Psychology in Gaming (a.k.a. The art of warping not so young, but still squishy, minds)

Over the years I have learned a moderate amount of psychology and use it in the campaigns that I run. Well, most of the campaigns, Tales of the Doc Wagon didn't have any psychology in it on purpose. There is always some amount of psychology being used in any game, regardless if it is intended or not, but what I am talking about is the deliberate use of psychology in creating and running a game, and even then it's more of the behavioral aspect of psychology.

I won't get into exactly how I use it, don't want to give away all my tricks, but the big thing that I use it for is to help mold the game to make it more enjoyable, giving the players a chance to invest themselves a bit more in their characters. One of the other things that I use it for is for dramatic tension, I know how to make a villain that can get under someone's skin and get the players wanting to take the character down. This is done through the villains personality, actions, or associations. I've had times where players meet a villain who hasn't done anything yet, but they hated him  just because of his personality (incidentally one of the people that they thought was part of the evil side was actually one of the good guys, he was just a jerk).

Here are 3 things I use to mess with minds:

Betrayal: There are few things that hurt as much as betrayal. Of course having an NPC betray a group is almost always expected, which is why I like to use player characters. Betraying a group with a PC is one of the most dramatic things that I have seen. But it only works if the player of the character goes along with it and they never did anything that made the others believe that it was going to happen. I use this very sparingly.

Playing to Fears: I will exploit fears, both player and character. Yes it's a cheap shot, but very effective when done correctly. Can't do it too often otherwise they get used to it. The trick to this is bring the fears into the game but never ever make it completely hopeless, there always has to be a way out, otherwise the player and/or character will just give up and that is not a good thing.

Misinformation: I do think of this as a psychological aspect since it is based on an individual's perception. I'm not talking about giving bad or incorrect information, I'm talking about giving a bit of information but with some parts missing so that the PC's speculate on what it is and/or means. In fact, I generally don't give the PC's completely bad information (i.e. Out right lie to them) but I will give rumors and gossip which they will sometimes take as fact. It's great listening to the players discuss these things, makes it hard not to grin when they are going in the wrong direction with it so naturally, I grin at everything.

There are other aspects that I won't get into here because I don't think I can describe what I do correctly. Heck, I probably didn't describe what I did put correctly.

However, using psychology as a Game Master is a bit tricky, you have to be careful because it can backfire really really really badly. I've caused players to cry at certain events that have occurred, I've gone too far and made everyone feel that there is no hope when they are actually more than capable of completing the task at hand, given nightmares to players for weeks after the session where I played with their mind, and made one player so frightened that she couldn't be by herself for a couple of days afterwards (though, I have to admit, it was a massive ego boost for me, and her boyfriend thought it was funny). And, of course, the current gaming group thinks I'm evil.

Now, I will warn players when I am going to start using a lot of psychology to take a campaign into a darker direction, and I give them the option to tell me to back off and I will tone it down. Last thing I want to do is get everyone mad at me and not want to game anymore.

One final thing, madness, I've seen few people that can pull off a character going mad/insane/bonkers/cuckoo/crazy correctly. Yes Cheli, I believe that Cobalt Blue was done correctly, and Scott, stop glaring. Insanity can be hard to pull off, so research on it is very helpful.

Just some musings on some of what I do for RPGs, I won't get into the video games that use psychology, that's another post.

Cthulhu is amused.

Paranormal Stuff: Ghosts, Bogeymen, and Spirits (a.k.a. The things that go more than just bump in the night)

Yes, I believe in ghosts. Yes, I believe there are demons. Yes, I believe that there are many things we can not explain out there in the world. Yes, I believe there is something beyond this existence.

I happened to see a trailer for a movie called Insidious. Looks interesting. It got me to thinking about all the various boogie boos out there.  I wonder how many people out there truly believe in the supernatural/paranormal. I see polls that are taken, surveys and such, but how many people tell the truth about it? Anyway, that really isn't why I'm typing this up.

I'm actually talking about the hunters of the paranormal in this post. There are shows about people 'investigating' these occurrences. And yes, I put investigating in quotes for a reason. Most of these shows go looking to prove that there is something there. The only one that I've seen where they didn't is Ghost Hunters. However, I am still a bit sceptical of them, seems that they are asked to play up what happens in the show. However, most of the time they don't seem to find anything. The other shows always find something. Having learned a bit about psychology over the years I firmly believe that if you go into one of these investigations believing that you will find something then you will find it. One of the guys that I work with said something that perfectly sums up most of these investigation shows, "I'm expecting to hear/see this (give example)" During investigation, "Oh hey! Did you see/hear that thing I said that I expected to see/hear?" Most of these shows give paranormal investigation a bad name, and how can anyone take them seriously. On occasion they do come up with some neat footage/evidence but nothing that I would ever consider as concrete proof of paranormal activity. Some of it gets close, but nothing that jumps out and can remove any shadow of a doubt that it exists.

