thread: 2008-04-09 : Rules vs Vigorous Creative Agreement
On 2008-04-09, Vincent wrote:
(*) This was a serious problem for an early playtest version of Shock: for instance: you'd set some wholly satisfying alternate possible outcomes, but you also had points to spend to bias toward one of them. The problem being that since both would be wholly satisfying, you'd never spend your points, and the game's economy would stall out.
Primetime Adventures sometimes suffers from this.
(**) It may, in fact, be a personal failing to want unwelcome outcomes in your games. I cannibalize my friends' bad relationships when I write fiction, even when they ask me not to. I like really appalling violence and I like to feel sick to my stomach. I want my roleplaying to include unwelcome outcomes. Frankly, you might not want to co-write with me, go to the same movies I go to, or play games with me. I'm surely not going to feel moral or creative superiority to people who would rather enjoy their games than be punished by them.
All I'll claim is that I'm not alone, and that I'm designing games for people like me. Not a big deal to claim, I think.
(***) An interesting part of this challenge is judging the threshhold of your target audience. When I play with Emily and Joshua, you can kick us in the fucking face and we'll abide by it, if it's even a little compelling. When I play with Emily and Meg, give us even a little shove and it had better be damned compelling, or you've lost us. How punishing is your vision, and how much of your audience are you prepared to sacrifice?
