Session Zero 4: Value conflicts
Today it’s time to extend our general theory of PNP RPGs to cover the typical conflicts that occur between different players. This should, hopefully, be of use to both GMs and players alike.
As usual, if you are confused about any terms, make sure to check out the glossary, and if you are looking for other posts, check out the blog map.
Most people who write about PNP games have covered this topic at some point or another. However, in my opinion, this coverage is insufficiently general. Typically the writer would list out several problems that occur a lot, offer some advice on how to deal with each of them, and that would be that. Alternatively, they would offer several pieces of advice for how to deal with an individual common problem.
There is obviously nothing wrong with offering concrete help for a concrete problem, but in my opinion this concrete help should come after a general guide on dealing with all problems. That way a prospective GM or player can adjust the advice to fit their specific case far easier, even if the problem they are facing isn't exactly like the one covered by the article. Obviously, a talented GM could pick out the grains of generalized rules from any advice: but talented GMs aren’t the ones who require most guidance. I will try to offer such a general guide here.
In my opinion, this advice isn’t just aimed at the GM. The way I see it, from the perspective of conflicts, GM is just another player. Their responsibilities in the game may differ from other players, but this doesn’t change anything on a fundamental level in regards to the causes or solutions for any conflicts involving them. The same methods that can resolve a conflict between two players should be capable of resolving conflict between a player and a GM. And therefore, these methods can be used as well by any other player as by the GM.
In fact, there are multiple advantages to players learning this. First of all, this means that as a player, you do not have to rely on the GM knowing these methods to employ them in order to improve the situation in your game. Given the number of stories about bad or incompetent GMs online, I think this should come in handy.
Second advantage is that you can solve some types of inter-player conflict without involving the GM at all. This reduces the management strain on the GM, letting them focus on other aspects of the game - as a result, everyone benefits. Do note that I am not just talking about conflict between you and another player: you can even solve conflicts between two other players.
Final advantage is that techniques presented here should work much better if both parties know them, as opposed to just one party knowing the idea. So by teaching one another, you are directly improving their effectiveness.
But let’s get to the problems. Today I will only deal with what I call value conflicts. These are conflicts based on an incompatibility in utility functions of the players - some desires of theirs are fundamentally incompatible, which leads to conflict. We can further split them into three mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive groups:
Fun vs Fun (FF) conflict: a typical example of this type is a situation with two options for how to proceed, where each of the options leads to fun for one of the players and lack of fun for another. For example, imagine that two players want their characters to become the king of the same kingdom: obviously only one of the desires may be fulfilled here. Their fun desiderata are in conflict: as a result, either one player gains utility, or another, but not both.
Antifun vs Fun (AF) conflict: this is a similar situation, except instead of types of fun being in conflict, antifun of one player comes into conflict with fun of another. For example, one player may really enjoy discussing math inherent in the system, while another may hate math and everything associated with it. Here one player loses utility while another gains it.
Antifun vs Antifun (AA) conflict: The idea behind this type is that either one player uses utility, or another, but there is no obvious scenario where neither of them loses utility. With players, you can perhaps imagine a situation where one of two players is forced by circumstances to lose their character, but they have a choice of who it would be. With a GM and a player, this is much more typical: imagine a situation where players can kill a villain GM decided to build up before GM thought it appropriate for them to kill it. Here, we may see a situation where either the players kill the villain (losing utility for the GM, since they would feel their work was wasted), or the players are prevented from killing the villain (making the players feel like their actions do not matter, thus losing them utility)
Readers who have read my post on the purpose of session zero should see that this is yet another reason why session zero must at the minimum end with clarity in regards to the utility functions of the players: knowing that, it is possible to predict value conflicts, and ideally prevent them from occurring in the first place. With a typical approach to session zero, on the other hand, you will only be able to prevent value conflicts you explicitly thought of.
There are, broadly, three ways in which these conflicts may be resolved:
One or both players change their utility functions in such a way that conflict can no longer occur.
Conflict is carefully avoided, such that values never come into conflict in practice. Alternatively, a third option is found in a dilemma that satisfies utilities of both players - I call this a “perfect solution”.
Players do a value trade between their utilities.
How do we achieve one of these solutions? I propose the following checklist: if you suspect a value conflict may occur in the future, simply go down the list, and try to fix it with each of the methods. Obviously, this should be done well in advance: otherwise you would have to do this on the spot when the problem had already occurred, which will make the process rushed, more emotionally charged, and make several troubleshooting steps much harder if not outright impossible to achieve.
