What is Step on Up for?
Caldis:
The problem with Agenda Frequency and Intensity is that CA doesnt look at the minute to minute play, it doesnt care how intense the Agenda is in any particular moment it's an understanding of what the group is gathered to do. So yeah you can have intense moments caused by overcoming obstacles in a game that dont signal a Step on Up CA.
As to your last question I think it's hard to say with the material given so I'd mostly say it's irrelevant. Sounds sort of like Supernatural so maybe it could be a good game but it also has a bit of that lame railroaded plot feel to it. Hard to tell much based on that description.
Roger:
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I owe you (and everyone else) a half-decent Actual Play writeup by now, instead of these little tiny contextless scenes; I'll spin up an AP thread when I have the chance.
Quote from: Simon C on March 29, 2010, 04:01:14 PM
Imagine that you sit down to start a new game, and the GM says to you "Hey, let's play a game about a team of brothers who fight together. You can all make up a brother, and the game will be about tracking down your father, who's gone missing. You've got clues as to his wherabouts, but that'll lead you through some of the most dangerous places in the world. You'll meet other family members along the way who might be allies or enemies."
It's... hrm. It's one of those red flags, I think, that tips off the astute guy who wants Step On Up all the time that this isn't starting well.
What it reminds me of is those subversive and/or clueless people who pick their fantasy football leagues based on how pretty the uniforms are, or the length of the players' names. That might not be as illustrative an example as I hoped.
So what's that pitch about, really? It's almost all about Character, with some Colour-of-Character. That's not usually where someone who is selling you a Step On Up experience is going to start. It's like if someone starts telling you that you need to go see this awesome movie because the cinematography will blow you away -- some people will be swayed a lot by that, and others hardly at all.
There's a very similar case with a very different result that I want run past you:
"Hey, let's play a game about a team of ninjas who fight together. You can all make up a ninja, and the game will be about tracking down your master, who's gone missing."
That perks up my Step On Up instincts in a much different way. That pitch is really a lot more about Situation and Colour-of-Situation than it is about Character, at least to me. I think that's obvious, but maybe it isn't, so let me know if I need to go on more about that.
So the brothers-pitch doesn't really whet those appetites, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily a complete failure. Does it look tempting for Story Now or Right to Dream play? I'm finding myself thinking that it kinda doesn't, for reasons which are probably off-topic for this thread. But it does look like an interesting line of inquiry -- how pitches are related to the agendas.
In the final analysis: irrelevant, but its irrelevance is also worrisome, in the way that an irrelevant movie trailer doesn't inspire confidence about the final product. If that makes some sense.
David Berg:
Simon,
Good point that boardgames have color too. Conflict and human concerns and themes aren't completely out of the picture, but I think they play a different role in boardgame play than in most roleplay.
In a typical (for me) RPG, the in-fiction events will (1) immediately make human sense in themselves, and then (2) resonate outward to impact my real self with an impression that I might describe as "thematic". Example: my character executes a prisoner. I then go, "Whoa, not sure how I feel about that. Executing Prisoners is fraught."
In a typical game of Monopoly, the game actions will (1) be purely mechanical in themselves, and then (2) acquire human sense with reference to the game's color. Example: I trade in some paper for some green plastic near-cubes, and put them on my board square. Then I say, "Big investment in a new hotel! You land there, you'll owe me big-time, sucker!"
Maybe this is the same distinction between "engaging theme" and "phatic theme" that you made in the Right to Dream thread. But it seems at least possible to me that Monopoly is effectively "color that never becomes theme", adn that this might be characteristic of some Step On Up roleplay too.
Ps,
-David
P.S. Not related to this post, but related to other parts of this thread: For an earlier take on where boardgaming meets rolelaying, see my old thread on the Swashbuckler boardgame.
Simon C:
Sorry I let this thread slip for a bit. Real life.
Roger,
Am I right in thinking that it's a red flag because it signals that there might be content that conflicts with what you enjoy most about the game? Like, you never want there to be a question of whether you should kill somebody, just whether you can kill them, right? The ninja formulation avoids that because there's no connection to family, right?
Imagine that the pitch came from someone who you trust "gets it" about what you want. The family thing would just be about adding intensity to the challenge, like, you're not just working as a team, you're working as a family. Is that less alarming? More alarming? Less relevant?
If the brothers thing is totally irrelevant, I'm thinking that I'm at least partly wrong in thinking that theme is relevant to all play. Not sure though.
David,
Yeah, I basically agree.
Frank Tarcikowski:
Hi Simon,
Chiming in a bit late here, I’ve been really busy all week. I would like to comment on a few points, even though the thread has moved on a bit and I certainly don’t want to derail it.
Quote
My experience is that as people get more invested in challenge, their willingness to accept unreliable currency is less.
That’s a neat observation, kind of resonates with the whole concept of winning and losing in Step On Up. The other way I’ve observed people dealing with this is insisting on a very strict, almost dogmatic moral code for the GM to adhere to (“a GM doesn’t want anything”), and to bring in an element of chance for any and every decision. Both of these concepts feel so alien to me, they’ve got me wondering if that’s the real divide, if all Challenge I’ve enjoyed in any of my role-playing was actually only ever spice to a Sim game, and I’m not even capable of Gam? Or are these guys just the Hardcore? Sometimes I feel the same way about Nar.
I’m very much in the same vibe as you concerning investment in the SIS, but then, Exploration is part of any role-playing so I used to take that for granted. At any rate, I’m not sure I follow you on what gets people invested in the SIS (human concerns, ethical questions). In particular with old-school D&D, I think what gets people invested in the SIS is a sense of wonder and an excitement for adventure. You visit exotic and spectacular places, you encounter creatures of myth and monsters you’ve never heard of before, you wield medieval weapons and the forces of magic, and you set out on thrilling and dangerous adventures.
Now I suppose you could call that a “theme”, in the broadest sense of the word. And you could probably focus it more: What kind of adventures, what kind of foes, what kind of challenges? And you could call that “theme”, too. Human concerns and ethic questions will be present in the SIS, just because they always are, and they may emerge to mean something, but I suggest that they are a very secondary concern even if looking solely at what makes the players invested in the SIS in s typical game of old-school D&D (or D&D 4 for that matter).
- Frank
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page