thread: 2008-01-07 : Another year's worth
On 2008-02-12, Vincent wrote:
But you've turned it all around! Sorcerer's rules were the victim of the situation!
So okay so check this out. In Shock: you write on your character sheet your story goal. Recently I wrote on my character sheet "I have a change of heart about this business of butchering clones for their organs." As you play, you aren't allowed to resolve that question until certain conditions come true, and most usually the condition that comes true that allows you to resolve the question is "it's your last turn! Time to resolve!"
Now if I'm playing your antagonist, that question drives my beef with you - like, my antagonist in that game played the hospital and my career and my children and everything in the world that wanted me to NOT have a change of heart about butchering clones.
Okay, right? At character creation time you write down the question your character's game will end with. The game's rules are built and designed for no purpose other than to get you there with a bang.
So here's Joshua creating his character for Sorcerer. He's been having general probs and irritation, and now he's struggling to create a kicker. Finally he comes up with one: "I get a new girlfriend."
Cool. I build my antagonism on that. I'm like, how's his demon feel about this new girlfriend? What's this new girlfriend's angle? How does she fit in with the other players' characters? How much grief WILL this make? (hint: a lot).
But I'm pretty sure now that what Joshua meant was "story goal: I get a new girlfriend." He had this picture in his head of how his character's story might go, and there was a new girlfriend at the end of it. Would he get her? Would getting her get him out of this crappy relationship with his demon? Let's find out!
So when I made his kicker be the start of the story instead of the end, when I gave him his new girlfriend in the opening scene, it totally borked his game.
(And in fact, in the last hour of the last session, on fast-forward, his guy dumped his new girlfriend, we played out the collapse of his relationship with his demon, and he found a NEW new girlfriend who WAS the resolution of his character's story.)
In order to play the game he wanted to play, like I said up top, J had to ditch out of playing Sorcerer. Sorcerer's rules didn't make the situation, the situation was J's (and Meg's and to a lesser degree Em's) reluctance to really play Sorcerer.
Now, is this related to "who decides whether your character's a good person? Who decides whether your character's sympathetic?" I think it is. I think that the difference between a story goal in Shock: and a kicker in Sorcerer isn't merely logistical, but has subtle effects on who's willing to assert what about whose characters. But I'm not sure I can back that up yet.
