How much back story do you allow/expect at the start of the game?

[Ovinomancer]

That's a fair example. If two or more players can get spotlight time simultaneously, then the available spotlight time can grow with greater engagement. If shared spotlight time is judged proportionally inferior, it stays stubbornly 0-sum. If, as in the 'floodlight' example, shared spotlight time isnt spotlight time at all, it can be a negative sum game, with available spotlight time contracting with greater engagement.
It depends on judgements about the nature & quality of that time.

Except both players are really alternating the spotlight in roughly equal measure and not actually sharing it. The narration of the story is still one author at a time.

 

[Sunseeker]

Apologies, a bit of derailment.



I recently had the opportunity to play and discovered how much it (having to drive the story) can suck...to the point where I quit the group afterwards due to my personal annoyance at the other players not being strong enough drivers in a 2-hour weekly online game. The lack of driving by the group encouraged the DM to start over-hinting and laying down tracks and that was the final straw. I couldn't see myself continuing in such a game without causing issues, so I pulled out after 5 sessions.

I generally DM, and this opportunity arose for me to play. I decided to play a sage like character who remains very much in the background. Problem was my character was not meant to be a driver but as a player I felt compelled to fill that role since no one else was stepping into it and this was especially frustrating in a 2 hour session, as it can easily lead to nothing ever being resolved or worse, having the DM railroad the game.

I tend to play high INT characters because (not to pat myself on the back) I'm a fairly smart cookie. And I don't like the role-play implications of being dumb. And yes I have had your experience before, wanting to play a back-seat sage or scholar type but due to the inaction of other players, I get pushed into the front seat and then I'm stuck there. I think I even wrote a couple threads about it here before.

 

[Desdichado]

Except both players are really alternating the spotlight in roughly equal measure and not actually sharing it. The narration of the story is still one author at a time.

Exactly. In good groups, with many good players, and a good GM who manages the table well, nobody ever feels like they're getting short shrift, but it doesn't create more spotlight. There's still the same amount of spotlight, and it's still zero-sum, of course. It's just a group that shares it well.

Which is, of course, a highly desirable state of affairs for pretty much any gamer, but I'm often both amazed and amused at the sophistry required to turn what amounts to little more than "having good players" to "a supporting argument for the kind of games that I like." I normally see that kind of thing with sandbox purists, but—obviously—it's not limited to them.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Except both players are really alternating the spotlight in roughly equal measure and not actually sharing it. The narration of the story is still one author at a time.

That's an example of a judgement about the nature of spotlight time - that it can't be shared, only divided into smaller and smaller portions - which'd, conveniently, make aportioning it zero-sum. That has implications for the designer of the game (player choices need to be niche-protected and/or limited availability to avoid stepping on each others toes), and for the GM running it (scenarios should cycle each player through a roughly equal ration of spotlight time).

OTOH, if spotlight time is considered shareable, then it's more important to balance player options than to segregate or limit them, and less important to shape scenarios around enforcing such limitations or pressures.

I don't think either judgement is invalid.
The former can be seen very clearly in the design of D&D and some of the ways better DMs tend to run it - the way it looks when it's not working so well should also be familiar to anyone who's played that game - or listened to players complain about their DMs.
The latter seems like what FATE and various indie games games shoot for in bringing players into 'scene framing' and the like.

 

[Ovinomancer]

That's an example of a judgement about the nature of spotlight time - that it can't be shared, only divided into smaller and smaller portions - which'd, conveniently, make aportioning it zero-sum. That has implications for the designer of the game (player choices need to be niche-protected and/or limited availability to avoid stepping on each others toes), and for the GM running it (scenarios should cycle each player through a roughly equal ration of spotlight time).

No, it doesn't have an implication for either. The former isn't necessary, although it does offer mechanical leverage. But no more so that the traits and hooks built into Burrning Wheel characters and rules or even those in PbtA (through the class moves packages). And, yes, a good GM should keep spotlight time in mind as a skill they need to hone -- it's not like this isn't one of the common themes in GMing advice from pretty much every corner.

OTOH, if spotlight time is considered shareable, then it's more important to balance player options than to segregate or limit them, and less important to shape scenarios around enforcing such limitations or pressures.

No, I disagree. Some of the story first style gaming systems do a much more thorough job of hard coding in spotlight apportionment and avoid balance for the most part. Some of the DM driven style games do a great job of balancing between character options and don't pay any attention to spotlight time.

4e is a great example of the latter, where niche protections are weak, there's little mechanical drive for spotlight time, and player options are keenly balanced against each other. But 4e runs fine without regard to your theory of spotlight time.

I don't think either judgement is invalid.
The former can be seen very clearly in the design of D&D and some of the ways better DMs tend to run it - the way it looks when it's not working so well should also be familiar to anyone who's played that game - or listened to players complain about their DMs.
The latter seems like what FATE and various indie games games shoot for in bringing players into 'scene framing' and the like.

