[3:16] the betrayal of planet Girlfriend
Callan S.:
Quote from: Wolfen on December 22, 2008, 10:38:05 PM
The beauty of it is that how much lies below the surface is completely subjective.. because that content isn't *in* the game, it's in your mind, and those of your fellow players. You're not digging deep into the game, you're digging deep into your collective thoughts, feelings and values.
Right on!
I think many people focus so much on what's in front of their eyes they don't realise the neat things that are happening/they are feeling originate from something behind their eyes (or in their heart, if you prefer). They look only at what's in front of them and think every that matters to the activity, is there - and they will only talk about design/work in that context. Or where they do recognise its something behind their eyes, they want to discard system use entirely in relation to it, as if it could never be affected by hard mechanics and must be free always and ever! With no reflection on whether there's perhaps some value in 'it' being affected by system. So frustrating in terms of talking design. Anyway, right on! :)
Valamir:
I think it would be selling the game short to imply that it can only deliver one sort of message, or one sort of Hatred for Home.
I can imagine a perfectly functional 3:16 campaign where the aliens really WERE bent on the destruction of earth really DID have the capability to carry out their nefarious plans and it really WAS necessary to go out there and do it them before them doing it to us. No weanie anti-imperial anti-military message...an out and out campaign of John Wayne hero worshipping space cowboys where the injuns fall by the dozen and no one wastes even a second thinking that maybe those savages didn't deserve to die...with no sense of satire or irony at all...because they really really did.
Now examine the Brigadiers orders again in that context...and see what a very different sort of Hatred for Home develops.
There's alot of ways to spin the politics embedded in the game. The "oh nos, we feel terrible for murdering the innocent babies" way is just the most obvious...and as a result perhaps the least interesting in the long run.
Or how about the one where due to budget cuts the equipment gets shoddier and shoddier. The ship board conditions get worse and worse and since human life is deemed cheaper than fancy equipment eventually the players are using human horde techniques and dieing in droves because that's more economical than the suits of Mandel-Brite they started with. It could be a completely legitimate war (in the sense of enough blame for the hostilities on all sides)...how different a flavor of Hatred for Home does that set up lead to.
So yeah. I really like that Hatred for Home is left entirely open. The innocence or culpability of the aliens is left pretty much open, and the decision whether the 3:16 are actually defenders of humanity, or just a gang of psychopathic murderers (or both) is left open to interpretation.
I just wish there was more structure around the internal interactions to help steer attention to that part of play. As it is the game requires a pretty aggressive GM and players really eager to steer in that direction themselves. Without players eager to take play in that direction the game quickly becomes a rather repetitive bug hunt. It sounds to me like Paul's players weren't eager in that direction (perhaps because they were just unaware that direction was theirs to take) and so in the absence of that, some aspects of play became a little flat.
Callan S.:
Hi Paul,
Quote
But failed to provoke any character play, anything socially interesting, anything but one-dimensional focus on clearing the level.
Did their play provoke any character play in you?
I know their play was largely pure mechanics use. If that's the problem, would you say you can not respond in a character role when faced with mostly pure mechanics use?
You had the scene with the mother ape reaching for the baby, but you'd made that scene to provoke the players. I'm talking about you being provoked by the players. Like what they did shows up in your characters (NPCs) reactions/socialising?
manatic:
Quote from: Wolfen on December 22, 2008, 10:38:05 PM
There was a recent thread about how serious 3:16 should be played on S-G. Dude seemed to think that the game was *supposed* to be played as beer and pretzels, and that the deeper themes lurking beneath the surface were incidental and accidental, and really digging into them would be drifting the game. At least one other guy seemed to share that same assumption. That there were deeper issues possible was apparent, much like seeing the tip of an iceberg; you know there's more there, but you may not realize how much.
Being the "dude" in question I felt a need to comment on this. What I actually meant in the thread in question is that while all of us very rpg- as well as -apparently- socially conscious adult people here easily and correctly read all manners of content into 3:16, what would happen if you gave the game to your average gaming group of 15-year olds? In my mind there's a fair and very real chance that the game might indeed be interpreted as a system-light combat oriented Space-D&D slaughterfest with not much actual roleplaying content. Not everyone is big on subtle irony, and the game even has a playing map and tokens. Hence, "beer & pretzels". If this isn't apparent from the original posting or the follow-ups, then it's my bad. I also think that the questions I intended as theoretical seeds for discussion were interpreted as actual, concrete questions on my part.
As stated on that thread, what many people seem to overlook is that not everyone will read the intended critique of the military-industrial complex into the game. For some people "kill-happy machismo" is actually pretty cool, and makes for a fun game regardless of the ethical questions involved. This is something that we here on the somewhat elitist indie gaming forums tend to forget, and our views might differ radically from that of the roleplaying majority. Wolfen's post for example didn't even list this option as a possible approach. Just take a look at WH40K. The Imperium is pretty much a massively xenofobic military civilization laden with Nazi ideals and insignia, and hey - they're the hugely popular good guys of the setting.
When these two mindsets and interpretations crash into one another, the result is quite conceivably what happened in Paul's original game. I see it as a very real problem if it's not taken into account by the GM.
As for myself, I'm very much running the game with the idea that while it indeeds starts as kill-happy machismo, it eventually becomes grim, ugly, tragic and bitter. My original post on Story-Games dealt with the transition between these two completely different views. While the people I game with will deal with it appropriately and probably enjoy it a lot, for some people a theme-drift such as this might be a bit hard to handle, possibly leading to detachment from their characters.
3:16 is a lot like the military it deftly describes. There are people who think that doing their military service is the coolest thing ever (Bunny from Platoon, anyone?), and they might even become career soldiers. For some it's a necessary chore, and others -like myself- refrain from doing it altogether. None of these options is objectively any better or worse than the others, except of course from the POV of the group in question.
Lance D. Allen:
Manatic,
I didn't overlook that, nor do I necessarily think that the others did. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I stated that it was a perfectly valid way to play. My comment was based on my perception that you assumed that this was the intended way to play. This perception was based on your questions about whether or not you'd still be playing 3:16 properly if you start going into those deeper themes. If it seemed that I was downing you, believe me, I'm wasn't.
Also, desire for deeper game play isn't limited to us high-falutin' indies. After playing the first session or two of 3:16 with the players I've got now, whose collective experience barely extends beyond D&D, I was approached with the critique that 3:16 wasn't really much of a thinking game. That was around the time I started to turn up the heat. (note that this isn't a criticism of D&D players, just an observation that they're very much non-indie).
The point I'm trying to make is that 3:16 can accommodate various values and assumptions. That includes the assumption that kill-happy machismo is good fun. You can be the sort who watches war movies, and thinks military glorification is awesome. (though why do all these movies have to glorify the officers? How often do you see the hero of the movies being an NCO? Elitists!) You can be, like me, someone who pushes through the cynicism and does his best to keep some level of idealism and belief in what he's doing. You can be someone who thinks our war in Iraq is Imperialism at its worse. I think that 3:16, even with the Orders for each rank, equally adept at handling any of them.
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