plot questions
William Clifford
While working on the Kharzom campaign I've been thinking a lot
about plot in RPG's. I've also been reading some old posts here that I
kept and have a lot of questions. Here goes.
What's the difference between and event and an incident?
What's a plot macguffin (I know this one but I couldn't explain
to anyone if they asked me for some reason)? How does it differ from a
plot hook?
Can a simulationist game be said to have a plot even if it's a
plot after the fact (so to speak)? Oddly enough I think I'm beginning to
understand where the simulationists have been coming from all this time
(simulationist is still a rotten term). Where have all the simulationists
gone? And could Kornelson please send me or re-post his definitions of
the different kinds of games (freeform was one)? I remember it vaguely but
not what they were. Suddenly it has become very important.
Also if a character can be said to be DIP or DAS why not a plot?
(to this end could somebody remind me what DAS stands for again. thanks).
This reminds me of another good post from the past. I believe it was Mary
Kuhner who most elequently distinguished plotting, scripting, and
preparing. I thought I had exported it to a file where it and Sarah's
post on timetables would compete for brilliance. Alas, Sarah's is a lone
star.
I read the four stances as applied to players but why not
also to the GM? (Instead of IC we's have IW for In-World or IS for
In-Story, not real clear on how that would work since IS would
effectively be the same as author for GM's no?)
In my mind there is a significant difference between a plot and
a story. Does anyone else see this? Would it help future discussions if
we distinguinished the two?
Lastly, I keep reading this acronym IIRC in different posts. I
can't figure out what it stands for for the life of me. I hope I haven't
accendentally used it's expansion anywhere in this post. Most embarrassing.
Thanks in advance,
-William Clifford
Mark C. Wallace
In article <Pine.HPP.3.91.960708...@river.it.gvsu.edu>,
William Clifford <clif...@river.it.gvsu.edu wrote:
What's the difference between and event and an incident?
Kevin, or one of the Dibble fans would have to cover that - it
has to do with whether a particular entity advances plot and
story.
What's a plot macguffin (I know this one but I couldn't
explain to anyone if they asked me for some reason)? How
does it differ from a plot hook?
THe Maguffin (I've never heard 'plot' used as an adjective for it) is
what everyone in the story seeks. A friend defines it as what the
characters want, but we don't. Personally, my definition is a trifle
more complex, but every time I talk definitions, those damm vultures
start homing in on me.
ALl plot is, imho, driven by conflict. Conflict represents two factions
(a protagonist and one or more antagonists) who have conflicting desires
for a limited resources. That resource, that prize, is the maguffin.
I read the four stances as applied to players but why
not also to the GM? (Instead of IC we's have IW for
In-World or IS for In-Story, not real clear on how that would
work since IS would effectively be the same as author for GM's
no?)
I'd be itnerested in an exploration of this, both because I believe that
the setting is the GM's character, and because I'm interested in
anything which advances mty understanding of the art of GM'ing.
In my mind there is a significant difference between a
plot and a story. Does anyone else see this? Would it
help future discussions if we distinguinished the two?
My high school english teacher told me that "The plot is 'the king
died'. The story is 'The king died; the queen cried.'" Following his
examples, I'll leave you to develop your own conclusions.
Lastly, I keep reading this acronym IIRC in different
posts. I can't figure out what it stands for for the
life of me. I hope I haven't accendentally used it's expansion
anywhere in this post. Most embarrassing.
If I Recall COrrectly.
--
Mark C. Wallace, guerilla semiotician
"Go softly, for you tread on my dreams" - Yeats
John Novak
> What's the difference between and event and an incident?
> What's a plot macguffin (I know this one but I couldn't explain
>to anyone if they asked me for some reason)? How does it differ from a
>plot hook?
For both sets, I'd say they're the same thing. Event is incident, and
macguffin is plot hook. There might be some sort of magnitude
argument (an event is "more important" than an incident, perhaps) but
I don't generally distinguish.
Other people may have finer definitions than I do.
> Can a simulationist game be said to have a plot even if it's a
>plot after the fact (so to speak)?
I'm beginning to hate that word, "Plot."
Yes, sim games have plots, even while they're happening. They're just
freer-form and more spontaneous than other games.
> Oddly enough I think I'm beginning to
>understand where the simulationists have been coming from all this time
>(simulationist is still a rotten term). Where have all the simulationists
>gone?
This one is finishing his thesis and looking for a job, praying to God
that the one ends just when the other begins.
> Also if a character can be said to be DIP or DAS why not a plot?
Design at Start, Design in Play.
To my mine, the analogy is strong.
In a sense, DAS:dramatic (or plotted)::DIP:simulationist.
> Lastly, I keep reading this acronym IIRC in different posts. I
>can't figure out what it stands for for the life of me. I hope I haven't
>accendentally used it's expansion anywhere in this post. Most embarrassing.
If I Recall Correctly.
--
John S. Novak, III j...@cegt201.bradley.edu
http://cegt201.bradley.edu/~jsn/index.html
The Humblest Man on the Net
John Novak
>ALl plot is, imho, driven by conflict. Conflict represents two factions
>(a protagonist and one or more antagonists) who have conflicting desires
>for a limited resources. That resource, that prize, is the maguffin.
Good God!
I almost agree with this!
My main quibble is that this is a narrow definition of conflict.
You give a classic man against man conflict (or men against men) where
I think that man against nature, man against supernatural, and man
against himself are all options, too.
Magnus Lie Hetland
Mark C. Wallace wrote:
>
> In article <Pine.HPP.3.91.960708...@river.it.gvsu.edu>,
> William Clifford <clif...@river.it.gvsu.edu wrote:
> In my mind there is a significant difference between a
> plot and a story. Does anyone else see this? Would it
> help future discussions if we distinguinished the two?
>
> My high school english teacher told me that "The plot is 'the king
> died'. The story is 'The king died; the queen cried.'" Following his
> examples, I'll leave you to develop your own conclusions.
I think the original version of this story/plot was meant to distinguish
between a narrative without plot and a narrative with plot.
Without plot:
'The king died, and the queen died'
With plot:
'The king died, and the queen died of grief'
Here we have causality between the events.
Now story is often used in another sense altogether. There are of course
many definitions, but most of them are based on this distnction:
Story (or the 'fabula' of the russian structuralists) focuses on
characters, meaning, motivation, values etc.
Plot (or 'syuzhet') focuses on the events of the narrative, and to some
degree, the causality between them.
But not all theorists agree, of course. To some it is more like the
distinction between story (the events in chronological order) and the
discourse (or plot - the story as it is presented in a medium).
A good place to look for a description of the differences is
"Structures of Fantasy" by Richard Michaels. Most of this book can also
be found online at http://www.mmsysgrp.com/megahits.htm
Another site of articles describing the meaningfulness that is
characteristic for the 'story' of the narrative as opposed to the 'plot'
and how the plot springs from the same source is found at
http://www.teleport.com/~bjscript/windex.htm
Both are really neat sites.
>
> --
> Mark C. Wallace, guerilla semiotician
> "Go softly, for you tread on my dreams" - Yeats
--
Magnus
Lie
Hetland
Mark C. Wallace
In article <4rshbg$9...@cegt201.bradley.edu>,
John Novak <j...@cegt201.bradley.edu> wrote:
(in response to my posting, relevant portions of which included below)
MCW> All plot is, imho, driven by conflict. Conflict represents
MCW> two factions (a protagonist and one or more antagonists) who
MCW> have conflicting desires for a limited resources. That
MCW> resource, that prize, is the maguffin.
JSN> Good God!
JSN> I almost agree with this!
JSN> My main quibble is that this is a narrow definition of conflict.
JSN> You give a classic man against man conflict (or men against men) where
JSN> I think that man against nature, man against supernatural, and man
JSN> against himself are all options, too.
You'll forgive me for quoting far more than my usual wont, but I found
it necessary in this instance.
What, in my post, led you to infer that the antagonists and protagonists
were men? They could easily be supernatural entities (forces or
creatures), nature, or factions within the self.
Though, on a separate note, I've found very few GM's who can handle a
man vs nature plot and make it dramatic. Far too often man vs nature
becomes player vs game systems or player vs gm. Anyone inclined to
discuss that, please move it to a separate thread.
And John, be warned. Agreeing with me is dangerous. Remember, I'm not
a human - just a hologram from Neptune.
Mary K. Kuhner
>Though, on a separate note, I've found very few GM's who can handle a
>man vs nature plot and make it dramatic. Far too often man vs nature
>becomes player vs game systems or player vs gm. Anyone inclined to
>discuss that, please move it to a separate thread.
>Mark C. Wallace, guerilla semiotician
I've seen this done successfully a couple of times, though never by a GM
who straightforwardly set out to do it.
_Paradisio_ had a long lost-in-the-woods sequence (though both player
and character had grave and justified doubts about the objective reality
of those woods). It worked because the focus was all on the character's
reactions--would she accept or deny what she was perceiving? Would she
give up? The forest survival itself was handled very simply, with
almost no mechanics--mainly a running report of what her situation was,
so she could make high-level decisions. It was one of the more
dramatist-style parts of the game, but not enough so to become "player
versus GM" for me.
The halflings-in-Geary campaign had a long stretch which was mostly
"halflings versus house". The house was haunted, but not very actively;
mostly it was concealing its secrets behind a lot of doors and facades.
The halflings had to live with its peculiarities (they had nowhere else
to go) and slowly work out its backstory. I suppose this is arguably
"man versus man" with the ancient builders as antagonists, but it felt
very different from having a living, active opponent.