Value realignment: This is the first troubleshooting step, not because it is most likely to work, but because if it does work, the problem would be completely resolved. The basic idea is to consider your own preferences, in much the same way as described in the first session zero post. Figure out what preference is in conflict, then reflect on it, and figure out wherever it is an actual preference, or an artifact of your preconceptions about the game. For example, if you are a game master annoyed that players blast through your encounters with “overpowered” characters, reflect on this feeling: do you actually want to challenge your players with encounters, or do you just have a mental image of how your PNP RPG of choice is “supposed to work”, and in that image players don’t blast through encounters? Do you actually want to run complex combat encounters, or are you just playing a role of a GM who must be annoyed if players easily destroy their monsters? If after you reflect on your desires you find that you don’t have any actual reason to be in conflict, the problem has been solved.
As a helpful measure here, I would recommend spending five minutes, by the clock, on this, as a way to force yourself to actually think about the problem.
Preemptive prevention: Second troubleshooting step is to find a way to prevent the conflict situation from arising in the first place. This is one of the many purposes of traditional session zeros: to go through various common problem cases and make sure they can not occur. Of course, if you know what preferences your players actually have, this becomes much easier to achieve.
This step is fairly highly dependent on the specific conflict, and is a common subject of “problem solving” posts by writers in the PNP RPG sphere.
Solutions here tend to involve finding some key element necessary for the problem situation, and removing this element from the game. For example, characters are designed such that their goals are not at odds with one another, GM finds a way to minimize rules arguments if some players do not like them, and so on. I propose a second generic option for preemptive prevention of FF and AF conflicts: separation in time. The idea is that instead of having a single choice between two options (which leads to conflict), you first choose the first option, and then the other option several hours later. For example, imagine a situation where one player really hates math (antifun) while the other player loves discussing mathy parts of the game (fun, -> AF conflict). Instead of making it an either/or choice, you can allocate half an hour after the game for rules discussions: this way, the player who dislikes math can leave early, and both players will be satisfied. Because of this being a generic option, you can apply it to all sorts of situations: for example, if players found a way to break a combat encounter GM spent a lot of time on, you can choose to let the player outcome happen for story reasons, then play out the GM-designed encounter “after the session” to get your tactical combat rocks off.
Fallback planning: No plan perfectly survives contact with reality. Therefore, any plan that assumes it will survive contact with reality is setting itself up for failure. In the previous step you have figured out some ways to prevent the problem from arising: this is great, and quite useful. In this step, you now have to figure out what to do when it arises anyways.
If you go on PNP RPG forums, you will very quickly find dozens of threads where people are clearly asking for help with this step. Maybe two players want the same artifact, they can’t decide who should get it, and then GM goes on forums and complains about it. Sometimes, they even get good advice on how to deal with that situation. Of course, this is totally backwards: trying to come up with a fallback plan once you already need it is bound to be much, much harder than trying to come up with a fallback plan in advance of the problematic situation arising. Therefore, for any value problem you foresee you should come up with several fallback plans, and put them in a drawer until you need them. These plans should be quick to slot into the game in order to resolve the problem on the spot.
Of course, this doesn’t mean your fallback plans would be perfect either. It is quite possible that your primary plan fails and then all your fallbacks fail too, making you resort to on-the-spot improvisation. However, the point isn’t to ensure failure is impossible: the point is to decrease the probability of falling through to that last option as much as you can. A fallback plan that works 90% of the time is doing it’s job admirably.
Like the previous step, this one is quite dependent on the exact value problem at hand. I will write future articles on the commonly useful fallback plans: for now, it’s enough to put this step in the correct place in the list.
Negotiation: So, you have tried all previous options, and the problem is still not solved. All your plans have shattered, your backups failed, and now two players are stuck in a value conflict with no way out in sight. What do you do in this situation?
First things first: if you got to this point, then a perfect solution to the conflict is either impossible, or you can’t find it. This means the only thing left is to do a value trade - get both players to trade their utilities in some fashion. For example, instead of one of them getting 5 utilons, they may both get 2.5 utilons. Alternatively, maybe one player gets 5 utilons by satisfying one fun type, and in return the other player gets 5 utilons by satisfying another type.
