thread: 2006-01-17 : More Character Co-ownership
On 2006-01-17, Vincent wrote:
The further you go along that track, the more likely you are to get a negative reaction from the player.
Why?
Does everybody agree with this?
I see more information as a bigger gift, personally - more meat.
This makes BR go "Why? Traditional gamer training"
The more you want your character to be your avatara, the more you want to control them. Of course, the more you don't want that, the more you may be willing to expiriment.
This makes PB go "And worries about incoherence in the fiction"
...what if those people don't get your character 'right'? (of course if you don't trust people with this stuff, why are you playing with them?)
This makes BR go "And furthermore"
1) What makes us think we can get our character "right" and 2) what if we get it right, and the other people at the table are bored to tears?
This makes VAX go "Everyone has their limits"
Everyone has limits beyond which they simply will not go; it's just that some peoples' limits are far enough out there that they rarely meet people whose own limits are far enough out that they get pushed.
I stand by my original statement; the further down the ladder you go, the more likely you are to hit someone's border. If the likelihood is already vanishingly small you might not notice the increase.
This makes VB go "Fred, sure, but why?"
Why doesn't it go the other direction, for instance? Why wouldn't more information = more likely to be acceptible?
This makes CRN go "More information ="
Less room for interpretation. Like if I say "You have a relationship with him. What dice are in that?" I ask you to interpret the facts. If I say "You have a 2d4 relationship with him" I remove room for interpretation.
This makes VAX go "A wise person once said, "Every gift is a prison""
The more information you give me, the less wiggle room you're giving me in interpretation; that's true whether you're telling me which dice to use, or what kind of relationship it is, or where it came from, or whatever.
This makes VB go "but another wise person said..."
"Constraints aid creativity." Furthermore, why is "you used to have a lover in Jamaica" more information than "you have a 2d4 relationship with this guy"?
This makes WMW go "Connectedness."
"Jamaica", "lover", "used to" all are connected to a bunch of other connotative stuff. "2d4 Relationship" is significantly less connotation-heavy.
This makes VAX go "Exactly, connectedness."
The "lover in jamaica" option is full of implications. The "2d4 relationship" option isn't.
