TTRPGs and Anti-Hero Fail.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Seriously man, what the fuck? Every thread you've made for months now is some "bawwww how come people don't play the way I play" bullshit.

Well, I won't deny being one of those weepy soccer mom bleeding heart liberals who wring their hands at the injustice of it all, because I am, but I am passionate about traditional game design. And comparing me to shadzar hurts. So let me explain myself and my game design philosophies. This is really theoretical and subjective crap and it's nothing more than my opinion, so I don't care if you think I'm full of crap. Just hear me out.

[*] I believe that there are no sacred cows. I advocate weird optional shit like WoF and defaulting to non-lethality and save points and other marginal postmodern shit not so much because I believe that it's the best way forward but because I'm not convinced that the tropes and memes of traditional game design are That Well Supported. I've advocated for a lot of game design theory that I've ended up abandoning after being convinced that orthodoxy is better in a certain area. And I'd like to think that even if TGD doesn't really break any new ground with game design, then we at least test current assumptions. As said in another thread: "While not every different idea is better, every better idea is by definition different."

[*] Feel that social engineering and cultural zeitgeist are extremely overlooked part of game design. I straight up reject the idea that writers and game designers don't engage in extensive social engineering or that it's even possible to avoid it. I thus find questions like 'why do you want people to play or think in a certain way' completely nonsensical, as if it was possible to do otherwise. To me, it's like asking 'why do you want your painting to visually strike the observer in a certain way' or 'why do you want your story to engage the reader's emotions in a certain way'. It's just straight-up not possible when you're writing a sufficiently game or a story, even a highly interactive one, to engage and lead the audience direction in a certain way.

[*] I consider the playing of traditional games, especially TTRPGs, to be a form of art. Yes, really, I am one of those people. Specifically, Interactive theater. Most people agree that TTRPGs are a form of improvisational roleplay but simultaneously engage it in a form of passive entertainment where players don't really interact with it. Like a video game, its kissing cousin. There's nothing wrong with that, but I also get the feeling that most game designers (myself included) don't know how to engage people beyond that.

[*] I also believe that game designers have or at least taken on a social and moral responsibility to their audience, like all artists. Of course games are unique in that they form a separate social utility and I don't necessarily value moral enrichment more than entertainment. I rate Tetris, for example, as benefiting humanity more than, say, Parts, a brilliant Indian play about the morality of enriching people at the cost of bodily liberty despite (or rather, because) the fact that the former can be enjoyed by a 2-year old. And of course if the game isn't good enough you'll sink both aspects of it. But of course the story is in a constant tension with the actual gameplay and one of them has to give -- of course that's why I find traditional game design more interesting than non-interactive storytelling, but that's another story.

Regardless, though, I also think that it's totally possible to have both in a game. Because, well, that's the stuff that makes things echo through time. The Merry Wives of Windsor is a funny play, but people remember Jon Falstaff's character arc in Henry IV and V more precisely because Shakespeare expertly blended moral instruction with humor. I was very excited when Chamomile and Prak Anima tried to revive the Dead Man's Hand setting because I really think that they're on to something. But unfortunately it seems to be stalled out. Oh, well.


But anyway. This thread and my other threads? This is a reflection of the above design philosophies.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Besides, as per the OP, you simultaneously want to not handwave away how evil characters are and also not depict them as how evil they are. You can't really do both; you either need to depict them as evil and let your readers try and relate in spite of this (likely because his evil seems rational, warranted, or at least mitigated in his mind or the prose or whatever), or you try to imply how evil they are without ever making them evil, which no one will remember and you'll be left with just another angsty, but largely heroic, character.

I don't think that it's impossible to square the circle. While the reactions to the John Falstaffs and Sephiroths and Dexters and Jack Bauers represent a failure (minor in the case of Sephiroth, catastrophic in the case of Jack Bauer) somewhere along the chain, we also have a slate of anti-heroes that have deeply enriched our tradition beyond just entertaining us. Like Frankenstein and Gordon Gekko and Han Solo and Rorschach.

What I want to know and hence the point of this thread is what makes characters like Gordon Gekko click but make the God Emperor of Mankind represent a, in my mind, storytelling failure. If that can be figured out the applications for TTRPG storytelling should be obvious.

