Using D&D 4e as a GNS Litmus Test
Callan S.:
Quote from: Ayyavazi on August 31, 2009, 05:15:48 AM
Callan, I have asked him about pursuing all three agendas and given him a brief explanation of each. He is interested.
That's good!
Quote
Now, for a general question, Which agenda is being pursued in the actual play example above?
Well, that kind of assums any of the agendas has been played. I can't actually detect anything from the play account. I'll give the old disclaimer in saying that - I wasn't there at the gaming table. But if your asking in terms of me reading the account, I can't really detect any agenda showing up - none of the material or emotional tells in relation to material seem to indicate any agenda.
Eero Tuovinen:
On first sight I agree with Callan. The AP is really long and detailed, so I might have missed something, but to me it seems like you're mostly figuring out your mutual creative responsibilities in the game at this point, with little Creative Agenda actually being exercised.
That being said, to me it seems like your friend C is interested in co-authorship, which you're encouraging with your no-myth GMing. I assume that once you work out exactly who is driving and what, you'll start seeing what this authorship is for. If I had to bet, I'd go for narrativism or some sort of narrowly cordoned genre sim, but at this point it could go either way. The way you use the system discourages gamism, or at least it seems that way to me: D&D gamism is about neutral arbitration in the face of mortal threat (to characters, that is); a soft and input-taking GMing technique runs counter to that, so if you're going to get gamism, it's not going to be the normal sort of D&D gamism.
Jasper Flick:
And there's the rub. Eero may well be right, and you're squarely in the figure-it-out phase. That'll pay off when you got through that and have settled on the CA you both want, whichever that turns out to be (RtD or SN). Now if you eat CA for breakfast, there isn't much figuring out to do and you might be able to run full steam from the start, but that isn't the case here, you're both searching, creating a game as you go.
Now what you say you're gunning for is basically that as soon as you've found your CA, you'll forcefully enter another period of seaching for another CA. It might well be that if you really get that CA running, you'll want to stick with it in this game. Because it's so much better that wandering around. You'll want to just play this game.
If you won't get that experience, you're probably not reaching a solid CA at all, changing direction before you reach one. You'll be stuck in the searching phase without getting true payoff. Oh it might be entertaining, but it won't accomplish what you set out to do.
Ayyavazi:
Thanks for the input guys. I think you are right, we are still tinkering around and figuring out where the boundaries are. Once that is done and we have some sort of "canon" for how things work, we'll probably be working toward either RTD or SN. The one instance where I wanted to inject some real consequence (when I asked him what he wanted to happen with the corpse of the zombie) he asked for a fight rather than to enjoy seeing a plague rampage through the small village. That could have been because he perceived "spreading plague" as losing, or just that he didn't want to deal with it just yet. We'll have to see. But if he thinks that there will never be any negative consequences for anything he does, he's in for a surprise.
Either way, if we do hit some kind of agenda and enjoy it immensely, then we probably will stick with it. One thing I thought of doing after he solves the plague problem was to play Dogs in the Vineyard with his character and Heskan. They could go to neighboring villages (that already worship Melora) and set things straight. It would take a little tinkering with the system (or maybe not, considering how loose descriptions can be for traits and such), but it might be tons of fun.
I'll keep you all posted on how this goes. Another game should be coming this friday, and I'll post about it as soon as I can.
Cheers,
--Norm
Callan S.:
See, at this stage I think it's more productive to consider yourselves co designers of the game, fabricating it during play, rather than just simply playing something.
As a co designer you can't just push consequences, because the other guy is your peer - you have no genuine rank over him. He may decide to slip into a more player like role to see what your consequences are like from that perspective. As you fabricate the game you might pretend one person has rank over the other in terms of play, but you don't really. I'd really recommend thinking of everyone as a co designer, and after that they may be taking on the role of a player to see what it's like. And your taking on the role of GM, rather than actually GM'ing. Until you get that game that Jasper mentioned.
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