Making the transition from mission based play?
Judd:
Hey JB,
I would imagine that character-driven play can happen in a group as large as you are talking about. I've GMed games like that back in college, games with really good friends playing for long sessions back in the day when gaming for 12 hours on a Saturday was no big thang. Nowadays, I just couldn't game like that and honestly, wouldn't want to. We were drifting the shit out of Ars Magica and the character indicators came from one-on-one interviews between me and the players, talking about their character histories, etc. It was pretty tedious.
Regarding the quality of the indicators, if the game demands some kind of indicator, you spend a session sitting around and making shit up. Mind you, it is a difficult process and requires us to tell our friends that something isn't quite right and help them re-write it until it is right. It means critiquing one another and supporting one another get those indicators set up for solid play.
Quantity of player indicators, I would imagine that has to do with the system one is using. As mentioned above, I've done it, bent Ars Magica to our will, made it do all kinds of stuff it just wasn't made to do because we were enamored with the Verb/Noun magic system and were hopped up on Robert Jordan and youth. But it took a severe amount of energy. It was swimming upstream rather than, with games made for this kind of character-driven play, swimming with the current.
Judd
JB:
Judd,
Yeah, I don’t personally see the size of the group as a deal breaker for character driven play. I’m not even sure that it necessitates altering one’s approach to that, at least not to any greater extent than it does any other aspect of play.
What you say about the difficult process of making up indicators is dead on. Part of the challenge is creating an environment where people feel comfortable doing what you describe, and establishing procedures that encourage productive results from the exercise.
As far as whether the game demands indicators or not, it looks to me like they’re a requirement for the kind of character-driven play being described, regardless of whether they’re explicitly demanded by the game text or not.
Regarding ‘quantity’ of indicators, you’re absolutely right - it’s going to vary from game to game. I mostly included ‘quantity’ to cover the extremes of ‘too few indicators’, ie, none; and ‘too many indicators’, ie, a lengthy list of things with no indication as to which, if any, have greater priority. I was mostly thinking of informal means of implementing indicators, like character backgrounds or interviewing players, but it can apply to formalized indicators too; as an example, in Burning Wheel, there are rules about how many Beliefs one must and can have. You can’t ‘play a few sessions and then write beliefs’, nor can you ‘write a dozen or so and then see which ones work after a couple games’, although I’ve seen people suggest such things.
That said, issues with quantity of indicators are a lot easier to address than issues with quality, so let’s focus on that.
About drift and ‘games made for this kind of character-driven play’, I’m in general agreement with you, but I think sometimes drifting may be worth the work involved. I once equated it to modifying a car to go faster - if you want a fast car, does it make sense to start with a compact commuter? Someone pointed out that although you might not end up with a very fast car by doing so, you’d probably gain a much, much better understanding of what actually makes for a fast car than if you just bought a performance model.
To get the kind of play we want, the group’s having to learn some new techniques, and ‘unlearn’ some old habits. Just getting to the point where we can communicate what we want articulately is a challenge. For example, I’m the only one familiar, or even inclined to become familiar, with the terminology and theories in use here at the Forge; regardless of the validity or lack thereof of those theories, etc... it means that where you and I can go more or less right to discussing ‘indicators’ and the like, for my group to do so first requires establishing a whole bunch of contextual structure.
As an example, we’ve had some problems with people authoring indicators that are irrelevant or contrary to what the Player actually wants, basically because of a lack of a term like ‘indicator’ and a general confusion about what one is.
For what it's worth, I feel like we're making progress on the matter, both here on the forums and at the game table, so thanks.
JB
Judd:
Good luck, JB.
Two things:
Quote from: JB on April 20, 2010, 12:40:33 PM
...nor can you ‘write a dozen or so and then see which ones work after a couple games’, although I’ve seen people suggest such things.
Ya can't write a dozen or so but you could write 3 and change them as needed. Dropping a belief that is not being used and changing beliefs as play continues is absolutely a part of play.
When I talk about swimming against the stream when I was playing Ars Magica back in the day, I wasn't meaning only me as a GM. I also meant the effort by everyone at the table to get to the kind of play we enjoyed with a system that was not helping us get there.
