The Obliteration Twins

[RuneBrighteyes]

This is kind of an offshoot of my PVP discussion. Here goes.

Disclaimer- I have not done this nor would I. What I am wondering about is the nature of meta-gaming and how consequences actually work in our game world.

So here's the situation- my buddy and I want to play political radicals/anarchists/bring down the government types. So we make two characters and start playing a game- we even try to choose characters who would seem to NEVER be allies. We never speak to each other in game and act as if we do not know each other. In between weekends we meet up and discuss who we think is important and vulnerable politically.

Then we show up to a weekend. One of the characters pulls aside a leadership type and says- "I saw "politically vulnerable" person x use necromancy." The following weekend the other character does the same thing to the same person.

What happens? Is someone executed? Does it work better if you wait 4-6 games to get more imbedded before this accusation is made?

(remember- I am NOT asking if this is cool/fun/good for the game. I am wondering what people think the likely result would be.)

 

[jpariury]

That depends heavily on the local plot team. If I were running the plot, it would depend on the trustworthiness of the characters that approached, their relationship with the higher up they spoke to, etc. It would also depend on the feasibility of the story the two characters told. I mean, if a character is known to not be able to read and write, never mind cast a spell, the likelihood of necromancy is significantly dampened, you know?

Also, I've been in chapters that use some sort of wonky "chaos taint" type effect, or other method of some higher power ascertaining if a character has ever cast chaos. In such a chapter, it likely wouldn't work.

Also, are either you of a person of sufficient standing to make such an accusation? Some campaigns have fairly strict laws on who can accuse whom of what.

 

[SkollWolfrun]

What I think would happen: multiple people would dispute such a claim on the behalf of the accused. At which point, investigation into the accusations come back to the 2 parties levying the charges.

Also, imo, if you are not keeping the local Plot team in the loop of your off site interactions, are you not actually meta-gaming?

 

[phedre]

I don't have to inform the plot teams of the chapters I play what my team discusses in our offsite meetings (we've used Skype because of our geographic dispersion) so why would that be different than two characters talking between games?

 

[Draven]

I don't see meta gaming going on here. I see a couple of characters who won't really be able to back up their claims and probably end up paying for it later.

 

[KyleSchmelz]

Yeah, I really don't see any OOG problems with what you're talking about.

 

[Gilwing]

So we make two characters and start playing a game- we even try to choose characters who would seem to NEVER be allies. We never speak to each other in game and act as if we do not know each other.

My question to you is this Ray. You said the act as if they don't know each other. Do they know each other? If they don't I would say yes, this is meta gaming.

One of the characters pulls aside a leadership type and says- "I saw "politically vulnerable" person x use necromancy." The following weekend the other character does the same thing to the same person.

What happens? Is someone executed? Does it work better if you wait 4-6 games to get more imbedded before this accusation is made?

(remember- I am NOT asking if this is cool/fun/good for the game. I am wondering what people think the likely result would be.)

This happens all the time now. Some one accuses another of casting necromancy/murder what ever. They believe that person because 1) they are trustworthy in there eyes and 2) the person they accused is untrustworthy in that same persons eyes. Unfortunately the way we do things is all one word vs. the other.

I don't think there is a set number of games that you should wait...it's, do they trust your pc vs the person you are accusing. I'd also go as far to say it depends on whom its coming from OOG too. Well Ray (lets use this name, hypothetically speaking ) is a great player and all around nice guy. He wouldn't lie to me. He's on staff at chapter X and a marshal there as well Vs. say a brand new player, we might assume that they heard it wrong or didn't know exactly what they were looking at. Again unfortunately this happens as well.

 

[Dan Nickname Beshers]

I'm willing to bet that, like David mentioned, the players in question and their out of game reputation will play an impact in how things play out. There are two different ways for this to happen. First, people recognizing player A (Alice) to be a likeable person out of game will feel a natural inclination towards her, the player, if they have a vacuum of information about the new character, potentially resulting in biased levels of trust. Second, someone recognizing on an out of game level that they don't know Alice's character very well may use Alice's reputation to internally justify on her behalf, e.g. "I don't know she's NOT trustworthy (and I DO trust Alice to play the game)." Such a person might very well voice that Alice's character is an unknown and needs to be treated with suspicion while being fully prepared to accept a token argument dismissing that concern.

I also want to draw attention to to other aspects of this scenario. The first is would people react differently if the accusations were made in the same way at the same time by the same players, but one or both were NPCing when making those accusations? The second is to examine the future usage of the accusing characters, the Obliteration Twins. It is absolutely inappropriate for two (or more) players to create new characters, thereby introducing multiple additional living members of the in game society who - in game - have history and legitimate motivations for their actions, expressly for the purpose of undermining another player's character, or even an NPC. It is inappropriate because those motivations are not genuine; the true motivating factor is an out of game desire to target another player. I believe characters are made and played in good faith that they are real members of the in game world, and not marionettes acting directly on out of game agendas. Playing a ready-made character assassin to make life difficult for an in game opponent of your primary character is very much against the spirit of the game.

 

[RuneBrighteyes]

First I would like to thank everyone for their on topic discussion. Now for some comments-

Also, I've been in chapters that use some sort of wonky "chaos taint" type effect, or other method of some higher power ascertaining if a character has ever cast chaos. In such a chapter, it likely wouldn't work.

This is interesting and a bit scary to me- also is it okay via the charter/rules/etc.?

