… that quality which helps events turn out in the character’s favor.” Okay, that sounds fine, but trust me, a good GM can find bad in just about anything.
Remember, Luck isn’t contagious. Making a character Lucky does not make the whole group Lucky. Characters who buy Luck tend to be a little self-centered. After all, they would rather spend points on something that will get them out of trouble, rather than something that would compliment or aid the group. So, get the group in trouble, let the Luckster roll his way out of it, then make him wish he didn’t. It’s called “the frying pan and fire technique” and here’s how it works.
Imagine the group getting hit by some area effect weapon. Of course, the Luckster wants to roll his way out of it. You tell him that’s fine and he makes his luck roll. He flies out of the effect and looks back to see his buddies frying.
(Feel free to apply guilt here. After all, he could have grabbed someone to fly out with him, right?)
Then, right after he’s out of the blast radius, have him notice that he’s flown right into a mob of supervillains, just ready and willing to pound on one lone hero. Let’s see him Luck his way out of a combined total of 1,500 points of hard-hitting villains. If only he had stayed behind …
Or perhaps by Lucking out he’s put his buddies in deeper trouble. For instance, let’s use the area effect weapon again. Perhaps one of his powers could have countered the effect? If he had stayed behind, he’d have been able to help them out. But he chose to Luck out, and now his buddies are frying. Good thing he’s Lucky, isn’t it?
Another example. The character is in an airport. He’s in the rest room and he stumbles across an envelope somebody dropped. He opens the envelope and discovers its filled with thousand dollar bills. Get you get any more lucky? Of course, the money belongs to a crime syndicate or something even more diabolical, and they’re going to be looking for that money and who “found” it (of course, they believe the hero stole it). And all of this trouble because the character was Lucky.
Immunity
Immunity gives a character supernatural immunity to diseases and poisons. It’s a very popular advantage. Of course, Mr. Carter had to do something about that.
I had his scientists come up with a disease that would kill off anyone with the “super gene” that meta-humans had. Carter had a cure, of course. The only problem was all those super fellows who bought Immunity were, well, immune to it.
Find Weakness
My favorite trick has to do with Find Weakness. This little puppy lets characters observe their enemies to find a weakness in the defenses of a target. The better they roll, the more damage they can do.
A lot of combat monsters take this one. I always let them. They only use it once.
Carter designs supervillains with a weakness the heroes can exploit. These villains he calls his “throw-aways”: punks he can throw at the heroes to watch their fighting styles and skills. He shows the heroes films of the throw-aways and shows them the weakness he’s “found.” Then he sends them out to confront the baddie, armed with the knowledge he’s given them. They find the throw-away, engage him, find his weakness and hit him as hard as they can.
This little strategy always has the same result.
The villain’s eyes go wide, he mumbles something about forgiveness and the hero watches the life slip out of his eyes.
Killing a villain is a major crime. Heroes are expected to bring the bad guys in alive. But there’s no need to worry. The hero can rest assured that Mr. Carter’s lawyers will take care of everything.
The Retirement of Mr. Fabulous
One last story that I can’t take full credit for.
One of my players, my buddy Danny, came to me after a game session with a problem. He had been playing a character for the whole run of the game, a very popular character who went by the name “Mr. Fabulous.”
Out of all my Champions campaigns, Mr. Fabulous was one of my favorite characters. He was a modest little superhero with just a little bit of super strength, speed and endurance and a whole lot of heart. He dressed up in a colorful costume and fought for truth, justice and the American Way because it was the right thing to do. He always took a morning jog along Hennipen Boulevard and a mob of kids would follow him as far as they could. He bought ice cream and hot dogs at the little mom and pop drug store on the corner for lunch and he always had time for an autograph.
Oh, and he fought crime, too.
That night, Danny told me that Mr. Fabulous was going to retire. He really loved the character, but he felt it was time to let him take off his mask and get on with his imminent middle age years. We talked about it for a while and I gave him a suggestion. At first he was shocked, but then, as he thought about it, he agreed it was the only way to end the story of Mr. Fabulous. We shook hands and the very next week, the event we discussed took place.
Mr. Fabulous did indeed announce his intention to retire. Carter and US throw a huge party to celebrate Mr. Fabulous’ twenty years of fighting crime. The event was on the front page of every newspaper in the nation.
On the morning before his retirement, Mr. Fabulous stopped in the mom and pop drug store for his ice cream and hot dog. A young kid with frightened eyes was there with a gun, taking money out of the register. Mr. Fabulous held up his hands and tried to talk the kid into putting the gun down. The kid, with eyes full of tears, lowered the pistol. For some reason, Mr. Fabulous’ Danger Sense wouldn’t stop ringing in his ears. He turned around a little too late and took a bullet from the kid’s older brother right in the face.
The ambulance arrived ten minutes after the incident. Mr. Fabulous was found, barely alive and in shock. They turned off the siren five minutes outside of the hospital.
The death of Mr. Fabulous was a dark day in my campaign. He was one of the first super heroes, a mentor to more than half of the members of United Superheroes. A national day of mourning was held and we spent an entire game session on the funeral, listening to each superhero talking about their memories of their hero.
What did this accomplish? What does this little incident have to do with using a character’s Disadvantages against them? Well, every character has one single disadvantage in common, and it isn’t on their character sheet. Sometimes we don’t see it, and it often becomes invisible in a superhero campaign. That little Disadvantage is that each and every one of us is mortal. In the world of superheroes, we sometimes forget this. While each of us would like to live forever, it is often a character’s death that defines him, not his life. Mr. Fabulous died trying to talk a scared little kid out of doing the wrong thing. He could have pounded the hell out of him, but he didn’t. He died trying to stop a crime without using his fists.
