[IaWA] Breaking Bad Habits
Mike Holmes:
Excellent, you've started to predict my upcoming questions, and have skipped ahead two steps in the discussion at least with that last post. So, I'm guessing that you've predicted my next question, too, which comes down to you discussing the "time-and-space" considerations that you discussed, or why I might, as answerer, not just always narrate my character denying yours.
Basically, if on the last round (per the example you give), you decide as answerer to keep the ring, then we're back to where we were. Basically, win or lose, you can prevent my character from getting the ring with the last say. And, eventually, it comes down to how much I'm willing to gamble losing (with diminishing chances of success, as you note) on going at you another time to get what I want. Yes, we're technically free to chose to lose. But I'm seeing no incentive to do that. Why not have the objective to bargain with if you lose? Why voluntarily give that away, and have to bargain with less?
Drama, right?
Yeah, I get that I'm somehow missing some aesthetic consideration here that I'm supposed to get. The game clearly sides with drama in some cases, like encouraging players to take on things over their character's heads, so that they get on the owe list. But it very much the resolution looks to me like the same old escallation system, with negotiation between each phase, with the limit on number of escalations being the number of dice I have before I am eliminated. You can rearrange the verbage, but the rules seem to me to work the same. The player gives you what you want, or you escalate to a new round. Eventually you get the stakes, or you lose.
Or you give up because aesthetics tell you to.
Now, if you're saying, yes, that's how it works, and that's fine, then we're back to my original objection, which is that this leads to the uncomfortable pressure that I mentioned earlier.
So are we back to that, or am I still not understanding the mechanical repercussions?
Mike
Mike Holmes:
Let me try this zen approach, shorter than the above:
Mike: It feels as though the system doesn't resolve anything neccessarily, unless you press to the death.
Vincent: See, there's no stakes, it doesn't resolve anything in one conflict (though we can do that by narration if we wish), other than who has the stick.
Mike: Yes, that's the problem exactly.
Mike
lumpley:
My zen answer:
Mike: It feels as though the system doesn't resolve anything necessarily, unless you press to the death.
Vincent: Right. Fortunately, it does resolve all kinds of things unexpectedly. Also, pressing to the death is fun too, when you mean it.
I'm saying the opposite of the aesthetic thing you're predicting. I'm saying, cool, press to the death, if that's what you want to do. It's allowed. In fact, it's what you should obviously do when you're intent-to-the-death upon something and your opponent is intent-to-the-death upon keeping it from you.
If you're playing the dice and narration right, pressing to the death is just as fun as negotiating. The fact that pressing felt to you like repeating means that you were mishandling the dice and narration. Do the dice and narration right - and I mean procedurally right, not "aesthetically right" - and pressing will be pressing, and you won't hesitate to do it.
-Vincent
Valvorik:
Quote from: lumpley on April 29, 2008, 09:32:25 AM
And here's another, also valid:
Round 1: I challenge, I win, you narrate my character grabbing the ring, but mine having yours off-balance and vulnerable.
Round 2: I challenge, I win, you narrate my character punching yours repeatedly (which was my character's action), but yours still holding onto the ring.
Round 3: I challenge, I win the round and the overall contest, you narrate. I'm stomping your character but he's curled up fetal around the ring.
In negotiation, I propose that you just give me the goddamn ring already, but you'd rather be exhausted or injured, so I injure you.
Don't you mean in Round 1 "you narrate your character grabbing ring" for this to flow consistently?
lumpley:
Right you are. Oops.
-Vincent
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