So we seem to have a consensus that if you don't have player ownership of characters, it's not roleplaying. But what about the game setting? There seem to be two rival schools of thought. One, exemplified by Bill Stoddard on Pyramid Online, states that the GM 'owns' the setting in the same way as the players own their characters. The world may have a lot of hidden secrets behind the scenes, only parts of which the players are aware of. The other approach is that the entire game world is the collective responsibility of the group. I know of a group that plays exclusively that way. There are no deep gameworld secrets, only things which are yet to be defined. I've heard members of this group declare that you should never define *any* aspect of the world in advance, because it "limits what might happen in the game". Of my own games, Kalyr most definitely follows the first approach. There are deep secrets which have never been revealed in eight years of play (and 5+ years of FtF play before that). My other game, the space pirate adventure AEF, leans towards the second approach. I inherited the game from another GM who'd quit, and I don't feel any sense of proprietorial ownership of the game setting, which owes as much to ideas from a couple of the other players as it did to the original GM. If one of the players decides to define some aspect of technology or politics that had previously been left vague, I'll most likely take their idea and run with it. What about anyone else's game? ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Tue, 31 Jan 2006, Tim Hall wrote: TH>What about anyone else's game? Mostly, GM ownership. As a player, I value consistency, and have trouble with the whole negotiating thing... I don't care if the GM has actually mapped all the world details out, I just want one person in charge of it. I find it annoying and distracting when someone contradicts one of the unspoken or half-thought-through assumptions I had been working with. Cognitive dissonance, or something. Somehow there's a difference between "Oh, I assumed something about your world that wasn't right" and "Oh, I was half-planning to assert something that you asserted a contradiction to." I think I put it something like this earlier: I'd rather I only had to worry about synching my vision to the GM's, rather than to that of two or three or seven other people around the table. More coherent that way. As a GM, it's somewhat different... I like worldbuilding, but with Westwind I had a lot of half-baked stuff that I hadn't really written down, and somehow ended up with two gamemasters running games in "my" world. And they were two gamemasters who let their players do a lot of background-authoring, on top of that. Once I decided to adopt a "well, why not?" attitude instead of "no, you guessed wrong, it's really..." it was okay (I hope I didn't meddle *too* much in their games), but it was a definite change of pace. (It was, of course, PBeM, so there was plenty of time to cuss and discuss everything that was being quantified.) -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Tue, Jan 31, 2006 at 03:44:18PM -0600, Tim Hall wrote: >So we seem to have a consensus that if you don't have player ownership >of characters, it's not roleplaying. > >But what about the game setting? > >There seem to be two rival schools of thought. One, exemplified by Bill >Stoddard on Pyramid Online, states that the GM 'owns' the setting in the >same way as the players own their characters. The world may have a lot >of hidden secrets behind the scenes, only parts of which the players are >aware of. Unsurprisingly, this is where I tend to live. I have in the past been involved in some collaborative world-building exercises, though they didn't go well. Even then, the plan was for each person to have specific areas of responsibility rather than to allow free modification of the world. On the other hand, I'm quite prepared to let people come in and play in my worlds - in specific areas, and with me as an editor prepared to throw out anything that doesn't fit (which may be a clash with something I haven't made public yet). In Tempt Not the Stars, one of the players came up with the idea for, and wrote up, the Gabrielites - and I gave them their name, and hit them with a wrench to make them fit with the Reformed Catholic Church. On a smaller scale, I'm quite happy to have players who say things like "is there a rope I can swing on". >The other approach is that the entire game world is the collective >responsibility of the group. I know of a group that plays exclusively >that way. There are no deep gameworld secrets, only things which are >yet to be defined. I've heard members of this group declare that you >should never define *any* aspect of the world in advance, because it >"limits what might happen in the game". As a creator, it's in my interest to document the world in fine detail - or at least the bits of it that I use (see, erm, practically anything under tekeli.li). Who keeps things consistent? R -- Roger, gaming grognard Lots of role-playing stuff: http://tekeli.li/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Tue, 31 Jan 2006, Roger Burton West wrote:
RBW>On a smaller scale, I'm quite happy to have players who say things like
RBW>"is there a rope I can swing on".
This depends on the players... for some players ("I drive the van off the
cliff!" ... in the middle of a Kansas college campus?) it's best that it
works that way.
Assuming the obvious speeds things along, of course... so long as you all
agree on what should be obvious, anyhow.
--
Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net
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On Tue, Jan 31, 2006 at 03:44:18PM -0600, Tim Hall wrote: > There seem to be two rival schools of thought. One, exemplified by Bill > Stoddard on Pyramid Online, states that the GM 'owns' the setting in the > same way as the players own their characters. The world may have a lot > of hidden secrets behind the scenes, only parts of which the players are > aware of. As usual with binary viewpoints, I do it both ways. The general guideline is that the GM designs or 'owns' the world, but the players can have input, especially in areas that might not already be well-defined, or have special relevance to their character. -- Chuk Goodin cgoodin@sfu.ca Alien Light GM http://www.phoenyx.net/alienlight ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Tue, 31 Jan 2006, Chuk Goodin wrote: CG>As usual with binary viewpoints, I do it both ways. The general guideline CG>is that the GM designs or 'owns' the world, but the players can have CG>input, especially in areas that might not already be well-defined, or have CG>special relevance to their character. Quite. Carl had us all write up a person and/or place (I forget the exact details now) relevant to our character in his supers campaign. I think I'm the only one who did it, and it hasn't shown up in the game yet. Of course, it being modern-day supers, it's not as if it's particularly something that affects the world at the design level. At least, not any more than player-characters often already do in that genre when defining rivalries and enmities and origin stories and whatnot. I think I want to swipe Personal Set from PTA, too, or at least the notion thereof. That should probably be player-defined. I think it goes well in the genre. I'm not sure yet what Fastlane's Set would be, though. -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Tue, 31 Jan 2006, Karen J. Cravens wrote:
> Quite. Carl had us all write up a person and/or place (I forget the exact
> details now) relevant to our character in his supers campaign. I think
> I'm the only one who did it, and it hasn't shown up in the game yet.
