[Spione] Pronounced "kah-guh-beh"
Simon_Pettersson:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on September 14, 2009, 06:22:16 AM
Let me know if that answers your question.
It does. Thank you.
Callan S.:
Hi Ron,
I'm sort of coming at that from having always, as far as I know, having the priority of rules first. And I'd always assumed everyone else was as well - which may sound silly, but everyone lugged thick rule books around and made much ado about rolling dice and adding up modifiers. A trace through my own history of posts here would probably show that assumption when posting responces to various people and the disjunct in conversation it causes when talking to people who actually have a fiction first priority. I had a suspicion after...years, I guess (yeah yeah, took that long) then slowly forming into a hypothesis on rules first/fiction first that I've finally had some opportunity here for some peer evaluation and confirmation, thanks for that!
JoyWriter:
I notice that the principle system and the way people add stuff seem to avoid an assumption otherwise quite common in other games; that each player gets "spotlight" or time devoted to making them centre stage, vicariously via some character. The turn structure seems to give people a chance to contribute, but doesn't require big things from them. I'm guessing then that the game is designed to smooth people in to that place of contributing more substantially, rather than forcing it in some way. Are there any mechanisms within the game to do this? Or does it require experienced rpg'ers/improvisers to really get going? (Actually I suppose to some extent this is the question you were asking your players!)
Also, how do conversations and back and forth work with your turn structure? Is the normal rotation suspended?
Ron Edwards:
JW, you wrote,
Quote
I'm guessing then that the game is designed to smooth people in to that place of contributing more substantially, rather than forcing it in some way. Are there any mechanisms within the game to do this? Or does it require experienced rpg'ers/improvisers to really get going?
Your guess is correct, and it's explicit in the rules text as a design goal. I was concerned with getting the actual imaginative medium under way among the people playing, as a stable and reliable experience, and allowing back-story, characterization, forward-moving events, and atmosphere to be contributed in piecemeal fashion. It's hard to describe that piecemeal process because usually any one of those is established in substantive, powerful form out of already-existing, already-contributed smaller components. And when those smaller components were originally introduced, no one knew how they would be used later. Someone typically seizes upon what's already "floating" and says "a-ha, of course so-and-so is the one who finked on so-and-so," and what had not been introduced as evidence of that becomes, obviously, evidence of that.
To see that happen reliably without it having to be forced or pre-planned is quite remarkable and fun. Often a person who didn't feel very "important" in the group, at the outset, is the person who gets inspired by the floating components to move the story ahead in a way that grabs everyone. The key point is never, never to force it or to feel as if you have to be the one to do it. I'm happy to report that the textual components of play, the player-contributed components (e.g. the Trespass, and others), and the emergent components of play (what you get to make up as you go) are well-tuned through playtesting to interact in this way. People move things forward only when their own creative and engaged attention sparks.
Regarding conversations, the best way to understand it is to see dialogue as a local, specific example of those very phenomena (back-story, characterization, forward-moving events, and atmosphere) which the rules already permit, even dictate, to be contributed in small chunks. But I guess it's also important to know that in Spione, you don't really "play characters" in the ordinary role-playing sense. Only one person is the primary speaker on his or her own turn, and play-events proceed based on what that person says, including what all the characters are doing as well as both sides of a dialogue. Two things modify that (and make it un-boring): (i) table-talk is encouraged, and (ii) the player of a principal does have veto power over what someone else says that character does or says. And of course, each turn doesn't consist of a lot of information, so it's not like anyone sits there and talks to himself or herself for any length of time.
I should also point out play consists of both Maneuvers (the bulk of play) and Flashpoint, and that all of the above explanation applies to Maneuvers, with Flashpoints being a little different.
Your final question in the quoted part above is a big deal: as I expected, experienced role-players actually have the toughest time adjusting to Spione play. It works best for people who are willing to commit more to being into the fiction as the game encourages it being made, rather than people who are dead-set on "role-playing as they know it." And I've found over the years that the more a person self-identifies as "an experienced gamer," the more hidebound he or she is on what role-playing is, and how it must be done. So Spione does best with people who are either not particularly familiar with role-playing at all, or if they are, still being a priori willing to start this activity from scratch.
Best, Ron
JoyWriter:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on September 17, 2009, 10:46:51 AM
And when those smaller components were originally introduced, no one knew how they would be used later. Someone typically seizes upon what's already "floating" and says "a-ha, of course so-and-so is the one who finked on so-and-so," and what had not been introduced as evidence of that becomes, obviously, evidence of that.
Have you got some nice way of reminding people of details like that?
I ask because I have observed that one of the ways of encouraging creativity is to allow people to look at all their ideas sitting there at once, like someone looking at the components of a watch before they assemble it, or a bird searching through rubbish. Either they want to combine things together, or jump on that element that can provide what they really want right now. In a more fiction-orientated fashion, I'm talking about the person who ties up a load of loose ends in a really elegant way, or the person who takes a minuscule part of the past that everyone has ignored and uses it to spin everything on it's head. I wonder how much of both of these processes depend on being able to look back over what has been created, and on the "selection space" expansion that a recording system can provide.
Quote from: Ron Edwards on September 17, 2009, 10:46:51 AM
Only one person is the primary speaker on his or her own turn, and play-events proceed based on what that person says, including what all the characters are doing as well as both sides of a dialogue. Two things modify that (and make it un-boring): (i) table-talk is encouraged, and (ii) the player of a principal does have veto power over what someone else says that character does or says. And of course, each turn doesn't consist of a lot of information, so it's not like anyone sits there and talks to himself or herself for any length of time.
Wow, ever had any retcon battles between non-principle players? Or does mutually assured destruction stay their hand? ;)
The psychologist Ross Ashby said that the programmed computer is more flexible than the trained mind. Presumably because training can stick around even when you don't want it to!
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