thread: 2010-06-14 : A Bit of Hardcore
On 2010-06-17, Jesse Burneko wrote:
Rafael,
As a data point I haven't had to fudge a die roll to "save the story" in over 10 years. Games like Sorcerer, Dirty Secrets, My Life with Master, and Vincent's own In A Wicked Age... and Dogs in the Vineyard are setup so that this is totally unnecessary.
The reason is that those games focus on clashes between motivated characters in action. Assuming the two or more acting characters are motivated by sympathetic passion it doesn't matter "who wins" each clash. You might end up with two vastly different stories but neither will be "unsatisfactory."
However, with that comes a price. I've noticed a lot of gamers place their character's identity in a pre-game sense of how things should turn out for the character. Failure to achieve that outcome is failure to have properly realized the character and a sense that the story is "ruined."
You have to be willing to let go of that. You have to be willing to play NOT KNOWING whether you are in a comedy or a tragedy until the last die has been rolled. You have to be willing to play NOT KNOWING whether this scene which might LOOK like a potential climax going in really IS a climax or just a serious turning point that suddenly opens up a whole new chapter on the other side.
The mechanics of the games I listed above do not produce unsatisfactory stories when properly applied but they can OFTEN "ruin" the story you were forcibly trying to tell. I've run into this issue enough times with certain kinds of players that I feel it is worth pointing out.
Jesse
