Boasts

The following is excerpted from the zine that Adam and I wrote, Reavers, about our campaign. It's necessary context for a few other posts I want to make, I'm copying it here.

Progression

Progression in Wolves Upon the Coast works a bit differently than in standard dnd, so I thought it'd be worth laying out how it normally works, and what effect that normal operation has, before discussing the difference wutc's progression system makes.

In ordinary dnd, xp serves two purposes: it's a score, keeping track of achievement; and it's a pacing mechanic, gating mechanical benefits behind a length of gameplay.[^1]

[^1]: I owe this latter insight to Simon Carryer.}

In old-school dnd, we usually reward collection of treasure and (to a lesser extent) victory in combat. These activities are, to some extent, what the game is "about". If a player creates a character who only wishes to live a quiet life farming, why aren't they playing Wheat Harvest Simulator instead? Of course these particular achievements needn't be the focus of the game. (A game might not even be about achievement.) The play group could decide the game is about gaining political power, or saving lives, or collecting tongues. In any case, xp may be awarded to mark achievement,[^2] whatever the kind of achievement the players have decided the game will focus on.[^3]

[^2]: Not every achievement-focused game needs or would benefit from a numerical score. Short games in particular don't benefit from scores, which tend to record a history of achievement. And a score may be downright inappropriate in some cases -- if I play a game about surviving a harsh winter alone in the countryside, I might win or lose, but beyond that no scoring system is obviously possible. Some play groups may be alienated by xp, as differences in scores will throw differences in ability into sharp relief. And finally some people may simply dislike them, in the same way some people dislike games with offsides rules.

[^3]: Thus Luke Gearing is wrong, when he argues "Against Incentive", that "[xp] poisons the well of player action and agency", because he has reversed the causality of the situation. (Luke's argument here is explicitly about "advancement-as-reward", what I am about to term "progression", but, since he only discusses this in terms of "number go up" rather than any feature unique to progression, we can generalize his claim without issue.) One does not try to subtly nudge the other players into acting in a certain way by rewarding the action -- one discovers or decides what the game is about, and grants xp to mark progress in achieving this end.

Traditionally in dnd, achievement is tied to an increase in character ability -- as we said above, ability increases are gated behind (paced out by) xp requirements. The scoring mechanic and the ability-increase mechanic are the same. We call a system that marries these two functions a progression system.

And now we should ask: what is the point of a progression system? Why have we married scoring to increases in character ability?

I suggest that the progression system closely models the logic of fantasy and pulp literature. A hero is distinguished, not just by their ability, but by their storied career.

We never see the origin of Conan, nor should we -- he is more powerful than his foes thanks in part to his history of adventure, which, by the time the story starts, has always been underway for a long while, even when he is young. (In Howard's stories, anyway. I haven't read any of the later pastiches.) The same for John Carter, Aragorn, Brandoch Daha, and countless other genre heroes. These are not ya heroes who take up the sword for the first time and are instantly skilled with it. Nor have they benefited from a training montage. We don't see their rise to power, but we are lead to believe that they have been genuinely risking their lives, all of their lives, not safely exercising. They are all experienced, and through that experience has come skill.

As characters progress through the game, they gain hd and, oftentimes, the ability to deal more damage. In a dnd-like game, characters usually gain hd linearly, and damage-dealing ability sub-linearly. As a consequence, fights will tend to go on for longer, and players will have more opportunities to make maneuvers in them, to turn the tide of the battle via creativity and daring.[^4]

[^4]: I owe these insights to Eero Tuovinen.

As a result, low-level play is often about avoiding risk, especially combat,[^5] while trying to gather treasure. But wutc doesn't work that way. Because in wutc, players have two progression systems: boasting and getting rich. This is an essay on boasting.

[^5]: There's a piece of osr wisdom holding that "combat is a fail-state" -- don't listen to it, not while playing wutc at least. Combat is an opportunity. Adam puts the kernel of truth in the maxim best when he says, "Don't get into slap-fights", fights where the only plan is "hit them while they hit us".

Boasts

The primary progression system in wutc is called boasting. Boasting is a variant on milestone leveling where milestones are declared ad hoc by and for individual players. Boasting milestones can be challenged by fellow players as inappropriate (too easy) or even stolen. They are emphatically not shared between players: every player advances individually.

We have some house rules on boasting, as follows.

