“Come not between the dragon and his wrath” — King Lear (1.1.123)
The Third Sin: Wrath
When something goes seriously awry in your game, resorting to the emotion of Wrath can be one of the most dangerous responses, both on part of the GM and the players. Other problems may arise at the gaming table, but Wrath is by far the most dangerous, both to the game itself and to the friendships involved. When you give way to anger in a game you endanger not only the tenuous fabric of your shared imagination, but also the very real and tangible friendships you have with your fellow gamers. It is very easy to get caught up in the action of the game, and the investment we put into it is not so easily dismissed, but it must be remembered that the essential purpose of gaming (at least for most of us) is to have fun.
When frustration, the harbinger of Wrath, and its lesser sibling, anger, are the main products of a gaming session it might just be time to step away from the table for a while. It is common to get …
frustrated (say with despondent players),
slighted (perhaps by another member of the party),
or heartbroken (it’s not easy to lose a character you’ve been playing for six months),
and anger is a natural response. I’m not sure if there really is a way to completely avoid the cycle of frustration, anger and Wrath in a gaming environment. When we take something as seriously as most of us do our gaming, then it is only natural that we will feel powerful emotions when something goes wrong. The only thing I have really learned from long and sometimes painful experience is that it does sometimes help to try to put it all in perspective, take a deep breath and repeat to yourself, “It’s only a game.”
I don’t mean this to in any way denigrate or make light of what we do as gamers. Obviously, I feel great passion for the game, or I wouldn’t have spent days, months, years and decades playing. I certainly wouldn’t be writing this article if I didn’t think it was important. However, I am aware of the fact that we gamers sometimes do get carried away. Our passion for the game, a noble and laudable thing in and of itself, can take a dark turn. I have seen friendships end at the gaming table. Once, early on in high school, I actually witnessed one player attempt to strangle another over something that happened in game. I’m not talking about a little playful rough housing here; the victim was starting to turn blue when I pulled his assailant off of him. It later turned out that the aggressor was a bit of a disturbed person, and this is probably a very extreme case, but it may help illustrate why I take this particular gaming sin so seriously and why I may be a little overly reactive when addressing it.
How do you avoid the sin of Wrath? One way is to stay on top of potentially explosive situations and occasionally take a break if someone gets a little hot under the collar. If the anger is a reaction to something you control as the GM, use your godlike powers to intervene. Perhaps your duelist villain has just landed a series of zinging “ad hominem” attacks on one of your more insecure and less quick-tongued players. If the player responds in kind, so much the better, but if he or she over-identifies with the character’s faults and begins to get truly upset, break the tension. Have the duelist screw something up to take the sting out of the attack; let the watching crowd boo his latest witticism. You might even throw out another insult that splutters and falls flat. The trick is turning real wrath into constructive, “in-character” anger. It’s great if the players hate your major bad guy. Things are a little less pleasant when they hate you. When things don’t always go perfectly for the villain, they’re less likely to see you as synonymous with him.
The other major generator of Wrath comes from within the party. Often one player will become upset with another player, for a real or imagined slight in or out of the game, and decide to take out his or her anger within the game. Whether this stems from something that happened at the table, or is the result of external factors, your response is the same: deal with it. Ideally, deal with it in-game.
As GM you are the “referee” of fun; it is your job to make sure everyone enjoys himself or herself. This is not really such a monstrous task (remember those godlike powers) as it might seem, and there are plenty of opportunities to soothe the savage tempers of your players. If the other players don’t step in, you need to act to bring them out of conflict. If you can’t just reason with them (perhaps through an NPC), you may need to take more drastic action.
One technique that works well is to present an external threat that forces them to band together to overcome it; it may be a bit clichéd, but clichés work. I think of this as the “Battle of the Five Armies” strategy. Another possibility is to make one player reliant on another for assistance. If you notice a building hostility between two players, give one of them a resource that can help or save the rival character. Most players are friends, and given the chance to remember this mutual affinity, that fact will win out.
