anyway.
A Penny for Your Thoughts
1-10-05
We played another kick-butting session of Primetime Adventures. I'll write it up at the Forge soon, but afterward Emily and I had an interesting conversation about game design and stuff, out of which came this for me:
There are two pieces to the way Meg, Emily and I play - the way Charles' group plays too. The two pieces are first, the actual social dynamics of play; second, the live negotiation and maintenance of the social dynamics. The system for play, first; second, the system for creating the system.
To make the play-system portable, I'd formalize it into mechanics. Numbers, poker chips, dice, writing on character sheets, all that stuff. One of my "adventures in..." threads at the Forge includes some talk of a "girly Universalis" - that's the kind of thing I'm talking about here. Taking the way Meg and Em and I play and building mechanics that'll get you to play the same way.
These mechanics? They would violate the second thing, the system-system. The rules I write would teach other groups how to play the way we play, not how to design a way to play on the fly. Imagine Charles and me in a working relationship where I write rules to formalize how we play, then send them to him for checking over, thumbs up thumbs down. He would never ever thumbs up them. They'd always be a too-formal version of what his group does just naturally.
In fact, I have a wicked cool couple of mechanics for an sf rpg, but whenever I geek about them, Meg and Em look at me like, so what? We do that all the time, without all these 3x5 cards and glass beads, and more flexibly too. What's the point?
On 1-10-05, Meguey wrote:
Here's me saying that, for years, I was the *hardest* sell on any mechanics whatsoever. So it is a great thing to get a set of mechanics I like and use, and for years it was something Vincent worked toward. Lucky me :) And now not only do we use them (Dogs and Otherkind) but we also have found a few that work for me (PTA and Universalis), and we also make stuff up on the fly (our Dragondice (no, I don't know why it's one word) and Horse Race dice). So, yeah, the occasional "wicked cool couple of mechanics [with] all these 3x5 cards and glass beads" gets the weird look.
On 1-10-05, Charles wrote:
I'm with Meg (although I haven't learned any of the actually useful mechanics well enough to use them, I am willing to accept that they exist, and I'd love to have them). I wouldn't actually veto every single formal mechanic you'd send me, I'd only veto most of them, and in play I'd only use them when I felt like they were useful (standard very low mechanics play), but I might well use them.
I think to build our style of play as a formal system, you'd need a bunch of un-integrated mechanics for the play-systems, and a system-sytem (probably one with very little randomization) for deciding what mechanics were in play. That sytem-system might look a lot more like Roberts Rules of Order than they would like standard mechanics, but they could be formalized.
So, in play we might start the session by calling a discussion on the highlighted plots for tonight's games, and players might discuss what plots need highlighting, or they might say, "lets play 'a day in the life,' focusing on the kitchen staff," or any of the other basic styles of play that we might use. Once a consensus was reached on what plots to focus on (and the consensus might be "lets wing it"), then they might call a discussion on what the opening scene should be (or maybe even on what mechanism they were going to use to decide how the scenes would shift). Then they would table the set up discussion and start play. As play progressed, one player might feel that the scene in motion would be better handled using a formal mechanic, and might call a Point of Order to suggest a discussion on what mechanic should be used here. If there was a consensus that a discussion should be held, then the game play would be placed on hold to discuss what or whether to use a formal mechanic. Once consensus was reached, or a vote was called, then play would resume using that mechanic. The mechanic might be specified as being a single use, or being a liimited use (say just for the scene in motion), or until a decision was made to abandon it. If, once the mechanic was in motion, someone felt that it wasn't actually working well, they could call another point of order to raise their concern and suggest another round of discussion. Likewise, points of order could be made to suggest holding the game for a World discussion, or a new round of plot discussion.
Actually, this looks a lot like the parts of PTA that seem most interesting to me. PTA even has the commercial break rule to allow pauses for world and plot discussions. The only major difference between what I'm describing and PTA is that PTA assumes a single mechanic for settling conflicts, and I'm suggesting that we might choose to use some completely different mechanic instead. Also, of course PTA assumes a specific type of game setting (a TV show) and pacing, while my system would leave those up for negotiation (while describing some different basic models that could be used at different times).
