Ruminations on the Impossible Dream Before Breakfast
Callan S.:
And then, instead of skills, you could get at what the character uses the skills to get at! Like he has great planning and fighting skill, yes, but it's because he wants to end a war! So hey, perhaps we could just write down 'wants to end the war' on his character sheet! And hey, as he tries to do that, his 'wants to end the war' levels up! OMG, and he can add it onto his normal skills, making him stronger at what's important to him! And then we could go buy a copy of the riddle of steel and ogle the spiritual attributes section like it's porn, cause it's awesome!
Sorry, couldn't help but tease! Maybe it's not applicable?
Vulpinoid:
Great series of posts (up until the last one), this is one of the things I've been trying to dig at with my posts on a "Vector Theory" of game design (over at my blog).
The story of the individual doesn't have to be the story of the GMs intent.
If a GM is basically just pushing their characters toward goals through smoke and mirrors, are the characters truly developing. Or are they just as caught up in the machinations of the world at the end as they were at the beginning? Only they appear to be more capable of addressing the GMs assigned obstacles during the later stages of the game.
I know that I'm one of those players who likes to see characters develop through the course of play, switching a character from chaotic to neutral when they see the destructive results of their activities. Or switching away from lawful when we see how the laws in the land are being used to oppress the people. Other players say..."but you can't change alignments!!" or some other thing that they've seen in the rules, but I like my characters to have a level of emotional depth, a changing story can bring that even if the regualr game rules don't back up this style of play, or if the GM's story is about that.
If I can get a bit of personality and tell my own story within the context of a larger story, or within the context of a string of meaningless encounters, then that's where I derive my fun. I get my fun from trying to tell stories despite the system, if I can use this method to tangle other characters up in my stories, so much the better.
I'm probably playing a different game to everyone else on the table, and sure there will be times when the relations between my character's actions and other characters create friction, but that's also a part of the play dynamic I enjoy that simply isn't quantified in the rules. When I run games, it's a different story altogether. Because I draw on the players actions to weave something together on the fly. I'll have a vague idea of a few key scenes that I think would be cool, but I rarely know when the right moment will come for introducing them into the plot. I run on instinct, and when a player makes a moves that might segway nicely into a scene I've been thinking about, I just need to offer a little extra prompting and suddenly the players are trying to work out whether everything was planned all the way along, or if their actions have really generated the cool scene that they've become a part of...it's hard to explain that both of these opinions are right. Similarly, I'll have a couple of nice end points to a story, I'll never know which one is the "right" ending to a campaign, I just let the actions guide toward one or another, framing up things along the way so that any climax could remain viable, dropping hints for all of them into the story. In this way, players really feel like they are contributing because they are contributing. Their choices do matter, but within the framework of possibilities that I've laid out for them.
I like to think of it as less like a railroad and more like a river.
You start at one end, and work your way to the other. You can't push past the left or right bank, but you've got a decent amount of leeway between the two of them. Different plot lines are like currents in the river that might draw you in, or push you toward certain sandbanks/obstacles. At the end of it is like a river delta, with a wide array of paths to follow, but eventually you'll reach the end of the river crossing into the sea. It's more a game than a story in the traditional sense, because it isn't defined from the start of play, but it's more than just a game. You need to pay attention to the feedback loop between narrative and game mechanisms.
It's interesting to see other people's perspective on the matter.
Adam Dray:
So it's clear, I'm not outright panning illusionism, either. If people are happy, then whatever. But I've seen -- in games I have run and in games I have played -- minor and major breakdowns that I attribute largely to hidden GM Force.
Gareth,
My "two paths" aren't meant to be the only possible paths. It's reductio ad absurdum, admittedly, but I'm not trying to prove anything there. I just wanted to illustrate my points. There are a lot of crazy assumptions I make for that argument, and I know they never occur, but I think it makes my subtler point clear, right?
But given your "gross exaggeration," I would say that I don't want my input as a player to be meaningless, and that I cannot have fun if I find out this was the case. That is, if as a GM you're going to take my input, ignore it, and then force the game in whatever direction you wanted in the first place, you better damned well keep that fact hidden from me, or it will ruin my play experience. Because any fun I was having was predicated on the idea that I was participating as an equal, and that my choices meant something.
I speak about illusionism as a GM who ran games using those techniques for 10-15 years, so I am not ignorant about the topic. These days, I still use some of the techniques I learned, but I do it as participationism, with the players in on the joke.
Daniel,
I'm definitely NOT saying that "Sim is just undecided Gamist/Narrativism." I'm very familiar with all three kinds play and I understand them all very well.