There are a few general comments left to make on the subject, mostly a series of “caveats.” I do not subscribe to the idea that inner-party conflict builds useful tension. It might work well in play-by-mail games or special settings (like the old game Paranoia), wherein anger is held at bay by distance or humor. But, in a traditional game it doesn’t have much of a place. Someone will always end up feeling slighted, and in this kind of situation they’ll probably also feel like you’re ganging up on them. On the other hand, if the players develop a friendly rivalry (or even a not so friendly one if they are good players who can separate the game from reality) and they obviously have it under control, you don’t have to squash it just to avoid a disaster in the future. What is important to watch for in cases like this is a mutual agreement to be at odds. If they both accept it for what it is, and use the opportunity to build their characters, then it’s good. If one feels threatened, or if it’s unilateral, then it might be time to step in. †
It’s a common problem. (Bear with me here) I suppose I look at it more from my larp experiences than any table top group. In large scale larp, the primary antagonists are other players. PvP (Player vs Player) is a central theme for most of these venues. Vampire the Masquerade and Vampire the Requiem specifically are built with that core assumption in mind. Interestingly enough, that doesn’t necessarily apply to the table top versions of those games, where it’s assumed a small group of players will form coteries.
What I’ve see in LARP, is groups of players will form coteries then will often work towards a specific goal, sometimes the goal is PvE (Player vs environment) and they work together to optimize their PC’s to that end. However, there are a larger number of players who form coteries who are specifically geared for PvP, whether that is in the social arena, or more geared for killboxes. (A killbox is a specific form of scene where a group of smart players attempts to take out a target, usually at a convention, and gather together to do so). What ends up happening, is many players get upset at the loss of their characters and quit about half of the time. In the MES, they alleviated some of the frustration of losing a PC, by setting chronicle minimum xp, or a floor, as well as including accelerated growth for characters who are behind the curve. It does appear to taken the sting out of some of the loss players feel when their characters die, though the emotional aspect isn’t really blunted at all. As a result there’s a certain amount of resentment towards players who play in the PvP arena, even though it’s a common enough theme of the games.
Translating this into a tabletop group. Admittedly with a smaller group of players player vs player conflict is less common and when it does happen, it can easily lead to hurt feelings or individuals being upset. However, I don’t think it should be outlawed or dismissed as an ineffective story tool. I think rivalries are great story, and don’t necessarily lead to outright conflict. I also have witnessed PvP make lasting stories that the players will tell over and over. Obviously you need a solid, mature group to pull this off correctly.
In my Red Sun Rising campaign for L5R, one of the players was subverted by the Shadow Dragon, a cunning and malevolent entity that desired nothing more than the destruction of it’s kin, and the ultimate goal of rewriting the fabric of reality into it’s own image. As the campaign moved forward towards it’s epic conclusion, the player started to sabotage efforts subtly. When a second player was subverted, he didn’t fall to the corruption nearly as far, but he too served a purpose. The campaign came to a head at a cave in the heart of a mountain, where the dragons had all touched the mortal realm for the first time. There the mad emperor was planning on killing his sister and using her divine blood to open a portal to the realm of the dragons, where he could then use her blood to poison the elemental dragon of water, and strike it down. The players rushed into the cave, and were delayed by the second PC, who asked them to wait while he scouted out the area. This final delay, combined with the minor setbacks they kept facing (all because of the first player) gave the emperor enough time to enact his ritual to cross over. Our protagonists arrived just too late to stop him from crossing over, but arrived in the nick of time to cast a healing spell upon the Princess to save her. After the Emperor crossed back over, the PC’s quickly dispatched him, as they were able to jump him before he had time to react. During the fighting, a shroud of darkness enveloped the temple and when it finally lit back up, the rest of the party saw the first PC standing over the princess, who was now mortally wounded. Out of spells, and out of options the leader of the party cut down the aforementioned traitor, and appealed to the sun goddess to save the descendent of her child, exchanging his life for hers.
It was a powerful scene, made especially poignant by the sacrifices they had made and fought for. The player refused to believe that all was lost, and despite some sharp words to the other player (M*ther F*r was thrown around quite a bit if I recall). To this day they talk about that final scene. Sometimes in jest, as they tease the player who betrayed the party, sometimes though they talk about how it made them all feel emotion when it happened. To me, as a storyteller, that is my ultimate goal.
