SOAP! test-run

[Tor Erickson]

(note: I'm posting a few rules comments over in the Reviews Discussions forum, under the current SOAP! topic)

Hello all,
 So I played SOAP tonight to get a feel for it for our first class tomorrow.  There were four of us, including two people who had never played a role-playing game before (though were familiar with the concept).  
 In short, we had a great time.  After half an hour, we all agreed to extend the game to 45 minutes because it was just getting juicy and nobody wanted to stop.  Hilites included Richard Warrington III having his secret, homosexual love affair revealed and then his head squished by a garbage truck in the next round so that I, as his bitter wife, could collect all of his money (now that he was finally dead)--which was my goal; and two of the characters discovering that they both had for their Secret the fact that they were separated brother and sister who had had an incestuous affair in their past.
 The game proceeded like a study in player pyschology.  At the beginning, nobody was quite sure what to do.  For the first few rounds everybody stayed in actor stance, not affecting any scene but their own, or any character but the one they were playing.  Additionally, everybody kept looking to me to settle disputes, to which I simply shrugged my shoulders and told them they knew as much as I did.  But as play heated up and people started to realize the directorial power that they had at their disposal, things started to really get going.  
 All of a sudden people were dropping Hints to the left and right, trying to weasle out as many plot points as they could to force others into compromising situations where they had to reveal their secrets or setting up situations where they could complete their goal.  Explosions were being narrowly averted, dirty family histories were being revealed, and people were furiously trying to put together the Hints to figure out what the Secrets were.  
 Additionally, at the beginning there were a lot of questions about the rules (including some cries of "But it's not realistic that the exploding oxygen tank would just incinerate Bobby-Joe and not touch Peggy-Sue!"), but by the end we were just playing fast and loose, and quit worrying about exact rules interpretations.
 Overall, it was a blast and i'm looking forward to playing again tomorrow night.
-Tor

[ This Message was edited by: Tor Erickson on 2001-09-17 00:58 ]

[Ferry Bazelmans]

Hi Tor,

I'm really glad to hear you had a lot of fun playing SOAP. It's indeed intended to have fun and not worry about exact rule interpretations. In the end everyone "gets it". :smile:

Crayne

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

"... some cries of "But it's not realistic that the exploding oxygen tank would just incinerate Bobby-Joe and not touch Peggy-Sue!" ..."

One thing you might anticipate discussing with your class is WHY this cry appears in the first place.
- Is it because the events in the game-world are only satisfying or valid if they are physically exactly what would happen in the real world?
- Is it because even a fictional story benefits from having most of its details be plausible?
- Is it a matter of establishing shared trust, that some players/GMs use "realism" as a yardstick for what can or cannot happen, because they do not trust one another to establish a yardstick of their own?
- Is it a more negative power issue, in which a player/GM is using "realism" as a disruptive interjection?

After all, if everyone in the group was satisfied by the lack of realism later in the Soap game, then why would anyone be dissatisfied (or worried) about it earlier in the game?

Best,
Ron

P.S. Don't read this post as a put-down of "realism." A couple of the items listed are pretty important to me during play.

[Tor Erickson]

Hmmm.  I was thinking of ending the class by playing SOAP, but maybe that's how it should be started.  If we ended it that way, then we'd have a while to sit on it and think about it and then discuss it in the next class.  If we started it that way, then we might have more grist (god, I love that word) for discussion.
Hmmm.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Tor,

My suggestion is to discuss the Kubasik material first, as planned, and finish with the Soap session as planned. Send them home with some challenge questions about it, and discuss it for the next class.

Again, you have plenty of time and this is a LOT of material to assimilate, much of it pretty mind-blowing for gamers who are absolutely sure they know everything there is to know.

One of the most dangerous traps of teaching is wanting to deliver ALL of it to the students right away. Pace it - read or do X, talk, write, reflect. Read or do Y, talk, write, reflect.

Because YOU'RE pumped about Soap, the tendency is to want to get students right on the same page as soon as possible. But remember that you've already assimilated Kubasik and a lot of GNS. Let them get at least some of that assimilated themselves before diving into Soap.

Best,
Ron

[Tor Erickson]

On 2001-09-17 11:35, Ron Edwards wrote:
Hi Tor,

How's it going?

My suggestion is to discuss the Kubasik material first, as planned, and finish with the Soap session as planned. Send them home with some challenge questions about it, and discuss it for the next class.

We actually didn't end up having time to play SOAP.  We discussed some of the student's written responses and spent the rest of the time on Kubasik (class-time was approx 1 hour 15 min).  We'll meet this Monday for a game of SOAP then a short discussion period afterwards.

One of the most dangerous traps of teaching is wanting to deliver ALL of it to the students right away. Pace it - read or do X, talk, write, reflect. Read or do Y, talk, write, reflect.

Word up.  I think pacing is going to be one of the most difficult aspects of leading this class.  When to move on?  When to keep discussing?  We actually tabled the Kubasik discussion because we had strayed off-topic and it felt like we weren't moving forwards anymore.  
I think the other major portion of the effort dedicated to running class will be keeping the class focused on the reading material and the ideas at hand as presented by their authors.  Role-players are an opinionated lot and it's too easy to stray off into "Well I think this is how things are" and "No, I think things are like this" without REALLY addressing the material.
 If anybody would like to talk about more of the specifics of the class, I'd be happy to get a discussion going via private email (ericksot@grinnell.edu) as I'm mildly apprehensive about going into class-details online (hopefully the students will be cruising the Forge within a week or so).

-Tor