Again, you're trying to force a false dilemma on playstyle by defining how spotlighting works. They're orthogonal topics, though.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] - this whole discussion begain with a post from [MENTION=6794638]MA[/MENTION]n in a Funny Hat. I feel it helps explain the strange turn the discussion has taken that you did not read that initial post, and hence did not know what I was responding to.

To reiterate - MiaFH contended that a lack of roleplaying skills should not result in a reduced lack of attention in play. I responded that roleplaying skill - and, ih particular, a engaging the game with a reasonably rich character who provides hooks to the GM - is a reasonable basis on which to generate attention. As such engagement will naturally shape and drive the shared fiction.

If you don't think that that is a skill, or that it's inverse - what I have called the timid roleplayer - is a lack of skill, well, fair enough. My own experience in a few different contexts makes me regard the ability to put oneself out there, by creating a rich character and then using it to engage, as a skill that can be learned and improved by practice.

(Obviously the dictionary definitions of "timid" and "lacking skill" are different. My poiint is that, in this particular context, they are coextensive to a significant degree.)

As far as your PC C is concerned - if there is a third player, who is engaging the fiction with a rich character who shapes and drives the fiction, then s/he may also find some way to engage in the scene I describe. "Spotlight", or what MitFH called "attention", can be shared - one person enjoying it doesn't preclude another enjoying it at the same time.

[MENTION=2205]Hobo[/MENTION] seems to assert the contrary - as do ou when you say that "both players are really alternating the spotlight in roughly equal measure". Again, I disagree. Turning from metaphor to literal cases, there is a difference between a spotlight flitting from dancer to dancer, and a spotlight on a couple dancing together. There is a difference between back-and-forth cuts from the face of one actor to the face of another, and the shooting of a scene where both actors are in frame and one gets to see the two together.

To turn from "spotlight" to MitFH's word "attention": it is possible to attend to more than one character at the same time, if they are engaging the fiction together.

I'm often both amazed and amused at the sophistry required to turn what amounts to little more than "having good players" to "a supporting argument for the kind of games that I like.

I'm not supporting any particular playstyle. I am simply disagreeing with Man in a Funny Hat that there should be no correlation between attention and player roleplaying skill. I think such a correlation is fairly inevitable in player-driven RPGing, and I prefer player-driven RPGing.

That's not an argument for player-driven RPGing. It's an argument from player-driven RPGing to the falsity of MitFH's contention.

Some of the DM driven style games do a great job of balancing between character options and don't pay any attention to spotlight time.

4e is a great example of the latter, where niche protections are weak, there's little mechanical drive for spotlight time, and player options are keenly balanced against each other. But 4e runs fine without regard to your theory of spotlight time.

I don't really follow this. 4e, at least as I've experienced it, defaults to a rather player-driven game (some better-known illustrations: player-authored quests; player wish-lists for one category of "reward"); and I think it illustrates [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]'s idea that balanced player options which allow players to engage the ingame situation together, in mutually reinforcing ways, makes spotlight non-zreo-sum.

 

[Ovinomancer]

[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] - this whole discussion begain with a post from [MENTION=6794638]MA[/MENTION]n in a Funny Hat. I feel it helps explain the strange turn the discussion has taken that you did not read that initial post, and hence did not know what I was responding to.

To reiterate - MiaFH contended that a lack of roleplaying skills should not result in a reduced lack of attention in play. I responded that roleplaying skill - and, ih particular, a engaging the game with a reasonably rich character who provides hooks to the GM - is a reasonable basis on which to generate attention. As such engagement will naturally shape and drive the shared fiction.

Actually, no, I followed that very well. The contention is that skill shouldn't normatively determine spotlight. You disagreed. Totally on the same page. I disagree. The strange turn is really on your odd definition of skill.

If you don't think that that is a skill, or that it's inverse - what I have called the timid roleplayer - is a lack of skill, well, fair enough. My own experience in a few different contexts makes me regard the ability to put oneself out there, by creating a rich character and then using it to engage, as a skill that can be learned and improved by practice.

And, here we end up with the subtle twist in meaning. You start talking about engagement but end up talking about doing a good job engaging the mechanical levers of the game to realize your intent -- you swapped the goals from a measure of engagement to a measure of knowledge and skill at realizing that engagement. That's the bit that doesn't work; you cannot measure willingness to engage with system mastery.

Being able to use the system, or manipulate your peers (as I'm fairly certain you do), to seize and hold spotlight time is indeed a skill. It doesn't measure enthusiasm or willingness to try, though, and that's what was being talked about before you tried to conflate the two.