[deaddmwalking]

First off, people respect success. Even if they disagree with everything else about that person. If bad guys are not successful, they are bufoons.

The best examples of this are 'opposing generals'. Rommel and Lee are well-respected even by their opponents because they were capable commanders, even if they were on the wrong side.

Gekko is successful in business. Even if we disagree with his methods and his priorities, being successful in business isn't easy, and so we respect his ABILITY, even if we don't respect him as a person.

Beyond success, even if a person is 'morally reprehensible', people can't hate him as much as they should if he is charismatic.

A villain that attacks like a mad-dog is worthy only of contempt. A suave sophisticate who is a TERRIBLE PERSON, but is able to 'put someone at ease' despite that fact, 'clicks'. Hannibal Lector probably fits in this category, as does the Devil in any representation as a 'suited man' as opposed to a 'scary bearded goat monster with a pitchfork'.

This is why monsters you're supposed to hate are usually ugly.

[hyzmarca]

Besides, as per the OP, you simultaneously want to not handwave away how evil characters are and also not depict them as how evil they are. You can't really do both; you either need to depict them as evil and let your readers try and relate in spite of this (likely because his evil seems rational, warranted, or at least mitigated in his mind or the prose or whatever), or you try to imply how evil they are without ever making them evil, which no one will remember and you'll be left with just another angsty, but largely heroic, character.

I don't think that it's impossible to square the circle. While the reactions to the John Falstaffs and Sephiroths and Dexters and Jack Bauers represent a failure (minor in the case of Sephiroth, catastrophic in the case of Jack Bauer) somewhere along the chain, we also have a slate of anti-heroes that have deeply enriched our tradition beyond just entertaining us. Like Frankenstein and Gordon Gekko and Han Solo and Rorschach.

What I want to know and hence the point of this thread is what makes characters like Gordon Gekko click but make the God Emperor of Mankind represent a, in my mind, storytelling failure. If that can be figured out the applications for TTRPG storytelling should be obvious.

It's simple, really. Villains act. Heroes react.

Jack Baur's use of torture is a reaction to the situations he finds himself in. It's also an appropriate and necessary reaction. Jack doesn't go out and just torture people for shits and giggles. He does it beacuse people are going to die if he doesn't.

Pretty much every modern hero ever breaks countless laws and customs of society during his quest, whatever that may be. Those get glossed over because the the concept of necessity exists. It is permissible to do a small evil in order to avoid a greater evil This is combined with doing evil unto evil, that is that it is permissible, even just, to harm someone who is in the wrong in order to save someone who is innocent. Both are strongly intertwined with self-defense and defense of others.

Jack Bauer crosses lines that have to be crossed in order to save innocent people and he wouldn't cross them in any other circumstances. That's not only permissible, it's laudable.

The problem with the whole 24 torture example is not that torture is never permissible, it can be in very narrow circumstances. The problem is advocates of torture are applying it in circumstances that do not in any way match the criteria for necessity and then using argueing necessity to support their position.

It's like advocating gunning down random people and then using self-defense to argue why this should be legal.


But if you want someone to come off as the bad guy, that person has to be pro-active not reactive. Bad guys cause problems, good guys solve them.

[Fuchs]

People disagree that torture is ok even if it saves lives. The end does not justify the means.

[Endovior]

People disagree that torture is ok even if it saves lives. The end does not justify the means.

Disagree strongly. There are always ends important enough to justify any means. Torture is kinda bad, sure... but death is worse. If it's absolutely necessary to torture someone to save lives, you torture them, and save the lives. Similarly, if it's absolutely necessary to nuke a city to save the world, you nuke the city, and you save the world. If you're the kind of person who draws lines in your mind that cannot be crossed ever under whatever circumstance, then there are bad things out there that you cannot prevent. That's not an example of laudable moral certainty, that's cowardice. Heroes are either better then that, making those hard choices regardless of what others think of them for it... or they fail to do so, and lament their weakness as people die, and the world burns around them.

[Whipstitch]

Jack doesn't go out and just torture people for shits and giggles.

Yeah, wantonness is very much a defining factor of dog kicking moments and helps explain why in many instances rape is a more effective way of upsetting an audience than murder. Killing is socially sanctioned in many instances and the very finality of the act gives it a sort of grim utility that we can understand whereas a plain as day sexual assault cannot really be uncoupled from malice so easily.

