thread: 2005-03-23 : Strong Stuff Indeed
On 2005-03-25, Andrew Norris wrote:
Hi John,
I've been following this conversation. I don't think we really want to get hung up on whether or not Champions specifically does what Vincent's talking about. I'm going to try to generalize it a little bit.
First, I agree with your assessment of Hunted and DNPC to an extent. It's written right there in the rules that the GM should make that roll, and if it's a certain value, that NPC should show up that session. (I think I remember a caveat that the GM should feel free to not make the roll if it wouldn't fit in the current adventure, though, which makes it a little stronger than the Storyteller Contact example, but not all that different.) But I think it's a little different from player participation, in that the player's not saying "...and then my DNPC shows up." They know it'll happen eventually.
Compare that with the equivalent DNPC "disad" in The Shadow of Yesterday: You get XP every time you're in a scene with the person, and more if protecting them causes your character difficulty. The difference I see here is that the player is the one invoking the mechanic. They're going to actively seek out this person, spend time with them, and protect them.
I'm seeing in your posts in this thread that when other people say System, you're reading that as "the rules plus the social context of the group". I mean, yeah, in one sense I can say "Duh, having empty points on your character sheet is meaningful" (I've played plenty of Champions), but the rules as written aren't giving you anything for that. The rules are giving you and the group a chance to go "Yeah, I see what you're doing there." When I hear you say "stuff can tribute to meaning without being a roll or modifier," this is how I read it. It's meaningful as a data point even though it's not a part of the game mechanics.
I contrast that with the Great Responsibility dice example, where you're taking what you and your group are doing with the rules (the idea that not exercising a capability displays restraint and responsibility) and writing it into the rules themselves. The player's not relying on the group to get what he's doing by inference—he can call upon something in the book to express that he's exercising restraint and responsibility.
(As an aside, we should probably drop Hero system as a reference—I just realized that the construction kit approach encouraged by them, where the group's idea of "how to build" is so entertwined in the rules as written, is making this really confusion.)
Finally, about Dogs. This makes me think you really may be missing something, because this wasn't confusing to me at all. Relationship dice can be incorporated into a conflict whenever they're relevant, whether or not the person is present. (I don't think they even have to be alive.)
So in most games, if I'm consoling a grieving widow, and I tell her "You know, my brother died when I was a child, if you want to talk about it, I think I can relate," that's meaningful, but it's just color—it's up to the people at the table to decide how that's relevant. In Dogs, it was a Raise using the relationship. It was using stuff on your character sheet.
I realize "rules + social context" is hard to separate from "rules alone", because when we're playing there's a social context there. I'm trying to say that your examples are largely being injected into the game by the social context, while in Dogs they're injected by the rules.
