Who's your Pep-Squad?

[Callan S.]

Hi Joshua,

Keep in mind you don't automatically know when to say what your excited about and when to probe for what other people find exciting. If everyone probes for everyone elses excitement, nobody finds out anything (everone is probing and not expressing what they like) and you get a dead heat. If everyone expresses what they want, they but heads dysfunctionally.

However, I think this is getting off topic a bit. The threads main focus is on someone bringing what they are excited about, to the table. If no one brings this, the game just doesn't happen.


Tony,

Just a thought, can the idea of excitement and personal investment be seperated?

Take your "Justice always leads to...Major Victory" speach. Imagine some else (player A) said that and player B goes "Kewl, I'm so gunna humiliate MV and see what happens!". That's basically player B's motivation to use the system. So he manages to pull it off system wise and humiliate MV.  Player B then turns to A and...player A is just sitting there, watching what B has been doing. A was excited about making the speach...but had no personal investment in MV, so he wont actually respond once B drops the humiliation on MV. Player A just wanted to add the idea and watch other people get excited about it.

No responce from player A means no excitement feedback to player B and the excitement feedback loop is broken.

My example isn't that great. But can you imagine someone being excited about introducing an element into play, but wont respond in interesting ways in relation to how that element is treated?

[TonyLB]

Sure, I see that all the time.  People get all stoked about what they can do, and how excited that will make others, but they don't actually get excited about the response, either because (a) they're being entertainers and have no interest in a response except as a sign that they've entertained, or (b) they're riffing, but they can't think of anything to do with the response they get back.

[Josh Roby]

Keep in mind you don't automatically know when to say what your excited about and when to probe for what other people find exciting. If everyone probes for everyone elses excitement, nobody finds out anything (everone is probing and not expressing what they like) and you get a dead heat. If everyone expresses what they want, they but heads dysfunctionally.

We can't do both at once?  I get that Tony is pointing out that we have to have some mechanism for introducing excitement.  It's also important, though, that once that excitement is introduced, it also needs to be received.  If we want to look at systems for bouncing that excitement back and forth, we need to recognize both the transmission and the reception.

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Tony, thanks for this thread. I had never thought of being a Gamemaster as, "The Way of bringing excitement." I'm going to find that a very helpful way of seeing things.

I want to just poke at a few things.

I think that you and the Swedish Submarine Gamers (S.S.G.), are a bit closer than you realize. I think they've hit on sort of the same idea but are describing it in a different way. Jiituomas please correct me if you feel that my understanding of the underlying message in the S.S.G style is incorrect.

What I'm getting from Jiituomas is S.S.G's are basically saying, if you want to have a good game overall then sometimes you modify the way you play to increase the excitement for other players. It seems they are saying this is what good players do. That really seems similar to what you are saying, perhaps they just haven't got all the verbal tools that are laying around The Forge to work on things with. No insult intended to the Swedish, I'm mainly just complimenting The Forge.

As to some of the other discussion, the rest of this post is general and not aimed at any one person per se.

I'm unsure about the ability to codify a ruleset that brings excitement. I think excitement is something we can all understand, we can point it out and say, "look excitement.", but the roots of it can differ. I think it might be better to make games that excite us, and try to develop and discuss different techniques that we have found successful and not successful in creating excitement, to learn how best to get back twice what we give. Oh... wait... I think thats already what's going on.

-C

[TonyLB]

Actually, I agree that the SSG and I are far closer to the same wavelength than (say) either of us is close to the spectator sport that I see in a lot of mainstream gaming.  So, yeah, it's largely a matter of really subtle distinctions between us, in terms of mindset more than what we actually do.

On the rulesets, though:  I'm quite sure that we can codify certain techniques of excitement into games.

You can't codify "players will be empowered" into a game, it's too vague.  But you can codify "Players will narrate the results of their own successes, rather than the GM doing so," and that's a technique that leads quite reliably to player empowerment.