Also, this rule system would stress the degree to which the rule sytems exist to facilitate learning how to play, and that the rules should be allowed to drop away as the players become more experienced in the game. In particular, as the players develop more of a sense of what makes sense in their world, no mechanic should ever be allowed to produce a result that doesn't make sense.
On 1-11-05, Meguey wrote:
Charles, it sounds to me like the style of play you describe is really one of ways play could develope in a LONG term game with well-integrated characters and players having built up trust and world-creation over years and years. In other words, it sounds *exactly* like how I am familiar with your style of play.
There are lots of similarities to our (and here I mean the VEM Ares Magica game), but since we have under half the players, everything takes a little less time.
On 1-11-05, Vincent wrote:
Well, guys, I know it looks that way...
But that's not really how you or we play, the toolkit of resolution plus procedures available to us. Not at all. Particularly, it leaves entirely unaddressed the two keys you need in order to play at all: at every moment of play, what should I contribute? And how should I treat my fellow players' contributions?
We negotiated hard and long to arrive at our answers - without, to date, analyzing or acknowledging what our answers are.
Providing tools that the players can use when they want to won't do it. Rules are and must be constraints. The rules you're playing by right now are inviolable constraints, but invisible to you (and even moreso to me, who lives way over here).
Furthermore, groups never drop their rules as they get more experienced. In the case of both of our Ars Magica games, we've replaced bad rules with better-but-unspoken rules. These better rules, we rely on them and invest in them and feel loyal to them - in fact, they define our play. We wouldn't give them up if you paid us, giving them up would mean abandoning the game. In the case of Primetime Adventures, same thing, except that we don't ever need to replace the rules with better ones. Matt's rules are already better.
Charles: "In particular, as the players develop more of a sense of what makes sense in their world, no mechanic should ever be allowed to produce a result that doesn't make sense."
This is so summarily dealt with that I'd forgotten it would be on the table! That's a Task Resolution fear. Ditch Task Resolution and fear no more.
Swear to god: Conflict Resolution works by identifying what's at stake. If it couldn't plausibly go either way, it's not at stake. Thus, either way is plausible. Thus, all produced results are plausible. Given twenty minutes and a handful of dice I could show you this - curse you, entire width of the US!
On 1-11-05, Emily Care wrote:
Vincent wrote:
Providing tools that the players can use when they want to won't do it. Rules are and must be constraints. The rules you're playing by right now are inviolable constraints, but invisible to you (and even moreso to me, who lives way over here).
Hey Vincent, yes, given that the underlying and mostly unspoken (til now) guidelines (that we & the Ennead use in all our collaborative mostly free-form gaming) are integral and ain't gonna be jettisoned without breaking the game. However, it's been way functional for us to choose to use mechanics based on our desire for how we want outcomes to be structured (eg picking up the happy face-sad face dice vs. using Otherkind dice in our gaming).
In a game where the contract is to always use a certain given set of mechanical rules for given types of situations, the constraints would be inviolable, but I'm finding it pretty functional to choose based on preference in the moment. That may mean that we are still fulfilling our underlying rules, but choosing among different means (negotiation, dice mechanics, etc). Are you saying that fixed mechanics are necessary?
Charles wrote:
Also, this rule system would stress the degree to which the rule sytems exist to facilitate learning how to play, and that the rules should be allowed to drop away as the players become more experienced in the game.
I've found that formal mechanics that get are useful tend to get used more over time, rather than less. They aren't there to help people learn how to negotiate with one another, they are there to help people who already know how to negotiation when straight negotations either a) break down or b) don't consistently give useful results. Reasons why neg. may not give results can be time (eg making a town quickly that pcs may interact with), structure (eg PtA spotlight rules help keep everyone on target with the episode's plot vis a vis character issues) or social dynamics (eg limiting likelihood of deprotagonization due to having outcomes be resolved by fiat of either player or opponent).
yrs,
Em
On 1-11-05, Emily Care wrote:
In fact, I have a wicked cool couple of mechanics for an sf rpg, but whenever I geek about them, Meg and Em look at me like, so what? We do that all the time, without all these 3x5 cards and glass beads, and more flexibly too. What's the point?
