Quote from: OneTinSoldier;252128I go everywhere wearing a loaded handgun, BTW

Now you make sense. You'll grow out of it when you grow up a little bud.

Quote from: Serious Paul;252296Now you make sense. You'll grow out of it when you grow up a little bud.

State law & dept policy, my son.

Quote from: David R;252180I don't get this whole in RL this won't happen nonsense. We dealing with fiction here.

Of course. I saw a thread title a while back, "realistic dragon-riding rules?" I mean, come on.

What matters is what'll work within the party and game group. And PC-vs-PC sometimes works. Player vs player  never works. That is conflict within the party can be fun; conflict within the game group is not.

The PC-vs-PC conflict must have something behind it, not just some cocksmock's little power fantasies - "me 20th level because DM is my bitch, now you my bitch, too!" There's a good example in the back pages of Aftermath! where the party, travelling through the postapocalyptic wasteland, comes across some bodies and wants to loot them as usual. But this time they're the bodies of children - and the oldest guy in the party cocks his pump-action shotgun and says, "no, you won't." Now that's an interesting conflict, there's something behind that.

Quote from: patharSo you can't think of a situation in which a character would ever reach 20th level in a game in which they didn't own the GM?

In traditional D&D, it's very unlikely, yes. Monsters and traps are lethal, and the dice are fickle. It's really like winning the lottery - possible, but very very unlikely.

What also shows that the DM was the player's bitch was that newbies were expected to come in at 1st level. Traditionally in D&D when the player is new to gaming entirely, the DM will run their 1st level character through a few adventures to get them up to a comparable level, and only then introduce them to the main campaign. Or if the player's not new to it, then the DM will give them a character of comparable level. You'd never bring a 1st level PC to hang around a 20th level PC.

That's because the 1st level guy just can't survive the challenges the 20th level guy can, so either you soft it down for the low guy and bore the high guy, or you keep it at the tough level and wipe out the low guy. If you're willing to soft it down, just run that separate mini-campaign for a while. And if you're not, then the 1st level guy just won't survive.

The only reason to bring in a character which you know won't survive is so that the 20th level PC's player can feel like a legend by comparison. And DMs who let individual players feel like legends at the expense of other players are that player's bitch.

So either the DM was the player's bitch in letting his PC reach 20th level from 1st, or else the DM was the player's bitch in letting him lord it up over the 1st level guy. Or both. Either way, the DM was the player's bitch.

Pathar> Even a broken clock like me is right twice a day!

Kyle> I actually think player vs. player, not just PC vs. PC, conflict can be handled within a game so long as it's constructive conflict. By "constructive conflict" here I especially mean competition between players, both mechanically and story-wise.

Two examples, both from my games:

1) Mechanical competition: In our last major campaign, I played an undead master swordsman who was one of the two deadliest men in the kingdom, the other being Chase Dessinger, the black sheep of a noble dynasty, played by my buddy Chris. Chris and I had an ongoing competition, both IC and OOC, over which one between Gil and Chase was the deadlier, and under what circumstances.

This competition, because it was handled in a sportsmanlike way, lead to both our characters _being_ the deadly badasses we wanted them to be because we each tried to outdo the other in combat and during character development. I had Gil take risks in combat that I might've otherwise not, simply because I wanted to kill more enemies, or tougher enemies, than Chris' character did. I know Chris did the same thing with his character.

2) Chris and I both occasionally accuse our third player, Rob, of being a spotlight hog. As a result of this, we very often try to steal the spotlight away from his characters and onto what we're doing. How this hashes out in practice is that there are occasionally situations where we'd normally gloss over how our characters spend some period of time, but then Rob will start describing what he's up to in that time, and both Chris and I will feel the urge to compete with him, and start describing what our characters are up to.

This is the origin of a lot of interstitial scenes in our games that deepen the characterisation (of both PCs and NPCs) and serve to flesh out the world. Even when Rob's not doing it now, the push still exists, and it's made all three of us better roleplayers, as we jockey back and forth, draw the other characters in, push them out of a scene, fiddle with the NPCs etc.

Now, and I usually list this whenever I talk about PvP conflict in my group, we're all friends outside of gaming, and we've been friends for years, and this is all done with a fairly sportsmanlike and good-natured attitude. I'm not trying to screw Rob over because of some petty vendetta or because I feel my ego's been hurt somehow, or because I'm some autistic nutbar. I'm trying to out-play him, in the same way I might in a video or board game.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;252389What matters is what'll work within the party and game group. And PC-vs-PC sometimes works. Player vs player  never works. That is conflict within the party can be fun; conflict within the game group is not.

