Drifting toward a better Sim
John Adams:
Well let's break it down. At the highest level it's a simple as ...
1) Find out what the player cares about, which for this game is almost the same as what the PC wants.
2) Give it to them!
So I actively solicit input from my players and work it into the game. I also try to find out how they view the PC, what makes him unique and such so I can hit them with situations that challenge or illuminate that aspect of the PC. (Much like Ephriam and the healing.) Basically, communicate, is all.
If and how that gets worked in depends entirely on what it is and how well it fits into the Setting. We changed Mark's idea for Tusk a little before it was ready to play. So I don't have any structured, specific method for doing any of this.
Caldis:
John,
I think you pretty clearly laid it out in your point #1. No resorting to social negotiation with the gm to get things to happen in the game. I agree it's poison and whether you're playing sim, nar or gam it's a poor way to handle the whole RP experience. I think any game that has one person act as guardian of all content in the game and the only person responsible for bringing content into the game is inherently weaker than a more collaborative version.
I'm not saying that you have to change the way you play and use funky new mechanics that force your players to list off conflicts before the game starts, or that they have to break out of the SIS to talk about where they want the game to move next. What is necessary is for the gm and players to both be bringing content into the game. If the GM is the gatekeeper he has to be freely letting the players input into the game and then using that to create reactions in the game.
anansi:
Ok, so I know this conversation pretty much stopped at the beginning of the month, but I've been reading it as reference for prepping my own game, and its been a huge help for me. I'm in a very similar situation, with a simulation game and system, and trying to mod all the ideas of the game into a more indie narrative style.
My experience in the past with indie games has been awesome! Particularly Burning Wheel, which is pretty popular. But... taking the ideas from those narrative games and meshing them together with a simulationist game takes some finesse.
A good way my group has found? Take the part from Burning Wheel that is the most helpful with making plot that players care about - Beliefs and Instincts - and make all your players make them for their characters. This creates player driven conflicts automatically. I think if you were to look at this game, and how it functions, it would help alot of the issues you seem to be having with your own game. Heh, no I don't work for BW, I just think they're hot stuff.
Thanks for posting all these great thoughts, though, John. You've really helped me think about conflict in my game. I have the same loving respect for Dogs in the Vinyard that you do as well, and I keep wanting to insert those ideas... which I think are totally cool. Dave, your little writeup on prep work was really helpful too, I'm using alot of it now in my session creation. If you want to follow my developing game, go to http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?p=8391803. We've only had one session so far, and one of my players dug it so much she posted it on RPGnet. Which caused much blushing on my part. There's not much technical gaming jargon in the writeup since the player wrote it, but its a colorful summary and maybe you'd dig that.
Kira
John Adams:
Thanks Kira, and thanks to everyone who took time to post. I wish I could post a happy "everything's rocking!" update, but we're not so lucky.
Long story short, this thread and the last 2 months of gaming helped me come to an important self-realization: I really, REALLY want to play Nar. I gave my current game a long hard look and decided that even with a more fun, functional system I just wouldn't enjoy the same old Sim. That's not fair to my players, so it's either jump into full-fledged Nar (in the same or a new game) or break up the group. Unfortunately, this brought us right into CA clash and I finally found out where my players really stand. Some of them had been playing along with "all this new stuff" but they really weren't having fun.
1) Here's what CA clash looks like from someone who doesn't use Big Model terms: "I don't know what this is, but it's NOT ROLE-PLAYING."
2) Understanding the Big Model helped me diffuse the situation so it never got ugly. You like chocolate, I want vanilla, no right or wrong here, just different goals.
3) Drifting would have been fine, and frankly the game would be rockin' if the group could agree on a Nar CA. I suspect the same "Nar" techniques I wanted to use to enhance Sim would sabotage the Sim CA, at least that's the feedback I got from some of my Sim players. I need to talk to them about it and figure out what in particular rankled. The main culprit might have been FiTM of all things, which would be very specific to these players. I'm sure lots of Sim folks enjoy FiTM.
4) We have serious logistical challenges ahead too. Our host is moving another 30 minutes away from me and I already drive an hour to this game, so we'd need a new meeting place. That's proving to be difficult. Real Life.
My group hashing this out tonight so I'll have another post soon with the final fallout.
Good luck with your group Kira! I'm glad you're all on the same CA page, looks like you have hella good fun ahead.
