POLL: Backstabbing

[DavidG]

Originally posted by Pax:
Your "clean slate" reference is in direct contradiction of the quote above.

I think you might want to read the Posts a bit more carefully before you go on a rant. There is no contradiction here. I'd elaborate but I feel the effort would be a waste.

[ June 06, 2003, 22:43: Message edited by: DavidG ]

[DavidG]

Originally posted by Pax:

quote:

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Originally posted by DavidG:
Gee thanks for telling us that for the 100th time. IMO anyone that claims they do not try to win is kidding themselves. You know it is possible to play to win and for fun at the same time.

Here's a trick for you: define "win".

The "win" I look for is a fun game. If I have fun, then I "won" -- even if my race is obliterated.

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No you lost. You may have had fun but you lost. It's going to be pretty hard to have a relevant discussion if you are going to make up your own definitions for words.

[Katchoo]

Don't trust anyone.

That's how I walk into every game. It's also the best way to not get disappointed in whatever transpires during the game. Afterall, if you expect the worst, the only thing people can do is impress you.

Granted, if you're in a long standing partnership with someone and they unexpectedly cut relations and attack you, you'll feel some measure of hurt. That's natural.

Most people here though aren't out to hurt other players purposely. Most cases of backstabbing can be seen comming too (eg ship movement) so backstabbing can also be seen as a consequence of not paying attention to the activites around you. Afterall, if you see your neighboor building up a large fleet near your border with no particular reason behind it, then you better blow the dust off your defenses just in case.

[gravey101]

Not sure I have ever really backstabbed a trusting and trusted ally, alhtough I guess I might. I have jumped all over unsuspecting neighbours early in the game, and have upset people by doing this. I have been backstabbed, attacked, you name it, but never take it personally - it's just a game. We do seem to have 2 different camps, those who play purely to win, and those who view it as a role playing experience. I definitely started in the play-to-win camp, but after having won my share of games, these days I am more likely to try to create an interesting situaion politically than to go all out for the win. Strict role playing doesnt really interest me but can understand the attraction. I'm sure I carry over some feelings from game to game, but I try to start each game as cleanly as I can, but without a doubt, certain players tendencies do influence one's future behavior. The only people I don't care to replay are those who take events in the game too personally, those who drop out of games, those who cheat, and those who jump at the chance to label as cheats anyone who doesnt agree with their vision of how the game should be played. Even the most vicious of backstabs would not stop me playing with a player again. In fact, I might adnire him all the more for it :-)

[DavidG]

Originally posted by gravey101:
We do seem to have 2 different camps, those who play purely to win, and those who view it as a role playing experience.

I for the most part agree with everything you said but I think this point (Above) is a bit more of a grey area. I suspect most people that know me would put me in the play to win camp but I think most of us (me included) are somewhere in between. I don't think most play 'purely' to win. We play for fun and winning is fun. Playing and losing is fun too. (wining is more fun ) Winning the same way over and over can get a bit dull though. I have for example picked racial traits that I know are not ideal and attempted to win using such a race. (ie an Organic Race that only uses organic weapons) I guess that would be called role playing.

[spoon]

Originally posted by gravey101:
Even the most vicious of backstabs would not stop me playing with a player again. In fact, I might adnire him all the more for it :-)

Note to self: Get Gravey.

[Pax]

Originally posted by Stone Mill:
You insist that you enter the game with a clean slate. I submit that it is not entirely possible. You are human, after all. Most of this will be subconscious.

I don't think you understand how fully I RP a race.

I make decisions -- reactions, responses, etc -- relative to the other players, based PURELY, solely, and exclusively on the character and personality of the Role I have assigned to that race.

My emotional responses barely (if at all) enter into the equation. I take the role, and the situation; I put them together, and examine how the two would interact. From those, I select the course of action that (a) best exemplifies the chosen role, and (b) best serves that race's interests. In that order of priority, mind.

I don't just play RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, I also "GM" (stands for "game master" -- think "referee, movie director, mediator, rules guru, casting director, and everything else off-camera").

Now, in some games, I've GMed villains whose actions woudl make me literally sick to my stomache to contemplate actually being done -- by anyone. I've had to, as a result, learn to divorce my sense of "Self" from my sense of "role"; IOW, to keep role and self apart.

You probably don't have esp, so I don't understand how you can possibly enforce your expectations on other players, or know whether the players in your game will live up to your standard. You are setting yourself up for a lot of difficulty. Creating a hot button for someone to push.

I can't, and if I could wouldn't, enforce my standards on anyone else (some of the roles I assume would, and gleefully ... but I would never do so).

Nor, of course, can I know the characetr of a player save by observing them.

However, just as I seperate MY self and my role, I don't let what players do in the role of their in-game persona influence what I think of the player. The two are different, completely so.

...

I suspect you've never played face-to-face, non-computer RPGs, or at least, haven't done MUCH of that. This isn't something that's easy to explain to someone who doesn't "get it" at the first pass, but after a quarter-century of D&D ... it's instinctive to me; I don't even have to THINK about it anymore.

Clean slate is my policy, but I won't be naive and expose myself to the same mistakes against a same player twice. My guess is that you won't either, but you really can't visualize it as you are posting.

LEt me put this in simple terms for you:

If the role I have selected for a race has a weakness, and I encounter someone who I, the player, know will take advantage of that weakness if and when he detects it ... I will do nothing differently. The Role controls what is or isn't done; I don't change that Role simply because I could "win" better by doing so. The race, the Role, has to learn itself, sometimes.

Example: I, the player, may easily see that a player is being duplicitous in his dealings with me. However, the Role might be a naive, overly-trusting one ... so, I the player don't alter the Role to suddenly see through deceptions it was not supposed to see through. Whatrever I might know or see, the Role doesn't neccessarily know or see through.

In the terminology of D&D: it's a matter of refusing to succumb to metagame thinking. IC information and OOC information are not always identical; in fact, RARELY are they even passingly similar.

I myself could, with some time and effort, construct working firearms of various types and purposes, propellant included, if dropped into a medieval setting.

But that doesn't mean every peasant's-son-turned-warrior-hero FROM such a setting, whom I happen to be playing as a characetr, knows how to do so.

That is the defining difference between in-character (read: in-game) and out-of-character (read: out-of-game) knowledge being kept seperate.