thread: 2008-09-29 : Creative Tension
On 2008-10-01, Ron Edwards wrote:
In hopes that it's related - I think it is - I realized a while ago that my game design relies on reducing consensus. Sorcerer has a lot less of it than most games that influenced it; Elfs removes the need for consensus to establish the actions of selfish characters; Trollbabe has practically none. I've spent my design effort shooting for the maximum yield in collaborative imagination with the minimum "vetting" or negotiation possible in the process.
Mutual Decision represents a departure from that, but perhaps not as much as it looks - I've let some consensus back in, but only in limited doses about very specific things. Spione is as ultimate an expression of no-consensus full-collaboration as I think I am capable of.
Listening to each other? Check, at maximum. Processing and utilizing what one another contributes, as a *requirement* for the next contribution? Vetting each other, negotiating about what's good or not good? Nix.
Thanks for the insights, everyone. I'm putting together some thoughts about what I do. It also explains why I attack that "stakes" horseshit so savagely, above and beyond its evident dysfunction in play - it's because I know *why* it's dysfunctional at a deep creative level.
