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On PvP and permanent injuries
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I realize this has the possibility to get contentious, but I want to try and have the conversation anyway.
Most of the MU*s I’ve played on have had rules strongly limiting, or outright barring, PvP. Usually, there are IC explanations for why this conflict is prohibited: you might be in a city with a massive police/guard presence, or you’re bound by some supernatural spell that doesn’t permit violence between the oathtakers, or you might just be somewhat civilized and have non-violent ways of resolving disputes.
Until very recently, these were the only games I was interested in. Despite my nom de plume here, most of my MU* characters are fairly skittish, and practically none of them have any real combat skills. I remember Achaea too well to be comfortable with the wild west of full PvP.
Enter Silent Heaven. Without getting too deeply into the lore, for context: folks are stuck somewhere together, and there’s not a lot of law and order. PvP is constrained, but it’s not off the table. People can, and do, receive really serious injuries.
I spent about a week on a character there talking shit, alienating other characters left and right, and generally painting an enormous target on my back (I also frequently asked folks some questions OOC to make sure my character’s antagonism was enjoyable to deal with, and not a chore; let nobody say I’m utterly incapable of learning).
And yesterday, my hopes and dreams came true. My character had the shit beat out of her, was brought back from the brink by some people, and then was subjected to even more trauma. So now, suddenly, my character is scared. She’s angry like she was before, but she’s afraid to let it out. She’s cowering in front of people she mouthed off to. There is so much room for realistic growth that feels unforced by the necessity of narrative. And, at least according to folks who I scened with last night, this character arc is interesting and enjoyable for others.
Now, I’m not advocating for unrestrained PvP where you can kill off characters or steal all their stuff or anything like that. And I’m not advocating that games change their PvP rules! I’m interested in seeing whether there’s a conversation to be had about the benefits of, well, implementing “talk shit, get hit” mechanics. Do any of y’all have a history in games that did it well? Games that did it poorly? Do you have ideas for implementations of PvP and injuries that you’d like to see, or ones you would rather do without? I know a lot of y’all have been in the hobby for A While Now and have probably seen all sorts of styles of play.
I’m curious to hear from everyone, if y’all have opinions!
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I think PvP can be perfectly good RP and game, provided that two things are true:
- IC consequences are not being used to try to ‘fix’ a problem that is primarily OOC, and
- PvP procedures are transparent, quickly resolvable, and engaged with in good faith to make the scene fun for all combatants.
Where I’ve seen PvP be a trial and a pain, it’s MOSTLY been in violation of point 1. Where PvP is being used to remove or ‘punish’ a player who is doing unfun things through their character, and the aggressors are really, truly hoping that the player will go away if their character’s life is miserable enough or ended. Sometimes this is an understandable (but not okay) reaction to a player being abusive by IC means and the game staff refuses to remove them. Sometimes it’s because the aggressor sees any sort of IC conflict (even, like, flirting with the same PC the aggressor is interested in) as an OOC assault on their fun and goes nuclear.
I genuinely believe that if you have OOC motives for PvP, including just generally being angry at a player, even if they are a massive dumbass, you need to rethink whether you should be engaging in PvP with them. Ideally, PvP is an IC thing informed by what is OOC fun for everyone involved, and when it is, you can have some really intense, really FUN conflicts that can go all the way to the limit.
But when it’s not, PvP can cause a whole wretched series of IC/OOC boundary crossings, revenge attacks, and just general misery across a game.
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PVP among strangers on the internet often ends in toxicity, whether you’re playing on a MU or playing Call of Duty.
I have absolutely had fun doing PVP among friends. I have also seen individual players (like you, it sounds like) who can take IC lumps without it bleeding into OOC resentment. But in my experience, those folks are the exception rather than the rule.
No judgment against people who enjoy PVP, though (just as I’ve got no grudge against people duking it out in Call of Duty). I just don’t need to risk that kind of drama in my pretendy fun-time games.
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@Pyrephox said in On PvP and permanent injuries:
I genuinely believe that if you have OOC motives for PvP, including just generally being angry at a player, even if they are a massive dumbass, you need to rethink whether you should be engaging in PvP with them.
I do agree with this, but at the same time I also am starting to think that having the capacity to inflict harm on a character can provide a way to decrease, not increase, OOC animus. That does depend on whether the PvP’d is okay with it, though, so maybe it’s a thing that should only be done in certain games with certain communities.
