[Heroquest] Spring Fountain {well of souls} pt. 2

[Doyce]

Eero,

Thanks for all the thoughts on this.  I think this comprises some interesting thoughts on dissonance, and I thank you for that.

It doesn't, I don't think, apply to the player we're discussing -- he reads voraciously, movie goer -- I don't think it's a break in our understanding of what the story we're playing is about.  Honestly, the bottom line is he wanted to see if he could go outside the box quite a ways and still make it work... and it's been a struggle, but we're working on how to make it work.

In his own words:

I was getting to the point that I was about to give up on her... now it's a matter of pride.  If both of us can't figure out a way to get her involved, then nobody can.

I'm looking upon this as a challenge to flex my RP muscles and come up with an intriguing, but workable and inventive way of involving her.

So... that's what it is.  Thank you for the input.

[Eero Tuovinen]

For the first time I finally got why some people who read posts on the Forge completely freak out and think we're arrogant pricks sitting around judging people as we sit on perches of stacked PDF print-outs.

Well, yeah. That's why I was so hesitant to take this matter up. I realize perfectly well that my opinions on the matters of art, intelligence and communication are far from politically correct in the context of the American scene (they can best be characterized as "elitist"), so of course that's the reaction. I would need a much longer post, delving into the basic assumptions of life and philosophy, to really defend such outrageous opinions. Sorry to piss you off, we clearly don't have enough of a common background for you to understand what I'm about.

I'll try to shortly convince you that I'm not an "arrogant prick", at least not in any judgemental, stupid way. If this doesn't do it, let's not derail the thread any more. I'd take this to PM, but I'd rather take the opportunity to defend my honor in public if Ron doesn't mind...

Anyway.  In 3 months to two years someone's going to find dig up this post, pull out two especially offensive sentences, post them somewhere else on the internet and say, "See, look at all all those folks at The Forge. Arrogant pricks."

Tough luck. I know you really don't write here just for the hoi polloi to fawn over you. Really, I have no sympathy for the argument from common opinion, and you can do better than that.

I'm gonna go on record right here and say, I don't know what the hell Euro's talking about in terms of "intelligence" or "ability."

You'll notice that I'm qualifying both heavily, with long descriptive sentences referring to cultural background. Like, the guy who's read the Three Musketeers is more "intelligent" about navigating a story that's supposed to be about courtly swashbuckling than the guy who's only ever seen the random movie not even really about it, just happening to feature some swordsmen.

For my money, different people have different tastes, different knacks, different interests.  For whatever reason, people are different, and drawn to different activities and expressions of interest in life.

Yeah, that's the politically correct position, and you'll note that it's very similar to mine, except that I'm actually making conclusions from the differences. Some people are different from others in various ways, and that surely translates into operative differences, that can as well be characterized as the ability to understand some things better than others. Your PC stuff is just words, in that the people who repeat it over the years never expect to have to actually deal with the differences in any real way. It's just "differences", and you're supposed to try to forget that they exist. The offensive thing is not the difference, but my affrontness in bringing it up as something one would have to really gauge and deal with, yes?

But I've never seen this as a shortcoming.  Just like some people like looking at paintings, and others don't, some people are drawn to one kind of Creative Agenda for RPGs, and others are drawn to others.  This is what might be called... Life.  

And did I say differently? I think that you might want to distance yourself from your own life and position somewhat to consider the discussion for it's merits only. I'm not your local spinster jealously guarding my social status, or the narrow-minded fanboy trying to justify my expertise. Never did I try to claim my own ways as superior, and other people's as inferior.

It's true that I'm talking about intellectuals and the commons, in a way, but I'm not the one being judgemental about it. If you think that culture doesn't have anything to do with your ability to play a strongly literary piece like Well of Souls, well, start a thread about it and we'll see.

But, again, let me be clear: I've never seen the fact that different people have different interests or tastes or desires as a shortcoming in a person.  I honestly am stunned by Euro's post.

How is it not a shortcoming if you don't have the skills to do a backflip? How is it not a shortcoming if you don't have the skills to direct a protagonist in a courtly intrigue game? More importantly, what does that have to do with anything? I'm talking about communicating with players in actual play, what are you talking about, Christopher? (Rhetorical questions at this juncture, let's not derail the thread. But think about it.)

Being limited in our abilities is what the human condition is about. Trying to construe everything as "interests" and "taste" just diminishes the reality of our situation. "Sure I could be just as good as that guy over there, I'm just not interested." That might well be (90% of ability is work, after all), but it doesn't make the difference in skill go away, it's just a jealous way of diminishing the other person's achievements.

