41. PC vs PC
One of my favourite pieces of RPG theory is the idea of “gamefeel as an extension of identity” (Gamefeel p28, Swink, 2009). The idea that we experience our characters as extensions of ourselves — I swing my sword at the dragon, despite the fact that I have neither sword, nor dragon, nor expertise in swinging. This leads to a common conflation between player and player character (and, arguably, and depending how deep you want to go, player-subject and character-construct). This conflation can often be funny (cf every reddit post that describes a DM killing a player), and sometimes can be disruptive to play. But it’s often a core part of the experience of roleplaying.[1]
[1] - Again, arguably, given the different cultures of play disagree on how closely a player and character should entwine their identities and interactions)
Blades continues to show Harper’s exceptional understanding of the intricacies of play when we reach page 41, PC vs PC. Harper’s text helps to resolve the core conflict (characters with opposing intentions/goals) but acknowledges that extension of identity (it’s not just characters with opposing goals, it’s also players with opposing goals).
Note that this is not a “player vs. player” system. When characters come into conflict, the players must still collaborate and make judgment calls together, as usual. Conflicts between players are outside the scope of the game; they can’t be resolved with the dice rolls and mechanics of Blades in the Dark. If the players—not their characters—are in conflict, you’ll have to work it out using social methods, then return to the game when it’s resolved. Don’t try to use the game as a way to dodge or replace a normal social interaction to resolve person-to-person conflict.
PC vs PC, Blades in the Dark, p41
Absolutely fascinating, eh? If I could change one thing I’d give this more focus, maybe a breakout box. It’s such a critical part of the game’s approach that it blends a bit too much as a paragraph. I wish I could draw out the best bits and share those with every player. So let me do what I can to reinforce some of the most beautiful parts of this section: When characters come into conflict, players must still collaborate. Conflicts between players are outside the scope of the game.
Now, there’s a conversation worth having about the Baker-Boss Principle, and how if players are negotiating and agreeing anyway, the system might not be any better than just freeform RPing with your friends. The conversation would also need to consider my own positions on Faith in the Model[2], which I want to bring up later when we have some meat at which to level our lens.
[2] - In an incredibly basic sense, Faith in the Model just means “players believe that the system is a usable and useful representation of the fiction they’re exploring”. Without Faith in the Model, the fiction ceases to mean anything to player, and they reject any meaning the experience might present.
This speaks a lot to Blade’s three-step procedure:
1. Pause the game […]
2. Agree to the resolution methods […]
3. Abide by the results […]
PC vs PC, Blades in the Dark, p41
Pausing the game isn’t (as I had suspected) about leaving the mechanico-procedural space of Blades in the Dark, it’s about slowing the fiction and mechanics down and ensuring buy-in before action. The thing that’s beautiful about this is that it’s rooted in John’s (masterful) understanding of play: “Who goes first” is sometimes the questions players fixate on, especially if things are about to get violent. (p41). This question of “who goes first” is rooted in the idea of seizing the initiative, of acting in such a way that you earn some unfettered right to action. This is part of a habit players have of trying to solve through diegesis, but often the reason the players are in conflict is a difference in their understanding of diegesis or of their acceptance of same (reduction to everything-proof shields, again). Slowing things down forces players to reset the trajectory of play, and it’s a great piece of advice.
Agreeing to and Abiding to the methods of resolution is pure Faith in the Model play. It demands a degree of buy-in without which “this conflict just isn’t going to happen” (p41). The game has no tools to resolve conflict between characters, it only has tools to help you decide how to resolve that conflict for yourselves.
I love John’s approach, and I think this procedure is an excellent best-practice for anyone working with multiple players in fictional spaces. That said, I’m left (again) looking at Blades, and wishing the game asserted more. Wishing the game had more to say. This goes deeper into my personal dissatisfaction with the way the American community treats freeform compared to the Australian community’s approach to, and intentional use of, freeform RP. I find a deep dissatisfaction in freeform negotiation being funneled back into tight mechanical spaces for resolution.
In the same way that After the War (Pitre, 2018) lets players use conflict mechanics with and against each other’s character-constructs, and then lets those mechanics sap the player' characters resources, the mechanics of your game say something about the things you believe to be true about the world. Blade’s action roll is a clear expression of a few things that John believes to be true about a life of crime[3], but by removing the familiar structures of play and moving the conversation out of rules, the system (one leg of the Blades in the Dark tripod) ceases to have an opinion.
[3] - I say John, here, but I of course mean “John Harper as represented by the text Blades in the Dark”. John as a rhetorical device rather than the living breathing human that currently exists. The Forgotten John.
A Short Aside on The Unwelcome and Unwanted
I don’t want to dive too deep into what is a very provocative aside, but I’m a little frustrated by how toothless some games can be about circumstances that the players find unwelcome—about consequences to actions. It’s not just Blades, it’s not just Indies, it’s not just TTRPGs, but I think there’s a real power to rules that say “these are the stakes, as you understand them” and then force players to engage with those stakes. I think one of the most powerful parts of Night Witches (Morningstar, 2015) is that it shifts the player-empowering PbtA structures into a restrictive player-disempowering approach. Structures that place demands on the players invite them to an experience that includes the compelling unwanted and unwelcome. Rules that introduce outcomes that no one would seek out, but create a compelling play experience such that we want. If we break the Player into Player and Player-Subject[4], we can see that there’s a difference between hurt and harm, between pain and suffering, between play and abuse. The player is safe and unhurt, the player-subject is battered by the level three harm delivered upon their character (/character-construct). This, however, has been really difficult to perceive in a world where all negotiation tools are Safety Tools, and all negotiation must therefor be framed through the lens of unsafe, lasting harm, rather than just a discussion of the compelling and the unwelcome. Mother of the Apocalypse, Meguey Baker, has said this with her expert clarity in a recent post.
[4] - “The Player-Subject is based on the theory that it is not really us who play games, but a subset of ourselves. One can imagine the Player-Subject as similar to a mental persona: a character existing solely in the mind, strongly influenced by us yet able to make decisions we might never make in real life” (Walk, Görlich, & Barrett, 2017)).
It’s notable that John’s own public statement on how players could better engage with scenarios where they aren’t getting what they want (a 2017 response to a Matt Colville video) is now a private video, indicating a likely shift in their own beliefs, or at least in how they want those beliefs heard. Out of respect for that step in making the video private, I’ll make no attempt to reconstruct what I remember of that video (or what’s available around the scattered internet).
Mark Experience,
Sidney Icarus
The header image is "Two Bulls Clash Antlers" by USFWS Mountain Prairie is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
