[Polaris] Color! (inspired play despite rules gaffe)
David Berg:
Quote from: Abkajud on December 19, 2009, 06:32:28 PM
My takeaway: the Color was a tool through which we made one another's input matter, big time
Just want to see if I understand what you mean by this:
One player contributes some facts or ideas to the fiction (there is a red comet in the sky), and then another player makes this contribution more meaningful by further coloring it (the red comet is made up of moving forms! in fact, they look like knights!).
Or, one player contributes some color to a scene (you see a red comet!) and another player uses that color to generate situation for play (the comet's made of knights that you now have to deal with!).
Or both?
Abkajud:
Ahhh, more the latter than the former.
In the former, you're creating Color together, riffing on one another's ideas.
In the latter, well... I'll just tell you how it happened.
My Star Knight was the Royal Astrologer. I couldn't come up with anything for my Mistaken character pool, so I asked around if the definition of "character" (or whatever term the game uses) was broad enough to include a comet; I was told to go for it!
So - at some point, my Full Moon plays my boss, and she (my boss) informs me that the comet is a sign of good fortune for the People of the Stars. Whoa! Red flag, right? So I question her, she gets mad, and she tells me to go tell the High Priestess what I've discovered, and see what she thinks of it.
I go to the temple, and the Priestess tells me about this red-sword cult... they're Star Knights who have been blessed by the comet and whose time is coming soon. Ack! When I try to alert the duke to this malfeasance, MY sword turns red, and he won't believe me about the comet OR the cult! (this was an Experience roll coming in, I think...)
Does that example help?
David Berg:
Absolutely. Thanks.
I agree that it's immensely satisfying when someone takes one of your inchoate ideas and runs with it, using it to generate a cool situation that captivates the room. I can remember feeling simultaneous pride (that's my comet, y'all!) and gratitude (it's made of knights? nice!) in similar situations.
Another note on Sign in Stranger: a lot of the people I've played with use the "make up words for random selection" phase to be funny or free associate or otherwise enjoy / get through it. But I really prefer to come up with words that I like and find inspiring, so later, when someone else randomly picks my word and improvs something cool off it, I get to feel like I've contributed more.
...Which leads me to another note on Polaris. The resolution options of "But Only If" and "And Furthermore" are used mainly to negotiate how well or poorly events unfold for the protagonist, but I could see a similar system used for color. "Your sword can have glittering runes on it, But Only If the stars momentarily go dark when you study the runes."
Another mechanic worth mentioning here is from Paul T.'s game, Land of Nodd, where players identify elements they like from one scene, and then players get points for introducing that same element in subsequent scenes. So if you introduce something particularly cool, there's a chance that other people will note it and request more of it and do more cool stuff with it.
Abkajud:
I will check out Land of Nodd; thanks!
This thread http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=28829.msg270383#msg270383has a greaaat example of seemingly innocuous or off-beat Color having a huge impact on play!
This got me thinking about your rune-sword example - the glossary definition of Color is a detail that lacks impact on "aspects of action or resolution in the imagined scene", and I can only assume "action" means the course of action being taken, even if that course involves free narration instead of consulting another mechanic.
Basically, your example is totally Color. However, my urge would be to take something juicy like that and make it some kind of Currency - i.e. gee, Sir Knight, your sword makes the stars go dim. Are you a demon?
Argh, I keep thinking that it's almost impossible to have Color without making it a potential plot device; but then again, there are lots of details thrown out there during a game that don't "mean anything", i.e. they aren't meant to be considered from a utilitarian perspective, but only an aesthetic one. I daresay plenty of things that are "useful" manage to remain Color only, if they never get "used" - a roaring fire that's never used to cook anything of consequence will stay Color, but obviously it could become something else, if used that way.
Thus, "pure" Color would transform very quickly into a source of Effectiveness in the hands of hard-core Gamism (for its tactical applications), but also in the hands of robust Narrativism, too (as a plot device). This dovetails into that old chestnut about N and G being kissing cousins, fraternal twins, whatever analogy you wanna use ^_^ in that they both support more of a meta-game, what-can-I-do-with-this mindset.
Color is Exploration but not a part of Currency or Effectiveness; and "being there", pure Exploration, is not what G and N are about - players with a yen for Story Now and Stepping Up share what a traditional RPGer might call "an agenda". In the various White Wolf games I've been in, play tends to focus on showcasing the features of the published setting, and when I've "gone somewhere" with such a setting from a Story Now kind of angle (i.e. discovered the story that I, the player, want to tell while playing the game, one that's very different from "back story"), my fellow players get confused or irked by my behavior.
You may have also played with someone before who was deemed by the group to be "too hard-core" or "only there for the combat" - this is almost assuredly someone who is not pursuing a Sim agenda, but rather a Gamist one, and feels kind of pushy by comparison.
So - a resolution mechanic for establishing Color. ^_^ My guess is that this kind of thing is ripe for Drifting into G or N, even if it's set up as a Sim support device. At least, this is the spot where players may have to decide what their goal is for play, on that day, with that group and game - are we talking Chekhov's gun-on-the-mantle, or is that rifle there just to make my host look more threatening?
Geez, with the full definition of Color in mind, Color is far narrower than I thought! I'd consider myself focused on hard-core Story Now, and I'm of the opinion that good ideas are too good to be "throwaways", though I might be missing the point of Color, or what it really is. If I "get" it, then for-real Color could very well be any detail that could have but didn't get snatched up and used as a strategic object or a plot device, making it retrospective more than anything.
Whew! Thoughts?
David Berg:
Yeah, that's funny to think about.
Quote
One player contributes some inspired color: "There's a dusty, gold locket on the mantle, leaning against the wall, with a single link of chain hanging from it."
The Gamist says, "How much is it worth? Who can I bribe or blackmail with it?"
The Narrativist says, "What new meaning does this give to the protagonist's issue that we're bent on addressing?"
The Simulationist says, "Cool! And what does the mantle look like?"
Heh. That's a false distinction, though. You can have high-color or low-color G or N or S. When I played Grey Ranks (a session I'd feel pretty confident in describing as Story Now), there was a ton of color that added to the mood without ever evolving to touch resolution. I think it's a shot in the dark to worry about drift without a lot more context.
A mechanic for churning out good color could potentially be accessed by all sorts of games with all sorts of priorities, provided that one priority was to spend at least some play time on making the fiction more vivid to the senses. Perhaps you're raising a good point, though, in that talking about this is limited without some larger game system and objective to tie into. Maybe I'll see if I can dream up a test example...
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