Name the phenomenon: Inter-player SIS incohesion
Hans:
Quote from: masqueradeball on January 30, 2008, 05:10:44 PM
I think the reason GM's might avoid doing this is the same old issue: they want to tell there story and goddammit no one's gonna get in the way. As the GM, I might think there's no place in the story for Adam's actions, or whatever, so I effectively ignore them by allowing them to exist in a vacuum that has a little possible effect on other aspects of the story as possible. By doing this with my GM hat on, I encourage others to do the same.
Ouch again. I disagree with Mikael, and will say that what you describe here is EXACTLY what was happening. My only defense is that I was not so much telling the story MYSELF as it was myself and three other players telling one story (the tense standoff) and me ignoring (and perhaps encouraging others to ignore) the fire-lighting thing because it wasn't part of that story. In other words, if it was a railroad, it was a highly consensual one among four out of the five people playing. But still, you've hit the nail on the head here.
Now, what could I have done, in a Dust Devils context:
* Establish true intent at the first narration: "This alcohol lighting thing...what is your intent with that? Are you trying to set the whole place on fire, or just make some pretty lights? Are you expecting an immediate reaction from the PC's or the NPC's? Or do you mind if it sort of hovers in the background and then, at some point in the future, everyone notices that you have been busy lighting fires?"
* Go straight to conflict: "Hold on, you are trying to light his alcohol on fire? Man, that's a conflict, he LOVES his alcohol. Do you want to risk harm over that, because, if so, we are drawing cards!"
* Reflect it back: "Did you say you were lighting fires with the alcohol? Holy crap, that is wild. What do YOU think happens with that?"
Any of the above might have been better than what actually happened, and I think those are the kinds of techniques I usually use; I just failed to do so in this moment.
(Sorry that last post was so bloody long, by the way. Brevity is not one of my virtues.)
masqueradeball:
I don't know Dust Devil at all, so I can't speak on a system level. What I've noticed no one's brought up is the idea of asking the player to cooperate in the scene at hand.
Example:
Players A, B and C are all study Mr. Body, trying to figure out what might have killed him. Player D is break dancing.
GM: So, whats up with the break dancing?
Player D: My character's a Malkavian, his derrangement is uncontrollable break dancing.
GM: Can we highlight in a different scene? This one's about investigating Mr. Body here,
Player D: Sure.
GM: Cool.
or
Player D: No way! My guy's totally break dancing!
GM: Alright, that's not part of this scene, so, me and A, B and C will wrap up and then will do a scene about the break dancing...
Something like that... you know, asking disruptive players to cooperate. Still, this doesn't seem like the same problem as the one the thread started with, it's more about disruptive players, kind of, or, in a bigger sense, its about story controls and player rights to scene presence, etc...
Also, A is A... you know. So there's definately a way to come up with a working definition of an "objectively disjointed narrative."
dindenver:
Hi!
Well, to be fair, one of my recommendations was to stop the action and figure out what's going on.
But it sounds like this has been figured out. One person is not jiving with the group and no one wants to deal with it.
Anyways, I like Spacial Dissonance (the others are fine though) as a term. Spacial because it involves the SIS and Dissonance because it denotes action and/or voice that are happening, but not necessarily in harmony... And maybe a definition of "An event or events that occur within a roleplaying group that suggests that the SIS is not, in fact, shared properly." or something like that...
lachek:
I appreciate everyone's input. I think everyone's suggestions have been functional and well-informed.
We've diverted pretty far from the intent of the thread, though, which was to systematically analyze and approach a general problem of spatial dissonance (din, I think this term fits perfectly what I'm trying to describe).
As I see it, these are the viewpoints that have been presented so far:
Spatial dissonance is not a problem. It can be humorous or aesthetically pleasing in and of itself, like an absurd comedy or a David Lynch film. It is up to the player to find meaning among the dissonance.Spatial dissonance is a problem, and it is caused when people engage in dysfunctional play for social reasons. Fixing the dysfunction will fix the spatial dissonance problems.Spatial dissonance is a problem, and it can occur spontaneously between perfectly functional people who normally play well together.
Of course, all three can be true, but for purposes of this post I am personally only interested in addressing the last of the viewpoints.
Hans, I agree that spatial dissonance is not always a problem for the reasons you've listed (Lynch is a flippin' genius), but stating that this is always the case and putting the onus on each player to individually make sense of a story that might possibly consist of nothing but Racket is a little too dirty hippie for me to swallow.
I'm also not looking to solve the entire field of social dysfunction in RPGs in this post. All the comments about talking to your players / GM, negotiating theme etc are excellent, but tangential to the issue I'm trying to address.
So feel free to take this in any direction you like, but my preference is to discuss how techniques, scenario-design and system can be utilized to enhance inter-player communication and build a strong SIS.
dindenver:
Hi!
Thanks for the nod.
OK, but in the larger "Theory" sense of the word, Social Contract (and the resulting dysfunctional play from a bad social contract) is part of the "System." That's part of what Indie/Forge-style design is about. Forget about the dirty hippie vibe some games give off and look at the core. Its about a game that some how encourages good social contract, good themes, good mechanics and good techniques that are all tied together by a cohesive design philosophy motivated by actual play and not high-minded theory. So, when you say that dysfunctional social issues is outside the scope of System, technique and scenario design, that doesn't leave a lot left to try, does it?
I am not trying to say I have all the answers, but I wold like to put forth the idea that the answer lies at the earliest moments of RPG gaming, social contract. That narrow little window where players can talk about what they want from a game, what they like in a game and what they expect from a game before everyone assumes they know the answer. In an ideal system, this would be an on-going process, but in most gaming groups, you get a window that is about 10-30 minutes after the group switches GMs/Campaigns/Systems to state your needs. And after that, its assumed that the group knows/understands. Can a system change the trend? Can Scenario design, is there a Technique that solves that issue?
I think there is and I listed the heavy hitters before. But the main point I want everyone to take away from this is: Social Contract is malleable. It changes from moment to moment. It is impacted by the flow of the game, the flow of the group and outside factors that the group has no control over (reading an article in a newspaper or a post on a forum can totally change your mind about issues like abuse, dysfunction, etc. And there is no RPG group structure that can affect that, is there?). So, its almost like "where people are at with their Social Contract Issues" is a submarine and you have to constantly ping them to find out where they are at, no?
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