The Role Playing Public Radio Forums
General Category => Role Playing Public Radio Podcast => : Maze January 21, 2010, 03:55:32 PM
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Are you feeling unsure of yourself? Having problem getting sentences out? Do you get squeamish thinking about those poor slain kobold baby?
Then you probably suffer from: AARONISIS
Now feel free to share prescriptions or advice to cure this condition.
-Don't worry that your game might not be good, it's not. You'll get better as you go.
-Don't worry about your character dying by trying something... he's not real.
-Don't worry about other virtual characters dying... they might have loot.
-If you don't know where your story is going before you start telling it, don't start it.
-If you need the listener of your story to watch movies/read entire books to understand it, don't tell it.
-If you always play squeamish or wallflower characters, ask your GM to assign you one, including a new personality.
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Actually Aaron isn't a wallflower in games anymore - he's just the ultimate fucking boy scout. I really need to post the CoC game Tom ran for Aaron and I. I nearly have a breakdown several times as Aaron can't grasp basic logic like "DONT FUCKING TELL THE GUY YOU ARE INVESTIGATING FOR MURDER THAT YOU ARE INVESTIGATING HIM"
aaaaaaa
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If, when presented with a morally gray option, you dismiss it out of hand and push towards an impossible level of goodness, you are symtomatic.
In the event you find yourself helping old lady NPCs cross the street you need to be quarantined for the good of the gaming population.
If you attempt to defend the zombie's by framing things from their point of view, there is no cure.
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Which reminds me, in the esoterrorists games, toward the end there was a debate because they only had one antidote but two persons about to turn into a blood zombie. One was the crack baby, the other was an older gentleman who had been very generous through his donations in the past. Of course, save the baby because it's a baby! was basically the reaction of Tom and Dan.
But Cody actually said basically what amounted to: "But he's a crack baby, his mom is a whore, he'll probably amount to nothing in life when the guy, although he might only have 20 years at most left in his life, might do more good in his life than the baby could ever hope to."
It was exactly what my thoughts and an interesting observation on the subject of the value of a human life. So if you're reading this Cody, thank you.
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I enjoy gray morality in my games.
In that case it wasn't as much about me agreeing with Cody's character (though I did) but disagreeing with Tom's character's moral absolutism. Dan seemed willing to discuss things though he wanted to give the cure to the baby. I was really hoping Cody would shoot Tom on that one, provide a really good twist ending.
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I enjoy gray morality in my games.
In that case it wasn't as much about me agreeing with Cody's character (though I did) but disagreeing with Tom's character's moral absolutism. Dan seemed willing to discuss things though he wanted to give the cure to the baby. I was really hoping Cody would shoot Tom on that one, provide a really good twist ending.
We were the McCardy boys though and McCardy boys never say die!
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This thread needs a disclaimer stating, "Not to be read at work."
I just embarrassed myself by cracking up in the office. ;D
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Hey, jumping from one Gumshoe game to another, what would Aaron have done in Fear Itself?
Tom's solution seems like the choice Aaron might eventually have made but I can't help thinking that Aaron would never have anything to do with... shit, I can't remember his name. Was the dealmaker "Jim"?
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Hey, jumping from one Gumshoe game to another, what would Aaron have done in Fear Itself?
Tom's solution seems like the choice Aaron might eventually have made but I can't help thinking that Aaron would never have anything to do with... shit, I can't remember his name. Was the dealmaker "Jim"?
Wasn't that ending so damn fucking awesome?
Aaron wouldn't have drunk the liquid, nor would he have forced fed the liquid to the other and then have to kill him. The fact we don't know how it ends makes it so good.
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It seems that aron just can't think out the box as a gammer but as a gm he will be forced to
so i think the guy will only get better. hopefully
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I've been relistening to so old episodes:
If you spend several hours building a character with other players and then, at the last minute, reveal you aren't interested in the game.
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Wasent this thread a lot longer?
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Wasent this thread a lot longer?
They've changed something...
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I didn't change anything to this thread. But I remember that Aaron did post to the thread and now his posts are gone. Maybe he deleted them?
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We posted the stuff about Aaron in the "Why I love Tom" thread first before moving to this thread. Aaron replied to most of our 'assertions' in that other thread.
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well whatever. I just changed permissions so regular users can no longer delete their own posts.
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Okay, so we're sort of swerved away from what I intended to do with this topic.
