thread: 2011-06-13 : A roleplaying game has two centers
On 2011-06-13, Ron Edwards wrote:
Vincent, I think the two are more alike than you're saying.
In the other thread, I mentioned a trade-off among hope, security, and knowledge. Sure, in the long term of play, we might expect to see something like a grand tapestry of plot including several protagonists, perhaps some telling endings for some of them along the way, certainly some regional passion plays, and a much richer articulation of what the Apocalypse is and what the World is.
But the whole is made of smaller parts, themselves formed of the tension among those elements. That's what sessions do, right? Zac's character's minor changes, as he describes, are in response to such tensions and what happens in the course of play. In this case, it's hope and security. The character has limited or no hope beyond treading water, then finds a way to bring about change; the character lives in dangerous and brutal circumstances, then finds a way to protect self & others (perhaps by killing certain others) - trading that off with a certain risk of a certain, chosen kind. In this case, knowledge doesn't come into it, but certainly the circumstances of prep - particularly the formal, content-heavy prep for the game - can bring that tension into things quite hard, and so can the player's own input if he or she directs the character that way.
I'm hoping to articulate that immediate circumstances such as "shit, I'm outta gas," and "double shit, there are hungry mutants living in that gully," are more than merely a video-game set-piece in this game. They are local and personal versions of the bigger issues.
If the knowledge side of all this seems thin, add a Hocus player-character to the barter-happy Operator, and I think that rounds it out: "ooh, loopy shit, those mutants do drugs which open windows into the past!"
