thread: 2010-06-14 : A Bit of Hardcore
On 2010-06-19, Rafael wrote:
Josh W: I'll have to observe, in our next sessions, how this signalling occurs exactly, but I think it works like this:
The GM and players know each other well, both through long years of mutual play and non-gaming friendship. This means that the GM has a good sense of how the players think and feel even before the game begins.
At the beginning of a campaign, each player creates a character, and the GM gets a description of their personalities and backgrounds. These include explicit or strongly implied beliefs, passions, and goals, plus "hooks" such as beloved NPCs, dark secrets, etc. These all point the way to situations that would motivate or provide dilemmas for each character. We generally ensure that the PCs also have some pregame deep connection (siblings, lovers, last survivors of a dead race...) so that, while they may have quite distinct passions & goals, each has an interest in the others' dilemmas.
During a play session, much—often most—of the time is spent in conversations between the PCs. This reveals further details of the characters' psychologies, plus, often, explicitly declares their immediate desires (if you've just spent two hours agonizing about whether you have the moral right to sink a civilian ship to save, indirectly, the lives of your family in a coastal village, and then another hour on how, exactly, you'd manage to sink it, you don't need to tell the GM your story opinions or negotiate stakes for her to know what's going on in your mind).
At the level of individual actions, the intent is usually either clear or stated explicitly (without a formal structure to enforce that), e.g. "Hmmm, we need to find the diamond [for reasons that have been made clear through one of the means already explained]; I'll try to crack the safe and see if it's inside".