Here are some things I have issue with when presented as "Fact":

Orbs - Often believed to be collections of energy moving around or spirits. What I think they probably are - Dust or bugs

Really grainy photos of ghosts - Investigators reaction: You can see a ghost in the photo! It proves that the place is haunted! - My reaction: How can you tell? I think that most of these are matrixing, the ability of the brain to make a shape out of patterns.

Really grainy videos of ghosts - Similar to above, but I have to ask, why does it have to be so grainy? Do spirits find it easier to manifest if they are being watched with a grainy camera? Come on, get some high quality cameras that give us the good proof we want!

EMF Meters - Investigators: Oh My GOD! There is a GHOST HERE!! The EMF is going off!! Me: Get the damn thing away from the boom mike, camera, or wire. Seriously, to say a place is haunted because your little device goes off isn't good investigation, you have to look for a source, if you can't find one you can say it's paranormal but don't call it a ghost.

Thermometers - Investigators use this to try to find spirits as well, again they will overreact to a fluctuation in temperature and for the instances of dropping more than 10 degrees in a matter of seconds, those have me scratching my head too. But is it a ghost? I need more than that.

EVP (a.k.a. Voices in static) - Now these can creep me out but most of the time I would have to listen really hard to hear anything other than static. I consider most of this along the lines of audio matrixing, kind of like the visual matrixing with the photos, the brain fills in the gaps.

In my mind, the best way to capture proof of the supernatural (i.e. Ghosts) would be to use really good equipment to capture it. High grade cameras, audio recorders, and sensors. The best rig for me is to outfit someone with a suit that has various sensor and recorders all over it, including something to scan brain activity, and send them into a haunted house alone with a team outside monitoring the investigator. But I'll get into that in another post.

But since all the data can be faked and there have been so many charlatans in the past, could it ever be trusted?

I don't think so.

That is why I think that belief in the supernatural/paranormal can not be increased with evidence, people will have to personally experience it themselves.

Telling the Story (a.k.a. Sharp Plot points really hurt. Also: Red Herring Mania!)

Most of my campaigns are Sandbox style and the game I'm running right now is a VAST Living Sandbox that has a lot of instances of rippling effects across the campaign.

I'm running a Mekton Zeta game, the games are set up as if the campaign is an Anime series. The main name of the series is Darkest Eve, with the individual seasons having their own names, Rogue Queen Saga for the first season of 24 'episodes' and Cast to the Black as the second season. There are 4 seasons scheduled, totalling 96 episodes, with the possibility of a few more to wrap up the campaign if needed. Of course, the players have the option of canceling the series at the end of a season, but they won't get to find out what happens in the story if that happens. Yes it's blackmail, but if you kill the story before it's done then you probably will never know the end. The series is set in space and has giant robots that the characters get to pilot around, there are other races and space battles along with going out to a great big asteroid field to do some mining. The story for the beginning of the campaign is that an officer of a galactic territory is leading a crew to find what is called Lost Tech. This lost tech is from a civilization that predates all of the civilizations that are around now, even humanity (BTW, Earth was lost a couple of thousand years ago. Well, the entire solar system was lost.). Now here is the part I wanted to get to, the story.

The group hasn't been directly told what the main goal of the campaign is. They know what the story is and are helping it unfold, sometimes in ways I didn't think of. I've given them the option of me directly telling them what the main goal is but they haven't wanted me to reveal that yet. Mind you, the goal doesn't mean they will know the story. This is how I am trying to keep the interest going in the campaign for the 96+ games that I have planned (loosely, I gave up on planning it out fully when the PCs altered things a bit with their actions).  I have given clues to what the main point is, but I have created a number of 'Side Quests'. These are making up the main part of the first part of the campaign and they are rather fun and even have an effect on the game world. This is also giving the players reason to explore the game world (or universe in this instance) since they don't really know what the direct goal is. It's been my experience that if the players have a direct goal they will pursue it, often forsaking everything else for it. This way they get to explore and shape things more their own way.

2 main problems with this style of storytelling:

1: Not enough information to keep the characters moving in any direction. PC's can get lost or lose interest if there isn't anything going on.

2: Too much information. PC's can get lost in the information and with all the stuff that there is to do.

I have set up a work around for that, the group has a mission that they are on, searching for Lost Tech. Anything that deals with that they are on top of. Everything else is just icing for them. Whether or not this is the main plot or goal of the series has yet to be seen, heck it might even be a side quest. Am I ever going to tell? Maybe, maybe not. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!

The Consequences of the PC's Actions (a.k.a. What do you mean I got the queen pregnant and then king found out?)