What was Mr. Fabulous’ Disadvantage? He had a Code vs. Killing. Carter found out about it and set up the whole incident. But this time, his little gambit backfired on him. He thought killing Mr. Fabulous in a simple robbery would dishearten the superheroes of Minneapolis. He was wrong. It brought them together, creating a bond that could not be broken. And he was sloppy. One of the heroes began digging and found out the kids were paid to commit the crime. It was the beginning of the end for Mr. Carter.
But that’s another story.
-John Wick hit us with Legend of the Five Rings CCG, then the L5R RPG. Now he’s sailing the seas looking for booty in Seventh Sea. Just don’t call him Long John – he hates that.
January 19th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
The GM has a lot of latitude in designing scenarios & villains. The sheer variety of powers available in Champions means that no-one is invulnerable. More specifically any 250 pt character MUST have significant weaknesses and anyone who knows those weaknesses can exploit them without effort.
The examples presented here are not indicative of flair, imagination or intellectual ability. On the contrary they bespeak an individual of moderate intelligence whose insecurity drives them to maliciously destroy the work of those around them.
To treat the creations of players in such a cavalier and malicious fashion then brag about it further demonstrates an astonishing lack of emotional awareness.
The author has nothing to teach others.
January 20th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Greetings, Tony, and welcome to Gaming Outpost.
I’ve not met John Wick, but I’ve read enough of his stuff to recognize that he is an intelligent, creative, and capable individual in the game design world. I’m also aware that this is one entry in a weekly series he wrote–one of several such series, and having done a couple of article series myself, I know the challenge that poses, to find fresh new material for each installment.
Would I use such tactics in my games? It really does depend on the game, the world–there are Multiverser worlds in which it is important to have someone scheming and intelligent pulling strings behind the scenes; there are other worlds in which such a character is completely inappropriate. Wick’s Jefferson Carter strikes me as one of the several incarnations of Lex Luthor, and I’ve always been impressed by villains whose intellect is harnessed against the sheer power of the heroes.
I don’t play Champions, though, and it’s been decades since I made any effort at being a devoted reader of comics, so I don’t know what players expect of the game. However, apparently they keep coming back to play more, so Wick must be doing something right.
–M. J. Young
December 13th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Are you kidding? If the gamemaster of any game I played designed his bad guys specifically to screw over my character and show me the “error” of my ways by killing them or TOTALLY ruining the backstory I created; the next sound that “intelligent, creative, and capable individual” would hear would be the door slamming as I went to look for a GM who understood that the game is supposed to be a collaborative effort, not a chance to show off how brilliant his character-wrecking skills are.
I don’t expect every battle to be easy for my character, but giving the bad guys inside information on your hero is putting a “thumb on the scale” in a big way. The Mr. Fabulous example is fair and reasonable, since it was pre-arranged with the character, but the rest of the examples were abusive, pure and simple.
And, Mr. Young? If Wick still has people willing to play his game, that just means he knows a lot of masochists who think they can’t do any better than being jerked around like this.
December 15th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Kenneth Dawson–
Welcome to Gaming Outpost.
I’m probably not the best person to speak in defense of John Wick or his approach. I’ve never played in any of his games. I have played in games with referees who were cutthroat, but that does not describe me at all. In fact, one of the things my own players valued about my OAD&D games was that everything in them was determined long before there were any player characters involved–they knew it was not targeted at them, and if it fit them it was because it was well designed to fit any group of adventurers.
I still think there is a defense for Wick’s approach.
As I mentioned, Wick’s Jefferson Carter seems to be an incarnation of the Lex Luthor type, and that type has always impressed me. Here is an ordinary mortal who more than once has very nearly defeated Superman–and entirely by trying to outsmart him. That means Lex Luthor–or Jefferson Carter–is way smarter than me (and I’m the guy that law schools were trying to recruit when they saw my LSAT score, who also aced the GREs, Mensa qualifying tests, and ASFABs in the same couple of months). Playing a character who is smarter than you is always incredibly difficult. You’ve got to figure out things that are already beyond you, and sometimes you have to do it on the fly.
Somewhere in my Game Ideas Unlimited series (which I fear is still in such a disarray that I cannot begin to guess where–but I am working on it) I make some suggestions for how to do this. One thing I suggest is that if the players come up with some really clever way to exploit a supposed weakness in their adversary’s defenses, a roll of the die can tell you whether he already anticipated that and put something in place of which they were not aware that will impede that effort. Another tool for making such super-intelligent characters smarter than you are is to give them the advantage of your knowledge. It doesn’t necessarily matter how the villain found it out, or figured it out; it matters that the guy is smart enough that he did.
Even in Multiverser (where it doesn’t matter, because death advances the plot by moving your character to the next adventure) I am not really a killer referee. Eric “Tadeusz” “World-a-Week” Ashley says he is, and that Multiverser unleashed that killer instinct in him (that before he discovered our game he treated all player characters with kid gloves because he didn’t want to lose them). I hate to lose characters, and I probably would not stay long in the game of someone who killed them the way Wick says he does. In fact, I remember quite clearly when I was introduced to E. R. Jones and invited to play in his house-rules D&D variant, I determined that I would create one character, play him as well as I could, and when he died I would be out of the game. He never died. Whether Mr. Jones’ reputation for being a killer referee was exaggerated or I underestimated my own skill as a player, he was still alive several adventures later when the game dissolved (for reasons that were not related to the game).
Still, for gamist players (cf. http://ptgptb.org/0028/theory101-03.html Theory 101: Creative Agenda), the point of play is to prove yourself, to give yourself bragging rights, and that means there has to be a risk that you will fail. Wick makes that risk intense, and so those who survive can brag the more, and those who die can still brag that they did so well as they did.
It’s not the way everyone wants to play, but there are still players who want the tougher challenge.
–M. J. Young
March 12th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
You’re that guy at the game store who will GM for anyone who comes in because he has no friends and most people don’t hang around for more than 2 sessions.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Dear god..
This guy is a frigging idiot. Taking a well made character with real drawbacks and built in plot hooks, then punishing them for it isn’t clever, it’s fucking stupid.
