[Flowers for Mara] Family schisms at Gen Con
GreatWolf:
The opening and closing speeches are taken directly from The Book of Common Prayer, which is essentially the "traditional" Christian liturgy. So, in a movie, if you hear a portion of a burial service being spoken or a formal marriage ceremony, you're likely hearing something from The Book of Common Prayer. You know, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together today in the sight of God..." That's the marriage service from The Book of Common Prayer.
Anyways, I chose the opening and closing texts for a few reasons.
1) At the beginning, conceptually the players are transforming from "just" being the players to also being the characters. As such, Raising the Curtain is also essentially the burial service, with the family standing at the graveside while Mara is being buried. That's why Mara stands by the grave when the Curtain is Raised: she is being buried.
2) At the end, conceptually the players are laying to rest the Griefs that they have placed at the graveside. If someone is still holding his flower at the end of the play, he gives it to Mara. So, she is standing there as a reminder of the Griefs that were not resolved. So, at the end, when the Director reads "Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our sister Mara departed...", the referent is now all the things that Mara now stands for: all those griefs that were discussed, all those nasty things that Mara said, all the fictional griefs that the characters addressed (or didn't). When we Lower the Curtain, we leave all of those at the grave, and then we walk away.
3) The formality of the phrases is supposed to add a measure of gravitas to the proceedings. Again, this is like Polaris, where the opening phrase is "Long ago, the people were dying at the end of the world." Even when you don't really know what that means, there's a certain emotional weight that is carried by those words. In other words, to quote Emily, "But then, the primary function of them seems to be to demarcate the fictional (and emotional) space of the game." Yes. This.
4) As a Christian, I cannot approach these issues apart from my faith. That includes how I go about the design of the game. I've had a couple of people (Tobias being one of them) discuss alternate options with me. Upon some reflection, I decided to stick with what's there, although I did shorten the reading. (It used to be longer, and you also listened to a piece of music, too!) Something I've learned as a game designer is that people will always hack the game. That doesn't bother me. I view it just like variants or house rules. So, I figure that there will be people out there who will decide to hack the text and change those readings. However, I need to remain true to my vision for the game. My vision for the game includes the players having to interact with those texts at some point, even if it is to discard them.
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Seth, and who else might be reading:
I can't find the edit button. When I re-read my post, I didn't just see
the spelling errors, but I felt it had a harsh tone at times. That was
not the intention. I like your deconstruction of what we are talking
about, and that made me think about even more things that I perhaps
didn't realise I was thinking of before.
So thanks!
Thanks for clarifying, Tobias! FYI, there's no edit feature on the Forge. This is a deliberate design decision by The Powerz That Be (essentially Ron) as part of the social structuring of this forum. That way, people can't "take back" what they wrote by deleting it; they can only add clarifying remarks, as you have. Thus, the historical record of the conversation is preserved. It's one of those unique features of the Forge.
Anyways!
Part of what I'm getting from this conversation is the realization that I actually treasure the seams in a game. And here, I'm talking about all my roleplaying, not just A Flower for Mara. I like the opportunity for the group to be able to interact as players during the game without character mediation. I like the applause that we gave to a player at one point for an particularly outstanding performance in a scene. I like the excited babble and the high-fives that can follow a scene. I even like some kibitzing about the game events, particularly if it allows the players to synchronize their authorial vision of what they are creating. This particular feature of face-to-face play is what I look for in my games.
Here's an example from a game of Mage that I played many many years ago. This was my wife's first roleplaying game with others, and therefore, she was playing her default character: a quietly fanatical individual. There was a lot going on in that character, as I'd learn in between sessions, as Crystal told me of all the internal struggles going on in that character. However, none of the other players actually knew that any of those things were going on. In fact, it could be a little frustrating to play across from Crystal's character because the character was so quiet and reserved.
We talked about this a lot, to little avail. Part of this is that the Forge's understanding of RPG theory was still developing and, as such, we were still working on developing the necessary critical vocabulary to discuss some of these things. But, eventually, we had a breakthrough of understanding.
Crystal wants to have intricately developed characters prepared before play. If she doesn't know the character, then how can she play the character?
I want to know when she is playing the character. That includes when she is thinking and feeling. In order for me to author my character, I need to know what her character is thinking. That's out-of-character information that isn't available to the other players. I just wanted her to share this information with the rest of the table. That could be in narration (e.g. give us a monologue) or simply by announcing it to the table to clarify her character's actions.
Since then, our roleplaying has been much better.
I've read the various "Nodal Point" LARP books, and I've generally been in awe of the elaborate LARPs that are coming out of that scene. At the same time, I doubt that I would enjoy participating in them, precisely because of the lack of these seams. I play these games to share an experience with other players. A large art LARP, of necessity, cannot be a shared experience, simply because it is geographically spread out, and a single player cannot witness it all.
