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<blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 6088874" data-attributes="member: 463"><p>Funny, normally this discussion of problems with passive, wallflower, non-motivated players comes up in the context of sandbox play! Sandbox play where the GM improvs in response to player input sounds awfully, awfully like this apparently Dramatist approach. I'm starting to feel like the <em>Yin</em> of sandbox and <em>Yang</em> of dramatist play (here, PSF) are merely aspects of a great universal RPG truth! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" /> </p><p></p><p>On the general point re passive players - if Bangs are thrown at the party, the idea is that they have to respond somehow to the event, so the need for truly self-motivated players should be less than with sandbox play. With sandbox I find you only need one or maybe two real Instigator players in the group - in fact too many can make a single-party game really hard to run, because the PCs will always be shrapnelling off in different directions. I think PSF is even less demanding - the only way a group will fail at PSF is if they are all Turtles, or the group is dominated by a Turtle, who reject all offers, who find ingenious ways to avoid interacting with Bangs, etc. Turtle play really really sucks; it was my misfortune to once run a high level 3e campaign where a charismatic Turtle player got everyone else to go along with him, and it was a very unpleasant and draining experience.</p><p>But normally-passive players, the sort who have been trained by Adventure Paths not to think outside the box, are bad in sandbox games but I don't think are normally a problem in PSF play using Bangs. "Three orcs with swords come through the door - what do you do?!" - The normally-passive player will have no problem mustering a response (the serious Turtle will respond - 'That could never have happened, because...') - normally passive players just act as if they were on AP rails and give whatever they think the 'expected' response is, and that works ok.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="S'mon, post: 6088874, member: 463"] Funny, normally this discussion of problems with passive, wallflower, non-motivated players comes up in the context of sandbox play! Sandbox play where the GM improvs in response to player input sounds awfully, awfully like this apparently Dramatist approach. I'm starting to feel like the [I]Yin[/I] of sandbox and [I]Yang[/I] of dramatist play (here, PSF) are merely aspects of a great universal RPG truth! :D On the general point re passive players - if Bangs are thrown at the party, the idea is that they have to respond somehow to the event, so the need for truly self-motivated players should be less than with sandbox play. With sandbox I find you only need one or maybe two real Instigator players in the group - in fact too many can make a single-party game really hard to run, because the PCs will always be shrapnelling off in different directions. I think PSF is even less demanding - the only way a group will fail at PSF is if they are all Turtles, or the group is dominated by a Turtle, who reject all offers, who find ingenious ways to avoid interacting with Bangs, etc. Turtle play really really sucks; it was my misfortune to once run a high level 3e campaign where a charismatic Turtle player got everyone else to go along with him, and it was a very unpleasant and draining experience. But normally-passive players, the sort who have been trained by Adventure Paths not to think outside the box, are bad in sandbox games but I don't think are normally a problem in PSF play using Bangs. "Three orcs with swords come through the door - what do you do?!" - The normally-passive player will have no problem mustering a response (the serious Turtle will respond - 'That could never have happened, because...') - normally passive players just act as if they were on AP rails and give whatever they think the 'expected' response is, and that works ok. [/QUOTE]
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