(Obviously the dictionary definitions of "timid" and "lacking skill" are different. My poiint is that, in this particular context, they are coextensive to a significant degree.)

No. Logical fail. They may be coexistent, but one doesn't directly imply the other. You can be skillful and timid, or not timid and unskilled. To read this in the best light possible for you, it's somewhat fair to say that timid players will often not be afforded the necessary experience to become skilled. But, to that point, opinions like yours don't help that not be true.

As far as your PC C is concerned - if there is a third player, who is engaging the fiction with a rich character who shapes and drives the fiction, then s/he may also find some way to engage in the scene I describe. "Spotlight", or what MitFH called "attention", can be shared - one person enjoying it doesn't preclude another enjoying it at the same time.

Yes, it does. What they're enjoying isn't the spotlight, it's the scene unfolding in the spotlight. Watching is fun, too, and, when you take turns being the focus in a game, you have to also enjoy those moments of story unfolding that aren't the ones you're driving.

I've had a massive number of moments in games I've enjoyed, and often I'm in the spotlight for them. The side discussion about Lash and Ricardo that [MENTION=2205]Hobo[/MENTION] and I have be having contained a number of them. But, the single best moment in a game I've ever been a part of my character wasn't in the spotlight -- I had nothing to do with that moment, but it was amazing.

I have to feel that your arguments regarding shared spotlight are a bodge that you're using to mitigate the fact that you think it's appropriate for you to occupy the spotlight as much as possible through manipulation and "skill" by saying that the other players are sharing your spotlight, so it's okay, they get your leftovers. I disagree with this, both as a DM and as a player. In fact, even as a player I help point the spotlight in other directions by encouraging other players to use their abilities and stories to affect the story that encompasses us all. I help by not trying to take over when they are trying to work through a scene and by enjoying the failures as much as the successes. Clearly, from my discussions with Hobo, I'm well aware that failures can often be as much, if not more, fun than successes.

[MENTION=2205]Hobo[/MENTION] seems to assert the contrary - as do ou when you say that "both players are really alternating the spotlight in roughly equal measure". Again, I disagree. Turning from metaphor to literal cases, there is a difference between a spotlight flitting from dancer to dancer, and a spotlight on a couple dancing together. There is a difference between back-and-forth cuts from the face of one actor to the face of another, and the shooting of a scene where both actors are in frame and one gets to see the two together.

To turn from "spotlight" to MitFH's word "attention": it is possible to attend to more than one character at the same time, if they are engaging the fiction together.[/quote]
But if you're 'attending' to more than one thing at a time, we already have a concept for that: divided attention.

I'm not supporting any particular playstyle. I am simply disagreeing with Man in a Funny Hat that there should be no correlation between attention and player roleplaying skill. I think such a correlation is fairly inevitable in player-driven RPGing, and I prefer player-driven RPGing.

I violently disagree with that. This is an excuse for dominating the game and they laying blame on the other players for being not skilled enough to wrest control from you.

That's not an argument for player-driven RPGing. It's an argument from player-driven RPGing to the falsity of MitFH's contention.

No, it isn't. Just because that's how you play player-driven games doesn't mean that's how those games are meant to be played. In fact, most GM advice for those games on the topic explicitly mentions engaging player hooks through framing and doesn't mention letting that one player that is attempting to drive the whole game to do so if they have the requisite skill and the other players lack it.

I don't really follow this. 4e, at least as I've experienced it, defaults to a rather player-driven game (some better-known illustrations: player-authored quests; player wish-lists for one category of "reward"); and I think it illustrates [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]'s idea that balanced player options which allow players to engage the ingame situation together, in mutually reinforcing ways, makes spotlight non-zreo-sum.

It does not default to a player-driven game, but it can be played that way. It defaults to a DM driven game, as that's what all the adventure material published for it presents. Ignoring that and that saying your interpretation is the default is a strong version of ignoring evidence to support your conclusion. Again, 4e can easily work the way you play it -- there's nothing wrong with that approach at all and I'm glad you enjoy it that way -- but the overwhelming evidence is that its presented as a DM driven game.

As far the last sentiment, the idea that spotlight time is zero-sum does not preclude collaborative storytelling in mutually reinforcing ways. Having never experienced a game run by either myself or Hobo, I find it odd that you feel expert enough to dismiss our games as not having these elements in quantities at least as great as your own games. Having read some of your play examples, and having been in two of Hobo's games in the past, I can tell you that the level of collaboration in Hobo's games is at least as great as they are presented in yours. Yet, he agrees with me that spotlight time is zero-sum. Weird, yeah?

 

[Lanefan]

What a strange strawman. Of course all metaphors have limits. No one claimed otherwise. And, of course you can have shared spotlight, but PC C isn't very much involved in this scene, having no hooks with NPC X or hooks that engage PCs A or B in this scenario, and so he's out of the spotlight.

