Warhammer; Chaos! Order! Molasses!
Frank Tarcikowski:
Quote from: Callan S. on July 20, 2009, 10:42:37 PM
Anyway, in terms of a group who keeps trying to do what the designer wants them to do, I think it'd be good to continue with an actual play account in it's own thread so it gets proper attention (or; you gave a link before - should I read through that in relation to this?). I think that'd really help answer why they don't start envisioning something they are attached to.
Well, I'm happy with closing the case here. The thread I linked above is not about this particular phenomenon. Maybe I'll feel in the mood to defend my case with a new thread another day, but right now I really don't.
- Frank
Callan S.:
Fair enough, it's there for potential latter discussion. Though I don't know about the word 'defend' - defend connotates trying to preserve something regardless, rather than scrutinising whether you want to preserve it.
Hi Jasper,
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You might end up with a stale compromise that doesn't actually accomodate Dan at all.
I'll nod to that, but I'm thinking its worse than that (with your statement, one could try again and again until one does accomidate - which I think I have tried). If the other person doesn't recognise that you've made a compromise, have you made one at all? It's a bit like the old tree falls in a forest but no one is there to hear it; does it make a sound? If you make a compromise and no one recognises it, have you made a compromise? And yet the design is definately compromised.
I suggested a game of rifts some time in future, but only doing a fraction of the char gen at the start so we can get into play. Nah nah, they wanted to fully make out characters - spend a session just making characters, even. I think likewise, I'm going to make the following session a 'make up how we play' session rather than actually play. They'll probably say 'Oh, however you want' - but I didn't want to make up full characters, but nah, we had to. What else do I want to do, but can't? Let's get into that, rather than me being told I can do anything, but then finding otherwise via body language. Finding out like that makes it like creeping across a minefield. I just want to know the procedure - I don't want us all to kind of 'find' a procedure mid play - it's not fun anymore, it just gets in the way of actually going to places (places that were glimpsed in previous procedure generation).
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Personally, I can't imagine me succesfully creating a game if it wasn't aimed squarely at myself.
Yeah, but doesn't that strike you as self conflicting? I'll expand it...
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Personally, I can't imagine me succesfully creating an activity aimed at including other people and not just me, if it wasn't aimed squarely at myself.
How do you meld these ideas together?
Jasper Flick:
Whether the tree makes a sound depends on how you define "making a sound". When this example surfaces it warns us that we are getting lost in semantics.
So! What's a compromise, to me? You have two extremes and you settle on something in between. Both sides make concessions. I don't care whether that's done consciously or not, as long as people believe they're being reasonable themselves. I consider the possible range of outcomes inclusive, that is, the extremes are valid results themselves. That means I include a 0-100 concession ratio as a valid compromise, semantically.
Now practially, any concession that's greatly lopsided means trouble, whether it's 30-70, 20-80, or 0-100. We agree on that.
The trouble is improving that ratio. First, if it's not conscious then you'll have to make it so for all parties involved, otherwise you can't talk about it. Second, it's a hard sell, because the dominant side suddenly has to yield some of what it previously considered a perfectly fair share.
But you need not be accomodating. It can be really refreshing and enlightening to say "My way or not at all!" and jump out of a local optimum. The thing is, you must be willing to face the consequences. You must be willing to accept a "No". If people go along with you, they do so willingly and how it works out will teach you lots of things. Getting a "No" in response to a specific offer will teach you lots of things too.
The trouble is that once you've started compromising on a deal, there's no way back. If you want to offer a fixed deal it must be a completely new one.
So you could pitch something like, I dunno, "D&D with premade throwaway characters, no character-building session, I'm gonna do my best to kill ya". Then if they say no to that, well, then that's just not their thing.
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Personally, I can't imagine me succesfully creating an activity aimed at including other people and not just me, if it wasn't aimed squarely at myself.
It only looks conflicting to me if you don't put bounds on "other people", which is madness. It reeks of the Geek Social Fallacies #1 (Ostracizers Are Evil) and #5 (Friends Do Everything Together).
The thing is, I cannot possibly become passionate in a productive way about something I don't like. If I'm not passionate, whatever I create is mediocre at best, and thus a waste of my time. So if I want to create a great game, it has to be something I'm passionate about, something I'd love to play myself. This automatically puts bounds on my target audience. People that are not compatible with me probably won't like the game much. I wouldn't want to play the game with them. I would advise them to go play another game, with other people.
