thread: 2005-11-10 : Open House: Ask a Frequent Question...
On 2005-11-22, Vincent wrote:
Curly: In dance class, I ape the motions of the choreographer. Same in martial arts class: I'm in a receptive stance. I'm tempted to call this Pupil Stance (or Student Stance?, or Mimic Stance?) For a competent professional dancer, it isn't about mastering a learning curve. They don't need to prove themselves. Instead, it's about absorbing the nuance of unfamiliar movement. And it's still fun to do the dances, after they're familiar. Is this plain-old Sim/ or have I pinpointed an actual new stance here?
I don't see that you're talking about roleplaying, so there's nothing I can say about stance.
In general, I don't find the stances interesting at all. They're obsolete. Finding a new stance would just mean pointing at a previously unnoticed cluster of who gets to say what about what, under what circumstance. Who cares? They all fit comfortably within who gets to say what about what, no need to give every possible arrangement its own name.
This makes Curly go "GenCon & Actual Play"
My players currently prefer passively being told a 1st ed. AD&D game-story, to lifting a finger to narrate a DitV or Universalis game-story themselves.
Even when they've tried Uni & DitV; their motive was to please me. Thus they did what they Thought They Were Supposed To Do. They were still trying to Follow & they didn't put enough of themSELVES into the games/ to make 'em spark.
I experienced something similar at GenCon, where I played several Forge-game demos & my desire to Be Walked Thru the games as a learning-method was at-odds with the games' need for me to Walk With Purpose.
My (irritating) questions here have been abstract, but aren't argument for argument's sake. Im seeking ways to bring These gamers to These games. My players won't read theory essays, but they will listen to dance metaphors, or zen ones, or fine art parallels. But it's all too easy to talk fancy nonsense in that mode. That's why I sought to double-check with you.
FWIW, I currently see Ron Edwards' ELFS game as a good transitional game/ because it highlights the difference between Task & Conflict (your Elf's intentions/ vs. yours) in a hopefully-painless way.
This makes MS go "You are not alone."
Curly, your circumstances and attempts to try something new among the passive agressive resistance of your fellow players is, I speculate, widespread. My sympathies to you from one who knows. The hard answer is coming around to the realization that 1) you REALLY want to play that way and that 2) you CAN'T play with those people anymore. There remains hope nonetheless.
