NeoTrad/OC Play, & the treatment of friendly NPCs (++)

[hawkeyefan]

I don't think she could ignore the revelation or she could but at that point play becomes outright dysfunctional. Otherwise we're pretty much in agreement.

Well, I mean it could be ignored in that it could never really matter to play again. If Erika decides to incorporate this insight into how she plays Ame, then it will matter. But of she doesn’t?

I mean, 5e began life with having players enter a Flaw for their character. And that Flaw could be effectively ignored and have no impact on play. If the player leans into the Flaw in how they portray the character, they get Inspiration. If they ignore it… nothing happens. They just don’t get inspiration.

This kind of element of RPGs… portrayal without any real teeth… seems pretty foundational to OC play. And this strikes me as a good example. Erika seemed on board so maybe this interaction will continue to influence how she plays the character. But maybe not.

And yeah his thoughts on system should be totally ignored or at least contextualised. He's working within the 2E tradition and they only really make sense within that tradition.

Yeah, he’s coming very much from that mindset. It’s a perfectly valid way to play… it’s arguably the most common way… but I think the way he discusses this stuff shows his blindspots.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

They could have also simply said out loud "You know what, I think more than feeling X? Ama is feeling Y, she [verbs related to that reaction]..." making his statement about her (the character) feelings predictive, or suggest some kind of ambivalence or shift-- the knee jerk reaction she (the character) has no control over, and then the personalized 'this is who I am' reaction from Erika the player. "The sadness quickly turns to anger as I think about everything that I..."

Without bothering with the actual context.

 

[Pedantic]

She could have also simply said out loud "You know what, I think more than feeling X? Ama is feeling Y, she [verbs related to that reaction]..." making his statement about her feelings predictive, or suggest some kind of ambivalence or shift-- the knee jerk reaction she has no control over, and then the personalized 'this is who I am' reaction. "The sadness quickly turns to anger as I think about everything that I..."

Without bothering with the actual context.

It's they/them pronouns for Erika Ishii, the performer, and then the character is she/her.

Everyone on WBN has talked quite a bit about inhabiting "writer brain" as well as "actor brain" and sometimes separately "character brain," so this kind of exploration of character is absolutely something they're all signing up to do collectively. This is not "playing to find out" in the strong narrativist sense, it's much more group discovery writing about the characters, with dice thrown in.

That, and the show is edited. If the comment didn't hit the mark so badly that Ishii needed to call it out, I imagine they'd just call a stop, discuss it, and then hop back into it. Mulligan has mentioned doing that on Dimension 20, but called it out as very rare and not usually necessary given the performer's skills/chemistry.

 

[zakael19]

She could have also simply said out loud "You know what, I think more than feeling X? Ama is feeling Y, she [verbs related to that reaction]..." making his statement about her feelings predictive, or suggest some kind of ambivalence or shift-- the knee jerk reaction she has no control over, and then the personalized 'this is who I am' reaction. "The sadness quickly turns to anger as I think about everything that I..."

Without bothering with the actual context.

It's interesting to go back and actually read that excerpt because like, I try very hard to get into my player's character's head along that line but I ask the question. I'd ask something like "Ame, as you see the sentient spell stuttering to itself as it fights an existential crisis from your words, does this spark any like... reflection in you? Does your mind flash back to the last few times you thoughtlessly said things and sparked conflict, or is this just another frantic backpedal to talk yourself out a situation your mouth landed you in?"

Now you're asking a provocative question the answer of which informs the table of the character's current mind-state, thought patterns, instincts, etc etc along the lines of what you said. Now regardless of which way (or something else as you suggest) the player goes with we've all learned something about them, and maybe challenged them to see if yeah - this really is a moment of character growth/change, or not. But I've found this sort of um, guided introspection? Not something that's come up with OC players much (and maybe I"ve just not found the right sorts?). I'm not sure if its because when you're constantly in 1st person / identifying with your OC it's harder to like put them at arms length and ask the questions honestly or something, or more just "I'm here to realize my character and pursue their arc and not really be challenged by events to grow and change in unexpected ways."

Now my narrativist games - which I freely admit I'm probably drifting a bit away from more um "pure" or hard charging narrativism into a bit of a slower introspective thing focused on the character's internal lives to a degree - it's constant. We're exposing the decision making process / mind state / drives and instincts etc out constantly in the open so everybody can appreciate it and then do further compelling role-play to drive / challenge each other on stuff. In my Monday Stonetop game, 4/4 players have now redefined their Instinct (a centering point for both role-play and XP generation) over the course of the last few sessions because they've all changed and, most importantly, in ways that all 4 players have said were "because they realized through play that their characters drives had changed from what they originally thought."

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

It's they/them pronouns for Erika Ishii, the performer, and then the character is she/her.

Everyone on WBN has talked quite a bit about inhabiting "writer brain" as well as "actor brain" and sometimes separately "character brain," so this kind of exploration of character is absolutely something they're all signing up to do collectively. This is not "playing to find out" in the strong narrativist sense, it's much more group discovery writing about the characters, with dice thrown in.

