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<blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 8941523" data-attributes="member: 16586">[USER=71699]@clearstream[/USER] I guess my contention there is that I do not view play in which the agenda, structure and principles vary from moment to moment as especially flexible overall. Basically, you are choosing from moment to moment which sets of tradeoffs you are willing to accept. This is often put forward as the best of all possible worlds, but it has its own attendant set of tradeoffs beyond the moment to moment ones. One particular one is if players are not given the right sort of cues as to what agenda is in play, they might not have a clear view of how to enable and support each other's play or how their moves will be interpreted to affect the game state. This makes approaching play from specific sorts of agendas damn near impossible. Specifically play centered on dramatic conflicts and skilled play priorities tend to not function well in such an environment.A recent example where the meta channel broke down in our Vampire game was where I wanted to have a personal scene with my character's Regent at a party all the PCs were in attendance in order to engage in a bit of character exploration. This was read wrong by some of the other players and GM as a fact-finding mission. This sort of breakdown in communication happens on a somewhat frequent basis in less structured play in my experience. This is with a play group who I have been playing with for a number of years and generally have a fairly strong grasp of the set of play priorities I usually tend to favor. This sort of breakdown can be alleviated by either explicit use of the meta channel or structural cues like we see in D&amp;D combat, Marvel Heroic transition scenes or Blades in the Dark play phases.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Campbell, post: 8941523, member: 16586"] [USER=71699]@clearstream[/USER] I guess my contention there is that I do not view play in which the agenda, structure and principles vary from moment to moment as especially flexible overall. Basically, you are choosing from moment to moment which sets of tradeoffs you are willing to accept. This is often put forward as the best of all possible worlds, but it has its own attendant set of tradeoffs beyond the moment to moment ones. One particular one is if players are not given the right sort of cues as to what agenda is in play, they might not have a clear view of how to enable and support each other's play or how their moves will be interpreted to affect the game state. This makes approaching play from specific sorts of agendas damn near impossible. Specifically play centered on dramatic conflicts and skilled play priorities tend to not function well in such an environment. A recent example where the meta channel broke down in our Vampire game was where I wanted to have a personal scene with my character's Regent at a party all the PCs were in attendance in order to engage in a bit of character exploration. This was read wrong by some of the other players and GM as a fact-finding mission. This sort of breakdown in communication happens on a somewhat frequent basis in less structured play in my experience. This is with a play group who I have been playing with for a number of years and generally have a fairly strong grasp of the set of play priorities I usually tend to favor. This sort of breakdown can be alleviated by either explicit use of the meta channel or structural cues like we see in D&D combat, Marvel Heroic transition scenes or Blades in the Dark play phases. [/QUOTE]

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