“You took a rarely useful situational advantage that makes you immunized to diseases? Well, now your sick! And can’t be cured, because I’m retarded.”
The result isn’t more roleplaying, it’s just going to result in the PC’s rolling out an army of gray men with no past, attachments or meaningful drawbacks. Vindictive players might instead go for a game destroying ubermench just to ruin the “I’m the DM and all powerful” wankfest.
March 13th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Big Mike wrote:
I don’t know if you’re talking to me or to John Wick or to someone else in this thread, but I can answer for myself and maybe for John.
Well, I can’t really answer for John, but I know that he is in demand at conventions as a gamemaster. I’ve not met him nor played with him, but I know that much at least.
As for me, I ran an OAD&D game for years that swelled to thirty active players who crowded into my living room week after week. The game ended only because we had lost control of who was there, and someone (we still do not know who) took advantage of the chaos to steal several valuable and at least one irreplaceable objects from the house while they were there. I still get asked if I’m considering reviving that game.
I also run Multiverser at Ubercon, and it’s one of the big draws there. The returning players get frustrated with the fact that there are always so many new players who want to get into the game that there’s not time for everyone–and of course, convention demos are about introducing new players to the game, so they get priority. But a lot of them wind up here on our Gaming Outpost forums, playing the game online, some of them for years.
I don’t hang out at game stores. The nearest one is over an hour away, and although I’ve been there to run Multiverser demos a couple times (as a featured guest game designer, not a back room referee) I’ve never played in the back. I’ve got people wanting more game time from me than I can offer. I guess that means I’m exactly that good. It surprises me, because I don’t really think I’m so good, but apparently the players enjoy the game–they keep coming back.
Now, maybe you didn’t mean me, but if you did, consider yourself corrected on that point.
–M. J. Young
March 14th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
There’s a pretty big gap between being a good DM at a con, where you have to paint in very broad strokes and create an enjoyable experience quickly, and the way most people play, meeting weekly or biweekly at a house for a rather longer game.
In a con, you can run a DM vs players wankfest without really bothering people. It doesn’t last long, you aren’t terribly attached to your characters and drama written in broad strokes gives you a lot of punch for your limited time.
In a more intimate and long term setting, the “Hit ‘em Where it Hurts” idea is simply a bad one. It’s childish and punitive to deliberately target a PC with an eye to screwing them over or ruining them, rather then engageing with them using the advantages and drawbacks they built into there PC to drive the story.
March 15th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Of course, as Ron Edwards has said, there is no “wrong way to play”. There are only ways that are not fun for you.
When I do OAD&D, Met Alpha, and other “old-school” games, I create my scenarios before the players have created their characters. That way there’s no correlation between what I’ve created and what I think the strengths and weaknesses of the characters are. The players know that I’ve been completely “fair” in the sense that I’ve not targeted any character for good or bad, but simply created a scenario that makes sense to me and let their characters hit it at whatever random angle fits who they chose to be.
That approach does not work when I’m running Legends of Alyria, one of the better “new school” games. In that context, the very set-up of the story is based on creating characters who will be at odds against each other. That, though, is part of the group effort–some player at the table is going to be the villain, another player the villain’s primary henchman, another the hero, another the victim, not specifically as such but very much in the creation of the characters. The referee doesn’t target player characters in the same sense because it’s not up to him to run the important characters on either side of the story: the conflict is between player characters, and the story emerges from their actions and decisions. But there is a sense in which in such games they work because everyone has considered how to exploit the weaknesses of everyone else.
When I run Multiverser, I put a lot more attention into the strengths and weaknesses of the player characters, and to some degree of the players themselves. But then, I’ll again cite Ron Edwards, who somewhere said that Multiverser had some of the best answers for character death, as the death of the character becomes the plot device that moves the story to the next chapter. Death is not the end for the character, but only for the adventure; the character immediately begins the new adventure. Eric “Tadeusz” Ashley comments that the game “released” his “killer GM”: before Multiverser, he handled player characters with kid gloves, afraid he might damage them. Once he had Multiverser to run, he realized that he could set up characters for potentially fatal situations, knowing that they might well die, but it no longer mattered because death was not the end. I’ve targeted player characters with tricks I knew they would probably miss. Is that bad?
Well, I don’t do it very often. I’m still rather old-school, creating my scenarios and letting the players create the stories within them. Also, I’m persuaded that having player characters die because of their own weaknesses moves them to become better characters–and makes their players better players in the long term. The guy who falls for an obvious trap is considerably less likely to fall for the same kind of trap again, whether as the same character (which is so in Multiverser) or in playing another character. The guy who realizes that he lost last time because he was outgunned will get bigger guns–will find ways to shore up the weaknesses in his character. He will also learn not to depend on strengths he thinks make him invincible, when he sometimes faces adversaries who know how to exploit those strengths.
Do I think John Wick is too much of a killer GM? I don’t really know. Having written articles about “how I run games”, I know that these articles never tell the full story. The things I’ve described in this post are a small fraction of what I do in play. When I choose worlds for my Multiverser players, my first thought is never how I can kill them, but always what do I think they would enjoy. Sometimes that includes finding worlds that play to their weaknesses, but that’s because I think everyone is bored with a world that is a cake-walk, where all the obstacles fall to the character’s superior strength without ever leaving a scratch on him. Sometimes I pick worlds that play to their strengths, because everyone likes to win and to be reminded that there are some things at which they really are the best. Were you to say that my referee style is “killer” because sometimes I target my players’ weaknesses, you would be sadly misinformed, and my players would say so. I do not know whether the same is true of John Wick. I do know that there is a place in this hobby for at least sometimes targeting the players’ and characters’ weaknesses, and exploiting what they think are their strengths against them. In that, Wick is right. Now, whether he overdoes it–you’d have to ask his regular player group. If they’re enjoying the game, if they think that a part of the challenge is outsmarting their extremely devious referee, then they’re playing in the right game. If you don’t think that would be fun, that’s not your game. You still might learn something from it. I learned more about how to run these games from the one guy who was most different from me in referee style than from maybe everyone else combined. There’s something of value here, even if it’s not the ultimate formula for everyone’s favorite game.