• Boasts are judged legitimate or not, fulfilled or not, shirked or not, by one's fellow players. The referee, a fellow player, may give advice or opinions, but has no special authority.
• Only pcs can boast, and only during session. (Play-by-post counts as session.)
• A character's next boast must be more impressive than their last fulfilled boast.
• By a character's fourth or fifth boast, they will be known regionally. People will already know of the character, and have formed strong opinions of them.[^6]

[^6]: This is maybe more of a guideline, or a calibration for the scale of boasts, than a formal rule. All three Reavers characters who have achieved this feat forged their reputations while doing so. I write this "rule" here just to make the expectation explicit.

The requirement that boasts become progressively more impressive is so intuitive that for the first six months of Reavers it went completely unspoken.

Boasting is a social phenomenon. There are no "secret boasts". Everyone knows what someone has boasted; this is in fact how the character gains power from the boast, their legend grows. Maybe a character could make a boast in private (if they were the last survivor of a shipwreck, they might vow to return to civilization) but this is not the norm. It has never happened in Reavers.

If a player fails a boast, everyone (or at least all the other warriors) will know it. They cannot hide the shame. Nor can they cheat their way to glory. Everyone, including the player who's boasting, decides if the boast is fulfilled in spirit.

Players should not be discouraged from making competing or incompatible boasts. They will often organically decide to jockey for position, which is really wonderful to watch and fits the fiction. But they probably won't do this so often that they destroy party unity. We allow unlimited pvp in Reavers, but things have never devolved into a bloodbath -- in fact we have only had one instance of one character vowing to kill another.

Boasting generalizes dnd's ordinary achievement-based progression. If one wanted, a player could boast that they would collect treasure in the exact quantities needed to level up in ordinary dnd. So boasting makes wutc more general than ordinary dnd, so the players can make the game about progression in whatever field they please. It's also flavorful and appropriate for its specific setting. Players are not (necessarily) weird little money-grubbers trying to pile up as much treasure as possible (though if one wanted to, one could -- and might become a dragon along the way!) but hard-partying Vikings who use their treasure to secure favor and allies, and to broadcast their might.

As a result of this, play is often more varied than in standard dnd. Characters will attempt pointless tasks just for bragging rights. In fact, the more pointless and difficult the task, the greater the incentive to do it. After all, there's no need to brag that one can do something one was about to do anyway -- and if one does make such a simple boast, it's likely to be stolen, one-upped, by another player.

Because a player receives the benefits of a boast immediately after making it, boasting is not just a strategic action but a tactical one too. A character at low healthy can decide to flee, as normal, or boast to recover health, and, if they survive, become permanently stronger. Of course, the boast still has to be impressive relative to their stature, and the player must still accomplish the boast. Thus players push themselves to charge further ahead when they are in danger. (This dynamic is most apparent in a dungeon-crawl.)

Boasting and "warriors"

Early in the Reavers campaign I read "Sorrows of the Savage Warrior" (eek! bad title) in Archeology of Violence, a collection of essays by French anthropologist Pierre Clastres. I have great difficulties with Clastres's categorization of civilizations as "savage" or "primitive" or not, especially since his own work shows that the mode of production in a society is a political choice, not a step on a technological ladder. This caveat aside, much seemed familiar, especially in light of the Reavers game:

[A warrior] is a man who puts his warlike passion to the service of his desire for prestige. This desire is realized when a young combatant is authorized to claim his integration into the warrior brotherhood (in the strict sense) and his confirmation as warrior (Kaanoklé, Höchero, etc.): when he brings back an enemy scalp. One could then suppose that such a fact would guarantee the new warrior an irrevocable status and a definitive prestige which he could peacefully savor. This is not the case. Far from being finished, his career has, in effect, only just begun. The first scalp is not the crowning, but, on the contrary, the point of departure. Just as in these societies, a son does not inherit the glory acquired by his father, the young warrior is not freed by his initial prowess: he must continuously start over, for each exploit accomplished is both a source of prestige and a questioning of this prestige. The warrior is in essence condemned to forging ahead. The glory won is never enough in and of itself; it must be forever proven, and every feat realized immediately calls for another. The warrior is thus a man of permanent dissatisfaction. (185)

In this passage Clastres expresses the idea that a warrior's status is always in question, that a warrior must constantly prove their valor and skill. A warrior cannot rest on their laurels. We have no need to model this social and psychological pressure with any in-game rules, because players sense it intuitively. Players play in order to face new challenges. If a player is ever permanently satisfied, they will stop playing.

