[Gamma Wolrd!] Where's my conflict?
gsoylent:
What are my thoughts? Basically it's about trying to understand how octaNe is meant to work. The octaNe rules plainly state that the purpose of a scene is to introduce a conflict and then resolve it.
What I find is that a lot of the time what I would consider a "scene" doesn't really contain a "conflict". In a game like Gamma World, that doesn't seem to matter so much, but in octaNe it is an issue because the mechanics feeds on conflict.
We've since played octaNe two more times, rotating the GM each time. The second GM had the same kind of problem I had finding clear cut conflicts in a succession of scenes. As a player I actually did not make a single Stunt roll all evening. My character did things, just nothing that was seriously contested or whose outcome was seriously in the balance. Closest I cam e to a conflict was to try to see through an illusion at on stage of the game, but I figured it was more interested to fall for the illusion and see where that went.
The third GM which was a lot more combat and giant monster orientated. That worked a lot better.So I guess the lesson is, not enough giant monsters.
And yes, I was using "Say yes..." expression in a very generic sense, After I posted I googled the phrase and it did indeed show Vincent Baker as the author and instantly realised it probably had a much more precise and nuanced meaning on this forum, my mistake.
drnuncheon:
Quote from: gsoylent on October 29, 2008, 11:30:15 AM
What are my thoughts? Basically it's about trying to understand how octaNe is meant to work. The octaNe rules plainly state that the purpose of a scene is to introduce a conflict and then resolve it.
I can see some possible conflicts in the second scene.
First, "do the PCs notice that the scientists are infected". If you just play this straight, with the players having only in-character knowledge, it's kind of boring because the GM is the only one that even knows it is going on. If the players know that the scientists are infected, then it becomes a lot more tense.
Second, why not combine it with the third scene? Have the robot there when the PCs arrive. Then noticing the infection becomes a secondary conflict - and the negotiations between scientists and robot get disrupted by this third party showing up in the middle, possibly with both sides trying to get them on their side. (The conflicts there might even be within the group!)
J
JoyWriter:
Sounds like you made a fun story anyway, so you don't need to care! If I am not mistaken octaNe's plot points only affect conflicts anyway, so if no conflict happens then they are no gain. To put it another way, if players have implicit narrative control via coolness anyway, they don't need their characters to cause conflict to get it. It feels to me like there is some kind of GNS thing going on here, where your model is working but it is not that of the game designer.
Now scene structure in more passive media is something you could perhaps look at, because instead of conflict you seem to be building and resolving tension, which before anything else reminds me of music. (You thought I was going to say films didn't you!)
It's tricky to put into words, but you can build up different types of tension, and have them feed into one another, as resolving one leads to difficulty with another. So they can start out as separate themes/scenes, being dealt with on their own, with switch-overs between different types and paces of threat providing variety, and then you can get them to interact, as your players thought of, and so shift each other so the old accommodations no longer work.A bit like a Guy Richie film with a larger emotional pallet, or less if you prefer.
Then like some pieces of music or one of those films it can all roll into a big chaotic conflict that the players can find their way through or not, with all the themes that haven't gone mixing and fighting and resolving in whatever you end up with.
Now if you don't get what I'm on about, I'm talking exploration of causality; a narrative karma approach to simulationist play to see what you come up with, shifting into dice when it all gets too complicated, and then with you putting it back together again epilogue style. Now I think there is overlap with narrativism here, but hopefully I haven't butchered forge terminology too much!
I think that these scenes definitely did something, like introductions of themes in a song or mechanics in a computer game, they implied the possible structure for what would proceed, and then you presumably fleshed it out afterwards in a more conflict based fashion. In octaNe terms, the only problem I can think of is a lack of plot point build-up by the time you get to the big scenes, but that shouldn't matter as the game is flexy enough to deal with that, and I'm sure you are to!
Ron Edwards:
Special theory post: you nailed it!
Best, Ron
gsoylent:
Very interesting reply. I am very tempted to leave it there, while we're winninng, so to speak. However, I think there is something more at stake than Plot Points in a low conflict octaNe game.
Consider these examples, based on how I understood octaNe in meant to work.
No conflict scene.
Player asks willing witness: "Did you see where the little girl went?"
GM: "Yes! A horrible yeti took her away!"
Conflict scene.
Player asks hostile witness: "Did you see where the little girl went?"
Stunt roll, player wins narration.
Player says "Yes! But she wasn't a little girl at all. When she thought no one was looking she transformed into a smartcar and drove off!"
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