"AWESOME. I'm really enjoying reading about your game. It sounds very cool. Helen, who's been playing about with fantasy stuff recently despite having previously avoided it like the plague. Have you tried In A Wicked Age yet? I'm rather enamoured of it." Helen
Thanks very much for that Helen. I have heard of but havent tried IAWA as yet, my understanding is that it is a very focused, possibly too focused for what I want at the moment (I may be confusing it with Mountain Witch). Thats fine but I really struggle to generate a more lengthy game from that sort of material (Cold City being a case in point). The Cold City one shot was ok but it only really sustained 3 sessions and I wanted this game to be more substantial.
I have been looking at The Shadow of Yesterday which I think is excellent although so far I have only managed to play one session at a Convention. I am also looking forward to the Dresden Files so I can rip out its magic system and add it to Spirit of the Century to run it for pulp fantasy or possibly Exalted.
On the 4e game I really can't take much of the credit. Of the stuff I have posted so far about 90% of it has been written by other people, one of whom isn't even playing and who has an allergic reaction to anything D&D related. I have some additional ideas that I will be incorporating but as I want a number of them to be "game reveals" I wont be posting about them until we reach them in game. Some of them might take quite a while to come out but I am pretty happy with my "lonely fun" as there's plenty of other stuff to keep the players occupied and interested until then.
"Can you illustrate some of the arguments around the GM being the sole bringer of awesome? I have to admit that the entire concept is pretty alien to me, both as a GM and a player! How do people think that the players can have ownership of a game and not have some stake in its development?" Neil
I have seen strongly GM authored games work in a few cases but they have generally involved the following elements:
1. A strong GM generated plot
2. Excellent GM delivery
3. Close meshing of the player characters within the GM authored plot
4. Lots of unexpected twists and turns within a well detailed background and setting
I hope that I managed this with at least some of the Exalted stuff I ran and Phil certainly managed it with a 3.x D&D game I played in.
Number 4 is particularly difficult to do with heavy playor authorship which is why I shall be wearing the Viking Hat of Awesomeness from time to time.
10 comments:
Yeah, my experience of the GM-focused game tend to come down to the following: when players actually heavily author.
What tends to happen is there is a dividing line (the strength of which varies) between when player control exists and when GM control exists - the barrier usually being between character creation and game start.
So, the players chance to author is character creation and this is sometimes why people write long backgrounds (though not the only reason) as it's when the control is in their hands.
When the game starts the GM runs with it delivering a grand performance using elements of the character backgrounds but the player authors much less now and for a core of players they don't want to author here as they are playing in 'their guys head' and don't want to go out of that mode. They view themselves as an actor responding to circumstance.
Obviously, the reality is much more complicated at tends to be measured on a decision by decision basis and how those decisions add up, but generally the above is a GM-focused game. Historically anyway, threads on rpgnet suggest it's still what some people want, and that's fine.
I also sometimes wonder whether heavily player authored games being devoid of surprise and twists is a myth.
My exerience tells me, other than the most extreme of cases, that player authorship tends to be about establishing what the story is about and what it might contain, not necessarily how it plays out.
I think our last Duty and honour game exemplified how difficult that actually is to do.
The trouble is with this discussion is using the right language, factoring expectations and a whole host of other things.
It's a hard thing to discuss scientifically and factually.
The D&H session. I thought that represented really well how it was supposed to go and managed to highlight some of the problems in how we implemented PTA. Yes, the players authored the Grand Ball, but what happened at that ball and what played out in the ball was just as much in Neil's control as any traditional game - beyond the problem of doing it on the fly in 5 minutes. Neil was free to throw anything into that ball as if he'd always planned it to happen.
But we did establish what the story was about, we even established what it might contain (including a Grand Ball on the fly) but it was perfectly in Neil's hands to establish how it played out (beyond the normal player influence of NPC interaction)?
I sometimes think player authored games go the way of genre product in that they cease to be genre product when a good one comes along. Heroes isn't a superhero drama. X-Files isn't a genre show. All good horror films are psychological thrillers. In that good player authorship gets labelled as not really that, but a bit too much or more traditional - leaving you only with the player authorship that got spelled out too much by the players and was like going through the motions?
The difficult bit is doing it on the fly, not so much that player authorship DOESN'T have a heavy GM influence.
The irony is, I don't think most people with player authorship don't want the GM throwing in his spanner. They want that spanner thrown at them, just don't change the core of what the character's story is about (his issues, etc).
I actually think your 4E game will be player authored, it's just getting re-named like the X Files :) It just won't be player driven to the point there is no surprises - but I still think that's a bit of a white elephant.
After all, I may want Artemis Antarion to walk into Agran Treshk palace and arrange a tense business deal as an authoring player, but I'm perfectly happy having the GM drop me into a pit with a monster in when he doesn't like the results.
Yeah, Star Wars riffs run rampant.
I was mainly thinking abhout the first session. we certainly managed it better in the second but it was clear we had to stop and think about what we were doing to avoid falliong into bad habits.
For the 4e game I think its pretty obvious I want player authorship. Afterall, 90% of the setting has been written by people other than me.
I know you do, I was more responding to your repeated 'invoke the GM hat of doom'.
I'm suggesting they aren't mutually exclusive, and that 'GM hat of doom' is necessary for a healthy player authorship environment.
while passing know comment on whether you realised this already or not :)
"I'm suggesting they aren't mutually exclusive, and that 'GM hat of doom' is necessary for a healthy player authorship environment."
You realise this is some sort of indie gamer heresy and will almost certainly require your expulsion from the indie game players club?
Possibly, but I think there is a lot of 'extreme case' and 'white elephant' arguments going on with respect to both sides in those debates.
Interesting.
I think you are absolutely right to point out the two D&H games as good and bad examples of this. The first one the players went too far and it became a railroad which was hard to come off. The second one was nigh on perfect in that you were free to edit in as you saw fit but I was in control of the adversity.
In fact, whilst I shy away from most gaming theory as a bit bollocks - and especially theory attached with gravitas to one person (like he is something special apart from someone who has posted on the right boards between pretending to be an elf with his mates) - the 'Czege Principle', i.e. that the players should not create their own adversity, appears to be holding true.
With an eye to player empowerment, I think you have it spot on Andrew. By giving us background authorship of the setting, you give us ownership of the game. We are more committed to it and with that buy-in comes an attachment that will drive play. However, we're still playing a GM'd game and we can expect you to throw us twists and turns and spikes and pitfalls along the way. Thats an absolute given and imo necessary.
The reason for my question in the first place was that this just seems like a gargantuan no-brainer to me.I couldn't imagine a game where I couldn't create flavour NPCs, make plot suggestions, insert storylines, fill-in backgrounds and do all the other stuff because the GM had such a tight rein on things. It would be a very anemic, stifling affair.
Even in BAYUHC, which is portrayed as having a very 'trad' set-up, we have a HUGE input into the flow and the flavour of the game, whilst wallowing the Ben's Goodness.
My parting comment is this - I think the empowerment of the players also eases the burden on the GM whilst requiring that same GM to really be on the ball and rather than 'Bring the Awesome' it becomes more akin to 'Moulding the Awesome'
Neil
Quick edit to the first para - and a good illustration.
I said: "..the players went to far"
When I should have said: "..I allowed the players to go too far without recognising that they had gone too far and hauling them back from that mistake."
Hence the need for a good strong GM!
Neil
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