[Bacchanal] GenCon Playtest

[bluegargantua]

Aha! The 'interweaving' was the connections you made between your characters during chargen. (Tom detailed them in his first post.) I totally misunderstood. I thought you were narrating the involvement of other player characters in your scenes. I think those connections you made between your characters is totally cool. Are you thinking the game text should suggest it? Or require it?

Or did you also narrate other player characters in your scenes?

  I tangentally narrated other characters in my scene.  I had my character invite Meg's character back to my place for continued fun.  It wasn't a case of coitus interruptus (she'd only just arrived along with me) and I thought it would be interesting for our stories to drift through one another.  I'm not sure if I could've more directly included her in my story, I suspect the dice would've hashed it pretty quickly, but it might be fun to try.

  Some level of story interweaving is probably a good thing because that helps knit the game together as a whole.  The individual stories collectively paint a larger picture and it helps focus your attention on the stories other people are telling so that you've got leads to play on when it's your turn.

later
Tom

[Meguey]

Having Tom narrate my character into the scene was fine. It was in the context of "You, you, you three, you lot over there, and you, come on over to my place", and I loved the change of scene that gave me. It was once we hit the villa that I felt I got my artistic feet under me (or out from under me, I might say) We did start with interwoven character lines, and I even started with my companion and had to lose him in the crowd.

Paul

I think getting trapped in a scene is part of the game. It's one of the frustrations you have to deal with as a player. Can you preserve the interest of the players despite the awkwardness of your restriction to the same tired locale?

I think perhaps you over-estimate the willingness of players to stay in scenes that are played out, awkward or tedious. I am reminded of watching a lousy porno in college where we were fast-forwarding through the endless sex scenes (same couple, same location, maybe a camera angle or position shift) to get to the smattering of plot.

While I really liked the contrast between Star staying in her scene and Tom and I roving around, I would bet we'd all find ways to circumvent the scene restriction once we weren't enjoying it.