thread: 2005-03-11 : Love, Friendship, Romance, Sex
On 2005-03-14, Emily Care wrote:
Tony: you wrote If we work at it, soon it will be obvious that the structure of rules will influence how people address romantic threads.
'xactly. How does Lisa address them in free-form play, Christian? What's it like for your wife, Matt?
Ben: Mm-hm. Definitely. The Moose in the City session comes to mind. Mountain Witch, more than definitely. However, the folks Charles games with have that level of intimacy & more with their fellow players. But it's still problematic to explore relationships where the interplayer relationships don't align with the char's.
Actually, I think there are at least two problems going on here: 1) how do you encourage people to explore conflict and creation via the avenue of relationships? and 2) how do you help people feel comfortable and good about the way they do so. Expecations and permissions, respectively.
Tony, of course answered the first part already, "So to make a game support and encourage friendship and love, you have to look at what those emotions make people do, and then make a structure that rewards those actions, rather than trying to simulate or stimulate the feeling itself." Setting up the expectations for the game and the field of exploration.
The second part, I think, is what Charles is really asking about. It's a wall my group has hit at times, and we have probably a bit higher than the average ability of a given game group to talk about tricky inter-personal issues as they come up. So what is needed? What is helpful to allow anyone be able to do what C&M's spouses do, it sounds like, successfully?