Hey, I haven't forgotten about that. I'm still trying to figure out what
my character does with his downtime. ("Downtime? What's that?")
-Bill Hamilton
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On Tue, 31 Jan 2006, Tim Hall wrote:
> There seem to be two rival schools of thought. One, exemplified by Bill
> Stoddard on Pyramid Online, states that the GM 'owns' the setting in the
> same way as the players own their characters. The world may have a lot
> of hidden secrets behind the scenes, only parts of which the players are
> aware of.
I'm pretty much right there. Many of my games are about deep secrets.
This isn't to say that I don't riff off of player ideas and idle
comments... I do it often. I like players to be creative with their
backgrounds, but in the end, I'll nix a background element if it
clashes with something important I've already planned out.
What I'm finding is that I'd like to have someone outside of my game
to bounce ideas off of. Karen's my best collaborator, but when she's
playing in the game, I can't "reveal all". But asking someone to
invest in the game without actually playing in it seems... awkward.
--
Carl D Cravens (raven@phoenyx.net) Gamers List Owner
[ Fudge Factor Webzine -- http://www.fudgefactor.org/ ]
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On Tue, Jan 31, 2006 at 09:10:44PM -0600, Carl D Cravens wrote: >What I'm finding is that I'd like to have someone outside of my game >to bounce ideas off of. Karen's my best collaborator, but when she's >playing in the game, I can't "reveal all". But asking someone to >invest in the game without actually playing in it seems... awkward. I'm somewhat fortunate in that respect: my girlfriend doesn't role-play, but does write, and is interested in world- and character-building. -- Roger, gaming grognard Lots of role-playing stuff: http://tekeli.li/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Tue, 31 Jan 2006, Carl D Cravens wrote: CDC>What I'm finding is that I'd like to have someone outside of my game CDC>to bounce ideas off of. Karen's my best collaborator, but when she's CDC>playing in the game, I can't "reveal all". And... why not? -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Wed, 1 Feb 2006, Karen J. Cravens wrote:
> CDC>What I'm finding is that I'd like to have someone outside of my game
> CDC>to bounce ideas off of. Karen's my best collaborator, but when she's
> CDC>playing in the game, I can't "reveal all".
>
> And... why not?
Hrm. I think it'd spoil things for you. Do your really want to know
who the Blood-Red King is, and what Dronick and his chimera are really
about, and what's really going on with the alien plant invaders now
that you've destroyed the hive-queen... all before your character
knows?
And then, how much will it hurt your suspension of disbelief when you
find out how little _I_ know about the Blood-Red King, or that I
changed a fundamental aspect of the plant invaders just to make them
more "4-color" when the spotlight swings back to that plot? I change
details on the fly to make them fit the direction the story is
taking... the "Fire" plot was supposed to be tied to the background of
Magma, but when Chris switched characters, I realized it tied into his
new character's background even better.
I tend to think that even the best "firewalling" players lose
something when they have to play their characters with too much
knowledge of what's really going on. I'm not worried about you using
that information inappropriately, but that it will color your
experience in a negative way. I have to agree with James (a fellow
player from way back), as a player, I don't want to know the secrets
in advance... I want to experience them in play.
I think that's a big part of GMing for me... watching the players
unravel the mystery. I really get a kick out of it when you figure
out what's going on. If you know what's going on, you have to fake it
all and not be "too helpful" to the other players.
--
Carl D Cravens (raven@phoenyx.net) Gamers List Owner
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On Wed, 1 Feb 2006, Carl D Cravens wrote: CDC>Hrm. I think it'd spoil things for you. Do your really want to know CDC>who the Blood-Red King is, and what Dronick and his chimera are really CDC>about, and what's really going on with the alien plant invaders now CDC>that you've destroyed the hive-queen... all before your character CDC>knows? Why not? CDC>And then, how much will it hurt your suspension of disbelief when you CDC>find out how little _I_ know about the Blood-Red King, or that I CDC>changed a fundamental aspect of the plant invaders just to make them CDC>more "4-color" when the spotlight swings back to that plot? I change CDC>details on the fly to make them fit the direction the story is CDC>taking... the "Fire" plot was supposed to be tied to the background of CDC>Magma, but when Chris switched characters, I realized it tied into his CDC>new character's background even better. Not at all. CDC>I tend to think that even the best "firewalling" players lose CDC>something when they have to play their characters with too much CDC>knowledge of what's really going on. I'm not worried about you using CDC>that information inappropriately, but that it will color your CDC>experience in a negative way. I have to agree with James (a fellow CDC>player from way back), as a player, I don't want to know the secrets CDC>in advance... I want to experience them in play. Sometimes. CDC>I think that's a big part of GMing for me... watching the players CDC>unravel the mystery. I really get a kick out of it when you figure CDC>out what's going on. If you know what's going on, you have to fake it CDC>all and not be "too helpful" to the other players. Eh, maybe. Fastlane's really not about figuring things like that out. -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
