[Dead of Night] Better without the fangs
JoyWriter:
Some of the things I picked up in terms of creepyness were the dehumanisation of professionalism (sort of acting like "the foreigner" in terms of making his behaviour alien) and the subtle of collapse of independence without a growth of trust.
I.E. this incomprehensible guy is misusing the position we've given him and we can't quite find a way out of it.
Now that doesn't quite sync up for me with a chase, nor with some kind of mundane vampirism: The creepy thing about the alien abduction of cattle as opposed to some "beast" doing it is that there's a sort of non-biological cruelty there, it's not linked to straightforward stuff like sustenance or resources, but curiosity.
Who knows, maybe the difference I notice there actually helped, shifted people off their normal expectations, but I wonder whether it would have been possible to make it seem more "unnecessary", or make more of their adversity legal or procedural, so some polite but tired hospital attendant gently takes them back into the lab, having dealt with "crazy sleep deprived people" before, and the doctor thanks him for his help, with a dodgy look in his eye.
Basically pulling back on the classic horror staple "people start running, weapons are improvised, and it all goes bloody" and meaning that if any actual killing is going to happen, the players will be the ones starting it.
Phoo, pretty nasty, even if it is impersonal; because it draws part of it's horror from the impersonal nature.
Callan S.:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on November 09, 2009, 01:43:25 PM
The problem with your questions is that I don't especially agree with your premise in either case. First, I do not think that raw procedure is wholly obliged to produce the experience one is seeking. That's like saying a musical instrument does all the work of making the music.
I don't think I said what your disagreeing with? I was asking are you kicking yourself for not meeting the experience you were seeking, or are you kicking yourself for not playing the game right?
If you play baa baa black sheep on a guitar, it's correct and valid use of the guitar and it's procedures, even if what you wanted to do was rock out some nirvana and shit. What you did looks like correct use of the instrument.
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One may certainly reflect on one's performance with a musical instrument in a particular moment in a way which lays no ultimate responsibility upon the instrument's physical design.
In that moment, perhaps, but it's after that moment now? We could now link the two together. Don't have to of course.
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Second, the point I talked about with Andrew did not emerge in that conversation as instructions from him to me. I raised the issue myself to see what he thought. Your master-apprentice model doesn't apply to that conversation.
I don't understand - in my experience, teachers rarely try and find students. Usually the other way around. And I dunno, I just read it that the conversation was along the lines of how the game is properly played, rather than just discussing how he played it just out of interest and you might take that on board in part or whole or chuck it out the window. Again it was just along the lines of asking are you kicking yourself for not meeting the experience you were seeking, or are you kicking yourself for not playing the game right?
Ron Edwards:
Hi Callan,
If I understand your question correctly, and I might not, then my concern is not playing the game as well as I would have liked. I don't think we played it poorly. Nor do I think we "played it wrong," but that phrase is so problematic and loaded that I think it impedes the discussion.
I hope that answers your question.
Hi Josh,
That's a good point. I think the big deal for me is that I see hospital culture and the doctor mystique as having that impersonal horrific quality in reality, and so simply "monsterizing" it felt quite fitted at the time. I think that I might have done a bit better to personalize the direct threat in some way, but the tricky part is to keep the personalization from softening the fear rather than accentuating it. Perhaps, to use your cow example, the aliens have only just decided to upgrade from cows to people, and your character is the first one they've got. That kind of context doesn't illuminate or humanize the aliens, but it does "make it personal" in the context of decisions the aliens are making. That's what I think might have brought enough power to the scenario to rev up the fear-factor.
Your point about the hospital attendant is nicely confirmed by one of my NPCs, who played that exact role during play. In fact, I bet threatening him would have been a good move on my part, because the players liked him so much.
Best, Ron
andrew_kenrick:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on November 02, 2009, 01:01:11 PM
The game does not enter a wrap-up stage until Tension hits 15. Therefore, at one point, the two player-characters had apparently escaped from the sinister sleep-lab in the ever-increasingly creepy hospital, and if it had been up to "GM feels like it," then I might have ended the session there. But no, Tension was only 10 (I think). We had to play more.
Did this work for you Ron? Did you begrudge the rules for forcing you to play on when you thought you'd finish, or did it encourage you to push the horror up a notch?
Quote from: Ron Edwards on November 02, 2009, 01:01:11 PM
The rules also displayed an interesting outcome I hadn't seen before: what happens to characters whose points are maxed toward Escape and Protection. It's reeeeeally hard to hurt such characters with monster Assault!
One of the few rules alts I'm making for the 2nd ed is a change to how you lose survival points from checks. There's now something called a "Risky" check - any check can be risky, and if it is the loser loses a survival point. So in most circumstances combat is risky, but in certain circumstances Escape checks might be (if the capture of the escapee leads to a diminishing of their chances of survival), as might Identify checks (dabbling into dark tomes or finding something that helps you defeat a demon). What counts as risky is left to the GM, although when prepping Tension circumstances I suggest the GM considers what sort of checks might be risky.
As a side note on Tension, I've been posting my thoughts on how you might tweak Tension to use DoN for different games here.
Callan S.:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on November 18, 2009, 07:19:45 AM
Hi Callan,
If I understand your question correctly, and I might not, then my concern is not playing the game as well as I would have liked. I don't think we played it poorly. Nor do I think we "played it wrong," but that phrase is so problematic and loaded that I think it impedes the discussion.
I hope that answers your question.
Thanks. And you can see what I'm getting at, even if it doesn't happen to apply here - if someone plays baa baa black sheep on a guitar I don't think that's them not playing the guitar as well as they would have liked? Or atleast it doesn't seem a productive perspective.
Also I'll stretch the music analogy in how many musicians, even the one guy, often record one instrument playing, then...dunno the right word...play it's recording and overlap it with another instrument they are playing themselves. So sure, the instrument doesn't do all the work for you, but at the same time that doesn't mean the only music playing has to be only the stuff your making then and there. Me looking at what procedure provides is looking for that first recording, which is kind of like back up vocals and...now the analogies have put you to sleep, I'll just grab your wallet and run!
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