thread: 2005-03-18 : Audience?
On 2005-03-19, anon. wrote:
Consider what happens when someone makes a contribution to the game.
1. Bob thinks up something to say.
2. Bob waits for the right time to say it.
3. Bob says it.
4. The other players listen to Bob.
5. The other players think about what Bob said.
6. The other players form conclusions (accept, reject, etc) about Bob's input.
Look at steps 4-5. I'm way down here on the scale of seconds of time, right? During this time, when people are listening and then thinking about someone else's contribution? That, I think, is where "audience" exists.
It might be worthwhile to point out that this sequence suggests ways kinds of audience dysfunction:
1-3: Forcing people into an audience stance by not giving them the time and space to contribute.
4: Not listening to other players carefully!
5: Not valuing the input of other players enough to think it through.
6: Mis-representing your acceptance or rejection of the input. People who silently reject other players input (and therefore ignore them), for example.
* * *
On the scale of scenes, or arbitrarily larger chunks of game statements? I think we can look at patterns of contribution, abolutely. And in some traditional games, sure, you'll have situations where creative input of certain players is shut down because that's how everyone has agreed to structure their game. Your guy is off-stage? Then don't talk. Etc.
What people seem to be talking about when they point at a chunk of play and say, "some people are audience here" is a lack of creative input.[1]
What's fascinating to me is when the social flow is such that people *voluntarily* back off their input so as to allow others more space to give theirs. There's a finite amount of time involved in a game session. What are the forces which mediate which contributions are prioritized, and when?
