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Champion
 
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i think the pvp vs pvm in this argument is an important one. H&H is player affected and really pvm (yes you can kill a pc but its rare and you get punished) IC I could cause an international incident that could case years worth of plot but the refs could if they require it quite easily and without a huge disruption to the way things run sweep the carpet if it messes up the worked plot that has been years in the build up. Pvp however is alot harder to do that with, if i i did similar in EoS the refs would have almost no influence to stop or prolong the aftermath even if its going to greatly effect the overall game because they cant say no dont attack X or Y
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Eos: Sornasian: Gregory Patell; Burning Salamander; Fingers  Club Secretary Heroes and Heroines LARP
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Wag
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Matt Pennington (4/25/2008)
Can you have PvM that is player-led. Definitely you can. If you have a very real world that is active and dynamic and populated largely with NPCs but where the course of the action that the players are involved with centres around them and the choices they make, then I think you can have player-led.
I don't think you can do that with it also being PvP. It can be PvM in the sense that there are NPCs what can be duffed up for advantage, but I don't think it can be PvM in the sense of "No PvP" PvM - or even, as you say, in the sense of "very highly affectable" plot PvM.
Matt Pennington (4/25/2008)
They have to lead, so you can't control that, the best you can do is try to seed the environment with things that encourage player-led plot. However it's very easy to turn up the volume of organizer-led plot, because you just make it bigger and more obvious and more important.
DUTT is a good example because it's a confuse hybrid with once weekly linear/non-linear adventures on Saturday and once weekly interactives.
The adventures are usually PvM - with PvP allowed as standard - sometimes the format is played about with to make it more PvP (nonlinears where almost everyone is a player with conflicting goals) or just "very affectable plot".
The interactives are straight up PvP player-lead - NPCs exist to be told what to do/lead in riot. In practice that has to be seasoned with a certain amount of low-volume story-led plot to keep the people losing out in the player-lead PvP happy (it's kind of like inserting an artificial layer beneath the human pyramid - even the losers can feel superior to NPCs).
Matt Pennington (4/25/2008)
In theory player-led plot could drown out organizer-led plot and I've seen some examples that look something like that happening at Maelstrom, but it's hard to get "loud" player-led plot
Players push selfish IC goals, organisers push altruistic OOC goals. It's irrelevant whether organiser-led is more or less interesting to interact with than player-led plot - I think the point is that we're conditioned to feel that it's just better not to seem selfish. It's difficult to set up a culture where players don't feel that they have to apologise for pushing their agenda as hard as they can - equally, it's hard to retain organisers if they are made to feel at least as cautious in pushing their plot as players are IC. It's a bit like the LT guild trade-off - spend time on boring administration/gain IC power - you can end up with some bizarre status system where your ability to affect the game is dependent on how much IC time you're willing to sacrifice for OOC admin/duties - it's easy to see the trap, but surprisingly hard to dodge.
Marios
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Wag
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raggedhalo (4/25/2008)
I always like to think of things in terms of the Story Matrix, which seems to help...
Maybe the write up here is particularly bad but I've never found this matrix particularly useful - the individual terms might be useful, but I don't see much point in a matrix when you can't really be clear whether some of the combinations are contradictory without redefining them on the fly.
For instance, what is "Character-driven" and how is it distinct (from how the British use) "Player-driven"?
"a Character-driven story starts with a group of characters who then pursue their goals"
"the Players control the protagonists and their actions" {No mention of actually _leading_ or initiating the plot here!}
If we assume these players are engaging in 'roleplay', how do these then differ?
How would a game be "Player-lead" and "Plot-driven" without redefining "plot" to mean something distinct from it's normal use?
It seems to replace one set of concepts which maybe lack commonly agreed meanings with four that definitely do!
Marios
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Prodigal
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the organisers creating characters with goals and objectives, usually in a way so that the goals of one character overlap or conflict with the goals of another. As the plot derives from characters pursuing those goals then that's not as player-led as a game in which players choose their own goals for their characters.
