thread: 2010-01-28 : Compiling
On 2010-02-01, Ben Lehman wrote:
In Bliss Stage the subject matter of the game matters more for out of game relationships than the crushes rule.
Do out of game relationships matter to play? Oh yes, constantly. As do people's romantic and sexual mores. And, futhermore, gameplay feeds back into real life relationships. But the crushes rule isn't the vector for any of that.
Rules like those from Breaking the Ice, Spione and Bliss Stage don't really do what they seem like they're doing. In a way, they're even more generic than other rules. Their primary purpose is to escalate the intimacy of play with a little bit of truth or dare.
It works well! But I think if you want the relationships between the players (and the individual traits of the players themselves) to matter you have to look into other rules than that*. My favorite means of doing so is requiring the players to pass personal judgment on the fiction in some manner.
yrs—
—Ben
* And rules other than the ones you have in Beneath the Honeysuckle, Simon.
