Re: The players’ role in Participationist play
Callan S.:
Hi Nolan,
It's a bit like having a 'License to kill', James Bond style. When you don't kill, sure the outcome is like you didn't have a license at all. It's just like living normally without such a power. So sure if you do the sell out in a dune game, it doesn't seem to break the genre. Even seems to support the imagined space. But you still have a license to...make the choices your character would make, regardless of how much that kills genre. At any point during that dune game, BAM! Genre is lying dead in cold blood at the feet of your PC, gun still smoking in his hands! And it's licensed.
Frank Tarcikowski:
Hi Nolan,
As far as Sim goes, it’s a question of what your “package” is. In our case, it was “the Star Wars universe as per the three original movies, with loads of made-up planets, species and technology of our (my) own, and certain general genre expectations.” However, breaking the cliché sometimes was part of the fun. The genre expectations were secondary, they colored our picture of “the universe”, but the main idea was “these guys in this universe”, and not “this kind of space opera story”. Other groups may have a very different package.
What you say about Firefly vs. Star Wars is kinda thin ice when it comes to Big Model terminology, but I see what you mean. Firefly is much more ambiguous and the conflicts and personal relationships are more complex than in Star Wars. Choices are more of a statement. So yes, Firefly works very well in a Nar context and Star Wars works very well in a Sim context.
- Frank
Frank Tarcikowski:
Oh hey, and I forgot to mention (do I even need to mention?): Of course, the dramatic climax of the session was blowing up an entire squadron of Imperial class star destroyers using said defence system. (Alien technician: "No, don't do that, the chance of causing a chain reaction that will destroy the whole planet are..."--PC (waves hand): "We have no choice!") Now that's Star Wars, big time.
- Frank
masqueradeball:
Gail Simone (the comic book writer) talks on her blog about dealing with super heroes that everyone knows. What she has to say is that each time she starts on a new project, everyone yells foul when she takes the character from their established base. Its only then that Simone can then reestablish the character, by confirming the most persistent ideas behind the character in the face of the new situation. All of this seems remarkably like what people are talking about with bending and breaking genre conventions... both here and on some other threads. That what people want is to see the genre bent, but not broken, because by being bent its tempered, with the genre being more firmly reaffirmmed in people's minds.
Oh, I guess it should read "accepted basis for shared SIS" wherever I put genre...
Frank Tarcikowski:
Right on, Nolan! Plus, it's not only reaffirmed, it's also made more complex and interesting, at least to my taste.
- Frank
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