Silmenume:
Hi John!
Name's Jay. Nice to meet you. Read all 90 pages or so of your struggles. I am amazed with the clarity with which you have approached this whole process. Congratulations on finding the CA that really resonates with you. Your level of gaming enjoyment is going to improve and be consistently better. Having said all that; I have some questions for you...
...it seems to me that you were looking to spice up a “Sim” game that had gone rather stale for you and were looking to resolve that issue by increasing/mandating greater player input on all levels but most especially during play proper. It also seemed to me, though you did not say it, that you were looking for more from you gaming time than just pointing the players/characters in a direction and having them kill X for person/reason Y. Especially after many years of play together. Fifteen, was it? So you went looking for processes that would allow you and your players(!) to bring in really juicy conflicts – which you indeed found in the mechanics of certain Narrativist supporting games. You found some really good techniques like metagame discussions – heck just talking to your players about what they are looking for in their gaming experience! ... but it never really gelled for your group.
Part of the problem was, as was mentioned, that hybrids just don't work. Different CA's want to come at a given conflict from incompatible directions. Plus players with different CA's are going to find interesting conflicts/situations where another doesn't and just wants to push on until they find an interesting conflict/situation.
May I make some observations about Sim that maybe you haven't considered that may give you some insight into your players' interests. I do understand that you have found and come to terms with your inner Narrativist – yay!
First mechanics that “control” or “drive” play are anathema to Sim. These types of mechanics are essential to functional Narrativist supporting games, but actually conflict/cock up the Sim game process. Sim play does not, I repeat, does not spring forth from the mechanics but rather from the source material first. This means do not look to mechanics to make a Sim game interesting or fun, because they can't and won't. At best they don't get in the way too much, at worst they make the game virtually unplayable. Theoretically, instead of the players reading and becoming effective with the mechanics ala Narrativist games i.e., MLwM or DitV, the players should read or watch the source material before sitting at the table. Everything else flows or ought to flow from the source material and further down the line the SIS material created through play.
Regarding your desire to have at least on big juicy moment for each player per game I don't know if that stems from some Narrativist type of interest or that you are just plain looking for “more” from your Sim game sessions. For my purposes I am going to argue from the latter position simply because I believe that your game never really got to a functional expression of the Sim CA.
The first tip off was the extreme concern over mechanics. In Sim “mechanics” should mostly be a product of play not a director of play. There is this deeply entrenched idea about Sim that is as pernicious to the agenda as “the story” was regarding Narrativism and that is mechanics matter so much that they are central to the game play. The truth couldn't be farther from that assertion. Sim is sloppy, imprecise with slapdash ad hoc solutions that slowly become part of the game itself if they are useful and are basically consistent with the established “world.” Yes, there are constraints in Sim but they reside in the fictional material not in the mechanics.
Second was your preoccupation with “the plot.” Another notion, and this is one you seemed to wrestle with mightily was with “plot.” Sim does not work well with anything rigid and unyielding. Everything is open and subject to negotiation at one point or another. Sim functions at the “edges” of the known – and that can be truly anything - up to and including the players. In Sim everything expands, that which was unknown becomes known, through the resolution of conflicts. Because there are “persons” and conflicts involved the resolution has a passing resemblance to a story but is no real story. Take living breathing cultures add NPC's with their own agendas which are at cross purposes throw in the player characters with all their baggage make it a closed system for that night turn up the pressure cooker and see what yields. It's usually pretty interesting!
The third sign was the general lack of consideration regarding the social fabric from which the PC's sprung and to a somewhat lesser extent the world at large including the major NPC's. Yes, you had some very good motivations for the major NPC power players in the world, but I would bet neither you nor your players could describe the cultural customs, beliefs, norms and mores from which they came. IOW the social fabric from which the PC's grew up in. I'm not talking about the backgrounds of each individual PC but their actual culture and it's belief systems. Many of our own problems stem from culture clash and believe me it is a very rich vein to mine. You commented that you were having problems getting the players to be proactive in the game part of the problem I strongly believe is that the players are not interacting with or investing in their characters precisely because they lack the social cultural details that make the characters rich entities one can empathize with and build upon.
While you finally understand what it is you are looking for from play, maybe the above will better help you understand what your Sim oriented players are looking for from play.
Best of luck!
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