Quote from: Sommerjon;805571No I don't agree with players take on the roles of people in the environment and these people have their own goals, aims and foibles. full stop.

Then I guess you shouldn't play with people who do. But then it sounds like you don't.

QuoteGetting away with murdering someone in a RPG is child's play.

Really? That sounds...dull.

QuoteNo I game with people who aren't their characters 24/7/365.  What happens at the table is a caricature of a self serving quasi-sociopathic or idealistic selfless altruistic.

Outside of a Jack Chick comic, the first part is true of everyone who plays RPGs. The last part sounds really weird. Are you really saying the purpose of playing an RPG is to caricature a gang of sociopathiic altruists?

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;805575I am fine with player versus player, and with conflict occurring within the party (in fact I'd say I prefer it), but if you are forcing that on a group that has no interest, you are being a dick and that is what gives the style of play a bad name. This boils down to being able to read the room and know what people at the table consider acceptable gaming behavior. There is a reason "it's what my character would do" is synonymous with being a jerk. Some folks simply don't seem to know when they are antagonizing the rest of the group. It is a spectrum. Some folks are cool with a bit of internal conflict, some are fine with outright violent confrontation, some want a purely competitive style of play, and others want the party to basically get a long. You really need to know what kind of group you are in before you go stabbing a PC in the middle of the night.

This is way too nuanced. I'm not sure you're allowed to post in this thread.

Quote from: Will;805584Maybe you haven't been doing it right.

RPGs are games first and foremost; if your goal is something else, then yes, I think there are better ways to achieve that.

QuoteAnd the fiction I'm interested in is where the players are heroes of some kind.

I don't see how this has anything to do with cooperative play, honestly. In fiction, heroes don't always get along, and sometimes are directly at odds with each other. Of course, if we ASSume RPGs are a game, and thus the players are on the same team, they have a common goal to strive for. Either the characters are independent actors, or they're game pieces. In the former case, you *might* end up with conflict, even if the players aren't being dicks. Half of Captain America's time is spent getting disparate personalities to work with each other, not actually fighting crime. Would you consider Thor getting into a pissing match with the Hulk not being heroes? I can't even name one instance the Thing didn't try to throw down with Hulk in the comics...but hey, still heroes.

Quote from: Brad;805587I don't see how this has anything to do with cooperative play, honestly. In fiction, heroes don't always get along, and sometimes are directly at odds with each other.

Don't you know, Marvel Superheroes always get along!

Except that time that Tony Stark supported registration of superpowers

Or that time Captain America demanded Cyclops hand over his granddaughter.

Or that time...

Oh wait, no, no they don't.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;805554Fascinating thread. For some historical perspective, may I suggest Gary Fine's "Shared Fantasy" (University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-24943-3), chapter four, page 145 for how this issue played out in Prof. Barker's campaign?

Phil did indeed have a group that actively encouraged PvP, mostly in the form of chicanery.  There is a good reason I switched groups; I wanted to fight the Yan  Koryani, not other players.

Quote from: Will;805584Maybe you haven't been doing it right.

Or maybe he has.

EDIT:  I agree with his premise; RPGs are a shitty way to do collaborate storytelling.  The successful RPGs I've seen in 42 years are those that think first and foremost about players having fun.

I have an extremely low threshold for pseudo-intellectual/literary pretentious wankery, especially after watching it destroy Tekumel.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;805555I won't speak to the Glorious General's experience - I doubt I'm qualified to do so! - but speaking for myself, I have indeed had astounding luck in not having had to game with assholes. I've played at a few conventions and hobby shops over the years, as well as at a few friend's houses, I can think of only two or three real assholes that I've met in that time; I didn't play with the one, after I caught him pocketing some of my miniatures, and I simply refused to game with the two who routinely cheated on dice rolls.

Coffman Union on Tuesday nights was mostly plagued with ding-a-lings rather than assholes, but we did a fair job of avoiding them too.

I guess we've been lucky/atypical in always having a large group of potential players to choose from.  Honestly, some of the experiences people write about make me shake my head.  I wouldn't put up with that sort of nonsense, and neither would you... we have railroads to build, after all.

My hobby time is precious; I'm not going to waste it policing some overgrown adolescent's shitty behavior.

Or in the words of Bill Hoyt, "Don't game with psychopaths."

As for my actual opinion on the topic: I like player conflict, though I prefer it stay below actually trying to kill/harm the other character.

If it happens though, and it makes sense in context (and the player didn't just make an asshole character to be an asshole), then eh, I go with it.