Let's talk about the TPK. I don't think it's a meaningful discussion without talking about it in the context of a creative agenda.
If I'm playing D&D 4E by the book, embracing its Step On Up ways, not drifting it, then a TPK is totally all right by me. It is very strong reinforcement of my choices as a player. It means we [I and my player friends] did not Step On Up. We failed to meet the challenges set before us. We made choices during play, and those choices were not optimal. If the Dungeon Master just handwaves away our deaths, it cheapens the experience for me. This is not a theoretical situation! I played in a 4E game with a heavy Step On Up agenda shared by the group, and we had a near-TPK and my character died. The DM basically made it not happen -- I can't remember if there was NPC healing/resurrection or we were left for dead but not actually dead or what. I talked with the group after that and made it clear that next time, just let my PC die. Fuck story continuity. It's meaningless to me if my Step On Up choices don't matter.
If I'm playing Sorcerer by the book, embracing its Story Now ways, not drifting it, then a TPK is totally all right by me as long as I got to make meaningful statements -- got to address the premise -- along the way that lead to my character's death. I want that death to say something. I want all of the characters' deaths to say something. I don't know what; it depends on the fiction, obviously. If the GM starts using Force to invalidate the statements I'm making with my character, I don't care if my character lives or dies. The game will suck.
If I'm playing Basic D&D in some kind of Right To Dream way, then a TPK might not suck. It might be the Right thing for our game. It might Make Sense. If it isn't, I would think the group's constructive denial would trump it. "Aww, there's no way we should have all died. A dragon couldn't even fit down in this cave. Where does the thing shit, anyway? We didn't even smell it down the corridor?" The main way to make a Right To Dream game suck for me is to use GM Force to invalidate my judgment of the SIS. If I tell you that it makes no sense that a dragon should be down in a 10x10 room and you use Force to hand-wave my concerns away ("He was teleported into the room, long ago, by a strange wizard who enchanted the dragon so he doesn't eat or excrete!") then I'm going to be upset. The important choices I make in a Right To Dream game are those that help guide and affirm the correctness of the SIS.
Important Point: The trouble in Sim games -- even more than Nar and Gam games, I think -- is that you're accreting all this "right" material over time and it's often tied closely to a particular storyline or set of characters. If you kill off a character, that "right" material gets disconnected. It's more than just the kind of investment in Exploration that you see in non-Sim games. This material is the point of play, so losing it feels like a step (or ten) back. I think GM Force in service to "the story" is often a code word for "we need to preserve all of this material we've constructed together!" and it's more about Right To Dream than story continuity.
Possibly Silly Point: You said, "(I had to stop game designing and playing for a long span due to strife in my life, but it is coming to an end.)" I hope you meant that the strife is ending, not your life!
Nolan,
In my post above this one, I'm carefully using "story" (not "Story") to refer to a retelling of events after the game about what happened at the table. "My fighter totally locked down that elite solo boss and the rogue and the sorcerer were able to blast it to pieces in two rounds!" That's not a story about the fiction; it's a story about D&D 4E players Stepping On Up.
It's a kind of code word for "creative agenda," if you look at it the right way.
Michael,
I like your river analogy. Realize that the longer the river, the less meaningful my contributions are to the destination.
Let's say the GM has this plot arc mapped out: we'll start off as nobody peasants and fight our way up to renowned heroes who save the world from a race of conquering monster overlords. And the GM knows that we're going to survive all those battles along the way, and he knows that we'll save the world and drive back the overlords -- because, hey, it wouldn't be fun otherwise. After a year or two of play all culminating exactly how the GM planned, distinctions between rivers and railroads are kinda lost on me. That river can't be wide enough.
One of three things is likely happen (and I won't exaggerate profusely this time, Gareth):
1. The illusion holds. No one in the player group finds out that nothing we will do will change this world-saving outcome.
2. The illusion breaks; trouble ensues. The player group figures out that there's a fixed end for the game and this bothers people.
3. The illusion breaks, but business as usual. We figure out that the GM is railroading us and we don't care. We're having fun tooting along in the wide "river" the GM lets us maneuver in on our way to heroic greatness.
I believe that #1 is very rare. It's hard to maintain completely hidden GM Force for a long time without players getting wise. I suspect that a lot of #2 happens on the way to a sort of dissatisfied #3. The one player who isn't happy sucks it up and plays along so as not to ruin the game for everyone else. Fine, whatever. If you're just gonna end up in #3, why not substitute illusionism with participationism and avoid the risk of #2?
