[Polaris] Getting It

[Paul King]

Presented for comment. 
The idea is to have something to present to players so that they can understand more of the conflict between Heart and Mistaken.

Polaris is a game about inevitable failure.  The knights will die or become traitors.  One day the Remnants will fall.  In the end, all will be forgotten, as if it had never been.

The best a Knight can hope for is to die heroicially, to delay the fall of the Remnants, and for their sacrifice to be known and respected.

The worst, a fall into betrayal, joining the demonic Mistaken, becoming one of them.

It is the Heart's job to lobby for the best outcome and the Mistaken's to oppose that - and to lobby for the worst.

Remember that.  As Heart you want your protagonist to die - to die well, but still to die.  Survival leads only to a worse end - the inevitable fall into betrayal.  And that fall is a slippery slope - the more Weariness grows, the faster it will increase.

The real nature of the conflict should be reflected in the stakes put up in conflicts.  While some mechanical costs or benefits to either side are possible - manipulating aspects to make it easier to find an appropriate theme - they are less important than in most RPGs.  The sort of physical costs - wounds and maimings - that might be a high price in many RPGs are of little consequence in Polaris.  The ultimate stake is the shape of the story.  Is it a tragedy of death - or a tragedy of betrayal ?  The Mistaken should seek to drive the Knight away from the People and towards the demons - hurting a protagonist for the sake of it does not serve the goals of the Mistaken.

But this conflict is not the most important thing about Polaris.  In the end the story is more important than "winning" or "losing".  The conflict betwen Heart and Mistaken is at the service of story, an enforcement of tragedy if you will,  more an enabler than an end in itself.  Be happy to "lose" if it makes a good story, one you have enjoyed creating - because that is the true victory.

[Dan Svensson]

I wouldnt say that as a heart you want your protagonist to die. Rather to have an interesting ending, if it is death or betrayal doesnt matter as long as its interesting.

[Paul King]

I think that that's covered by my last point.  It's important, but it isn't an area where there should be any conflict between Heart and Mistaken.

[Ben Lehman]

The best a Knight can hope for is to die heroicially, to delay the fall of the Remnants, and for their sacrifice to be known and respected.

The worst, a fall into betrayal, joining the demonic Mistaken, becoming one of them.

Yeah, I consider this, in actual play, to be basically wrong.

It isn't about "the best" or "the worst."  Those things aren't hard-wired into the game.  Discovering what you want your end to be is part of the point of playing.

Consider a situation where, over the course of play, it was revealed that the demons actually have a society greater and more beautiful than anything the people ever had.  What's "the best" ending, then?

yrs--
--Ben

[Paul King]

An interesting question.  I would say that given the way that the demons are presented a fallen Knight might find such an ending agreeable, but only because they have fallen.  If the demons were presented differently it might be a positive ending.  But then tragedy isn't about positive endings.

And I have to ask for a clarification.  Is it simply the use of "best" and "worst" you object to or is it my description of the nature of the conflict, too ?  If it's the latter then can you please elaborate and explain how you see the conflict between Heart and Mistaken.

[Ben Lehman]

Hmm...

How can I say this in a way that doesn't sound stupid?

That is a way to think about the conflict between the Heart and the Mistaken.  It's a very useful model.  In fact, it's the one that's presented in the book.

There can also be other relationships.  Really, it depends on the group.

Are you describing experience from play or from having read the book?

yrs--
--Ben

[Paul King]

I'm trying to explain my perception based on the book and on starting play (2 sessions - 1 mainly devoted to chargen).

We are having a few problems although we are mostly coping - but one player got into quite a bad situation in a Conflict that seemed - pointless to me.  They were fighting hard for some equipment and ended up with a result that they found so unsatisfactory that they nearly dropped the character.  I suspect that not knowing when to back off is part of it but I don't think I can teach that :-(
(Two of us are doing OK, one isn't and the other I'm not sure of - they left their character sheet at home for the last session and haven't taken a turn as Heart, but they were Mistaken in the Conflict mentioned above)

What I want to get is a short(ish) statement (maybe 1/2 an A4 page) that I can pass round the group that will emphasise what is important and what isn't, and what sort of things the Heart and Mistaken should be fighting over, in the hope of avoiding a repeat performance which might kill the game.

[Web_Weaver]

Hi Paul,
Just a side issue:

I think that it is unhelpful to promote a "the best that you can hope for" viewpoint.

One of the messages that can emerge from play is that there is always hope. Hope in the face of adversity so overwhelming that it is dim and faltering, but all the more meaningful for being so. Tragedy is lessened if hope is extinguished or even de-emphasised.

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light".

[Valamir]

Interestingly Paul, I see the core conflict of Polaris exactly in the opposite way.