@Faraday said in On PvP and permanent injuries:
I have also seen individual players (like you, it sounds like) who can take IC lumps without it bleeding into OOC resentment.
Ah. Well. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Some IC things are easier to handle than others.
bird's still the word
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I’m making a note to come back to this to comment when we finish resolving our current bit of “A PC just killed the King and every other PC wants to figure out which PC did it and how”.
So far, honestly, it is progressing wonderfully from where I sit, though.
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To your point, I do think that one of the most important things is to be absolutely transparent about what is acceptable. Codified into the documentation, warned about in character generation. At that point, you’re consenting to an RP-PVP experience, and know what to expect.
Now, another thing that comes to mind in a PVP-allowed environment are things that are harder to control. That typical host of other baggage such as extremely vindictive and insular groups that can torment players that they dislike, gang up on newbies to control any ingame resources, and pressure IC actions due to the fear of character loss.
That’s some people’s jam, or else EVE Online, Rust, Ark: Survival Ascended, etc wouldn’t be a thing.
I don’t know if I’d be up to the task of policing it.
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I think that there’s a place for games that have conflict between the PCs, but there’s a few things to be mindful of.
Rephrasing PvP as “CvC” and allowing for CvC - Character vs Character - conflict while not tolerating PvP (player vs player) content is a good first step (which is something that Silent Heaven does, to my understanding). But with that, you also need to make sure that the community is well maintained and managed - games with hard coded conflict/competition (especially in the RPI space) tend to draw a toxic crowd, and making sure to get ahead of that with a cultivated community goes a long way towards making sure CvC doesn’t become PvP.
Something else to be mindful of is a “talk shit, get hit” kind of system of CvC can exacerbate problems, as well. Typically, troublemakers do what they do for attention, whether it’s positive or negative attention, so when someone rolls up to a space that has codified conflict, it’s very easy to generate attention by just acting out. This tends to get solved in the “community cultivation” step of things, but it’s one of the things that can crop up with having open conflict between PCs.
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@Rinel said in On PvP and permanent injuries:
I also am starting to think that having the capacity to inflict harm on a character can provide a way to decrease, not increase, OOC animus
In my experience, it can happen, but so often people tie themselves up in their characters so deeply that any attack on a character is an attack on the person themselves - and this is only exacerbated when it comes to physical confrontations.
It’s almost always a net increase in OOC problems.
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@NotSanni said in On PvP and permanent injuries:
Rephrasing PvP as “CvC” and allowing for CvC - Character vs Character - conflict while not tolerating PvP (player vs player) content is a good first step
While I certainly agree that words have power and CvC is more the aim, I think running counter to well-established, cultural jargon is a losing proposition.
PvP never literally means actual player versus player. We’re not standing on posts whacking each other with sticks like American Gladiators (yes, I’m old). It’s always a conflict via character proxies.
And really, acknowledging that there is some measure of OOC factors (like a chess match, but with story beats) feels more honest.
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Lawyer Friend of mine introduced me to a fun legal term after giving the broad strokes of how a bunch of middle schoolers started a fight club at their school, and how fight clubs aren’t technically breaking the law. That term is mutual combat. Basically, it is consent to punch, as long as both sides agree and rules are in place to keep things from getting out of hand.
Since there is the distinction between PVP and CVC… wanna fight with folks? Stick it in your RP hooks, everyone agree to limits in OOC before hand, and then go forth.
And I get a lot of people already do this, with a blanket ‘I consent to whatever as long as no X or Y’… but consent can be withdrawn at any time, so maybe also get a more specific and up-to-date agreement in place.
Or I’m over-thinking things.
Mummy Pun? MUMMY PUN!
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@Jennkryst said in On PvP and permanent injuries:
Since there is the distinction between PVP and CVC… wanna fight with folks? Stick it in your RP hooks, everyone agree to limits in OOC before hand, and then go forth.
I’ve reliably found that the players who put this sort of interest into their RP hooks have been the least capable of dealing reasonably with even mild IC conflict.
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@Jennkryst said in On PvP and permanent injuries:
fight clubs aren’t technically breaking the law
There’s a big, big, big, big, big ‘it depends’ asterisk attached to this statement.
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I’ve run a lot of pvp. Things that were successful:
- Clear rules set out ooc at the start so everyone knows what to expect
- Allowing “cinematic defeat” when people lost so they can topple over a cliff and lose the fight but not lose a limb or otherwise be grievously mangled
- Encouraging ooc banter and teasing in a fun way, gently nipping it if it starts to sound snotty
- Everyone using gear/weapons/powers that are clearly defined, and ideally automatic in the system
Things that were not successful:
- Anything outside the bounds of very clear dice vs dice that requires more subjective GM decision making.
