Warhammer; Chaos! Order! Molasses!
JoyWriter:
Quote from: Frank Tarcikowski on July 16, 2009, 02:36:22 AM
It’s a bit like those guidebooks for sex: They cannot promote the one way to do it, they can only help you along in finding out what works for you, at the time, with the partner(s) you have. And next time you’ll have to figure out a new way to do it that fits the time and the partner(s) you have then. Plus, there are a lot of different functional ways to do it, pick yours for today. It’s only problematic if you pick kinky and your partner picked nice and slow. Also, some of those guidebooks have been invaluable to some couples, while other couples may have found the same guidebook entirely useless. All of this transfers very well to role-playing, and role-playing guidebooks.
This is so true it's funny! The rules text in a book acts like an inheritance thing between your end and their's:
On one side there is your experience of play and the systems you use to get there (by analogy your good sex).
On the other there are all the other experiences you want people to have (their own good sex).
Because this is a personal thing, you have to make your own experience a prototype, and (in a programming analogy) use the rules text as a form of inheritance, allowing people to create similar but different experiences. Your experience is acting as a similar but different centre, to a whole tree of different experiences.
In dealing with that difference, you either have to leave parts unknown, or make them options for people to pick, otherwise it is not acting as a flexible enough bridge to reproduce an experience that is as personal to them as it is to you, unless they are already ridiculously similar to you.
Now in commenting on that I don't want to obscure the question/points you made, about hallucination and gameplay vision, so I'll just leave this line here as a reminder to look back.
Callan S.:
Thank you for that, Frank.
The thing I get from it is that a group finding or inventing their own way, is just working with numbers anyway. If, in the heat of play, they decide the fire mage can't use his spells while it's raining - it's still just numbers. IF raining = 1 THEN firespell_control = 0.
There may be this afterglow of having taken the imaginary ideas and made system, but once it's system, it's cold, hard numbers. Either that, or as I see it, no system/agreement was actually made and people are just humouring the idea it was for moment to moment gain (the gain may even be 'Everyone doesn't leave the table'). I seem to be getting into that on Vincents blog - I have certain standards about what is and isn't an agreement. Now that's just me, obviously, but it means where some people (like Vincent) call it agreement/lumpley principle, I see people just humouring the idea they have agreed and there is no agreement/lumpley principle. I'm pretty sure I've had this conversation with Guy Shalev, in terms of standards and what is a game and what are people simply sitting around a table.
So it either boils down to numbers, or it's nothing I'd call an agreement (does that prove anything in a global sense? I don't know. But in such a case I don't see agreement rather like the little boy who didn't see clothes on the emporer).
In responce to that situation, taking it as existing, I give this (simplistic) case for exact instructions: If the fire mage player has the mechanical option of not using his fire powers AND he sees some sort of truth (a vision, mayhap?) in someone elses narration of rain blocking out fire spells, he can support that truth by just taking the option in the rules of not using his powers. NO NEW RULES ARE MADE UP! No new system is made up! This is supporting the vision with what you already have and it doesn't turn into hard numbers as system creation does. It rests on peoples choices - a thing which truely captures the wierd, magical unknown of imagined worlds, since peoples choices are neither number, nor are they raw meaningless chaos. Peoples choices are some magical inbetween, if I may get sappy for a moment. Peoples choices are the stuff dreams are made of. Endless system creation is not - once it's cooled on the baking tray, it's just a bunch of numbers.
With my hundred random rules example, I see a group who 'gets it' as wasting their own time with a half arsed product (zero arsed, actually - I designed it to be a complete write off). That's system mattering, to me. Them, sitting around and working out system according to some vision isn't anything more than writing out more and more cold numbers. And yet it's the only thing traditional games, the ones everyone were exposed to in their youth, supplied. So it's become synonymous with the idea of roleplay, when it's just a half echo of a greater idea. That or maybe I have some other idea entirely that isn't representative of what those traditional games tried to get at, at all.