As the topic says, this is for treatment of players who ALWAYS climb into the light blue section of the BioWare morality system.
Why 'treat' people for being good, you ask?
Because extreme behavior, good or bad, is annoying.
We're using Aaron as a sign board here because as everyone likely agrees, he is a very very 'good' player. His characters tend to be hyper moral and always seek the most beyond ethical course of action. I'm not saying the Aaron is the 'worst' out there, he's just the one we have close at hand.
This behavior can be just as disruptive to normal gamers as the polar opposite, the player who destorys everything and seeks to cause mayhem whenever possible, because in both situations everyone is playing around the character and must plan ahead for the extreme reactions they tend to have.
So, the real purpose of this thread is to determin how to treat or manage this kind of player/character because they are rarer than their counter part. Many groups experience hyper destructive characters. Fewer have to deal with an exceptionally moral one.
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again maybe i should pay attention more your right tad, most of the post was in why i love tom threads. sorry for the confusion.
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If you want to see Aaronitis in full effect, you must listen to the new AP episode
This image sums up my reaction pretty good
(http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/fffuuu-300x240.jpg)
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So, in the effort to rerail this topic:
Ross, how would you compare your experience with Aaron's boy scout play style in this game to playing with a more cliche sort of problem character?: one who refused to talk to NPCs at all and simply caused endless destruction.
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that kind of fucktard is easier to deal with - you kill his character by baiting him into a fight he can't win and see if he either gets the point or he leaves the game.
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So you can't bait a "good" character the same way you can with a bad. Can you distract them?
With a destructive player you can sometimes sidetrack them with destruction of minor things and get them to leave the plot points alone. Can you provide a good character with small things to keep them busy? To name a few cliches, helping a kid find their mother or helping an old person get someplace.
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the thing is there's a big difference between 'good' players and 'bad' players in this context
good players will buy into the social contract of the game
bad players do not give a fuck about the social contract
this is not an iron clad rule because you will get some good players who are really just ass-bergers who looooveeee to follow the rules
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If you want to see Aaronitis in full effect, you must listen to the new AP episode
This image sums up my reaction pretty good
(http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/fffuuu-300x240.jpg)
I'm like 6 minutes in and I can already see the writing on the wall...
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the thing is there's a big difference between 'good' players and 'bad' players in this context
good players will buy into the social contract of the game
bad players do not give a fuck about the social contract
this is not an iron clad rule because you will get some good players who are really just ass-bergers who looooveeee to follow the rules
The player may buy into the social contract but if he insists on playing his character in a manner which is disruptive to the game than the differences don't amount to much because the game is still being disrupted.
I'm about 45 minutes into the CoC game with Aaron and so far the conflicts sound fairly minor. Your characters are very different but not impossible to work together. I'm assuming it doesn't get better as things go forward.
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While I've never had to deal with this type of player before, I'm hesitant to agree that it poses as big a problem as the much more common hyper-destructive player. Yes, taking the moral high ground on every issue may bring the boy/girl scout into conflict with the other players, but it also depends on his/her attitude. Tom plays a lawful good character in Ross' New World Campaign while the other characters prefer to play it morally gray, but he's not exactly argumentative about it when the others try to do something questionable. If a player's behavior is disrupting the game--if he's belligerent or rude to the other players because of how their characters choose to act--then he's probably not someone you want to be playing with in the first place. However, if it's just an in-game conflict between characters that's holding things up, I would do one or both of the following: make the decisions that the character has to make harder--i.e., don't give him a "good" choice--or emphasize the consequences of making the "good" decision. Personally, I think that in an interesting story, the moral high road is often difficult to take, or difficult to distinguish. If you're having problems with a character who is too "good," put him in a situation where the best he can hope for is to take the least questionable action. Make it hard to be good.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that one of the bigger issues here is the consistency in the behavior. When playing in a game, I'm sure that having the "boyscout" character is somewhat annoying to deal with if you are playing a more morally gray character, but something you can deal with. However, it probably gets more annoying when you are always dealing with the same issues with a player...
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Tom plays a lawful good character in Ross' New World Campaign while the other characters prefer to play it morally gray, but he's not exactly argumentative about it when the others try to do something questionable.
