Player versus Player Conflict

Walt at Gnome Stew posted about intra-party conflict the other day wondering whether it is okay to stop it or should it be allowed to take its course.

A quick caveat: I am not talking about characters having disagreements or role-playing tensions between them. This post is specifically about using game mechanics to harm, hamper, or kill another character.

While obviously this is a social contract issue and is highly game and group dependent, I almost never allow it. Some games invite it - like Paranoia - but my experience has been that it is usually destructive, especially if the people at the table do not know each other well.

Additionally, while intra-party conflict is sometimes defended as just being role-playing ("it's what my character would do!") what I have witnessed is intra-party conflict is a tool that players who want to remove agency from other players use to accomplish their goals (i.e. bullying).

Again, this is group dependent, if this is not a problem you have ever experienced, then enjoy slaughtering each other. The one thing I might stop and ask though is: is everyone having fun?

The problem with intra-party conflict in my model above is that it can be initiated unilaterally. One character just takes a swipe at another and there is nothing that another player can do to stop it.

This is such a minefield of social variables that I find it simplest as the referee to just say no. The costs are small (characters cannot escalate a disagreement to physical force even if realistic). The benefits: no one walks away from my game feeling hurt, bullied, or otherwise upset.

Fortunately almost nobody reads my blog so it is unlikely that I will have to defend this position against the inevitable backlash this sort statement gets so I will leave you faithful readers with a few tenants of my games:

• No hurting other player characters. My game is not your forum to play out your bully fantasies.
• No stealing from other player characters. We are here to play together, I won't let you steal from another player's wallet and I won't let you steal from their character either.
• Only the player of a character may decide that character's actions, it is not your character so stop trying to tell them what to do.
• Decisions are not made by talking loudest or most.
• Play fair.
• Make sure everyone has a chance to participate.
• Make sure everyone is having fun.

Those tenants revolve around the ideas that one player may not take the agency of another player, and that the aim of the game is fun.

Why Have Rules At All?

While explaining the appeal of rules-light games to a friend who generally prefers a crunchier game, my friend asked me "then why have rules at all?"

I think the answer basically comes down to this:

A game is made more fun than just imagining through the limited introduction of rule. We use rules when we want to resolve things that are ambiguous, or when we want to abstract something, or when it is more fun to have a rule or constraint of some kind.

Ambiguity:

Some things are just ambiguous and dice mechanics are useful for those situations. Are you strong enough to knock the door down? It is hard to know, the player could say: "well I hit the door really hard." And we could try to work with that, but fundamentally this is an ambiguous situation and it is better to abstract it using a die roll.

Abstractions:

While in most cases in a rules-light roleplaying game descriptive exploration and activity is encouraged, there are areas where description is either too ambiguous (as above) or otherwise finicky or difficult adjudicate so we abstract that decision with a die roll. Combat, saving throws, and thief skills all fall into this category.

Rules are fun:

Rules ARE fun. They are fun to think about, they are fun to experiment with. Constraints can create challenge. Niche protection and spell memorization rules create interesting constraints. The many tables for spells, criticals, and fumbles in Dungeon Crawl Classics are a good example of rules being fun. They certainly slow the game a bit compared to what the game would play like in their absence. However, they provide a lot of fun without creating many constraints on what is possible in the game. What is problematic is that in many RPGs is that there are many rules because it seems to be that the "rules are fun" reason has been taken to extremes. Because we like rules for a few things or because a few rules are useful it doesn't mean rules are good or necessary when created to cover all situations.

A key to an excellent game is making sure that the rules are serving a specific purpose. The rules covering every eventuality is not useful to a good game. Common sense can serve a lot of the need that rules purport to. The referee was introduced into wargaming as a way to obviate the need for encyclopedic rules and to make it possible for anything to be attempted (see Playing at the World). Referees can still do this job without a lot of policing! That is because the referee is not the players' opponent.