Making the transition from mission based play?
Judd:
I played in an Unknown Armies game where we were all members of The New Inquisition, T.N.I., sent on missions for the company for the first half of the campaign.
Naturally, the missions went horrifically awry but we brought the files to a close. I seem to recall that many of our most horrific adventures were set in New Jersey, all of the taking place in the northeastern part of the U.S.
For the second half of the campaign, the GM said that he was getting sick of the mission-based campaign and how would we like to try a more sandbox game approach? Mind you, this is seven years ago, before folks championed sandbox gaming as some kind of avatar of the old school. He was talking about Grand Theft Auto and other video games when he brought the term to us.
He suggested that we would be starting a new branch of T.N.I. in Miami, bringing the various occult dukes and players together and uniting them under the T.N.I. banner, or at least setting ourselves up as a dominant force on the occult underground scene.
It was good fun, with a huge gang war starting over a big misunderstanding. The GM got a travel guide to Miami and we played out of that quite a bit, along with that news article about the Blue Lady, written about the mythology of Miami's population of homeless children.
It was good stuff and because it was talked about explicitly, a nice transition that we all enjoyed.
There is something nice about learning how the system works, the logic of the world's magic and so on through mission-based play and then being let loose on the world in order to build something for ourselves.
Callan S.:
Quote from: JB on April 06, 2010, 03:18:09 PM
However, as Ron infers, this type of play isn't particularly conducive to generating the kind of play that produces the kind of 'character driven stories through assertive player participation'.
I did a bit of a search in that thread and I'm not sure anyone mentions 'character driven stories through assertive player participation'. Perhaps it's not being refered to at all?
I'm not sure anyone actually has to be assertive - it can be quite the character choice to not be assertive. One old scenario I heard was that there are two boats, one is on fire. Your character is on the safe one.
Now even if the character does nothing, it's kind of a statement about what he'd do as the other ship burns.
Now maybe the player himself isn't actually deliberately trying to make this statement and is sort of bewildered as to what to do. But it still qualifies as a character standing there, letting this just happen. Unless you don't want to see that, of course.
Although on the other hand players can try to get into time murk, where they try and break down every little action so as to slow any progress in fictional time so as to do stuff without the other ship furthing in its burning/the conflict progressing at all to its conclusion. I don't know if that's relevant to this thread, but I thought I'd mention it in case.
Frank Tarcikowski:
Hi JB,
I’ve had my own experience with changing a “mission=story” approach to a “player driven story” approach (two quite different experiences actually). I am however a little hesitant to throw that at you because my groups aren’t yours and there is a whole variety of mission-based play styles, varying from heavily railroaded “dramatic” scenarios where the mission works as a plot hook, tailor-made scenarios requested by the players, trivial missions where the meat is elsewhere, to very challenging missions where a lot of effort by the players is required to even complete them successfully.
Therefore, could you explain a bit about your “mission=story” games? What are these games like? What game system do you guys play? How do you know the other players? Are you the only GM / enthusiastic role-player? How do you typically prep your missions, and how do you run them when you guys play? Do the characters have personal stuff going on, and how much time and effort goes into that, as opposed to the missions? That kind of things.
- Frank
JB:
Thanks to everyone who's posted so far. (I wouldn't normally do a post by post response, but since everyone who's posted so far has contributed something helpful, I'm inclined to recognize you individually.)
Euro: Thanks. I'll have to look into Zombie Cinema. You also address one of my concerns - in a given group of players, there are going to be differing levels of investment, both about gaming in general and the specific game in question. You're spot on about the 'dull characters with no interesting motivations except perhaps a general sort of destructive confrontationalism towards other player characters' (and/or NPCs). This is part of what I mean by 'floundering', and it becomes a problem when someone's trying to 'be the protagonist' without really possessing the requisite skills to do so. So for me, the question is, "Since this guy DOES apparently want to play the part, how do I facilitate him acquiring the skills to actually do it in a way that's rewarding to him and the group?" Passive players are less of a problem, at least in our groups, as the more active players will make an effort to involve them. It's kindof a distribution of the GM job of 'engage the players', I guess. Only issue there is when someone's not up to speed about that occurring.
