The Difference

I haven't forgotten my blog, I swear! I have eight million half finished posts, but the stupidity of players keeps increasing to the amount where I can't keep up!

Let's see if I can finish this one.

"That guy sucks, he just plays to "win", how lame is that?"
"Yeah seriously. Doesn't he get what roleplaying is about, let's tell a story here!"
"Yeah. That's what Mitchell would want and man does he have a sexy ass!"

I hear this conversation ALL the time. (Okay the last part not ALWAYS.) But I see lots of players throw the "munchkin" tag at people when they're guilty of the munchkins motivations, and use this as the holier then thou attitude to get away with it. Now mind you, as you know, the Munchkin is as wrong as farting on an escalator. But at least they're blatant about it. It's these "emotional munchkins" that really get in the way of us people trying to tell a story, because they want to get neck deep in all of our stories while using the munchkin tactics, and people don't notice but scratch their heads wondering why all these "great roleplayers" are having such a sucky game. They're "stealth munchkins" if you will.

"Aha, yeah, I see what Mitchell is saying, people want power in terms of status within the in character group are as bad as the.."

Okay stop. No.

Playing to win doesn't just mean playing to be respected, playing to have the most points, kill the most PCs, or even playing to be liked by the group. Playing to win means playing to succeed. And that means playing to avoid failure.

Now, this is a tough one...because nobody in real life ever tries to lose unless they have some serious issues. (Mind you, you'd be surprised how many characters are supposed to have these same issues but play to succeed.) It's counter intuitive, so I don't fault people for this as much, except at extreme levels, which are frighteningly common.

However, I'm seeing an increasing number of players who are INCREDIBLY argumentative. With STs, with other players, vehemently defending every point about their characters decisions or ideas as if they are going to be killed if their characters are wrong even once. They'll say their character is very flawed, but all of those flaws are only ever roleplayed on their own terms. It's as if they have them just to say that they are there, so they can't fail at proper character creation either. No matter what, their character may be tragic, broken and sad, but they're never ever wrong unless someone actually proves it through long arguments that they can't refute on an out of character level. What happens to these players? They don't get in trouble, no. They may even succeed a lot, in fact they often do. But they also don't get played with very often, because they're a chore to interact with and even if you do, the potential is nowhere near as interesting for good play as that guy who could flip out at any time. They're just not as fun to play with.

If we go by six character theory, all six have to fail to succeed on a dramatic level. (Fail to succeed, I like that.)

1. The Hero is defined by their struggle. No failures, no struggle. Heroes should fail the MOST. Luke misses the first shot at the death star, loses his fricking HAND when he fights his father, gets captured by Jabba and all sorts of bad things. Buffy quits and moves back to LA for a Summer and starts sleeping with Spike. Frodo continually uses the One Ring when he knows he shouldn't.
2. The Enablers have to fail at things so the Hero can do them, and make it clear when people are really screwed. Princess Leia can't stop them from blowing up Alderan, Willow goes evil when he girlfriend dies.
3. The Narrators can't always be right, otherwise they just become mouthpices for the plot with no character of their own. By being opinionated, but biased, they provide a human element to their very necessary wisdom. Giles won't advise Buffy she's outgrown him because he hasn't outgrown her. Obi-wan doesn't tell Luke about his father and Luke pays for it. Gandalf thinks he can convince Soromon the error of his ways.
4. Monkeywrenches need to fail ALOT, because it's much better drama then when their problem causing drama is done on purpose. Accidents and failures keep them endearing to the other characters as opposed to spiteful. Dawn can't help but get captured every time something bad happens. RDD2 gets captured by jawas.
5. The Foil needs to fail to explain why they are not the Hero despite being their equal in some manner. Plus, failure can motivate a foil like nothing else. (I find people who play Foils are the worst for playing to succeed.) Spike helps people he shouldn't and burns bridges left and right. Jane Cobb sells the crew to the Alliance, and begs for his life afterwards.
6. Nevish's should just fail at nearly everything out of principle, the more they want it, the harder they should fall.

The next game you play, I challenge you to go out and make a mistake with your character. A big one. See if you feel like you're about to die. (It may be realy uncomfortable at first, it was for me.) See if the world collapses around you. I bet it won't, and if it does, it will be fun. Every player I know, when asked, would prefer their character to go out in a blaze of glory rather then get bored, yet people don't go out in a blaze of glory for doing and saying the right thing at every turn. And you don't have to.

Failure sucks in real life, I know. But it's fun in LARP, I promise.