I hate compromises
Brendan Day:
Improv is a good example, because the actors never have an opportunity to negotiate. They're trying to reach a consensus on stage, but they have to do so in scene, and they want to avoid compromises at all costs. If the snake is threatening the mouse, there is no time to debate whether the mouse should survive, and backing down from the conflict would just kill the scene.
The closest I've come to that in an rpg is IAWA. Let's say the oracles are "a humble field mouse, burdened with a great treasure" and "an impetuous queen, transformed for a time into a hideous serpent". Tthe snake doesn't try to catch the mouse; it devours the mouse whole. The mouse responds by leaping out of its jaws at the last moment, and either getting away or having its tail chewed off. If the mouse loses the conflict, it is injured or exhausted unless it offers some other concession. That's the only place where the experience stops feeling like improv, because the actors sudden run off stage, and for a few minutes the audience can hear them whispering frantically behind the curtain. They finally come back onstage and the mouse brushes itself off, thankful that it escaped with its skin, only to discover that the snake swallowed the magical ring it had been wearing on its tail. Or the snake announces that it has a toothache, and will happily let the mouse go if only it would extract the tooth. The audience doesn't care any more, because they sense that this isn't really improv. The actors cheated.
When I play an rpg, I feel like I'm out there on stage if there are rules constraining my actions. The rules take the place of the audience. If the rules disappear and I'm just supposed to negotiate the outcome, then it feels like I've stepped off stage. It's a relief to be out of the spotlight, but it's also kind of disappointing.
contracycle:
I don't see any realy similarity to or relationship between improv and RP. I think they are very different beasts; we would never need any of these tomes of rules if we could and did just make stuff up. Whats more, improv works to different goals; all it has to do is amuse an audience, the actors do not have a stake in the ouctome, and their toes don't get stepped on if something they set up gets used for a different effect. I don't think there are many RP groups that work much at all like acting improv, and a rules set built for that kind of dynamic is then a really unusual and special.
Compromise, as has been acidly remarked, is the art of insuring the other party doesn't get what they want. Note that this says nothing about getting what you want; the effect is entirely negative. That may be a rather cynical view but I think it strikes at a truth, which is that compromises tend to be watered down versions of any given proposition. In same cases that's a virtue - although, not in as many as our conventional wisdom likes to claim. But it seems to me that in RP this poses the danger of turning a Really Cool Idea into just another, run of the mill, crappy idea. Certainly a case could be made for it being preferable to hand authority over cleanly and have one person author something than to mediate it through what everyone else is willing to accept.
Anyway, these sorts of group compromise "rules" look very odd to me, sort of a bizarre reincarnation, or perhaps reanimation, of the Golden Rule. System, after all, is there to establish the IS, but in this case it seems to be throwing the duties of system back on to the players, leaving them without any system with which to work. That seems exceedingly strange and self-defeating to me.
Judd:
I don't see compromise as the art of not giving someone what they want. I see it as the art of giving what they want with a twist, with a problem and/or a complication.
The elf arguing for the human's life saves the human but only if he takes responsibility for their entire rebellious village.
The dwarf arguing with the dragon will get the axe but only if they bring all of their future oath-breakers to the dragon for banishment.
The mice save the ship from the kestrel but one of the captain's children is taken.
In my experience, it takes what the players want and complicates it, making it even more interesting.
contracycle:
Well, I acknowledged that the reference I was drawing on was cynical, but I do have a cautionary tale to tell in regards making things "more interesting". I did quite a lot of that sort of thing, and eventually the players rebelled and complained that I was sabotaging their efforts, and they wanted to have a plan actually succeed for once. Obviously, it's not that you should never subvert someone elses proposals, but I was doing it too consistently. Having this sort of thing as a fundamental part of the resolution seems in danger of producing a similarly dissatisfying effect.
Judd:
That is like a group complaining because they lost hit points in a battle. If their arguments lost Body of Argument, they have to compromise.
This sounds much more like a case of going to Duels of Wits when it was not necessary but I wasn't there.
Could we offer more at the table AP examples?
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