Mar 14 2009
Impractical Applications, Week 38
Today, I thought I wasn’t going to have anything to write about; it’s the third week of what’s rapidly looking like a month-long conflict. (Hence the rather late post.)
But I found a comment that demands response. So instead of talking about my own game, I’m going to talk about other people’s games. Specifically, the ones that Tzuriel claimed “did it all wrong”. This one, I have to admit, rather ticked me off; while I often talk about things that are too easy for my taste, I do point out that my opinions are mostly for people with a rather specific playstyle, and there are a lot of gaming posts I haven’t written because I know mine is a very minority opinion in those respects.
To put it simply, the answer is this: There is no such thing as “doing it all wrong”. (I mean, come on, one of my favorite campaigns involved a very blatantly unkillable DMPC, a rather strict script, and a TPK at the end, and I’ve already written about how that turned out.) And in war, there is particularly no such thing, and conversely no “right way”, and if there was a right way, I do not think it would be Tzuriel’s “None of this hero bullshit” ideal.
Point the first: it doesn’t work for all systems. As I often have to remind my readers when they bring up the dangers of involving gods in a plotline, I play Exalted—and almost all of the games I gripe about inevitable wars in have been in that system. (And let me tell you, you do NOT tell a group of Solars that they’re going to have to be grunts in the battle they’ve just been railroaded into. Particularly not when two of them don’t belong in a mass combat in general.) So a system-general explanation would need to take into account games in which “the PCs are all random grunts in the army” just doesn’t fit.
Point the second: it doesn’t work with all players. I, for one, would respond to someone pitching a game like that to me with “sorry, no good”, even if all my other games were gone. Nothing’s worth that much combat to me. And if someone even thinks about taking an existing game and funneling it into that, particularly if they billed it as something else entirely, I’m willing to take my PC death count up to three to get out of it.
Point the third: You don’t lose all characterization by making the PCs able to influence things. As reference, I’d like to present the game in which I play my primary character, Tuyet. Inevitable war? You bet. PCs Doing Something About It? Also a factor (and I’ll admit, a lot of it my fault—I yelled at an army as a way of dealing with not being sure what else to do, and it kinda succeeded, and next thing I know I’m playing an accidental military hero trying to end a rather pointless civil war because a. she knows how hard picking up the pieces are going to be and b. she’s a career spy who considers all these military maneuvers cheating when it comes to resolving her country’s succession). But during this game we had a whole lot of ‘dear gods why is this necessary’, making sacrifices and dealing with them, three of the four PCs went from amoral at best and downright vicious at worst to heroic, the fourth was in a near-perpetual state of crisis of confidence from considering himself responsible for the life of someone who was rather prone to seemingly suicidal strategies, and the characters were overall so well-developed that the ST was getting As in a college class with psychological evaluations of them and what aspects of their players brought them forth.
Point the fourth: That Lord of the Rings analogy? Doesn’t necessarily hold water in this case. Last three war games I was in were three different setups. One (see link, again) could have been seen as a parallel—only the DMPC’s importance was entirely retrospective (he actually came into his symbolic leader of the free world role during the story when it was vacated), and his accompaniment included at various points a severely nerfed archmage, a princess from one country, the sister of the symbolic leader of the evil country, a very quickly reformed spy for the real BBEG, and the DMPC’s semi-accidental predecessor (granted, it was going to be one of two PCs to begin with, but nobody saw which one coming). Who had every reason to be changing the course of history. Two was the aforementioned example—and sure, in the end only one of them was “in charge”, but that was only because the PC who’d originally had designs on the throne said “you’d do it better, now go on.” (And because that one was bloody flashy—but also rather regularly in need of rescue because of said flashiness. Couldn’t've been done without the whole group.) Third one: Quintet of demigods hear about an army of chaos-twisted things marching on their city and decide to fight back—some directly, one by sneaking in and sabotaging the siege engine. And even the saboteur was a sort-of-hero of the piece—not glowing the way her counterparts were, but she HAD technically saved the entire battlefield from a really nasty explosion by the end.
