What Does Sharing Narrative Control Show?
Cliff H:
Quote from: Jeff B on February 03, 2011, 10:12:41 PM
I feel for you, Cliff. Reading this over again, I'm beginning to agree that what you have is a group seeking a simulation of gamism, and that you yourself are a simulationist GM (or at least, that aspect of your GM'ing has become the present issue).
That's the second person who's tagged me as such, while I still think my concerns about consistent story tone and the like are in the service of facilitating character exploration and, most importantly to me, transformation.
Be that as it may, I too think my group doesn't really want to live on the knife edge of mortality all the time. But I also think they don't know that yet. That's what I like about Callan's suggestion: it puts that blade into their hands and asks them to deliver the death blow, and not just once. It makes clear what "grave danger" all the time really is, especially given that a game like 7th Sea has some nebulous death rules (intentionally so; it's supposed to be a low to no death game).
I do want to clarify something though: I'm not at my wits end with my group, nor do I think that all my gaming experiences with them are deeply flawed or that they are just incapable of delivering a good play experience for me or each other. My inquiry is based on a pattern of play I noticed that I was unfamiliar with and couldn't relate to (what I think are gamist behaviors).
As to the issue of simulationist gamism, does gamist play require that your character be at risk of death in everysituation? Yeah, that's what I've been asked for, and that's a load of bunk because I'm not a killer GM, they know this, and we're playing a game that softpeddles mortality to a great degree. That said, the desire to drop every potential opponent in a fight and the need to utterly humiliate opposition through slander and cuckoldry, just so they know they've got it over those against them sounds to me ighly competitive and thus gamist (in this case they compete with my through my NPCs). Does gamist play require risking your character's life in every altercation, or is the drive for competition sufficient? I had the impression it was the latter.
Now, that still leaves us with a poor fit for game system, as 7th Sea has a pretty poor win/loss mechanic and the game I'm running isn't normally divided up into specific misions with bullet point objectives (which seems easy to assess win/loss payoffs to), but at least at that point I'd know that I've got he right theory and look to pick whatever comes next (or write it myself) with that in mind.
Quote from: Anders Gabrielsson on February 04, 2011, 05:33:52 AM
I may going off the deep end here, but what I would do in this situation is talk to the players. It seems they are more engaged with the game now than before - why is that? What was it they enjoyed now that wasn't there before, and is there something they're not enjoying now?
I would not, however, try to push them into a theory-heavy discussion, or make them think that the future of the game depends on their answers, but just engage them into a light talk about what they like more or less about the game.
This, however, is downright maddening. Not the suggestion, but the discussion. I'm not averse to it. I'm a big believer in communication, but for whatever reason most of my players seem to have a reluctance to think too deeply about their hobby, or have such vague and ill formed notions of what it is that keeps them coming back that these discussions have gone nowhere in the past. When we pick a game to pay, there's no talk of why they like something. They just like certain titles. A few have expressed a preference for simpler systems with minimal calculations, and one continues to assert that D&D 2e is the most elegant and perfect game engine ever written, but in general they don't know why they like some things and not others, and any prying questions gets a bunch of shrugs instead of chin-cupped pondering.
On a related note, however, I began looking for something to follow this current game, since I think it'll be wrapping up sooner rather than later regardless of the outcome of the current mission, and I began doing so based on what I'd observed. I took that process to them, pointing out the things I thought they liked best about 7th Sea and the things no one seemed to touch, as well as the demonstrated play preferences. The response? "Go for it." No elaboration, no discussion of the details yay or nay, just "Go for it." This is what led me to finding my answers from behavior in play, which does, once you look at it objectively and less from the eyes of a GM desperately trying to make his own thing happen, demonstrate consistancy over a long period of time and spans multiple games. Clearly a higher level of awareness would help, but in the meantime a good fit in terms of game (both system and GM style) would go a long way.
And the occassional exposure to revelatory rules like the death call Callan suggested strikes me as a great way to explore elements of play preference in a way they're more likely to engage.
Then maybe we can have our talk.
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