Also, are either you of a person of sufficient standing to make such an accusation? Some campaigns have fairly strict laws on who can accuse whom of what.

This is pretty neat, and I like the idea and implications of this on a narrative.

What I think would happen: multiple people would dispute such a claim on the behalf of the accused. At which point, investigation into the accusations come back to the 2 parties levying the charges.

Definitely true, if the political radical Obliteration Twins picked a non-vulnerable target. Then we still have the difficulty/challenges of LARP investigation.

I don't have to inform the plot teams of the chapters I play what my team discusses in our offsite meetings (we've used Skype because of our geographic dispersion) so why would that be different than two characters talking between games?

+1. There is no metagaming issue here. That being said I have played on "evil" teams that invited plot members to come learn what our plans were. Perhaps another topic for a different thread.

My question to you is this Ray. You said the act as if they don't know each other. Do they know each other? If they don't I would say yes, this is meta gaming.

Sorry about the lack of clarity- the characters DO know each other, and their goal is to cause unrest and societal/political breakdown.

I don't think there is a set number of games that you should wait...it's, do they trust your pc vs the person you are accusing. I'd also go as far to say it depends on whom its coming from OOG too.

+1. Metagaming is a HUGE issue with this. And we haven't discussed what happens (differently) if the Twins accuse a PC or an NPC.

I also want to draw attention to to other aspects of this scenario. The first is would people react differently if the accusations were made in the same way at the same time by the same players, but one or both were NPCing when making those accusations? The second is to examine the future usage of the accusing characters, the Obliteration Twins. It is absolutely inappropriate for two (or more) players to create new characters, thereby introducing multiple additional living members of the in game society who - in game - have history and legitimate motivations for their actions, expressly for the purpose of undermining another player's character, or even an NPC. It is inappropriate because those motivations are not genuine; the true motivating factor is an out of game desire to target another player. I believe characters are made and played in good faith that they are real members of the in game world, and not marionettes acting directly on out of game agendas. Playing a ready-made character assassin to make life difficult for an in game opponent of your primary character is very much against the spirit of the game.

Dan- in my example the players have made characters who are political radicals/anarchists/etc. Their actions are based on what they want to accomplish as paying characters and are NOT targeted based on past interactions/grudges/etc. They are NOT backing up a different character of their own OR an allied character- to help them with their beef. Although it does open a STRANGE door-

A character has a long standing IG rivalry with another character. They wish to discredit their rival. In the game world they could locate and hire characters like the TWINS to enact their revenge. So that PLAYER asks two of their buddies to come in and play the twins so that their rival can be undone. The buddies make paying characters and come in and do the thing. What is wrong (or right) about this?

 

[Draven]

I sorta have an issue with the idea of making characters for the point of targeting specific characters. There's nothing rulesy against it, just feels....well...hrm.

I feel like if my character worked for a few years, and did a lot of stuff to attain some sort of standing, and another player wanted to upset my gained influence and asked his friends to make troublemakers with the very purpose of disrupting me...I'd call it bad sportsmanship. But that's just me.

I'm also pretty comfortable with the idea that since most of your negotiations are during OOG downtime, so you literally have 100% protection against being spied on, I'm pretty much going to take a instinctive distrust to any character you ever play again.

 

[Dan Nickname Beshers]

I know the kind of intent I described wasn't laid out in your original post, but the actions you detailed could easily come from that kind of intent. I felt it was worth addressing the point that targeting another player like that, or an NPC for that matter, is completely unacceptable and borders on violating several rules.

 

[jpariury]

This is interesting and a bit scary to me- also is it okay via the charter/rules/etc.?

The by-laws, afaik, generally deal with out-of-game logistics: how chapter interact with one another, licensing fees, how much treasure can go out, etc. There's nothing in the rules to explicitly disallow a chapter from including something of that nature as part of the local flavor (though, I definitely hope such a thing would be documented and published ahead of time, so players know what they're walking in to).

+1. There is no metagaming issue here. That being said I have played on "evil" teams that invited plot members to come learn what our plans were. Perhaps another topic for a different thread.

That would depend on how you approach your relationship with the plot team (and similarly, how your plot team approaches its job). If you approach the game with the idea that Plot is there strictly to antagonize/challenge/kill your characters, then, yeah, I'd be all for keep stuff secret from them. I definitely prefer running a plot team that provides both challenges and support for your ideas, or at least provide you with reasons for your character to not pursue certain vectors. I also prefer playing the game in a cooperative story-telling style, and find them more enjoyable when played that way.

 

[Jim]

I'd also go as far to say it depends on whom its coming from OOG too. Well Ray (lets use this name, hypothetically speaking ) is a great player and all around nice guy. He wouldn't lie to me. He's on staff at chapter X and a marshal there as well Vs. say a brand new player, we might assume that they heard it wrong or didn't know exactly what they were looking at. Again unfortunately this happens as well.

This is the only thing in this thread that seems to be metagaming.

 

[evi1r0n]

If you are treating any PC or NPC for that matter with anything other than IG considerations, you are metagaming. If you are taking into account that Dirk the Oblit Twin is being played by Fred the new guy, you are metagaming. Treat every character you meet IG PC or NPC based on your IG interactions only and you won't find yourself in the metagaming minefield.

Now if you say, "I don't trust those oblit twins because they are new to the land," that's cool because that's IG.

To the OP:

Honestly, unless coming from a trusted person in the community, IG, your not going to get much traction and probably get yourself executed, especially if it's against an official or noble.