I love to have the PC's actions have consequences, either immediate, short term, long term, or campaign altering!  Ah the joys of killing a major noble of a kingdom... Many times in my games have PC's sparked wars, released things they shouldn't have, or just plain mucked up things that really should have been left alone. These repercussions don't even have to have anything to do with the main goal of the campaign but sometimes can become the main goal. These things can be a pain to keep track of if there are too many changes, generally I keep track of the major or far reaching ones for the whole campaign while minor ones might be forgotten later in the same game session. In a related note to the Encounters post, the PCs actions can have a rippling effect across the game world that can alter many things. Like I mentioned in Encounters, if an event happens that the PCs really needed to be there for but they decided to go somewhere else what has changed (These type of instances can only occur in Living Sandboxes)? I just continue going on and let the PCs hear about it and they realize that they should have gone to the castle for the coronation ceremony of the new king rather than going berry picking with the naked hot elven babes.

Encounters/Events (a.k.a. The stuff that goes on between tangents.)

This is just my thoughts on the effects of what the PCs do in a campaign, but it does  kind of tie into the Static and Living worlds a little bit, but not much.

Encounters and Events are the staple of a good game. How I define an Encounter is a real good question, I really can't say there is much of a difference between an Event and an Encounter in the grand scheme of things. How about this, Encounters directly involve PCs and an Event is something that the PCs are witness to but don't necessarily get involved in? Anyway, there are 2 types of Encounters in my book, random and planned. Now random encounters are exactly that, random. They happen for no real reason other than the dice said so (GMs generally will come up with a reason for the Frost Dragon to be in the desert, or at least they should). I don't really have any issue with random encounters but sometimes I have issue with planned ones.

For Planned encounters are times that the PC's need to be somewhere specific for something to occur but what happens if the PC's never go there? Do you force the encounter? There are GMs that I have gamed with (and I have done this a couple of times myself) that will move the encounter to where ever the PCs are, regardless of it if makes sense for it to occur there or not. I know that some GMs work really hard to create encounters and want the PC's to find them but rather than shoe horn it into a spot, change it to suit where it is, and if the group is trying to avoid it because they don't think they can handle it, don't force it. But I have to admit, I've done it too.

Static and Living Worlds. (a.k.a. 'The Universe revolves around Me' and 'What do you mean it doesn't revolve around me?')

This kind of goes with my previous post about Linear vs Sandbox style of games and is my take on my 2 classifications of game worlds, Static and Living.

When dealing with the Sandbox style in the past (playing and running for some of it) I have found that many game worlds seem to wait for the PCs to appear for something to happen. Almost like the barbarian horde that is just over the ridge has a lookout watching for them and when the PC's arrive the horde just "happens" to attack at that time( I have the image in my mind of this horde sitting around drinking tea and discussing the finer things when someone runs in shouting "The PCs are here!" and at that time they all grab weapons and charge, after cleaning up the tea of course. Makes me think of the Capitol One Card commercials actually). I call these type of worlds as Static. That isn't a bad thing, it just means that the world revolves completely around the PCs.

In Living worlds life goes on when the PC's aren't there. This can be a nightmare to keep track of. Living worlds are constantly changing, evolving, growing, and moving so when the PCs go back to a place they've been or have heard about it can be completely different. Kingdoms can rise or fall while the PCs are out and about. Of course this can make the players wonder if they are doing the right thing in the game since there is usually a lot of information coming to them.  Static worlds are good for keeping a group on the right track since the world doesn't change much at all without the PC's there so information is still relevant regardless of when the PCs show up. Living worlds can be overwhelming since things change and evolve as the campaign progresses, and sometimes thing are completely different when the PCs get there.

Nothing against either one of these style of campaign worlds, its just my perceptions of the 2 types that I see.

Railroad vs Sandbox

After running a game last night (Sat the 23rd) I got to thinking Railroad and Sandbox games. Here are my interpretations of each of them.

Railroad - setting a direct line for the players to follow with little deviation. The characters have little input on what happens in the game, they just move from plot point to plot point. The beginning, middle, and end of the story have already been planned out.I've played a few of these types and have run a couple I think...

Sandbox - a setting that is completely open, no real direction, just open world. The characters can go anywhere and do anything. The beginning has been created and there is a loose idea on what will complete the campaign but the middle and end are completely open for the characters to dictate.This is the style I really like to run.

Now there are good things with them: Railroad games are always moving forward and the players always know what is going on and what to do. Sandbox allow the players to shape the game and have more control over their destinies. And there are bad things: Railroads don't let the players feel like they are really affecting anything. Sandbox games can leave the players wondering what is going on and what they need to do next, feeling lost in the game.

I like to run games with a Sandbox style but I have to make sure that I give enough information so that the gamers aren't lost in trying to decide what to do next.