The key to making man versus nature work would have to be coming up with
ways that the players could make meaningful, informed decisions that did
not reduce to mechanics-playing--some way that player thought and
attention to the actual description of the natural setting can allow the
character to accomplish her goals. I think that's the key to making
*any* situation work--the player must be able to make sensible
decisions, and must feel that the decisions are linked to the
description of what's happening. This is easy enough in combat (for
most players) because at least a few decisions (do I run or fight?
which opponent do I choose?) are clearly important and clearly
accessible to player decisionmaking, even if the details of combat are
abstracted or mechanized away. It's harder in wilderness survival, but
there should be some way to do it.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Andrew Finch
John Novak (j...@cegt201.bradley.edu) wrote:
: >ALl plot is, imho, driven by conflict. Conflict represents two factions
: >(a protagonist and one or more antagonists) who have conflicting desires
: >for a limited resources. That resource, that prize, is the maguffin.
: My main quibble is that this is a narrow definition of conflict.
: You give a classic man against man conflict (or men against men) where
: I think that man against nature, man against supernatural, and man
: against himself are all options, too.
The above definition works even for man against himself, where the
conflict is internal, the same person may be both protagonist and
antagonist, and the limited resource, the macguffin, is inner peace (or
whatever). For a classic example, there's Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde.
David
Keith Kornelsen
Clifford wrote:
> Can a simulationist game be said to have a plot even if it's a
>plot after the fact (so to speak)?
Yes; it just wasn't plotted... :)
>And could Kornelson please send me or re-post his definitions of
>the different kinds of games (freeform was one)? I remember it vaguely
>but not what they were. Suddenly it has become very important.
KORNELSEN. With an E. Don't do that, it makes me twitch.
Can't send eMail right now, it's being crass. Here are
where I put the lines now:
Interactive Storytelling: Out beyond the far end of roleplaying,
this is where the GM is really a storyteller being assisted by
the players.
Freeform (Mechanicsless) Roleplaying: Let's pretend! No rules, but
we have someone who decides what's fair and usually tries to tie our
actions together (whether to make a story or just to keep us as a group).
Quasi-Mechanical Roleplaying: Well, we know that our Referee is
a little bit biased. And they know it, too. So whenever there are
situations that are hard to decide, they consult dice, or give us
a little game with rules to play that simulates the situation in some
way.
Mechanical Roleplaying: Because we can't remember which of us is
best at swordfighting, we wrote it down as a comparison to average.
My swordfighting is 14 compared to an unskilled normal's of 7. And
both me and my GM have the same idea what my character can do; he
just has to look at my sheet to avoid all of those problems.
Sure, that work takes time, but hey.
Diced Roleplaying: The GM should be free to do more important things
than decide every little sword stoke. And I'm not sure he'd do it
perfectly, anyway. So we bring in dice, and the game world becomes
that much more an independent thing.
Wargaming: Off the far end; we don't need a GM, everything we want
to do in our world is covered in the rules.
I would really like to explore these levels and layers more
completely. Especially the area around Quasi-mechanical. Sarah,
are you reading this?
Andrew Finch
Mary K. Kuhner (mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu) wrote:
: >Though, on a separate note, I've found very few GM's who can handle a
: >man vs nature plot and make it dramatic. Far too often man vs nature
: >becomes player vs game systems or player vs gm. Anyone inclined to
: >discuss that, please move it to a separate thread.
: I've seen this done successfully a couple of times, though never by a GM
: who straightforwardly set out to do it.
I have seen and experienced this done well by a GM who set out to do just
that (a heavily plotted game by Dreaming Dragon Productions, and if
you've ever seen there work, you'll know what I mean). I have put John
Kim through part of the same run (just a start), and have dreams of
finishing some day.
By the way, John, if you're out there, will you be at Gen Con?
David
John Novak
In <4rtsk0$4...@nntp4.u.washington.edu> mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) writes:
>>Though, on a separate note, I've found very few GM's who can handle a
>>man vs nature plot and make it dramatic. Far too often man vs nature
>>becomes player vs game systems or player vs gm.
>I've seen this done successfully a couple of times, though never by a GM
>who straightforwardly set out to do it.
[Paradisio and other examples snipped]
I've seen it fail, too.
I was about to claim that I'd never even seen it attempted, until I
recalled a stretch of about three campaign sessions of a Traveller game
where the characters were trapped on a fairly hostile world (with
really goofy natural phenomenon, but don't get me started...) while
repairing the truly horrendous damage done to our ship.
>The key to making man versus nature work would have to be coming up with
>ways that the players could make meaningful, informed decisions that did
>not reduce to mechanics-playing
This was one of the key mistakes that Mike made during that stretch.
As I see them, he did the following things wrong:
o He did rely, very much, on mechanics for things which I (as a
mechanical, diced GM myself) would simply have waved away after the
first time through.
o The man against nature thing was _too_ severe. He put us in a
very bad situation (relying on dice, of course) where we could
literally expect no help from the outside world whatsoever. This
equates to, "A few bad die rolls, and you're bleached bones in the
desert, chums." To me, that's boring.
o As you say, there was not much that was interesting to do, and
few high level decisions to be made. There were some, but in my
retrospective opinion, most of the other things to do on that planet
were merely distractions, and annoying distractions at best.
Realisitcally, there was nothing to do except wait for the die rolls
to be such that our ship was repaired.
This is a subtle point, and it does reflect badly on the players. I'm
not sure if I'm expressing myself clearly, either. The other things
to do on the planet were, mainly, investigating _other_ wrecks. I
think we were doing this in the hopes of finding something we could
use to speed up our repair process, but we never did. That alone
makes the other things to do into what I consider distractions.
Worse, something _invariably_ went wrong each time. We'd be attacked
by fauna that would naturally be very tough to kill, thus injuring
someone and reducing our manpower, or some dink would fail a driving
roll (see also, diced details that sane human beings don't bother
with) thus injuring someone or breaking something....
A lot of things to screw with, and nothing even remotely helpful.
o Extending the last point, Mike didn't know his players. In
the simplest form, you should have a handle on whether your players
are going to enjoy rooting around after tubers to survive another
night, or if they're going to want to reduce it to a single die roll
or a single decision by the GM and then get on with it.
With almost a year's perspective on those particular events, the
whole thing spiralled out of control because players and GM did not
understand one another. I very much believe that Mike thought we
would be disappointed if he compressed two months of time into a few
dice-clatters, three sentences of explanation, and we were on our way
again. So he put things on the surface of the abandoned, quarantined
planet to keep us from getting bored.
We, in turn, very much _wanted_ to be done with the whole sorry affair
and tended to believe that Mike wouldn't be inflicting this whole,
deadly boring affair on us if there weren't some point to it. So we
investigated the little sensor blips, excavated the other wrecks and
grew steadily more irate at stewing on the surface of the goddam
planet trying to figure out what the bloody point was.
Does this sound like the resident simulationist found someone who was
even more simulationist and found the thing patently absurd? P'raps.
But anything can be taken to extremes.
John Novak
In <4rtakv$2...@clarknet.clark.net> m...@clark.net (Mark C. Wallace) writes:
>MCW> All plot is, imho, driven by conflict. Conflict represents
>MCW> two factions (a protagonist and one or more antagonists) who
>MCW> have conflicting desires for a limited resources. That
>MCW> resource, that prize, is the maguffin.
>What, in my post, led you to infer that the antagonists and protagonists
>were men? They could easily be supernatural entities (forces or
>creatures), nature, or factions within the self.
I generally don't anthropomorphize nature to the point where I
consider it to be "competing for resources." If the point of an
adventure is to get a message or deliver a package through dangerous
frontier-like terrain, then the main thrust of the conflict is man
against nature. What limited resource is the terrain competing for?
You could claim that the terrain "wants" to prevent that message from
getting through or "wants" to kill that man, but only if you
anthropomorphize nature to an extent I find silly.
Further, while I'll give you part of the point on gods and the
supernatural, I'll also claim that gods and the supernatural can be
motivated by things other than simple competition of resources. A
classic storyline from almost every mythological background runs as
follows:
Man encounters divine agent (or vice-versa).
Divine agent gets a bug up its ass.
Divine agent makes life hell for man.
Man overcomes this, or is slain by it.
What resource is being competed for there? I suppose you could call
the man's destiny the resource in question (Is his destiny to die
horribly as an idle diversion for bored old Zeus, or is his destiny to
live to a ripe old age and sire many sons?) but I think that's pushing
it a little far.
If you want to take my point to an extreme, you could claim that
human being, being irrational at the best of times, can act like the
gods in this respect, but for my games and (in the written genres) my
storytelling and reading pleasure, I prefer human enemies with material
reasons to hate each other.
>Though, on a separate note, I've found very few GM's who can handle a
>man vs nature plot and make it dramatic.
I tend to agree, especially since I as a player and a a GM find
character to character conflicts _far_ more interesting.
>And John, be warned. Agreeing with me is dangerous. Remember, I'm not
>a human - just a hologram from Neptune.
Ah, but have me agree with you is likewise dangerous.
I am, after all, the Bastard Grad Student From Hell.
John Novak
>: My main quibble is that this is a narrow definition of conflict.
>: You give a classic man against man conflict (or men against men) where
>: I think that man against nature, man against supernatural, and man
>: against himself are all options, too.
>The above definition works even for man against himself, where the
>conflict is internal, the same person may be both protagonist and
>antagonist, and the limited resource, the macguffin, is inner peace (or
>whatever). For a classic example, there's Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde.
I can go along with that.
It pushes the resource competition idea a little bit farther afield
than I'd like to take it, but if that's how far your definition goes I
won't question it.
Anne B. Nonie Rider
m...@clark.net (Mark C. Wallace) wrote:
MCW> All plot is, imho, driven by conflict. Conflict represents
MCW> two factions (a protagonist and one or more antagonists) who
MCW> have conflicting desires for a limited resources. That
MCW> resource, that prize, is the maguffin.