Jeepform is more attractive to me, because of the geographic unity of play. At the same time, I'm less concerned with "immersion" in character, if it's at the expense of this shared experience. I happen to think that the traditional post-game discussions that appear to occur after a LARP or Jeep game help a great deal with this. Still, I want to have the sense of sharing both authorship and audience during the event, not just afterwards.
Tobias Wrigstad:
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FYI, there's no edit feature on the Forge. This is a deliberate design decision by The Powerz That Be (essentially Ron) as part of the social structuring of this forum. That way, people can't "take back" what they wrote by deleting it; they can only add clarifying remarks, as you have. Thus, the historical record of the conversation is preserved. It's one of those unique features of the Forge.
I was so sure there was one, since i saw this comment in the UMS thread:
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edited to fix a mis-applied person's name
This was in a post from Ron. I guess the powerz that be have enabled
the edit-butten for themselves :-)
For some reason, I have a hard time reading my own posts with
someone elses eyes until they are actually submitted and visible
to the world…
Tobias Wrigstad:
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As a Christian, I cannot approach these issues apart from my faith.
Of course not. To try and do that would be stupid I think.
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Something I've learned as a game designer is that people will
always hack the game. That doesn't bother me. I view it just like
variants or house rules. So, I figure that there will be people
out there who will decide to hack the text and change those
readings. However, I need to remain true to my vision for the
game. My vision for the game includes the players having to
interact with those texts at some point, even if it is to discard
them.
Yeah, I've learned that too. The most important IMHO is to write
for yourself which sometimes makes people like the game less. But
we always said that a game can be great even if it is unplayable.
(I am certainly guilty of writing such games.)
One of the reasons why I don't like the breaks between scenes to
be filled with random talking is that I find it hard to keep the
flow and get back in the spirit of the game. In our session, these
breaks gave us a lot of distance to the story and its contents and
once you have that, it is easy to slip back and forth since you
are not required to go deep when you go back anyways. I think that
the game would have been much richer and given rise to more
feeling and more tension (which is good for the focus) if we
hadn't had them.
A lot of Scandinavian, immersionist larpers express similar
problems with jeepform in general. The find that actively
exploring the meta play or switching between characters (without
breaks) block their ability to immerse in the game.
Apart from it being personal preference, I believe that it is a
matter of practise, a matter of whom you are with (easier with
people you don't know for some), etc. It is also a matter of what
game it is. In The Upgrade! I would mind the high-fives less,
since the game isn't very serious and there is generally not much
that you can break by chatting about something else. (Luckily, you
can hi-five in-game in The Upgrade!)
I also think that character mediated may not be the right word,
but I see what you mean. I think there is a lot of exchanges that
goes on in the meta-play that is not character mediated. Like
looks, signals, body language, etc. I just wanted to point that
out.
I like it how these two threads (this and the UMS one) keep
crossing over into each other. It seems to me like Crystal would
really have been helped by monologues! Again, expose the inner
play.
You should know that even in Scandinavian larps, people go to
various "off zones" to have breaks and enjoy these kinds of off
moments that you talk about. The great thing here is that you can
look them up when you need them and avoid them otherwise. So, if
you are going through something where a real break would throw you
off, you simply don't go there. Some larpers spend a lot of time
plotting in these off zones to go back in and execute. Sometimes,
these are play-for-show people, but not necessarily.
One of the most important things to me with jeepform stuff is to
keep people as close as possible. In A Nice Evening with the
Family, we had a staff of GMs and several interconnecting scripts
to make up for the fact that people were geographically
distributed. And still they were in the same mansion and in the
garden only. On a similar note, I think that you will find
jeepform less character immersive than most larps.
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I happen to think that the traditional post-game discussions that
appear to occur after a LARP or Jeep game help a great deal with
this. Still, I want to have the sense of sharing both authorship
and audience during the event, not just afterwards.
Sorry, I didn't get this part. Can you explain?
Blessdevil:
This discussion and the UMS one are very interesting so thanks to all the posters.
I just wouls like to contribute one AP example in which the “breaks” added something to the game.
This Sunday I directed a game of Doubt. It was the third one I directed and it gave life to the saddest version of the story (probably my favourite up to now).
Towards the end, the scenes played were really grim and tense and all of us not on stage watched intently helding our breath.
But as soon as each scene ended it was a chorus of laughter and exclamations totally contrasting the sadness of the story. A short, very focused discussion about the next scene to come would immediately follow before getting back to the game.
I think we needed those laughter to catch our breath before delving again into the painful situations portrayed in the game. The talking also kept all of us on the same page and bettered our game.
It may sound funny but I felt those pauses and laughter made our game more intense and tragic.
Claudia Cangini:
I beg your pardon, I posted from Michele's cpu forgetting to log in as myself.
The above message should be signed Claudia Cangini.
Sorry for the mess.
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