I guess I just got a different read of it than some of y'all...

I've read all of both volumes of "Play Dirty" and what I got out of his stuff overall was some ideas on how to make my games more engaging and entertaining...and players LOVE it. I wish I could find the article on the "Die-Hard Effect", it's in I think the original 7th Sea GM's Guide and maybe in one of the Play Dirty books (Don't have my copies to hand).

The basic idea is that players love a challenge, love to feel like they WORKED to earn their victories and their stories. You don't have to kill players, and only rarely should, it's a lot more interesting to drag them through the mud, the blood, the sweat and the tears...because when they finally emerge victorious they feel pretty **** awesome. part of that article series talks about the final trial of the MR. Carter...everyone who ever played in that campaign showed up and the payout for everyone was worth all of that time spent trying figure out who was behind everything...and in the end they did it like heroes.

Sure you can play the 4-color cookie-cutter heroes saving the city from bad guys on daily basis...but that gets kind of stale after awhile.

Now add some depth to the characters, look at and expose their flaws...and their strengths and you get a much better, much more involved story. And if you look at any of the long-running stories you'll see that kind of thing happen over and over again...Peter Parker losing Uncle Ben motivates him to become a Super-Hero, Tony Stark's Alcoholism, Steve Rogers do-good nature etc...

In the end you get out of a game what you put into it...if the GM and/or Players want to do 4-color do-gooders, more power to you, but that should be part of the pre-game discussion to set the expectations. If they want more engaging stories, stories that hit them in the feels...then they should all agree to it.

Play Dirty isn't for everyone, and you don't have to like or use any or all of it, but the general idea is to get some new perspectives and maybe some ideas to bring more depth and engagement to people's campaigns.

*I* Enjoyed both books and did get some interesting and useful tips that have made my campaigns and characters more interesting in the long run.

As the penguin was so nice to save us all $15 …

"That’s why you’re reading all of this, right? To see what I’ve got to say about nasty, underhanded, sinister and otherwise praetorian (like that one?
I paid four bucks for it) tricks to play on unsuspecting, innocent, naive and culpable players.

But before I get started, I’d like to lay a couple of ground rules. After all, the title of this column could be a little deceptive. We’re here to talk about GM tricks. Nasty GM tricks that would make Ol’ Grimtooth himself do a double-take. What we are not here for is killing characters. Nobody wants to play with a Killer GM. But everybody wants to play with a Dirty GM.

Just to make sure you know what I’m talking about, let’s spend a moment or two defining terms. In some circles—the ones I was educated in—that’s a pretty important step. A Killer GM is someone who takes glee in destroying characters. He kills them without remorse, without compassion, without care. He does it because he can. Gives him some sort of sick rush.
This is bad.
A Dirty GM, on the other hand, is someone who uses every dirty trick in the book to challenge the players. Keeping them off balance with guerrilla tactics, he increases the players’ enjoyment with off-beat and unorthodox methods, forcing them to think on their feet, use their improvisational skills and keep their adrenaline pumping at full speed.
This is good.
So, now that we’re all speaking the same language, let’s get down to business.
The first step to becoming a Dirty GM involves a little syndrome I call “The Die Hard Effect.” (I’ve talked about this before in other places, so I’ll keep it brief.) Essentially, all players want their characters to be John McClane. You know, the guy Bruce Willis plays in the Die Hard films. They want to be knocked down, punched out, bloody, battered and beaten. But (and this is an important “but”, folks), every time they get knocked down, they want to be able to get back up."

This gives the whole thing a much different context, I it certainly sounds like satire with a grain of truth. Which would make it actually useful. At least if you can not easily come up with better ideas, nothing in Wick stuffs is new, nor is he rather good, I guess he should have not have put as many points in magician or more. Everything is surface level and does not deal really with the players, but just broad concepts and ideas.

For the purposes of this discussion, I am going operate from the assumption that Wick is not being satirical or the article(s) is not a parody. That it's intended to be taken at 100% as written at face value.

