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<blockquote data-quote="chaochou" data-source="post: 6090787" data-attributes="member: 99817"><p>I don't know where this post is going. I've got a vague point in mind so I'm going to ramble and see where it leads.</p><p></p><p>So I started roleplaying in around 1981 or 1982, aged 10 or 11. Mainly D&D but I went to a games club and there'd be Runequest and Traveller and Boot Hill, Car Wars and minis games, wargames, boardgames. A real melting pot. I moved towns a couple of times, but by 1987 I knew a pretty large and varied group of roleplayers (and boardgamers and wargamers).</p><p></p><p>And by this time I knew a lot of close friends who were looking for 'something else' from roleplaying. We'd followed the GM breadcrumb trail hundreds of times, whether in D&D or RQ or Cthulhu, Cyberpunk, Twilight 2000 or WHFRP. It could be fun, a real exciting rollercoaster. But it was just that, an exciting ride where we got to shout and laugh and go 'whoooo!' as the attractions whizzed past. Take that ride 500 times and it gets stale.</p><p></p><p>We wanted to create games that felt like Blade Runner or Aliens or Neuromancer. But the accepted wisdom of using GM force to keep the game progressing didn't allow anyone to be or feel like Deckard or Hicks or Case. We were still just stooges in the GMs show.</p><p></p><p>Now, a lot of people were thinking very hard about this, even back then. The problem was the prevailing mindset - which was that solving this problem somehow involved the GM doing something different. That if the GM suddenly hit on some magical formula, this perfect game would spring up and be awesome. I had a lot of conversations with a lot of people about how to try and GM these 'player-empowering' games where player choice completely drove the themes and the central story.</p><p></p><p>(As an aside, I think the sandbox was an early attempt to solve this problem. And while not what I, or many, were looking for certainly offered a new and intriguing type of play. It attempted to eliminate much of the GM force, but personally I didn't find it filled the void with anything of interest.)</p><p></p><p>Anyway, it took about 10 years of development and evolution in game design, but when it started appearing it turned out that a bunch of very clever people had realised not just that that 'the GMing had to be different' but also 'the playing had to be different'. In other words, our 'player empowerment' of 1987 needed to come from the player, not the GM. That was a key breakthrough and it may seem obvious, but anyone that wants to pretend so is being wise after the event. It was a theoretical brick wall back then.</p><p></p><p>My experience is it still isn't obvious now. I decided to broaden my horizons a while back and went along to a local rpg club to meet some new people. What I saw was a lot of games which could have come from 1985. They had shiny new rulebook and systems but the game was the same as it was back then. I ran Apocalypse World for some people. Two or three, who were familiar with Fiasco and Lady Blackbird and Burning Wheel, dove straight in. But others, used to following the GMs cues to the answer, were lost - and that lostness was manifested as being passive and reactive.</p><p></p><p>So when I hear about passive play and passive players I have a lot of sympathy because I've met a lot of cool people over the years looking for something they haven't got from mainstream play, but who are wary of being told 'This time it'll be different - it'll be your story, your decisions'. They've heard that sales pitch 1000 times and it hasn't been true.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="chaochou, post: 6090787, member: 99817"] I don't know where this post is going. I've got a vague point in mind so I'm going to ramble and see where it leads. So I started roleplaying in around 1981 or 1982, aged 10 or 11. Mainly D&D but I went to a games club and there'd be Runequest and Traveller and Boot Hill, Car Wars and minis games, wargames, boardgames. A real melting pot. I moved towns a couple of times, but by 1987 I knew a pretty large and varied group of roleplayers (and boardgamers and wargamers). And by this time I knew a lot of close friends who were looking for 'something else' from roleplaying. We'd followed the GM breadcrumb trail hundreds of times, whether in D&D or RQ or Cthulhu, Cyberpunk, Twilight 2000 or WHFRP. It could be fun, a real exciting rollercoaster. But it was just that, an exciting ride where we got to shout and laugh and go 'whoooo!' as the attractions whizzed past. Take that ride 500 times and it gets stale. We wanted to create games that felt like Blade Runner or Aliens or Neuromancer. But the accepted wisdom of using GM force to keep the game progressing didn't allow anyone to be or feel like Deckard or Hicks or Case. We were still just stooges in the GMs show. Now, a lot of people were thinking very hard about this, even back then. The problem was the prevailing mindset - which was that solving this problem somehow involved the GM doing something different. That if the GM suddenly hit on some magical formula, this perfect game would spring up and be awesome. I had a lot of conversations with a lot of people about how to try and GM these 'player-empowering' games where player choice completely drove the themes and the central story. (As an aside, I think the sandbox was an early attempt to solve this problem. And while not what I, or many, were looking for certainly offered a new and intriguing type of play. It attempted to eliminate much of the GM force, but personally I didn't find it filled the void with anything of interest.) Anyway, it took about 10 years of development and evolution in game design, but when it started appearing it turned out that a bunch of very clever people had realised not just that that 'the GMing had to be different' but also 'the playing had to be different'. In other words, our 'player empowerment' of 1987 needed to come from the player, not the GM. That was a key breakthrough and it may seem obvious, but anyone that wants to pretend so is being wise after the event. It was a theoretical brick wall back then. My experience is it still isn't obvious now. I decided to broaden my horizons a while back and went along to a local rpg club to meet some new people. What I saw was a lot of games which could have come from 1985. They had shiny new rulebook and systems but the game was the same as it was back then. I ran Apocalypse World for some people. Two or three, who were familiar with Fiasco and Lady Blackbird and Burning Wheel, dove straight in. But others, used to following the GMs cues to the answer, were lost - and that lostness was manifested as being passive and reactive. So when I hear about passive play and passive players I have a lot of sympathy because I've met a lot of cool people over the years looking for something they haven't got from mainstream play, but who are wary of being told 'This time it'll be different - it'll be your story, your decisions'. They've heard that sales pitch 1000 times and it hasn't been true. [/QUOTE]
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