I once played in an L5R game that experienced a near TPK before the GM managed to actually introduce anything beyond a bridge where we met. The only reason it wasn't a TPK is my character just kind of stood there, then crossed the bridge after everyone else killed each other over the slights they perceived. (I apparently, being the contemplative Dragon, was the only one who wasn't hotheaded).

Quote from: Emperor Norton;805597I once played in an L5R game that experienced a near TPK before the GM managed to actually introduce anything beyond a bridge where we met. The only reason it wasn't a TPK is my character just kind of stood there, then crossed the bridge after everyone else killed each other over the slights they perceived. (I apparently, being the contemplative Dragon, was the only one who wasn't hotheaded).

that actually sounds pretty cool. :cool: But I bet it would have been even better with some kind of flute music and slow motion.

Heh those shame-culture warrior societies, gotta love 'em.  I wonder how all the "never PvP" crowd do playing Vikings or Samurai.  Do you not allow PCs to insult other PCs honor either?   What about their family's honor?  Someone to who you didn't know they had giri?  Hell, how do you even think about running a Roman campaign without the possibility of PvP?

First, very often they don't.

Second, honor cultures often have very definite and elaborate rules around honor, and many people who don't like PvP don't like it because a significant number of assholes use it as an excuse to dick around with people rather than play a character with a strong sense of honor.

Third, can we not go down the "we are manly men playing manly games full of manly PvP" route?

Fourth, different people like different things.

Quote from: Old Geezer;805601First, very often they don't.

Second, honor cultures often have very definite and elaborate rules around honor, and many people who don't like PvP don't like it because a significant number of assholes use it as an excuse to dick around with people rather than play a character with a strong sense of honor.

Third, can we not go down the "we are manly men playing manly games full of manly PvP" route?

Fourth, different people like different things.

I didn't say "If you don't like PvP, you don't have the stones to play a Samurai, Viking or Roman." What I asked was how do you deal with playing with cultures that can require the defense of honor and reputation through combat if players are actually banned from PvP.  Doesn't have to be those cultures either.  

Renaissance Italian city states seems like another tough one.  "Players are all family members." Ok, is primogeniture banned too?  

Say goodbye to an entire genre with cyberpunk, etc.

If every session turned into The Reservoir Dogs, I'd get new players before I'd go meta on the restrictions, seems to defeat the whole purpose of role-playing, no different then the railroading GM who says "No, you can't turn left, you go right."

PvP is tedious shit that slows the game down for no fun reason. Except usually for the arsehole who thinks it's fun for them, because it isn't for anyone else at the table.

I have no time to indulge some twat's love of messing with other people at the table, just because they can.

Quote from: CRKrueger;805604I didn't say "If you don't like PvP, you don't have the stones to play a Samurai, Viking or Roman." What I asked was how do you deal with playing with cultures that can require the defense of honor and reputation through combat if players are actually banned from PvP.  Doesn't have to be those cultures either.  

Renaissance Italian city states seems like another tough one.  "Players are all family members." Ok, is primogeniture banned too?  

Say goodbye to an entire genre with cyberpunk, etc.

If every session turned into The Reservoir Dogs, I'd get new players before I'd go meta on the restrictions, seems to defeat the whole purpose of role-playing, no different then the railroading GM who says "No, you can't turn left, you go right."

Fair enough.

I've encountered a lot more assholes than I have players who want to play a character or setting with a strong honor culture, myself.

The difference is, the assholes don't get a second chance.

Quote from: Will;805584Maybe you haven't been doing it right.

I have had quite a bit of experience in collaborative fiction specifically alternate history. I understand it quite well. Games are useful to decide the outcome of a plot point when the group doesn't have a consensus on what to do with it. But gaming is not the focus, working on a story is.

Tabletop Roleplaying is designed around player agency. This is what makes tabletop a poor fit for collaborative fiction. When a player is stopped from doing something he can do as his character for a out of game reason it is metagaming.

Quote from: Old Geezer;805594Or maybe he has.

EDIT:  I agree with his premise; RPGs are a shitty way to do collaborate storytelling.  The successful RPGs I've seen in 42 years are those that think first and foremost about players having fun.

I have an extremely low threshold for pseudo-intellectual/literary pretentious wankery, especially after watching it destroy Tekumel.

I'm sorry that storytelling games touched you in your no-no place.

But, you know what? At my table, 'collaborative storytelling' has pretty much been synonymous with 'focus on players having fun.' Only 30 years, not 42, but hey.


I have an extremely low threshold for people pulling the 'you are having fun wrong,' whichever flag it happens to be flying under.