Suppose: I say to Matt: 'Suggest a character for me to play' Matt says to me: 'How about you play a scholarly teacher priest trying to bring structure and order to the relationships between the varied old world priests?' I say: 'Good idea' and then go and play the character. Does that make it less player-led? How for the tricky bit, suppose the person I'm asking isn't involved in the larp, but is just a mate/another player I'm asking for advice. Does that make it less player-led?
------ <insert really amusing sig here>
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Heroic Knight
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| Player led plot to me means 1 or more players came up with an idea/something they wanted to do Then either all some or 1 of the ref team and/or other player(s) got involved and took the plot to the next stage At Heroquest we will write a perfectly good adventure which will keep the players entertained throughout the event If at the end 1 or more of the players say I want to kill Duke Hanro, he got away and deserves to die. Then on the next event part or even all of the adventure will be about killing Duke Hanro. This to me is then a player led plot. Because hunting down 1 guy and killing him isnt really much of an event on its own we will of course add in other plots sidelines twists etc. If another player is looking for his lost brother, Thomas, we can include that as well. Another player wants to have his magical sword fixed. You get the idea. Some players are happy to just turn up to an event and see what unfolds and others like to have some plot that they came up with. What I like to do is get all the different threads then come up with a plot that ties all of them in in some way. At the end of the event I say that the beast man tribal feast plot was mine but that the killing of Duke Hanro the finding of Thomas and the gnome artificer/renewing the sword of hope were all PLAYER LED PLOT. Mark/SFB http://www.heroquest-larp.co.uk/
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Wag
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markst (4/25/2008)
If at the end 1 or more of the players say I want to kill Duke Hanro, he got away and deserves to die. Then on the next event part or even allof the adventure will be about killing Duke Hanro.
markst (4/25/2008)
Another player wants to have his magical sword fixed. You get the idea.
But both of these are examples of players _reacting_ to ref plot (assuming that player Duke Hanro isn't another player that another group of players didn't specifically decide to frame Duke Hanro for a series of criminal actions/didn't specifically decide to break the other guy's magical sword).
I think this is what Matt P means by "player reactive plot" and it's what I would call responsive story-led plot. Since I've not really seen anyone championing the idea that story-led plot should be unresponsive it seems unnecessary to have separate word for "responsive/reactive" story-led plot, unless you're describing some particularly mechanism for making it more responsive.
If you walked into a game and said "I despise magic, I come from the land of the pure desert people - I've seen the corruption in these lands, clearly it's caused by magic. Duke Hanro protects magic users - maybe because he's stupid/maybe because he's corrupt - either way, I need to put him out of the way by framing him as a paedophile. By the by, I'll make a point of freeing comrades from their addiction by subtly destroying these corrupting items and making sure that any attempt to fix them fails or costs so much that even a fool can see that it's not worth it." then that would be player-led because you're initiating things which other players/NPCs/refs have to react to - rather than them initiating things and you reacting.
Marios
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Champion
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Marios (4/25/2008)
what is "Character-driven" and how is it distinct (from how the British use) "Player-driven"?
You have to understand 'character-driven' in opposition to 'plot-driven' (or 'story-led' as some folk call it).
Non-player characters are characters too.
____________________
"Fantasy is the artificial sweetener upon the poisoned cake of materialism." - R. J. Stewart
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Wag
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Nath (4/25/2008)
How for the tricky bit, suppose the person I'm asking isn't involved in the larp, but is just a mate/another playerI'm asking for advice. Does that make it less player-led?
You mean, if the goals of a given character in the game are led less by that player and more by other people, does it become less player-lead? I would say that would obviously be a yes - although, possibly not by much.
Equally, you might say if I attend a player-lead game, but choose not to initiate any plot (what makes a man turn ... neutral?), is it less player-lead? In conception the game is the same as before - but in practice it clearly is less player-lead since definitively less players are engaged in leading.
I think there's a fairly straightforward heuristic - it's a question of how personally responsible as a player you feel for choosing and succeeding/failing in your contested IC goals. NPCs may be just as 'well roleplayed' as PCs, but the burden of responsibility for choosing goals and succeeding/failing in those goals is always lighter. The easiest way to measure freedom is to measure responsibility.
Marios
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