Marco's View of Gaming

[Marco]

I don't know if it'd sacrifice Immersion--it might--I'm still wrapping my head around it.

If the GM said "It's dangerously cold." and I knew we were being hunted by an enemy army, I'd do what real armies do: share sleepingbags. Light discipline is a real keep-you alive kinda deal, and sleeping with a couple other humans under the same covers can make dangerous cold survivable--(although it won't, of course, work easily for true arctic conditons). I'd tell a story to the GM and players about a real-life night my unit spent on maneuvers in record-low temperatures.

Why does this matter? Because (if I understand it right) it would, as a player avoid Feng's Complication--would that be breaking the social contract? If so (GM proposes a Complication, player says 'I don't think so, I've got a way out') then it'd violate my precepts--i.e. I might decide I was gettin' railroaded ... probably not--I'm pretty sure I wouldn't leave a game Feng was running until he turned the lights out--but if the social contract said I hadda choose A or B and I wanted a legitimate C, I'd debate it.

I believe the original example assumed the PC's *didn't know* about the enemy patrol--making C *unlikely* (but there's that trained light-discipline thing so who knows).

My hazy I-don't-get-Scattershot-all-the-way guess is: that social contract *might* weaken my immersion.

-Marco

[Jason Lee]

Marco,

Well, if you proposed it as GM you'd be giving an alternative to avoid a complication all together.  If stated right, I think you could preserve Immersion pretty easily. You could do that all session, but if you always present a way out of conflict you might never get a dramatic event and that might be kinda boring.  As a player I think you'd be giving up an eensy bit of Immersion now for a higher Immersion return later, pulling out of character to try and get everyone to do something that won't violate your suspense of disbelief.  Thing is, if your character is the military type you could suggest it in character and lose nothing except the chance to tell a personal anecdote ;).

Reading you both I don't think either one of you would close out or force a player's suggestion.  You'd let the whole camp/fire/frostbite roll thing disappear to preserve player power.  Put another way:  player input is more important than railroading your story or strictly enforcing a game rule.

Got a small question:  Your position of do what's reasonable...Does resolving a player power struggle reasonably usually entail not screwing up someone else's stuff?  If so, I don't think Fang's social contract conflicts, from an outside perspective it looks very similar.  Not screwing up someone else's stuff is just the simple version of the Propietorship rules from Scattershot (I think).  Fang's just got the social contract rules enumerated, making it more present.  Which, if it plays out how I think it does, drops a little more SimSpecImm potential because the players have a metagame context for more situations.

[Marco]

There's a little bit of not messing with people's "stuff"--If a player makes a Dependant NPC in Hero, I wouldn't, y'know, turn the DNPC irrevokably into an evil vampire and give the guy a hunted for the same points.

On the other hand, if the player says "I build a fire" in a wind storm I might well rule (or roll for) the fire going out. Feng, would that constitute a violation of the sovringty?

Being reasonable (in my schema) means that I internally feel the call is justified--and that excuses *all* kinds of behavior. I can rationalize railroading. I can say "the game isn't *remotely* 'fair' but, hey, given the start situation, it's *reasonable.*  Under my stated rules, I could start a group of ordinary guys plumetting at terminal velocity from an airplane with no parachutes. Real short gaming experience.

That's why reasonable is just an expectation. It's giving the GM the benefit of the doubt if I'm a player ("hey, I didn't like the way that panned out--but until it becomes a trend, I'm gonna assume that the GM is bein' true to his gameworld and since I'm likin' the rest of the game, I'm okay with it.")

-Marco

[Le Joueur]

Hey Marco,

We're all friends here, call me Fang (like the tooth or Phyllis Diller's husband).

On the other hand, if the player says "I build a fire" in a wind storm I might well rule (or roll for) the fire going out. [Fang], would that constitute a violation of the sovereignty?

...That's why reasonable is just an expectation. It's giving the GM the benefit of the doubt if I'm a player...

Even though the wind storm is possibly a Complication (and therefore the gamemaster's property), the fire would be the player's property; I just don't see the a fire ending a wind storm.  Since it seems iffy, pretty much anyone playing could call for a roll for success.  To the gamemaster, the fire changes the nature of the Complication.  Nothing anywhere says that the players can't beat a Complication; the action of doing so is no more and no less what Complicates play.  Remember in Raiders of the Lost Ark after the 'truck chase?'  The players 'beat it' and got the Ark onto a ship; Complication over, game + 1 Complication.  This isn't about the gamemaster 'beating' the players, it's about making the game interesting.

The opportunity to 'beat the Complication' is the essence of player power.  Choosing to Complicate is gamemaster's power.  That the players chose to ship the Ark is what decided that their recurring nemeses, the Nazis, would use a U-boat; that Complication leads to the final confrontation which everyone is expecting.  Gamemaster stewards the Complication, player choice defines the Details.

Now, back on thread, how does that compare to Marco's Manifesto?

Fang Langford