thread: 2009-06-15 : Lazy Play vs IIEE with Teeth
On 2009-06-15, Vincent wrote:
John: great!
In your example and in Poison'd both, the GM's going to keep asking the player for concrete details, because that's how the GM knows what she's supposed to say. Without the concrete details, the rules don't chug along, they disengage, right, like gears too far apart.
Matt, same thing with Apocalypse World. The MC's just naturally going to be asking you for details, because she has to choose her own moves so that she can easily misdirect you. The rules say "GM, when somebody goes aggro, ask how," and then they back it up with an extremely practical "because otherwise you're going to be wicked floundering when it's your turn to talk."
Now, "will the GM actually do her job? What if she doesn't?" That's a different kind of question. That's not about IIEE anymore, that's like, in Dogs, "the person seeing the raise, will she actually put forward matching dice and say what happens? What if she doesn't?"
So it's tangential, but the answer there is, orchestrate the GM's or the player's interests so that she will, yes, do her job. In Dogs conflicts, it's the stakes that do it: "see or give!" In "actively reveal the town in play," it's the GM's curiosity about what on earth the PCs are going to do about this screwed-up town. In your game, what's the GM's agenda? Most importantly, when she calls for a player to roll, does it contribute to, or compete with, her interests in the game? If the former, you're good. If the latter, problematic.
