EDIT: I regret to inform everyone that Storygames already invented words for this. They're called Hard and Soft Actions.
I think we've all had a player do something outrageous that threw a wrench in the whole night, and the game descended into bickering. It's what happens when you have an opposite pairing like necromancer/cleric, thief/paladin, or gnome/person. Pretty much every highschool game eventually included a scene like this:
NECROMANCER: I kill the orphan for his insolence!
PALADIN: What the hell!?
NECROMANCER: He was insolent!
PALADIN: I can't adventure with an orphan-murderer! This isn't even an Evil campaign! I guess we fight to the death now!? Again!?
The long term solution to this is complex and probably involves emotional growth, but the post office closes soon and I don't have time to tell write a comprehensive guide to emotional growth before I run errands, so I'm just going to share the title technique:
The Denial Setup is simply a declaration of intent, or a precursor action, such that another character can veto your goal. In this way, you get to roleplay, express your intent and your desires, but without suffering the actual consequences or drama that would result from acting them out. We see this all the time in media: Pretty much every time a villain joins the heroes for one episode, there's a scene like this. Here's the example from before, with a Denial Setup
---
NECROMANCER: And for your insolence... I give you DEATH! *I raise the knife really high and cackle for a bit.*
PALADIN: Hey! *I swat the knife out of his hand.* No killing!
NECROMANCER: *angry grumbling*
---
See? Isn't that nice? The evil character's evil intentions were enough to establish his evil, but because he didn't act on them, the spirit of teamwork and the campaign are still completely intact. This kind of choreographed failure is a key part of maintaining a functioning antagonism, whether it's between good and evil PCs, clerics of rival gods, elves and dwarves, or whatever.
I think we've all had a player do something outrageous that threw a wrench in the whole night, and the game descended into bickering. It's what happens when you have an opposite pairing like necromancer/cleric, thief/paladin, or gnome/person. Pretty much every highschool game eventually included a scene like this:
NECROMANCER: I kill the orphan for his insolence!
PALADIN: What the hell!?
NECROMANCER: He was insolent!
PALADIN: I can't adventure with an orphan-murderer! This isn't even an Evil campaign! I guess we fight to the death now!? Again!?
The long term solution to this is complex and probably involves emotional growth, but the post office closes soon and I don't have time to tell write a comprehensive guide to emotional growth before I run errands, so I'm just going to share the title technique:
The Denial Setup is simply a declaration of intent, or a precursor action, such that another character can veto your goal. In this way, you get to roleplay, express your intent and your desires, but without suffering the actual consequences or drama that would result from acting them out. We see this all the time in media: Pretty much every time a villain joins the heroes for one episode, there's a scene like this. Here's the example from before, with a Denial Setup
---
NECROMANCER: And for your insolence... I give you DEATH! *I raise the knife really high and cackle for a bit.*
PALADIN: Hey! *I swat the knife out of his hand.* No killing!
NECROMANCER: *angry grumbling*
---
See? Isn't that nice? The evil character's evil intentions were enough to establish his evil, but because he didn't act on them, the spirit of teamwork and the campaign are still completely intact. This kind of choreographed failure is a key part of maintaining a functioning antagonism, whether it's between good and evil PCs, clerics of rival gods, elves and dwarves, or whatever.
I don't think this approach is broadly applicable. There are many instances regarding such conflicts that aren't based in morality, but there are still conlicting interests (like when 4 out of 5 are planning for a stealth mission, but the fifth player just runs in blazing).
ReplyDeleteThat would depend on the source of the disagreement. If Gerald declares that his character runs in, guns blazing, because Gerald dislikes stealth sessions, then you're correct that this approach will not be helpful. That's a disagreement between players about the modes of play.
DeleteOn the other hand, if Gerald is fine with a stealth mission, but Gerald's character is Torgoth the Shoutful, then this is a perfect way for Gerald to express that his character would *try* to do something dumb to ruin the stealth mission without actually ruining the mission.