Causing Emotional Stress to Allies

[metalman42]

I've noticed a few milestones grant XP when you inflict stress on allies, especially emotional. It's meant to simulate lashing out at friends and teammates, right? But you have to roll for it - there's no situation where people just take emotional stress because you're mean to them.

It seems to me like most players won't attack their allies in order to cause emotional stress. Especially when that stress could make the next action scene even harder!

But then again, I guess that's why you get XP. It's a thing you wouldn't normally do, so there's a mechanical reward for it. That makes sense to me.

Is there any way for the watcher to step in and help this process? Like, a character tries to do one thing and fails, but the watcher uses their reaction effect die to inflict emotional stress to a teammate and causes you to hit your milestone?

[blackwingedheaven]

I'm not sure you need the Watcher to step in very much here. Two heroes arguing until one of them has hurt feelings is a hallmark of superhero comics. When two heroes get into an argument about something important to them, just tell them "Turn it into an Action Scene or drop it." If they drop it, throw in a Scene Distinction for the next Scene called "Unresolved Tensions" that their enemies can exploit. Not every Action Scene is a fight, after all--some of them are just very vocal arguments.

If they give in and make it an Action Scene, remember that to inflict emotional stress you still need to declare an intent when inflicting stress. "I want Hank to apologize to me!" versus "I'd like Jan to shut up and leave me alone!" is an entirely valid emotional stress based Action Scene. At the end of the Scene, the stress mostly goes away, and neither side has to choose to inflict trauma. "Taken out" can just mean "I got what I wanted."

In my current MHR Exalted playtest, this isn't really a problem I've run into since the heroes spend half the time tripping over each other to inflict emotional stress. XD

[igorbone]

I'm not sure you need the Watcher to step in very much here. Two heroes arguing until one of them has hurt feelings is a hallmark of superhero comics. When two heroes get into an argument about something important to them, just tell them "Turn it into an Action Scene or drop it." If they drop it, throw in a Scene Distinction for the next Scene called "Unresolved Tensions" that their enemies can exploit.

I like that, well thought

[metalman42]

I haven't been playing Marvel Heroic for very long, but my players don't tend to argue with each other in character. Any argument is usually player vs player as they fight over what someone should have done. Any tips on how to bring about character arguments?

[Supplanter]

I haven't been playing Marvel Heroic for very long, but my players don't tend to argue with each other in character. Any argument is usually player vs player as they fight over what someone should have done. Any tips on how to bring about character arguments?

Honestly, the first question is whether this is a good idea for your specific group. When you say that you have "arguments" between players over what someone should have done, do you mean real arguments, like with emotional force and some level of resentment on either or both sides? e.g. is it like?

"You dope. If you'd attacked Brainwave like I wanted, I wouldn't have gotten stressed out!"

"Yeah, well if you hadn't spent 10xp to Unlock Puppy Bowl, you could've bought the Ultimate Nullifier instead and not needed other people to save your butt!"

Or is it more like?

"Oh wow. Do you realize you could've used Unleashed back there and gotten an extra D10?"

"Yeah, but if the action fails the D10 goes straight to the doom pool, and it was already pretty high."

"Ah. I take your point. Something to think about, though?"

If players are having real arguments as human beings, they probably can't handle hero-vs-hero play. Character-level conflict requires a rock-solid level of mutual respect and affection at the player level. When Bill has Super-Skrull betray Drax & Cammi in a session, I (playing Drax) think, "Hah! That is totally a Super-Skrull move!" because I love Bill and we've been friends for years. Fiasco is an awesome game that requires inter-character conflict to work, but I'd never play it with a real-life enemy.


Jim

[gebeji]

if players are having real arguments as human beings, they probably can't handle hero-vs-hero play. Character-level conflict requires a rock-solid level of mutual respect and affection at the player level. When Bill has Super-Skrull betray Drax & Cammi in a session, I (playing Drax) think, "Hah! That is totally a Super-Skrull move!" because I love Bill and we've been friends for years. Fiasco is an awesome game that requires inter-character conflict to work, but I'd never play it with a real-life enemy.

I didn't have an IC argument yet in MHR, but we did have one in Smallville (which also kinda require some tensions to work) where my hero decided to let some criminals escape to better regroup while my partner would have preferred i neutralized them. I ended up with some extra anger after that argument, but that was resolved at the end of the adventure with some R&R

Agreed though, that this kind of RP requires mature players

[Supplanter]

I didn't have an IC argument yet in MHR, but we did have one in Smallville (which also kinda require some tensions to work) where my hero decided to let some criminals escape to better regroup while my partner would have preferred i neutralized them. I ended up with some extra anger after that argument, but that was resolved at the end of the adventure with some R&R

Agreed though, that this kind of RP requires mature players

Also, isn't Smallville set up so that the target gets mechanically rewarded for being the object of another PC's hostility? Like, doesn't your stress taken in that game lead to questioning your beliefs which leads to character advancement?


Jim

[metalman42]

"You dope. If you'd attacked Brainwave like I wanted, I wouldn't have gotten stressed out!"

"Yeah, well if you hadn't spent 10xp to Unlock Puppy Bowl, you could've bought the Ultimate Nullifier instead and not needed other people to save your butt!"

Or is it more like?

"Oh wow. Do you realize you could've used Unleashed back there and gotten an extra D10?"

"Yeah, but if the action fails the D10 goes straight to the doom pool, and it was already pretty high."

"Ah. I take your point. Something to think about, though?"

A little bit of both. Mainly I get people who just do one thing in character and everyone goes along with it. If they don't agree, it's usually an out-of-character disagreement. I guess maybe I just need to have them act in character more. I'm running my first game of Marvel with this group tomorrow, and I hope that playing the established Marvel characters helps them try roleplaying as a character. Once we've got that, arguing in character will be my next hurdle.

[Mystrich]

Yeah, I've been wary of these. And honestly, I'd much rather see a PC vs PC argument in character be resolved through roleplay not "Well, then I'm going to deal damage to you and win the argument." There are times when it's acceptable, like a debate for example to determine who wins it, but in a case of just players fighting? I really dislike it, even for XP.

[babel2uk]

Here's an idea. For Player vs Player (and sometimes Player vs Watcher Character) don't run it as a blow by blow conflict unless it really needs to be one. Make the rolls up front, check out the result, if one of them isn't stressed out, ask the players if they want to stop with that result or will they press things to a messy conclusion?

Then use the final result to structure the roleplay. Essentially you're saying at that point "Play out this scene, with this end result in mind." It's a little like Fiasco (though Fiasco has the more elegant and non-intrusive mechanic for this) where the overall scene result is something to aim for, rather than being decided on a blow by blow basis.

It also keeps the players a step removed from the argument.