In one sense, that's true. However, the term "maguffin" (however
spelled) is usually used to indicate that the prize is a little
contrived, a little obviously dropped into place to create conflict.
In RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, to me, the Ark is a maguffin;
these characters' pasts aren't involved with it, their
desires don't intersect with it, their futures don't
depend on it, except as it's used for the plot. You
could have a nearly identical story about another object.
In THE LORD OF THE RINGS, to me, the Ring is NOT a maguffin
because it's inherent to the situation, and its own traits
seriously affect what goes on. If you told the exact same
story except that the Object was a sword that could kill
Sauron, it would become a totally different story. (Why would
it affect the bearer? Why would you send a hobbit? How would
his own weakness affect it? And so on.)
Like the term "plot device", the term "maguffin" may be
technically neutral, but to use it is to call attention
to the artificial aspect of the story.
--Nonie
Carter Butts
Keith Kornelsen wrote:
>
> Interactive Storytelling: Out beyond the far end of roleplaying,
> this is where the GM is really a storyteller being assisted by
> the players.
>
> Freeform (Mechanicsless) Roleplaying: Let's pretend! No rules, but
> we have someone who decides what's fair and usually tries to tie our
> actions together (whether to make a story or just to keep us as a group).
>
> Quasi-Mechanical Roleplaying: Well, we know that our Referee is
> a little bit biased. And they know it, too. So whenever there are
> situations that are hard to decide, they consult dice, or give us
> a little game with rules to play that simulates the situation in some
> way.
>
> Mechanical Roleplaying: Because we can't remember which of us is
> best at swordfighting, we wrote it down as a comparison to average.
> My swordfighting is 14 compared to an unskilled normal's of 7. And
> both me and my GM have the same idea what my character can do; he
> just has to look at my sheet to avoid all of those problems.
> Sure, that work takes time, but hey.
>
> Diced Roleplaying: The GM should be free to do more important things
> than decide every little sword stoke. And I'm not sure he'd do it
> perfectly, anyway. So we bring in dice, and the game world becomes
> that much more an independent thing.
>
> Wargaming: Off the far end; we don't need a GM, everything we want
> to do in our world is covered in the rules.
Interestingly, I have a very similar perspective...I tend to
think of RPGs as residing along a continuum like so:
Authored Freeform "Simulative" Pure
Story Gaming RPGs Simulation
Total<---------------------GM Control------------------------------>None
Joint "Storytelling" Wargaming
Storytelling RPGs
At the one extreme, the authored story, the "GM" (or author) creates a
tale without overt input from others (though there is always _some_
outside influence); at the other, the pure simulation (such as,
say one of the Navy's flight simulators), the GM dissolves into the
world itself. IMHO, the continuum then represents different degrees to
which the will of the GM controls the nature of the reality: on the one
hand, the author's will subsumes even the players temselves, while on
the other the GM is entirely lost in the Laws 'O Nature (TM). In the
middle, the GM in various ways compromises with a more or less objective
set of rules to decide the nature of events.
Of course, another way of looking at the whole thing might be to
add another dimension, like so:
Simulation + Player Joint
(Single User) | Control Storytelling
|
|
|
| GM
War Most| Control
<None-----------------------------+-------------------------------Total>
Games |Games
|
|
| Free Form
|
|
| Authored
Real Life :-) - Story
IMHO, this player control dimension isn't really all that useful...you
get most of the utility from the model with just the GM control element.
Obviously, there's no one way to look at the situation, but this seems
logical to me....
-Carter
Andrew Finch
John Novak (j...@cegt201.bradley.edu) wrote:
: You could claim that the terrain "wants" to prevent that message from
: getting through or "wants" to kill that man, but only if you
: anthropomorphize nature to an extent I find silly.
I think we've gone ahead and anthropomorphized a bunch of numbers on a
piece of paper to a ridiculous level, giving it its own personality and
ongoing life in the campaign world (called a player character), so I
don't find it such a stretch to anthropomorphize the game world itself,
which then 'wants' certain types of things to happen (called a 'genre'),
and in certain ways (called 'drama').
: Further, while I'll give you part of the point on gods and the
: supernatural, I'll also claim that gods and the supernatural can be
: motivated by things other than simple competition of resources.
Who said that the competition had to be 'simple', or what a 'resource'
was limited to?
: Man encounters divine agent (or vice-versa).
: Divine agent gets a bug up its ass.
: Divine agent makes life hell for man.
: Man overcomes this, or is slain by it.
: What resource is being competed for there?
I don't know, the above is not a plot. If you would like to make it a
plot, as in the story of Oedipus (This is the story of Eodipus Rex, who
made it into Freud's index, it seems he had an odd complex, because he
loved his mother...), then it's usually called Man gainst Fate, the
resource is man's right to freedom and his obligations to society, and
the macguffin is the actual strings of Fate around some prophecy.
To play out actual versions of these plot lines, which make perfect sense
within the genre, try 'Theatrix - Ironwood', pay big money to Diviners,
guess the color of Fate's underwear, and possibly even get kissed before
you're... sorry, can't say that with the kids around.
: If you want to take my point to an extreme, you could claim that
: human being, being irrational at the best of times, can act like the
: gods in this respect, but for my games and (in the written genres) my
: storytelling and reading pleasure, I prefer human enemies with material
: reasons to hate each other.
: Ah, but have me agree with you is likewise dangerous.
: I am, after all, the Bastard Grad Student From Hell.
Funny, I've never seen you in class.
David
John Novak
>: You could claim that the terrain "wants" to prevent that message from
>: getting through or "wants" to kill that man, but only if you
>: anthropomorphize nature to an extent I find silly.
>I think we've gone ahead and anthropomorphized a bunch of numbers on a
>piece of paper to a ridiculous level, giving it its own personality and
>ongoing life in the campaign world (called a player character),
You may anthropomorphize numbers into a character.
I represent characters with numbers. Subtle difference.
>Who said that the competition had to be 'simple', or what a 'resource'
>was limited to?
Don't quibble over the word 'simple.'
>then it's usually called Man gainst Fate, the
>resource is man's right to freedom and his obligations to society, and
>the macguffin is the actual strings of Fate around some prophecy.
If you want to classify man's right to freedom as a resource, you're
perfectly entitled to do so. I remain content in thinking that
someone came up with a catchy phrase (all plot is driven by conflict
and the competition for resources) and then beat everything with a big
wrench until it fit.
Yes, the analogy _can_ be made, but as it goes farther and farther
afield, I don't think it's a particularly good analogy, and I think
it's more limiting than helpful. Particular as it applies to
humanifying nature to the point where the Forest Perilous "wants" to
kill someone, when it's only just a particularly dark forest.
>: Ah, but have me agree with you is likewise dangerous.
>: I am, after all, the Bastard Grad Student From Hell.
>Funny, I've never seen you in class.
You're not in any of my classes.
And when I'm not teaching lab, I'm hiding in my office from advisors.
Anne B. Nonie Rider
mkku...@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) writes:
>>Though, on a separate note, I've found very few GM's who can handle a
>>man vs nature plot and make it dramatic.
Depends on how long and complex a plot you have in mind.
I got wonderful response to one of my early Champions runs:
The group's based in Austin, Texas, which tends towards
flash floods during the rainy season. Listening to the news,
we find out the cops are asking us to come out to a trouble
site.
A van full of teenagers tried to drive through a flooded
area and have been washed downstream. The van is precariously
wedged against a tree; the rescue folks can't safely get
a helicopter low enough to help them without risking
dislodging the van, which would overturn and drown the kids.
The flood's still in full spate, so boats/swimmers aren't
an option.
The van's about half under water. Most of the kids got out
onto the side that's above water--thus making the van even more
unstable. The driver's trapped with a broken leg wedged under
the dashboard, which was crunched on impact with the tree.
One other kid stayed in the car, where she's holding the
driver's head above water.
So, with no supervillains or guns, the group's got to
get them all to safety, knowing that once you start getting
some folks off, the van may overturn. And we didn't have
a superman type who could just fly off with the van.
I won't overload you with the details, but we succeeded--
and the group's plans brought out some wonderful secondary
aspects of the characters, especially when Matrix had to
use his agent skills rather than just acting as group brick,
while our cop/agent Shadow needed all his strength.
We've had a couple of fires that kept us lively also,
but that flood was certainly the best.
--Nonie
Andrew Finch
Carter Butts (ea...@son3.mc.duke.edu) wrote:
: IMHO, this player control dimension isn't really all that useful...you
: get most of the utility from the model with just the GM control element.
Now I have to disagree. Player control is essential to the style of
roleplay I prefer. That's where the GM dissolves into the players.
David
Kevin R. Hardwick
On Mon, 8 Jul 1996, William Clifford wrote:
> While working on the Kharzom campaign I've been thinking a lot
> about plot in RPG's. I've also been reading some old posts here that I
> kept and have a lot of questions. Here goes.
>
> What's the difference between and event and an incident?
Here is the post that introduced the distinction--I've also included some
of the commentary that this post inspired:
From krhr...@wam.umd.eduThu Jun 29 21:26:36 1995
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 09:21:23 -0500
From: "Kevin R. Hardwick" <krhr...@wam.umd.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Another Definition of Plot
Ansen Dibble, in PLOT, a book in Writer's Digest Book's series THE
ELEMENTS OF FICTION WRITING, defines "plot" as follows:
"Plot is built of significant events in a given story--significant
because they have important consequences. Taking a shower isn't
necessarily plot, or braiding one's hair, or opening a door. Let's call
them incidents. They happen, but they don't lead to anything much. No
important consequences. . . . By the way they are weighted and presented,
by what they lead to, these events are trasnformed from incident to plot."