I’ve been enjoying this discussion. Thanks for your contributions.
–M. J. Young
March 15th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
There is nothing in “outsmarting” a person that takes an advantage like Immunity and introduces a diseases that only targets people with the advantage. It’s nonsensical and putative, serving no purpose at all.
I don’t have a problem with involving weaknesses and advantages as major parts of the game, but deliberately introducing elements that make no sense in game because you don’t like how popular an advantage is seems childish and dumb.
So.. : Showing the downside of Immunity by having the PC be the only person that can take on the exhausting and terrble job of tending to people that have caught a terrble illness? (With the option, of course, of leaving them to there fate) Fair.
Making people that took an advantage that keeps you from getting sick incurably sick? Stupid.
March 16th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
I’ll grant that. It would take an extraordinary bit of explanation to get me to understand why a character immune to all the diseases that plague everyone else is the only one susceptible to this disease.
I can see possible explanations. After all, if we assume that Superman is not susceptible to earth-based infectious organisms because his physiology is alien, it would make sense that an alien infectious organism somehow obtained from his home planet would infect him but no one else. I think that character backstory might be critical to coming to some understanding of that, though, and the notion that some debilitating infectious organism somehow escaped from the planet before it exploded, independent of the escaping superhero–well, to use another of Wick’s expressions, that snaps my disbelief suspenders.
So I agree with you in general, but I’d have to look at it in the particular.
Oh, and welcome to Gaming Outpost.
–M. J. Young
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:34 pm
i played in 2 games with John back when he worked for Alderac entertainment. it was a L5R rpg game and then a LARP of l5R. this was back in the late 90′s early 2000′s at gencon in Milwaukee. John was an incredibly great story teller and GM. those 2 games i played in are games that i can still vividly remember and use as a comparison in any games i play now.
i think what is missing from this article is the context of why its written and for whom. this is not a technique for the happy rpg group. this is for the player or players who want to “win” the game and actively look for ways to stick it to the GM at the expense of the groups story.
if your entire group is comprised of min/maxing munchkins and that’s how you like to play, then disregard these articles and go have fun. if however your group has one or two munchkins that are hurting the group, these techniques are a great way to bring them in line with the rest of the group so that everyone can have a good time.
November 29th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Thanks for the thoughts, and welcome to Gaming Outpost.
Seth did a lot of open design here at Gaming Outpost in his Dreaming Out Loud series, and I was privileged to playtest the early form of the game (when the dice had moon phases instead of clock faces, although when he felt it necessary to abandon moon phases I suggested clock faces). I agree that the “killer GM” style does not work in such a game–but then, I don’t think it works in a lot of games even that have more traditional GM/player distribution of credibility. For example, early Gamma World and Metamorphosis Alpha were themselves deadly games, and really needed a supportive referee to keep the characters alive.
I think the killer GM approach works in games in which the players are all great heroes of a stature at least significantly above the ordinary man–Dungeons & Dragons or any of the heroic Swords & Sorcery games, the Superhero games, stuff on that order. A good part of the thrill of such games derives from the sense that the characters might have died, and thus the threat of death must be very real or the referee must be a brilliant illusionist (and the latter only works for so long before the players recognize it, in most cases). When I defeat the supervillain, I don’t want to feel that he was stupid or weak but that I was clever and strong. Thus the killer GM gives me a worthy adversary both in the game and at the table.
On the other hand, if you’re playing with such a referee, you have to trust him genuinely. Referees are given a tremendous amount of credibility in games in which this approach is viable, and can easily abuse it. I have less fun in a game in which I feel that the referee treated me unfairly than I do in a game in which there is no challenge.
–M. J. Young
November 29th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Oh–and I’m not like Wick describes in my games; I’ve got some very clear concepts of game fairness. In fact, one of the tools Multiverser uses for such things is a General Effects Roll: when outcomes or situations are uncertain, the roll gives a bell curve ranging from the worst unimaginable disaster to the best possible dream, and the referee is thus guided into the type of play the dice dictate for the moment.
–M. J. Young
December 3rd, 2009 at 1:48 am
Everyone complaining about the tactics in the article as being “unfair” are missing the point. The real question is if what happened was entertaining for the players involved. I for one relish and love those moments when my character meets his eventual demise, especially if it was as well thought out as some of these methods.
(As far as why immunity to disease would render a ‘cure’ ineffective is easy to see, anything involving gene replacement could be using a base virus as a carrier to introduce the new gene therapy… (thats how they do it in my limited understanding)) It seems to me… such a disease would introduce some cool plot possibilities with researching an alternate cure, isolation to save one’s self, cunning strategems, etc… doesn’t seem unfair at all, it seems neat… but maybe thats just me.
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Thanks for the comment, Echo. You are right, of course–the question is, was this fun? For a lot of gamers, it does not sound like fun to have your referee scheming against you so perniciously; for others, it’s great to watch such a well-laid plan catch you. On one level, it’s a boost to the ego–that the referee had to go to such extremes to finish your character, and still you almost survived.
I personally am neither that gamer nor that referee, but it’s interesting to hear about it, and I can see how it could be enjoyed.
–M. J. Young
December 20th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
I don’t expect every battle to be easy for my character, but giving the bad guys inside information on your hero is putting a “thumb on the scale” in a big way. The Mr. Fabulous example is fair and reasonable, since it was pre-arranged with the character, but the rest of the examples were abusive, pure and simple.
