head games
David Berg:
Matt, do you think my signalling idea would help that?
Matt Gwinn:
Quote from: David Berg on March 06, 2011, 09:19:06 PM
Matt, do you think my signalling idea would help that?
I don't think that would work in this game. I don't need to know what the possible outcomes are as much as I need to know that those outcomes are going to advance my character's story in some way.
David Berg:
Er, wait, aren't all options potential opportunities to advance your character's story? Is there any reason to have ones that aren't?
Renee:
This has been a really fun thread, and I hope it continues. Paul, Matt, and I have been discussing the situation all day long.
My summation of the problem is that there are two things going on:
1. We're not communicating what interests us very well. We're an experienced group and we've been through the ringer together, but part of what's getting in our way is that chargen explicitly denies the use of flags, and there's very little in the way of author stance (and no director's stance...do we even use those terms around here anymore? It's been so long...). There is a game mechanic that, among other things, can be used to flag stuff we consider important or cool, but we're not necessarily using it all that well (and that goes both ways...we need to use it, but it also needs to be noted and implemented effectively by the GM). At any rate, our failure to communicate our interests and/or see them manifest in the game leads us to enact certain "defense mechanisms"...mine is to sit there and let Paul talk to himself until something changes, while others try to engage in the best way they can (but not always with universal approval, which leads me to my second point).
2. Sometimes we fail to appreciate each others contributions. This is pretty normal, I think; everyone in our group has a slightly different aesthetic sensibility, and sometimes a thing that seems cool to a couple of us falls flat for the others. As a group we can work on being more appreciative, or at least not critical, of others contributions, but for the purpose of advancing Paul's design, we do need to identify which parts are merely this failure to share the love and which parts are legitimate failures to communicate via the game's rules. Not always an easy task.
And we're not the only ones involved...there are two other players who haven't chimed in, so there may actually be additional phenomena that haven't been teased out yet. But those are my feelings on day two of this conversation, which really aren't that different than my feelings on day one (and do not necessarily reflect the views of Paul or Matt).
In reply to stefoid, I think your question is an interesting one, but I do think it's too tangential to be included in this thread. Maybe something for a new thread?
Best,
Renee
Matt Gwinn:
Quote from: David Berg on March 06, 2011, 09:42:34 PM
Er, wait, aren't all options potential opportunities to advance your character's story? Is there any reason to have ones that aren't?
No, not if the scene had nothing to do with my character's story. I most cases the scenes have been about the NPC's story that I happened to be participating in.
I guess you can argue that simply being in the scene makes it part of my character's story, but only in a tangential way.
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