I recall you had a similar reaction to hearing about Universalis until you actually played it. Then you saw the light in a big way. But that didn't mean you came back to us and said--"let's play the Griffin's Aerie campaign using the Universalis rules". Would never work. It would be a completely different game with a different structure. That's why we aren't using the Dogs rules, even though we all love them. They just aren't suited to the structure of play that we're looking for with GA. When you write your sf game, we'll completely dig playing it, but it will not give us the same kind of play we'd get if we just said, "let's take a break from GA and do a sci-fi dealy".
We have incorporated the Otherkind dice mechanic, but that's because at times it fits with what we need. But I wonder if we'd have a different experience with them if Otherkind was more finished. We might associate it with a whole different body of play that wouldn't fit with GA.
So, what's the upshot here? Can we write formal mechanics that would help or let other folks do what we do? That's where our conversation started--PtA is great, but has a limited scope. You can get some of the dynamics of fully-negotiated collaborative gaming out of it, but it's (wicked cool story-now juggernaut) structure keeps you from developing a full world capable of sustaining longer gaming like our informal systems do.
That's what I came out of the game on Saturday saying--"That was great! And we could do the cool stuff like we do in the GA game with Josh & Carrie too! Way cool! But how do we do more/longer/deeper stuff like that?"
On 1-11-05, Vincent wrote:
Emily, sometimes we use mechanics and sometimes we don't, but when we're playing, how do you know what to say? You have a million ideas per second - how do you decide which ones are suitable to say out loud and which ones aren't? When I say something out loud, how do you know whether to agree to it outright, ask me to justify it, or disagree with it?
PTA and Dogs have rulesets that answer those questions. Our game does too. The difference is that in our game I don't know what the rules are, nor do I particularly care to. We established them and never break them, that's good enough for me.
To teach other people our system-system, we'd have to formalize the process by which we arrived at those unknown, unspoken rules. The process that starts with "live with some people for ten years, sharing trust and heartache and building a strong shared commitment to a particular roleplaying environment..."
On 1-11-05, Vincent wrote:
(That's in response to your first comment, crossposted with your second.)
On 1-11-05, Ninja Hunter J wrote:
Charles, I'm not sure how, if everyone's playing the same game, a decent mechanic could produce a result that doesn't make sense.
Here are some examples:
Dogs:
- At stake: the life of Jessica, a Faithless, but good person, about to be purged from the town.
- (GM) [raise] The Preacherman stabs her with a pitchfork!
- (Bro. Jebediah) I [block or dodge] shoot the fork off its handle!
- (Jeb) [raise, escalate] Preacher, if you raise your hand against that girl again, I'll burn down your town.
- (GM) [takes the blow] I, uh, Dog, you ain't heard the last of me.
Other possible outcomes are that the girl get stabbed and the Dogs launch a follow-up to burn down the town, or they hang the Preacherman, or the townsfolk jump the Dogs [who wind up with pitchfork-shaped scars as fallout], who shoot dead every last demon-possessed one of them. I just can't imagine how this could become irrelevant, and it all happens with dice on the table, character sheets being scribbled on, and totally above board with no GM-fudging.
PTA:
- The agenda is, does James Bond get the girl?
[Alice] OK, I want to see a scene where James meets the girl who's the plaything of Dr. Hark.
[James]I'm going to seduce her so she'll lead me to him.
[dice hit the table, Alice wins, James narrates] I realize that I know her: she's Lovely Goodbody, a SMERSH agent. Once I see her, I realize she'll recognize me if I try to seduce her here. We'll talk later, she and I.
For contrast, here's what it says in Jovian Chronicles (which I got because I like the drawings of Giant Robots. This is paraphrased.) 'The GM should keep in mind the genre. The hero should not die from a bad roll unless he's sacrificing himself to save someone, in which case you should kill him, but get the player's permission first, or he'll leave the game. Ignore the dice to do this.' That is, 'use the rules only for things that don't matter; if it matters, make it up.'
