thread: 2011-04-25 : We are creative equals
On 2011-04-26, Vincent wrote:
Emily, Meg: Thanks! Please say more as you think of it. And if either of you would like to raise a new topic, I'd be happy for a guest post.
Ben: I think I see.
(a) You know I'm all about creative equality between GM and players in my game design. So that's not any kind of thing.
(b) This principle is, at the moment of collaboration we're all equals, meaning precisely that nobody has to take anybody's word for anything. It doesn't allow a GM in sight-unseen agreement terms, and it doesn't allow character ownership in sight-unseen agreement terms either!
Paul T, creative intimacy: I've been thinking hard about what I even mean by "creative intimacy." It doesn't come out sounding so good.
You know how, in Dogs in the Vineyard, sometimes there's a really irritating, drawn out conflict where nobody can quite get it together to give, and nobody can quite get it together to just win, and one player is bored and the rest are kind of frustrated, but damn it we're going to see this bastard through? And then you do, and it was a pain in the ass and you wouldn't prefer to do THAT again, but as a group you've come through something irritating together and it strengthens your creative relationships? It was like that A LOT.
6 years' play with a well-designed game would mean a lot more of the good stuff, but a lot less of the head-butting, and consequently I wouldn't know with as much intimacy just how hard Meg's head, Emily's head, and my own head can be.
Paul T, game text: I dunno. Why go through the effort?
If you wanted to play by this principle, you would.
Meg, Emily and I could write a book or an article or a series of blog and forum posts about how we did it, and that might be interesting, but it'd only be interesting, it wouldn't be a thing. (a) It wouldn't lead people in quantity to play this way, and (b) I don't care if people in quantity play this way anyway. It's fun enough, but I'd rather reach a bigger audience with something better. Apocalypse World, for instance, is both way more fun and way more accessible.