There's a bunch of assumptions and implications weaving through here (and in other posts by other people, I'm not trying to pick on [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] but this post just happens to be the easiest to use as a jumping-off point) that are making this discussion into something it otherwise wouldn't be.

First: that being in the spotlight is the main - or only - route to enjoyment of the game. Not at all true. Player C in this case could be getting great enjoyment and entertainment simply out of watching the show being put on by Players A and B, and the DM. And not just in this particular case, but most of the time during the game...that's mostly what keeps him coming back every week - the entertainment value of these guys. (I've been Player C on a few occasions, where week in and week out the best part of the game was the entertainment provided by other players and all I did some nights was laugh)

Second: that there's this "spotlight" resource that the players (not characters) are actively and intentionally always competing for in a greedy sort of way. While it's true that a DM only has so much attention to go around, it's not necessarily true that there's always (or ever, in some cases) active competition for said attention; and it's also not necessarily true that players are unwilling to allow the DM to focus on one player (character) for a while. If a party sends their Thief ahead scouting, for example, that's the players in effect telling the DM to focus on that character and its player for a while and to ignore the rest of them as they have willingly conceded the spotlight to the Thief for however long it takes to resolve the scouting mission.

Second, part 2: that a DM can't divide her attention and-or focus on two or more things at once. Some can, which implies there can be more than one spotlight turned on at a time and that, by extension, zero is a floating number.

Second, part 3: that the only "spotlight" that matters is that of having the DM's attention. It's entirely possible, for example, that two PCs (and thus players) are engaged in their own private discussion while the DM sorts out PCs three and four. Here there's two independent spotlights - players one and two have one (their own discussion) while players three and four have the other; everybody's happy, and neither group sees or knows what the other is doing unless later narration makes it obvious.

Third: that system mastery is the measure of how "good" someone is as a player. Absolute garbage. One can be an excellent and engaged player, full of good ideas and creative solutions put forth by memorable and entertaining characters, and yet still not know what dice to roll when, or why; or how to roll up a character.

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

the idea that spotlight time is zero-sum does not preclude collaborative storytelling in mutually reinforcing ways. Having never experienced a game run by either myself or Hobo, I find it odd that you feel expert enough to dismiss our games as not having these elements in quantities at least as great as your own games. Having read some of your play examples, and having been in two of Hobo's games in the past, I can tell you that the level of collaboration in Hobo's games is at least as great as they are presented in yours. Yet, he agrees with me that spotlight time is zero-sum. Weird, yeah?

Not that weird. You're responsible for your understandings resulting from your experiences. I'm just telling you mine.

You can be skillful and timid, or not timid and unskilled.

Is there such a thing as a skilled but timid actor? A skilled but timid circus performer? A skilled but timid firefighter?

Some activities, to be done well, require a degree of non-timidity. Roleplaying - as in, engaging the fiction with one's character in a vibrant and fiction-shaping way - is one of those things.

Just because that's how you play player-driven games doesn't mean that's how those games are meant to be played. In fact, most GM advice for those games on the topic explicitly mentions engaging player hooks through framing and doesn't mention letting that one player that is attempting to drive the whole game to do so if they have the requisite skill and the other players lack it.

I don't know what GMing advice you have in mind. Here's some stuff from Burning Wheel revised (pp 268-69):

In Burning Wheel, it is the GM's job to interpret all of the various intents of the players' actions and mesh them into a cohesive whole that fits within the context of the game. . . .

Most important, the GM is responsible for introducing complications to the story and consequences to the players' choices. . . .

In Burning Wheel, players have a number of duties: . . .

Players in Burning Wheel must use their characters to drive the story forward - to resolve conflicts and create new ones. Players are supposed to push and risk their characters . . .

Participate. Help enhance your friends' scnes and step forward and make the most of your own.​

Players have a duty to participate and drive the story. To step up. To enhance one anothers' scenes (that's non-zero sum spotlight). The driving of the story happens because the GM (i) meshes all those player intents into a coherent whole (greater than the sum of the parts), and (ii) generates consequences.

If a player won't step up, won't drive the story, won't risk his/her PC by engaging the fiction, then that player is not going to have the same degree of impact on play, and is not going to get the same attention.

 

[Desdichado]

So... Ovinomancer has said repeatedly that you are on a Burning Wheel paradigm that has very limited applicability to D&D. And after spinning around in circles for several pages to essentially deny that and claim actual relevant experiences for your claims you finally come out and literally post some GMing advice from Burning Wheel?

Is this the point where we can wow just wow yet?

[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION], you've had more patience than you should. Yes, you've completely devastated the arguments, such as they were, but it turns out you weren't in an argument. You were merely the target for some kind of public aggravating performance art.