It's not the formality of the rules that's hurting you here, it's the dumbass rule that doesn't allow you to do what you came here to do.
On 1-11-05, Vincent wrote:
Emily: "PtA is great, but has a limited scope. You can get some of the dynamics of fully-negotiated collaborative gaming out of it, but it's (wicked cool story-now juggernaut) structure keeps you from developing a full world capable of sustaining longer gaming like our informal systems do."
I don't understand! I tried when we talked about it Saturday night, but I still don't.
On the one hand: you're clearly right. PTA forces you to play out your situations in 5 sessions. That's what it does.
On the other hand: it's not a "full world" thing, except insofar as situation implicates world. You create only as much of the world as you need in order to create and resolve your situations, true - but that's true of every game that's not boring.
What we do in our Ars Magica game that we don't do in PTA is actively seek out upward-escalating situations. The way we sustain long-term play is by having every situation resolve into a bigger dynamic situation. By the time we found our spot, we were caught up in regional situations, not just interpersonal ones. By the time we got our charter from Coeris, we were caught up in tribunal-level situations, not just region-level ones. By the time we resolve these, we'll be caught up in Order-spanning and Europe-spanning situations. We're already laying down the groundwork for those.
What if we start a second season of Epidemonology with Cyrus getting called into a government task force to fight a national-level demonic epidemic? What if to start a third season he's forced out of the commission at a time of overwhelming threat to the US and decides to go it alone? What if after that, something bigger - I'm sure we can find some fuckin' big demons in Europe after WWII. Then bigger still? I don't see where Epidemonology's world must be smaller than our Ars Magica world, unless we decide to play a smaller game.
...Unless by "world" you mean "number of characters," maybe?
I don't get it!
On 1-11-05, Ninja Hunter J wrote:
Well, I definitely think you could have a larger world-building thing going on in PTA. It would take time to develop, just like it does on a TV show, and that's fine. What we didn't do - we didn't really have to, because of the genre - was come up with a physical anthropology of the world, like we should if we want to do sci-fi, which I'm really itching to do. I really, really, really, really, really want to do some Ghost in the Shell - inspired storynation. If we were to do that, I'd want to start drawing out the machines, cities, characters, before we started. As more and more of it came into the world, I'd want to add it visually, partially because it's what I love about scifi (and the odd Fantasy thing), and partly because, geez, it's TV, it's visual.
I see absolutely no reason that we couldn't broaden the scope of the game. We're doing secret stuff with no infrastructural support at all: Frank's lost at sea, Cyrus is working in secret, Joe can't endanger his job by talking about what's going on, and Vicky can't tell anyone what she's doing because SOMEONE keeps taking away her evidence. We're all deliberately limited because of the noir setting's reliance on lonely people as protagonists.
If we were a group more active in larger issues - political, say, the world would feel larger. If we were a bunch of hackers engaged in politics-by-other-means, the world would be bigger. Let's experiment with that for the next story. Which will start in, oh, August at this rate.
On 1-11-05, Vincent wrote:
J, you're the guy I need to sell on my skiffy mechanics. I'll tell you about them sometime.
On 1-11-05, Emily Care wrote:
By smaller world, I mean smaller world: fewer characters, fewer locations, smaller geographical locations. Maybe I'm wrong in my feeling that PtA limits you from getting larger. Maybe its just that the rules as written aren't meant to support larger scope of area and multiple characters but they would in fact map just beautifully into a less constrained situation. Is that your impression?
On 1-11-05, Vincent wrote:
Fewer characters, absolutely. Fewer protagonists, double-absolutely. 1 protagonist per player + all supporting cast the GM's = fewer characters.
Fewer characters means fewer and smaller situations, which means fewer and smaller locations, probably - but if our Ars Magica game had as few characters, it'd have as few and as small locations. I don't think we're doing anything especially large with locations in our Ars Magica game.
