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roleplaying theory, hardcore / Re: Creative Agenda and GNS
« on: September 11, 2010, 06:55:15 PM »
I confess sometimes these conversations make me want to throw my hands in the air and make noises.
Vincent, you're making a good point, I think. But here's what I stumble on:
When you look at any instance of play, overwhelming, to a great degree, the participants are focused on creating interesting and coherant fiction.
Even in the most hard-core, pawn-stance, play-your-fighter-right-or-we-send-you-home, three-hours-of-combat-five-minutes-of-talking game, the orcs are orcs and they stay orcs for the duration of the game, and it matters that they're orcs and not goblins, and not just because the numbers are different, but because we said they were orcs and you can't change that now. And what's that for? Why go to all that effort (and it is an effort) if it doesn't support what's supposed to be the point of the game?
Can you also give some examples where the game has winners? I only know of a few, and in those it's this thing where you're kind of competing but you're really not supposed to try too hard, and if you're actually playing competitively then you're doing it wrong.
And protagonists. I guess I don't get it. Can you give me some examples of games where the players' characters are not protagonists, and show me why?
I mean, maybe it's a thing where I've only experienced one kind of Creative Agenda, and I just can't wrap my head around other ways of playing. But I've played a lot of games, a lot of different ways, that seem to be encompassed by the GNS agendas, and they still seem like really confusing, pointless categorisations. Like, that other thread here about GM Agenda and Right to Dream and such. What's going to come out of that conversation? To me it reads like Anatomy of Unicorns 101.
I guess I got my cranky pants on there for a bit. I guess I just find it frustrating, because yes! It matters that players are on the same page, creatively. And yes! The way the game is designed matters to what kind of creative agenda it can sustain in play. But GNS just seems like the least useful way of talking about that.
Vincent, you're making a good point, I think. But here's what I stumble on:
When you look at any instance of play, overwhelming, to a great degree, the participants are focused on creating interesting and coherant fiction.
Even in the most hard-core, pawn-stance, play-your-fighter-right-or-we-send-you-home, three-hours-of-combat-five-minutes-of-talking game, the orcs are orcs and they stay orcs for the duration of the game, and it matters that they're orcs and not goblins, and not just because the numbers are different, but because we said they were orcs and you can't change that now. And what's that for? Why go to all that effort (and it is an effort) if it doesn't support what's supposed to be the point of the game?
Can you also give some examples where the game has winners? I only know of a few, and in those it's this thing where you're kind of competing but you're really not supposed to try too hard, and if you're actually playing competitively then you're doing it wrong.
And protagonists. I guess I don't get it. Can you give me some examples of games where the players' characters are not protagonists, and show me why?
I mean, maybe it's a thing where I've only experienced one kind of Creative Agenda, and I just can't wrap my head around other ways of playing. But I've played a lot of games, a lot of different ways, that seem to be encompassed by the GNS agendas, and they still seem like really confusing, pointless categorisations. Like, that other thread here about GM Agenda and Right to Dream and such. What's going to come out of that conversation? To me it reads like Anatomy of Unicorns 101.
I guess I got my cranky pants on there for a bit. I guess I just find it frustrating, because yes! It matters that players are on the same page, creatively. And yes! The way the game is designed matters to what kind of creative agenda it can sustain in play. But GNS just seems like the least useful way of talking about that.