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A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7572907" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Maxperson, here's this particular conversation:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I asked you what you meant by "normal stuff", and you told me to refer to "real life". Well, in real life I've never researched my heritage and destiny in a library, and have never met nobility.</p><p></p><p>Furthermore, in real life, interacting with mediaeval nobility did not generate the risks you are describing - you seem to have mediaeval nobles confused with Stalin.</p><p></p><p>Moreover, if interacting with nobility is so risky and high stakes and exciting, then how does it fall under the description <em>normal stuff</em> rather than <em>confrontingt stuff</em>?</p><p></p><p>I've articulated a pretty clear conception of what makes character goals and themes MEAT in [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION]'s sense, and have explained why <em>reading library books</em> and <em>hanging out with nobles</em> doesn't count. In response you're trying to tell me that that stuff is good because it's normal like real life, not dramatic, but is also risky. I have no idea what your actual advice to players and GMs is. Should games be boring, or not? If not, then where is the interest located? If it's in <em>risk</em>, then what do you think is the contrast between that and drama? If it's in the laying out of GM-established backstory, then we're back to AbdulAlhazred's point that the PC's goal/theme is not at the centre of play. But I thought you were disagreeing with him on that point.</p><p></p><p>If you are claiming that your game can be exciting by eschewing excitement, then I simply don't believe it.</p><p></p><p>Huh? Here's a real-world timeframe - I'll probably be dead in 40 or so years.</p><p></p><p>Here's another real-world timeframe - I play on Sunday afternoons, which are followed by Sunday evenings which are school nights. So given our sessions start after lunch around 2 pm, and have to finish around 6 pm, I have 4 hours per session.</p><p></p><p>I want to cram as much into each session as I can!</p><p></p><p>There's a whole genre of games for people who like mathematical optimisation as their approach to play - rules-intensive wargames - and D&D has a significant heritage connection to that genre.</p><p></p><p>But it's not very realistic to have such rational characters all the time. Many people in many circumstances don't act rationally. I re-watched Gravity on Saturday afternoon in preparation for GMing Traveller yesterday, and (*spoiler alert*) in an early scene Sandra Bullock insists on finishing a particular engineering process even though George Clooney is instructing her to get back into the shuttle NOW. That's not rational on her part, but it makes for a believable character.</p><p></p><p>In the context of the film it also produces drama, where the question is not <em>will this character compute the optimal course of action?</em> but <em>will this character's irrational concern with her particular component of the mission bring ruin on the mission itself?</em> Approaching the fiction from the point of view of mathematical optimisation does not produce drama - in the context of RPGing, it tends not to produce <em>exciting</em> play.</p><p></p><p>In my Prince Valiant game, two of the PC knights wanted to marry noblewomen, to improve their social status. They didn't go about this by hanging out at heraldic colleges collecting lists of eligible ladies and then calculating their odds with each one. That would be boring; and part of why it would be boring would be that it would be, in effect, triggering glossography download from the GM. Where's the play?</p><p></p><p>Rather, they wooed ladies they met in the course of their errantry (at one stage the two of them competing for the hand of the lovely Violette), protected them from bandits, aided their families, and in general did the sorts of things that Arthurian knights do in (real or faux) mediaeval romances. That's game play!</p><p></p><p>I think this is obviously not true. When you look at films, or TV shows, or other well-authored fiction, the whole thing is structured so as to produce drama, excitement and interesting stuff. A film won't show the characters going to the laundrette if that does not have some connection to the deeper narrative concerns of the film.</p><p></p><p>The idea that RPG fiction will suffer in some fashion if it's as dramatic and/or exciting as other forms of fiction is quite implausible.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7572907, member: 42582"] Maxperson, here's this particular conversation: I asked you what you meant by "normal stuff", and you told me to refer to "real life". Well, in real life I've never researched my heritage and destiny in a library, and have never met nobility. Furthermore, in real life, interacting with mediaeval nobility did not generate the risks you are describing - you seem to have mediaeval nobles confused with Stalin. Moreover, if interacting with nobility is so risky and high stakes and exciting, then how does it fall under the description [I]normal stuff[/I] rather than [I]confrontingt stuff[/I]? I've articulated a pretty clear conception of what makes character goals and themes MEAT in [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION]'s sense, and have explained why [I]reading library books[/I] and [I]hanging out with nobles[/I] doesn't count. In response you're trying to tell me that that stuff is good because it's normal like real life, not dramatic, but is also risky. I have no idea what your actual advice to players and GMs is. Should games be boring, or not? If not, then where is the interest located? If it's in [I]risk[/I], then what do you think is the contrast between that and drama? If it's in the laying out of GM-established backstory, then we're back to AbdulAlhazred's point that the PC's goal/theme is not at the centre of play. But I thought you were disagreeing with him on that point. If you are claiming that your game can be exciting by eschewing excitement, then I simply don't believe it. Huh? Here's a real-world timeframe - I'll probably be dead in 40 or so years. Here's another real-world timeframe - I play on Sunday afternoons, which are followed by Sunday evenings which are school nights. So given our sessions start after lunch around 2 pm, and have to finish around 6 pm, I have 4 hours per session. I want to cram as much into each session as I can! There's a whole genre of games for people who like mathematical optimisation as their approach to play - rules-intensive wargames - and D&D has a significant heritage connection to that genre. But it's not very realistic to have such rational characters all the time. Many people in many circumstances don't act rationally. I re-watched Gravity on Saturday afternoon in preparation for GMing Traveller yesterday, and (*spoiler alert*) in an early scene Sandra Bullock insists on finishing a particular engineering process even though George Clooney is instructing her to get back into the shuttle NOW. That's not rational on her part, but it makes for a believable character. In the context of the film it also produces drama, where the question is not [I]will this character compute the optimal course of action?[/I] but [I]will this character's irrational concern with her particular component of the mission bring ruin on the mission itself?[/I] Approaching the fiction from the point of view of mathematical optimisation does not produce drama - in the context of RPGing, it tends not to produce [I]exciting[/I] play. In my Prince Valiant game, two of the PC knights wanted to marry noblewomen, to improve their social status. They didn't go about this by hanging out at heraldic colleges collecting lists of eligible ladies and then calculating their odds with each one. That would be boring; and part of why it would be boring would be that it would be, in effect, triggering glossography download from the GM. Where's the play? Rather, they wooed ladies they met in the course of their errantry (at one stage the two of them competing for the hand of the lovely Violette), protected them from bandits, aided their families, and in general did the sorts of things that Arthurian knights do in (real or faux) mediaeval romances. That's game play! I think this is obviously not true. When you look at films, or TV shows, or other well-authored fiction, the whole thing is structured so as to produce drama, excitement and interesting stuff. A film won't show the characters going to the laundrette if that does not have some connection to the deeper narrative concerns of the film. The idea that RPG fiction will suffer in some fashion if it's as dramatic and/or exciting as other forms of fiction is quite implausible. [/QUOTE]
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