[Nicotine Girls] If you want it hard enough, and you try hard enough - and?
C. Edwards:
That's sort of funny, I've climbed some heap big actual mountains. When it comes to metaphorical mountains, feeling the compulsion to climb them often puts me in stubborn mode. An "I'll climb it when I damn well decided for myself that I'm going to climb it" attitude. Jumping off metaphorical cliffs is, as going down always is, much easier. It seems to usually result at being at the bottom of another mountain though. Go figure.
The idea of empathy becoming less effective, diluted, is disturbing. I assume it is partly because reciprocity breaks down to a large degree when dealing with total strangers? With the grocery store example, it's possible to form relationships with at least some of the staff of the store but it's impossible to have a relationship with the corporate entity that runs the store. As an individual, you might as well try and make friends with a bulldozer for all the good it will do you in affecting its course. Basically, the currency of interaction is no longer even close to having equal weight.
I know this is getting away from being directly about Nicotine Girls, but the instigation of these sorts of discussions seems to be a part of the purpose of it and similar games. At least from where I'm standing. If I'm helping things wander into off-topic territory though, just let me know.
greyorm:
I'm not certain Ron and Callan are discussing the same thing when they're talking about "empathy". I say that because I'm reading Callan's dismissal of the idea of empathy's usefulness, and his stated inability to grasp the point of play of NG that apparently ties into that, is "Empathy has no use any longer, so what's the use of playing a game to gain empathy for others?" I may be mistaken in that, so he's free to correct me.
My response to that sort of logic would be the point of developing empathy for a large external group is NOT in producing mutual benefit -- though I completely agree with what Alexander says about its use for deception in the marketplace (of either ideas, such as politics, or business) -- but of allowing personal communities to form when one encounters a member of that group within one's own potential community, so that rather than defaulting to usually mistaken cultural perceptions that include judgment, dismissal, disgust, or even a sort of insulting "paternal concern/caretaker", and so forth denying the ability to form an actual bond in beneficial circumstances, that bond can be created free-and-clear.
Callan S.:
Thanks for the replies, everyone! I would make a comparison though, with the riddle of steels spiritual attributes. The TROS world is a nasty, brutish place and is hardly drawn entirely from fantasy. But at the same time getting more SA dice gives you an incredible advantage and a buffer against the nastyness. It might be compared to climbing a mountain with safety ropes and pitons, while nicotine girls is like climbing bare fingered. I'm not saying it and games like it have to have safety ropes and pitons, I'm just saying that when suggesting playing a game of it to anyone, it probably warrants mentioning the higher level of difficulty of bare finger climbing (if difficulty is anywhere near the right word for it). Probably, anyway.
Paul Czege:
Hey Julie,
A question. Did you ever use an NPC girl to give Smoke advice?
Jeff Zahari says he does when he runs Nicotine Girls. I haven't myself, and I'm not sure what I think about it.
What do you think?
And Joel, you just ran Nicotine Girls at GPNW. Did you use an NPC to give Smoke advice?
Paul
Joel P. Shempert:
Hah, way to call me out, Paul!
I'm actually planning on posting a full AP thread of my own, but I can answer here too.
I had a little bit of that in the game, but not much. there was one scene where two Nicotine Girls were having a Smoke scene at their fast food job. I played an NPC coworker, and it became a group advice session, with me contributing "you could do this, or that" comments. In the end it was the other PC that gave the final advice, though. But i did have some official NPC advice in the climactic Smoke scene: the bitter old lady at the Vocational training center spurring the bright but cynical NG to do everything to get the fuck out of town before she ends up just like her.
Overall, the player characters were more than sufficient to take the initiative with advice. It wasn't that NPC advice was Not How to Do Things (I always got the impression, textually, that it was a real and prominent possibility), more that I just didn't have a lot of strong NPCs that were fit to have Smoke scenes with, and the players were really proactive about it.
Peace,
-Joel
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