It seems like it'd be easy to come up with a PTA series featuring many large locations. On the other hand, maybe they'd still feel ... shallow, or hollow, or pale, or weightless, or something, compared to our Ars Magica game, because they wouldn't be as situation-rich. Except that Meg tells me she really likes the concreteness of the Epidemonology locations, because they get such good visual descriptions during scene framing.
Lord, I dunno. Maybe it's a relic of the TV thing: we expect locations whose sets fit inside a trailer.
On 1-11-05, Emily Care wrote:
Darnit. Of course that's wrong. Geographical scale is not the issue. You can have a tv show with a handful of characters who are saving the whole universe from destruction, but still have a fairly shallow "world".
But the number of characters and plots, subplots and the depth of examination of the characters and locations (regardless of their size) are all issues. If you play PtA with the structure that it creates, you come up with fabulous and compelling explorations of a single issue for the characters that you are encouraged to weave together to create a single overarching narrative that can really say something. But it is limited. By your single issue. By the emphasis on having the world establishment limited to the issues, edges sets and connections on your character sheet. And what I want out of a game is more world than applies to character. Yes, really. Or at least more than one character to have arcs and interest to make the world have meaning.
PtA doesn't give you time to smell the roses. Time to have your character decide to play with another of your characters in the your alternate animal forms in the snow and end up letting her almost get killed by a hawk--unless it fits in with the plot of the show.
I think we could do all of this using some of PtA's mechanics. But we'd have to let go of others to do so.
On 1-11-05, Emily Care wrote:
My last post was cross-posted with Vincent's. Yeah, I guess largeness of world isn't the issue. Wrong words.
On 1-11-05, Oh--what I said was full world to start with. That's about complexity not size. wrote:
On 1-11-05, Vincent wrote:
Cool! I agree with you, then. PTA has fewer situations and faster pacing than our Ars Magica game, no doubt about it.
"And what I want out of a game is more world than applies to character. Yes, really."
I disbelieve!
He he. You know I mean it.
"Or at least more than one character to have arcs and interest to make the world have meaning."
Now this I believe. I want this too, but not out of PTA.
On 1-11-05, Charles wrote:
Admittedly, I've only read the rules, and I've never actually played it, but it seems to me that PtA requires only minimal tweaking to make it do what Emily would like it to do. For instance, it already supports minor characters as attachments to the major characters, why not allow them to have issues too? They p[robably won't get a spotlight episode very often, but they might get one at some point in the series. Even if they never do, their issue can be used to parallel and reflect the spotlighted issues. Also, why can we only have one issue each? There are plenty of TV shows that have characters with more depth than that. Can you really model Six Feet Under with one issue per character? For that matter, why can we only have one main character each? There are plenty of ensemble shows with way more than 3-5 significant characters (think of the cop and doctor shows, for instance, or the Sopranos).
Would the smelling the roses scene Emily describes really be possible only if it served the plot? Couldn't it occur if it served the character's issue, or if it reflected the issue of another character, or if it fit thematically with the episode?
The PtA rules as I read them go out of their way to make it clear that this shouldn't be thought of as a system for playing only action adventure plots, or only heavily plotted games. It cites Six Feet Under as one of its archetype shows, and it stresses that the franchise can become total backdrop to the show (think of each week's death in Six Feet Under or the monster of the week at certain points in Buffy). Also, althought it does suggest shortening a season to 5 or 9 episodes, it recognizes that this is for the convenience of the gamers, not a fundamental feature of the style it is trying to do. And there is still the multiseason aspect. Push a season up to 13 episodes, and explicitly state that you are trying for a seven season arc, and you have 91 game sessions in which to develop your issues. At an average of 30 games a year, that is 3 years of play. Put in a spinoff at the end and add another 3 years of play.
It seems to me, although I've never played it, that what PtA pushes most strongly is creating thematically tight sessions, and pushing character-centered play with a strong story arc (although it is very clear about the fact that the story arc doesn't need to transform the character, it only has to highlight the character). If it is mostly being used to run cool action adventure with fairly simplistic but strongly drawn characters, it seems to me that it isn't being used up to its potential.
Again, I haven't played it, so I recognize I may be completely wrong about that.