“Politics” or social pvp was a disaster. Spy PvP was a disaster. People who don’t want to fight but want to do tricky shit to advantage their team, disaster. People who want to use special gear, perks, and magic that aren’t clearly defined so that they gain an advantage, disaster.
When everyone was rolling clean, no problems, people had fun. When it started getting into “I should be allowed to do this weird thing that means I win,” there were problems every time.
It would have been easier if that game had more things clearly defined, lol. PvP is exciting in a way PvNPC isn’t, but it can definitely get messy.
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@Roz said in On PvP and permanent injuries:
@Jennkryst said in On PvP and permanent injuries:
Since there is the distinction between PVP and CVC… wanna fight with folks? Stick it in your RP hooks, everyone agree to limits in OOC before hand, and then go forth.
I’ve reliably found that the players who put this sort of interest into their RP hooks have been the least capable of dealing reasonably with even mild IC conflict.
Yeah. That’s why instead of assuming people are cool with it, you could just go on RP Requests with ‘anybody wanna fight?’ and then discuss from there. Even if Player 1 is cool with getting mugged, Players 2-4 who are also in the scene might not be.
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I like the idea of rebranding to CvC but it’ll never take – though I have seen PvP that really is about just beating the other player. OOC lies to convince a player to join a scene in a specific way ‘I’ll help you evade the authorities!’ only the then ICly set them up to get got.
I’ve had the ‘Hey I’d like to scene with you’ chat with someone I didn’t ICly get along with, get warned ‘Depending on how this goes, this could turn to violence’ and then when I agreed, extra people suddenly show up to help the other player out. Violence was a 100% guarantee, not a maybe, and it ended with my character dead and over out of seemingly nowhere.
That said, I really do enjoy going against other players sometimes, but like most forms of RP, it’s always been at its best when it really is a collaborative effort like other forms of RP. Discussions with the other parties, talking about what could or shouldn’t be attempted – sometimes you do want to surprise people so you might not mention everything, but sometimes with some chatter people will happily engage.
I don’t mind serious or permanent injury being done to my characters in the course of it either. Back in the days of Haunted Memories I had a mortal+ character built as a sort of ‘Hunter’ archetype, and one of my good friends needed to go away for a bit and volunteered to have his vamp be torpored by her to explain his absence. It drove so much RP as people looked for him and looked for her, and she ended up getting got but I had so much fun.
But I generally wouldn’t engage in serious PvP shenanigans with pure strangers anymore either. Some OOC communication beforehand needs to be done.
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@Livia Brb gonna trap Prism in a crystal… Will call it the Prism prison prism.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
@Pavel Prism ponders Percy’s pernicious Prism prison prism.
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@Livia said in On PvP and permanent injuries:
@Pavel Prism ponders Percy’s pernicious Prism prison prism.
I just wanted you to know I upvote for alliterative responses (ETA - bonus points awarded for username being part of the alliteration).
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It works well on Silent Heaven for a number of reasons.
First, there are no OOC channels. It can be fairly and easily assumed that all IC conflict is IC and consequence are kept IC and aside from OOC “you cool?” check ins (which are rarely needed because we have consent sheets). That said, you never know in SH what is happening on the other side of the line. So you might be fine, but the other player still might be OOC mad. But if they are, there’s really no avenue to turn it OOC toxic for the whole group.
Second, the game loudly and warns prospective players that their character will get shot, looted, etc etc. So it’s all up front and opt in.
Third, the physical conflicts mechanically resolve in minutes.
Four, you don’t lose your bit - and honestly, I think that tones down the ill will the most. There’s no harm that can be done that ends your story. As long as you want to play through to the end of the game, you can. So even if you get beat, shot, etc. there’s really no means by which someone can take your story away from you before you hit the end-game xp threshold.
And the community seems to be well policed for truly frivolous aggro nonsense. It’s easy to read through the veil of IC conflict mechanics to see potential OOC vengefulness and it is called out and staff will take action against it.
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@watno said in On PvP and permanent injuries:
Four, you don’t lose your bit - and honestly, I think that tones down the ill will the most. There’s no harm that can be done that ends your story.
This is definitely true. But it gives so much opportunity to change the story! I love it.
