[Lacuna] OK so I tried it... [SPOILER ALERT]
Danny_K:
I don't think (not having run it yet) that Lacuna is a pure player-driven game like Donjon. I think it would be completely kosher for the GM to have a couple guys following the Agents with no preset backstory about why they are -- just roll with how it turns out in play. If they win the roll to get the guy to admit to working with Agent Chambers, boom, that's part of the game now. If not, you come up with something else. The main thing is that they're raising their heart rate and possibly generating Static. If they're getting bogged down in trying to find out who "Mr. Big" is, throw another Bang at them or have Control yell at them for wasting time.
JC:
Quote from: Danny_K on January 15, 2008, 02:20:24 PM
I don't think (not having run it yet) that Lacuna is a pure player-driven game like Donjon. I think it would be completely kosher for the GM to have a couple guys following the Agents with no preset backstory about why they are -- just roll with how it turns out in play. If they win the roll to get the guy to admit to working with Agent Chambers, boom, that's part of the game now. If not, you come up with something else. The main thing is that they're raising their heart rate and possibly generating Static. If they're getting bogged down in trying to find out who "Mr. Big" is, throw another Bang at them or have Control yell at them for wasting time.
you know, that's almost exactly the conclusion I came to after thinking about it some more
you can just set up a starting situation
if the players want to contribute to the story, fine
if not, that's fine too, you can make it up yourself
I wonder if that means that with Lacuna, you can have people playing Nar (contributing to the story) and people playing Sim (using the GM as a black box) together in the same game in a functional manner
Ron Edwards:
Hi JC,
I thought I'd jump in at this point, beginning with the Creative Agenda stuff and then talking about Lacuna.
1. I think you might be entangled in a common misunderstanding about Narrativist vs. Simulationist play: the idea that in the former, everyone makes up what's going on (setting, back-story) right there during play, and that in the latter, one person (the GM) has made up that stuff and treats it as a given piece of preparation.
That comparison, however, is totally irrelevant to whether it's Narrativist or Simulationist play. In Sorcerer, the GM has total power over the back-story and is expected to have prepped it in some detail; it is a powerfully Narrativist-facilitating game and is demonstrably not fun to Drift to another CA. Whereas in Dead of Night, in some variants, the GM is merely playing hapless NPCs and the players all have GM-type authority over the back-stories of the monster or monsters; it is a powerfully Simulationist-facilitating game and I suspect would not be fun to Drift out of that.
Do you want to talk about that stuff any more in this thread? I'd be glad to help it make more sense for you. Or would you rather say, "Ah, that was just a tossed-off comment and who cares anyway"? If so, that's cool too.
2. Now, let's talk about Lacuna. I'm actually glad that the game broke some implied expectations: "Hey, this is a Forge game [Story game, Sorensen game, whatever] and so there won't be any GM control!"
One question is whether the game text itself gives that impression or offers any way to make that kind of play possible. I suggest there isn't. My reading of Lacuna is that it explicitly says, "This game book does not provide a back-story or explanation, but it does provide an immense amount of stuff that's going on. The GM will have to fill in the gap of the big picture by himself." This isn't actually all that wild or kooky; it's pretty common among games written in the early 1990s, for instance. I think the book is pretty clear that playing requires the GM to bust his butt, either before or during play, to generate some semblance of sense "behind it all."
A lot of Jared's games and interest in game design are aimed at building the situation at the same time as playing it; InSpectres is one of the great seminal game designs based on this idea, in which the Scooby-Doo like problem or case is constructed by the players' successful rolls as the characters guess and investigate. Another of his games, octaNe, permits constant contributions by the players as well to an even greater extent.
However, Lacuna just doesn't do this. Resolution rolls really are about whether the Agent successfully manages to do X or Y, as announced as X or Y. In many ways, I think one of the design goals of the game is to prompt quality setting creation on the part of the GM as opposed to providing a setting for the GM to transmit. It's not like there's nothing at all to work with, either. There are some pretty strong nuggets of explicit back-story - especially the business about where the Agents come from, and what they were before getting their memories wiped. Jared was pretty cunning to pretend, for promotional purposes, that the game offers "no setting," but he is of course lying through his teeth in saying that.
3. I hope you don't get the wrong idea - I'm not trying to tell you that you didn't understand the game or whatever, and looking over my post so far, I realize that I wrote #2 above as much, or more, to the general reader (to explain this aspect of the text) as to you and your inquiry. So, to provide feedback on your basic question: "Yes!" I agree. It's not like Contenders or Polaris at all.
Funny thing, though - you mentioned Dogs in the Vineyard, which is more like (hell, exactly like) Lacuna and Sorcerer. The GM owns the back-story and presents it; there's no way for a player to roll successfully and thereby dictate "what's going on" at that level of situation and scenario. Did you play Dogs differently, in which this Technique was present?
Best, Ron
JC:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on January 16, 2008, 06:10:18 PM
Do you want to talk about that stuff any more in this thread?
Absolutely!
After thinking about it, I realize I confused players having narrative power with Nar. As you point out, Nar does not require players to have narrative power.
You can play Lacuna with a Nar approach, without players having narrative powers. That doesn’t necessarily require a whole lot of prep by the GM. About as much as prepping a DITV town, I’d say. A mission order, an NPC or two, some generic bangs, and you’re good to go.
It does, however, make for a big GM workload during the game, since he needs to keep coming up with bangs. This is what I complain about in my original post.
On the other hand, if you do give players narrative power, you keep the light prep, and combine that with a lighter GM workload during the game. That’s what I was hoping for. Again, something like DITV, which I find pretty easy on the GM during the game.
To clarify, when I say narrative power, I mean something like this: after succeeding a roll, a player narrates how he spots Senior Agent Chambers hiding in the shadows, while players and GM alike previously considered her to be dead. I think Lacuna allows for this manner of playing, as written. I may be wrong.
About DITV: no, players don’t have that kind of narrative power when I play DITV. I still found it a lot less work for the GM during play, though. I think that’s because of the sin “chain-reaction” that’s hardwired into the game. The bangs practically write themselves.
Danny_K:
Very brief note: Ron is right about narrating outcomes. I've read the rules literally a dozen times -- how did I make such a basic mistake?
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