Daniel B:
@Adam Yup, totally with you on TPKs. I suppose my addition "If they're rare and in my mind well-deserved" covers a lot more possibilities than I'd implied.
Our use of the word "story" is making me nervous. From everyone's posts, I'm thinking we really are on the same page here (or at least a similar one) but there's a bit of vagueness in that word story. There are really two ways (or more) that we could interpret it. The first way to define "story" is as a single linear sequence of events, or at least a collection of main events that lead to a predetermined conclusion. This is illusionism and, although you can certainly get some really fun games out of it, I don't think anyone here disagrees with the fundamental point that it competes against player freedom.
The second interpretation of the word "story" is quite, quite different and is really what I'm driving towards. Michael, I think you touched on it best in the first half of your post:
Quote from: Vulpinoid on September 21, 2010, 03:27:18 AM
The story of the individual doesn't have to be the story of the GMs intent.
The "story" of the individual? Is this really the same definition of the word? No: the conclusion is not predetermined. The sequence of events that occur are entirely the result of the choices of the individual. We're using it here in that vague "the story of my life" sense, where it only becomes a story when it is finished and romanticized.
Quote from: Vulpinoid on September 21, 2010, 03:27:18 AM
I know that I'm one of those players who likes to see characters develop through the course of play, switching a character from chaotic to neutral when they see the destructive results of their activities. Or switching away from lawful when we see how the laws in the land are being used to oppress the people. Other players say..."but you can't change alignments!!" or some other thing that they've seen in the rules, but I like my characters to have a level of emotional depth, a changing story can bring that even if the regualr game rules don't back up this style of play, or if the GM's story is about that.
If I can get a bit of personality and tell my own story within the context of a larger story, or within the context of a string of meaningless encounters, then that's where I derive my fun. I get my fun from trying to tell stories despite the system, if I can use this method to tangle other characters up in my stories, so much the better.
I'm probably playing a different game to everyone else on the table, and sure there will be times when the relations between my character's actions and other characters create friction, but that's also a part of the play dynamic I enjoy that simply isn't quantified in the rules.
Boldface is my own.
Here's the meat. You're not "telling your own story", because you don't have a predetermined conclusion for your actions. Instead, you are making free-willed decisions which, in hindsight, were pretty cool just on their own merits. The fun you are eking out of the larger structure is independent of that structure and all the illusionism that comes with it. This is the kind of thing I've been thinking about. I want to identify this kind of fun more strongly and take advantage of it, and have nothing to do with the traditional story (i.e. the linear sequence of events leading to some predetermined conclusion) not because a traditional story is wrong, but because it is superfluous to and competitive against this kind of fun.
It seems we've come right back to simple player freewill, but now here's the interesting bit.
In identifying this kind of fun and removing it from the illusionist structure, we are free to build on top of this a different kind of structure that continues to support player freewill while injecting bite. It might be difficult to imagine defining bite without referring to the old illusionist structure, but Michael revealed it and it is what I've been referring to all along. Celebration of Identity. Michael was looking at the game universe through the eyes of his character and reflecting on how he (as a player and PC) would feel, change, and grow based on what his characters sees and experiences. Here is where we can find opportunity to build games that support growth of the whole PC, by which I mean the character and the player. I'd like to study this kind of play further and build structures that actually encourage and support it, so that we don't have to be reduced to scavenging it from within games built for other Creative Agendas.
Dan
masqueradeball:
Yeah, I think I understood that, but the impossible dream is only impossible if the word "story" means story in the traditional sense. What the players in my games take away is a story, and you could call what I do as the game master storytelling (White Wolf does) but it isn't, so I create a "story" and they create the protagonists and its all functional.
I mean, look at most of the conversation on this thread, its about illusionism. Why, when a GM has an infinite budget and an infinite set of options to choose from, is it not possible for him to take your players actions into account in a meaningful way and be able to make the whole thing feel like a book or comic or whatever.
Were playing D&D and I have an adventure path where I expect the party to travel down the main road where they'll encounter a blockade. I want them to encounter the blockade so they discover the existence of the evil warlord. The adventurers instead decide to go through the woods. I, as the DM, still want them to learn about the warlord, and I want them to discover the blockade, so, viola, there are a band of wild elfs traveling through the woods that are heading the the blockade to tear it down.
Is this illusionism? Are the encounters in the woods meaningless? Is discovering a blockade on a road the same thing as discovering a band of wild elf rebels in the woods who want to destroy it? I don't think so. The GM gets what he wants, the players actions meaningfully effect the content of the game.
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