[Dresden Files] It‘s not Zilch play, but what is it?
wholeridge:
Sorry about the confusion, but I'm Dan. That "-Frank" was a part of quoting you that I forgot to delete.
I haven't been to a Goth party, but one thing about that analogy seems to me not to fit. I don't see the werecat girl character as wanting to be separate so much as struggling against separation. When I read your description of her behavior, I imagine a backstory of betrayal and alienation that has burdened her with dysfunctional patterns of behavior. In a sense, she is a character who has wandered in from a different -- and darker -- story. She (the character) doesn't enjoy the freedom and adaptability that the other (healthier, more well adjusted) characters display. She doesn't respond to your overtures because she is too broken to respond. I would hope that the player is exploring how such brokenness might be overcome, what sacrifices are necessary to overcome it, and whether the result is worth the cost. To a great extent those answers depend on the outside ("not my character") world, but immersive play is a first-person viewpoint which experiences that world as impacts on the character. She needs you to portray the world which her character struggles to embrace. (I do not believe that the player needs to have consciously formulated this understanding; most humans operate far more on emotion than on intellect.)
"Immersive", as I understand it, is about the submersion of the player in the character. It doesn't require lonely, alienated characters like werecat girl. One can just as well immerse oneself in an outgoing character. My guess would be that with more experience this player will become more adaptable to different types of characters and different degrees of immersion. Right now she is fascinated with the power of heavy immersion in a very neurotic character -- but didn't most of us start playing because we sensed some possibility which fascinated us in a similar (if, perhaps, not so annoying) way?
Dan Holdgreiwe
Frank Tarcikowski:
Hey Dan, to be clear, my analogy was meant to describe the players, not the characters.
I can't really second-guess the backstory or what went on inside the player's head. Your interpretation is interesting in particular looking at the "angelic euthanasia" scene--from the other scenes, I would not have felt anything dark or broken about the character.
- Frank
Dan Maruschak:
One thing that the Dresden Files RPG rules do with the refresh/powers chargen economy is promise that any Dresden-appropriate character is playable (I don't think the game delivers on this promise, but I can't blame a player for buying what the game is selling them). The source material says that the most common supernatural humans are the kinds with flavorful-but-useless powers, so it may be that she just got excited about this idea as a way to celebrate the source material, was told by the game that it was a good and workable idea, and just went with it. From a certain POV, being aloof and non-contributing is pretty good characterization for a housecat. Self-compelling to inaction is similar: it is easy to interpret the game as telling you that this is "good play". Since she's a fan of the source material, she may have been deriving enough fun from just experiencing the Dresden story the rest of you were creating that she didn't want to rock the boat and risk "ruining" the story by doing to much to change the direction. The source material also suggests that the forces of darkness are scary and dangerous, so that may also cause risk-averse players to play more conservatively than is ideal for the somewhat action-oriented FATE system.
Frank Tarcikowski:
Without wanting to derail the discussion about the Werecat player, I think that’s an interesting tangent about the Dresden Files RPG. Now, I haven’t read the RPG and I’ve only read the first Dresden Files novel, “Storm Front”. I’ve also read FreeFATE and spent some thought on it but only played FATE one and a half time, all DFRPG. Based on that somewhat limited experience, I would view it like this:
1) In the novel, life is just a bitch. Harry Dresden is one unlucky bastard if there ever was one, and life has a habit of kicking him when he’s down (so hard, in fact, that I kind of hated the novel for it). But when push comes to shove, Harry somehow, by the skin of his teeth, manages to pull some incredibly kick-ass stunt to save the day. Compelling Aspects, gathering FATE points, and then spending them in large quantities when it really matters, seems to capture that pretty well.
2) The novel is action-packed. Demons get fought and blown to pieces, there is fire and thunder and lightning and some solid scrapping, too. Yeah sure, the forces of darkness are extremely powerful, and no one in their right mind would mess with them, but the point is, the protagonist is one stubborn bastard who just can’t seem to bother. FATE handles this kind of action pretty well, temporary Aspects are a Color generation machine, and Consequences make sure that things keep going somewhere.
3) The novel is a hell of a thriller, the likes of which I have rarely seen. The suspense is highly intense, the atmosphere of danger and overwhelming odds masterfully built up. One might fall for the notion that this kind of suspense would best be reflected in a role-playing game by enforcing the danger and overwhelming odds through the rules. But that is a red herring. Such “deadly” rules would only force players into careful, very tactical play in order to not gamble the characters they are invested in. They would punish the players for being stubborn and risk their luck like Harry Dresden.
Conclusion: The atmosphere of danger and overwhelming odds is make-belief and has to be. Rules that really simulate the dangerous and deadly powers of darkness would ruin the game.
To get back to our little Werecat, celebration of source material was most definitely going on. As for seeing deliberately ineffective actions as “good role-playing”, well, that’s not unheard of. In particular from players who complain about “powergamers” who aren’t “real role-players”.
- Frank
Frank Tarcikowski:
Paolo, thanks for the link, "My Guy Syndrome" rings a bell and might be sort of fitting, from a more critical perpective.
- Frank
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