Facilitating Coherent Play and the Shared Agenda
dindenver:
Rusty,
The trick is that using GNS terms at the table, can lead to antagonism.
Any of your group who have internet and check out places like rpg.net have been exposed to GNS terms, but may have preconceptions or different understanding than you of what they mean.
And you can't pre-program these questions. You have to "wing it." You can make a menu of more open ended questions, then zoom in on those answers. So, for instance, you can ask, "what was your favorite moment in the last campaign?" Then depending on the answer, you need to ask a different question depending on how you interpret the answer. But, if you want to stay truer to GNS, ou need to focus o actual play. The terms are totally meaningless outside the context of actual play, you know?
Finally, if you have a player/players that actually dislike self analysis, then you need to respect that or you will be adding to the internal tension of the group, right?
Ultimately, I think its wisest to use plain language to discuss "at the table issues." There is no real value to trying to train them to understand GNS at the table and if you won't do that, there is no point to using GNS in that discussion.
Either way, good luck getting your group together man!
Callan S.:
Quote from: Rustin on December 10, 2008, 06:55:36 PM
Yes, I think most of the players are willing to take on responsibility. They have in the past. Though, I think “liking the sound of the activity” is critical. So, the issue might be: are they willing to trying a different and new responsibility.
This is going to sound a little rough, but you haven't answered my question at all. Have a read my previous post through again. Or if you don't want to answer it, fair enough and I'll leave it at that.
Rustin:
Callan,
Thanks for pointing me back to your original question. I had to read it through a few times before it clicked. (I hope). I don’t mind if your posts have to sound a little rough; whatever it takes to communicate, as I really want to solve this problem.
Quote
And if they don't like the sound of the activity or their not prepared to give it a good, honest go, they are responsible for not participating.
Let me try to answer, and let me know if I get what you are asking.
You’re asking about two sets of responsibilities that describe one major responsibility.
In other words:
Responsibility #1: Play only if the game sounds like something you can jump into.
Responsibility #2: Step out if you feel like the game is something you can’t jump into.
Major Responsibility: Play only if you are serious.
I would say this group does not follow the major responsibility. The norm is to allow people to show up and play whatever their scale of interest in the game might be.
FredGarber:
Perhaps this might work: it worked with my group, but my situation was (a) it was Everquest, not WOW, and (b) I had one player with a Dramatic Arts degree, one player with a Masters in English, and one player with a Psychology degree as three out of five of my players, and I've got a degree in Seconday Eduction. Our communication and analysis about our own desires and goals was extremely articulate, so YMMV.
I didn't play Everquest, but I took the time and read up on the basic concepts: character classes, possible actions, and types of missions.
Then we discussed what they liked and disliked about the online game. It tried to map the things they enjoyed doing online to the things they enjoyed doing face to face. I tried to supply the things that were lacking in the online game. The game only ended when people moved out of town, so I count it a success.
We ended up with a homebrew Gurp-ish game. It was pretty fascinating from a design standpoint, where one of the design parameters was the amount of real-world focus needed to accomplish certain tasks: They liked the fact that in online combats, they could click away while discussing out of game stuff, but they liked how in the tabletop games that every adventure was a "quest" adventure, and there were no "farming" or "wait for the item drop" missions.
-Fred
edited to fix formatting - RE
Rustin:
Fred,
Thank you for the reply.
When you mapped the enjoyable online things to the enjoyable face-to-face things, did you use GNS/Big Model language?
Did you just ask them for specific instances of play that they enjoyed which you then followed up with your own private GNS/BM analysis, or did they express what they liked in more GNS terms from the get go?
I'm very curious to know more about your Gurpish homebrew in GNS terms. Maybe one specific example going from your facilitation, to the analysis to the rule(s). That would be helpful.
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