Contracycle: True. I didn't mean to imply some kind of either/or dichotomy between the two styles of play. As I said, we're largely ignorant about what lies outside 'mission based play'. As of right now however, I'm not trying to explore that whole territory so much as trying to plot a path from Point A to Point B. I am curious about what the game you describe ('character driven play that is not oriented around anything to do with story as such') would actually look like however.
epweissengruber: Also true. Again, let me say our mission based games are fun, but we're trying to get a different flavor of fun and the mission framework by itself isn't proving to be a good vehicle to achieve that. I think there's also maybe the issue of where the impetus to have a mission originates. In Houses of the Blooded, it sounds like it's coming from the Player: "I want sorcerous goodies! I can use them to further my long term goals! I'm gonna explore a ruin!" Contrast that to the GM saying, "Ok, so you learn that you need some specific sorcerous goodies in order to continue on your quest. There's a ruin in need of exploring up north that is rumored to contain said goodies…" (This doesn't have to suck, BTW. If the players are invested in seeing their characters continue their quest and are interested in exploring the ruin it can be fun. But again, it's a specific kind of fun.)
Judd: I may have to try what you describe, as that sound applicable to some of our games. Also, what you say about learning how the system works and the logic of the world (I'm paraphrasing a bit) is REALLY important here, I think. We're mostly playing 'mainstream' games, and I'm inclined to look for different ways to play those games rather than different games to play, partly because people 'understand the dice mechanic' or 'know who the Mayor of Awesometown is' or whatever. We've tried more indie style games but the results haven't been especially satisfying or paradigm altering, and I think that's in large part due to people thrashing around trying to get a grip on the setting or the mechanics - while they're thrashing, the tendency is to fall back on established behavior patterns in play, which can interfere with grokking how to play that particular game or experiencing what actually makes playing it a different experience from other games.
Callan: The phrase, 'character driven stories through assertive player participation' isn't directly quoted from Ron's thread. I coined the phrase based on some of Ron's statements and my own understanding of fiction, narrative and so forth, in order to specifically describe a mode of play we're trying to achieve. The quotes were purely for emphasis; in hindsight, maybe italics would have been a better choice, but I didn't feel the phrase needed that much emphasis. Sorry for the confusion.
Regarding the 'assertive player participation' part, take that as in contrast to 'acquiescent, thespian, and not particularly assertive regarding what his or her character actually wants and does'. In the burning boat analogy, that player maybe doesn't decide what his character does at all, he just looks to the GM for direction and emotes on cue. (GM: Paralyzed with fear, you watch in horror as the other boat goes up in flames, yadda yadda yadda… Player: "The horror, the horror! Maybe I'd do something… if I weren't SO AFRAID!!!) I'll try to cover this better in the AP description to follow.
Frank: You're dead on asking for more 'AP' in your AP and I'd like to hear about your experiences. Further description of our games to follow shortly.
Cheers,
Jim
Callan S.:
Hi again Jim,
Quote
In the burning boat analogy, that player maybe doesn't decide what his character does at all, he just looks to the GM for direction and emotes on cue.
Well that's what I was kind of getting at - I might be wrong, but I think Ron has talked about people who look to their own cue on what to do and don't look to a GM. When Ron talks about a transition from mission play that doesn't mean he somehow converted acquiescent thespians (as you put it) into people who play their character as they see fit with full author integrity. He just doesn't play with acquiescent thespians to begin with. Or so I gather - double checking with him would be best.
Do you play with people who will only ever look to you/the GM on what to do? I guess the further AP will help out.
Though I will say that I think gaming culture, as a direct result of not having any real procedure to either have fun with or real procedure to critically identify as 'not for us' and to move on from, typically blames players for any proactiveness they do 'Don't stab that NPC...don't stab that other player! No, don't split from the party! No don't talk like that to the big important NPC *glares and implications of being a bad roleplayer* (I know stabbing sounds like crude play, but if it's what the character would do, then it's character driven, despite being crude. And we love Conan, anyway!). So people start thinking being passive and looking for GM cues is good roleplaying. Can they ever crack out of that, even if they want to? I dunno - maybe there's a slim, horrible chance that no, they can never crack out of it? They've had their will broken?
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