I'll just repeat, in case a "That's what I was talking about!" comes up when it wasn't - that person with the fire mage - he gets a real choice. There's no little, unspoken, tension at the table where if he uses the spells after narration of rain, he'll get tense, perhaps nasty looks from other players, or whatever. That's just more, cold, hard playing with numbers, but because it's unspoken they are pretending it's not numbers play. I think from teenage years we all have a cringe that if you really let someone have a choice, they'll fuck it all up. Here in my example, it's a real choice - which means it isn't system making/were not working out how to get 'there' in terms of system anymore - we already are there and he's making a choice that's inside of a pre-existing system.
I can think of about half a dozen ways that could, by some chance, be useless as a responce. Another stumble in a dark room for me, waiting to crack my shins on something (which seems to be the only way to find things!).
Hi Jasper,
Yeah, but you have to remember, this is Daniel's baby, not mine. He initiated this game. Now I'm not saying that just to protect him, but myself as well. My own internal code is that if I can push around his game, well then why can't he push around any game I initiate? As much as this isn't my cup of tea, I'm not interested in being forced to compromise anything I make because I made him compromise what he made. So I don't - thought to a degree I think by asking for faster, I would be being somewhat pushy.
My first post is framed not in terms of how to fix his game, but I'm trying to grok what he gets out of it, then see if I can surgically remove that from the molasses and put it into a game I make up. Because I would like to add something that he likes, into such a thing.
But I'll totally grant in the smaller picture, while was there, I'm like "This really seems to be dragging out!". But that's already happened and the solution to that is pretty clear - don't play if I don't like it. So I'm looking at the bigger picture.
Jasper Flick:
All right, I didn't pick up on your focus on Dan, I looked at you.
Interesting, so you sit in on his game and he should do the same with yours? And you want to accommodate him, even though he doesn't really accommodate you. Or is this hypothetical?
What does he get out of it his game? Well, it's his game, his suburbs, his routine. But does he really enjoy it, or does he just go through the motions? Does he look to broaden his scope, even just little things in his own game, or is he conservative like hell?
And so far it's been Dan the GM, but how is Dan the player? In your game, is he gonna GM or is he gonna play? Would he actually like to play in his own game?
Callan S.:
Quote from: Jasper Flick on July 18, 2009, 02:15:53 AM
All right, I didn't pick up on your focus on Dan, I looked at you.
Interesting, so you sit in on his game and he should do the same with yours?
There's no 'should'? Well, I suppose after playing in his game I'd like him to seriously consider any invitation I offer, but I don't expect that he should, in turn, play in mine. I play in his games so as to try and support what he's getting at and yeah, because of shared history as well. If I didn't want to support him, I wouldn't. Mind you, I'm not sure he's considered the idea of a supportive approach himself. Not that, normally, a game should need it (in terms of procedure), IMO.
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And you want to accommodate him, even though he doesn't really accommodate you. Or is this hypothetical?
Hard question? Isn't all roleplay design/session design accomidating someone - even if it's just the vague generic notion of someone else? Here it's just more specific? Whether that other person would accomidate you is kind of moot? Either you accomidate them to some degree, or atleast some generic person, or don't bother trying to make an RPG?
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What does he get out of it his game? Well, it's his game, his suburbs, his routine. But does he really enjoy it, or does he just go through the motions? Does he look to broaden his scope, even just little things in his own game, or is he conservative like hell?
And so far it's been Dan the GM, but how is Dan the player? In your game, is he gonna GM or is he gonna play? Would he actually like to play in his own game?
Well, that'd be a really interesting question - what would he have done in the game, had he been playing? And if I ran a game he'd be playing, but I hadn't considered prepping/making something, then he runs it - never thought of that. I'll chew on that.
In terms of broadening his scope - you know, I've thought about your question and I have no damn idea what he might have thought about it all in advance of doing it - I'm scratching my head? Most of this game and it's prior session were made up as he went along, he said to us at the end. I think, like any of us might feel like a beer, he sometimes feels like roleplaying - he just goes and gets one from the fridge, so to speak.
Frank Tarcikowski:
Callan, that's good strong talk. Personally, I think the re-definition of "System" via the Lumpley Principle has caused some pitfalls here. I have a lot of sympathy for your point about what is or isn't an agreement.
However, your remark about the "game of numbers" makes me sort of uneasy. What I'm talking about is emotional investment into fictional content as a driving force of play, as opposed to mechical rewards. I'm not quite sure what you are talking about.
- Frank
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