thread: 2012-01-09 : 2011 here at anyway
On 2012-01-10, David Berg wrote:
My personal takeaways:
- Just because I can see how the momentary actions of play connect to the game's point and purpose doesn't mean the players can see it. The players need to be able to see it.
- The black box of the GM's judgment can be an obstacle to the visibility of such connections.
- One way to go from insight to design is to think through the situation your insight describes, in terms of what outcomes could result and what conditions could factor in.
- The possibility of truly unwelcome outcomes is more important than their actuality, as a yardstick of whether a game is truly getting people to do what they wouldn't have just done without it.
- Pushing the limits of what players will accept can give more value to a smaller audience.
- Don't assume that telling someone to do something will actually get them to do it. There are more effective alternatives, however.
- Players may skip or forget the outer details of games, so it can be useful to have a core that functions without them.
- Options to change a social system include: 1. Content ("We're on Tatooine and I'm a storm trooper!") 2. Explicit principles and instructions ("Immersion is most important; whenever your immersion is broken, call a time out.") 3. Fictional structure ("After this scene, the game says the Nazis pull out of the city and we have one scene left.") 4. Constructed interactions without cues ("There's a GM and it's me.") 5. Procedural cues ("Roll dice for narration rights.") 6. Fiction-mediating cues ("Roll dice for which character wins.")
It's been a challenging and genuinely thought-provoking year. Thanks for these discussions, Vincent!
