What is Right to Dream for?
Jeff B:
GNS is a tool for dialogue and investigation into the nature of roleplaying and the goals of players. If you can only think of it in terms of "how this benefits Simon's game now", you're likely to miss much of the value.
Simon C:
Hi Jeff,
I hate to be all "argument from authority" on you, but I feel like I understand GNS pretty well, and I've read a lot of discussions of roleplaying that reference GNS. I've got a fair amount of experience in which conversations about roleplaying games are productive and useful, and which ones aren't.
I'm not intending this thread to be a discussion of what the theory says (though obviously if I'm saying the theory says something it doesn't, that's useful to know). I'm saying that what the theory says isn't useful with regards to Right to Dream. We have a lot of very useful tools for understanding Story Now play, and what I'm saying is that these tools are useful for understanding Right to Dream play as well, which leaves me wondering what the Right to Dream label is for.
Can anyone give me a good explanation of why it's useful?
David Berg:
Hi Simon,
Thinking about "Right to Dream" gets me asking questions like:
1) Are all participants fully enabled to make meaningful creative contributions? Do their contributions get interacted with and appreciated? If not, why not -- do they have no means, or are they unaware of the means they do have?
2) Are all participants on the same page about our frame of reference for what's important and inviolate in the fiction-making? Do we care more about style (e.g. noir), genre (e.g. horror), process (e.g. physics), interactions (e.g. teamwork + bickering), or specific emulation/twists (e.g. X-Files meets Lord of the Rings in Iceland)? If we're not on the same page, how do we rectify that?
3) Is our process of "playing right" and meeting our aesthetic goals smooth and effortless, or demanding and distracting? If the latter, why?
I can't really compare these questions to your "useful tools for understanding Story Now play", as I'm not sure what those are.
This thread discusses how "Right to Dream" functions as an agenda. It contains some good explanations from Ron of his concept, and some good illustrations from me about how it applies to a specific instance of play.
Hope this is useful,
-David
Motipha:
While not the most versed in the model, perhaps I might make a few points.
When used as analytical tools, the creative agenda's really just outline how tools are applied, or to what purpose, rather than what tools are available. So to say "In terms of Right to Dream, what can we say about this campaign" you would probably do a similar type of analysis, just to a different end.
Or, perhaps: rather than "Man, I really did enjoy creating a story about a man surviving in an indifferent universe" the result would be "Wow, I really dug exploring what it means to be a man surviving in an indifferent universe." Or maybe that Story Now analysis shows how the game helped or hindered the players in creating compelling elements/ideas/encounters. In contrast Right to Dream analysis shows how the game helped or hindered in creating a living breathing environment in which the players found or explored compelling elements/ideas/encounters.
The questions themselves would be different I guess. In terms of premise, the question would be "Does this set of rules and the situation that it models actual express the premise we wish to play such that actions taken within it felt right" rather than "Did the premise get expressed through the events of the story in such a way that satisfied our desire to see the premise in action."
The example you give seems to suggest that what your group sound so satisfying about the game was the sense that "accurately" or "realistically" portrayed a world. Because the game provided an acceptable and stable environment in which your game was played, you guys were willing and eager to enter that world, and able to explore the stories that take place in that world. So the analysis of that game might easily be about what made that world such a good environment for telling those stories, both thematically and structurally, rather than what was so compelling about those stories themselves. You could even say those stories were so good because they did express the environment that was being simulated, rather than the environment representing what those stories were about.
Gah, I'm not sure if I'm making any sense. But I'm sure I had a point in there somewhere.
FredGarber:
Quote from: Simon C on March 18, 2010, 08:59:19 PM
Hi Jeff,
I hate to be all "argument from authority" on you, but I feel like I understand GNS pretty well, and I've read a lot of discussions of roleplaying that reference GNS. I've got a fair amount of experience in which conversations about roleplaying games are productive and useful, and which ones aren't.
I'm not intending this thread to be a discussion of what the theory says (though obviously if I'm saying the theory says something it doesn't, that's useful to know). I'm saying that what the theory says isn't useful with regards to Right to Dream. We have a lot of very useful tools for understanding Story Now play, and what I'm saying is that these tools are useful for understanding Right to Dream play as well, which leaves me wondering what the Right to Dream label is for.
Can anyone give me a good explanation of why it's useful?
I think looking at your game with a StoryNow frame of mind does give you some useful tools, especially for analyzing the dramatic (little n narrative) elements in your play.
But there are different questions that David posted that pertain to RightToDream play, and they tell you different things.
Asking the RightToDream questions allows you to evaluate the contributions that the players made to the Setting,
Asking the Gamist questions allows you to evaluate the explorations of the players into System.
Asking the StoryNow questions allows you to evaluate the explorations of the players into Character.
Even in, say, a game of PTA or DITV, which are generally understood to be StoryNow games, you can ask the other questions.
For example, let's look at my own PtA game of "Switch", where the characters are supernatural creatures living in an urban setting. Think "Supernatural" from POV of the monsters, except the monsters have souls and free will. What potential for Moments of Awesome were there and got mised?
Now, I can keep looking for extracting the best StoryNow moments by looking for where the players really got into the "I am not (or I am) a Freak! I am a good person!" Theme of the game.
But I can also look at the game from a StepOnUp perspective, and notice that my players are really bad at remembering to give FanMail, which means they are often really short of cards in the final scenes, since they've blown their Edges earlier. I've tried blowing more of my Budget in the opening scenes, which means that I would have less in the final scenes too, but that just made the problem worse. So maybe I can take a couple of moments after each scene, and prompt them to give out FanMail. Then maybe I can let them stop the flow of scenes to give out FanMail, and eventually the FanMail will start. That will give them another source for cards, to make them more Effective in later scenes. Maybe that will make those conflicts at the end less like "Fred decides how things will end up, and more collaborative (which is the idea of the game)
I can also look at the game from a RightToDream perspective, and I notice that J---- adds a lot of details about the "Street" : house parties, and the response time of the cops, and of the off-book ways the characters can make income. H---- doesn't add a lot of details. I've already noticed that J--- considers herself an Expert on how the Street works, and doesn't appreciate either me or others introducing things that break her vision of these scenes. So, maybe I can introduce some scenes in places where H--- is more the Expert, so she can contribute and J----- won't feel the need to 'fact-check' all of H----'s offerings.
>>> However, H---- doesn't seem to care too much about how she can contribute to the Dream, just about her chances to really put her character in between her life as a Normal and her Freak life. So maybe I don't introduce those scenes, because H won't care. I won't get any Moments of Awesome out of it, because H---- is really into the StoryNow agenda.
Each set of analytical questions allows me to extract look at some of the Moments of Awesome that came out of play (or that could have been, and failed), and if there's anything I can do to advance more of them, or to make sure that the moments that do come aren't Moments of Fail.
-Fred
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