On 1-11-05, Charles wrote:
J: For contrast, here's what it says in Jovian Chronicles (which I got because I like the drawings of Giant Robots. This is paraphrased.) 'The GM should keep in mind the genre. The hero should not die from a bad roll unless he's sacrificing himself to save someone, in which case you should kill him, but get the player's permission first, or he'll leave the game. Ignore the dice to do this.' That is, 'use the rules only for things that don't matter; if it matters, make it up.'
Yeah, that's why I've always distrusted rules that are based on randomizers. The randomizer can be fun, but you can't use it for things that matter.
On the other hand, I am now convinced. Stakes based resolution makes sense, and it can even use randomizers for things that matter (or at least the Otherkin derived mechanic can).
On 1-11-05, Charles wrote:
And going way back in this thread-
Vincent, I never said the Robert's Rules of Gaming were optional, I said the mechanics were optional (and the mechaincs still aren't optional while they are in force, even though I have the out of calling a point of order and suggesting dropping or switching the mechanic). The Roberts Rules of Gaming are the rules that constrain. I can say whatever I want happens in the game, (within the constraints of whatever mechanics we have temporarily decided to use), but I am always subject to a Point of Order, a discussion and an overruling, so I will only say things that I am confident won't be overruled. If I think it might be overruled, I'll call a Point of Order myself to propose the idea, and get a concensus on it. Then we return to play, and I state that it happens, or maybe in discussion my idea is revised and someone else states what happens. In Robert's Rules of Gaming, we would have a rule about proposing to revise a suggested outcome, and more rules for proposing to take over as describer of the event in play.
These rules are optional in the sense that they only come into play if someone calls on them, but if someone calls on them, then they come into play. I can no more say, "No, you can't call a point of order," than I can say, "No, I succeed even though the dice say I don't." Oh, except I can say either of those things, if the group gives their consent (A: "Point of Order!" B:"I propose we table this point of order until the end of the interaction, I'm going somewhere interesting with this" A, C & D:"Okay, we trust you." A:"Point of Order is tabled until the end of the scene."). But, of course, that is using the full flexibility of the rules, not ignoring the rules. Fudging a die roll is actually an example of invoking the infomal rules to modify the formal mechanics.
Since these formal rules for how to play the upper level of the game are an attempt to teach certain methods, they might be gradually transfomred into their unspoken version. We might stop calling out Point of Order, and stop making requests to interupt the speaker during discussion, as we became more accustomed to each other, and learned ways of making the transitions more informal. This is like the "Who speaks when" rules that you mentioned that you dropped from the Otherkin dice. If you weren't experienced in collaborative play, then the "who speaks when" rules might keep one person from dominating things. Since you are experienced in collaborative play, you dropped that part of the rule, because it is better to use your informal "who speaks when" rules.
The formal system-system rules are a guide post to how to make decisions about a game. The formal mechanics are a set of tools for using to make decisions in play when no one has a better idea of how things should go. As a group becomes more experienced, it still needs good mechanics just as often, but it is less like to need the formal system-system rules, since it develops a set of informal system-system rules.
The hardest part of this is actually designing rules on interaction that create consensus building, but surely there are manuals on that. Mediation guides might be a good place to start, expanding them so that all players function as mediators within the game at some point. Arbitration rules would also be a useful tool for more aggressive groups of players, and possibly for certain types of games.
Group contract concepts also come strongly into this, and are probably the part of game design theory that is most relevant for formalizing our style of play.
Does a "rules of play" - "mechanics of decision making" distinction make sense? Is this something that has already been established and explored?
On 1-12-05, Vincent wrote:
Makes sense. Whether I agree or not, dunno yet. Universalis is what you describe, with formal rules for making proposals, raising objections, taking turns speaking, the works - but I don't draw from it the same conclusions that you do.
I'd say give Universalis a try, but the way to talk you into it is to play it with you, sending you the rulebook won't do. As Emily says about me: I was like, pheh, we don't need rules for that, and then I was like, waaa! these rules do cool unexpected things that are good for your soul!