Likewise, you can't codify "players will be excited" into a game.  But you can codify (for instance) "When Player A is excited about proving a proposition against opposition, players will get off their duffs and provide her with the opposition she needs, but be excited about the prospect of being beaten (so that Player A gets to prove the proposition against opposition, not just get beaten down by that opposition)."  That's a technique that works quite reliably to generate feedback loops of excitement ("Foolish whelp!  You think that you can stand for virtue?  I will show you that you are too weak to do any such thing!")

Does the concept of techniques to manipulate excitement ring true for anyone else?

[Josh Roby]

Does the concept of techniques to manipulate excitement ring true for anyone else?

Hell yes.  A lot of this I've already got in piecemeal form in Full Light, Full Steam -- I may need to revamp (again) to include it more explicitly.

[J. Tuomas Harviainen]

What I'm getting from Jiituomas is S.S.G's are basically saying, if you want to have a good game overall then sometimes you modify the way you play to increase the excitement for other players. It seems they are saying this is what good players do. That really seems similar to what you are saying, perhaps they just haven't got all the verbal tools that are laying around The Forge to work on things with. No insult intended to the Swedish, I'm mainly just complimenting The Forge.

(First, in all honesty I must admit that I broke into hysteric laughter when I read that. No offense meant, though. Simply a cultural issue.)

So first of all (and highly off-topic, at least in some sense), it must be stated that among this group we have been briefly discussing here are some of the most experienced larp designers and analysts in the world. Seriously. They're approaching the issue from a combined "fine arts, larp-without-tabletop-connections" angle instead of academic analysis, however, which means it's occasionally quite hard to translate their ideas to the rather tabletop-oriented Forge. (For some descriptions of what you're dealing with, see here. To say they lack the vocabulary is like saying a poet understand less about humanity than a sociologist does. There's at least as much conceptual work present in that discourse as there's on the Forge. The words used are just very different.

More on-topic: What sets this particular approach apart from typical /momentary/ suppression so common among role-players (or any sane discourse participant, really) is that it has become standard practice among them. The permutations that arise from everyone sharing the same yielding attitude are something not seen before in such scale, and thus bear watching. In some sense, they are a clear indicator of role-players actually breaking what's called CA here, and thus form an important exception to what is usually considered the norm.

What is most important (in my opinion) in all of this is the observation (or, more precisely, re-introduction) of the fact how much reception affects the gaming experience, both for the recepient(s) and the person who is actively introducing a game element. And furthermore, how there's apparently a level of receptive, supportive yielding affecting the process that is more a question of social contract than an intrinsic value - despite how it's usually depicted. The logical way forward from this observation isn't to debate how much is optimal where, but rather how we can take advantage of the differences and create systems (both reward and otherwise) that facilitate the optimization.

-Jiituomas

[Callan S.]

Sure, I see that all the time.  People get all stoked about what they can do, and how excited that will make others, but they don't actually get excited about the response, either because (a) they're being entertainers and have no interest in a response except as a sign that they've entertained, or (b) they're riffing, but they can't think of anything to do with the response they get back.

(a) is what I was getting at. But I was thinking of it in contrast not to (b), where the person tries to think of a responce. Instead, I was meant where the player reflexively reacts to the other players responce. It's reflexive, because there's such a personal link between the player and the imaginary character/thing. When there's that link in another player, it's a really big draw to play and find out what reactions you can get in interacting with that character/thing.

As opposed to if the character/thing is just some numbers the other person gave to try and entertain you.

[TonyLB]

Callan:  Agreed.  My "(a)" and "(b)" were two different failure modes, where the feedback cycle of excitement breaks down.  You're talking about a success, right?  Both (a) and (b) are in contrast to the successful transmission of excitement.

I'd generalize beyond that, though:  it's not as if the fictional character is a separate person that you can get excited, who will in turn get their player excited.  The character is the player's vision of their own contribution to the game, made manifest.  So what have you done, to the player, when they reflexively respond because of their link to the character?  I would argue that you have clearly demonstrated that you understand that creative vision.  That alone is enough to get people very, very excited.

