How Glorantha both inspired and frustrated my play.
Web_Weaver:
Quote from: Ron Edwards link=topic=32424.msg289470#msg289470
I don't want to threadjack the topic into a Wars/Quest debate.
Luckily I got that out of my system in 2003/4 in the now closed HQ threads here at the Forge. So I will just nod.
Fixed quote format - RE
Web_Weaver:
I just realised I neglected to explain how structuralism fits into all this.
Originally I was struggling to tie in the town creation rules form dogs into the Glorantha setting, and my solution was to complete a standard town creation with undead as the equivalent of the demons and then to map the town onto a structualist matrix, drawing in as much of the setting as possible to not just add colour but to make sure the situation was unreconcilable from a mythical perspective. Dogs ensures that the situation is morally complex but mythology is more than that, it is culturally complex, and Glorantha demands that level of detail.
If I can find my old notes I will try and add this matrix later.
contracycle:
OKm as the thread is eemingly wrapping up, I'll just get this response in briefly.
Quote from: Abkajud on November 13, 2011, 08:56:20 AM
If anything, I'd say that SBP is an example of play in which the "story" or "plot" is absolutely paramount (as, likely, one person took the time to write it up and then "install" the characters in it), and if you don't engage with the material as/when it's presented, it's like playing Pac Man by putting a quarter in and then walking away from the machine. There's an expectation that if you sit down for some Story Before that you at least broadly understand how it works; if you know this but choose not to act accordingly, you're ignoring the social contract of play.
Thing is, plot isn't story. So when I referred to story, I'm referring to a whole bunch of things that go way beyond just a structure of events that happen, or GM scene planning and so on. I agree that SBP is likely to need active or tacit acceptance of such structure, but its unsafe to assume, for example, that this means that the GM is going to plan for, say, a specific address of premise, in the way that the author of a novel might. This is what I mean by SBP not being about story in the way that Story Now is. Personally, I'd rather refer to Plot Before, or something, rather than Story Before, which I feel muddies the waters.
Ron Edwards:
Yeah, it's tough terminology. I am definitely feeling the pinch of constructing the terminology from within Story Now play. I have found that a given game text or even a discussion does best to work with a given CA as a single, present, suffusing thing, and did not intend for the Before terminology to jump ship over to other CA discussions. Now that it has, maybe the time has come, at long last, to work up some terminology unique to role-playing for things like story, plot, addressing Premise, character decision-making, adversity, and other things which simply have distinct identities in role-playing in ways that are perhaps more interlocked as well as invisible in other media.
Best, Ron
Abkajud:
It sounds like we need a term for "pre-planned hooks that are a part of the setting, and the players can go explore them, or not, as they wish" (call it A for now).
This stands in contrast to "pre-arranged events of play, to be incorporated into the overall flow of play according to the GM's choosing." In this case, "pre-arranged events" means, very specifically, events that are scripted out in terms of the timing of events, the definite occurrence of events (no matter what the players do), and/or certain actions, ideas, or plans devised by the players are completely off limits (the prep text has hard rules on certain outcomes, such as "The king cannot be killed. He has enough guards surrounding him to kill the entire party, period."). We'll call this B for now.
Basically, if prep provides a scenario, rather than scenario+resolution, then it's an example of A. If it provides a resolution to the conflict or crisis that the prep itself introduced, then it's an example of B.
Arguably, a Story Now game could have A in the form of setting (like Hero Wars!) but it would be very challenging to give it B (it's probably been done, though. Maybe Until We Sink? Or Montsegur 1244?
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page