December 31st, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Hear I want to say that possible explanations. After all, if we assume that Superman is not susceptible to earth-based infectious organisms because his physiology is alien, it would make sense that an alien infectious organism somehow obtained from his home planet would infect him but no one else. I think that character backstory might be critical to coming to some understanding of that, though, and the notion that some debilitating infectious organism somehow escaped from the planet before it exploded, independent of the escaping superhero–well, to use another of Wick’s expressions, that snaps my disbelief suspenders.
January 1st, 2010 at 3:08 pm
I can see that. One would have to suppose that the organism was obtained some other way.
It might be obtained from some errant Kryptonian exploratory spacecraft, something like our own Vikings and Pioneers; but the chance even of finding such a craft is so infinitessimally small that the chance such an organism would survive on it is not worth considering.
It might be genetically engineered; but this would undoubtedly involve putting Superman’s DNA through something akin to the Human Genome Project, and there’s a good chance that the invulnerability makes it nearly impervious to analysis. Even if it could be analyzed, we’re still quite a distance away from designing infections to attack life forms based on DNA analysis.
So there doesn’t seem to be a good way to get such a virus to use against Superman.
On the other hand, there might be a superhero from another world whose home world still exists, or from which there were other fugitives. In one telling, Supergirl was saved in some sort of bubble reality along with other Kryptonians; and Superdog came from somewhere (I admit I never knew where). We’re not really talking about how to beat Superman; we’re talking about how to beat a game superhero modeled roughly on the Man of Steel, whose history will not be entirely identical. Whether that history contains a loophole that provides the organism is something for the referee to decide; the character might not know, for example, that there are three Kryptonian criminals trapped in an inter-dimensional prison in space that would be released by a nuclear explosion. There are many other possible facts that the character might not know.
So the way you put it, it sounds entirely implausible; but it might be that we simply do not have sufficient information to know why it works.
Not that I think Wick is right about everything, or never does anything unfair (to that, I have no firsthand knowledge), but only that I can see it working under the right context.
–M. J. Young
January 24th, 2010 at 7:48 am
I think what is missing from this article is the context of why its written and for whom. this is not a technique for the happy rpg group. this is for the player or players who want to “win” the game and actively look for ways to stick it to the GM at the expense of the groups story……………………
January 24th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
I think indeed this is very much about a high gamist conception of play, in which the players want to walk away from the game and brag about how well they did. In the concept, the brag is better if the challenge level is increased, even if the character fails. That is, the best brag is “look what we beat”, but the second best brag is still “look at what it took to beat us”, and that trumps a brag in which you beat something considerably less impressive.
I think in my early gaming days I was playing simulationist in a Gamma World scenario, and getting rather depressed about it because of how tough it was. Simulationism is about experiencing the world, and my feeling about that world was, why would I want to experience anything so horrible? Had I been more gamist about it, I might well have been able to brag not only about how well we did when we won, but about how well we did when characters died and we “lost”.
Of course, you mention the “story”, which is a tricky word to use in any RPG context, because it means so many different things to different players. In narrativist terms, a superheroes game is usually about the tension between good and evil and intrinsic the costs and rewards of each. The “dependent non-player character” disadvantage, for example, becomes a drive for story-based play, not a “weakness” to the player character. In that sense, some of Wick’s ideas are good story material (consider Palpatine in Star Wars, the evil character who puts himself forward as the the good guy so that he can undercut the good guys). But Wick doesn’t seem to be targeting a good story; he’s targeting a great challenge, something that will blindside the players and force them to devise truly impressive responses to save their characters. As I think I’ve said, that’s not a form of play I particularly prefer, but it is one I’ve seen and played and understand.
I guess in the end the question is, is the group’s “story” about the conflict between good and evil and the personal and ethical issues that raises in their lives, or is it about what it would really mean to be such a character in such a world, or is it about hitting challenges more than equal to your character abilities so that you can truly shine whether in incredible success or glorious defeat? If the last is the case, Wick is the guy for your game, because he’ll give you that unexpectedly devious and dangerous challenge that will test your player abilities.
–M. J. Young
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:48 am
tl;dr version.
You know the party’s mentor? Yeah, he’s the bad guy. That’s totally original!
One time, one of the party members had a dependent as a disadvantage, an aging grandmother. So I paralyzed the heroine and tossed her in front of Aunt May, who died of a heart attack, unable to do anything! Isn’t that awesome?
Someone made a lame berserker who broke the game. So I made a mind-controlling NPC and mauled the party with it, despite the fact that they weren’t responsible for his powergaming and indeed tried to curb it. I’m so clever.
Someone made a paladin. So I infected him with a mind-controlling drug and made him murder the woman he loved! Making the paladin fall is not at all a detested cliche!
Someone took the luck advantage, so I “balanced” it by making the rest of the party super-unlucky and guilting the crap out of the dude, or by making any lucky thing that happened actually awful in some non-obvious way. Good thing he never wished for anything!
Everyone who had immunity to disease? Yeah, they all died to a super-disease, and their immunity to disease was immunity to the super-cure for no goddamned reason. That’ll teach them to take advantages when they build their characters! Seriously, WTF. Who the fuck takes Immunity to Disease in Champions and why the fuck do they need to be punished for it?
I added a hidden disadvantage to Find Weakness that the weaknesses are instant death, despite the fact that Find Weakness explicitly gives the user greater insight into the nature of the foe! BTW, I learned everything I know about GMing from the 1e DMG!
Then there was this time where someone retired their character in a totally awesome way, and I took all the credit for it.
I am the best goddamned GM ever.
February 22nd, 2010 at 9:30 am
Obviously you’re not impressed with this referee style. I’m not fond of it myself; but some people like it.
–M. J. Young
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:29 pm
That’s nice. People enjoy lots of terrible things. The affection of random strangers is not a redeeming quality of bad ideas.
