thread: 2005-05-03 : Creating Theme
On 2005-05-04, Valamir wrote:
Its especially interesting, and not at all surprising, that you can see this entire progression occur in movies, TV and novels and identify where they work and where they fall apart and draw direct parallels to the role playing experience. Completely in the face of those who claim role playing is so different from those other art forms that we can't make direct comparisons.
I've been watching episodes of the old 80s TV show Tour of Duty on DVD (its amazing how well that show has stood up to the passage of time relative to most 80s shows). A recent episode I watched involved a USO chopper crashing in the jungle and the survivors being discovered by the heros. One could immediately identify the thematic choice "Safety of the civilians vs. completing the mission objectives". One could also immediately see Possibility One rear its head. The most sane choice any real world person would choose would be to call for a chopper to take the civilians back and then proceed with the mission. So you KNOW as an intelligent viewer that there's a big catch coming that will prevent that or there will be no show. The trick is that the catch has to be one that leads to possibility 6 and not possibility 5. In the show the radio's batteries were dead and they couldn't call for a chopper. I don't know how common a problem dead radio batteries were in nam, but one can easily see how that could wind up going either way.
Of course you build your RPG sessions and design the games this way. This is basic drama 101 type stuff. The ancient Greeks knew how to do this, its astonishing that we RPGers need to relearn it as if seeing it for the first time.
This essay also neatly targets why Task Resolution is such a failure for this sort of play. The whole idea is to get your A+B+C all firing together so you have a meaningful conflict to address. Random elements are good so long as no matter which way the dice fall you either maintain, or resolve the A+B+C issue. Any random element that has a chance of breaking the A+B+C relationship can thus obviously be seen as being counter productive to what you're trying to achieve. Since Task Resolution is typically applied with complete disregard for A+B+C, many of the occassions where it will be called upon the roll will have the potention to completely breat the relationship. Conflict Resolution on the other hand has as its entire point ensuring that no matter how the randomness falls out there is still a meaningful A+B+C (perhaps altered) to work of off.
Good stuff.
Ralph
Valamir@aol.com