(p. 5)
Plot events, Dibble goes on to add, have "important consequences and make
a meaningful difference in the story's fictional world. They are causes
that have significant effects. Cause and effect: that's what makes a plot."
(pp. 5-6)
"Plot is the things characters do, feel, think, or say, that make a
difference to what comes afterward. . . . Thought or emotion crosses the
line into plot when it becomes action and causes reactions. . . . Any
action, however seemingly trivial, can be vital and memorable if it has
significant consequences and changes the story's outcome. . . . Plotting
is a way of looking at things. Its a way of deciding what's important
and then SHOWING it to be important through the way you construct and
connect the major events of your story. Its the way you show things
mattering." (p. 6)
Dibble argues that plots should revolve around a "central conflict" in
which there is "something quite specific and vital at stake . . . to one
or more pf the characters involved." (p. 16)
----------
Here is a further exploration of this idea, coming from an exchange with
David Berkman (aka Andrew Finch):
On 27 Mar 1995, Andrew Finch wrote:
> Kevin R. Hardwick (krhr...@wam.umd.edu) wrote:
>
> Plot is not the stuff that happens in your world, plot is the stuff that
> happens due to the characters' dramatic necessity, and that stuff is how
> we know the characters and their dramatic necessity.
>
> Plot is character.
>
> : For Dibble, plot is rooted in cause and effect. For Field, it is rooted
> : in dramatic structure, by which he means "a linear arrangement of related
> : incidents, episodes, and events, leading to a dramatic resolution." (p.
> : 35) It strikes me that these two ways of looking at plot, while similar,
> : are distinctly different as well.
As it happens, Dibble does not equate character and plot. Plot, Dibble
says, consists of "causes that have significant effects. Cause and
effect: that's what makes a plot." Certainly character has an enormous
role to play in plot as Dibble defines it, but in this definition
character does NOT reduce to plot, or vice versa.
Now perhaps the difference between your statement and mine is semantic.
You argue that "plot is not the stuff that happens in your game world."
Certainly I would agree; game world INCIDENTS are not plot--those
incidents become plot EVENTS only when they "make a meaningful difference
in the story's fictional world." And "meaningful difference" implies a
particular perspective--these events must be meaningful TO someone, and
that someone is usually a character. If what you mean by "dramatic
necessity" is that some things matter to a character, I can accept
that . . . [unhelpful testiness snipped :) ] . . . Furthermore, the
definition I have suggested--a plot event is an incident that matters to
a character--highlights the ontological status of the event as something
external to the character; incident becomes event when it interacts with
character. Plot is not JUST character--it is incident too. Plot is the
convergence of the fictional world and character. Or, put another way,
the game world is the context within which characters create plot.
This is what Field means when he says that "in order to create a character
we must first establish a CONTEXT of character." (pp. 55-56) Go back to
the cup metaphor on page 23. The game world is the context that "holds the
content" that is character. They are NOT identical, just as in the metaphor
the cup and the coffee are not identical. But you cannot have the one
without the other; they are not the same thing, but they are each necessary
to have a story.
----------
Hope this helps,
My best,
Kevin
Kevin R. Hardwick
On Mon, 8 Jul 1996, William Clifford wrote:
> I read the four stances as applied to players but why not
> also to the GM? (Instead of IC we's have IW for In-World or IS for
> In-Story, not real clear on how that would work since IS would
> effectively be the same as author for GM's no?)
Certainly the four-stance model, at least as I originally proposed it
(its been modified some over the last two years) applies to GMs--it
applies to anyone seeking to derive meaning from an rpg. I don't see the
need to substitute IW for IC--after all, there are occasions when a GM
adopts an IC perspective--for me it happens all the time. I would
suggest that for most GMs the IC stance is shallower, since the GM does
not get to "wear" the character(s) for anywhere near the same length of
time as does a player, and has to be prepared to switch out of character
rapidly as well.
Just to push this a bit further--what separates the IW stance you are
proposing from an authorial or actor stance?
If it would be helpful, I can send you the article on which all this was
based, or repost it.
All my best,
Kevin
Kevin R. Hardwick
On Mon, 8 Jul 1996, William Clifford wrote:
> Also if a character can be said to be DIP or DAS why not a plot?
> (to this end could somebody remind me what DAS stands for again. thanks).
Well, as I use the term (but not as Peter Jackson uses it :) your
statement above is meaningful.
Plot inheres in a game anytime a character with motivations interacts
with a game setting in some sort of meaningful way (ie., a way that
engages those motivations.) Not all plots, then, are pre-planned--you
can get perfectly good plots from "DIP."
However, IME, DIP plots tend not to be as tightly focussed as DAS plots,
nor do they permit the use of a variety of story-telling techniques that
may, for some people, make the resulting story more effective, or have
more impact. For example, it is much harder to foreshadow in a DIP plot
than in a DAS plot. Likewise, flashbacks, cut-scenes, thematic imagery,
and so on are easier to use in a DAS plot. These devices, and others
like them, are not equally desirable for everybody--we've had long
discussions here about the utility--the costs and benefits--of these
methods. In general, I would suggest that a GM uses DAS plots when he or
she, and his or her troupe, want to emphasize the coherence of the story,
and want to utilize narrative devices that make that possible.
But, either way, you will get a story of some sort. What is at stake is
the *quality* of the resulting story. For some people that is important,
and for others not as much.
All my best,
Kevin
William Clifford
On 9 Jul 1996, John Novak wrote:
> In <4ru1ta$m...@crl.crl.com> bcks...@crl.com (Andrew Finch) writes:
>
> >: My main quibble is that this is a narrow definition of conflict.
> >: You give a classic man against man conflict (or men against men) where
> >: I think that man against nature, man against supernatural, and man
> >: against himself are all options, too.
>
> >The above definition works even for man against himself, where the
> >conflict is internal, the same person may be both protagonist and
> >antagonist, and the limited resource, the macguffin, is inner peace (or
> >whatever). For a classic example, there's Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde.
>
> I can go along with that.
>
> It pushes the resource competition idea a little bit farther afield
> than I'd like to take it, but if that's how far your definition goes I
> won't question it.
I have a quibble with this. Man vs *** descriptions apply to
plots after the fact and strike me as being useless in RPG terms. One of
the problems is that the story that goes on in an RPG is both developed
and experienced in play and is pretty much non-reproducible ever
afterwards. Sure you can play the same campaign twice. Same setting,
same "plot" in the sense of what may have been planned ahead of time but
change the players and the characters and it's a completely different
experience.
We need something that describes plot as it is experienced by the
players and GM. For the most part we have been talking about plot as it
is developed as though by a writer even to the point of recommending
books on writing as useful GMing tools. I don't question that this is
useful but I think we're past the point were what writers need to know
about plot is useful to us as GM's and players.
This is why I thought the distinction between story and plot might
be useful. The story is something that is experienced and plot is only
part of that. In an RPG the story is not just experienced but
participated in by the players (i'm including the GM as a player here).
Some people have reacted fiercely to a having a coherent plot in a game
before-hand. They didn't want their experience railroaded. Compaint
bothers me a lot and I have yet to see an adequate defense for having one
(aside from just personal taste in games). I guess that is why I've
brought up this whole can of worms again.
And believe me, I'm sick of the word plot too. It has a lot of
slightly different meanings that are usually "commonly" understood
from context and here we are trying to use it in a rather specialized
context.
And if you just say "plot" enough times to yourself it becomes
a meaningless sound.
<sigh>
-William Clifford
Andrew Finch
William Clifford (clif...@river.it.gvsu.edu) wrote:
: I have a quibble with this. Man vs *** descriptions apply to
: plots after the fact and strike me as being useless in RPG terms. One of
: the problems is that the story that goes on in an RPG is both developed
: and experienced in play and is pretty much non-reproducible ever
: afterwards.
Hmmmm.... now, I'll agree that the man vs. *** descriptions is not that
terribly useful, but it has some value, at least for me, at least as far
as plot design goes. I think about these things when I decide what the
conflict of the main plot is going to be, how it will evolve, and what
information and events are likely to intersect the lives of the PCs. This
provides insights into possible sub-plots for various characters.
: books on writing as useful GMing tools. I don't question that this is
: useful but I think we're past the point were what writers need to know
: about plot is useful to us as GM's and players.
I'm not, but I also see the value in going further, so... lead on McDuff.
: And if you just say "plot" enough times to yourself it becomes
: a meaningless sound.
Try one hand clapping.
David
Andrew Finch
John Novak (j...@cegt201.bradley.edu) wrote:
: If you want to classify man's right to freedom as a resource, you're
: perfectly entitled to do so. I remain content in thinking that
: someone came up with a catchy phrase (all plot is driven by conflict
: and the competition for resources) and then beat everything with a big
: wrench until it fit.
Of course, it may fit because it fits.
I could sit here smugly and say that life is a competition for resources,
and I would be on a tough soap box to knock down. because from one fairly
clear point of view, it is.
: Yes, the analogy _can_ be made, but as it goes farther and farther
: afield...
No, it actually stays in the exact same place. Drama is conflict, all
conflict occurs over some *thing* of value, whether that thing is tangible
or abstract does not matter. Therefore, all drama is about a conflict over
some limited resource (if it were unlimited, there would be no conflict
for it). Abstract resources are very common, very understandable, and not
at all 'far afield'. In fact, the abstract ground of emotional and
psychological needs is some of the most interesting and commonly used
ground for srories of all kinds. The best external conflicts are often so
interesting because they also create internal, abstract, conflicts, for
such odd resources as love, respect, freedom, and inner peace.