February 23rd, 2010 at 1:56 pm
I’m not sure to what “random strangers” you refer, but the rejection by “random strangers” is equally not a condemnation of good ideas. For my part, I have never met John Wick and know him only through interaction on the Internet and of course his published works (he did a series here discussing the development of his game OrkWorld, and of course he’s famous for Legends of the Five Rings). My name is posted, and I am known as a regular here, as co-creator of Multiverser and line editor for its related products. (You, by contrast, have not identified yourself, and no one is known by the handle “A Man in Black” here to my fairly comprehensive knowledge
The fact is, there is within the role playing game hobby a specific expression of the “adversarial referee”, a form of play in which the players are trying to beat the guy who holds nearly all the power by using the very little bit of power they have and requiring him to stay within the rules. This expression is very nearly codified in the game Hackmaster and to some degree expressed in the strip Knights of the Dinner Table. I don’t play that way, on either side of the table, but I have had players who do and who enjoy trying to best the referee and give him problems he can’t resolve. To a significant degree this conception of play derives from the wargaming roots of the hobby, in which the two participants were against each other. In the early form of Chainmail the transition began toward the referee being on one side against the players on the other, and early Dungeons & Dragons retained some of this, although Original Advanced and Original Basic both mitigated that to some degree. Still, the question became whether the referee could create a problem the players could not solve, and as character powers escalated the challenge to the referee also rose.
If you’re playing in a player/referee adversarial game, Wick’s ideas are good, particularly if the players are highly skilled at using their powers to make their characters invincible. If you’re playing in a cooperative game, they’re useless.
Note, though, that in the “gamist” play of which this adversarial play is a type what matters ultimately is not so much whether you won or lost, but how great the challenge was. I recall in one game I was playing a first level kensai and the referee tossed a death knight at the party while we were in camp. I managed to win (by challenging the death knight to an honorable “psychic duel” for which it was ill equipped, and thus it conceded defeat and departed). I get to brag about that. Had I lost, though, I could be bragging that I had a first level character so powerful the referee had to send a death knight to destroy it. Yes, gamists brag over the challenges they overcame, but they also brag about the ones they lost, if they go down in a desperate battle against incredible odds and take enough of the enemy with them on the way.
So I don’t like Wick’s style of play either, but I understand it and I don’t condemn it simply because it’s not what I would do.
Let me invite you to suggest an alternative: write an article and publish it here at Gaming Outpost, in which you give your ideas on the best way to run a game. Obviously you’re not into the adversarial relationship; the cooperative model needs its expressions also. I’d love to read what you think on the subject.
–M. J. Young
February 25th, 2010 at 10:02 pm
Except that the adversarial referee is completely meaningless when he doesn’t stay within the rules. For example, if he creates omniscient NPCs and turns immunities into weaknesses to the thing you’re immune to. If this is meant to be an adversarial game, Wick cheats like a madman.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:48 pm
Well, you’ve got a point there. I’m not familiar with Champions rules, so I don’t know exactly what those immunities promise. (In Multiverser, an immunity is a chance of success against a hazard, not an absolute protection, so it’s still possible for someone with an immunity to disease to get sick–it’s just much less likely.) Part of what Wick did seems (if I remember correctly) to relate to backstory: Superman is immune to disease because he’s not from Earth so his biology is different; but that means that he would be susceptible to a disease that comes from the same biology. So if you are creating a Champions version of Superman and you take “Immune to disease” and explain it with the backstory that being from another planet you are unaffected by Earth infections, does that mean that the referee can’t use disease against you, or that your backstory contains a loophole?
I tend to think like you: if the immunity exists, the backstory is color, and the immunity is inviolable. But I would wager that DC has more than once introduced Kryptonian diseases that infect Superman and don’t hurt anyone else, even apart from his weakness to Kryptonite. If that’s so, then the genre already suggests that these are possibilities, and Wick might argue that he is consistent with the source materials.
I suppose the real question is, did the player think it fair or unfair at the time? That gets to the heart of the social contract issue. If the player’s response was, “That’s not fair, I’m immune to disease, and that bit about the disease being one to which I’m not immune is cheating,” then the social contract was violated: Wick cheated. If the player’s reaction was, “Darn, I should have seen that coming–of course I’m not immune to diseases that come from my home planet (or were genetically engineered to target my physiology); you got me,” then everyone must have tacitly assumed that the backstory controls and what happens in the comics is fair game for the game.
I wouldn’t like it, but apparently Wick’s players didn’t think he’d broken the rules.
Then again, maybe he’s just the sort of high-handed referee who has that sign that says
“Rule 1: the referee is always right. Rule 2: if the referee is not right, see rule 1.”
I don’t play that way, but I’ve had some players who made me wonder whether I should.
–M. J. Young
February 27th, 2010 at 3:05 am
And here we are, back at Wick punishing people for making backgrounds which are anything but blank, faceless, boring characters with no weaknesses at all and no chinks in their armor.
February 28th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
I’m not sure. It doesn’t sound to me as if he’s unfairly exploiting the weaknesses of characters whose players included weaknesses; it sounds rather as if he’s finding weaknesses to exploit in characters whose players were trying to create the invincible character. That concept of the invincible character arose recently over on the forum, briefly, and Eric Ashley commented that as a referee he found such characters boring in the extreme.
Obviously, if a player allows that his character has a weakness, he accepts that “someone” might “discover” it and use it against him. That’s part of the whole “dependent non-player character” disad: Superman might be invulnerable, but he has to protect Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, who patently are not and are rather prone to getting into trouble. Spiderman has to protect Aunt May and Mary Jane and maybe some of his other friends, and if the villains figure out that he has a soft spot for someone, they’ll use it against him.
But if a player attempts to make a character completely unassailable, with no weaknesses whatsoever, what fun is that? There aren’t that many options for the referee. He can pull the trick Lex Luthor used against Superman or Green Goblin against Spiderman: you don’t have time to save both so which one are you going to save? But that doesn’t really hurt you; it only means you can’t do everything. So if you make a character you think has “no weaknesses” and Wick finds a weakness somewhere, what was the expectation? Either you thought you were going to run a character who could do everything and never fail at anything (boring ultimately even for the player, I would think), or you were challenging the referee to find the chink in the armor and bring down your supercharacter.
