Wanna Fight?

Introduction

Last month, I mentioned the Pokémon LARP game I was in. I was a co-GM, and the co-GMs (three of us) played multiple people, all based on the scene. One of the most intriguing characters I played was Gary - our version of the Gary in the Pokémon show. But he became more. He actually tagged along with the PCs, challenged them occasionally, and eventually became an ally of sorts. Here's a picture - we went Kabuki-like and held up the faces when we played NPCs. Here's another picture of him, feeling a little smug. I know, I need to keep my day job. But I got pretty good at drawing bad anime really quickly.

But I digress. The point of this was that Gary was a rarity in most RPG games - a friendly rival. His presence led to a lot of good role-playing, and I wondered why we didn't see rivals in more games. And I realized that the lethality of games had a lot to do with it. If you're trying to kill your rival, you're not going to have a rival for long. Plus, the stakes are too high - you may respect your rival, but you're not going to sit down and have a beer with him.

That's where games and sports enter the arena. It gives the players (and note the terminology - not characters, but the players) an outlet. Losing a football game isn't quite as final as losing a battle. Finally, you can build these friendly rivalries. This article examines games, sports, and their role in role-playing games.

Aspects of Games

Parlett, in A History of Card Games, breaks down games into four categories.

• Chance. The roll of the dice. Games based on these are the simplest games, because no skill is needed. You can mimic these by either rolling dice or by dealing out cards. The disadvantage of these games is they are the equivalent of Chutes and Ladders. Pretty simple, with little replay value.
• Choice. Parlett notes that "choice alone is not enough: it must be significant choice." Choosing heads or tails doesn't count, because each has a fifty percent chance of winning. Parlett equates choice with strategy, but choice can also be based on personal preference. Do I stay, bluff, or fold? A bold person would bluff, while a cautious person may stay or fold. The advantage of this aspect is it builds ownership. However, it also adds complexity, and makes the "I have a 15 in Poker skill" more ambiguous.
• Coherence. Coherence here is defined as how a move either limits or opens up future moves. A game like blackjack has plenty of choice, but little coherence; after each (relatively short) hand, the cards are reshuffled and the "history" is erased. Othello is another game that has little coherence; one of my programming assignments was to program a computer to explore all the options of Othello. Chess, on the other hand, has a lot of coherence. Each move defines what the player can do in the future, and the strategy is based on looking ahead to determine where will your pieces be so you have plenty of options. Games with a lot of coherence tend to last longer, while games with little coherence end quickly.
• Information. What information do you have to work with? A game like Chess is all above-board; everyone can see what is going on. Games like Stratego or Poker are different - the players are hiding information, and that information slowly leaks out. Partlett notes that information is more than just the game. Poker players, for example, are focused on how players interact - the term "poker face" is a cliché for a reason. Games with "above-board" information are based on luck or skill. Games with hidden information require that players have charisma, willpower, and other people skills to be truly a master.

There's another category to add if we broaden the category to sports: physical prowess. You can know all the parries in the Italian School of fencing, but if you don't have the physical strength and dexterity to perform the parries, it's not going to help. Some people can mask their lack of knowledge and skill with brute force. We can break down this category into two different types: games that mimic "useful skills" (fencing and archery) and games that don't (golf and shuffleboard). Characters could have the skills to walk into a dojo and reasonably hold their own*. Unless it's a very odd campaign, most characters don't have skills in golf (not to mention drivers +2 or rings of protections from hazards).

These five categories will determine the skills that influence the game, and how to stage running the game. Games with a high "chance" factor can be handled with a simple dice roll, while games with a high coherence and choice will be more involved. Games with information may focus on role-playing, while games without can focus on intelligence.

Role-playing Games

Four options for you:

• Roll dice: as noted above, this is best done when a high level of chance is involved in the game. Not that this isn't bad - one of the greatest props one of my friends had was a pocket slot machine. When the players got bored, they played the slots, and lost (or gained, but mostly lost) money. It was a great diversion. But because you are basing the game on dice, it will probably be a sideline. Don't count on the players to be emotionally attached to the game, and don't count on the game to be a major factor in the game. It may, but don't count on it.
• Skill roll: for games with a high choice but low coherence and games with above-board information, making a skill roll is acceptable. This works especially if the player doesn't know the game but the character is highly skilled. You can also ignore the whole subtleties of the game ("you play an hour's worth of chess, so roll and see if you win"). The downside of this is you lose the interaction. This method also becomes problematic where Parlett's information category becomes an issue. A GM could rule that the poker skill includes the necessary "reading skills" necessary to be a good poker player, but IMHO this is problematic.
• More complex: this involves making several rolls against skill, or playing out the game, giving the players some rudimentary choices. By doing this, you give the players more interaction and more ownership of the game. The players will be more involved. But, it takes longer, and isn't terribly conductive to short games.
• All out role-playing out the game in real-time, using rolls just as players request information ("do I think he's bluffing?"). This can be the most rewarding, but also the most time consuming. It's also the most difficult, because the character may have skills the player doesn't have. A GM needs to compensate for this disparity. This works wonders in sports games, by the way.