So in the end I while I don’t actively encourage pvp, or party conflict, I feel that it has a place at the table, and can be beneficial if managed correctly and everyone involved ultimately has fun.
Raicheck,
That’s a solid argument, and I can see how there is the potential for inner party conflict to lead to some pretty amazing plot lines, such as the very epic campaign you described. I do think, however, that the kind of game you are describing is really a special case. It sounds like a very careful and intricate plot led up to the epic culmination of a whole campaign that depended on the inner party conflict for the resolution (admittedly, I may be missing something or reading too much in).
I’ll certainly concede that, in very special and particularly contrived circumstances, inter party conflict can have merit (and I mentioned a few examples in the article as exceptions), especially when you have a very mature group of players who are really committed to role playing. I know my blanket statement that “I do not subscribe to the idea that inner-party conflict builds useful tension,” could be read as contentious or even provocative, and like all such statements is bound to be an over generalization. However, I still do think that inter party conflict is, in general, far more trouble than it is worth.
I would point out, referencing your own example, that even though your game ended in a memorable fashion, that conflict lead to the death of multiple characters and, by your own admission, in some pretty hostile language. I can’t imagine many campaigns or even gaming groups surviving such an apocalypse.
Still, I concede that there will always be exceptions, though I do wonder if this is one of the sort that actually proves the rule. I do think that by far the most common result of such conflict is the sort of animosity and bad feeling you note as resulting from the PVP conflicts in your LARP experience.
My own experience with LARPing was quite limited to my time in school in England about two decades ago where it seemed much more popular than back here in the states (my brief attempt to transplant it here was apparently ahead of its time – I see LARP groups all over now). The sessions I attended were a lot of fun but never really featured the kind of massive, organized and factional play you describe (more’s the pity). Still, the huge attrition rate of losing half your players when character deaths are caused by PvP action only heightens my concerns about inner party conflict. I’d hate to see similar losses at the gaming table, and I suspect that the casualties would be on a similar scale. I desperately want gaming to grow and flourish as a hobby, and I do – I think rightly – worry that games involving lots of player versus player conflict might not help recruit and retain players.
In closing, let me just say that my hat is off to you for managing inner party conflict with skill and making it a vital and productive part of your game. I also thank you for the well crafted and articulate contradiction. I may not be convinced, but you have certainly made me revisit and re-evaluate my stance, and for that I thank you!
Hey you guys have a great site, and it’s kind of my inspiration for putting my own thoughts up onto the web. I appreciate you all taking the time to put this up, and I love engaging in dialogue about the art and craft of storytelling. I’ve picked up quite a bit from your articles that have caused me to really think upon what I’ve been working with. It’s been a breath of fresh air.
I feel like that I left out a few key points in what I was saying. The plot line didn’t revolve around players becoming corrupted. Initially when it happened, it surprised me that the player was willing to do so in the first place. At that point I really only had two main options. One was to run with it, and incorporate it into the campaign. The other was to take control of the pc, and go from there. I opted to go with the former as I saw advantages to it happening.
The player of the daimyo (the one who cut the traitor down and gave his life to save the princess) is a very passionate individual, and great fun to game with. The rest of the group was laughing and having a grand time while he was cussing, more because he hates to lose more than any form of real anger at the player(s) of the traitors.
My Larp experiences, have shown be a good deal of both the positive and negative aspects of PVP. I’ve dealt with it from what I believe to be all of the viewpoints there. I’ve been a bystander, the storyteller, the instigator, and the receiver, as well as the person to pick up the pieces afterwards.
I think you pointed out the key to dealing with it is the players being mature enough to handle it. There are certainly groups where I wouldn’t encourage PvP at all.
L5R is kind of a special case. One of the rules in that system that makes it work so well for the kind of campaign that happened there, is what they call a kharmic rebirth. The setting is a samurai based game, and if it were more in line with the standard western model, losing a PC would be a major blow to the campaign. In L5R players are encouraged to seek out heroic, honorable deaths when appropriate, as they can turn around and make a relative or descendent of the PC at the same insight level to pick up where they left off. Conversely if they opt for cowardly actions and end up dying anyways, they don’t get the kharmic rebirth.