: I don't think it's a particularly good analogy, and I think
: it's more limiting than helpful. Particular as it applies to
: humanifying nature to the point where the Forest Perilous "wants" to
: kill someone, when it's only just a particularly dark forest.
But of course the forest 'wants' to kill someone, because, as a plot
device, it's an external reflection of our human fears. Here, there be
monsters. No, the forest is not sentient, but that won't stop it from
being 'dark and brooding', or 'full of perils', because the viewer is
sentient.
Three men are watching a flag flapping in the breeze. The first one says
that the flag is moving. The second one says that he's wrong, it's the
wind which moves. The third says they are both wrong, it is the mind
which is moving.
- Zen Koan
David
John Novak
>I could sit here smugly and say that life is a competition for resources,
>and I would be on a tough soap box to knock down. because from one fairly
>clear point of view, it is.
That's nice.
It isn't what I'm talking about, though.
>: Yes, the analogy _can_ be made, but as it goes farther and farther
>: afield...
>No, it actually stays in the exact same place. Drama is conflict, all
>conflict occurs over some *thing* of value, whether that thing is tangible
>or abstract does not matter. Therefore, all drama is about a conflict over
>some limited resource (if it were unlimited, there would be no conflict
>for it). Abstract resources are very common, very understandable, and not
>at all 'far afield'.
I don't have a problem with abstract resources.
I don't have a problem considering, say, the love of a woman to be an
abstract resource, or one's freedom, or one's happiness.
I merely subtract mentally from the weight of any analogy which
requires anthropomorphism to the point where I have to consider some
very large, vast, and completely impersonal [set of] forces as a
competitor in any real sense.
>But of course the forest 'wants' to kill someone, because, as a plot
>device, it's an external reflection of our human fears. Here, there be
>monsters. No, the forest is not sentient, but that won't stop it from
>being 'dark and brooding', or 'full of perils', because the viewer is
>sentient.
Then calling it man vs himself with sanity or peace of mind as the
resource makes more sense. I consider it an analogy stretched and
fraying.
Kevin R. Hardwick
On Tue, 9 Jul 1996, Carter Butts wrote:
> Interestingly, I have a very similar perspective...I tend to
> think of RPGs as residing along a continuum like so:
>
> Authored Freeform "Simulative" Pure
> Story Gaming RPGs Simulation
>
> Total<---------------------GM Control------------------------------>None
>
> Joint "Storytelling" Wargaming
> Storytelling RPGs
Interesting--this isn't my perception at all. I will certainly agree
that in an "authored story" the GM has total control. But it has been my
experience with the "Joint Storytelling" category that the GM must
*surrender* control, at least as compared to some games which do not
aspire to emphasize the story that the game will produce.
I also think that the contrast between "pure simulation" and
"story-telling" is false. I suppose it comes down to what you mean by
"simulation." But in my experience, those games that have felt most real
and true to life have also been those games that self-consciously
emphasized the story. Is a simulation, then, something other than an
attempt to create verisimilitude and "realness" in the game?
Part of the problem, I think, is that at the extremes one or the other of
the two fields of responsibilty (player and GM) is absent. For the
author writing the story, there is only the author; for the player in a
flight-simulator, there is only the player. I don't dispute your
analysis of either of these two situations--its the stuff in between that
gets fuzzy.
> IMHO, the continuum then represents different degrees to
> which the will of the GM controls the nature of the reality: on the one
> hand, the author's will subsumes even the players temselves, while on
> the other the GM is entirely lost in the Laws 'O Nature (TM). In the
> middle, the GM in various ways compromises with a more or less objective
> set of rules to decide the nature of events.
I think you can create such a spectrum of rpg. In some games the GM is
very autocratic, while in others the GM's authority is dispersed. But I
don't think this spectrum corresponds to an aspiration to emphasize the
story telling aspects of the game (which in any case will *always* be
present).
I've seen storytelling games that were very autocratic, and I have seen
story-telling rpgs in which the GM's authority was widely shared indeed.
I think what you have to analyze is the *extent* of authority possible in
a game. Who has responsibility to do what, and when?
Traditionally, it seems to me, GM authority is focussed on two places:
1.) the setting, and
2.) action adjudication.
Now, in a strongly simulationist game (in the sense that you seem to be
using the word, and in consonance with the way it has been used by many
rgfa contributors) the GM often shares responsibility for action
adjudication with the players--the GM's ability to decide things by fiat
is restricted by a set of pre-agreed mechanics, with the goal of
controlling at least the latitude that the GM possesses to be arbitrary.
In some game systems that seek to enhance the GM's ability to keep the
story coherent (but not all) this restraint on the GM is relaxed--the GM
is granted more authority. To this extent, your analysis above is
reasonable.
However, in games which decenter the GM's authority for action
adjudication, the GM's control of the setting is often quite explicitly
autocratic indeed. And conversely, in games that emphasize the story
(eg. THEATRIX) the GM's control of the setting may be quite relaxed, and
the players may have quite a bit of room to improvise the setting.
The question becomes even more complex when you look at the authority in
the game reserved for the players. Typically that is focussed on
1.) characterization--what matters to the character, and
2.) portrayal of the character--what the character is *like*, and
3.) emotive content of the character--what the character *feels*, and
4.) action--what the character *says* and *does*.
Now, I have been in games in which, to one degree or another, the GM has
intervened in one or more of these aspects. To the extent that the GM
does so, the game is, it seems to me, more autocratic. But the
connection between story-telling and "simulation," and the GM's
provlivity to intervene in these areas of player autonomy, has been weak,
it seems to me.
All my best,
Kevin
John H Kim
Hi -- I've had a million things to do at the moment, but I want
to throw in some comments before the topics completely disappear.
Kevin brought up the example of creating a character with the
express intent of exploring some theme. I think this is something
worth considering -- in that I think there are probably different
purposes for which people create characters. That is to say: one player
may create a character with the idea of exploring some theme in mind,
while a different player might create a character because he is
interested in the background without knowing where it will lead.
It seems to me that having explicit "campaign themes" defined
at the start is a move designed to encourage players who have an agenda
for what they want to happen to that character (I suspect this
requires a Develop-at-Start bent to some degree).
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
Kevin R. Hardwick <krhr...@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>Right. My character is ex-CIA, in Mark's Bureau 13/WoD/X-Files fusion.
>He is ruthless and amoral--a cold-blooded killer verging on psychopathy.
>The story line I am exploring here is redemption. He strikes a
>balance--and more than a few sparks--because his instrumental morality
>is not shared by other members of the troupe.
>
>This kind of character matches nicely with several of the themes that
>Mark has suggested--what does it mean to be human?
Hmmm. Interesting. For example, I created a cold-blooded
killer for a _GURPS Space_ game (Cain) -- but originally I had no idea
that he was going to be exploring the theme of redemption. I thought
that he would be a solidifying force, a leader for getting things done.
He didn't show a whole lot of emotional depth.
As it turns out, however, the other characters had more morals
than him -- and he was forced to choose between his work and his
artificial "family" (of fellow genetically engineered agents). At
this point, he gained a strong death wish and his story *did* become
about redemption.
-*-*-*-
The worry I would have in creating characters this way is that
the result might be more two-dimensional -- that is, I might highlight
only one side to that character because that is the "designated
theme". For example, my current PC in a _Call of Cthulhu_ game is an
ultra-conservative police inspector in London at the time of the
Jack the Ripper killings.
I can't say offhand what themes are being explored with this
character. His personal life has not been highlighted at all, but I
am considering it. Currently, I guess I would say that he is exploring
faith in the system, since he often tries to do things "by the book"
and that is coming into conflict with what he is finding.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Kim | "Faith - Faith is an island in the setting sun.
jh...@columbia.edu | But Proof - Proof is the bottom line for everyone."
Columbia University | - Paul Simon, _Proof_
John H Kim
OK -- this is a bit of a comparison between DAS and DIP plotting...
Kevin R. Hardwick <krhr...@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>On Mon, 8 Jul 1996, William Clifford wrote:
>> Also if a character can be said to be DIP or DAS why not a plot?
>> (to this end could somebody remind me what DAS stands for again. thanks)
DAS means "Develop at Start", BTW. This would imply that the
GM has a plan at the beginning of the campaign on approximately where
it will lead and/or some important features of how it will develop
(like theme, twists, etc.)
Obviously, real games are a mixture of DIP and DAS -- although it
may be illustrative to talk about extremes. Most GM's will have *some*
idea at the beginning of where things will go -- at least on the short
term. However, most do not have any sort of resolution or over-arching
storyline planned.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
>
>However, IME, DIP plots tend not to be as tightly focussed as DAS plots,
>nor do they permit the use of a variety of story-telling techniques that
>may, for some people, make the resulting story more effective, or have
>more impact. For example, it is much harder to foreshadow in a DIP plot
>than in a DAS plot. Likewise, flashbacks, cut-scenes, thematic imagery,
>and so on are easier to use in a DAS plot.
Huh? I don't really see the problem with flashbacks or cut
scenes, in particular, or really with any of these. My current game
is a mixture of DIP and DAS -- but I certainly have a lot of on-the-spot
creation of thematic imagery, flashbacks, etc. It isn't that tough to
create a flashback if you know the character history -- but at the same
time playing things out can be very illustrative.
Obviously foreshadowing is more difficult, but it can certainly
be done... Rather than inserting in elements to foreshadow planned
events, you throw in little random vignettes or more often, little
vignettes will just happen on their own. Then, later on, you plan
major plot elements which reflect those little vignettes. (i.e. Rather
than writing in Foreshadowing for the Plot, you write the Plot based on
chosen Foreshadowing).