On 1-12-05, Charles wrote:
Okay, I'll try to take a look at Universalis, and see if it seems like it is doing what I'm trying to describe. But, yes, it would be much easier if we could simply sit down and play it for a bit.
On 1-12-05, Ninja Hunter J wrote:
I've only played Universalis for a few minutes with you guys and the rules don't blow me away, but I want to play sometime because I suspect the genius is not readily apparent to me. Maybe when we're not all there for Epidemonology (which I almost misspelled again).
Emily, it's not that I want more world than applies to my character, I want more world than my character knows applies, and I want it to apply to all our characters (though the significance can differ). For our next story, let's think about this. A full world one of the great things about good sci fi - whether Blade Runner or Star Wars, so my vote is that we do it there, and we do it as early in the process as we can. Let's have artifacts and maps, created as we need them. It would just be irrelevant and a waste of valuable time to do this in Epidemonology, but not for sci fi.
Charles, I agree that adding Issues (not, I think, Edges) and multiple simultaneous story arcs is an easy way to make things richer. For instance, if you assume two 3s and 2 3s, you have a seven episode season. Maybe you need to add another 1, too, for eight, so Spotlights don't collide, but yeah, I think it's very, very possible.
Vincent, I thought you'd never ask. Lay it on me! (privately, so we can get back on topic, maybe... wait, what are we talking about?)
On 1-12-05, Ninja Hunter J wrote:
Where I said "For instance, if you assume two 3s and 2 3s, you have a seven episode season," what I really meant was "thee 2s and two 3s."
I MA TEH STUPOD
On 1-12-05, Vincent wrote:
Something Universalis doesn't do is promote much IC play. Charles, if you reflect you'll probably see why - focusing our attention on the most social levels of how we play means focusing our attention away from the most intimate levels. Universalis play isn't abstract or dispassionate, you still identify with the characters, but you don't own or be them in the same way.
This is part of the different conclusions I draw; I'll say more as it comes to me.
J, this is the sf game where first you create a character who's a Bulragthi, and then I subsequently write up the Bulragthi people. I have to formally take into account what you've established about your character, and we both get a point for it - me for building on someone else's idea, you because someone liked your idea enough to build on it.
On 1-12-05, Ninja Hunter J wrote:
What's the structure here? Are we all doing this? Am I making up your Mugdors while you're writing up my Bulragthi? How much do I put into my Bulragthi beforehand? Do I say "I'm a Female caste who's forgone the traditional transgendering in old age, so I'm out looking to start a new hive," or do I say "I'm looking to start a new civilization"? I don't understand how to create a character without knowing the background in detail, and I don't understand how to make this background without making up my society.
... or is that the challenge?
Is it that you're always in charge of coming up with stuff for the Bulragthi and I'm always in charge of the Mugdors? Whenever our story gets within spitting range of a Mugdor, I say what they're doing?
I think I need examples.
On 1-12-05, Vincent wrote:
Yeah. I'll post about it on the front page, probably.
On 1-12-05, Charles wrote:
The SF game kinda reminds me of the Lexicon concept that Neel created.
I guess what I see as the way that our games avoid the distancing effect of playing at the social interaction level is by nesting the high IC gaming within the social interaction superstructure. When you're in-scene, you shouldn't be paying much attention to the social interaction superstructure, except by trying to maintain the stream of consensus that allows the game to remain in-scene. If you blow the stream of consensus, then you jump out of scene and into the social superstructure.
If you blow the stream of consensus, then the superstructure is designed to handle (and quell) an adversarial social interaction: "You said this happens, but I think it doesn't." However, if you feel like you are about to blow the consensus, then you enter the social superstructure on a non-adversarial basis. The goal is to have as much in-scene as possible, and to have the transition to the superstructure never happen adversarially.
I suppose the hard part of formalizing would be to have those be the goals, without having the mechanics of the superstructure intrude on the in-scene play.
Maybe if you are called on a decision with an adversarial point of order, then you aren't allowed to defend your own position during the point of order? Obviously, if you call a point of order before making a decision, then maybe you get to control the discussion in someway, like getting a veto over other people's suggestions? Maybe there would need to be a rule relating to how long in-scene play has happened between points of order, with a penalty for calling one too soon?
