Fear of Failure
It is the mission of each true knight...
His duty... nay, his privilege!
To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe...
- Don Quixote
I love heroic adventuring larp. It took me a while to 'get it' - and I am still learning, and learning how to put my gut instinct into words, actions, uptime. When I think about it, perhaps my dissatisfaction at certain parts of ShatLeg was due to a conflict behind what I thought characters should do and what they actually did. I think this was due to a miscommunication around the 'heroic' part of the 'adventuring larp' - either through communicating what it meant to play in one, or my misunderstanding of what it means for just about anyone else to play in one.
When I think of 'heroic adventure', I think of characters being thrown into situations horrendously out of their control, faced with impossible tasks and with difficult moral choices. To me, the 'heroic' part is in doing the hardest thing out there, choosing to 'fight the unbeatable foe', to 'take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them' (that one's Hamlet). It is the choice that makes the action heroic: becoming heroic 'by default' is... not exactly what I'd describe as heroic.
Case study: the infamous Rodengrad term
After a couple of years of 'sleep-walking to victory' in Shattered Legacies, we decided to experiment with something new: we would throw the players into an impossible task. An army of evil, cannibalistic goblins lead explicitly by a demon that had battled the players previously invaded and captured one of the cities of the Alliance. The Tsar was possessed and being used as a puppet ruler, the people were dying or fleeing in droves, and the armies of the Alliance were pulled elsewhere in a number of huge world-shaking conflicts on other borders. The only people who could have a chance of making a difference: the Adventurers of the New Star.
Each week, we'd set up a series of different missions, offering their own tactical, moral, or resource objective. We'd also rank the 'difficulty' of the mission, roughly in line with how valuable or important the objective was. If the players chose consistently to dream big, to throw themselves into the hardest and most impossible of situations - and win - then through the course of the term, they'd be able to save the city. Regardless of the IC perception of how difficult a mission was, each would be eminently do-able. Saving the city was a genuine possibility, and it would be an awesome example of the players being actual heroes, not just being given easy missions with easy choices and ending up saving the world because there wasn't anything else to do.
It was a disaster.
The players consistently made only the easiest choices, terrified of being caught by the bad guys or upsetting the political landscape (made up, as it was, by awful evil bad guys). They had their small victories - rescusing a handful of priests, saving some goblins that didn't want to be part of the evil army - but most of the passionate effort the players had actually put in was nothing at all to do with Rodengrad itself, but in dealing with the barbarians even further west.
By half way through the term, we called it: it wasn't a case of saving the city any more, so much as simply being able to stop the bad guys enough. I think the turning point was a mission the players had the option to take, where they could collapse half a mountain onto half the enemy army. They chose not to, in case their cover story was blown.
There was a limited amount we could do to communicate to the players what the right choices would have been: far be it for the refs, or indeed anyone, to tell you how to play your character! But the recurring theme was definitely one of 'fear of failure'. The hard missions were avoided, because the players didn't want to lose their characters (and their characters didn't want to die!). The morally tough missions were avoided, because the players (or characters) didn't want to make the wrong choice. No one wanted to be the one to blow their cover by doing anything against the evil army they were here to oppose... and because of this, Rodengrad was lost.
When I say earlier that a heroic adventuring larp is one where the characters dream the impossible dream/fight the impossible foe, where they choose to throw themselves into difficult situations - that's not to say that success is a necessary part of it. Dreaming big, and failing gloriously can be incredible fun - so long as your OOC enjoyment is not pinned to the success or failure of your endeavor. This particular theory is as vital as 'thinking big'. What we saw in the Rodengrad term was the exact opposite of those two premises of heroic larp: the players dreamt small, failed big - and hated it.
I think, ultimately, the failures of ShatLeg were failures in expectation and setup, and failures to meet or expect the players response, continuously, throughout the course of the entire 5 year run. The main plot and storyline were all hung around this vital, incredibly important single event: that the barman the players had been working with for so long was evil. A demon. A manipulative being of magic that wanted to control the world by consuming all gods and demons alike - and would say or do anything to achieve this end. But the Choice, when we got to it, fell flat. The players didn't react. The tough moral choice wasn't. The fact that this demon had lied, cheated, manipulated, stolen, killed - it meant nothing. Everyone turned around and said 'yep, sure, we're ok with that'. In Shattered Legacies, you didn't stand up against evil, you never made the choice to go out and do the impossible thing - victory was either forced on you, or you failed.
