Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7372273" data-attributes="member: 82106">I only created the 'example' in order to exemplify how far from the norm of RPG play it is to posit characters who sit around doing nothing. IIRC it was perhaps [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] who originally asked a question like "what happens when the players don't want to engage in any agenda" and the line of discussion from there was in the vein of "why would this make sense as a game?" I think I have also touched on this again since you posted. Anyway, I don't think I was trying to misrepresent anyone's argument. I was simply drawing the logical inferences from it. If players refuse to really PLAY, then clearly the game will not work in a Story Now sense. It won't REALLY work in ANY sense, though I guess in a GM-directed game you can sort of have a kind of passive playOK, fair enough, I accept your definition of crisis. I just don't think that every scene is necessarily high stakes or has to address the primary belief/goal/agenda of the PC in the most head first fashion. In fact the specific belief of the PC in [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s example was kind of a 'secondary consideration', find something to save his brother before leaving town. So it was already kind of a side quest sort of thing. If it failed, then it would be addressed, but the primary goal of saving his brother would remain. Anyway, scenes can be pretty incremental. They might only involve some information gathering, maybe even just basic recon. Another factor is that there are usually multiple PCs, with somewhat disjoint agendas. So in any given scene it is usually more likely than not that a given player is simply supporting someone else's agenda. Ideally the scene speaks to everyone in SOME degree, but it may be pretty tangential to some character's interests. So, from a player perspective, things may be only episodically really a crisis for THEM. Imagine a 4e game. Each level of play notionally consists of 10 encounters with 1 or maybe 2 long rests separating them into 'adventuring days'. Lets imagine that each day fully engages the agendas of 2 of the 5 PCs (the rest perhaps resolve a minor quest). On average each character will engage directly slightly less than once per level of play, or maybe a bit more than that depending on details of pacing and structure. Lets call it 'once per level'. This, IME, is about how 4e works. Each character gets the 'spotlight' one time at each level of play, and engages in a crisis at that time, maybe roughly every 10 encounters will be about them specifically and exclusively. The rest of the time they'll be supporting cast to a certain extent. OK, I understand what you are saying. I'm just saying that, in practice, what this amounts to is not that a character is at some pivotal point, a 'make or break' in every scene. As I noted above, this is probably typically in actual play not much the case at all. Each scene is significant to someone and will define where their story goes next, but often the 'crisis' may be pretty tactical in nature. Consider LoTR, the Fellowship could go over Caradharas, through the Gap of Rohan, or into the Mines of Moria. They eventually chose the later option. No doubt a different choice, assuming it was successfully resolved, would have led to a similar story later on. The fundamental shape of the conflict wasn't altered by the failure to use the Pass of Caradharas, Frodo still needed to travel to Mt Doom and cast the One Ring into the fire.</blockquote>

Verification