Again, with emphasis:  Merely showing somebody that you understand their creative vision will get them excited.  Anything that you actually do with that understanding is a bonus.  It is a sad commentary on much of people's past roleplaying that they can get utterly worked up just by the idea that anybody else in the world understands what they're getting at through play.

I want to cite some examples, though, lest people think I'm talking about only the huggy-puppy-bunny-flowers version of understanding someone else.  Say I come upon someone who is describing everything about their character in terms from adolescent male anime:  the big eyes, the peppy "Hai!", the spiky hair.  I can show my understanding of their vision in several ways:

• Support:  "And a huge swatch of his hair falls over one eye, but he can still see perfectly well, right?"
• Expectation:  "Wow, that's one big monstrous bruiser we're facing.  Go, lanky and effeminate martial artist!  You're the perfect person to take him!"
• Opposition:  "Now that your character has been beaten to the edge of collapse, I'm creating a conflict.  If I win then the character has no secret finishing move, no sudden access of power to save the day.  He just falls over.  So, roll dice, let's go!"

These are some of the "What can you do with the understanding" things I mentioned above.  But my point is that any of these three shows, unmistakably, that I've recognized and understood the anime theme that the other player is trying to convey.  Even when I'm providing the opposition that might prevent him from realizing that vision, I can only do it because I understand the vision so well.

[Meguey]

Tony:

Does the concept of techniques to manipulate excitement ring true for anyone else?

Merely showing somebody that you understand their creative vision will get them excited

Yes and yes. This whole thread is great. Validating someone's contribution and personal expression is such a positive reward, they will contribute and express more. (This reminds me somehow of a thread of Emily Care's ages back, about how you inflate the basketball. Wish I could refference it better)

[Callan S.]

Yep Tony, that's what I meant and new stuff I didn't know on top!

It reminds me of what I said in A Model for a CRPG?.

I have the sneaking feeling that "someone/something taking those actions and adding to them so they provoke another address of premise from the player" isn't just desired for the greater fun it causes. In addition to that and more importantly, if someone can manage to do that, they must be really getting your address of premise. They wouldn't be able to twist the knife in the wound so expertly if they didn't understand the pain you've expressed. The more they are able to 'hurt' your PC, the more they must understand your PC's hurt.

I think this may be the reason there is resistance to the idea CRPG's are really roleplay. It clearly lacks another person understanding you like this, of course.

But how about the thing in question being tied to the player in another way? What about if they fear something, and want to bring it into play to somewhat confront that fear? I started thinking about this when I recently read Tunnels and Trolls. I looked at where it got all GM-fiaty and thought "Oh great, this is where I as GM have to work out all the mathematical bits of challenge". But then I read the monster creation section and the list of nasties the author says he has lurking in his imagination. And it sort of clicked to me, that rather than having mathematically precise CR like math, what if it was driven by what creeps you out as a person?

On the math side, you get two psychological rules controlling the monsters power. One is that your instincts tell you not to underestimate its power, or else. But on the other hand you want to see the horrible thing bested. Rather than concious thought controlling the monsters mathematical power, these rather intense rules control it.

Now, in context with this thread: I thought at that point "But isn't that unbalanced?" and another part of me came forward and said "Yes, but THAT is balanced out by the fact you get to fight a real, wild horrible thing. Not just numbers. This fear is a real thing...you get to fight a real thing!" and then I said back "Hey yeah, your right! Damn, that is a good trade off! Sweet!"

Again, with emphasis:  Merely showing somebody that you understand their creative vision will get them excited.  Anything that you actually do with that understanding is a bonus.  It is a sad commentary on much of people's past roleplaying that they can get utterly worked up just by the idea that anybody else in the world understands what they're getting at through play.

HEY! I resemble that remark! :)