thread: 2006-01-24 : Still More Character Ownership
On 2006-01-24, Vaxalon wrote:
Gregor hutton wrote:
I envisage some sort of game where we all can hop from character to character over the course of the game, sometimes settling into playing one character more than others, and at crucial times playing against our "favoured" character (perhaps who knows best what conflicts with that character than you?).
That's the only way I can see it working. If you want me to care more about the story than "my" character, then make the story mine and the characters shared, rather than the other way around.
What would a game look like, that was playerless?
That had a bunch of GM's with no players?
Imagine a bunch of participants sitting around a table. In the center, there are a bunch of 3x5 cards with a few stats written on them, the characters. All of them are NPC's. Each participant has his own 3x5 card, which also has a few stats.
One is labeled "Man vs. Himself".
Another is labeled "Justice vs. Mercy."
"Mystery"
"Evil"
"Death"
"Love"
...
The characters are the means by which the participants are telling their stories, but instead of living inside the characters, they live outside them, pulling them around with their hooks rather than pushing them with their motivations.
Does this make any sense to anyone?
This makes SDL go "An intermediate game..."
...might be something like Great Ork Gods, but with the Gods actively pushing the heroes around cooperatively & competitively
This makes GH go "Well, not quite"
Not all players (participants) are the same. In the gaming groups I see locally I think something like 3 really aggressive (maybe the wrong word?) players is optimal. You also need other types of player to bring a different dynamic to the table. That's just an observation of things locally here (Edinburgh) though. I think the terms "player" and "GM" become meaningless if we have different ways that games function.
