thread: 2011-04-25 : We are creative equals
On 2011-04-25, Vincent wrote:
We're equal, not interchangeable
Here's a principle I used to guide my personal play in the game:
Use Meg's character's father to show how terrible Emily's character's father is. Whenever the latter does something unreasonable, have the former do something reasonable; whenever the latter does something apparently reasonable, have the former do something so obviously good that the latter suffers by comparison.
This worked very well, but don't be distracted by that. For our purposes here and now, it illustrates some important limitations when it comes to creating a game text:
System is rooted in content.
It's not an accident or arbitrary that the principle is about characters' fathers. Our game featured fathers prominently; yours might not.
System is opportunistic
The principle is possible only because, by happenstance, I owned both Meg's character's father and Emily's character's father. If I had owned one but not the other, I would have had to find some other principle to guide me.
We're equal, not interchangeable.
It's not an accident or arbitrary that Meg's character's father is the reasonable one and Emily's character's father is the unreasonable one. Could I just as well have made Meg's character's father the terrible father, and Emily's the good one? Oh my crap no. That would have been a disaster.