Point the fifth, and quite possibly the most important: When even the person who hates combat and is loudly complaining about the inability to avoid war is still having fun by the end of the game, clearly what is being done is right. On this, I will accept no arguments.
The short version? Sorry, Tzuriel, but these people aren’t any more wrong than you are.
Touche.
Before I begin my rebuttal, I must explain myself. First, thanks for your help earlier for our lonely friend. I’m pretty sure I can get her going, and have several ideas for doing so. So thanks for that you might’ve helped save an already wounded campaign. Second, I’m the kind of person, unfortunately sometimes, who speaks his mind, come hell or high water. Of course, that high water does come sometimes.
So, I’ll need to clarify my statement. I was speaking based on what’s best for me, what I’d like to do the most, and think will work best. I was also speaking on what I thought you would like best, given your statements and preferences. Personally, I have tired of playing heroes whose every step leaves an earthquake behind. It’s nice to feel special every now and then. But it tends, I’ve found, to squander your storytelling capabilities from being in the same rut for far too long. It’s fun to be a hero, but not all the time.
I was also speaking from a perspective that feels all too heavily the shadow of D&D looming over my gaming. The shadow that tells me I must be a hero who cares only for gold and killing things. Of course, I’ve played some excellent D&D games - there’s always exceptions to the rule, but the rule still stands. I believe this is the case with your war games. With the right players and GM, anything can be fun. But it’s not as good as it could be, IMHO.
Reply to point the first: Who cares? I really don’t care about systems. The system is the lens through which I create my world. If I wanna do a world in grayscale and the lens is pretty pink, I throw out the lens. If you have an idea that doesn’t work in the system you’re doing now, use a new system. It’s fairly simple as I see it.
Reply to point the second: I think you misunderstood what I’m saying. I specifically pointed out the battles are set pieces. They don’t happen that often, and are often background. The focus is on the roleplaying in your group, in your platoon, in your battalion, etc. The battles, like in most other roleplaying, serve to interrupt that and to bring on new story elements. They are never, or should never be, the focus of the campaign. If they were, I’d pass right along with you. The ideal would be max one battle the characters were actually involved in a session, maybe none. In real war, there isn’t that much combat, most of it is moving into position and setting up for the battle, particularly in modern warfare. Even in ancient warfare, where armies met at a place, duked it out all day, then retired for the night, then got up again to duke it out until one side wins, there’s a way to background the combat. Simply focus on the important moments and skip the rest until the roleplaying begins. War is all about tactics and tactics are all about roleplaying. See?
Reply to point the third: Well, yeah. But it’s always interesting to try things in a new vein. I for one find ordinary people far more fascinating than heroes. Watch some Scorsese movies and you’ll understand what I mean (not Taxi Driver, though - stick with Mean Streets, Raging Bull, The Departed). My point is, in a campaign largely focused on roleplaying instead of fighting, the necessity of a fleshed out, interesting character takes center stage, thus pushing players to make one. I’m not saying it’s impossible to make fascinating heroes. I’m saying it gets old. Every now and then, other people can be fascinating, too, no?
Reply to point the fourth: Analogy was simply an analogy, not the whole of my argument. So consider the analogy dead, though no one would doubt the importance of Robin to Batman. But no one would doubt that he was a sidekick either.
Reply to point the fifth: Yes, something was right. But there are people who could entertain themselves for weeks with just a cardboard box. That’s not a bad thing - more power to them. But why settle for a cardboard box when you could use so much more? I submit that you could’ve had a better game, a more powerful game, a more interesting game. I submit you could’ve told a better story. I don’t say that my way is the only way, or even the best way, but I do say it’s a good way, and perhaps even a better way. I know I’d enjoy it more if done right.
Again, check out the material I suggested, particularly Generation Kill. Hell, if you lived close, I’d let you borrow it.
