thread: 2008-01-07 : Another year's worth
On 2008-02-06, Vincent wrote:
Good question, "so there was no creative kibitzing between the Players?"
Rules to bring us to compromise isn't really what I'm talking about, no. I'll try this: you know how Sorcerer has rules about protagonists that are both particular and uncompromising? We didn't all buy into them.
I hope nobody's offended by my analysis here:
Julia was psyched. She played by Sorcerer's rules and she got a Sorcerer protagonist.
Meg, Emily and Joshua all resisted Sorcerer's rules, to various extents. Emily least, Joshua most ("you mean I have to choose powers for my demon? But ... I don't want to! This reads like Champions, which I hate! Why can't I define my demon's powers in play? ... And what do you mean I have to fight to defend my character's relevance? Why is my character's relevance even at issue?")
Emily buckled under and played a Sorcerer protagonist by the rules, but didn't enjoy it a bit.
Meg played a non-protagonist, and was happy to do it. She played a fun-scary high-level supporting cast person. She had to skirt around Sorcerer's rules to do it.
Joshua didn't buckle under, hated his character, disliked the rules, and couldn't wait for the game to end.
So, of course there was lots of kibitzing. We're very social players. But because of the general creative incohesion, Julia's kibitzing (for instance) didn't help Joshua, and Joshua's didn't help Meg, and so on. Nobody really got what anybody else was doing, so nobody could really help anybody do it.
The likability thing - it was as big a problem that Joshua made his character so unremittingly unlikable as that Meg wanted so badly to like hers. Julia and Emily were willing to play their characters and find out how likable they'd turn out to be; Meg and Joshua both resisted that in their own ways.
And, yeah, this group hasn't played Poison'd together. They've all played it, but not all at once, and I don't have any desire to change that. I'll play Poison'd with Julia anytime, with Em when she wants to, with Meg under certain very limited circumstances (only if she'll play a pirate with a Soul of 6 who WILL become captain and WILL keep the rest of the crew in line - I don't think Meg can enjoy the game otherwise), and with Joshua probably never.
This isn't a big deal! Shock: is the same way for us, with different people in the various slots. I expect Meg's new game to be the same way too. We can play lots of games together happily, but not all.