This is actually very useful, in that the foreshadowing doesn't
stand out as such. Often, when I encounter foreshadowing in a planned
run, you have an effect like: "Gosh, why is the GM spending so much
time describing the weather and how animals are behaving. It must be
*foreshadowing*." This method guarantees that the elements blend in.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
Obviously the DIP plot elements can become a bit of a jumble,
but there is a return in terms of flexibility, I think. I am pleased
with how things are going right now in my campaign, but I don't know
where they will lead -- because at this point it is the players who are
directing the action as much as myself.
I would like to go into more examples of this later, because
I do see it as a serious shift in play style -- but that'll have to
wait for a later post.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
>
>In general, I would suggest that a GM uses DAS plots when he or she,
>and his or her troupe, want to emphasize the coherence of the story,
>and want to utilize narrative devices that make that possible.
>
>But, either way, you will get a story of some sort. What is at stake
>is the *quality* of the resulting story. For some people that is
>important, and for others not as much.
On the one hand, certainly the more effort you put into
developing an RPG campaign, the better it will turn out in the end.
This is pretty universally true.
The question is, is a campaign better for having a planned story
arc? I don't know very clearly, but I do know that some of my favorite
campaigns ended *completely* apart from where I would have predicted --
and ones where I tried to impose a story arc often fell flat.
I think *especially* if you have DIP players, then you should
avoid trying to make long-term plans until you see how things work
out in play. If you plan a standard pulp story arc, and it turns out
that you have a Weak-Jawed Hero as the leader -- then the game could
completely collapse.
Kevin R. Hardwick
On Wed, 10 Jul 1996, William Clifford wrote:
> I have a quibble with this. Man vs *** descriptions apply to
> plots after the fact and strike me as being useless in RPG terms. One of
> the problems is that the story that goes on in an RPG is both developed
> and experienced in play and is pretty much non-reproducible ever
> afterwards.
I don't follow you here--can you expand this thought?
You would seem to have accepted my contention (developed more fully in my
ongoing exchange with Peter Jackson) that it is useful to think of "plot"
in (at least) two seperate fields of endeavor--that of the critic,
concerned to analyze an existing work, and that of the author, concerned
to create a work. What I don't understand here is why you argue that
"Man vs. ***" descriptions are useful primarily to the critic, and not to
the author.
I question your assertion that "the story that goes on in an rpg is both
developed and experienced in play." To an extent you are correct, it
seems to me. But only to an extent. That is because the license to
adopt the authorial stance is divided, in an rpg, between players and
GM. But just because the responsibility to author the narrative is
divided does not mean that the GM, or players, or both cannot intervene
to enhance the coherence and quality of the narrative. Since the GM
controls much if not all of the setting, the GM is in a position to
develop plots before the play begins. Thus, while the players may
primarily develop and experience the story mostly in play, this may
not be true for the GM. (As an aside, it is worth noting that some
players also pre-develop the narrative, if only for their particular
character--eg., my character Raines, discussed on a different thread, who
has a broad pre-figured narrative direction.) The irreproducibility of
rpg narratives stems, it seems to me, from the fact that the
responsibility to create the story is divided. But that does not mean
that it cannot, to a certain extent, be pre-developed before play begins.
All my best,
Kevin
William Clifford
On Tue, 9 Jul 1996, Kevin R. Hardwick wrote:
> Just to push this a bit further--what separates the IW stance you are
> proposing from an authorial or actor stance?
Just throwing some ideas around hoping they don't disrupt any
nearby glass houses.
> If it would be helpful, I can send you the article on which all this was
> based, or repost it.
I'm interested even if no one else is. Anything to expand my
rapidly growing file on RPG theory.
-William Clifford
William Clifford
On 10 Jul 1996, Andrew Finch wrote:
> William Clifford (clif...@river.it.gvsu.edu) wrote:
>
> : I have a quibble with this. Man vs *** descriptions apply to
> : plots after the fact and strike me as being useless in RPG terms. One of
> : the problems is that the story that goes on in an RPG is both developed
> : and experienced in play and is pretty much non-reproducible ever
> : afterwards.
>
> terribly useful, but it has some value, at least for me, at least as far
> as plot design goes. I think about these things when I decide what the
> conflict of the main plot is going to be, how it will evolve, and what
> information and events are likely to intersect the lives of the PCs. This
> provides insights into possible sub-plots for various characters.
>
> : books on writing as useful GMing tools. I don't question that this is
> : useful but I think we're past the point were what writers need to know
> : about plot is useful to us as GM's and players.
>
> I'm not, but I also see the value in going further, so... lead on McDuff.
And here I hesitate. Perhaps it's not that we're getting past
what writers need to know but rather what writers take for granted in the
course of writing. In this case, what writer's take for granted GM's cannot
ignore. A writer can do anything they want with a story (Just ask William
S. Burroughs) where story in a RPG is a participatory thing and while the
GM has a lot of power over the story the GM does not have total control
over it.
I realize I'm treading on already well trodden ground here. Sorry.
Consider it the running start before the big leap.
Consider a game like a company in the stock market. If I remember
from my finance class correctly the person with majority stock has more
shares in the company than and other single shareholder. The GM is this
person in a game. The GM does not have (or does not always have)
controlling stock. Controlling stock is the 51% or more needed to make
the company do pretty much whatever it is you want it to do. Controlling
stock is divided among the players (at least in my games and the games
I've seen played since this is very much a group contract issue). Pretty good
analogy, I think. It may even be useful sometime later in describing the
degrees of control over the game different GM's have.
Plot (n) has at least two uses when it comes to the story. Plot
can be the overall scenario the characters are embroiled in or the big
problem they have to solve before the story is over. This applies to
GM's in RPG's very well. If the GM is like me and makes up his own worlds
and grand scenarios and looming troubles on the horizon then yes the GM
definitely crontrols the plot of a game.
The other common use of plot (at least on this newsgroup) is the
use where the plot of the story is in the hands of the character. What
the character does about the grand problems and looming troubles is
entirely up to them. In that sense the GM doesn't control the plot of the
game but that should be up to the players. If they don't want to go deal
with the invasion of the Dark Lord (tm of Klee-Shay 1996) in the south,
well I guess the game is going to have to take a different direction.
Railroading the game most obviously teleporting unwilling PC's
into the fray by some archmage. But the cry against dramatic games is a
little more subtle and much less well stated.
Here's the big leap (I hope).
Writers, at least the good ones, create a story by taking stream
of life (whether based on real life or imaginary) events and putting them
into a context where they stand alone as a single experience. I hope
everyone understands this because I don't want to get into art theory at
the moment. Is it the GM's job to create a single, stand-alone experience
(and thus a story) out of the events in the lives of the characters? I
think this may be what people (I don't remember precisely who. Mr. Ruggles
definitely and a couple of others a while back) have been getting at when
they say they don't have or want a "plot" in their games.
Hell yeah, it's a group contract issue but can you see where two
different assumetions, both implicit and not well understood about what,
can lead to an ugly time in a game?
* * *
> : And if you just say "plot" enough times to yourself it becomes
> : a meaningless sound.
>
> Try one hand clapping.
Sorry but I gave up studying cranky eastern mystics. Not smart
enough I guess.
-William Clifford
Andrew Finch
William Clifford (clif...@river.it.gvsu.edu) wrote:
: Is it the GM's job to create a single, stand-alone experience
: (and thus a story) out of the events in the lives of the characters?
I think this should be restated to take advantage of our perceptions of
the group contract. It's never just the GM, although the group contract
may give that entire burden to the GM, our group contract certainly does not.
So...
Is it the group's job to create a single, stand-alone experience (and
thus a story) out of the events of their characters' lives?
David
Anne B. Nonie Rider
Hmmm... All this talk of Man vs. XXXXX strikes me as
pretty useless for the kind of roleplaying I do.
Maybe it's a female thing, but to me, the structure of
the game is at least as much Man and Man (how the team
interacts and unites) as it is Man vs. anything.
I don't think of games in terms of whether my character was
fighting Man, Nature, or Destiny... I think of games in
terms of who my teammates were, how we talked, feared,
defended each other, gave each other support or walked away
to brood.
Sure, Man vs. XXXXX is a staple of litcrit terminology,
but it's just plain no gaming use to me.
--Nonie
Brian D. Howard
>The key to making man versus nature work would have to be coming up with
>ways that the players could make meaningful, informed decisions that did
>attention to the actual description of the natural setting can allow the
>character to accomplish her goals. I think that's the key to making
>*any* situation work--the player must be able to make sensible
>decisions, and must feel that the decisions are linked to the
>description of what's happening. This is easy enough in combat (for
>most players) because at least a few decisions (do I run or fight?
>which opponent do I choose?) are clearly important and clearly
>accessible to player decisionmaking, even if the details of combat are
>abstracted or mechanized away. It's harder in wilderness survival, but
>there should be some way to do it.
One of the best examples of man vs. nature I've seen was a group of characters
abord an ocean liner (there to meet contacts) which was attacked and began
sinking. At the same time were many conflicts on different levels. The ship
could not have been saved, although they did try anyway.
For one, they had to compete with an over-large group of passengers and crew
for limited life-boats. For another, they had limited time to figure out what
to do. The aft was sinking first, so not only did they have to get off the
ship in time, but if they wanted anything from the aft end, they had to get to
it before it was under water. They had to decide who was in charge, what they
would take, (they knew there were islands not very far away, but knew nothing
about them) and how to get off the boat. (By the time they figured out that
yes, the ship was a goner, they also figured out that they had no reasonable
chance of making it through panicked crouds to a life boat.) There was some
conflict with others, and even some amongst themselves, but man vs. nature
seemed represented as well.
Q - qxlrnglx - Brian D. Howard
"Hey, our government may not be perfect, but 54% of voting Russians seem to
prefer it to communism...whew, that was close, wasn't it?"