Now, of course, ShatLeg is over. The players, through failing to ever choose to fight the impossible, sold the world to their demon overlord, leading to an eventual graveworld as the world is slowly filled up over countless generations with Slayer's favourite undead warlords. It's not an entirely unhappy ending: a lot of the players were playing undead warlords by the end, and I think they were each happy with the idea that they'd be able to be locked in eternal war in one way or another. Most of the rest of the characters were happy enough to continue being his slaves, or otherwise spend the rest of their lives running away. It's not exactly what I'd call 'heroic', but it was a fascinating story.
Now, of course, we're in the Age of Iron. Heroism steeps through every single action the players take. The very world itself hates all life, and monsters rise constantly from the earth to battle humanity. It's a core default of the setting that we are 'fighting the impossible foe' - the forces of the abyss, for to exist on Kairos is to spit in the eye of the endless hordes of demons. There's no moral grey area when facing them down: you are a hero for doing so, and no one can argue otherwise. They're also easy as piss to fight, so there's little opportunity for failure.
In addition, as a core part of the setting, we get the opportunity to go out and do our own things, to choose what other objectives to pursue, who else we get involved in and what other bad guys in the world we can face down. Awesome! It is integral to the system that we can choose our battles, and what heroics we can accomplish. We have two years in a fictional world that's built implicitly for heroic adventuring larp. Every single pore of AoI drips with heroism, a huge psychological shift away from the failures of ShatLeg's system and setting to encourage that behaviour.
And yet! I am terrified of this FEAR OF FAILURE that paralysed the players in ShatLeg, in the Rodengrad term and in facing Slayer. It shouldn't be a thing! Of course, it's a massive taboo to tell people how to play their characters or that they're doing it wrong, but honestly - cowardice shouldn't be a defining character trait when playing in a heroic adventuring system. It shouldn't be a thing at all! Dream the impossible dream! Fight the impossible foe! It doesn't MATTER if you fail IC, that's as much fun as winning, if you prepare yourself for it - but avoiding doing something because you might not win is the ANTITHESIS of HEROIC!
Rodengrad failed abysmally because of a misunderstanding between players and (the ref's definition of) heroism (in the context of adventuring larp). I would hate to see AoI suffer from the same thing. Dream big, because the success or failure of big dreams is glorious.
His duty... nay, his privilege!
To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe...
- Don Quixote
I love heroic adventuring larp. It took me a while to 'get it' - and I am still learning, and learning how to put my gut instinct into words, actions, uptime. When I think about it, perhaps my dissatisfaction at certain parts of ShatLeg was due to a conflict behind what I thought characters should do and what they actually did. I think this was due to a miscommunication around the 'heroic' part of the 'adventuring larp' - either through communicating what it meant to play in one, or my misunderstanding of what it means for just about anyone else to play in one.
When I think of 'heroic adventure', I think of characters being thrown into situations horrendously out of their control, faced with impossible tasks and with difficult moral choices. To me, the 'heroic' part is in doing the hardest thing out there, choosing to 'fight the unbeatable foe', to 'take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them' (that one's Hamlet). It is the choice that makes the action heroic: becoming heroic 'by default' is... not exactly what I'd describe as heroic.
Case study: the infamous Rodengrad term
After a couple of years of 'sleep-walking to victory' in Shattered Legacies, we decided to experiment with something new: we would throw the players into an impossible task. An army of evil, cannibalistic goblins lead explicitly by a demon that had battled the players previously invaded and captured one of the cities of the Alliance. The Tsar was possessed and being used as a puppet ruler, the people were dying or fleeing in droves, and the armies of the Alliance were pulled elsewhere in a number of huge world-shaking conflicts on other borders. The only people who could have a chance of making a difference: the Adventurers of the New Star.
Each week, we'd set up a series of different missions, offering their own tactical, moral, or resource objective. We'd also rank the 'difficulty' of the mission, roughly in line with how valuable or important the objective was. If the players chose consistently to dream big, to throw themselves into the hardest and most impossible of situations - and win - then through the course of the term, they'd be able to save the city. Regardless of the IC perception of how difficult a mission was, each would be eminently do-able. Saving the city was a genuine possibility, and it would be an awesome example of the players being actual heroes, not just being given easy missions with easy choices and ending up saving the world because there wasn't anything else to do.
It was a disaster.
