Xanatos Gambits and Roleplaying Games

[wastevens]

So.

A Xanatos Gambit is where a character reveals that, by their antagonist's success, they have themselves made an even greater gain. It's a fairly common reversal in literature, and something I've seen (and used) GMs and STs use with ease- especially for playing up primarily social or intellectual villians. It's actually one of the recommended

Comments

[ridingsloth]

[brain dump. Nonsense, nonsequitors, and off-topic rambling follow]

I agree with this issue wholeheartedly, as a player who has often tried to figure out how to "pull one over" on his GM (you) while playing a schemey character. It's tough to pull off a good Gambit without telling the GM, and telling the GM stinks of "cheating"... it puts the GM in a position where they won't be surprised and can arbitrarily choose whether your cleverness *works*, which rankles.

Flashback scenes are, to my mind, even worse. There's no cleverness to them, no foresight, no grinning-so-wide-your-face-breaks reveal to the rest of the people sitting at the table just how sneaky and clever you are. It's more like... petulance than cleverness, more like being a poor loser than being a master schemer. And that in and of itself is a serious problem: failure is *interesting* in tabletop games. I hate feeling like my characters tried their best, failed, and the GM rescued them arbitrarily, and I'd feel even worse if another player (or I) did it. I want my character to suffer when he fails, to be forced to work harder to rectify his mistakes or deal with a complicated situation. To paraphrase an article I read recently: it's fun when a good plan goes bad.

Which means, to me, that a Gambit really needs to be done up front, with foresight and scheming. It *can* be done.... "my character stops by Terror Lad's hideout on the way to meeting the rest of the team and leaves him a sealed letter". But, of course, that sort of thing doesn't fit every scenario. The hardest part is how much you tell the GM. You, as a player, are essentially playing a game against the GM when you set up a gambit. You need to give the GM enough information that they can respond reasonably (if Terror Lad has been murdered and his hideout is staked out by Doctor Impossible, the letter will be intercepted) but not so much information that *he* gets to decide if your scheme works rather than the Bad Guy he's portraying. Enough information that your reveal is plausible, but not so much information that it isn't surprising. And, you need to be careful that you aren't dictating story elements or NPC action... for all my character knows, Terror Lad hates my guts and wouldn't lift a finger to help me, despite the stakes.

As I write that, it occurs to me that it depends just as much on the relationship you, as a player, have with your GM. Is he going to be pissed or petulant that your are keeping secrets from him? Spiteful towards your plans? Hurt when you ruin his bad guy's victory?

One last thought: setting up a contingency plan in the form of a Gambit makes playing the penultimate scene challenging for the player. Your *character* is (probably) trying to win... but the player would really be happier if he lost, otherwise his clever scheme is wasted. Even if your gambit's reward is greater than the reward you'd get for just beating the bad guy, the other members of your group might be a little confused as to why you keep using the Marshmallow-o-matic instead of the OblitoRay....

[wastevens]

This has actually led to some of my thoughts on those Wacky Indie Games- a lot of them produce stories that are more fun to tell about later, because the game element is designed to produce such.

But better to tell later isn't neccesarily the same as more exciting to be telling at the table.

As a for instance- Prime Time Adventure, to do the sneaky sneaky thing in, is basically totally divorced from player skill. Now, you can get an engaging story to tell later, about how Dr. Horrible got the Wonderflonium in spite of that jackass Captain Penis^H^H^H^H^HHammer- but it's because the dice fell that way, rather than because of how the plan fell out.

Whereas the Mage game was interesting and fun- but hard to tell others about, since a lot of what was interesting and fun didn't translate to narrative well.