thread: 2005-02-03 : Roleplaying Theory Open House
On 2005-04-25, Victor Gijsbers wrote:
The Whole Point is that game designers should be aware of the influence they have and can have on the social situation, right?
I would like to talk about trust and sensitivity and empathy between the players, and game design. There was a discussion on The Forge about Capes not having a mechanical way to resolve conflicts of the kind: "What you are adding to the SIS is total crap". This was contrasted with Universalis, where you can always Challenge.
So, let's see. Universalis encourages to state what you want to happen, boldly, without thinking too much about what the other players may want - and the disagreements actually fuel the story. The social effect of this (and the entire economy of coins) is, I guess, that the players see each other as friendly story-telling rivals. You want something, and you can alwasy get it if you pay a high enough price. You don't have to worry too much about the others, for they'll let you know if they disagree. And then you can find out how who cares more.
I am tempted in my work-in-progress Shades to attempt the exact opposite. "Look," I wish to say, "when its your turn to tell a scene, you have all the power. The other(s) should not interrupt you, but have to accept what you say. So you had better make sure that they like what you are saying. You had better become sensitive to their preferences, so you can all learn to trust each other. It's really all about building trust. And here are some tools that make it easier for you to prod en poke and gently find out what they like." (Tools which include a stream-of-conscience like prologue and the fact that the major part of the game is the narration of memories which are meant to be partly unreliable and can thus be 'challenged' without actually being challenged.)
That's just some background ideas. I do not want to talk about my game, I would like to talk about how game mechanics influence the bonds of trust and rivalry, sensitivity and egotism, among the group; and whether we can do interesting things with that. Because that is part of The Whole Point, is it not?
