decoupling Reward Systems from broad-scale Story Arcs
contracycle:
Just want to chime in and agree with the point that Dan and Dave express. FATE and so on, which was mentioned above, don't really facilitate this sort of thing because they are no more than task res, still with the iomplicit problem Dan identified.
When I've thought about this sort of thing, I have often been drawn to thoughts about playing boards of one kind or another. Something that graphically displays some issue of concern that the players. Just off the top of my head, imagine a flowcharty type thing that had a box labelled "try to kill Goon 1" and an arrow to "Goon 1 dies". And elsewhere there is a box labelled "Try to kill the Overlord" and an arrow to "The Overlord mind-controls you". Now you would know that if you tried to kill the Overlord, you're really saying "My PC gets mind-controlled".
Now that's a very crude sort of illustration, borrowing from the example used in Todd's game, and you could refine by, for example, covering the second boxes with cards that re only revealed when an attempt is made, which would preserve subjective surprise. But the very fact that this sort of chart existed would communicate the expectation that things are set up, than it isn't a "physical universe" and so on.
I've come to increasingly suspect that the linkages that can exist between numbers on character sheets, dice, successes and whatnot are not enough to convey the concept of express, designed, edges to the area of free action.
contracycle:
Oh and something else. I think the one design element with which appears in an existing text, and is most conducive to this style of play, is the cut-away that appeared in the early iterations of the WEG Star Wars game.
Now I believe it got dropped later, and I'm pretty sure it never appeared anyway else, so I'll explain. The idea was that the prepared story would include the kind of cut-away that happened in the movies, where the AUDIENCE sees the NPC's doing and saying things that bears on the action that just has happened or is just about to happen. And this means the players get information that the characters do not have, which tacitly informs their decisions.
So as an example, again borrowing them the situation established in the OP, perhaps before telling the players that their characters see the villains loading the truck and driving off, they also get a chunk of narration showing the obviously malevolent, bald-headed Overlord berating his minions, strangling a small furry creature, and taking up a meditative posture in the back of the truck. Now as the players chase and clamber over the vehicle, wrestling with minions, dangling from the running boards and so on, they as players know that just inches away from the PC's the Overlord is squatting in the lotus position contemplating things unknown but no doubt diabolical.
PS: I've made up the title Overlord.
Anyway, I think that was a very effective technique that went quite some way to dealing with the points Ron raises in his essay. I'm less convinced it worked very well in conjunction with the basic task res system that made up the rest of the game, but I think its the best of the existing in-print specific techniques.
Dan Maruschak:
Dave, I think you'd want to start with figuring out what the resolution system should resolve. If the game's mechanics were all about the relationships between the PCs, for example, then whether the truck's tires are shot out or whether there's a chase becomes more akin to a setting or scene framing decision.
When I was working on the dice mechanic for Final Hour of a Storied Age, I looked at how Mouse Guard structured the GM's turn, and I concluded that the dice weren't really deciding between "yes" and "no" but between "yes" and "not yet", e.g., when you're rolling Pathfinder to get to Lockhaven, the dice are deciding whether that's a minor detail (success) or whether you'll go into depth and have an intense scene (success with a twist) or character moment (success with a condition) along the way. In some ways it's just a pacing mechanic. In my game, I made this pretty explicit: individual dice rolls tell you if you're doing well or poorly against obstacles in your path, and whether you overcome them, and winning chapters progresses you through your pre-outlined plot. I have some instructions in there that tell the players to keep their narration within the scope of what the mechanics can allow: since you can't kill the villain in chapter 1, narration that would logically result in the villain being dead isn't valid narration. I think it works, but maybe not for everybody, it's obviously not the only way to go.
Are more structural mechanics something you're open to, or do you also want to preserve the classic paradigm of players playing characters with capabilities described in terms what they can do within a fictional world?
Filip Luszczyk:
Quote from: David Berg on October 20, 2011, 09:11:28 AM
I think a lot of people are actually drawn to GMing because they want to tell their stories. Wouldn't it be great for them if they were shown a way to do that that was not abusive to the other players?
I notice there's this curious tendency in the hobby, but it's a bit difficult for me to relate to their motives, as I tend to refuse gaming with people who manifest this urge. Often, it comes packaged with social-level incompatibilities that make me want to avoid prolonged social interaction with them in the first place.
I think before considering the question of non-abusive methods, another question should be asked: why are those people drawn to GMing for this particular reason?
I think it might often be the case of social context in which they find themselves immersed. Like, for purely random reasons, perhaps their circles include a large number of gamers. It might seem easier for them to satisfy their storytelling urges by applying bait & switch strategies in such social environments, rather than reaching past it towards more appropriate audiences. However, it tends to result in abusive arrangements that have been plaguing the gaming fandom since forever.
Now, there's a large number of methods for telling your story readily available. What's the particular draw of GMing as opposed to, say, writing novels or engaging in traditional storytelling?
I think it's worth considering that perhaps what such people need are not ways of telling their stories by slaughtering gameplay in their games. Perhaps it would be more fruitful to show them ways of telling their stories via more effective medium, where the issue of abuse is simply not present?
It reminds me of all those fantasy heartbreakers designers who struggle with issues that have already been answered innumerable times in segments of hobby where they simply never looked for solutions. It's not that unusual for people to become fixated on creative directions that are in fact dead ends.
contracycle:
Now you're just being offensive and ignorant, Filip. What's more you;'re imputing motivations to people without knowing anything about them. Most of what you have written above is little better than vile and vicious slander and bigotry.
The one serious question you pose in that outpouring of filth is "why this form". And that should be easy enough to understand. It;s because it is, relatively speaking, small scale and intimate. Because it doesn't require such a monumental ego as to think that large numbers of people are going to want to read our words or watch your film, but those people whose interest and proclivities you already know. Because it doesn't require years of work followed by purely abstract consumption who experiences and feedback you will never see. It;s something you can do for the people you know that right here and now, more or less, in the same way you might cook them a meal or, in pre-TV days, the way people used to entertain each other by playing instruments and putting on plays and so on at home.
Now I don;t demand that everyone share the same aesthetic preferences, but however much you may dislike it, if you have nothing to contribute then you can at least get the hell out of the way.
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