thread: 2005-05-02 : Person vs. Protagonist
On 2005-05-03, Vincent wrote:
Charles, "failure to engage" may certainly be a kind of engagement, if the issue is there and not engaging with it is a pronouncement upon it. Stepping back can be a kind of do do DO!
So let's distinguish between slow play and directionless play.
Slow play is fun. Every situation needs to be adequately established before it can be resolved, and "adequately established" may take a hundred pages of text or hours upon hours of play. It may include very small scale interactions that in isolation seem directionless. They're not though!
Directionless play is boring. And I'm going to do my sweeping generalization thing and say that for humans, directionless play is boring. Identifying whether your play is boring or fun is how you identify whether it's directionless or directed and slow.
I'm talking about the act of roleplaying itself, here, not the social context, by the way. It's possible to have boring play but to have lots of fun around it, making up for it. If that's the case it might be really difficult to figure out whether your play is directionless or merely slow.
But Charles, honestly - when I played with you, it was all conflict all the time, urgent urgent urgent. Maybe your play's changed since then, I suppose. But to me your sticking up for directionless play seems like identity politics!