So it might be that it is exactly those boring impervious characters that Wick is targeting here, making them interesting by discovering the flaws that the players who designed them overlooked.
Or it could be that he really is just a jerk referee on a power binge looking for ways to bring gamist powergamer players down a notch.
–M. J. Young
March 9th, 2010 at 1:56 am
I’m sorry, but I would never, EVER play in a game you ran. How on Earth somebody on such a power trip can be in demand as a DM is beyond me. The game is about having fun, not screwing people over for making the character they want to make. Use their disadvantages, yes, but turning an advantage into a way to ruin their character? Way to be a jerk.
March 9th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
I feel funny defending Wick; the adversarial refereeing style he advocates is not at all similar to my own facilitated style–yet even as a facilitator, I have to recognize that some of my players expect me to challenge them, or perhaps to accept their challenge, to go toe-to-toe and find a way to beat them that they did not anticipate.
To know whether what Wick did in the cases discussed was “unfair” we would have to ask the players on the other side of the table when he did this. If this was what they wanted him to do, he rose to the challenge; if not, then their complaints would have been made known. I wouldn’t care to play in such a game, really–while I understand the gamist desire to brag, I’m not as good a player as to really earn such bragging rights. But a good referee should be able to recognize what his players each hope, and find a way to provide it, whether it’s a surprise romance, a complicated moral conundrum, or an unconquerable adversary.
–M. J. Young
July 17th, 2010 at 1:23 am
A moderately cunning con artist, otherwise rather clueless.
July 17th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
If his players were having fun, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter what any of us think.
I’ve read enough of Wick’s stuff to know that I would love to be in one of his games.
July 18th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Thanks for the comments.
Spriggan, I’m not quite sure what you mean by either of your statements. In what way is Wick a con artist, and in what way is he clueless?
Captain Noble, I believe John runs games at major conventions. (Most of us who design games run them somewhere. I’m pretty limited to the northeast, and in recent years mostly Ubercon, but I know John has done GenCon in the past.) There are opportunities at least to get into a one-shot with him. And I agree: what matters is whether the gaming group is enjoying the game, not whether we would have enjoyed it.
–M. J. Young
July 22nd, 2010 at 6:05 am
This article is terribly misguided. If it were about creating a villain the heroes could truly hate without reservation, or presenting ways of establishing a campaign rooted in personal tragedy and how heroes grow from it, then it could have been excellent. Instead, the article is focused on punishing players who take specific character options that Mr. Wick apparently doesn’t like. That’s ridiculous.
Players who try to create mechanically good characters aren’t Cheaters, they’re simply making rational choices within the game system. Even the typical min-maxer isn’t trying to ruin the game, only take full advantage of the mechanics presented to them. They should be commended for being excited enough about your game to want to make an awesome character, even if you have to ask them to retool that character to better fit with your campaign’s mood/power level/etc.
If you have a problem with someone’s character, is it never appropriate to try to “punish” them in-game. Be an adult and talk to them about it: If they’ve taken an option you don’t like, explain why. If they let combat effectiveness completely override characterization, explain why it’s inappropriate for your campaign. If their character hogs the spotlight, show them how that makes the game less fun for your other players. If someone is blatantly trying to break the system, tell them to leave the table. Using your unlimited authorial control to remove the player’s control and then destroy their character is childish, gloating about it even more so.
I cannot begin to believe that this is what the players wanted. A player taking a DNPC would signal to me that this player is open to the possibility of being forced to make difficult decisions (e.g., “save Mary Jane or let the train crash”), certainly. But when one of Mr. Wick’s players does it, he denies the player a chance to make any decision at all, instead simply declaring the character paralyzed and traumatized. Who wants that? Who puts time and effort into writing up a character’s powers and background in hopes that their DM will fiat that character into career-ending humiliation?
In every story, Mr. Wick didn’t “find” a weakness, he didn’t “challenge” the player, he just decided on an ironic and unavoidable punishment for daring to pick a character option, sometimes for picking a character option _designed to make the character more interesting to DM for_. Again, note that the article is explicitly about punishing and humiliating characters, not challenging them or building a story from their tragedy. How can anyone justify that?
August 2nd, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Hey, jerk.
Hey, hey, jerk.
If you don’t like what a player is doing, here’s what you can do.
A) Houserule that power or combo out of existence, or nerf it. (See later for a caveat on this alternative).
B) Talk to them respectfully and ask them not to roll this concept. Explain the expectations of your campaign.
C) Have your players do the same.
D) Raise your challenge level within the rule system: E.g. in a D&D campaign where the players can trounce equal-CR encounters, throw 3 CR encounters higher.
E) Make better encounters.
Coming up with stupid, illogical, houseruled punishments is wrong.
The caveat on A: You have to TELL them. Your “immunity to disease makes you immune to a cure” is a houseruled undermining of the core mechanic that is not only illogical, but unfair because the player for whatever reason expected to be immune to disease in this character design. When you “punish” players for their character design, you are not just breaking the rules, you’re actually undermining the entire rule system. Players have to be able to make choices within an established, fair set of rules, balancing what they want against what they don’t, with predictability as to what those choices will mean. When you start restricting what they can do after the fact, you break the implicit contract between you and the players: You sold them a lemon.
It’s true that whatever’s “fun” is fun, but the arrogance at what is such simplistic cheating is galling.
August 2nd, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Also…
Choosing powers that don’t explicitly benefit your teammates as a built-in mechanic isn’t selfishness, you pedant. If I choose a blasting power, I can DPR down enemies that are hurting my friends. If I have a barrier that protects only me, I can stay alive longer to perform my role, or step in front of a friend and take shots instead of them (the classic tank). A mind controller can secure the team access.
