'Exhuastion Escalation' in illusionist play

[Matt Snyder]

Excellent thoughts everyone -- Mike, I found your post regarding long term Sim. play (or lack thereof!) very helpful for consideration.

Just wanted to acknowledge that I appreciate folks considering the questions I raised. Keep discussion!

[Mike Holmes]

I hope I haven't given the wrong impression about long term Sim play. It's really simple. You just can't do the same thing over and over. If that's all a game provides, then you can still play long-term and stay Sim, it's just up to the GM (perhaps with player input) to find new themes to incoprporate. And the enjoyment that a given player has for the theme in question can prolong things a great deal as well. A very sim player who likes Lovecraft to death might very well enjoy the same thing week in week out.

But it's really no different than saying that hacking up orcs repeatedly gets dull in a Gamist game. That's easier to vary, however, as you can just change the challenge. Theme is a little harder to generate; changing the monster in CoC might not change the theme at all. But the problem is the same. Even in Narrativist play, if the players keep coming back to the same thing with their themes uncreatively, it's goint to get boring. "Ah, betrayed a friend again? yay"

What I do say is that an easy way to extend any game is to include the other two elements appropriately. If the game has been really Narrativist for too long, then throw in some Gamism. Then run a Sim episode. Etc. Keeps things fresh, IMO.

Mike