Doyce: You took my post in the spirit it was intented in. Thanks. And it seems clear that your player is on the ball, you just have to give him the equal tools to work with. How about designing some relationship situations in the forest explicitly working with him, so that he'll have an easier time to latch on during the game? In some cases I've seen in actual play the stumbling block has been the great vivacity of color and boundless realism, so that players easily misinterpret the signs and have a hard time focusing on the actually important stuff. It's much easier if you know with metaknowledge that this particular NPC is potentially friendly and a potential ally, rather than not being able to differentiate between the henchmen and actual movers of the plot. The ideal is of course to make anything the player chooses be the important thing, but at the start it could be easier to prescript a little, with player cooperation.

And ask him what the martial artists and slutty bimbos are about ;) I'm usually seeing such characters from players who really have a limited stock of models to work from to begin with, and consider them a sign of the player really just exaggerating and transforming his own cultural attributes into the game. I think that most people work rpg characters from literary models with the same tools writers use, and the ones doing the work from their own cultural background generally default to the competent swordsmen and sexy women in some form.

[Mike Holmes]

Political Correctness aside, Eero, I still think you're incorrect for other reasons. Hell, I'm about as unculturney as they come, but I think I can make a protagonist out of a PC. Basically I think that it isn't a skill issue, it is, in fact, a prefference issue. That is, the player in question probably can make a protagonist of the character in most cases, but is merely unwilling to change his style enough to do so. Uh, GNS, once again.

Actually, I think that this is the general case with players like this, and that, in fact, the problem in this case actually lies in the situation simply not having developed in a way that captures the imaginations of any of the participants with regards to the characters at hand. Call it a lack of inspiration. And I've commented about why I think this is - I think that an odd character is being wedged into a situation designed as openly as possible, but without expecting a centaur.

That is, as soon as there is something that really "turns on" the player, I think he'll respond correctly in this case. Because I think that Doyce is doing a fine job of communicating the CA here, and that it doesn't take a particularly skilled person to respond correctly (in fact it can be argued, and has been, that people are more naturally inclined to be able to naturally make "story" than to play sim). Can't say for sure, but it seems pretty likely to me.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

We've entered a realm of debate that is out of the Forge's scope - which is to say, what "most people" or "any people" are, or are not, capable of.

Let's return to the issue of actual play. For instance, we can take Eero's description of his fellow player as given, without any need to figure out whether it describes a group.

Best,
Ron

[Doyce]

Doyce: You took my post in the spirit it was intented (sic) in.

Thanks.  I'm not sure it shouldn't have been it's own thread entirely, but that's forum semantics I try to stay clear of. :)

And it seems clear that your player is on the ball, you just have to give him the equal tools to work with. How about designing some relationship situations in the forest explicitly working with him, so that he'll have an easier time to latch on during the game?

This is, thanks to your and others' comments, exactly the sort of thing I'm intending.  Come to that, it might individually be a 'get out of the manor' session for all the characters.  I just need to work out specifics. :)

[Bryan_T]

Zelana's player, who started playing a few years ago in her late 20's and has only done non-d20 when I've introduced it, has stared in astonishment at Guy's player (a long time Amber player), who's every scene involves taking volatile PCs and NPCs and purposely trying to get them into scenes with each other -- he's like a mini-GM :) There's a real strong vibe of 'why are you seeking conflicts? let the GM provide us with the conflicts' kind of confusion going on.

I can believe this from reading the character sheet.  The hero has almost no really creative/active abilities--almost everything is healing or survival (with a side order of winsome maiden).  She'd be a huge asset if you were running the british retreat through the khyber pass or some other gruelling survival in the face of impossible odds sort of thing.....  But aside from that, the hero as written seems to have minimal hooks to let the player grab onto the story and shape it.

One possibility of course is to allow/encourage a partial character re-write, to give her more hooks.

Barring that, working with what is there.....the one thing that strikes me is the "sprit face 20" ability.  Nobody else has abilities with spirits per se, and it is one of her best abilities.  Given the baron's strange malady, almost inevitably someone would start muttering about heathen spirits....she could be the subject of a witch hunt, or the person making sure there are no spirits, or for that matter the person who does find the spirit that is possessing some NPC.  It would help highlight the characters unique area.

Often HQ character seem to have a "centre", an area where a huge number of their abilities, personality traits, etc can potentially augment, aligned with goals and generally you can almost see the heart of the hero there.  With Zelana I don't see that so much, although I get the feeling that it is intended to be woodlands existence?  If you think that is where the player wants the hero to be (and it sounds like it, from the always trying to get outdoors bit), then here is another idea.  For a heroquest as much support as possible is of course needed.  What if she could recruit the "land" (includes animals and plants of note) as supporters?  She'd have to find the spirits and convince them of the need.  Their support could be a critical factor at some point in the quest.  

But, eh, it is hard to say from what is written on that character sheet.  I'm sure the player has passions, and passions for her hero, but they just don't come across in the write up, which was why my first thought was a second draft.

Good luck!

--Bryan