Side Effects

I'm a sports nut," Joe said triumphantly. "Tell me what year it is, I'll tell you who's gonna win the World Series, the Rose Bowl, the Stanley Cup. You could clean up."
- Spider Robinson, "Half an Oaf", Melancholy Elephants

Cheating is an issue, especially when the stakes are higher than bragging rights and fun. In fantastical campaigns where magic, psionics, and super powers are available, the opportunity for cheating is much more common. GURPS Supers outlines details on sports - super powers are the equivalent of drug use and are discouraged in "serious" sports (the World Wrestling Federation allows supers, but one could argue that the WWF doesn't represent serious athletes). Routine testing is done, and metahumans that are discovered are banned from playing. But this is in a world where super powers are common. What about the world where super powers aren't common? A GM has to play it by ear, but a player is going to find it easy to cheat. My best advice is to let the player cheat. To be honest, it may not help - sports as well as more informal games have so many variables, an edge may not be enough to win.

Gambling goes hand-in-hand with cheating, and players that become a big name in their sport may have to deal with gamblers and fixing. This is especially true of organized sports. The Black Sox, for example, were banned from baseball and made pariahs, and some even faced criminal charges. Sports stars (even innocent ones - being caught around a scandal is almost as bad as being in a scandal, as Shoeless Joe Jackson could attest to; despite being found innocent, he was banned from baseball) may turn to adventuring after such a scandal. Cheating can also be more personal, more private. Cheating can be separated into two categories: winning (hiding cards under the table) and losing (throwing a game for bets). Losing is obviously easier - winning may require perception roles. And remember, the NPCs can cheat as well.

Sports like lawn tennis (1870s), croquet (1850s) and skating (both ice and roller skating were popular in the 19th century) offer a different side to sports - socializing and romance. The GM has the rare opportunity to mix role-playing with dice rolls in this situation - if the conversation gets too boring, focus on the game. Of course, the GM can just focus on one aspect and relegate to the other to the background (either "while you play golf, what do you talk about" or "while you make small talk, roll to see how well you play"). Up to you, and up to the campaign. You can expand the social aspect, if you run that type of campaign. Team sports have professional and amateur organizations; hobbyists have organizations and clubs. In more modern genres, these organizations are worldwide, and the jargon may set up a few leads (can anyone say "role-playing"?) To give some history, in August 1829, John Stuart Skinner published the American Turf Register, the first sporting magazine in America. The MVP award in baseball was first given in 1911, and the World Chess Championship started in 1948. This and its kind may become hooks for plots. And of course, gaming isn't isolated to gamers. Popular sports figures will have to deal with fame and fortune. PCs may be more popular as sports starts than adventurers.

And of course, organizations lead to friendly rivalries, like I mentioned in the opening paragraph. The cliché of "on the field, we're enemies, but off the field, we're friends" can work. You play hard, and then go out for a beer. It's also an opportunity to have PCs to fight other PCs. Of course, you can have opponents be obnoxious and seriously hate the PCs. In that case, the gap between "it's only a game" and "it's real life" can become a lot more dramatic - an opponent sabotages brakes on the racecar or poisons a fencing sword. Or, look at Charlie Manual, who was threatening to break the home-run record in Japan (quote from Whiting's You Gotta Have Wa): "one afternoon in early June, [Charlie] Manuel stood in the batter's box at Fujidera Stadium as shadows gripped the field and took a fastball to the face that dropped him to his knees and sent blood spurting from his mouth. He was rushed to the hospital where it was found that his jaw was broken clean through in six separate places." It's also a way to food the players and get them to let their guard down.

Finally, here's an anecdote just in case you think games don't mean anything. In the French and Indian war, the Ottawas and Ojibways tribes used a game of lacrosse as a ruse to capture Fort Michillimackanic. They played the game outside the fort gates, supposedly in honor of King George's birthday. The garrison opened the gates to watch the game. The players drifted nearer and nearer the gates, when "the game suddenly stopped, the players threw down their tomahawks from their loincloths, and charged through the open gates of the fort." The strategy worked.

Conclusion and Meta-Game

Whether you are pro or anti
Or could not care less
We are here to tell you
We are here to sell you chess
- Merchandisers, Chess

I've resisted the temptation of talking about gamers role-playing a role-playing game. But it's an option - Niven's Dream Park (which was turned into a role-playing game) was based on this concept. In a more general sense, having games within games can be a lot of fun. It is a break from the normal routine and gives the GM a break. Instead of playing Diplomacy during gaming night, have the characters play Diplomacy. It's the best of both worlds.

Next month, I'll cover a more somber topic: Death.

*A disclaimer: I wouldn't run a game where a 10th level fighter could actually go into a dojo and wipe out their master. This isn't a carte blanche against dojos. GURPS has a special skill: Combat Art. This skill (which defaults to the actual skill-2) reflects the knowledge of the sport's rules.