thread: 2005-06-02 : Immersion
On 2005-06-03, Vincent wrote:
Ethan: "My question is, for that middle thing, 'Permission to act with passion,' how would you design towards fostering that? I see that as totally a social contract level thing. I'm not picturing how a game text could influence that, beyond just saying, 'Players should give each other permission to act with passion.' Or would that be all you needed?"
Oh no, I wouldn't think so. I think you'd need pretty hardcore systemic support.
If it were me, the way I'd foster permission to act with passion is by creating security. I'll allow you to act with passion only if I know that I won't be hurt by it, is what I mean.
It's not a trivial design prob. The rules have to concretely enact your passion, make it consequential, but they also have to protect my investments in the game. In freeform games, this is the "your right to your character's fist stops at the tip of my character's nose" clause. But I think we can do better than that, as we rightly divorce "my investments" from "my character."
