thread: 2006-03-22 : Mechanics and Flinching
On 2006-03-23, Vincent wrote:
Matt: "Any game can do that latter thing that you're talking about, can't it? I mean, I can't think of games that prevent it."
Oh, I can think of lots. To prevent it - and I'm talking exclusively about narrativist games, of course - to prevent it, all you have to do is make sure that I get to decide what my character's about. Any game that protects my ability to do that, protects me from the kind of unsafety that existed in that Shock: game.
So like, it's a narrativist game and my character's a protagonist, so guaranteed my character is about something. My character makes a moral statement. But does the game make me the sole decider of the moral statement my character makes, or does it make me share with the other players? If the latter, how level is the field - do I have more say than they do, or the same say, or less say?
If the game gives me more power than my fellow players over the moral statement my character makes, then it's a safer game for me to play. As my power over my character's moral statement declines, my friends have increasing opportunity to make the game's fiction challenge me.