[deaddmwalking]

Heroes are either better then that, making those hard choices regardless of what others think of them for it... or they fail to do so, and lament their weakness as people die, and the world burns around them.

Villain: I'd never kick a puppy. That's what I have minions for.
Minion [kicks puppy]

[Lago PARANOIA]

deaddmwalking/hyzmarca: While knowing what makes a villain in a story work is an extremely important question -- and in my opinion, more important than this thread -- I'm more curious as to your thoughts on what makes a villain (or anti-hero) work while simultaneously not working so well that it sanitizes or glorifies their evil.

Like I said, I don't think the task is impossible. Gordon Gekko, for example, is pretty much recognized by all but a fringe of viewership of being charismatic and awesomeness and exciting but still evil and not someone you should copy -- his signature phrase of 'greed is good' is more often used ironically or specifically to criticize the concept. Vito Corleone on the other hand, not so much.

[Voss]

because I am, but I am passionate about traditional game design. <snip>.

I flat out have no idea why you think that any of that has any bearing on traditional game design in any way whatsoever, other than being completely different from it. Judging solely from your post I was always under the very virulent impression that you wanted traditional game design to die in a fire and everyone involved should be tortured eternally for it.

The only similarity I can think of is your Gygaxian tendency to declare 'my way or GTFO.'

Torture is kinda bad, sure... but death is worse.

Thats... very subjective. I'd much rather be dead than try to eek out some pathetic half-existence while crippled and broken.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I flat out have no idea why you think that any of that has any bearing on traditional game design in any way whatsoever, other than being completely different from it. Judging solely from your post I was always under the very virulent impression that you wanted traditional game design to die in a fire and everyone involved should be tortured eternally for it.

By traditional game design, I meant 'games that are not video games'. You know, like CCGs, TTRPGs, board games, so on. Not 'the tropes and memes of non-electronic games that have persisted over several decades'.

The only similarity I can think of is your Gygaxian tendency to declare 'my way or GTFO.'

I hate to tell you this, but all game designers do that whether they admit to doing it or not. When they present rules or fluff or even the artwork, they are trying to get you to play and think a certain way. If you present experience for killing things rather than quest completion, you are telling people to kill things in order to advance the game. If you put giant spiders in the bestiary, you are trying to get people to believe that the square-cube law is suspended. Hell, even your decision of artists and what they produce is trying to get people to think a certain way -- if Shadowrun and Exalted swapped their primary artists, you'd better believe that people would visualize and thus approach their games differently.

[Midnight_v]

Removing their ability to think in ways other than you do.

Seriously man, what the fuck? Every thread you've made for months now is some "bawwww how come people don't play the way I play" bullshit. You're like some lucid social justice shadzar. This thread is pointless.

+1
Thats how I see it also.

Moreso Chamomile, sums it up nicely at the first post, but...
My thoughts on it is that while there is anti-hero fail, there is a substantial portion of people out there who love Wolverine, the punisher, and Ghostrider, in some variation or another.

Basically, "evil" or "anti-hero" isn't unplayable or anything, unless, you're looking at the whole genre way to closely, and most of the time not even then. I had my moment of this once when I was young reading comics. Why the hell does everyone comedown on the punisher for killing thugs and the such, while wolvie is skewering people pretty much "NONSTOP" and no one says shit about it.

I realized it was because of the context of each individual story, is what made it right or wrong. What happens to the people batman beats and breaks and sends to prison. Most of the time in the story it doesn't matter, because the stories aren't telling those tales... they're telling the story of the "main" and all those other dudes are just props.

Everyso often, someone (or a relative of someone) hunts you down for revenge, and thats frankly okay, because in most ttrpgs, thats going to happen in some way shape or form anyway.

Writing "evil" on your character sheet shouldn't matter to anyone in D&D like settings specifically except in terms of how you react to a blashpemy spell, or how the person making the character "FEELS" about the character, and its role in the collective story telling. I personally like to let people feel happy with who they are ecaping as.

