[AW] Question about healing
Noclue:
Quote from: RPL on October 13, 2010, 04:37:22 AM
How do I do this exactly? I mean, he’s going to have to sit there (this situation could happen at the beginning, middle or end of a session), unless I schedule a session without him, or do I have to make a more a tight screen time management for the other players actions? Because a lot of things can happen in 24h, even more in a week, between my prep and the players own agendas.
Well, we know the answer isn't "Have the dude sit there for a session while everyone else plays." And it can't be "Schedule a session without him." Those both suck. That's not making his life interesting.
I'm going to go with a combination of tight screen time management and time dilation.
A lot is going to depend on where things are at when the hardholder went down. If someone's involved with something that the hardholder would have had to sit through anyway, you can resolve a scene like that normally. I would move those things along briskly.
Otherwise, I'd move forward with a question to the other players "What did you do during the week that Ambergrease was in and out of consciousness?" The answers to that kind of question are going to determine a lot about how you handle the time. Again, if someone's doing something that sets you up for a hard move, consider just letting it happen and barf forth apocalyptica on it (intermittent rewards, right?).
JMendes:
Hoy, :)
Disclosure: I'm the hard holder. :) Also, as a minor point of correction, the Angel player rolled, like, an 11 or something. Had it been an 8, you would have had to choose two options. :)
Anyway, the main question isn't how you preserve or take away the characters' options. The main question is, if the job is to make the characters' lives interesting, what do you do to them when they get injured right in the thick of the interesting.
As you all have recognized, taking a character out of the action while the action continues is not bad because it "doesn't preserve options". It's bad because it leaves one player without the ability to engage the interesting, for an indeterminate amount of game time.
Thing is, glossing over or rushing through that time is bad for much the same reason, only, it does it to all the players instead. There was a lot of interesting going on throughout the session. (Credit to the MC, btw. :)) Everyone was dealing with it. If you suddenly turn to the players and ask what they've been doing for the past week, you've just deflated all the interesting.
As Diogo said, the situation was aptly resolved. However, the general question seems to stand. When things are at their most interesting, that's when protagonist characters will tend to get the most hurt. A lot of care has to be put into this one choice, because if you're not careful, there's a high risk that you'll just make the interesting suddenly go away.
Things change if it's an NPC, though. The more important the NPC is to the players, the more the 24h and the one week option seem yummy and interesting. :)
As a minor aside, if a character is injured when whatever interesting is going on is quiet enough to be glossed over, then the "out of action" option doesn't seem all that good either, seeing as it really doesn't add or take away anything from the character.
All in all, I agree with one thing: the option chosen was the most interesting one. :) We'll see what comes of it.
Cheers,
J.
P.S. @Vincent, Apocalypse World just rocks. So far, it plays like traditional RPGs, but done right. The game just works, roll after roll, scene after scene. @Mathew, you should totally check it out!
Mathew E. Reuther:
You know those scenes where in fiction (pick your media) you have a protagonist drifting in and out of consciousness? Images blur, they react to outside stimulus but it's all as if shouted from a great distance?
That's how you can make heavy lasting injury work. The character can still influence things, but only peripherally. They're involved in what's going on, the ref gives them a rundown of what their character seems to understand is happening, and they roleplay the pain/fever/injury hampered responses their character has.
Ref: "You've got a hell of an ugly nurse, looks like a sasquatch. Someone comes in while it's dark out and you hear mutters about revolution. There's a gleam of metal as the nurse walks over to you."
Player: "I lunge away, trying to find a weapon. They must be trying to depose me."
Ref: "You call out of bed. The nurse and the other figure, who you now recognize as your most trusted lieutenant struggle to get you back in bed. Then you recognize the nurse is actually your older brother. The metal he had was a bedpan. You've shit yourself in your effort to escape."
Player: "I start crying."
Player is involved, can roleplay, but is irrelevant to the actual action.
lumpley:
All good! I like everything in this thread. João, I'm glad you're enjoying the game.
There's another side to mention, too. As a player, it's your job to play your character as a real person. Sometimes this includes accepting that your character is out of the action. Getting almost killed can put you out of participation, legitimately, and you should be willing to sit back and let things happen without you sometimes.
-Vincent
JMendes:
Hoy, :)
Quote from: lumpley on October 15, 2010, 12:01:13 PM
As a player, it's your job to play your character as a real person. Sometimes this includes accepting that your character is out of the action. Getting almost killed can put you out of participation, legitimately, and you should be willing to sit back and let things happen without you sometimes.
This sounds good on first read, but, what happens if those 24 hours take three sessions to play through? :)
Anyway, yeah, if the rest of the players' scenes aren't engaging enough on their own, then something else is wrong with the group, so, I guess I'm on board with that.
Oddly enough, five or ten years ago, that would have been my default response, anyway, only, with the groups we had then, I would have been bored out of my skull! :D
Cheers,
J.
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