Carter Butts
Kevin R. Hardwick wrote:
>
>
> Interesting--this isn't my perception at all.
I wrote that it was "similiar" because your ordering of game
classifications seemed to me to be fairly close to my continuum
model. But read on....
> I will certainly agree
> that in an "authored story" the GM has total control. But it has been my
> experience with the "Joint Storytelling" category that the GM must
> *surrender* control, at least as compared to some games which do not
> aspire to emphasize the story that the game will produce.
Well, keep in mind that "control" here refers to control of
external events...IME, there's a lot more leeway for the GM in Everway
(for example) than in, say, Supremacy (provided you are using a
referee).
>
> I also think that the contrast between "pure simulation" and
> "story-telling" is false. I suppose it comes down to what you mean by
> "simulation." But in my experience, those games that have felt most real
> and true to life have also been those games that self-consciously
> emphasized the story. Is a simulation, then, something other than an
> attempt to create verisimilitude and "realness" in the game?
The problem may be semantic...by "simulation" I mean that the
external Laws 'O Nature (what ever they may be) are set out, and
carried out, in a formalized, consistent fashion. Hence, there's more
simulation in a system in which you always (for example) fall at a
rate of 4 meters per second than one in which the GM makes up how
rapidly you fall on the spot. Realism, of course, is a seperate issue.
> Part of the problem, I think, is that at the extremes one or the other of
> the two fields of responsibilty (player and GM) is absent. For the
> author writing the story, there is only the author; for the player in a
> flight-simulator, there is only the player. I don't dispute your
> analysis of either of these two situations--its the stuff in between that
> gets fuzzy.
Well, obviously this is going to be rough, as it is simply a
categorization imposed for convenience, but OTOH it also seems to
describe a lot of stuff pretty well - including the fact that part
of the perceived difference between detail (or simulation) oriented
games and free-form (or story, if you like) oriented games can be
captured by looking at the degree of arbitrary GM power. (As described
by the game rules. Obviously, rules can be ignored, but all that
does is change the game from one type into another.)
> I think you can create such a spectrum of rpg. In some games the GM is
> very autocratic, while in others the GM's authority is dispersed. But I
> don't think this spectrum corresponds to an aspiration to emphasize the
> story telling aspects of the game (which in any case will *always* be
> present).
Perhaps I should not use the term "story" in this way...I
chose it because (IME) "story-oriented" is popularly used to indicate
systems in which the GM has extensive perogative over the Laws 'O
Nature. Obviously, there will be story elements in any interesting
game (using it in the looser sense), but I intended to use this other
meaning of the word.
(Maybe we need a better one...)
>
> I've seen storytelling games that were very autocratic, and I have seen
> story-telling rpgs in which the GM's authority was widely shared indeed.
> I think what you have to analyze is the *extent* of authority possible in
> a game. Who has responsibility to do what, and when?
Hmm. I thought that _was_ what I was doing, more or less...but
I may not have been very clear on that. What I was trying to look at
was the "tension" between the more-or-less objectively defined rules
and the will of the GM. IMHO, you can explain a lot with that axis
alone...but, as you say, there you can understand more by adding
additional dimension (such as player control). Likewise, it may be
that in a game with extensive GM control, the GM will _delegate_ that
to the players. While this wan't explicitly in the model, it doesn't
hurt it either, because the model is about what the GM is "legitimately"
(as per the Rules (TM)) empowered to do (not what he or she does, per
se).
>
> Traditionally, it seems to me, GM authority is focussed on two places:
>
> 1.) the setting, and
> 2.) action adjudication.
>
> Now, in a strongly simulationist game (in the sense that you seem to be
> using the word, and in consonance with the way it has been used by many
> rgfa contributors) the GM often shares responsibility for action
> adjudication with the players--the GM's ability to decide things by fiat
> is restricted by a set of pre-agreed mechanics, with the goal of
> controlling at least the latitude that the GM possesses to be arbitrary.
X-actly.
> In some game systems that seek to enhance the GM's ability to keep the
> story coherent (but not all) this restraint on the GM is relaxed--the GM
> is granted more authority. To this extent, your analysis above is
> reasonable.
Indeed.
> However, in games which decenter the GM's authority for action
> adjudication, the GM's control of the setting is often quite explicitly
> autocratic indeed. And conversely, in games that emphasize the story
> (eg. THEATRIX) the GM's control of the setting may be quite relaxed, and
> the players may have quite a bit of room to improvise the setting.
That's an interesting point. My analysis is not that
complex: While it might be interpreted as being more "action centered"
than not, it really has a very general index of "GM Control." IME,
for _most_ games this seems to be sufficient...but natch there will
be outliers which treat certain aspects of the game world very
differently from others. I'm not disputing that...but I'm also not
claiming to have the True Vision of All Gaming (TM), either. I
simply think that you can understand what makes one game different
from another (including the more subtle differences noted in various
debates of "story" versus "simulation" or "rules") in _many_ cases
by looking at this variable.
> The question becomes even more complex when you look at the authority in
> the game reserved for the players. Typically that is focussed on
>
> 1.) characterization--what matters to the character, and
> 2.) portrayal of the character--what the character is *like*, and
> 3.) emotive content of the character--what the character *feels*, and
> 4.) action--what the character *says* and *does*.
>
> Now, I have been in games in which, to one degree or another, the GM has
> intervened in one or more of these aspects. To the extent that the GM
> does so, the game is, it seems to me, more autocratic. But the
> connection between story-telling and "simulation," and the GM's
> provlivity to intervene in these areas of player autonomy, has been weak,
> it seems to me.
I'm not sure that it's all that weak...games such as (to use
an earlier example) Everway give much more leeway period (to both
player _and_GM) than games such as GURPs in terms of how the character
works. But, on the other hand, yes, the differences are not perfect,
and this is one of the weaker aspects of the control model. That's
part of why I put in that player dimension, though it's always nice
to keep things simple. :-)
In any case, these are all valid compaints...I don't see the
GM control model as The Answer (SM) to everything. Nevertheless,
after having heard some of these "story" versus "simulation" debates
for the Nth time, I have come to think that some of the confusion
and, sometimes, _hostility_ could be averted if people looked at
the structure of gaming a little differently. The little 1-D model
which I propose is nice because it's neat, easy, and IMHO gets most
of the Stuff That Matters (R); it's not the only perspective, of course,
and it's certainly not The Truth (C), but only a filter for percieving
certain aspects of things.
-Carter
Brian D. Howard
In article <Pine.HPP.3.91.960710...@river.it.gvsu.edu>, William Clifford <clif...@river.it.gvsu.edu> wrote:
> I have a quibble with this. Man vs *** descriptions apply to
>plots after the fact and strike me as being useless in RPG terms. One of
>the problems is that the story that goes on in an RPG is both developed
>and experienced in play and is pretty much non-reproducible ever
>same "plot" in the sense of what may have been planned ahead of time but
>change the players and the characters and it's a completely different
>experience.
> We need something that describes plot as it is experienced by the
>players and GM. For the most part we have been talking about plot as it
>is developed as though by a writer even to the point of recommending
>useful but I think we're past the point were what writers need to know
>about plot is useful to us as GM's and players.
>be useful. The story is something that is experienced and plot is only
>part of that. In an RPG the story is not just experienced but
>participated in by the players (i'm including the GM as a player here).
>Some people have reacted fiercely to a having a coherent plot in a game
>before-hand. They didn't want their experience railroaded. Compaint
>bothers me a lot and I have yet to see an adequate defense for having one
>(aside from just personal taste in games). I guess that is why I've
>brought up this whole can of worms again.
It seems to me like you're confusing plot and resolution.
Plot, (to me, anyway) is just a basic framework. Plots are descriptions like:
The characters are on a sinking ship, what do they do?
The characters are involved in an assassination plot, or any of a bazillion
others. You can play out the plot over and over with other groups and you
will get similar plots. Similar events will probably happen in each game.
The resolution, the end result, will be different, yes.
The plot is an improtant part of the story. The trick is for it to be
flexible. If you have already decided what's going to happen, then the game
is really Man vs the Icy-Hand-of-Fate. There's no reason that a plot should
railroad the players into anything, unless the GM is so fond of his ideas that
he'll make sure they happen no matter what the players do. So basically I
think what I'm saying is that, to me, plot makes the difference whether the GM
has thought out ideas before hand, or whether he just makes everything up as
he goes. The GM planning ahead will generate recurring themes, tied around
past plots and events. The players will see the world changing around them.
Players of John's games should notice a lot of continuity caused in part just
by that. (Unless he's changed a lot in the last three years or so...)
To me that's the mark of a good GM.
(Oh, and complaint is just one form of feedback from your players. If you
don't like it, teach them a better way to give feedback, or make a point of
asking them for comments each session. It makes for a good way to wrap up for
the night, and it helps everyone keep track of their interests in the game.)
Q - qxlrnglx - Brian D. Howard
I used to be humble, but then I realized I wasn't as cool as I thought.
John H Kim
This concerns the question of "simulation" in regards to RPG's.
As usual, we are treading over old territory. I certainly agree with
Kevin's reply to Carter Butts that "joint storytelling" does not
correspond to greater GM control.
However, he seems to be equating "simulation" to something
different than is commonly referred to here -- which difference I
would like to clarify...
Kevin R. Hardwick <krhr...@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>I also think that the contrast between "pure simulation" and
>"story-telling" is false. I suppose it comes down to what you mean by
>"simulation." But in my experience, those games that have felt most real
>and true to life have also been those games that self-consciously
>emphasized the story. Is a simulation, then, something other than an
>attempt to create verisimilitude and "realness" in the game?