[Voss]

I flat out have no idea why you think that any of that has any bearing on traditional game design in any way whatsoever, other than being completely different from it. Judging solely from your post I was always under the very virulent impression that you wanted traditional game design to die in a fire and everyone involved should be tortured eternally for it.

By traditional game design, I meant 'games that are not video games'. You know, like CCGs, TTRPGs, board games, so on. Not 'the tropes and memes of non-electronic games that have persisted over several decades'.

Ah. Since you only referenced TTRPGS and Tetris, I had no idea.

[ModelCitizen]

Lago: You've stated over and over, in this thread and on multiple game design issues, that your ideal is "socially engineer" people into liking the things you like. You've essentially concluded that discussion with anyone who disagrees with you is pointless and they just need to be tricked into accepting your position. Therefore there's no reason for anyone who disagrees with you to try to debate with you about [fighters / "Paradox of Choice" / WoF / microtransactions in MMOs / defaulting to nonlethal damage / how awful it is that people root for Jason Vorhees / whatever excuse you come up with next week to tell people what to like]. You're not willing to consider their positions, you're just going to masturbate about how everyone who disagrees with you has "grognard delusions" or is "special pleading" or whatever the fuck. The only useful responses are to ignore you, make fun of you, or tell you to shut up.

[Endovior]

An excellent point there. The shadzar comparison is apt; much like shadzar, nothing useful will come from debating Lago. Accordingly, do not debate Lago directly; if you happen to feel the need to post in a Lago thread, instead debate with other people posting in the thread.

[Stahlseele]

Because people usually (i don't think this would apply to the gaming den population) have problems acting like a sociopath/psychopath.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

[*] Feel that social engineering and cultural zeitgeist are extremely overlooked part of game design. I straight up reject the idea that writers and game designers don't engage in extensive social engineering or that it's even possible to avoid it. I thus find questions like 'why do you want people to play or think in a certain way' completely nonsensical, as if it was possible to do otherwise. To me, it's like asking 'why do you want your painting to visually strike the observer in a certain way' or 'why do you want your story to engage the reader's emotions in a certain way'. It's just straight-up not possible when you're writing a sufficiently game or a story, even a highly interactive one, to engage and lead the audience direction in a certain way.

There are games that try to teach things to their fanbase, Werewolf tried to instill messages of Ecological justice, for example, and messages of Social and Economic Justice are practically tradition in the Cyberpunk genre. They're not very successful, as a rule. People are going to play a game in a manner that fits their gaming sensibilities, and people don't come to game to be taught lessons.

[virgil]

Because people usually (i don't think this would apply to the gaming den population) have problems acting like a sociopath/psychopath.

One thing that does apply to the Gaming Den population is a lack of appreciation for insults like that.

[Wrathzog]

Because people usually (i don't think this would apply to the gaming den population) have problems acting like a sociopath/psychopath.

One thing that does apply to the Gaming Den population is a lack of appreciation for insults compliments like that.

I fixed that for you. Dude's just giving us props for our mad roleplaying skillz.

[kzt]

The best examples of this are 'opposing generals'. Rommel and Lee are well-respected even by their opponents because they were capable commanders, even if they were on the wrong side.

It was also very convenient for the allies to paint Rommel as some sort of super-general. Most of forces that Rommel beat like a drum were being commanded by well bred officers who couldn't have organized a successful orgy in a bordello. And for the allies to admit that "Well, yeah, most of our Generals we placed in charge of our armored forces in the desert are complete idiots who don't understand how to use tanks, or conduct desert warfare, and we knew that when we assigned them to their jobs" just didn't seem like a good idea.

And to a large extent the same is true for Lee. He was hugely better than the vast majority of the Union generals at the start of the war, mostly because all the Union generals in the east were totally incompetent at running an army in battle, and many couldn't run a division. But it was convenient to pretend that the Union generals were competent and Lee was some sort of force of nature.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You're not willing to consider their positions, you're just going to masturbate about how everyone who disagrees with you has "grognard delusions" or is "special pleading" or whatever the fuck. The only useful responses are to ignore you, make fun of you, or tell you to shut up.

An excellent point there. The shadzar comparison is apt; much like shadzar, nothing useful will come from debating Lago. Accordingly, do not debate Lago directly; if you happen to feel the need to post in a Lago thread, instead debate with other people posting in the thread.

