thread: 2005-03-18 : Audience?
On 2005-03-18, Ghoul wrote:
Vincent, I'll agree but just say there's a difference between bored audience and disengaged or de-powered audience. One can be non-bored, attentively listening, but still have slipped out of the contributional level of attention and involvement that will be necessary when the focus is next turned your way. By keeping the minimal involvement level above zero, you reduce the "start-up" effort. It's like leaving the car idling at a stoplight instead of shutting it off; you're going to need it soon, keep it idling. But maybe if you idle too long you waste fuel and such you could have focused on play when you're the focus later (to mix the metaphor up terribly).
Of course, I drive a Prius, which decides the whole idle/shutoff itself, dynamically, but perhaps that's just what we'd like system to do, to support not the automatic decision to always stay idling but instead to smarten up the decision of when to idle, when to shut down, when to start back up.
Eric, I think I see what you're saying, and I don't disagree. There is a point that is shutdown we can all agree is bad, when the player doesn't even recall that the scene with George happened because they were phased out completely. But every point in-between is a valid place, a valid degree of involvement. And for some players, each point might be their maximum comfortable level of involvement in a "not-me" scene. The old idea of "protecting yourself" from OOC knowledge is deeply ingrained, and the idea of effective involvement in scenes where your character isn't present runs very counter to it. And some players can switch character on or off quickly while others need to "stay in" or their total play suffers (the Method isn't just actors being wacky, after all). As such, it's important to realize, I think, that the goal should be encouraging the player-appropriate level of engagement, not any particular level of engagement as a absolute.
By which I do not mean to counter either of Vincent's bold-faced statements, just say that achieving "minimal effective" or "full" involvement will have different meanings for different players. The goal of maintaining at least minimal and, better yet, something approaching each player's full level remains in place.
And, for the record, I take my old college drama club director's stand that the audience is always part of the performance as applying to RPGs as well. If the audience is disengaged, the performance/game has failed. Thus, the question Vincent closed with is, IMO, without meaning. An audience making no character absent contributions (not even the glimpses or glances of Eric's minimal examples, which ARE contribution, if not fully empowered creative contribution) is a sign of failure (partial or total), and so doesn't seem worth talking about.
