Step On Up driving Challenge, driving Step On Up?

[Ben O'Neal]

In Ron's Gamism essay, he mentions how Challenge can drive Step On Up:

The Challenge adversity sets up all sorts of System demands and risks to the characters, which in turn can provide the motor for the Step On Up adversity to kick into action.

Now, after reading a bit of feedback from play-testers of Scarlet Wake, and looking at my own playtesting experience with it, I got to thinking, "What about Step On Up being the driving force behind creating Challenge?"

Indeed, what if one could tap into this as a sort of "feedback loop", by which Step On Up could drive Challenge, which then drove Step On Up?

Now, being that nearly everyone reading this won't be at all familiar with my game, it might be a bit hard for me to articulate my meaning based on my experiences, but I'll do my best. Worse, I'm going to have to resort to talking specifically about SW, because I haven't yet been able to parse these ideas into the purely abstract yet.

Basically, as far as I can see, players must create Challenges for their own or other player's characters to overcome. The creation of these Challenges is a big part of the Step On Up. For example, when a Bind is triggered for a PC, the Antagonist players must create a suitable challenge for this PC to face. Although it is stated in the rules that these Binds must be cool and interesting, it is almost entirely the work of social dynamics which ensures constant one-up-manship among the players to create badder and cooler Binds. In this specific instance, Step On Up is what's salient, and the resulting Challenge shares a linear relationship with it. But perhaps more importantly, because Challenge only exists as a result of the Step On Up, we can only conclude that it must be Step On Up which is driving Challenge.

Ok, from here on in, I'm going to abbreviate "Step On Up" to "SOU" and "Challenge" to "C".

Of course, once C has been created via SOU, it is then dealt with largely through SOU as well, as the ball is passed back to the Protagonist player, so-to-speak. C has been created, and thanks to SOU, it was a very cool and baddass C, so now I have to meet this C for the sake of my character and for the sake of SOU.

In other instances within SW, SOU and C are almost indistinguishable, or at least tied to the same game event. For example, "I'm going to pay 5 Kick to deprive your character of her Style trait for the next 5 Waves, now you have to narrate how this happens and what your character does about it." In this example, the character faces the Challenge, but the challenge is, again, a direct result of how the player Steps On Up to having to narrate this event. I'm not even going to touch on all the other SOU/C aspects of SW, like Fuel/Fire, Kick management, and all the ways you can increase your traits.

Now, if you can wade through the acronyms and references to an unfamiliar game, I think you can see how it's possible for SOU to drive C, and for C to drive SOU. The real-life result of this, from what I can see, is numerous exclamations of "Mad!", "Cool!", "Awesome!", "Wicked!", and other such adjectives, all related pretty much entirely to how well each player meets their SOU.

I think, despite not really having yet fully worked through this idea yet, that this SOU>C>SOU feedback loop has two consequences. One: it makes play very fluid, not necessarily in the "smooth and easy" way (which is probably more influenced by the mechanics), but more in the "naturally progressive" way, where things just constantly "write themselves"*. And two: it makes play very rewarding and fun for all involved, because it is constantly reinforcing that "social high" we get from performing well in front of our friends.

I hope this idea has made at least some sense. It may be completely obvious to some of you, or you may disagree completely, but I only really realised it tonight. I'd be interested in knowing what you all think. Does it seem plausible? Is it so obvious that everyone but me already takes it for granted and I'm "late for the bus"? Or are my ideas too "game-specific" to be of any real value to contribute to theory.

-Ben

*A thought occurs... perhaps it is this feedback loop which is occuring inside an authors head when the story "writes itself", as they are tapping into SOU by imagining the audience's reaction to the character's challenges. Hmmm. I am quite tired though....

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ben,

It's actually necessary for Gamist play that this "loop" occur.

However, it's not a loop at all, but a spiral. It's a spiral because it "moves along" an ever-increasing and wholly-satisfying commitment to what's going on among all the real people.

