thread: 2005-05-03 : Creating Theme
On 2005-05-04, JasonL wrote:
Vincent:
Whoot! This essay threw me for a loop for lots of reasons, but most of all because it's the best explanation in (mostly) layman's terms of why a game needs some kind of focus to reliably and consistently drive toward theme-laden play.
This was the line that did it for me:
...initial setup and situation-to-situation escalation are the game designer's. As a game designer, I reach into your group and I influence how you set up your situations and how you resolve them..
I'm reading into this that, as a game designer, you also potentially reach into the group and influence the characters.
Anyway, kudos.
How and when do dice break logic or causality? Is this just Task Resolution all over again? I.E. if I'm playing the captain from Master & Commander, no way I'd slip on the decking and be swept off the boat, even if I *did* fail my Acrobatics (or whatever) check. But, if instead of being swept out to see, that failure meant that there was some other meaningful consequence (I couldn't get to the mainmast in time to prevent my friend from getting swept out to sea!), then the dice don't violate the causality. Is that a correct example?
Colin:
What Ben said is key:
All of these games rely on you making characters together, with everyone engaged in each other's stuff..
Without this, yeah you could end up with a chaotic mess that isn't easy to control. The Relationship Map technique that's spelled out in Sorcerer's supplement "Sorcerer & Soul" is a great way to close the loop between group character creation and GM prep in a way that provides lots of meaty potential situations of the type Vincent talks about in this essay.
Cheers,
Jason
"Oh, it's you...
deadpanbob"
