At the Intersection of Skilled Play, System Intricacy, Prep, and Story Now

[chaochou]

Story Now requires that at least one engaging issue or problematic feature of human existence be addressed in the process of role-playing. "Address" means:

Establishing the issue's Explorative expressions in the game-world, "fixing" them into imaginary place.

Developing the issue as a source of continued conflict, perhaps changing any number of things about it, such as which side is being taken by a given character, or providing more depth to why the antagonistic side of the issue exists at all.

Resolving the issue through the decisions of the players of the protagonists, as well as various features and constraints of the circumstances.

Can it really be that easy? Yes, Narrativism is that easy.

And it all happens in Montsegur 1244. And it all happens in Fiasco. It really is that easy.

Attempting to smuggle in your own aesthetic preferences about 'consensus resolution' and then claiming those as definitional really isn't worth anything. It's adding nothing to the discussion.

It's certainly adding absolutely nothing with 'predictive or explanatory power'. It's just a backhand way of attempting to define your own preferences into something which was much more lucid and interesting without them.

 

[chaochou]

My character was a small time crook on an Atlantic liner to New York who owed a lot of money to the mob.

I'd found an heiress on board who had a set of diamonds I could use to pay off my debt, but in the process of trying to find out where they were stashed and how I could get them, I'd become smitten with the heiress.

So I went to her stateroom during the evening hoping to see her. But she's there cavorting with another man, an aristocrat.

Do I shoot him for love of her? Do I kill them both? Do I threaten to kill him unless she opens the safe? And is she going to?

This all happened in my first game of Fiasco. And it was all Story Now play.

 

[Ovinomancer]

And it all happens in Montsegur 1244. And it all happens in Fiasco. It really is that easy.

Necessary does not mean sufficient.

Attempting to smuggle in your own aesthetic preferences about 'consensus resolution' and then claiming those as definitional really isn't worth anything. It's adding nothing to the discussion.

Except that's not what's happening. I have no problems with consensus resolution. I'm not arguing this from a position of disliking consensus resolution. I'm pointing out that consensus resolution requires compromise and that means that a player cannot fully advocate for their character. That consensus resolution also strongly pushed towards choosing for better story rather than character dramatic needs. It's that simple. You cannot both push for your character's dramatic needs and compromise those for another players.

It's certainly adding absolutely nothing with 'predictive or explanatory power'. It's just a backhand way of attempting to define your own preferences into something which was much more lucid and interesting without them.

I'm not defining my preferences. I don't think games are good or bad because they enable a given kind of play. I'm not at all a purist for any kind of play. No effort on that here, you've badly mistaken where I'm coming from and chosen to attack my character rather than engage my arguments. If you pitched me Montsegur 1244 as Story Now and then explained consensus resolution and randomized prompt driven scene framing, I'd absolutely be thinking this isn't Story Now but I wouldn't dislike the game because of the mistake in categorization. That would be silly.

 

[Ovinomancer]

My character was a small time crook on an Atlantic liner to New York who owed a lot of money to the mob.

I'd found an heiress on board who had a set of diamonds I could use to pay off my debt, but in the process of trying to find out where they were stashed and how I could get them, I'd become smitten with the heiress.

So I went to her stateroom during the evening hoping to see her. But she's there cavorting with another man, an aristocrat.

Do I shoot him for love of her? Do I kill them both? Do I threaten to kill him unless she opens the safe? And is she going to?

This all happened in my first game of Fiasco. And it was all Story Now play.

This is a story, not a play example. What scenes were framed how? What did resolution look like? There's nothing here that says it's Story Now. Knowing that system, there are challenges to that because scenes do not have to be framed to address character dramatic needs and don't have to be resolved that way, either.

So let's address Nordic Larp. This isn't Story Now agendas, but absolutely tries to center bleed, or emotionally connecting to the character. It can share a focus on drama, but the agenda is different. Often, Story Now cuts against Nordic Larp because honest advocation for PC dramatic needs is not something you might want to identify with.

