Good GM Move? Declaring Yourself Removed From Player vs. Player Shenanigans
Saturday June 18th was Free RPG Day and I ran a game at my local game shop of Icons by Adamant Entertainment, which is a an easy to run Superheroes RPG that is heavily influenced by Fate and Fudge. The premise of my one-shot session was that the heroes of the city have been wiped out, and now the bottom of the barrel superheroes must step up to defend their city. This game was very tongue-in-cheek and followed the lead of great comics such as The Tick and the film Mystery Men. The title of the session was “The Benchwarmers” and it was a fun but ridiculous game.
My game seemed to appeal to two different groups – half of my players were under 15, and the other half was over 30. From some comments made by the younger players before the game officially began I had a sense that there would be some immature moments and player vs. player conflicts during the game. I really had no interest in dealing with these types of moments, so I stated that I would not interfere with any attempts by the players to cause conflict between each other and to sabotage the game with such moves. I also would not attempt to change player actions that were obviously counter-productive to the story of the session. Whatever the players declared to be doing in game would stand, and the dice would take it from there.
Seems pretty counter-intuitive to what I was hoping to avoid, right? I mean, that is like asking the more immature gamers in our hobby to ruin the session with all sorts of foolishness. That was not the case at all though, because by clearly stating my intentions to the group I not only excused myself from having to negate any player’s actions against another player’s character, but I also made it clear that the players would have to deal with each other’s actions on their own.
This approach was very effective, because if a player was being a jerk to another player what I felt about the situation was irrelevant. That player had to face the direct impact that he had had upon the other player’s enjoyment of the game. The “But the GM let me do it!” excuse as well as the “The GM wouldn’t let me play my character!” complaint were completely negated. If the other player said “This sucks! He keeps screwing up things for my PC!” I would simply nod and say “Yes, I agree. I’m not going to tell him how to play his character though.” This was not taken as a dismissal, but instead it was seen as an acknowledgement of the problem. This also effectively brought the point of conflict right to where it belonged, which is to say it remained between the players.
The other huge benefit was that the older players would chime in when a problem player would try to defend his actions with a more mature perspective. If the problem player’s PC attacked another PC, the older players would say things like “Why? We don’t have time for that.” or “Can we get on with the game?”, but their comments were not directed at me. These comments were directed at the problem players.
This made the problem player’s actions much less rewarding on a social level. Suddenly there was no joy in wasting the GM’s time with silly actions. I would let the action occur, but the group would let the player know that they did not appreciate the results. Too often the GM becomes the bad guy in such scenarios, but I was able to avoid it this time because I refused to be a part of it. When requests like “I want to shoot the other PC in the balls.” came up, I just said “Roll the dice. That was your action. Next.” It was odd that by not trying to prevent the attack from happening that I was more effective in showing just how stupid it was to play like that in the first place. After the first hour of play the player vs. player shenanigans had pretty much disappeared.
But is this a good GM move? Yes? No? Maybe you know of a better method? Leave a comment below and let the rest of us know how you feel.
Thought I’d leave you my thoughts. First, this would be a good GS article.
Now, my thoughts are that you made a very good choice for that game. The reason I say that is you had players that had probably never really met one another, and felt a lot more comfortable speaking their minds on poor behavior on other players’ parts.
The bigger question would be, how would this work in a home game? Everyone is at least somewhat friends and has been for years potentially. Some of those friendships allow people to say things like, “Dude, you’re being an ass,” and the other player actually respecting it. Others have wounds that haven’t healed from intense moments in game that were handled poorly.
I can say that every game I have played for the last few years has ended in an implosion from PC conflict. I don’t mind letting the players and friends get into it. I’ve only felt compelled to do something if a stalemate is reached or if they’re is a little clarification I could give that could expedite the process.
My players reach stalemates somewhat frequently when role-playing. This is because a lot of systems don’t actually have a mechanic for PC character arguments or diplomacy. A lot of people just go until blue in the face. So I’ll invoke a simple, “Highest wins” and be done with it.
The other point about clarification comes up a lot because players never really remember anything in a game very clearly. Just little bits and pieces. The players will, however, have no problem composing huge arguments based on those tiny fragments. An example that comes up frequently is that some time in the game’s past a PC does action A and feels justified for doing it. There were consequences to that action A, but the PC accepts them and generally feels, “Well, thats what my character would have done, and I’m sticking to it.” Much later, an argument comes up and action A comes back into the equation. The first PC often never entertains the idea that their action was interpreted any differently than the way they first did. So I’ll have no problem correcting them by reminding them of the consequences and their implications.
Anyway, I do try to stay out of PC conflict, but only until it has stopped the game.
@Ryan Latta: Yes, the danger of a player vs. player stalemate is that it can cause a session, campaign, or even a group to blow up into a crap fest pissing contest. You also make a great point about players not having an agreed method for resolving social or diplomatic conflicts can lead to two or more people refusing to compromise and ending the game.
So far the best tactic I have for dealing with that is to look at the participants of the conflict and say “You need to negotiate and compromise to move forward. I’m going to go grab a bite to eat while you figure this out. I’ll be back in 15 minutes and I expect for this game to be moving again by the time I get back. Fix the problem.”
And yes, I then leave and go get something to eat. This has yet to fail, but I really don’t know why it has worked. My theory is that by clearly stating what the problem is, what my expectation is, and then getting out of the way. I think the players suddenly get a perspective of “Shit! We literally have no game here without the GM!” coupled with the requirement that they need to fix the issue because the GM won’t. From there the pieces fall back into place.
Plus it gives me a chance to go grab a burger or something. 🙂