Now this is just plain not true. I've changed my mind on plenty of game design criteria. For fuck's sake, I was originally against WoF. Vehemently, too. I can bring up my old posts. I can bring about my mental turnabouts in treasure acquisition systems (I was a huge WBL fan), ideal multiclassing systems, role protection, and even TPK deaths. I can bump up those threads if you're not convinced and you can contrast and compare. Hell, right now I've done a huge reversal on my long-standing position of 'characters perpetually more powerful than PCs should not exist in the setting'. Here's the thread.

Am I pretentious and opinionated? Uh, hell fucking yes. But I strongly resent the implication that I'm not able to change my mind on game design. In fact, I'm demanding an apology from you for saying such offensive and untrue shit right now.

[Endovior]

The best examples of this are 'opposing generals'. Rommel and Lee are well-respected even by their opponents because they were capable commanders, even if they were on the wrong side.

It was also very convenient for the allies to paint Rommel as some sort of super-general. Most of forces that Rommel beat like a drum were being commanded by well bred officers who couldn't have organized a successful orgy in a bordello. And for the allies to admit that "Well, yeah, most of our Generals we placed in charge of our armored forces in the desert are complete idiots who don't understand how to use tanks, or conduct desert warfare, and we knew that when we assigned them to their jobs" just didn't seem like a good idea.

And to a large extent the same is true for Lee. He was hugely better than the vast majority of the Union generals at the start of the war, mostly because all the Union generals in the east were totally incompetent at running an army in battle, and many couldn't run a division. But it was convenient to pretend that the Union generals were competent and Lee was some sort of force of nature.

Interesting. I hadn't heard that before. Sauce?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Lago: You've stated over and over, in this thread and on multiple game design issues, that your ideal is "socially engineer" people into liking the things you like.

Look, any and every game ever invented -- especially such open-ended games like TTRPGs -- is an attempt to social engineer the players. Lethal trap rules socially engineer players into caution and even paranoia. Anime artwork in the book socially engineers people to envision and create characters with improbably spiky hair and huge swords. Alignment rules or even the lack of them steer peoples' behavior in a certain directly. The fact that people introduce their D&D characters as 'He's a half-orc Barbarian/Fighter' is a clear and naked example of successful social engineering. People don't introduce their Mouseguard or Shadowrun or Call of Cthulhu characters (thus influencing the GM, fellow players, and their own impressions) in the same way as they do for D&D. Such a little thing, and yet, just by Gygax and follow-up writers directing their players' perspective in such a way causes people to think and interact with the game in a way they wouldn't otherwise. Which is pretty much social engineering!

The idea that you can create any game without socially engineering people in some fashion is completely nonsensical. Unless someone is specifically trying to subvert the rules you put down... and even then they will almost always do so in a way parallel or reminiscent of the original rule. Even if you think that you can avoid having to do so by being silent on a rules area, emergent gameplay will make it so that your game socially engineers people to do certain things even if you never intended or anticipated that.

[Chamomile]

Yes, social engineering is a thing. And you suck balls at it, Lago, because you are unwilling to concede that most of your audience is, at worst, only slightly less intelligent than you are, and anything which is immediately obvious as propaganda to you is also immediately obvious as propaganda to them, and they'll reject it because you told them it was a TTRPG and not a lecture.

[Lago PARANOIA]

And you suck balls at it, Lago, because you are unwilling to concede that most of your audience is, at worst, only slightly less intelligent than you are, and anything which is immediately obvious as propaganda to you is also immediately obvious as propaganda to them, and they'll reject it because you told them it was a TTRPG and not a lecture.

Well.

1.) No fucking shit I suck at it. This is why I made this thread. My prose-writing skills, especially for this particular pet project, are really lacking. I've always been hugely envious of writers who can impart morals in their story without it affecting the quality of the work.

2.) I'm slightly more savvy about propaganda and detecting questionable subtext than other people? Well, maybe, but that's only because I've had people both online and offline tell me what's actually going on. That doesn't make me smarter or better or anything, it just means that I had the fortune to read the Why Monks? thread and visit the Steve Kangas FAQ while I was still a minor. I'd like to pay it forward. And since this is TGD, it'll be done through the medium of game design.