 

[chaochou]

I'm pointing out that consensus resolution requires compromise and that means that a player cannot fully advocate for their character. That consensus resolution also strongly pushed towards choosing for better story rather than character dramatic needs. It's that simple. You cannot both push for your character's dramatic needs and compromise those for another players.

And yet none of that prevents Story now, the prerequisites of which I quoted and which you continue to ignore. You are simply adding your own prerequisites and claiming them as true.

Again, do we have premise = yes. Are the players in control of their protagonism = yes. Does it address the premise = yes. Story Now.

I reject all your additional stipulations. I’ve quoted the requirements for Story Now, as written by Ron and provide examples which meet them. Now you cite me where all your additional stipulations are coming from.

As for my example, it used the rules for Fiasco. Which create Story. Now. You should know the rules, shouldn’t you?

You’re yet to provide a single example of play, or any evidence that Story Now play requires the elements you claim. And the reason is, it doesn’t.

 

[pemerton]

I don't see that consensus resolution need be the same as conch-passing or mere story-telling. It depends how it's structured.

Torchbearer contains elements of consensus resolution. One place is in the negotiation for compromises at the end of a conflict. It inherits this from BW's Duel of Wits, and I'm guessing also from Mouse Guard. (And in this respect it contrasts with In A Wicked Age, which has defaults (enduring debuffs, somewhat comparable to Torchbearer conditions) in the absence of consensus.) Another place is in the rules for using Traits, which depend upon group consensus that the Trait is applicable and that the player activating it is not "reaching".

My knowledge of Fiasco is limited to Wikipedia, which describes its framing and resolution like this:

for each player's turn, she or he may choose either to Establish or to Resolve.

Should the player choose to Establish, the content of the scene—people, place, conflict—is determined by the player. Doing this allows the player to set up the scene as they wish. However, the resolution of the scene or conflict is determined by the other players, who will choose a light die (a good resolution) or a dark die (a bad resolution) to give to the player in the middle of the scene. The player must accept the resolution, acting out or narrating events accordingly.

Alternatively, should the player choose to Resolve, the other players dictate the circumstances of the scene: the characters with whom the player's character will interact, where it happens, and what the conflict within the scene is. Choosing this option gives the player control of the resolution, unlike the Establish option. . . .

If there were mostly positive resolutions in Act One, there will, by necessity, be mostly negative resolutions in Act Two.​

Taken at face value, there is no Czege violation here, as no one both frames and resolves. And it looks like "drama" resolution (using Tweet and Edwards' fortune/karma/drama terminology), with a player's choice of resolution being (as I understand it) constrained by the available resolution dice.

Relating this back to @Manbearcat's OP: I think in this sort of resolution framework there is less scope for skilful play based on knowledge or manipulation of the mechanics. That doesn't necessarily stop "step on up" drift, however: based on that Wikipedia description Fiasco seems like it could be a site of low-level social competition, eg over influencing the framing of scenes and maybe even pushing for dice or gambling on a particular "tilt" outcome. @chaochou, have you ever encountered that style of "gamist" Fiasco? (Montsegur, simply in virtue of its thematic content, seems like it would be more resistant to any such drift. But that's mere intuition, not experience.)

 

[chaochou]

That doesn't necessarily stop "step on up" drift, however: based on that Wikipedia description Fiasco seems like it could be a site of low-level social competition, eg over influencing the framing of scenes and maybe even pushing for dice or gambling on a particular "tilt" outcome. @chaochou, have you ever encountered that style of "gamist" Fiasco?

No, I haven’t. Of course, players frame each other into difficult spots and flaky situations. And of course that makes for excellent, thematic gameplay.

But the idea you can reliably manipulate the dice is a non-starter. The idea that anyone is prevented from playing hard by the resolution framework is a rhetorical deceit using the word ‘consensus’ to obfuscate the complexity and subtlety of the actual system.

So even if you accept the claim that story now relies on particular resolution methods (and the original essays make clear that this is false), the application of the descriptor “consensus” to outcomes in Fiasco is close to worthless.

 

[Ovinomancer]

And yet none of that prevents Story now, the prerequisites of which I quoted and which you continue to ignore. You are simply adding your own prerequisites and claiming them as true.

