I ask Vincent a bunch of questions like I was a horde of flying monkeys
Christopher Kubasik:
Hi Vincent,
It's making sense so far.
I should clarify that "Best Interest" isn't underlying my question. My point simply wast that to have something on a character sheet called, "Best Interest" introduces something new to this game that I haven't seen before.
It follows -- for me, at least -- that there are probably other things: points of view, agendas, assumptions what have you, that you built into the game. To elicit, to provoke and so on between players.
Best Interest is new. It implies a moment of thought (or two or three) before writing something down. We often can leap at naming goals, but often our own desires aren't in our best interest. And often what we think we want to fulfill our needs actually isn't the best choice to fulfill those needs.
As pointed out above, the Best Interest isn't what the character thinks is in his Best Interest, but what the Player thinks is in the PC's Best Interest. This introduces all sorts of possible irony, as the Player can see the field of narrative from a much better perspective. He can have the PC play toward conflicts that are against his best interest and so on, only to then have the PC get a better sense of his or her Best Interests as play continues.
Further, this leads to thinking about the consequences for intended actions. Since I would say a big anchor for the game are the Best Interests, players will start "magnetizing" their thinking about consequences in terms of challenging their fellow players about their PC's Best Interests. Best Interest does not mean Goal -- it means Best Interest. So the consequences aren't, "I kill you..." because "Stay Alive" wasn't the Best Interest at stake. "You embarrass yourself before your follows," might make a hell of a lot more sense -- depending on how the Player of the losing player defined Best Interest.
All of this feeds into the mechanics we'll discuss next, I'm presuming. (I've obviously already begun thinking about it.)
But we missed all this on Sunday. Off the top of my head we didn't dig deeper with our original ideas. I was playing the ghost of a noble woman. My Best Interest was to keep Wolf Spirit away from a temple. But that's a goal, with the Best Interest buried somewhere beneath it. (The Wolf Spirit was another PC)
Now that I know we're talking Best Interests, I would ask, "Okay, but why is it in my Best interest to keep the Wolf Spirit from the Temple." Certainly, I decided that the Wolf Spirit had killed my husband, and the temple had belonged to the Wolf Spirit. I died driving the Wolf Spirit from the Temple -- filling it with Gorilla Spirits to keep the Wolf Spirit away.
But that's all Motivation. It's not Best Interest. Best Interest implies a QUALITY to the motivation and the goals. My expectation is that thinking things through a bit more would influence the group and guide them to certain kinds of actions to contest and consequences to declare....
Which I'd love to hear more about, Vincent. Especially from the point of view of what you want the system to do, elicit, inspire and so forth.
CK
lumpley:
When you played, did you have only one? You're supposed to have two - I think that's an important point, actually.
I can't really just plunk down an answer for "what do you want the game to elicit?" I mean, I want it to elicit stories that are like (somehow like) Tanith Lee's in the Flat Earth, but that's not a helpful answer. I hope that by talking about the game, I can get you to ask me smaller, tighter questions that taken together add up to that one.
Anyhow, that's why I ask, did you have only one?
-Vincent
Christopher Kubasik:
Oops!
Yes. We had only one.
If I remember correctly, the GM said our Best Interest should be connected to two PCs, but I suspect now he elided the rules of having two Best Interests, each connected to another PC, to one Best Interest that connected to one character.
CK
lumpley:
They shouldn't even necessarily be to other PCs. NPCs have an important part to play too - since NPCs can't recur, don't go on the owe list, the GM is free to cast NPCs' strengths against PCs' weaknesses.
A cool thing is, your own two best interests don't even have to be mutually compatible. Your best interests are valuable for the conflicts they create, not in the achievement of them. It's in the warrior's best interests to win the heart of the diplomat, it's in the warrior's best interests to make an example of the diplomat's father.
So that's best interests. From play, did you get how the owe list works?
-Vincent
Christopher Kubasik:
Hi Vincent,
This part here....
Quote from: lumpley on February 23, 2008, 10:15:25 AM
A cool thing is, your own two best interests don't even have to be mutually compatible. Your best interests are valuable for the conflicts they create, not in the achievement of them.
That's an invaluable point of view about Best Interests. I think that would clearly color how conflicts and outcomes are stated. As I said, we saw them more as goals -- and everything was about getting those goals accomplished.
As for the We Owe list... I absolutely see how it works and it's game tension from your description. However, this was con game -- so we sort of blew past that. There was no incentive to stay on the list, since we wouldn't be playing again. So, for us, last weekend, the We Owe list was just a bank to get another die when we felt the pinch of a conflict.
CK
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