The Doylist choices in role play games

In the culmination of a recent game of Stars Without Number an interesting trope sneaked up on us. We were fighting the cartoonish villain Thanatosis and her Hungry Boys in a Mad Max style dust thunderstorm. (episode end spoiler alert) After having her tank blown open and surviving a sniper rifle shot to the back of her head, she decided to retreat away from battle and ride away into the dust storm cursing the name of one of the PCs.

Our characters could've pursued her and put her down without too much trouble, and at least one PC did want to do that, but as players we decided to let her go. On one hand, it was because our characters had other things to attend to, on the other hand, it made more sense from the narrative perspective to have her as a new nemesis that may one day return to fight our characters.

Thinking and talking it over later, that's how I stumbled upon the "Watsonian vs. Doylist" trope.

Watsonian vs. Doylist trope

The Watsonian vs. Doylist trope related to the dichotomy between the character in a story and the author of that story, or in RPG space - the player character and the player. It refers to Sherlock Holmes and two types of commentary you could have on the events of the book - the perspective of the in-universe Dr. Watson, explaining things as he understands them, or from the out-of-universe perspective of the book's author, Arthur Conan Doyle, explaining things as the author of the book.

An example of this trope is trying to answer the question of "why are there so many human-like aliens in Star Trek?" Watsonian answer is that an ancient humanoid race seeded the galaxy with all of those aliens. The Doylist answer is that making human-like aliens is cheaper for the show and allows the audience to understand the characters easier. Both sides answer the same question in a relevant manner, but give incompatibly different reasonings.

The Watsonian choices

In terms of role play games, we often focus on playing our characters in a Watsonian way - we are very attached to our character, want to play them "optimally" and make sure we don't leave any hanging threads the GM could try to weaponize against us later. This is basic human nature - we are very loss-averse, and since we associate our characters as being a representations of us, we don't want to see them die.

This is a fine approach to take, but at the same time, it makes the characters act too neatly and perfectly. They don't make too many mistakes, they don't act impulsively against their better judgement, etc.

One approach I've seen this issue addressed was the Limit Break mechanic in Exalted. This is a mechanic that helps the characters act like the classical tragic hero of myth they are meant to emulate. Basically, the characters accumulate emotional baggage over time until they snap and take the self-destructive course of action - they might blindly charge into battle to their possible death, lash out at their allies straining that relationship, or may be frozen with indecision at the climax of a conflict.

The Doylist choices

On the other end of the spectrum, we would have the idea of playing the character in a Doylist way - making decisions that tell the better story, but may go against what's best for the character in question. This would mean letting some antagonists live so they may become a nemesis for the character, or deciding to go on a drunken bender and break the law so the player could be cased with the challenge of escaping the police or having to cover something up.

A good example of taking the Doylist choice comes from Roll Play Swan Song, an actual play game of Stars Without Number. (spoiler alert for Week 1 and a game-long side-plot) In the first session of the game, one of the PCs, Higgins, ran into an old contact, Randy, that helped them get off the planet with an unknown parcel for their mission. In exchange, Randy wanted to get a ride off the planet - easy enough, basically a free favour. However, Higgins' player decided it would be more interesting to betray Randy at the last moment, shooting him in the head on the landing pad, in order "not to leave any lose threads".

Because of that action, the character has antagonised a criminal to whom Randy owed some money. This would later mean they would have a bounty hunter come after their heads. When the players would return to the planet later to help save some civilians, Higgins would be recognised by the military, making him have to flee and possibly leaving a lot of people to die. In the final episode of the game, Randy would also make a return with a cybernetically fixed head only to snipe Higgins dead as a revenge (luckily, Piani was there to psi-heal his exploded head back up).

All of this happened because the player decided to take the Doylist choice (the player even confirmed the choice was deliberately made to make the game more interesting). The game and the podcast were better for it, even if the character had to suffer because of it.

I think I saw the Doylist approach in the actual game books only twice. Chronicles of Darkness give the player the choice when their characters botch their rolls in exchange for XP.

The only diegetic example of this approach could perhaps be found in Exalted: The Fair Folk. In the world of Exalted, there exist entities known as Rakshasa, The Fair Folk. They are being made out of the primordial chaos from outside of the world that assume humanoid shapes to weave narratives to strengthen themselves. Essentially, they act out stories and conflict like actors (meaning playing Rakshasa is the player playing a character playing a character). Rakshasa become more powerful the more connections they have, meaning they seek to cultivate a web of nemesis, rivals, lovers, underlings and so on. This means for them the Watsonian and Doylist choices are one and the same - the players want to make mistakes because their characters want to make mistakes because that creates a more compelling narrative for them.

But let's reel this back a bit from this crazy meta-example ;).

An agreement between the player and the GM

Obviously, making the Doylist choice in a game leaves the PC and thus the player more exposed to the GM and their narrative. It would therefore be good to discuss this topic ahead of time and develop a mutual understanding between the players and the GM. The GMs shouldn't take those vulnerabilities and possible nemesis and just use them to screw over the player willy-nilly. Just as the player made a wink to the GM while letting that villain go, so should the GM at some point in the future wink back to the player.

If you want to quantify this relationship in some sense, perhaps each time the player makes such conscious Doylist choice, they would get some point or token. In exchange, the GM would get to keep that plot thread or character that would later come back "to take revenge" on that character (in a more narrative sense, there may be no actual killing involved). However, the player could cash those tokens in at any time to get something significant they want. It could be that they would escape being killed in some situation, or be able to get some artefact that would normally be out of their reach, or the like. It would have to be something significant enough to make the Doylist choice worth it, although not as significant as to make it some sort of wish-granting engine ( ;) ). You'd be basically cashing in "I'm not doing the adventure that would've enabled me to get this thing" in exchange for an "IOU of an adventure surrounding this plot at some point in the future".

If the GM brings back that same villain back and they are out for revenge, or the situation bites the players in the ass because of their past mistake, the debt is settled. If that character or plot would come back later again, it shouldn't be any more dangerous than any other adventure would be - you don't necessarily want to have to deal with some crazy person plotting to murder you every other session just because you let them live once.

On the other hand, if the player's overcome the obstacle and they get the upper hand, there is nothing stopping the player from taking another Doylist choice, earning another token and letting the GM keep the villain once more.

Also worth noting is that the "revenge" part of the deal can come in at any point really - if the GM wants the villain to try shooting the PC in the back right after they have been spared by the player, that's fine. If it worked for Dragonball (Goku sparing Frieza only to be shot in the back), it can work for your game too ;).

Conclusions

Players are often inclined to make Watsonian choices to do what's best for their characters and avoid leaving any lose threats least they be used against them. However, sometimes making a Doylist choice would make the story and the character more interesting.

It's good for the GM and the players to discuss this topic and come to some mutual understanding of how they would want to use this approach in their games. The players would be more encouraged to make Doylist choices if they knew the GM would handle that in a responsible manner.