That, and the show is edited. If the comment didn't hit the mark so badly that Ishii needed to call it out, I imagine they'd just call a stop, discuss it, and then hop back into it. Mulligan has mentioned doing that on Dimension 20, but called it out as very rare and not usually necessary given the performer's skills/chemistry.

Oh it Ishii, d'oh should've known that was the Erika we were talking about. off to edit it.

But also, those separate brains are pretty much in line with how I see OC, each player is inhabiting each one in a kind of give and take with one another, where it just depends on how important each player see's a given possible imposition.

 

[thefutilist]

Well, I mean it could be ignored in that it could never really matter to play again. If Erika decides to incorporate this insight into how she plays Ame, then it will matter. But of she doesn’t?

This is an interesting question.

As a group we're following along with the fiction and our aesthetic agenda attenuates us to the broader meaning, including the consequences that follow.

In terms of basic functional play I think @The-Magic-Sword is correct. Erika has to respond in some way. They could ask for a rewind, effectively blocking Brennans narration. This is fine, it happens all the time in all sorts of games. They could also take what's happening and reincorporate it in a way that also expresses character, @The-Magic-Sword just gave an example of that happening.

If they flat out ignored it then there's a problem. I'm distinguishing here between it not being particularly consequential going forward v pretending it didn't happen. The latter is an issue, the former is an agenda thing. Maybe.

Now in the example given, Erika used what Brennan gave them and according to the article, is was consequential. So did they shift into Narrativism? I think that's also an interesting question.

I'm pretty sure a lot of Narrativists would be looking at the same piece of fiction and they would be interested in Ame's plight and introspection and all that but also the huge flashing red sign above it all that is absent in the OC agenda.


WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF TELLING THE TRUTH?

It may not be absent for OC players as a theme, but it is absent as a question because the mutual vibes have answered it. We're not playing to find out how Ames social relationship with the truth works out, it's just some psychological portraiture.

Given that, it can't be consequential thematically but it is still sort of consequential in terms of rewards of play, even if as Narrativists we think it's weak and kind of mediocre.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Now in the example given, Erika used what Brennan gave them and according to the article, is was consequential. So did they shift into Narrativism? I think that's also an interesting question.

I don't know if they did. I feel like if they had, the goal of the insight check would have been more specific, and the stakes of the roll would have been established before hand. Then the player would have had a chance to back off if they did not want to risk the stakes. If they proceed, the roll would have been binding.

And just to be clear about the broader point, I agree that if they had flat out ignored the result, there'd be a problem in the sense that I don't think that's a great way to handle it. I just don't think that the OC dynamic really worries about that as much? I mean, Brennan kind of decides for Erika how their character feels and responds... but from the sketch in the article, we don't know that's what's at stake. Most OC play leaves the emotional state of the character up to the player. This is why I used 5e's Flaws as an example... it's a character element that is established, and then it's entirely up to the player when and if it ever comes into play.

So I think the example is one of a GM in neotrad or OC play kind of overstepping in a way, but the player being open to it because the nature of their game is a bit different in and of itself in that it's meant to be performative for an audience and not just the participants. But it's definitely an interesting example for discussion!

 

[S'mon]

I think it's kind of interesting that discussion of OC play rapidly focuses on players & PCs, not the NPCs I was asking about. Shouldn't be a surprise though. I guess OC play tends to see NPCs as part of the backdrop to the PCs. Not something I like, but explains some attitudes I've seen.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think it's kind of interesting that discussion of OC play rapidly focuses on players & PCs, not the NPCs I was asking about. Shouldn't be a surprise though. I guess OC play tends to see NPCs as part of the backdrop to the PCs. Not something I like, but explains some attitudes I've seen.

I think it points to the overall attitude and approach to OC play. What’s true for the PC tends to extend to the NPCs that would be considered “theirs”.

 

[zakael19]

I think it's kind of interesting that discussion of OC play rapidly focuses on players & PCs, not the NPCs I was asking about. Shouldn't be a surprise though. I guess OC play tends to see NPCs as part of the backdrop to the PCs. Not something I like, but explains some attitudes I've seen.

Yeah, I'll be honest that in the games I've run that had pretty strong OC-style players, they were interested NPCs more in how they related to their character's expressions of surface personality or as like DM sounding boards for role-play interactions. See my example previously of "will I be able to get the hot werewolf mommy to sleep with me via IC flirting." Now, I'll admit I haven't had a player really define a highly linked NPC like in your original post that brought up the question of limits on DM ownership/authority vs player. Which maybe says something a bit?

On the other hand, one of the core things my current favorite narrativist game has you do is work with the players to define family (or lack thereof), important NPCs to them, and some reasons why - with the expectation that these then become ways to challenge the player. "Oh, you said that Winned is known to you and your fellow Initiates as touched by Danu goddess of the earth, and is essentially your ward? Ok, what do you do and how do you react when he's snatched up along with another kid he's friends with because that guy's dad foolishly took them into the woods when things were dangerous?"