Of course it's different! I thought we had nailed this down
before, Kevin. As it has generally been used here, "simulation" is a
process by which the GM tries to respond without taking meta-game
factors into account -- i.e. avoiding storytelling techniques. It does
not mean "anything which creates the feeling of realness" in a game.
>
[Later in his article]
>Now, in a strongly simulationist game (in the sense that you seem to be
>using the word, and in consonance with the way it has been used by many
>rgfa contributors)
Just as a suggestion... if everyone else is using that meaning
for "simulationist", I would think it is much easier on the conversation
if you use that as well -- keep quotes or something around it if you
think it is inappropriate to the literal meaning of the word.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
Let me take a simple example:
The players have to investigate one of four different hotels for
clues in a mystery. At this point, they don't have a whole lot of
information on which one of the four is really the one they are
interested in (the one where Mr. X stayed). Thus, their choice will
be somewhat arbitrary.
A storytelling GM decides before-hand that the second hotel
they visit will be the one they are interested in. Thus, she only
prepares the descriptions of two hotels: Hotel #1 (the false lead),
and Hotel #2 (the target). Further, she tailors Hotel #1 so that they
will realize early on that it is not the one (thus leaving the
description incomplete).
Thus, when the players say they go to investigate the
"Oak Tree Inn", the GM uses the description for Hotel #1. It doesn't
matter which of the four names they say, she will always use that
description, and it will never be the correct one.
In contrast, a simulationist GM might create rough outlines for
all four hotels. He might decide beforehand that the "Oak Tree Inn"
is the hotel they are interested in, and thus, if the players say
they are going there -- they will find it on the first try.
-*-*-*-
The key here is that if the PC's go to the hotels one by one,
the storytelling GM will be able to give fuller and richer descriptions
of the hotels which may give more of a feeling of "realness". The
simulationist GM's descriptions may be a little more hollow because
his preparation is more sketchy.
The flip side of this is that the storytelling method may be
missing out on a certain amount of flexibility. Imagine this: rather
than going to the hotels one by one, the players decide to cursorily
check the appearence and location of the four hotels. They then take
off on a different tangent, trying to reconstruct Mr. X's route --
and then they investigate the hotel which is along that route.
Since the simulationist GM decided on all this starting with
Mr. X and his route in the first place, he will have consistent
answers for all of this, and the players might be able to track Mr. X
in a way which he hadn't expected at all.
The storytelling GM will have a much harder time for this, because
she spent more of her time preparing for the scenes at the hotel, not
wandering around the city. Instead, she finds an excuse to slip them a
clue leading them to Hotel #2. They don't notice this as "unrealistic",
thus the feeling of "realness" is maintained. However, the alternate
possibility was lost out on.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
[Re: GM authority over the setting and action adjudication]
>
>Now, in a strongly simulationist game [...] the GM often shares
>responsibility for action adjudication with the players--the GM's
>ability to decide things by fiat is restricted by a set of pre-agreed
>mechanics, with the goal of controlling at least the latitude that
>the GM possesses to be arbitrary.
[...]
>However, in games which decenter the GM's authority for action
>adjudication, the GM's control of the setting is often quite explicitly
>autocratic indeed. And conversely, in games that emphasize the story
>(eg. THEATRIX) the GM's control of the setting may be quite relaxed, and
>the players may have quite a bit of room to improvise the setting.
Huh? Kevin, I certainly agree that storytelling does not
correspond to GM authority, but I think this correspondence is equally
unwarranted. There is nothing about mechanical or joint action
adjudication which corresponds to greater GM control over setting, or
the inverse.
I would offer as examples _Amber_ and _Ars Magica_. _Amber_
gives much greater GM control over action resolution, but there is
no corresponding player control over setting. AM, in contrast, has
mechanical resolution, and also has greater player control over
setting (i.e. troupe-style play, whimsy cards).
Mary K. Kuhner
In article <Pine.HPP.3.91.960708...@river.it.gvsu.edu> William Clifford <clif...@river.it.gvsu.edu> writes:
> Also if a character can be said to be DIP or DAS why not a plot?
>(to this end could somebody remind me what DAS stands for again. thanks).
Sure, a plot can be designed at start or developed in play. _Sun in
Splendor_ was about "an Imperial exploration vessel dares the Forbidding
of the South, following the trail of the Mad Prince" and that's pretty
much what happened. Its sister campaign, _Sunrise War_, started out as
"the PCs are invited to go on a mining expedition, and uncover a
sleeping creature." As it turned out, a lump of metal they dug up
played a key role in the outcome of the entire war, but I didn't even
know (as GM) that there was going to *be* a war until about 1/3 of the
way through the three year campaign. The first campaign was fairly
strongly designed at start (DAS), the second was almost totally
developed in play (DIP).
The combination of a DAS GM and DIP players can be a little tricky; it
is hard for a DIP player to contract to make a character that will fit a
particular plotline. (Sun in Splendor had the advantage that once the
voyage started, individual PCs were in a poor position to back out even
if they had wanted to.)
The reverse combination also has pitfalls. I sometimes start a campaign
with very little knowledge of the game world. This is not acceptable to
DAS players, because it prevents them from making good characters.
If the GM can do either style, it might be ideal to try to match the
players' preferences....
> I read the four stances as applied to players but why not
>also to the GM? (Instead of IC we's have IW for In-World or IS for
>In-Story, not real clear on how that would work since IS would
>effectively be the same as author for GM's no?)
One question that we've found useful in understanding GMing styles is
"do you have to believe in the world?" GMs who say "yes" are often
using something much like IC stance (in brief, interrupted flashes) to
determine what NPCs will do, both on and off stage. They need
suspension of disbelief in the world in order to be able to get far
enough IC to generate interesting and "correct" NPC responses. I run
like this: if I lose belief, suddenly coming up with what happens
next becomes horribly difficult and labor-intensive. (I'm lazy, so
this is very bad.)
GMs who say "no" are more on the Author side of the line: they work out
what needs to happen from an external perspective, rather than from
inside the heads of NPCs. Generally they can't really believe in the
world, since they are too aware of creating it, but this is not a
problem for their style. I believe Kevin describes his GMing style this
way.
The "IC" style of GMing can be a problem for a GM who likes to preplot,
because he may find that his NPCs refuse to do what he wants (just as
PCs played in this style do). It seems better suited for a relatively
loosely plotted game. It can be a real lifesaver for an improvisational
GM--all you need is a glimpse of a character and events unfold from
there.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Mary K. Kuhner
In article <4rudcq$7...@cegt201.bradley.edu> j...@cegt201.bradley.edu (John Novak) writes:
>With almost a year's perspective on those particular events, the
>whole thing spiralled out of control because players and GM did not
>understand one another. I very much believe that Mike thought we
>would be disappointed if he compressed two months of time into a few
>dice-clatters, three sentences of explanation, and we were on our way
>again. So he put things on the surface of the abandoned, quarantined
>planet to keep us from getting bored.
>We, in turn, very much _wanted_ to be done with the whole sorry affair
>and tended to believe that Mike wouldn't be inflicting this whole,
>deadly boring affair on us if there weren't some point to it. So we
>investigated the little sensor blips, excavated the other wrecks and
>grew steadily more irate at stewing on the surface of the goddam
>planet trying to figure out what the bloody point was.
>Does this sound like the resident simulationist found someone who was
>even more simulationist and found the thing patently absurd? P'raps.
I think that pacing is one dramatic tool that even strict simulationists
need to use, and to be willing to use, in order to make the game work.
"Go fast through the boring parts and slow through the interesting
parts" is the basic principle, and it sounds so simple. Two problems:
(1) which parts are boring, and which parts are interesting?
(2) how do you make the game speed up or slow down?
We recently realized that for me as a player, the conferences among crew
members on Radiant are just about as interesting as anything in the
game, and they *need* to be done out in full. The GM had been trying to
hurry them along on the grounds that they weren't that interesting
(everyone knows that two PCs belonging to the same player shouldn't
spend time talking to each other, no?) The standard answer to such
confusions is "ask the player(s)" but *I* didn't realize how important
the conferences were to me until well into the game. I guess you just
have to *keep* asking.
How do you speed up a game, without abstracting away player
decisionmaking? Conversely, how can you slow it down without
information overload? It's easy enough in the case of the crew
conferences; just do them as full dialog. But how do you, say, slow
down the merchantile part of the campaign (the PCs solicit cargo,
bargain for it, work out contracts, and make deliveries) without getting
bogged down in details that neither player nor GM know?
I'm sure Chernoi's grasp of the market is much better than mine, but if
that grasp is reduced to a die roll the merchanting scenes whiz by, and
we end up with a campaign that is "about" what the characters do between
merchant runs, since next to no play time is spent on those.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Mary K. Kuhner
>For one, they had to compete with an over-large group of passengers and crew
>for limited life-boats. For another, they had limited time to figure out what
>to do. The aft was sinking first, so not only did they have to get off the
>ship in time, but if they wanted anything from the aft end, they had to get to
>it before it was under water. They had to decide who was in charge, what they
>would take, (they knew there were islands not very far away, but knew nothing
>about them) and how to get off the boat. (By the time they figured out that
>yes, the ship was a goner, they also figured out that they had no reasonable
>chance of making it through panicked crouds to a life boat.) There was some
>conflict with others, and even some amongst themselves, but man vs. nature
>seemed represented as well.
This is a really nice example, because the PCs had a number of
meaningful decisions to make, and those decisions didn't depend too much
on the mechanical implementation--they were the kind of decisions the
players, as well as the characters, could usefully stew over. The
timeline imposed by the sinking of the boat is good too: I think
critical situations like this may work better in RPG than situations of
the form "you are lost in the wilderness and need to survive".
Mary Kuhner
mkku...@genetics.washington.edu