I did. Necessary not sufficient ring a bell? There's more to it than the single bullet point from your last post. You lost more below, so you clearly understand there's more to it.

Again, do we have premise = yes. Are the players in control of their protagonism = yes. Does it address the premise = yes. Story Now.

No, you're compromising protagonism with consensus resolution.

I reject all your additional stipulations. I’ve quoted the requirements for Story Now, as written by Ron and provide examples which meet them. Now you cite me where all your additional stipulations are coming from.

What additional stipulations? This is becoming weird. I'm accused of inserting my preferences, and now of insisting on unstated additional stipulations that you cannot list or quote.

As for my example, it used the rules for Fiasco. Which create Story. Now. You should know the rules, shouldn’t you?

I do. Fiasco is not billed as Story Now, and you are the first and only b person I've seen make the argument. It's straight up billed as a storytelling game contains in its text exhortations to play to make a great story.

Here:
"WHAT IS FIASCO? FIASCO is a storytelling game inspired by cinematic tales of small-time capers gone disastrously wrong. You’ll tell a story about ordinary people with powerful ambition and poor impulse control. Lives and reputations will be lost, painful wisdom will be gained, and if you are really lucky, you just might end up back where you started. You probably won’t be lucky. The goal of this game is to tell a fun story about humanity and failure with your friends. Bad things will inevitably happen to the characters you control and the game will work best if you work together to find the most interesting ways to make that happen! To play, you’ll need the contents of this box, two to four friends, about two hours, and a really dark sense of humor."

You’re yet to provide a single example of play, or any evidence that Story Now play requires the elements you claim. And the reason is, it doesn’t.

This is asking me to provide play examples to prove that something isn't there. Very odd.

I did intentionally play a Fiasco set and a Rock Band where I played the cokehead guitarist and intentionally played to get a many black dice as possible to try to swing a "so bad it's good" outcome. Went to jail for a dime on distribution charges, get out, and successfully started a rehab/self actualization empire. Good enough?

 

[Ovinomancer]

No, I haven’t. Of course, players frame each other into difficult spots and flaky situations. And of course that makes for excellent, thematic gameplay.

It's a storytelling game that reliably produces its intended style of story. Make sense.

But the idea you can reliably manipulate the dice is a non-starter. The idea that anyone is prevented from playing hard by the resolution framework is a rhetorical deceit using the word ‘consensus’ to obfuscate the complexity and subtlety of the actual system.

Reliably? Maybe, but I've actually manipulated the dice collection. The only way to prevent this is if other players start counterplaying or if everyone just doesn't start. Fiasco is incredibly open to manipulation -- it invites it to a degree because the dice totals at the end can absolutely be manipulated by the table to be more likely to generate the preferred story ends.

So even if you accept the claim that story now relies on particular resolution methods (and the original essays make clear that this is false), the application of the descriptor “consensus” to outcomes in Fiasco is close to worthless.

That wasn't the claim. The claim is that some resolution methods do interfere, not that some specific kinds must be present. I think we can all agree that GM decides is not a resolution method that works with Story Now. So we agree some resolution method fail here. I'm arguing consensus resolution does a well.

Further, and @pemerton as well, the complaint about consensus resolution was aimed at Montsegur 1244. Fiasco was brought in as another storygame. There still is consensus occurring in Fiasco, but it's an emergent part of the fact that the game is about telling a story together.

 

[chaochou]

It's a storytelling game that reliably produces its intended style of story. Make sense.

That wasn't the claim. The claim is that some resolution methods do interfere, not that some specific kinds must be present. I think we can all agree that GM decides is not a resolution method that works with Story Now. So we agree some resolution method fail here. I'm arguing consensus resolution does a well.

ROFL. Again, you're not arguing anything. You're asserting. From you're position as someone who only took Story Now at face value as a playstyle in, when was it... 2019? FIve years ago you'd have argued with equal certainty that everything you've just posted is nonsense.

So excuse me if I don't give any credibility to someone who wants to tell me what Fiasco is, or does, or be told what 'everyone says about it' when I was playing when it was published in 2009 and you were 10 years late to the party.