thread: 2009-07-26 : Very Briefly about Authority
On 2009-07-28, Joel wrote:
Vincent: You're right, you're right. I think a large part of my growing frustration is that the signal to noise ratio (not JUST in this conversation, and not just Callan, hell, not just this blog) often takes up so much of my bandwidth to process and sift through, that i lack the brainpower to make my own proactive contributions.
But! I'll try, 'cuz you're right. So, it strikes me that, after recognizing the principle—ongoing consent trumps prior agreement—the next step is figuring out how to accommodate that in specific cases—whether by rules, social conventions, or whatever. So for instance, in Dogs it says "GM, always defer to the pickiest player." But it took me a lot of discussion (with you, and others) to figure out how to apply that in play. The versions in my head sounded icky: "GM, back up whoever bitches loudly," or "GM, call out the player by asking everyone else if it's good enough." The functional way of doing it, however, turns out to be "Watch for whoever's scowling or fidgeting or scratching their head or making little Kif Kroker groans, then ask the narrating player to explain more, until the Raise or whatever is satisfying/makes sense."
I guess what I'm saying is, I woulda never figured that out without someone saying. In fact, I had never figured out functional methods at ALL for addressing unsatisfying input at the table. Sure, a straight-up "that doesn't make sense to me," might work once in awhile, but "hmm, tell me more" is a lot less confrontational. So, cool! I know have a great tool in my box for Dogs or ANY game.
I feel like we need to explore these concepts more, in game design and in play culture. The "Resolving Player Conflicts by Reconciling Their Interests" thread above is another good technique for a specific issue. These things shouldn't be marginal or hidden techniques that you only discover by asking just the right question in just the right context of just the right person; these should be CENTRAL concepts to design and play as a whole.
Or maybe not. Maybe understanding like this IS of necessity individual and hard-won. I guess I'm just wishing there was a way to bring the tablets down from the mountain without draining the concepts of their life and vitality. Ascending the mountain over and over again is hard work!
Peace,
-Joel