[I]t is indeed not enough for the warrior to repeat the same exploit, to settle peacefully into repetition by bringing an enemy's scalp back to the camp: neither he nor the tribe would be satisfied by this facile (so to speak) solution. Each time the undertaking must be more difficult, the danger confronted more terrible, the risk run more considerable. Why? Because this is the only way for the warrior to maintain his individual difference in relation to his companions, because there is competition between the warriors for prestige. Each warrior's exploit, precisely because it is recognized as such, is a challenge to the others: let them do better. (188)

The warrior competes with both their past self and their comrades. If a warrior's boast isn't impressive enough, one of their comrades can steal it by one-upping it. And a seasoned warrior's boasts will always be impressive, as they must, in effect, one-up themselves continuously.

Here, then, on all sides, this irreducible affinity, this tragic proximity between the warrior and death becomes clear. Victorious, he must immediately leave again for war in order to assure his glory with an even greater feat. But in ceaselessly testing the limits of the risk confronted and forging ahead for prestige he invariably meets this end: solitary death in the face of enemies. [...] There is no alternative for the warrior: a single outcome for him, death. His is an infinite task, as I was saying: what is proven here, in short, is that the warrior is never a warrior except at the end of his task, when, accomplishing his supreme exploit, he wins death along with absolute glory. The warrior is, in his being, a being-for-death. (191)

Now "the warrior is never a warrior except at the end of his task" is a bit overstated: really he means that a warrior's valor is always challenged until death. And this is certainly correct. Even a character who has retired is only temporarily out of the game. They must all keep playing until they fall.

I first read these passages from Clastres early in the Reavers campaign. At the time I predicted:

I can only imagine this ending up with lone characters of 8+ hd going grimly to their doom. Nobody will accompany them because their boast is obviously impossible and the situation is just not rewarding enough. So far this hasn't been an issue either, since the risks the players are taking will obviously lead them to valuable treasure, fame, and fortune. But maybe at some point you'll have to start giving each other incentives to help with a quest? We'll see if that's how the play develops

Actual play has turned out somewhat different. Players have been more conservative about their boasts than I would have expected, and so progression has been slower. The two highest-level characters in the campaign were able to retire, though one of them had to leave his humanity behind to do it. And players have been more suicidal than I had expected, happily going to their doom with their higher-leveled comrades. There's nothing wrong with this -- it's just interesting, and worth pointing out.

As an additional wrinkle, since characters usually don't advance by acquiring wealth, many of their adventures end up destroying far more value than they create. The greatest adventures are generally the most expensive and the least profitable. (Echoes of the potlatch?) Thus more experienced characters often become more estranged from society, as their exploits bring ruin to those around them. (Here too is a parallel to Clastres' work; he views society as "against" the warrior, and says that the warrior must constantly justify his violence to society -- 193.)

Players often plan expeditions two at a time; first something ignoble but profitable, and then something glorious and wasteful.

Finally, here's a statement from Clastres about the lack of an "end-game" for a warrior, and the difference between warriors and people who simply fight in wars:

During my stay in the Chaco, I had the opportunity time and again to converse with old Chulupi combatants. A few among them were institutional warriors, the Kaanoklé: they possessed the heads of hair of enemies they had killed. As for the others, they were not veritable warriors, for they had never scalped the enemies. In the group of old combatants, the Kaanoklé were rare: most of their companions had long since perished in battle, which is expected in the warrior world. Yet it was the non-warriors who explained to me the truth of the warrior. For if they were not Kaanoklé, it was because they did not want to be. Why would valorous combatants not desire to be Kaanoklé? This was the case of Aklamatsé, a shaman of high repute, and of Tanu'uh, immensely knowledgeable about mythology, among others. Both around sixty-five years old, they had led countless battles against the Bolivians, the Argentineans, and the Toba, especially Tanu'uh; but neither of them were Kaanoklé. Tanu'uh's body, studded with scars (from steel blades, arrows and bullets) indicated sufficiently that he had narrowly escaped death more than once. Tanu'uh had no doubt killed one or two dozen men. Why aren't you a Kaanoklé? Why haven't you ever scalped your enemies? In his ambiguity, the answer was almost comic: Because it was too dangerous. I didn't want to die. In short, this man who had almost perished ten times had not wanted to become a warrior because he was afraid of death. It was thus obvious for him: the Kaanoklé, as such, is condemned to being killed. (192)

This last quotation speaks for itself.

We can't simply equate "warrior cultures" from all different parts of history and the globe. Nor should we think that our play entitles us to call ourselves warriors, or grants us any special insight into "the" "warrior mindset". But the study of real-world cultures can deepen our play, bring in new emotional resonances and avenues for exploration. This is worth doing.