thread: 2006-01-10 : Pulling Coplayers In
On 2006-01-11, Lisa Padol wrote:
Tony—I think you're describing something Weapons of the Gods does. Courtiers cannot actually force anyone—or, at least, any PC—to do anything. They can say, "If you do X, these good things will happen for you. If you do Y, these bad things will happen for you."
One of the Taoist Magic powers in the game seems to be "Discover Information about an NPC", but, as Josh realized after reading the section, is actually "Make Shit Up about an NPC". That is, you can decide what you want your character to have "discovered", and, if the GM agrees or you make your Use-That-Power roll, you have officially created a fact about the NPC. This fact generally means you can use some of the Courtier techniques. E.g., the taoist character realizes that the shopkeeper has a Passion for the shrine keepers daughter, and says that, so long as it is unrequited, the shopkeeper gets some kind of mechanical bonus or penalty.
Part of what makes Weapons of the Gods so good is that it takes a lot of ideas that, if a conservative gamer, like, say, me, heard them cold, the knee jerk reaction would be "Yuck!", and works them so smoothly into the game that I go "Cool!" And, folks who like crunching numbers and systems get to have a ball with this.
Ben—I was going to reference Paka's thread on the Forge Actual Play Forum, but it sounds like you're a step ahead, asking whether it's really pull or really push. That said, I think Sorcerer encourages taking the push and running to new heights, and DitV and Polaris.
Beyond that, well, I think a certain amount of codification is necessary. I remember getting very confused in a brief pbem about what I was supposed to do.
See, the GM's entries were my PC's diary. (Go ahead and put "my" in quotes, if you like.) This was a mystery plot, and, as far as I knew, the GM was making up the mystery—old style, GM fiat, and I wasn't supposed to make up facts or clues or anything. Or so I thought and think; it is possible I was not picking up on subtle clues. This was in the 90s, quite some time ago.
So, he'd describe what my character was thinking, feeling, and doing. And, I would try to tell him what my PC's plans were. The game didn't last long, nor did it engender hard feelings. I'd created an empath, and the GM decided that I wasinvestigating a charismatic cult leader, a combination that meant a certain amount of someone other than myself deciding what my PC was thinking or feeling was in order. Okay, I found it very strange, but my big problem wasn't "Hey! He's messing with my turf!" but "What is my turf, then? What am I supposed to be doing? Or should I be sitting back and letting someone else tell me a story?" This last was not, I think the case—nor, I think, should it be, at least, not if we're taking the premise that rpgs are active, not passive.
Hm. I guess all of this boils down to two things:
1. Folks are more receptive when stuff is worked into the system in a cool way. They see what they are "getting" in return for what they are "giving up". Context is vital.
2. Without a clear idea of who is supposed to do what—even if that idea is "There are no hard and fast rules"—it's not going to happen. This (comprehension issues) is a different failure mode than the one I'd anticipated (personality issues), though the two are not discrete categories.
-Lisa