On 1-12-05, Charles wrote:
Oh, for the PtA long campaign, I thnk it would be cool to require that there be double spotlights at some point (in the multiseason arc) for almost every character pair, so that we are assured of seeing how the issues of each character directly intersect with the issues of each of the other characters, where the other character is not just playing mirror or double or any of those things. It seems to me that some of the best tv episodes are those ones, where the interaction between two characters and their issues totally dominates an episode or two.
On 1-13-05, Vincent wrote:
...And see how now you're formalizing how you play, not how you arrive at how you play?
That's where I think you oughta be anyway, of course. But it means holding your vision of play - I mean your unspoken but inviolable rules about who gets to say what about what, when, your hard-won rules about what should I contribute? and how should I treat others' contributions? - as the vision of play, at least for this project.
On 1-13-05, Emily Care wrote:
Would the smelling the roses scene Emily describes really be possible only if it served the plot? Couldn't it occur if it served the character's issue, or if it reflected the issue of another character, or if it fit thematically with the episode?
It's not really the content that wouldn't happen, it was the specifics of how it arose and the context that were off.
There are a couple wierd & wiggly things about it: I was playing both characters, it happened during a "check in with the coven folk" segment of play, and what happened specifically (for me, I'm only just getting this articulated to V&M) was that a whole 'nother issue/theme I'm dealing with with my characters arose spontaneously from what my subconscious directed me to narrate. Thinking about it afterwards, I have realized that the one character becoming endangered in animal form connects with another (hugely risky) transformation another character is thinking about doing to kill a dragon.
This isn't important in the specifics (dragon killin, shmagon killing) but it's important to me because the noodling about kind of "what's going on here today" aspect of the free-form collab play style works really well for me to get interesting plot arcs to arise out of play. That may in fact be why although I'm playing my characters issue in PtA (grief over a dead spouse) it hasn't really hit me yet as deep and affecting in my in character experience. It came from my counscious mind and so hasn't had a chance to bubble up and give me the real kind of goose-bumps type experience of character issues that is what I look for in play.
An aside: So, yeah, Vincent. It is about character for me, but for me complexity of world first is what character interest arise from. And if I could play world straight (a la some functional re-working of Aria) I'd dig it big time.
So, the incident in question certainly could have occurred. If the characters were created with those specific issues in mind and the events applied. However, the game as written isn't set up to help/encourage/(even)allow me to find issues and themes to explore on the fly. It is all about helping me address & explore what's already on the table.
I guess that's something I'd miss if I only played PtA as is. I believe it could be expanded, but it would change pretty dramatically from what it is. I think it'd be worthwhile to look at it as incorporating some of its techniques into a different thing. Semantics again!
By the way, great discussions, folks!
On 1-13-05, Ninja Hunter J wrote:
Yeah, Emily, the character and world have to be tied in better than our Epidemonology characters are. Ironically - and maybe this is thematically excellent - the only 'real' feeling things in the story are the most surreal. Vicky must be doing some reporting or she couldn't keep showing up in a new outfit (which I have to describe more. I imagine it and assume everyone is seeing her the way I am. I should do Vicky paper dolls.) or even eating. Joe sorta reports in for work, then avoids it without consequence for the murder/cannibalism/babyfucking of the week. Frank's starting to fill out, but his thing is that he doesn't know what he's doing or where he is. And Cyrus, as you describe, has a nominal issue, but is largely intellectual artillery.
I agree with you that a richer environment would help us. We've dodged the issue (ha ha) by making this story the one it is, so next time, let's try something else.
On 1-13-05, Vincent wrote:
As diplomatically as I can manage: guys, maybe you should wait until after your screen presence 3 episodes to autopsy your Epidemonology characters.
I'm not saying that you'll feel differently then. I'm saying that you might!
On 1-14-05, Emily Care wrote:
I'm not displeased with Epidemonology a'tall. I'm pleased as punch with it, but want more too.