From what I can tell in listening to the AP's, he's not too argumentative because he doesn't always know the truth behind things. (for example: they got him to come along without actually knowing that he was helping a vampire... I'm pretty sure he would have been against that)
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Tom plays a lawful good character in Ross' New World Campaign while the other characters prefer to play it morally gray, but he's not exactly argumentative about it when the others try to do something questionable.
From what I can tell in listening to the AP's, he's not too argumentative because he doesn't always know the truth behind things. (for example: they got him to come along without actually knowing that he was helping a vampire... I'm pretty sure he would have been against that)
And he tried hard to figure it out right at the start but the dice did not let him, later on he did find him out but the vampire left right as he found out and the minator was a more pressing issue. im sure tom wont let it go in the future episode that he was helping out a vampire. he usuly allways trys to get the lose ends wraped up.
I enjoyed B12 today, Aaron may have been a bit boy scoutish and yes he did some dumb things but in the end he explained his logic and it was sound with what he felt his character new. you gotta admit if you were prob put into that same setting in real life, most of his actions were made the same a normal every day joe would do. now if aaron plays that character again in a future campain I would not expect him to act the same, now that he knows there are real sewer monsters. If the problem continued I could see the issue.
trust me I was loling when he insisted his doctor spent his free time in free clinics helping the poor and homeless, but atleast ross and tom convinced him that he had a contact in the pd cause he also helped shot up gangsters that might have loose lips in time of pain. So atleast he is a work in progress. O still feel aaron will turn out to be a strong player and has a lot of potential, and hey every good story has to have a good guy in it right.
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Some of what he did could be explained by begin naive but my god, some of it was just astounding. I think in alot of those cases the average 1920s 'joe' would've just kept his head down and not done anything.
Ross's near meltdown in the speakeasy was amazing. "No, don't fire gun! They don't know yet, we can get away!"
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I just kept imagining Ross as near feral while Aaron consorts with murderers and gives them his real name and what not. You know, I imagine that if Aaron where to meet the Great Cthulhu himself he would hug the tentacled monstrosity and promise it no harm.
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Na he clearly has no problems shooting some thing if its scary, he shot at the sewer monster, and he shot the guy with the body just fine. granted he missed but still shot.
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Na he clearly has no problems shooting some thing if its scary, he shot at the sewer monster, and he shot the guy with the body just fine. granted he missed but still shot.
But deep down inside, he didn't want to shoot him.
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Deep down inside us all we would love all girls to have giant boobs, but that dont change the fact we all like boobs no matter the size.
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Deep down inside us all we would love all girls to have giant boobs, but that dont change the fact we all like boobs no matter the size.
???
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After listening to the B-12 Actual Play--and again, kudos to Tom for cooking up a great CoC story--I've gotta say, I think that Aaron's problem has been misdiagnosed. He's not a boy scout; he obviously has no problems with his character lying to the police and other officials in order to accomplish the mission, and he had no trouble calling off the neighborhood development project when the ghouls paid him a little visit in the night. He's simply a bit too naive to think of the consequences of his actions. And what better forum to gain valuable experience in this area than in the virtually consequence-free environment of roleplaying? Once again, in terms of GMing, Aaronisis is only a problem insofar as it interferes with a storyline, which is to say, only as long as a GM allows it to arrest the flow of a game's progression. I think Tom could have made wonderful things happen if he'd decided to depict the potentially lethal consequences of giving a serial killer your business card if Ross hadn't pushed things forward after the mugging scene in the alleyway.
I know I sure as fuck wouldn't want Grady knowing where my CoC character lived.
So I guess my revised prescription for Aaronisis is to let the afflicted experience the consequences of his or her actions. Eventually, they'll get the point and adjust their playing style to avoid being eviscerated by the nice, friendly mass-murderers they try to help out.
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As the topic says, this is for treatment of players who ALWAYS climb into the light blue section of the BioWare morality system.
I have a confession to make.
This is me.
Example: While listening to the Delta Green - Night Mall playtest, I realized what was happening with the suicide booth while Cody's character (Carter, was it?) watched the mother load her daughter into it. If that had been me, I would have SPRINTED up and stopped her. If I'd been the GM, I'm not sure I could've narrated that scene.
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There, I think, is where we differ. If I'd been Cody's shoes for that one then after I'd seen it happen and discovered what was going on I'd have probably tried to chase down the mom and shoot her.
Well, not shot her maybe but at least arrest her, or whatever varitation on arresting people a mall cop can do, and drag her back to the security room for "debriefing".