Think of a good sports event - you don't just play the first ten minutes over and over. You play something that moves and changes only because everyone is internalizing what's happened and recognizing it as a foundational for whatever is about to happen.

The feedback you're talking about occurs within this same social process, among the people, and therefore has a spiralling effect.

Best,
Ron

[Ben O'Neal]

I concur that "spiral" is a better term.

Is it truly necessary for Gamist play? I ask because I've heard that 3e AD&D is quite Gamist, but I find it hard to pick instances in 3e where SOU drives the Challenge, except perhaps "pre-emptive" SOU, when the DM is preparing the Challenges for the next session in advance. Of course, this only allows the DM to have Step On Up drive Challenge, whilst the players use Challenge to drive Step On Up.

Perhaps this is just an issue of distribution among the players? If so, is the interaction between Step On Up and Challenge dependant upon the distribution of GM-powers? Is your position-on and contribution-to the spiral related intrinsically to your amount and type of credibility?

I tend to think perhaps not, because if it were, then that would imply that "GM-less" games would be inherently more fun for the players than "GM-full" games (those terms really aren't very good).

-Ben

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

I'm a little puzzled by that point, I guess. Step On Up is an attitude, perhaps best described as a "mode" or "agenda" of play. It is present or it isn't, among a group.

Challenge is what plain old Situation (fictional characters doin' stuff, facing adversity, etc) is called when Step On Up is present. If you have Step On Up going on, then Situations are Challenges. If it is not going on, then Situations are plain old Situations.

So let's say we have Adam the GM, with Betty, Colin, and Darren as players. The characters are in a Situation, and all four people are real Step On Up go-getters in the instance at hand.

They all have brought Step On Up to the table, and that makes the Situation ipso facto into a Challenge. That's the first and utterly necessary step of the process.

Then whatever happens in the Situation (resolutions, tactics, damage, etc) changes the Situation - which is System in action, of course. Various Step On Up features are now changed, because some people have "won" and some haven't, or to put it a little more clearly, some people are acknowledged for their successes in a very sportive way.

So now the Step On Up is still there, but its variables have changed - the scoreboard has new scores on it, the clock has advanced, however you want to look at it. That's what's brought to the new Situation.

Does that help, or make sense?

Best,
Ron

[Ben O'Neal]

Aaahh, I've been using a different definition of "Step On Up", so that's probably causing a lot of confusion. If you replace my use of "Step On Up" with "play-based challenges", I think it should make a lot more sense and convey what I'm really trying to say.

The reason I assumed Step On Up was inclusive of player-based challenges, is because in the model, we already have Challenge as explicitly dealing with character-based challenges (being that it is Situation), and player-based challenges are largely ignored. It's my opinion that there definately is something happening at the player level quite possibly even independantly of the character level. I also think that whatever is happening at the player level in Gamist play is distinctly different to what happens at the player level in the other agendum, not only in terms of goals (as the model requires), but also in terms of the rewards.

Now, trying to pin down the rewards from playing might be easy (I won!) or hard, but knowing what they are will be necessary to knowing how/why players will pursue them. Perhaps the reason player-based stakes are so elusive is because the model doesn't currently cater for pretty much any of the player-level competition that is likely to corelate with (and possibly necessary for) having Gamist agenda?

So I guess what I'm saying is that I think it's possible for play-level challenges to drive Challenge, which then can drive player-level challenges. Does that make more sense?

-Ben

[Ron Edwards]

Hey Ben,

You wrote,

It's my opinion that there definately is something happening at the player level quite possibly even independantly of the character level. I also think that whatever is happening at the player level in Gamist play is distinctly different to what happens at the player level in the other agendum, not only in terms of goals (as the model requires), but also in terms of the rewards.

Um ... all of the above is consistent with my definition of Step On Up. And as I'm saying, yes, it "drives" Challenge, because unless it's present, Situation isn't a Challenge.

I really suspect we're talking past one another at this point. Perhaps it might be best to take this to face-to-face dialogue at GenCon.

Best,
Ron