One movie or book can be fun or entertaining, but another can be trule profound and sublime. Personally, I’d pick the latter. The same goes for games.
Glad the campaign’s working out!
Probably got a little more intense than I should’ve in the rebuttal, though like I said, I don’t do well with people who say there’s a better way to do things. Usually, their “better way” and mine clash at best. So even when someone might be right, if they’re calling ‘better’, I’ll react. (Perhaps the fact that a character in your variety of game wouldn’t even have feasibility for the war-aversion that I was calling for in the original article intensified the response. It is hard to say.)
Okay, here goes nothing….
I agree with you on the hero, but not all the time, approach, but I prefer my not-necessarily-epic-heroes to be in the middle of more mundane things. It’s a personal preference, mostly based on the idea that I can at least pretend to be semi-in-control of my circumstances in those situations enough to make up for the knowledge that such a character is definitely not; besides, in a less conflicted mundane world, there are more possible resources to be put to uses for which they were not intended that the powerful aren’t desperate enough to look for. (Let me put it this way: I can take someone who’s supposed to be empowered by Ultimate Awesomeness and make her low-key.) I’ll grant the D&D issue, but only to a point; every system has the potential for good and evil, for great character and great banality. (The most character-heavy game I’ve ever been in was a D&D game, let’s put it that way. Twenty pages PBP and the only time we even drew weapons was a practice match.)
First: Granted. Bear in mind, though, that I was coming from you basically saying that there was a right way to do this, and my various STs were doing it all wrong.
Second: Yeah, that makes sense. (Though personally, I have sufficiently little skill with tactics that that doesn’t help much, and since I prefer RPGs in which I can stretch my own skills to the limit…. I think I’d still pass.)
Three: Again, yes. But the tone rather strongly implied that heroes couldn’t be that interesting, and I was responding to that and not the idea that other people could be. (I can understand why one might think heroes are boring; I’ve seen way too many Epic Cardboard Cutouts. Though I’ve also seen too many people complaining about Epic Cardboard Cutouts even when they aren’t really such, so I’m likelier to assume people arguing “heroes can’t be interesting” than “normal people can’t be interesting”.)
Four: Agreed on both counts.
Five: ….heh, there’s no right way to respond to that. If I’d done them, they would’ve been different; probably better for me, but I’m not sure how the rest of the group would’ve reacted. (Besides, I was serving as the GM’s sounding board for about half of the one I play my primary in. It helped.)
For me, it’s important to look at as many different approaches to a situation as possible. The perspective of the soldiers will tell you a lot about what it’s like to be in a war, but there’s also the question of what it’s like to be pushed into command when you know practically nothing, or when you get strategy but aren’t used to dealing with that whole death thing. No matter which way you come from, you get something new out of it. The article you originally responded to just came from the fact that I was getting rather sick of this particular simulation.
I totally understand, Ravyn. I’m glad we were able to clarify our points and come to a semi-consensus. Though I will say that the statement about tactics was merely an example. That’s just one way to roleplaying a war game, out of many. The other examples you listed above are excellent, and can all apply to my thoughts on the war game. Not all of the soldiers need to be privates. A couple can hold higher positions. The important part would be to make them a particular unit, as roleplaying them across several units would be problematic. Personally, I’d love to play in a game like this. But, alas, I only get to GM for the next long while.
Trust me, I’m sick of that simulation, too. Though I’d love to play in a revolution campaign, because revolutions fascinate me. How do you know you’re right? Where do you go after toppling the government? Take questions like that and add in a complex, morally diverse party, and you’ve got great storytelling on your hands. But that’s just me.
DrBurst: Yeah I’ve wanted to play Call of Cthulhu for a while but haven’t been able to get my hands on it, yet. I’m begin to run a Hunter game that’s very similar in feel to it, though. Realism (as far as death and damage and all) and darkness make for great gaming, IMHO.
Tzuriel: You make excellent points, but I do have one question: Do the participants in a war story necessarily have to be soldiers?