[Liquid] Well, I just rolled the dice for show
Frank Tarcikowski:
Hey all,
I donīt have access to a computer regularly right now, so I canīt contribute as much as Iīd like, but please keep it coming.
Callan, I get your point about what works "perfectly well". How about "allows play to continue" without investing in the SIS? As an aside, I know a bunch of people who really seem to not mind if the details of the SIS are totally blurry, as long as there are conflicts and decisive moments and punchy one liners. The way they play has been characterized as "story workshopping" in previous discussions.
Vicent, I agree with you, but I think using Dogs as an example may be misleading because the dynamics of a Dogs conflict are quite unique.
Paul, you summed it up perfectly, as usual.
Iīll be back on Sunday.
- Frank
Callan S.:
Basically, by "allows play to continue" you mean you can still follow the rules procedures without investing in the SIS?
It's an interesting distinction and I thought it worth noting. Not sure what name you might give to 'allows play to continue' and 'what the next options are are unknown if there is no invested in SIS'.
lumpley:
Frank: I'm seeing that! I'll try again, no Dogs.
Quote from: Callan S. on February 17, 2009, 02:14:01 PM
I can just never see it when people say 'The SIS/the details of the imagined space determines the value of X'. I can only ever see the matrix of player decision points beneath the veneer of the 'SIS determines X!', or I can see how someone is denying me the information that shows that matrix.
Well...
First of all, obviously it's people making decisions. The game's fiction doesn't have any REAL momentum or causative power.
But then, neither do dice. Here, look at these two possible rules:
1. The player rolls 1d6 and adds her character's weapon damage bonus, from her character sheet. That's how much damage she does.
2. The player rolls 1d6 and adds her character's weapon damage bonus, from her character sheet. Furthermore, if her character's been in the presence of the King Wolf within the past 24 fictional hours, she adds 2. That's how much damage she does.
The number on the die, the number on the character sheet, the character's in-fiction position and history: they're all equally available to the rules, all equally available as a basis for the players' decision-making.
To bring it back to Frank's comment:
Quote from: Frank Tarcikowski on February 13, 2009, 08:39:08 AM
In my experience, if you have a game system that works perfectly well without investing much in the SIS, people may tend to rush the story and their imagination of the actual in-game situation gets rather blurry.
In games without any rules of the #2 sort, without rules that depend distinctly upon details of the character's in-fiction position and history, play can collapse into a mechanics-only, rushed, blurry, play-in-summary mode.
-Vincent
Callan S.:
Yes, but who decides if they have been in the presence of the wolf king? Where does the buck stop? Who has the final say? No wonder you need/have to be invested in an imagined space to keep playing, because there is no printed rules procedure to follow (in your example) if there is dispute about the imagined space. It's like needing to stay on a tight rope because there is no safety net. That's a very compelling rule reason to stay on the rope (or as you say, you must be invested in the SIS). The imagined space must be harmonised amongst all participants. Otherwise play immediately grinds to a halt, in terms of printed rule procedure following - there is nowhere to go upon dispute, the buck stops at no one. It's harmony or die.
I'm contrasting and comparing this against rule sets that 'allows play to continue'. Which, if you'll forgive further analogy use (I can hear Ron snoring in the background) are rules that have a net your allowed to fall in (allowed to just collapse into pure number crunching), but just clamber up the little ladder and be back on the rope in no time (ie, try to again start working the numbers in reference to a fiction, rather than pure working the numbers, asap).
Quote
In games without any rules of the #2 sort, without rules that depend distinctly upon details of the character's in-fiction position and history, play can collapse into a mechanics-only, rushed, blurry, play-in-summary mode.
I can't help but think that play doesn't just collapse like that, but instead those participants just don't care about a highly invested in imagined space. They may have invested in the other ruleset, but that was at risk of fucking the harmony up and having everyone fall of the highwire when there is no net.
lumpley:
Quote from: Callan S. on February 20, 2009, 03:13:17 PM
Yes, but who decides if they have been in the presence of the wolf king?
I don't understand. I mean - if it happened in play, nobody has to decide it. It happened, same as looking down at the 6 showing on the die. Or, to put it another way, the group decided, back when it happened, in play; nobody has to decide it anew.
Or if it definitely didn't happen, same thing.
If it didn't happen in play, but might have happened anyway, then you just write your rules to account for that case. For instance: only things that happen in play count, mechanically. Or: the GM decides based on what she considers most likely. Or: the player in question decides, because we should give her the benefit of the doubt. Or: the group votes. It's not hard, there are a zillion possible solutions, it's just a matter of deciding which suits your game.
Frank, I may be kind of haring off after Callan here in your thread. On-topic check me?
-Vincent
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