System Transforms Situation... And Situation Informs System?
Callan S.:
1. System first, as I'd put it, would be that if by the mechanical rules the GM can decide what skill check is involved, he can indeed call for a climb check. Even if there was no wall in the SIS. Indeed, it means you have to start imagining a wall now - not because the 'events' of the SIS meant a wall happened to come up, but because of raw mechanics use. The SIS follows mechanics mechanics use, or your playing wrong. This is no doubt anathema (perhaps abomination) to most roleplayers, where if there isn't a wall, then you mustn't be able to call for a climb check/the SIS controls what mechanical options may be chosen.
It's something I was getting at back in 2004, where I proposed the sitution that a vase is pushed off a balcony - what happens? Well, if it's up to the GM whether it lands safely and intact or smashes, if he chooses that it lands safely and intact, you have to imagine that, even if it landed on concrete hundreds of feet below. That, or you decide to cease playing entirely.
I could go into the features, but briefly the primary one would be breaking stagnant imagination. Because a stagnant imagination will just keep restricting the mechanical choices so as to produce more stagnancy. System first breaks that tyranny.
I had a #2 about 'It's breaking the rules if you don't show grief' and demonstrating the policing power that'd require also makes the policeman the only real artist at the table. But it got a little empassioned and I'm working on it still...
masqueradeball:
This is interesting in I think that certain consideration are being overlooked here. I think CA is important enough to this conversation to get a mention. I'm completely clueless about most of the games that are being talked about here, so I'll have to pull out some examples from my own play history that use more traditional games as their basis.
Let's take, King Arthur Pendragon for instance, the goal of a player in Pendragon, any player portraying a knight character, is to gain Glory. If a player makes a "roleplaying" decision for his character where he refuses to gain Glory because of his character's personality, when this wasn't enforced by the games trait system, I would say whole heartedly that that player was playing Pendragon, as written, wrong. This is an issue of CA because all of Pendragon's mechanics (literally, all of them) exist to allow player to take a "front seat" in "creating" an Arthurian style adventure tale. They are not there to explore theme through character, or to create "good" (as defined by Narrativism here on the Forge) stories. They're there to randomly generate outcomes and fill in the gaps and see what happens and to enjoy the exercise.
Now, some could deny Glory because they felt like an action was out of character even when there traits didn't demand it, but they be doing the game a disservice.
Simulationism.
Now, with DtV, even though I haven't played it, my understanding is that the game is about addressing them and creating "story" in the Narrativist since. It seems to me that letting the die mechanic trump the story would be a mistake because of the implied (explicit?) CA of the game design.
And that would seem to be where the divide would be.
Am I of base here? Or does this have some merit?
Caldis:
Quote from: masqueradeball on December 11, 2008, 12:40:11 AM
Now, with DtV, even though I haven't played it, my understanding is that the game is about addressing them and creating "story" in the Narrativist since. It seems to me that letting the die mechanic trump the story would be a mistake because of the implied (explicit?) CA of the game design.
That would be my feeling on the situation as well. The die mechanic is a small part of the system as a whole in the game and the system includes the ability to give. If you are intent on playing the game without the option of giving it seems to me like you are getting to wrapped up in the die mechanic and drifting the game to something else.
Callan S.:
Quote from: Seth
Rather, the mechanic gains its impact from how it structures both the SIS and the ongoing conversation about the SIS.
From my perspective, the games designed for conversation that isn't about the SIS, it's for conversation about break ups/relationships. Its just using the SIS as a means to that end - the SIS is not the end itself, it's just a means to an end. Indeed, the SIS is disposable - but in terms of conversation about break ups, it can be helpful as a distance and perspective mechanism.
It's what I'd (probably incorrectly) call a simulationist fixation on the SIS that is part of the problems root, in the original account. If not THE problem!
I don't know if it's just pure missassociation, where people dealing with the SIS get a strong feeling because what their talking about ties into real life issues - but because they are dealing with the SIS, they associate the strong feeling with the SIS. It's like the reverse of the old saying "Throwing out the baby with the bath water". The SIS is the bath water, the real life problem is the baby. Here people treasure the bathwater and keep it rather than throw it out, and thus by chance, do not throw out the baby as well.
Many of the posts in this thread advise really valuing the bathwater if you want a good game, IMO. And some of that bathwater reeks....
GreatWolf:
A quick clarification about something I said.
Quote
Rather, the mechanic gains its impact from how it structures both the SIS and the ongoing conversation about the SIS.
In this statement, I'm distinguishing between the SIS and the conversation. The SIS (aka the "fiction"), is the space where the game "takes place", like a boardgame takes place on a board. We move our "pieces" on the "board" through talking to each other. That's the "conversation" that I'm referring to. I'm not talking about thematic statements being made through the game or dealing with real-life issues or anything like that. D&D combat works by structuring the SIS and by structuring the conversation, by saying who gets to say what when.
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