thread: 2005-03-23 : Strong Stuff Indeed
On 2005-03-24, Chris wrote:
Hi John (Kim),
I've been using the term "markers" to refer to mechanics that allow players to indicate to the GM what they want play to be about(Sorcerer's Kickers, TROS's SAs, PTA's Issues, Dust Devil's Devils, HQ's ratings, Dog's Traits, etc.). On a larger scale, everything serves as "markers" to the group as a whole of what play is about.
Consider soap opera D&D vs. soap opera Riddle of Steel. D&D gives you nothing really to inspire personal conflict and emotional drama, other than the rather flat and unshifting alignment system. For all intents and purposes, the group that gets that going on with D&D, is "freeforming". They're flying without guidance or help to focus conflict or keep it going. Riddle of Steel on the other hand, already sets everyone up with different goals, ideals, and relationships from SAs alone.
Likewise, Storyteller sets up a lot of politic heavy setting, but nothing structurally to assure that folks are going to really hit the political issues, interpersonal issues("Hi mom, I'm a vampire"), or even internal issues, aside from a perfunctory Good/Bad stat for each game(Arete/Paradox, Quantum/Taint, etc.).
And people wonder why we keep hitting the issues of "power players" in supposed drama games? What we're really looking at is that most games have supported combat and kewl powers, and claimed that they support more, when in fact its been pretty words and freeforming/unstructured work on the part of groups to make it happen this whole time.
Aiyah.