Callan S.:
The tree falling example only goes wrong if you ask for an answer in a general sense. If you just ask Jim Bob what he thinks and he says it's silent, then in his particular peception it's silent. It's that easy. That's what I'm refering to here - in Daniels and Matts perception, am I not appearing to compromise at all? Thus it's a waste of time felling the tree, so to speak?
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It only looks conflicting to me if you don't put bounds on "other people", which is madness. It reeks of the Geek Social Fallacies #1 (Ostracizers Are Evil) and #5 (Friends Do Everything Together).
What do you mean 'bounds'? It's aimed at you - those other people would have to be you, in order for it to be aimed at them. While you get one reek, I get a reek of narcissism? I'm not saying that in a 'you bad' way - it may very well somehow fit. But is this how most RPG designers, design? I'm asking because that would mean I've been very much mistaken what fundimental principles of design people were operating from here on the forge and in general (and I'm not saying 'very much mistaken' in the BS internet way to imply my way is right - I really mean I may have been very much mistaken for a long time)?
I mean, I think I have bounds as in; this is aimed at Daniel and/or Matt and/or Chris - not some hobo down the street. Not some nag on RPG.net. I have some bounds - but it cannot be aimed at me, soley, without adding the bound that they have to be me, for this game to aimed at them.
I have recently idled the idea that designing may, to make anything at all, involve leadership and leading others somewhere (leaving the idea of 'somewhere' vague for the moment). Just saying that to try and figure a way of what your saying, working somehow that I can grasp (not just trying to tear down ideas - looking to tear down what needs to be torn down, but also looking for what might have been strong amongst everything else)
Another, very blue sky theory of mine is that when you say it's aimed at you, what's happened is that you've essentially absorbed your groups ways so much it IS you to play something that fits them. That's a very blue sky theory and is probably best ignored. Again just saying it so as to try and grasp.
Jasper Flick:
There's only one way to know how you appear to Dan and Matt: ask them honestly.
Defining bounds is not narcissism, it's knowing what you're good at, and focusing on that. It's striving for quality. If I decline to work for a client, it's not because I think I'm too good for it, it's because I think it's not a good fit. The client would be better served by someone else, and I would be more useful to someone else as well.
Suppose I'm asked to create a game specifically for Dan and Matt. The first thing I'll do is try to figure out what kind of people they are, what they like. I'll determine if there is enough of a match between us so that I can declare them compatible with me. Of course, they also have to be compatible with themselves. In short, I'll determine whether they're within my bounds. If I'm confident it's a positive match, them we're on. If not, then I have two options:
A) Try it anyway, and perhaps, through much unfun toiling, end up with something mediocre that they could play, but it won't really shine. In other words, it'll be not fun for me to create and it probably won't add significant value for Dan and Matt.
B) Gracefully decline and do something more fun and more productive, while generating more value.
Why would I ever pick option A? Even if offered an exorbitant amount of money I rather do something else. Doing it for free is absolutely out of the question.
(By the way, I've seen a lot of miserable and unproductive people, and it's mostly because they're unaware of option B, and in the worst case fervently deny it as a valid option.)
You could consider RPG design to be like leadership, as you're leading the people at the table through some kind of game experience. But you only lead by consensus. If your leadership is not approved, you will be deposed, either by corruption of your command (drift) or by replacing you with another leader (play another game).
It's sheer hubris to think you could lead everyone. It could be like the cultural clash when you'd let a German monarch lead an African tribe. That's a fine example of picking the wrong man for the job. Now if you're aware that you're a German monarch, and you also know that there are African tribes, then you can take precaution so this mismatch won't occur. If you could clearly articulate what kind of leader you are, then the tribe won't pick you by mistake.
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Another, very blue sky theory of mine is that when you say it's aimed at you, what's happened is that you've essentially absorbed your groups ways so much it IS you to play something that fits them. That's a very blue sky theory and is probably best ignored. Again just saying it so as to try and grasp.
Do you mean the situation where someone basically assumes a group's common indentity as his own? I think that could happen if your gaming experience is very isolated, when you only every play with one fixed group all your life. If the group's play is functional, I guess that would be great, because everyone in the group is totally on the same page. Not much fun if it's a nonfunctional mess though, then your own identity is a mess as well. In either case, when you do step out into the wide world, it's gonna mean trouble.
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