Yup. That's what I meant. Conflict between the characters. I was reading One Tin's post about good and evil not be able to work together or something like that....nevermind that I find his whole absolute good & evil distinction problematic, but in my campaigns even a party of "good" characters is riddled with conflict. It would be a very boring group if everyone agreed with each other. Of course by conflict I don't necessarily mean violence although that has happened before in my games of "good" characters....

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;252434I actually think player vs. player, not just PC vs. PC, conflict can be handled within a game so long as it's constructive conflict. By "constructive conflict" here I especially mean competition between players, both mechanically and story-wise.

Absolutely. There's conflict within a group which actually advances the group as a whole.
"I think we should handle the problem this way."
"No, that way is better."
And as they discuss, they come up with a third way which takes in the best parts of both approaches, and chucks out the worst - this could be 50/50 this/that, or 90/10, or whatever. And the whole dynamic can help the group/party move forward through the campaign. I've often spoken of active players who make things happen, reactive players who wait for things to happen and then react to them, and passive players who do nothing; ideally you have two more or less active players, and the tension between them acts like two legs pushing the group forward through the campaign.

It's a bit like any group activity. Often you're better off having the most active and intelligent person not be in charge, but second in charge - while the second most active and intelligent person is in charge. If the smartest and most active person is in charge they dominate everything and none of their ideas are ever challenged, but if they're only second-in-charge then they have to get some group consensus to move forward, and everyone gets the chance to have their say.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineThis is the origin of a lot of interstitial scenes in our games that deepen the characterisation (of both PCs and NPCs) and serve to flesh out the world.

That's true, too.

But if the conflict is ever resolved finally with the domination of one player - "me 20th level master, you 1st level bitches" - then nothing productive comes out of it. Just as drama in a story comes from unresolved conflicts, so too fleshing out characters and so on. Once it's resolved, curtains down, lights on, everyone can go home.

Quote from: David Rin my campaigns even a party of "good" characters is riddled with conflict. It would be a very boring group if everyone agreed with each other.

Of course. For example, if a criminal is holding someone hostage, three cops will all want the hostage to be freed unharmed. But one cop may be in favour of storming the building instantly, while the othercop may be in favour of negotiating, and the third wants to pretend to negotiate while waiting for the hostage-taker to tire out and just give up. None are evil, but they still have a lot to argue about

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;252455Absolutely. There's conflict within a group which actually advances the group as a whole.
"I think we should handle the problem this way."
"No, that way is better."
And as they discuss, they come up with a third way which takes in the best parts of both approaches, and chucks out the worst - this could be 50/50 this/that, or 90/10, or whatever. And the whole dynamic can help the group/party move forward through the campaign. I've often spoken of active players who make things happen, reactive players who wait for things to happen and then react to them, and passive players who do nothing; ideally you have two more or less active players, and the tension between them acts like two legs pushing the group forward through the campaign.

It's a bit like any group activity. Often you're better off having the most active and intelligent person not be in charge, but second in charge - while the second most active and intelligent person is in charge. If the smartest and most active person is in charge they dominate everything and none of their ideas are ever challenged, but if they're only second-in-charge then they have to get some group consensus to move forward, and everyone gets the chance to have their say.


That's true, too.

But if the conflict is ever resolved finally with the domination of one player - "me 20th level master, you 1st level bitches" - then nothing productive comes out of it. Just as drama in a story comes from unresolved conflicts, so too fleshing out characters and so on. Once it's resolved, curtains down, lights on, everyone can go home.


Of course. For example, if a criminal is holding someone hostage, three cops will all want the hostage to be freed unharmed. But one cop may be in favour of storming the building instantly, while the othercop may be in favour of negotiating, and the third wants to pretend to negotiate while waiting for the hostage-taker to tire out and just give up. None are evil, but they still have a lot to argue about

You know, when you're not whining at people for posting in the political forums or joining in a pigpile against someone you actually make some decent posts.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;252455Of course. For example, if a criminal is holding someone hostage, three cops will all want the hostage to be freed unharmed. But one cop may be in favour of storming the building instantly, while the othercop may be in favour of negotiating, and the third wants to pretend to negotiate while waiting for the hostage-taker to tire out and just give up. None are evil, but they still have a lot to argue about

Or maybe a group of black pilots in a WW2 campaign who capture and torture a racist white double agent when they should have turned him in. The conflict arising between the chaps who want to do the right thing (delivering him in to the proper authorities....even though they realize complications would arise) - esp because of the racial component - and those who want to do the so-called pragmatic thing, even though it's a disguise for their own reaction to racism ....tough campaign that was.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Demonoid;252476You know, when you're not whining at people for posting in the political forums or joining in a pigpile against someone you actually make some decent posts.

Perhaps you should try to emulate his example.