Critical Failure, continuation of Roll Vs. Role

Posted by on Jun 30, 2010 in Features | 4 comments

Hi everybody, (waits for “Hi Dr. Nick,” response) well here we are in my blog’s second entry and already I’m trying to suck you in to my own little world.  If you read and liked the article, (Here) I plan on continuing with some real-life problems from my own gaming table of Roll-Playing Vs. Role-Playing. 

Back in December we had to take a break from my (mostly) weekly Aberrant game.  We’d been playing since the end of ’08 and early ’09, so this was one of my longer running games.  We’ve had some hiatuses, and we’ve had some other games in between, but for the most part this was my go to game when we wanted some super-powered mayhem.  In December, due to the holidays, and some personal issues within the group, we decided to wait until we had time. 

New schedules, promotions, and all sorts of other things have conspired to keep us from gaming again until just this June.  When I announced to the players on Facebook that we’d be getting the game back together, for the most part the response was positive.  Unfortunately, one of my players, who we’ll call Tom, launched into a long diatribe after I offered the players extra experience points for contributing to the site that hosts our game info, ObsidianPortal.com.  A great site, that I highly recommend if you’re interested in presenting your games for the world at large.

The players argument was that he believed his artistic ability merited more points than the other players, by dent of the time he had to spend creating it.  Now Tom is a great artist, and when he finishes something, it can be very realistic and impressive.  We had agreed in the past on a set amount for a group shot of the whole super-hero team.  When I posted on FB, I had not intended it to short change this original agreement, just meant it as a supplement for any new work that the other players, less involved in building the game, could catch up.  Everyone else got it and agreed.  Tom did not.

This opened up other issues that he had about game balance, and play style, and personal criticisms of a game I have spent almost two years pouring hours and hours of free time into.  At that point, I got peeved and called off the game.  It reminded me of all the times the game had stopped to figure out what his character was doing.  Tom’s PC is a mind-controller and psychic.  He can read thoughts and control the actions of others almost as ably as Professor X.  The problem with a power like this, and the reason Prof. X is not running around with the X-Men, is that it can blow huge Tarasque sized holes in a plot.

What do you do when the bad guys secret plan is a roll away.  What do you do when one of your heros can track down almost anyone in the world, by rolling and re-rolling all day long?  Where’s the drama when any situation can be easily defused by, “I take control of his brain and make him tell us his weakness, or his hideout, or his mom’s address.”?  All of these things, and the fact that in most social situations the character would resort immediately to his powers, thus defusing any chance of role-playing had made me turn the game into a battle of the week scenario. 

The characters had run away from an enemy in their home territory because he had more powerful psychic powers.  They were framed for a crime they didn’t commit, and signed on with a foreign company that hired them out as black ops mercenaries to escape prosecution in the U.S.  After one of the player characters married my GM run NPC, and a new plot rocketed the PC’s into a post-apocalyptic future, with a possibly familiar super-human dictator, we were poised for some really great games, but it all fell apart because my and Tom’s reliance on roll-playing.

The moral of this story kiddies, is that you should always think out something before saying yes to a player’s desires.  And two, you should always try to give everyone an equal part of the pie, and try to build complex stories where you can.  Given more time, I’m sure I could have brought my A-game, but sadly, until we can find a amiable compromise, I just don’t think it’s going to happen.  Until then, our hometown heroes will be stranded in a distopian future.  More’s the pity.

About Stygian Jim


Stygian Jim was born in Missouri, but his family later settled in the Florida Keys. It is there that our benighted correspondent spent his formative years, and it is there he lives to this day. A consummate gamer geek he whiles away his life planning dramatic stories and plots for people and places that do not exist, and besting his compatriots at games of strategy.

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  • KapGun

    You said it best compromise. I’ll going through Soma withdraws

  • Cape Rust

    The Lack of willingness on all parties parts tends to make me believe that there are deeper issuses here (some of which have been stated) How could you as a story teller adjust your vision so that a notched down version of the power was useable but not game breaking? As Storytellers/Gms it isn’t about our story it is about the players having fun. On the flip side your players unwillingness to work with you shows a lack of respect not only for you but the rest of the group.

  • Stygian Jim

    The problem is that the player really isn’t interested in losing any capability to his character, and he’s disappointed that there hasn’t been enough intrigue in the game. The issue I have is that whatever intrigue I’ve introduced I either have to make totally immune to his powers, make blisteringly obvious, or wait for him to ask the right questions in a game-stopping dialogue that immediately pulls us out of any forward momentum the game had. Being that every other character has been made with physical combat skills as a primary, or at least secondary skill set, much of the game has superhuman battles as a back drop. The PC in question has no combat or survival skills, meaning that he can only use his mental abilities to try and avoid combat, which short changes every other player as soon as he takes control of every other enemy combatant.

    The problem is that the player in question always makes non-combat characters no matter what the game. Meaning that during combat, which is a part of nearly every game I run with this group, he doesn’t have a lot to do. The problem being that he wants to play an entirely different game from both myself and the other players. I’ve tried to work certain storylines in his favor, but one of the main times I did this, when the going got tough, the PC quit and advised the other PCs to give up and run. Which entirely changed my game, and took it in a new direction. A direction meant to at least arm the characters with some survival skills that they would need to survive against other superhuman characters, and allow them to come back to the villain the ran from.

    I think it’s just a conflict of play style and personality that I just don’t think will work out. I love games where I don’t have to push, or prod, or lead the game in any direction. My best games have been where I presented a situation, and then let the characters run down their own plots. Much like our Mafia game. Just like the Mafia game’s most infamous failure, the Changeling Debacle, when I try and lead characters in a certain direction, the story suffers. The problem is that with the group that we have, the direction of the story they wanted to play for the most part was unsatisfying for me to tell.

    A lot of it seemed like personal revenge fantasies, and anti-authoritarian stories, which to me is akin to imaginative masturbation. Just the fulfillment of power fantasies, which I don’t really want to facilitate. I realize that the GM is there to make things fun for the players, but there’s got to be a give and take to it. If the game isn’t fun for the person who’s putting their blood, sweat, and tears into it’s production, then what’s the point? For now, there’ll be other games and groups whose play styles match mine more thoroughly. Thanks for the comment though Cape, you are always a paragon of reason and balance.

  • Pedro

    It seems obvious to me…pull the player aside and explain he can’t run with your group anymore. Thanks for playing. No need for long explanations if its all been discussed before. Other wise ditch the whole group and find other players more compatible with your GM style. After a point, more discussion is pointless, and life is just to short.