[Polaris] Transcending the Rules
oliof:
That's why I wouldn't want to conflate this AP report, which is very interesting. Please go on discussing particulars. How did he experience rules get in the way of your pacing? I've never played Polaris besides a demo, but I always found the experience rules to be very low-key in handling time and only perceived them as a secondary pacing element; i.e. I thought they'd help people to find the denouement after an intense decision for their protagonist before everone moved on to the next big thing. After reading the report I'm convinced that If you (as a group) have your own (working) idea of pacing, this process can be bypassed without problems.
RIght?
Ben Lehman:
Quote from: Frank Tarcikowski on March 05, 2008, 01:18:15 AM
Hi Ben,
Let’s see. Your hunch about the general key phrases is correct, we kept using them. However, at one point a lot of content got established outside the key phrase framed scenes. After 11 scenes of 18 (if I’m counting correctly), we cut from early spring to late summer and discussed what had happened in between, including some major developments for the protagonists. Basically, I just had a flash and suggested what had happened in a “GM narration” kind of style, and the others just nodded along. This was also the point where I turned my own protagonist into a sidekick.
Oh, neat. Yeah, that's the sort of thing that happens from time to time in the game (there was a rule -- I'm not sure if it made it into the final version -- about pacing such bits.) I really like it!
Quote
As for themes, we did use them when we used the corresponding key phrases, but as I said, that happened less and less as the game continued. We did add some fate aspects that were established in conflicts earlier in the game. Also, when my protagonist gave the higher starlight weapon of his family to his little sister because she was the one that really ought to be wielding it, I erased it from my protagonist sheet and the player of my little sister added it to hers.
The cosmos was kept up to date for most of the game though I think we did not update it any more in the last couple scenes when it was pretty clear already where the story was going.
*nod* So you didn't do a lot of manipulating of aspects, etc? But you did keep the Cosmos up-to-date? That's interesting. Often I see players do the exact opposite (adding and subtracting lots of aspects) but generally ignoring the Cosmos.
I'm trying to think about what, in particular, the experience rules are doing which makes them so objectionable to this sort of play (while realizing that they are objectionable to it.) It seems intuitively obvious to me that they would be, but I can't seem to articulate why. I think a chunk of it has to do with pacing, yes, particularly the limits on what can happen when, and what can be asked for when.
It's really cool for me to hear about this. What it sounds like, to me, is that you shifted the rules emphasis from (conflict key phrases + aspects + experience) to (cosmos + inspirational material). Which is something that I've not seen before, but is definitely part and parcel of the game design (more about that later). I wouldn't classify it as transcending the rules and thus imply that people playing with more focus on the conflict key phrases are mired in them, but rather as shifting the focus to a different chunk of the rules.
I know that this sort of thing is out-of-fashion these days, but Polaris was really written with a large number of different possible player types in mind, with the idea that each one of them would seize on different parts of the rules and utilize them in different ways, including the nigh-freeformers that I played with through college: in fact, a lot of it is about breaking the broken free-form negotiation that some of those games used. (This is why I get frustrated when people say that Polaris's conflict system is "just negotiation" because the structure is important: even when you're not using it.) It's really cool for me to hear about the game used in that way, since it's been more rare than I hoped.
Any thoughts about how the experience mechanics could change to integrate more freely into this sort of play? Or at least step aside more gracefully?
yrs--
--Ben
Dirk Ackermann:
Hi there,
I was in that beautiful session and I have never experienced a Polaris session like this before. The other ones were emotionaly draining and ever so hard-pressing that afterwards you felt exhausted. Not this time though. It all emerged just perfectly organic (?) and smooth. Some players, including me, stated before the play that they were very tired and I did not like the idea to get even more tired because of Polaris! But then this perfect, deep well of play, imagination and shakespearean drama! Ben, this game is just a jewel!
I think the group was our first line in success, the "rest" was getting away from the phrases, but alway having in mind that they allowed us to get to this point and to have them if needed.
This was the second time -of maybe 7 or 8 sessions- that I saw the "endgame", only because of our mending with the XP-rules. I am inclined to say that, played as an oneshot Polaris need this kind of mending... otherwise, the XP-rules are a little bit too slow and that is even true for a campaign.
If there will ever be a revised edition or so than some pacing advices or equal stuff should go into the book.
Frank, cool that you have written it down here! It was a true homerun.
MfG
Dirk
Frank Tarcikowski:
Hi Ben,
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I know that this sort of thing is out-of-fashion these days, but Polaris was really written with a large number of different possible player types in mind, with the idea that each one of them would seize on different parts of the rules and utilize them in different ways
Out-of-fashion? I guess it depends on whom you ask. Not to resurrect the agony that has been the Bricolage discussion, but for what it’s worth, I much prefer that approach. I guess this is why Polaris has been about the only Forge game yet to appeal to those German gamers who play, y’know, with candles on the table and strings on the stereo and roll dice like once a session. Who write short stories about their character and stuff. We have a lot of them here. I used to be one of them, too.
I actually talked about this to Ron Edwards when he visited me last December. What I said was that these people embrace the “beautiful horror” atmosphere and the genre conventions of classic tragedy and totally dig this unavoidable downward spiral. They’re drifting the game toward High Concept Sim. I don’t think it’s what we did in our game because we had very strong thematic stuff going on as well and I guess that was primary. But whatever, both were strong and both were crucial.
With regard to the experience mechanics, I think the point was really that we were ahead of them both as a pacing mechanic and as a judgement. Personally, I would probably just forget about the roll entirely, to lose Zeal / gain Weariness and refresh aspects each time (or have the player choose), but that’s just my personal preference. Also, I don’t know how the fact that we were six players affected timing.
Ultimately, the rules can only do so much. This is why I emphasized the transcendence thing even though, yeah, it really only was the experience rules we kicked. I sometimes get the impression that there is some conception among the Forge participants that it’s bad to kick the rules that way: That if you need to kick ‘em in order to get the best out of play, either the rules are broken or you picked the wrong game for what you want to do. None of which is true for our Polaris game. We could not have picked a better game, and the rules are of course not broken.
The point is that this group as a whole was playing at the highest level of creativity, empathy and skill that I have ever seen in role-playing. We were really in a flow, and when that happens, only a fool would follow the game’s rules against his own gut feeling. That should go without saying. The problem is the ballast of the whole evil “rule zero” discussion, which is about something else entirely, but which still casts a shadow on what we are talking about here.
Wow. This is me, waiting for the controversy to begin.
- Frank
oliof:
I don't see how this relates to Rule Zero at all.
Tangency: In my first PtA session ever, we had a similar experience. All the rules were in place and honored except we transcenced the conflict rules to a point where the producer was desperately clutching at straws to find something to conflict over. In other words, we outpaced one of PtA's core mechanisms. It's funny that that was the weekend we first met, Frank.
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