I'm really curious about how you and your group set up play. Using indicators can often mean a real change to the way campaigns are set up at the table. I'd love more AP in this here AP thread.
JB:
Yeah, we're arguing to the choir here. I know you can change Beliefs once play begins, and if Beliefs DON'T change over time, you're probably 'doing it wrong'. You still have to winnow it down to the 'top three' though. (Hell, there's nothing saying you can't drive your character to do stuff that doesn't tie into their Beliefs, you just won't get any Artha for it, so it's a 'sub-optimal move' to make.)
As far as our set up procedures go, they're currently not conducive to this type of play. We recognize this and are trying to retool, but it's requiring that we examine those procedures and do some 'thinking outside the box'.
(Note that 'our box' is not the Forge's box. The Forge's box is bigger than ours, so a lot of what's 'revolutionary left field' stuff for some of our group is old hat here. That's not to say we're opposed to trying 'revolutionary left field' stuff, just that there's a fair amount of inertia arising from habit to be overcome.)
That said, here's a description of the most common setup procedure:
Step 1) The group comes to a consensus on what game to play, ie, what 'system' or game text are we going to use?
Step 2) Whoever's going to be GMing starts doing 'prep' for the game. This is done more or less alone, in between game sessions. Usually the GM will want to get some idea of the characters to be played before they have a go at running a session, but not always. 'Some idea of the characters' tends to be along the lines of'class/race' designations for games with such devices, or 'basic concept in a nutshell' for those without them, eg, "Crane Bushi", "Psyker", "Ork Gun Adept", etc…
Step 2A) Players make characters, more or less concurrently with the GM's prepping. This is usually also done alone and in between game sessions. Sometimes the group will 'take a session to make characters' but, there's still very little interaction between players during chargen. I've compared it to a group of people taking the SAT - "No talking, keep your eyes on your own work." Like the GM, a player may sometimes, but not always, ask about the characters others intend to play, usually to avoid ending up with characters that are too similar.
Step 3) Get together and play.
One of the things that I see is that the group as a whole likes to have a lot of time to make characters - a week or two to put something together is pretty common, and if we devote a session to chargen, people will probably just have rough concepts and some primary stats to support that concept on paper at the end of four hours, and will 'finish up the character' on their own before the next game.
There's no standard for backgrounds and descriptions or the like - some people will write this kind of stuff out and share it with the GM, some will write this stuff out for their own reference, and some don't put anything on paper beyond the stuff that has mechanical representation. However, it's fairly obvious during play that people are giving this stuff a fair amount of consideration whether they document it or not - depending on the game players may interject such details into the SIS thru play, although because of the structure of our games, these details end up being more like character trivia than something that influences the course of the game.
JB
Judd:
JB, I am going to quote the portions of your description that I think could very well be getting in the way of character-driven stories.
Quote from: JB on April 21, 2010, 03:17:15 PM
Step 2) Whoever's going to be GMing starts doing 'prep' for the game. This is done more or less alone, in between game sessions. Usually the GM will want to get some idea of the characters to be played before they have a go at running a session, but not always. 'Some idea of the characters' tends to be along the lines of'class/race' designations for games with such devices, or 'basic concept in a nutshell' for those without them, eg, "Crane Bushi", "Psyker", "Ork Gun Adept", etc…
Step 2A) Players make characters, more or less concurrently with the GM's prepping. This is usually also done alone and in between game sessions. Sometimes the group will 'take a session to make characters' but, there's still very little interaction between players during chargen. I've compared it to a group of people taking the SAT - "No talking, keep your eyes on your own work." Like the GM, a player may sometimes, but not always, ask about the characters others intend to play, usually to avoid ending up with characters that are too similar.
The characters are not linked and more importantly, the GM's prep is not linked to the characters the players created.
There are quiet, SAT-like, moments in chargen for a character driven game but other times it is like a dinner party with loud, excited people talking about something that interests them. Ideas are tossed back and forth, some are gold, others are left mouldering on the side of the road and when we are done, we know just how the game will start next week with no idea where it might end.
Without linked characters and GM prep that takes the characters the players have created in mind, the mission becomes the game's structure because otherwise, there is often nothing keeping them all together, very often nothing concrete for them to do.
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