I actually wrote this ages ago, just finishing the last bit and posting it because I have nothing else at the moment, going bonkers working on everything. So tired and wired and yarded out… Anyway, classic flavor me. Enjoy.
***
What happens when a tough cool guy that don’t take no guff meets another tough cool guy that don’t take no guff, and one of them gives the other one guff? Something that is not cool, guy. Something like the opposite of fun.
In real life, we often have to accept affronts to our dignity, minor and major, in order to avoid destructive conflicts. So when we play RPGs – when we create a cool character to identify with – many people want their character to be a badass punk who takes no shit. The problem is that an RPG is not a truly consequence-free environment. Yes, you won’t necessarily die or end up unemployed or jailed if your character insults the wrong person. But you can ruin everyone’s fun – including your own – and harm real life relationships. RPGs are collaborative entertainment. Your fun should not detract from that of others.
And this becomes much worse when more than one player is a hardcase. Any disagreement can grind the game to a halt or destroy it altogether, if neither character is willing to back down or even disagree with civility. It also serves no purpose dramatically.
When you see a character of this type in a movie, they get away with it because the Universe created by the writers is full of unreasonable people who can be put in their place verbally by the Eastwood type and his snappy comeback. When two PCs draw swords or break up the adventuring party over a trivial matter, what does that mean, from a literary or dramatic standpoint? Only one thing: both characters are assholes.
Neither of them can be the wisecracking guy who just keeps it real in a world of weak-willed phonies. It was a questionable aspiration in the first place, dependent on all other PCs and NPCs to support the idea by diminishing themselves. And once it’s put to the test, the illusion shatters.
Think about it. Very rarely is there more than one Eastwood type per movie. Recall times when it’s been attempted and how that went. I haven’t seen The Expendables or its sequels. But I can remember some cringe-worthy writing when this is the idea. When the writer wants both of the show’s heroes to be unstoppable badasses, some plot contrivance must keep their rivalry forever unresolved. Badass Cop One is arguing with Badass Cop Two, when their fight is interrupted by the Hardcase Police Chief, and so on. The best way to keep this from going sour is to write both characters with a reasonable limit to their ego.
A variation on this is the snarker whose feelings are easily hurt by snark. One of my best players had this problem to some extent in real life and imported it into (and even exaggerated it in) their characters. I think they’re from a culture where everyone insults everyone else constantly, and they all imagine everyone’s cool with it, but inside of human heads, that culture has produced a jacked up pile of sad. But my sample size is one, so maybe it’s just them.
The following list of traits are not necessarily bad traits in any given character, if you take off the “never” and “always” from them… Eastwoods never take guff, always get the last word, never stop fighting, never submit, and are never afraid. They always have someone to blame for any plot occurrence which was on any level humbling, and are aeternally spiteful about it. They dish but they can’t take.
Anyway, this kind of shit is why I do not miss GameMastering. I do not have to collaborate with bad writers to make my story happen. Eastwoods, yer attitude bores the hell out of me. It’s so played out. Noli me tangere.
–
I am reminded of an incident in an RPG I was GMing a few years back where just such a thing happened. Well, something quite similar anyway. One of my players (who happens to be my twin brother, but that isn’t really relevant) was playing a dwarf character (a gunsmith as it happens), and really having fun getting into the classic dwarfish mindset – gruff, stubborn, bloody-minded, dismissive of humans and their ways and unwilling to compromise. Which is fine, but it did mean he got rather uncooperative whenever anyone, particularly anyone human (and the adventure was taking place in a human empire full of humans) tried to tell him what to do. To the point where, having transgressed against the religious customs of the locals by damaging a holy icon, he point blank refused to cooperate with the city’s cult authorities to make amends by taking it to be repaired. This, of course, should it have gone as he intended, would mean the plot was going nowhere. And I couldn’t have the cult authorities give in on this important matter in their own temple in their own city. I had the high priest order his character dragged off to gaol for his impertinence and borderline sacrilege.
Fortunately, as a dwarf, his character did respect other dwarfs. Particularly older ones in positions of authority, because dwarfs respect age, wealth and skill as cornerstones of their culture. A bit of quick thinking on my part and he was soon visited in his cell by the ancient, white-bearded head of the local dwarf community in the city (up to this point the city had been host to no such thing, but ho-hum, it worked). Said venerable elder was furious that young Sven Gunnson might cause an international incident and undo centuries of hard work building up cordial relations with their human hosts, and gave him a severe dressing down as only an angry dwarf can. Needless to say he was soon off on his quest to repair the icon with his tail between his legs and a newfound appreciation for the niceties of inter-species diplomacy.
In my case his character archetype had enough by way of depth that I could use that to resolve the situation. Your example of the no-nonsense lone wolf hardcase might be more difficult to navigate, because, for the most part, it’s just a puerile power fantasy of being hyper-competent, utterly independent and not much more. On the other hand, even the most hard-bitten loners still need to eat and sleep, so if it turns out nobody in the town is willing to sell them food, or nobody is watching their back when the camp is raided and they get kidnapped by bandits, well, they’d better learn to play nice with others pretty quickly.
good comment, for sure, but my main takeaway is that somewhere out there is a counterfeit cartomancer, and that ain’t right.
I have found it useful, on occasion, to refer people to their stereotypes in shows like “The Guild” etc, which fairly brutally skewer the various gamer
psychopathologies*. “Of course that does not apply to me” is a great intro to a serious conversation about (various) real or imagined character flaws.*edited per my probably outdated and over applied policy on ableism -bébé
somewhere out there is a counterfeit cartomancer
They hold the map upside down, so they go to hell, instead of the right place.
New York?
marcus – i lol
beks – suburban melbourne?