[A Penny For My Thoughts] Audience Investment and Distributed Fictional Entities
GreatWolf:
Quote from: Christopher Kubasik on July 14, 2009, 01:04:33 PM
Let's examine: The protagonists have no backstory, no context, no relationships already baked in. ALL of that will be added through the creation of the story. It's not like many stories with these stuff is added through the TELLING of story -- "Oh, he has a girlfriend," we find out three minutes after the movie started. No. In this game this character has NO CONTEXT at all until it is added.
The protagonist has no agenda. I mean, nothing. Even in a movie where the problems don't become clear till later there is something going on. I usually use the movie ALIEN to illustrate this. Everyone says, "Nothing happens till the middle." But this is not true. The crew of the ship is on their way home -- and want to get home -- and this is true even before the credits have and made clear to the audience in the first seconds of the movie. But in PENNY there is not context at all. So the there is nothing to push against or toward as a pseudo-GM or pseudo-player of the PC. (Or however we want to phrase this.) I was somewhat at sea about what the heck to focus on.
I don't think that this is quite fair. After all, we do know at least one thing about each protagonist: they each lost their memory because of a traumatic experience. The conceit (mostly unstated) of the game is that the roots of that tragedy can be seen in the memories that lead up to the final trauma. So there's that to work with, at least.
Christopher Kubasik:
Seth, good point, but before I continue I really want to make sure this doesn't become a attack/defend thread.
Okay? Okay. Because I'm not attacking. I'm making an observation. And I feel pretty rock solid about it.
So, when I wrote what I wrote I meant it in the context of -- and I thought clearly -- a character with some sort of agenda, moving forward, toward something. Even a protagonist with a subtle agenda at the beginning of a story has this.
The fact that we know that the NARRATIVE ends up with the loss of memory tells us nothing about who the character was, the circumstances of the character's life before the memory loss, and -- specifically -- any kind of agenda moving the character forward.
Essentially -- and importantly -- the characters (as represented by the players) -- have an agenda in the present to recover their past. But there's no story on that end -- there's no resistance, no drama, no choices. That part is procedure.
My point is that it might be up to the Players to plant a useful agenda for the character as quickly as possible. Or maybe not. With this game, I don't know yet. And this concern might be only a concern for me -- so it might all be moot.
jburneko:
I want to back up something CK said. My ideas about a "three act play" are specifically about what I want out of the game. That's why I really consider my point about the text not really being focused on how to link the memories properly is a "quibble" because it's only necessary for the effect I'm talking about which may not have even been a design consideration.
But CK reminded me of something else.
Paul, how do you view Table Chatter working in this game? Given the very strict division over who can speak when and about what it seems very anti-table chatter. Some of the text suggests even special seating arrangements and lighting leading to a feeling of "trance narrative." By "trance narrative" I mean there is intense focus on the current Traveler who sort of loses himself as much as possible in his story until the critical moment when he asks for guidance. Until that moment the Guides sit quietly absorbing the narrative being spun.
Because of that feeling I was very reluctant to offer suggestions. I could tell CK was lost in his second memory but I knew what direction *I* would have taken it. His first memory was all about the fame he received as child star. His second memory implied that success had continued into his adulthood because he mentioned his "Hollywood bungalow" or something like that. Then he got arrested. BAM! I would have focused on the change over from Famous to Infamous. I would have brought in tabloid reporters and talent agents with dubious agendas and stuff like that.
But I didn't say any of that because it seemed to be over-reaching the tone of the game.
Jesse
Christopher Kubasik:
Quote from: jburneko on July 14, 2009, 01:59:44 PM
Some of the text suggests even special seating arrangements and lighting leading to a feeling of "trance narrative." By "trance narrative" I mean there is intense focus on the current Traveler who sort of loses himself as much as possible in his story until the critical moment when he asks for guidance.
Okay. This is very interesting to me.
When I was heading over for the game I thought, "Hmmmm. I wonder if we're going to be playing the patients who are attempting to recover their memories." That is, adopt personas of the patients in the "present tense" who are working to recover their memories.
As it was, there was little of this. Jesse, we might not have had as much table-chatter as possible, but we had a heck of a lot. Now, part of this was because it was our first time through. It was very much, "Here are Jesse and Laura and Eric and CK talking words to make up stories."
But I'm wondering what the effect on the session would have been if we'd treated it more like a session. If we'd gone over the living room area, sat in the comfier chairs, spoke only "in character."
Paul, I'd love your thoughts on this.
jburneko:
Quote from: Christopher Kubasik on July 14, 2009, 02:09:23 PM
But I'm wondering what the effect on the session would have been if we'd treated it more like a session. If we'd gone over the living room area, sat in the comfier chairs, spoke only "in character."
On MY drive over, I was trying to decide whether I was going to have us going to the living room area and take turns on Eric's couch. I decided against it because it was our first time through and I knew the boat loads of questions that would likely occur would have clashed with that.
And yeah, Paul's thoughts on this would be great.
Jesse
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