Storytelling theory question
Jun. 2nd, 2011 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kilroySo, almost every story with any dramatic traction revolves around some character doing something that's against their best interests. This is extremely difficult to arrange in roleplaying situations-- people are extremely protective of their characters and are generally there because they want to "win." They don't react well to bad things happening to their characters and they don't usually choose to do it on their own.
There are ways to try and get around this. Classics include:
Withholding Information: The GM stacks the deck so that the character & player don't know enough to make the best decision. It's true to life, but players hate it; part of the draw of the game is that it's "fair" and their decisions matter, and this damages that illusion.
Gordian Knot: Give them a situation that can be solved, but not cleanly. They get to retain their sense of agency, you get a strong negative consequence to build some drama from. You also run the risk of them coming up with some creative and valid solution where they get to win free and clear. Players get rapidly disenchanted if you use too many of these.
Unintended Consequences: Take a good thing and make it bad by adding context. In its favor, this method doesn't require the players to do anything additional-- the GM can invent whatever circumstances are necessary to make the victory Pyrrhic. On the other hand, if you do this often or with a heavy hand, you're poisoning the well by essentially ruining fairly-won player victories.
Falling Masonry: Bad stuff just happens to characters through no fault of their own. This method is by far the easiest to implement for the GM, but can offend the players' sense of justice and fair play and doesn't have the same emotional resonance that actual mistakes do.
All of these methods are essentially storytelling sleight-of-hand, though-- they're attempts to get something into the story that the players don't want there. The real and more pressing question is how do you get players to want to make dramatic mistakes? Can that even be done in a roleplaying game?
Any thoughts?
There are ways to try and get around this. Classics include:
Withholding Information: The GM stacks the deck so that the character & player don't know enough to make the best decision. It's true to life, but players hate it; part of the draw of the game is that it's "fair" and their decisions matter, and this damages that illusion.
Gordian Knot: Give them a situation that can be solved, but not cleanly. They get to retain their sense of agency, you get a strong negative consequence to build some drama from. You also run the risk of them coming up with some creative and valid solution where they get to win free and clear. Players get rapidly disenchanted if you use too many of these.
Unintended Consequences: Take a good thing and make it bad by adding context. In its favor, this method doesn't require the players to do anything additional-- the GM can invent whatever circumstances are necessary to make the victory Pyrrhic. On the other hand, if you do this often or with a heavy hand, you're poisoning the well by essentially ruining fairly-won player victories.
Falling Masonry: Bad stuff just happens to characters through no fault of their own. This method is by far the easiest to implement for the GM, but can offend the players' sense of justice and fair play and doesn't have the same emotional resonance that actual mistakes do.
All of these methods are essentially storytelling sleight-of-hand, though-- they're attempts to get something into the story that the players don't want there. The real and more pressing question is how do you get players to want to make dramatic mistakes? Can that even be done in a roleplaying game?
Any thoughts?