The players consistently made only the easiest choices, terrified of being caught by the bad guys or upsetting the political landscape (made up, as it was, by awful evil bad guys). They had their small victories - rescusing a handful of priests, saving some goblins that didn't want to be part of the evil army - but most of the passionate effort the players had actually put in was nothing at all to do with Rodengrad itself, but in dealing with the barbarians even further west.
By half way through the term, we called it: it wasn't a case of saving the city any more, so much as simply being able to stop the bad guys enough. I think the turning point was a mission the players had the option to take, where they could collapse half a mountain onto half the enemy army. They chose not to, in case their cover story was blown.
There was a limited amount we could do to communicate to the players what the right choices would have been: far be it for the refs, or indeed anyone, to tell you how to play your character! But the recurring theme was definitely one of 'fear of failure'. The hard missions were avoided, because the players didn't want to lose their characters (and their characters didn't want to die!). The morally tough missions were avoided, because the players (or characters) didn't want to make the wrong choice. No one wanted to be the one to blow their cover by doing anything against the evil army they were here to oppose... and because of this, Rodengrad was lost.
When I say earlier that a heroic adventuring larp is one where the characters dream the impossible dream/fight the impossible foe, where they choose to throw themselves into difficult situations - that's not to say that success is a necessary part of it. Dreaming big, and failing gloriously can be incredible fun - so long as your OOC enjoyment is not pinned to the success or failure of your endeavor. This particular theory is as vital as 'thinking big'. What we saw in the Rodengrad term was the exact opposite of those two premises of heroic larp: the players dreamt small, failed big - and hated it.
I think, ultimately, the failures of ShatLeg were failures in expectation and setup, and failures to meet or expect the players response, continuously, throughout the course of the entire 5 year run. The main plot and storyline were all hung around this vital, incredibly important single event: that the barman the players had been working with for so long was evil. A demon. A manipulative being of magic that wanted to control the world by consuming all gods and demons alike - and would say or do anything to achieve this end. But the Choice, when we got to it, fell flat. The players didn't react. The tough moral choice wasn't. The fact that this demon had lied, cheated, manipulated, stolen, killed - it meant nothing. Everyone turned around and said 'yep, sure, we're ok with that'. In Shattered Legacies, you didn't stand up against evil, you never made the choice to go out and do the impossible thing - victory was either forced on you, or you failed.
Now, of course, ShatLeg is over. The players, through failing to ever choose to fight the impossible, sold the world to their demon overlord, leading to an eventual graveworld as the world is slowly filled up over countless generations with Slayer's favourite undead warlords. It's not an entirely unhappy ending: a lot of the players were playing undead warlords by the end, and I think they were each happy with the idea that they'd be able to be locked in eternal war in one way or another. Most of the rest of the characters were happy enough to continue being his slaves, or otherwise spend the rest of their lives running away. It's not exactly what I'd call 'heroic', but it was a fascinating story.
Now, of course, we're in the Age of Iron. Heroism steeps through every single action the players take. The very world itself hates all life, and monsters rise constantly from the earth to battle humanity. It's a core default of the setting that we are 'fighting the impossible foe' - the forces of the abyss, for to exist on Kairos is to spit in the eye of the endless hordes of demons. There's no moral grey area when facing them down: you are a hero for doing so, and no one can argue otherwise. They're also easy as piss to fight, so there's little opportunity for failure.
In addition, as a core part of the setting, we get the opportunity to go out and do our own things, to choose what other objectives to pursue, who else we get involved in and what other bad guys in the world we can face down. Awesome! It is integral to the system that we can choose our battles, and what heroics we can accomplish. We have two years in a fictional world that's built implicitly for heroic adventuring larp. Every single pore of AoI drips with heroism, a huge psychological shift away from the failures of ShatLeg's system and setting to encourage that behaviour.
And yet! I am terrified of this FEAR OF FAILURE that paralysed the players in ShatLeg, in the Rodengrad term and in facing Slayer. It shouldn't be a thing! Of course, it's a massive taboo to tell people how to play their characters or that they're doing it wrong, but honestly - cowardice shouldn't be a defining character trait when playing in a heroic adventuring system. It shouldn't be a thing at all! Dream the impossible dream! Fight the impossible foe! It doesn't MATTER if you fail IC, that's as much fun as winning, if you prepare yourself for it - but avoiding doing something because you might not win is the ANTITHESIS of HEROIC!
Rodengrad failed abysmally because of a misunderstanding between players and (the ref's definition of) heroism (in the context of adventuring larp). I would hate to see AoI suffer from the same thing. Dream big, because the success or failure of big dreams is glorious.