20 minutes ago, GandofGand said:

The basic idea is that players love a challenge, love to feel like they WORKED to earn their victories and their stories. You don't have to kill players, and only rarely should, it's a lot more interesting to drag them through the mud, the blood, the sweat and the tears...because when they finally emerge victorious they feel pretty **** awesome. part of that article series talks about the final trial of the MR. Carter...everyone who ever played in that campaign showed up and the payout for everyone was worth all of that time spent trying figure out who was behind everything...and in the end they did it like heroes.

Oh sure, you absolutely want to build characters with some depth to them and that you want the GM uses those plot points you build into the character against you to some degree or another. But to render a character completely unplayable, so much so that the PLAYER quits (the hero who crashed through the skylight, was unmasked and Gran keeled over from a heart attack) or sucks the fun out of the room (Six weeks - real-time weeks - of roleplaying someone in prison, sitting there in a cell doing nothing at all.) is incomprehensibly bad GMing. Challenge the players? Yes. Lord over them on some kind of power trip "because he can" is seriously F'ed up psychosis.

3 minutes ago, Desslok said:

For the purposes of this discussion, I am going operate from the assumption that Wick is not being satirical or the article(s) is not a parody. That it's intended to be taken at 100% as written at face value.

Oh sure, you absolutely want to build characters with some depth to them and that you want the GM uses those plot points you build into the character against you to some degree or another. But to render a character completely unplayable, so much so that the PLAYER quits (the hero who crashed through the skylight, was unmasked and Gran keeled over from a heart attack) or sucks the fun out of the room (Six weeks - real-time weeks - of roleplaying someone in prison, sitting there in a cell doing nothing at all.) is incomprehensibly bad GMing. Challenge the players? Yes. Lord over them on some kind of power trip "because he can" is seriously F'ed up psychosis.

But than you have to ignore chapter zero, because he explicity says that chapter zero, the one with the character killing stuff is a lie. ;-)

Yeah, hence the Devils Advocate disclaimer.

(I just like to argue. )

9 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Yeah, hence the Devils Advocate disclaimer.

(I just like to argue. )

I used to like to argue too, but you bloody americans took all the fun out of it
And the argument still stands, you have to take at face value the statement that chapter zero is a lie as well

19 minutes ago, Desslok said:

For the purposes of this discussion, I am going operate from the assumption that Wick is not being satirical or the article(s) is not a parody. That it's intended to be taken at 100% as written at face value.

Oh sure, you absolutely want to build characters with some depth to them and that you want the GM uses those plot points you build into the character against you to some degree or another. But to render a character completely unplayable, so much so that the PLAYER quits (the hero who crashed through the skylight, was unmasked and Gran keeled over from a heart attack) or sucks the fun out of the room (Six weeks - real-time weeks - of roleplaying someone in prison, sitting there in a cell doing nothing at all.) is incomprehensibly bad GMing. Challenge the players? Yes. Lord over them on some kind of power trip "because he can" is seriously F'ed up psychosis.

I'm pretty sure he didn't do any of those to be mean or power trip at all, as I said I've met and talked to him and he's just not that kind of guy...he may read that way in writing to some but trust me, he's not a sadist.

He IS very passionate about gaming and stories...has to be to write games for a living for the last 25 years or so.

On 30.3.2017 at 8:05 PM, Benjan Meruna said:

Not a big fan of John Wick, and there's an article that perfectly encapsulates why for me: http://personal.linkline.com/stevenhoward/never.html

BTW, thinking about the introduction and all, I think Steven Howard might be the guy John Wick is referring too when he tells us that nobody except one dude did find the lie in Chapter Zero ;-)

Man that stuff is over 15 years old and actually I think I start to remember a little bit of the ongoing discussion about it, even when it was mostly ignored as GNS was a much hotter topic among the RPG forums and newsgroups I visited at the time.