Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7412566" data-attributes="member: 16814">Sigh, apparently we have to have the crisis discussion again.By crisis, I mean that something about the characters, their goals, or the theme of the game is challenged as part of scene framing.  The play is to discover something about that through the crisis it's placed in.  Can you have down moments, or narration of quieter times?  Sure.  Crisis doesn't mean "OH DEAR GOD" it means that the play of Story Now is pointedly to draw things the player's care about into sharp focus and challenge.  This is the crux of drama.  So, yes, Story Now frames the characters into a crisis as part of it's game design.  Crisis, not climax or never have room to breathe, but actually point where something the players care about is at stake.So, if we can agree that the point of play in Story Now is to frame the characters into situations that challenge, perhaps fundamentally but at least risk, things that the players care about, then we can continue.  If you disagree, well, then, I've been playing Blades wrong and would like some help on Story Now.  If we do agree, then the point that the players lose some agency due to the way Story Now frames scenes directly into drama and crisis is a valid point.  The players WILL be challenged via the framing mechanism -- the DM is required to place things the player's care about in jeopardy -- as a core tenet of play.  The framing mechanisms in Story Now do limit agency by forcing this case. Again, this isn't bad -- loss of agency isn't inherently bad when it serves the purpose of the game.  This loss due to the framing mechanisms is the POINT of Story Now.  Claiming that it's a bad thing would be very strange.  Story Now accepts this loss to avoid play that doesn't get straight to the drama; that doesn't generate the kind of play the system is designed for.  This is, in fact, a good design element of Story Now.  But, it is also a limitation on agency.An example:  the Engagement roll in Blades.  The players decide on a score and an approach and set their detail.  The Engagement roll is made, and then the GM uses that roll to inform the opening scene -- which may be at ANY point in the heist the GM wants so long as it immediately puts pressure on the characters.  This jumps over tedious planning (which some players like) and assumes a whole host of actions on the character's part to get to the part of the score that the GM feels best represents the nature of the score, approach, detail, and the Engagement roll.  The example in the text for this is a theft that starts with the characters in the office of the target with the object desired in hand but with an alarm going off  -- play now proceeds not to obtain the object but to escape with it.  Regardless, the player's cares are addressed and put into crisis -- with their characters succeed in escaping the now alerted guards with the goods?  But, again, to get there, a huge number of decisions are elided by the framing mechanic and agency that might exist in other games (to plan, to actually play through the opening of the heist, etc.) are skipped over to frame the crisis of play.THIS is what I mean by 'frame into crisis' and why I say it reduces some agency.  Blades adds in on the backside with mechanics to offset the inability to mitigate risk a priori with lots of mechanics to mitigate outcomes post hoc.  Blades trades play to reduce risk with play that modifies outcomes, and so offers some new tools that add agency while at the same time reducing it in other places.  Traditional play would allow a lot of agency on the front end and during play but almost no ability to mitigate outcomes post hoc.  Traditional play puts the agency more out in front while Story Now games tend to have more on the backend of play or ad hoc during play.  I don't think you could say that one style has 'more' than the other in regards to agency so much as you can say that specific instances of agency exist differently between the two.  The claim that Story Now has MORE agency with respect to players adding to the fiction is nonsensical; rather it's more reasonable to say that Story Now typically has agency for players to add to the fiction while traditional play typically does not.  This is a category of agency, not a measure of it.  Traditional play tends to have agency to meticulously plan and for players to have a lot of control over pacing.  Story Now offers almost no agency to plan and almost no agency to control pace.  This doesn't mean one has MOAR AGENCYS!  It means that they have different focuses of play and the agencies granted are aimed at those focuses of play.</blockquote>

Verification