Versus and Co-Op Modes of Play

[Paul B]

So Chilly and I were talking the other day about this concept I had for an upcoming BW game. I want to amp up the overall competence/power level of the game but I also wanted to ratchet up the overall intensity.

The theme is simple enough: Every character has a score to settle. That is, one of your Beliefs is about your score, who it's with and how you're going to settle it. No other guidelines. Your beef can be with another PC, with an NPC, an organization, anything else one might find on the relationship map.

While this sounds like huge fun to me -- I'm envisioning a blood-soaked tale of vengeance and passion -- Rob (Chilly's street name; don't tell anyone) points out that our group is already struggling with the notion of PC-versus-PC conflicts. He's right of course, and simply announcing "it's okay, you can have conflicts with each other!" is not an adequate solution.

Some of this is old baggage. Some of this is players learning how to disengage from their characters -- getting into and out of the cockpit. Thinking more like a GM. A lot of it, IMO, is a lack of awareness of the differences between your fun, my fun, and our fun.

I'm thinking this needs to be a foundational question during our game setup: "Are we playing this in versus or co-op mode?"

I'm also hoping there's room for conditional "versus" play. I wouldn't want players who are comfortable with their characters coming into conflict to be prohibited from doing so.

Anyway, just some rambling. If I could "fix" one part of our group's play, it would be this: Separate the players from their characters, and get them enthusiastic -- not just okay! -- about putting their characters into conflicts with each other.

p.

[Z-Dog]

The theme is simple enough: Every character has a score to settle. That is, one of your Beliefs is about your score, who it's with and how you're going to settle it. No other guidelines. Your beef can be with another PC, with an NPC, an organization, anything else one might find on the relationship map.


I love it. Set it in a city and make everyone part of the thieves guild. Or everyone's a politician. Or a group of mercenaries. Or members of a church. Or all of the above. It'd be awesome!

[Liam]

Odd Idea: If your group is split between versus and co-op, maybe you could borrow from mmorgs and flag their characters as pvp or carebear. then your cautious players can see what happens when PCs conflict while knowing their safe from that. And if they see how fun it can be, then they might decide to join in also.

[Paul B]

Flags: Not an odd idea at all! That's exactly the sort of arrangement I was hoping for by allowing for conditional versus play.

Whoa.

A really interesting bolt of...something...just leapt into my head. Might wander into theoretical territory.

Something #1: A PVP "flag" in an MMO type of thing is an invitation of sorts: "Come do your worst, I'm ready for you." In RPG terms it would also be a "flag" because you're letting everyone know that you're open to PVP action. But it's also an indication of what you want to actively do, the kind of fun you're going to pursue: I want the challenge of defeating a live human being. In this context, Live Human Being = another player, not the GM.

The GM, right or wrong, is expected to be responsible for Group Fun. While probably everyone "should" be responsible for Group Fun, it's just not been the arrangement.

Something #2: The very concept of PVP is player versus player. There is no attempt at differentiating between a player and a player's bunch of pixels. The relationship is intentionally left ambiguous. When I get jumped in EVE, it's not some guy's ship jumping my ship, it's some punk kid on the other end of a cable modem jumping me.

But in the RPG world there's this attempt at separating player from character, letting players cooperate openly in setting up conflicts between characters. Burning play philosophy actually requires this separation.

Meanwhile, there's also this ideological stance that RPGs are games like any other, that everyone needs to follow the rules, etc. But in many other game out there, the social contract is clear that there can be only one winner of any game (except for games that allow for team victory, that are built to be cooperative vs. the game or vs. a single player, and games that allow for "everyone loses" results -- obviously there's a lot of wiggle room). But there's still that socialization that there are winners and losers.

I think maybe the players who are uncomfortable with conflicts between PCs actually have it right: They really are treating the RPG like any other game. And in any other game there is a winner and there are lots of losers. Except for those games that allow for team victory, or are vs. the game or a single player, or where everyone can lose. RPGs have probably settled into some nether realm that's none of these. And that's working to the detriment of the hobby/activity/games.

In the short term: PVP flags. Brilliant. Fucking brilliant. If you flag yourself a PVP player, you're both willing to be engaged by another player and are signaling that you wish to engage with another player. But it's explicit.

p.

[ChrisG]

I ran a recent one-shot where every player had to write the Belief "Why you don't trust the character played by the player to your left, and what you're going to do about it." Part of why it worked was the surprise factor, but a big part was that friends tend to sit next to each at the table, so there was a comfort factor knowing you could write "... run him through" and not ruin anyone's day.

The other thing that worked was the what you're going to do about it was just sorta naturally negotiated by the two people at odds, with input from the table. So we got plenty of interesting intents--get him to confess; take him down a peg, publicly; betray him; etc. PvP doesn't need to mean death, even though that's usually what scares people about it.