Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8588420" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, what is in Fiction First that is not implicit in Story Now? I mean, games that are Fiction First might NOT be Story Now, but IMHO that isn't because of something in FF that conflicts with SN... Any SN game must start and end with the fiction, mustn't it? I mean, the point is to focus on CHARACTER and its relationship to setting etc. I find it hard to imagine a game where that is the focus where you start from some mechanically described state, as that would seem to be a different focus. I mean, perhaps someone can imagine a game where the mechanics are an encompassing description of character and all the possible dramatic 'events' in the game are reflected in changes to that mechanical state and regulated by it. That seems like a weird game, and I'm not even sure where story comes into it, though it can certainly play a side role of just providing constraints on actions and outcomes (position). So I would call all SN games FF, myself.I could have complete mastery (I mean I probably do have virtually complete mastery of everything a player can master in AD&D for example) and yet I could still choose not to play in the most 'skilled' way. I'm not sure that qualifies as 'unskilled' though... Frankly I don't think Story Now is really much about skilled play... I don't think it is a style in which you are normally going for 'System Mastery' in the sense of "using the system to maximize the in-game success of your character" either. Though that isn't the only possible definition of System Mastery either.I don't think it is absolutely required that Story Now involves a sense of playing the character in a reckless way. It involves engaging the character's personality and other intangible dramatic traits and themes. Maybe the character is reckless, maybe not. I think what Ron might have been trying to evoke is more "don't just play like its a puzzle game and your PC is a vehicle for making the 'right moves', but instead step up and do what is demanded by the situation to engage with its dramatic elements." If that means 'leap off the cliff', then do it! If it means carefully strategize a way to defeat the nemesis with maximum gain for yourself, that's OK too (though experience may prove this sort of scenario and characterization is less likely to prove to be amenable to a reward system design that is tenable, perhaps? I think there's a lot of 'system design talk' that could go on here).</blockquote>

Verification