thread: 2011-04-12 : A background in Principled Freeform
On 2011-04-19, Alex Abate Biral wrote:
As Vincent already explained, death was never at stake here. The characters weren't going to get killed right after they were introduced. The stakes were about how they acted under pressure, what kind of personality they would show and how they cared for each other.
To do so, they used a small system they thought up on the spot, one that determined who had the upper hand. As I understand, this helped create a sense of tension in the game. The players couldn't simply do whatever they wanted, for if the dragon rolled more than they, they were "beaten" by it.
Now, I think that Simon's problem with this is that this system keeps certain pressures from the player. For example, suppose Emily was making all her decisions as if she was inside Ash's skull, seeing the world through his own eyes. The dice are thrown, and Emily's come up higher than the dragon's. Well, she has the upper hand, what should she do? If she could do anything, she probably should kill the dragon, right? I mean, from the story perspective, it is probably a crappy thing to do, to introduce 3 fresh characters we know nothing about yet and then have them kill a freaking dragon, right there before he even shows up. But from Ash's point of view, if he could kill a dragon, it probably would be crazy not to.
So, Simon's question is, I think: what did the players agree to that meant Emily couldn't do whatever she wanted when her dice came higher? From Vince's description, it looks like just a mutual understanding between the players about what was at stake and how they should go about it.
Emily never thought things up only from her character's point of view. Instead, she had a broader view of what the scene was trying to accomplish. When she rolled higher than the dragon, she didn't end the conflict because she knew ending it then would feel "rushed up", unsatisfying. So, I think that in the end this is just a stance issue.
The game didn't need real constraints for lots of things because the people playing it weren't going to challenge them. In the dragon example, they saw clearly what the conflict was about, and putting forth rules for what it wasn't about (like the dragon killing the party, or the party escaping without breaking a sweat) would be counterproductive. Instead, they used rules to arbitrate what it was about (how the characters escaped from the dragon) because that was something they couldn't solve well with agreement alone.
Now, I am making a lot of assumptions here, and I am really sorry if I am off, but I am hoping this helps you communicate. I think I understood both Vincent's and Simon's points, which is why I wrote this post. But if I am wrong, please, correct me.
