thread: 2011-05-11 : The Un-frickin-welcome
On 2011-05-14, Marshall B wrote:
The unwelcome moment is an interesting thing in the Rustbelt. It happens when something so horrible happens that it really hits home with the player that all the talk about desperation isn't just hype—it's what the game is really about. You can see the actual despair—the complete failure of hope—on the player's face. If I'm GMing, at this moment I'm always feeling like, "Oh shit, I took it too far," and I'm always this close to taking it back.
But I don't. And you know what happens? That player soon proceeds to come up with the coolest damn thing that has happened in the whole game. It's something scary and exciting everytime, and it's when we really (as the text repeats to brainwash you) when he "reveals all of [the character's] most monstrous and most admirable qualities."
If that true despair doesn't hit the player, then we don't really see those qualities revealed in his character. We just kinda play at it until then. We aren't really playing the Rustbelt until it happens.
We get there by a combination of GM providing escalating adversity, death spirals in the damage mechanics, gradual rules-mandated (but player modulated) intensification of PC behavior, and player buy-in on failure. These all interact to create a web of unpleasant consequences that gradually back the PC against a wall, and for real, not for funsies. All the "unpleasant" stuff that happened up to that point was just genre trappings and fun stuff, and wasn't actually unwelcome. It's not until the Spike is driven all the way to the heart that something happens that's truly unwelcome.
By the end of it all, we're grateful that it happened. But we're not when it happens.
I'm actually having difficulty with this with Rustbelt's evil Gamist twin, MADcorp. I can't seem to overcome the players' social expectations, especially regarding combat and character death. Despite preparing them for it, making sure that failure is always due to their decisions, reminding them multiple times that running is a viable option, suggesting they play multiple employees, and warning them not to get too attached to employees until they've survived long enough to get some experience perks.
Nope, I just get whining about things like how easy it is to get killed, how some (most, actually) character classes are unsuited for face-to-face combat, the lack of resurrection, and so on. And I'm thinking, "What the fuck were you thinking, letting a Sawbones go toe-to-toe with a bear? This isn't the game where everyone's a fighter except there's one guy called 'Fighter' who kills things faster. Fuck."
I could change things to make these people stop whining. (Actually, I'm putting in limited resurrection, but only because it creates choices like, "Do we carry this dead dude who's, like, heavy back to safety, or do we carry more treasure?") But I look at the stuff and think, damn, if I do this it will be too easy. You guys are supposed to accept failure, learn from it, and then get back in there. If I spoonfeed you, you won't learn. C'mon, work smarter, not harder.
So far, I haven't got the design to the point where it overcomes their social expectations. I'm really not sure what to do. Hell, maybe I'm testing it on the wrong people.
