You slipped that "put at risk" bit in while I was typing my reply...
Again, I don't think that games implicitly or explicitly really went for targeting things like this as a matter of course. GMs often would, but that stems from the traditionally adversarial role that GMs have had.
GMs have been told "you have to give players stuff, so they can see their character improve and 'change'." and they have to balance this with "you must challenge a character."
In life, the acquisition of stuff often makes life easier. In rpgs, it's similar although it tends to be on a much more massive scale in the usual fantasy game.
Therefore, if you're going to want to challenge the character, you need to take away their stuff.
Also, taking away things, and people in a character's life count as "things" in this context, is an easy way to jump into yet another round of the "heroic journey", or at least what a lot of people think the heroic journey is.
Again, I think one of the key things to understanding people's approach to the "heroic journey" is to realize that for many people it's tied very strongly with zero-to-hero play. As a game progresses, there's a tendency to reset that "zero" level. So a fantasy game might go along and the original story arc or campaign finishes off at 7th level. Players are still digging things, so the GM starts a new arc. And right at this point, the reset happens. 7th is now the new zero and the characters are putzes once again.
Occasionally a GM will allow the characters to feel strong in comparison to the rest of the world, but it doesn't happen too often and it's usually of a pretty short duration. It's as if all that's happened before might as well not exist.
I always felt like Star Trek: The Next Generation had a lot of this going on. Stories were pretty self contained, and while changes might happen in the setting, they really only seemed to happen at that one point, and then it's as if it were always that way.
Like LaForge getting a promotion. One episode he gets the promotion, and then from that point on it's as if nothing's really changed and it's always been that way. He just gets a slightly different form of address.
Games like SotC and PDQ do reward players for having things happen to their characters. For incorporating some risk that things will go against the player's and/or character's goals. But they have a reward mechanism built into the game to reward players for doing this. The fact that they have to tie the reward mechanism to the risk, to me means that they recognize that as a whole, players are in fact not keen on having things at risk.
Older games like Gurps tried to do this, with giving you points for taking disadvantages.
The idea might have been for players to develop a more nuanced character, and to introduce an element of risk to some aspect of play, but the practical reality is that it just was a source of extra power for players to pump up their character. Playing of faults/disadvantages was something that a player often had to be reminded of, and most GMs knew that their players were going to pitch a fit if they tapped those disadvantages too often.
I think where games like PDQ, SotC, Hero Quest, and others of a similar nature really succeed, is because they force a player to invest in their character. They're explicitly pulling out what is interesting and valuable to their character to begin with.
This means that GMs don't have to scrabble around on the character sheet, looking for some way to challenge a character, or figure out some way to engage the player's interest. It's on the sheet, put their by the player. They're telling you what's important to the character, and what the player is looking to mess around with.
In _that_ context, yes you can seriously start pushing buttons and see what happens when change or the possibility of it is introduced.
no subject
Again, I don't think that games implicitly or explicitly really went for targeting things like this as a matter of course. GMs often would, but that stems from the traditionally adversarial role that GMs have had.
GMs have been told "you have to give players stuff, so they can see their character improve and 'change'." and they have to balance this with "you must challenge a character."
In life, the acquisition of stuff often makes life easier. In rpgs, it's similar although it tends to be on a much more massive scale in the usual fantasy game.
Therefore, if you're going to want to challenge the character, you need to take away their stuff.
Also, taking away things, and people in a character's life count as "things" in this context, is an easy way to jump into yet another round of the "heroic journey", or at least what a lot of people think the heroic journey is.
Again, I think one of the key things to understanding people's approach to the "heroic journey" is to realize that for many people it's tied very strongly with zero-to-hero play. As a game progresses, there's a tendency to reset that "zero" level. So a fantasy game might go along and the original story arc or campaign finishes off at 7th level. Players are still digging things, so the GM starts a new arc. And right at this point, the reset happens. 7th is now the new zero and the characters are putzes once again.
Occasionally a GM will allow the characters to feel strong in comparison to the rest of the world, but it doesn't happen too often and it's usually of a pretty short duration. It's as if all that's happened before might as well not exist.
I always felt like Star Trek: The Next Generation had a lot of this going on. Stories were pretty self contained, and while changes might happen in the setting, they really only seemed to happen at that one point, and then it's as if it were always that way.
Like LaForge getting a promotion. One episode he gets the promotion, and then from that point on it's as if nothing's really changed and it's always been that way. He just gets a slightly different form of address.
Games like SotC and PDQ do reward players for having things happen to their characters. For incorporating some risk that things will go against the player's and/or character's goals. But they have a reward mechanism built into the game to reward players for doing this. The fact that they have to tie the reward mechanism to the risk, to me means that they recognize that as a whole, players are in fact not keen on having things at risk.
Older games like Gurps tried to do this, with giving you points for taking disadvantages.
The idea might have been for players to develop a more nuanced character, and to introduce an element of risk to some aspect of play, but the practical reality is that it just was a source of extra power for players to pump up their character. Playing of faults/disadvantages was something that a player often had to be reminded of, and most GMs knew that their players were going to pitch a fit if they tapped those disadvantages too often.
I think where games like PDQ, SotC, Hero Quest, and others of a similar nature really succeed, is because they force a player to invest in their character. They're explicitly pulling out what is interesting and valuable to their character to begin with.
This means that GMs don't have to scrabble around on the character sheet, looking for some way to challenge a character, or figure out some way to engage the player's interest. It's on the sheet, put their by the player. They're telling you what's important to the character, and what the player is looking to mess around with.
In _that_ context, yes you can seriously start pushing buttons and see what happens when change or the possibility of it is introduced.