The luck character might SEEM selfish, but his powers can be used to get the team what they need. He’s so lucky that he can easily break into the supervillain’s control room and take it over while the rest of the team fights. He can use his luck to get the team money, or a good place to live. Etc.
This isn’t a matter of opinion, this is just infantile understanding of gaming, and I agree that this might be a satire: http://personal.linkline.com/stevenhoward/never.html
August 2nd, 2010 at 9:42 pm
Thanks for that link, Arek; that was an interesting response. Also, thanks for your input, although I should note that you’re railing rather vehemently against a writer who left this article here over a decade ago and as far as I know has not been back to read comments for at least half that time (although I mentioned it to him a week or so back, I didn’t get a reply). There’s no particular reason to call the writer a “jerk” or “pedant”. I think we’re all pretty interested in discussing the ideas in the article, and you’ve contributed intelligently to that, but insulting the author doesn’t really add to the discussion, particularly when the author isn’t reading the insults.
Thanks for your posts.
–M. J. Young
August 9th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
M.J.:
I realized that after I posted
.
While my intent is obviously not ad hominem, this kind of behavior IS jerky. We get hints (the fact that Malice’s player never chose that disadvantage again, people handing their sheets with fear) that Wick is using this as a very advanced form of trolling. As people have pointed out here: There is a substantial risk with adversarial GMing of becoming a bully. The adversarial GM must take great care not only to warn players about the nature of the campaign, but not to cross the line into bullying. One of the main ways of doing this is to make sure that, when players die, are injured, are depowered or lose their loot or abilities, that this is because of quantifiable in-game mechanics. Otherwise, the adversarial GM need only start the players above a pit of lava (and make sure that the character optimizer in the party isn’t immune to this kind of lava). Creating circumstances where “you” win by default or fiat isn’t adversarial GMing, it’s self-aggrandizement. I have definitely let my players die if they made stupid decisions or got hideously unlucky, but I have never simply mandated it, except (in rare instances) as a story hook.
August 10th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Excellent points all the way around, Arek, and I agree particularly about the abuse of what I would call the uneven distribution of credibility–the referee has so much more power in the game that it’s not all that impressive when he beats the players. I note that Hackmaster handles this by stating rules concerning the difficulty ratings permitted to the referee based on the power ratings of the character, or something like that; I’ve never read it myself. That, though, highlights a significant aspect of this: it’s very gamist play. One of the key elements in gamism, as Ron Edwards defines it, is “glory”, the ability to gloat or brag after the fact, and when players do it they often “exaggerate” the details, embellish the story and leave out the bits that don’t flatter them so much. But there are two ways a gamist manages to brag about his play. The obvious one is “look at the obstacles I overcame.” The other is “look at what it took for the referee to beat me.”
People who play Cthulu and Paranoia and Kult (pulling names out of my head; I hope I have them right) go into the game knowing that their characters are going to die, and it is not so much about winning as about surviving as long as possible. When such play is gamist, the players brag about what it took to finish them. Many supers games are ego trips in which invincible player characters move from victory to victory. Wick’s isn’t. Everyone knows when they hand him that character sheet he will find a way to kill that character; and the more powerful the character, the greater the gauntlet thrown down in front of him. The player says, “Prove to me that you can destroy this character;” then it’s only a question of to what ends the referee will resort to do so.
There is a sense in which Al Capone’s reputation is only enhanced because the FBI brought him down not for murder nor for smuggling nor for robbery but for tax evasion. Wick tells of a character so potent that the only way he could beat him was with an alien virus. Is that player complaining that Wick cheated, or bragging that Wick had to come up with something as crazy as that to get him?
I’ve discovered over the years that I don’t really care too much to be the player in a gamist game. I’m good, but I’m not great. I had an illusionist referee make me feel as if I were great once, and I brag about some of those moments. I played in another game where the referee carefully measured the challenges so that we would win as long as we weren’t really stupid, and that was fun. But in my experience, gamism is ultimately a losing proposition for me: either I will lose, and feel the sting of the death of a beloved character, or I will come to the conclusion that I can’t lose, and all sense of risk and the accompanying euphoria of victory will vanish. Maybe Wick adds what to me would be a third losing proposition (and the reason I don’t play Cthulu and rarely play Gamma World anymore): I will lose eventually, because the referee has the power to defeat me no matter what I do and he is determined to find the challenge that I cannot overcome. I can brag about what it took to bring me down, but I get too attached to my good characters for that.
That’s probably why I so enjoy Multiverser: I can lose, the character can die, the entire world can be destroyed (no lie–I have had this happen in my games more than once), but the character and the game continue in a new world with a new adventure, and it can be as gamist or as narrativist or a simulationist as I, personally, want to play it. If I want to tilt at windmills and challenge the referee to stop me, that’s fine, and when he does we’ll take the character to another world. If I want to find a teacher who can help me hone skills I’ve been meaning to improve while exploring the nuances of whatever world this is, that’s also fine. (I should note that the referee’s power is also tempered a bit, in that he has dice to control whether good things or bad things are going to happen, and just how good or bad these are going to be. As a Multiverser referee, I can put my players in impossible situations, but only if the dice say I can.)
I apologize for the “commercial”. The point is, there is a place for this kind of play. Eric Ashley has more than once said that Multiverser unleashed his “Killer GM”–he took off the kid gloves and didn’t worry about whether what he thought the villains would do was certain to kill the characters, because death was not the end only the transition. (Ron Edwards cited that as one of the best solutions to character death in gaming.) You can be the killer referee in a game in which the players expect the challenge eventually to exceed their abilities, and in each case Wick cited it will make a big difference whether the players themselves felt they were cheated or merely blindsided. If they thought it unfair (and I note none of them have posted here to say so), Wick cheated. If they only thought they should have seen something like that coming, then he played well within the parameters of their expectations.
Thanks again for your comments.
–M. J. Young