In order to perform this trade it is absolutely essential to understand utility functions of both players. At the very least, you should have this understanding, though it would be better if both of the conflict players did as well. You can not do an intelligent trade if you do not know what the traders value. This is yet another reason why session zero must end in a solid understanding of all players utility functions.
Negotiate! There are much better books on negotiation than I could ever write. The fact that you are negotiating over PNP RPG things and not the price of a used car is irrelevant: the rules for coming to an agreement are the same everywhere.
What can you use for the trade? The most obvious thing is the amount of spotlight time: how much time, in an average session, is dedicated to the fun of one or another player. You can vary this significantly based on multiple factors. For example, some people need only a little time to derive enjoyment, while others need more. If you have more than two players in conflict, this will change things as well.
Second thing that is up for grabs is scheduling. This is the same idea as spotlight, but on a strategic scale: instead of trading chunks of time measured in minutes, you trade scheduling that is measured in hours. For example, you can dedicate some sessions to specific types of fun, and let players who do not enjoy it skip them. Alternatively, you can move certain things to time before or after the session, so that players who do not enjoy them can leave and not waste their time - rules discussions are often quite amenable to this change.
Finally, you can do a straightforward value trade. If scheduling works on a larger scale than spotlight sharing, then value trade works on a smaller one: instead of letting separate players have 100% of their fun in non-overlapping chunks of time, you negotiate it so that both players are having 50% of their fun every second. This would likely fundamentally change the flow and type of your game, depending on the types of values being traded.
Obviously, while negotiation works in the moment, it works significantly better when done well in advance of the actual conflict.
Voting: Negotiation only works well when both sides are skilled enough to perform it, and also explicitly willing to come to some form of agreement. Unfortunately, this is not always the case: sometimes players (and/or yourself) are simply bad at negotiating. At other times, sides may be unwilling to come to an agreement, due to flaring emotions, misunderstanding of their own values, or self-contradictory values where they dislike all options offered to them, including choosing nothing. Therefore, you obviously need a fallback in case even negotiation fails. This fallback is explicit voting on options: unlike negotiation, this requires very little skill, and results are easier to judge and act on.
Algorithm is very simple: first, outline explicit options. Second, decide who will participate in the vote - only affected players or everyone. Finally, let people vote, tally up the results, and announce the winner.
Obviously, voting is not a panacea: for example, it can’t work in a situation where only 2 people are involved in the vote on 2 options, since they will just vote opposite of one another. As such, I highly recommend to always put as many options on the table as possible, and likely involve the entire group in the voting.
Because of how far down the stack of problem resolution the voting is, you really want it to always result in a clear outcome. Therefore, I highly suggest to use only forms of voting that can’t end in a tie: at the very least, designate a tie-breaker in advance, be it a person or a coin throw.
In the case of value trades, my personal preference is for quadratic voting. Assuming the voters understand the mechanism and vote honestly (big assumptions), theoretically, the result should be as perfect of a compromise as anyone can reach.
Group Dissolution: Finally, if all previous approaches have failed, there is only one thing left to be done: dissolve the gaming group. This can go from removing one of the players from it, all the way to quitting yourself and finding an entirely new group. Anything else is a waste of time: if neither party is willing to come to some kind of agreement in a reasonable time frame, then they will remain a point of conflict in the future, wasting everyone’s time by arguing instead of actually playing.
You may put the question of who has to leave the group up to a vote: this way, hopefully, the resulting configuration will be more satisfactory to people who will remain. If the problem is between two specific players, then I think a simple approval vote by everyone else would make the most sense. If the problem is a more complicated polygon - such as two players having a conflict with a third, while 3 other players are on the sidelines - you may have to figure something else out.
I would recommend having a mandatory cool-off period before such a vote - for example, wait until the next week or next session. This way the vote should hopefully better reflect people’s honest assessment of what would be best for the game, and not any temporary feelings of rage and annoyance.
Alternatively, you may approach players who are in conflict alone and put the question up for them. Leaving of their own volition may allow them to save face they would lose by losing a vote, leading to a more pleasant experience overall. Overall, I would probably recommend starting with this before proceeding to a vote.
I believe that the idea that lack of an agreement in negotiation may lead to votes on group dissolution is likely to make people more prone to reaching some form of agreement in the negotiation stage. This is yet another reason why all players should be aware of this checklist of problem resolution methods.
I hope that this checklist helps you in resolving value conflicts you encounter on your gaming table, and will serve as a good basis you can extend with your own approaches.
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A good read!