Is the coming of the dawn really a force of destruction?  Or is it simply a force of change?  Change that some have embraced and welcome but that others fear and oppose.

Are the knights really heroes defending the helpless against the coming destruction?  Or are they representing the old power structure clinging to ancient privilege and fighting to preserve the status quo against the forces of revolution? 

Are the demons really forces of evil, or are they the enlightened...working to bring about the literal dawning of a new age?

Are the "fallen" really betrayers?  Or have they simply seen the light, and realized that the old ways must be set aside.

There's no right or wrong answer to that dichotomy...which is a heck of alot more interesting than one side is the good guys and the other side is the bad guys.  Sure the terms "Demons" and "Mistake" sound evil...but then its common practice for one side to propagandize the other as the "bad guys"

In another thread Polaris as a metaphor for activism was put forward, but there again...no real right side or wrong side.  Just diffent sides who believe fervently in what they believe and oppose what they do not.

[Darren Hill]

Paul, I don't know about a short catchy statement that is easy to explain to the players, but this is the philosophy I try to encourage:

When you are the Mistaken, your role is to create interesting adversity for yoru Heart, in exactly the same way a GM sets difficult challenges for players in a conventional game. When a GM notices that a player likes an NPC, he may decide to put that NPC in danger to give the player something to fight for and to make the relationship stronger. When the player decides he wants something that would be fun to have, the GM starts thinking of ways to make getting that thing interesting - and by that, I mean he starts imagining what would be interesting obstacles to overcome to get it, and dangers to face.
As Mistaken, your goal is not to screw the player over on petty things, or to obstruct him on everything. Whenever as Mistaken you decide to do something to your Heart, think: "If I was a player, and my GM did this to me, would I genuinely feel screwed over by an asshat GM, or would I groan in delightful anticipation of the challenge to come?

It's not a hard and fast rule, as in Polaris, you can push the players further than in traditional games because the conflict rules keep players balanced. But it helps to remember that the Mistaken is the partner of the Heart, not his enemy. So, to repeat, as Mistaken, pretend for a moment you're a traditional GM and think: "what would be an interesting challenge/obstacle/bad thing/plot twist to happen now?"

[Ben Lehman]

I actually disagree with Darren, here.  I don't think that the role of Mistaken is particularly like a GM at all.  The issue here is in power-balance.  As a GM, I need to worry about overstepping my bounds.  If I go too far I will rob the player of his power and make the game unfun (like, for instance, "Rocks fall, everyone dies.")

As a Mistaken in Polaris, I don't need to do that.  I have exactly as much power to "do stuff" as the Heart (perhaps a little more, since I have default control over the environment, but not significantly.)  So I don't need to worry about upsetting the balance of power between me and the Heart.  Rocks fall, everyone dies?  If you can rephrase it to be in keeping with the pacing rules, lay on.  "Meteors start to pelt the earth, killing all of your companions, crushing your legs, and leaving you bleeding on the open snow" would be a totally cool thing to say, as a Mistaken.

Whether or not you contest every little thing isn't the point.  The point -- as outlined in the book -- is to contest things that you don't like, whether because you find them flat and uninteresting or because you don't find them interesting enough yet and want to add in complications.  I expect the players in Polaris to serve no interests but their own entertainment.  Thus, if you feel that the knight, I don't know, tying his bootlaces is unacceptable in some way, oppose it via conflict.  Further, if the Heart says "I, a lone man, ride into the demonic host, shatter their ranks, and slaughter a full half of them before they disperse" and you're thinking "that's awesome, that totally plays into where I want things to go," you absolutely should not oppose it via conflict, regardless of its "bigness," because doing so is acting against your own interests.

This is talked about in the book.  I can't remember the page off-hand, but the repeated phrase is "say what you want."

yrs--
--Ben

[Daniela Nicklas]

After playing Polaris the first time, I summarize the way of playing with

"It's a game for four playing game masters."

Everybody is a GM and can shape the story, and everybody is a player with her own personal GM - who does best when she makes the life of my character as interesting as she can (in the sense of the chinese curse 'may you life in interesting times').

Or, to use an analogon: it's like really dark chocolate.
Not very sweet, but intense.

just my 0,02 Euros,

    Daniela (counting the days until the next gaming opportunity)

[Steven Stewart]

I totally support with what Ben is saying. I don't think the concept of GM works very well in discussions about Polaris. Partly because people bring to them to the table different ideas of what a GM is. Using the word GM is a flashpoint word, meaning it has a lot of strong feelings associated with it to different people, and frequently those strong feelings are different.

Here are a couple of data points to back that up from Actual Play:

(A) I played Polaris one Thursday Night, (see the link in sig for AP), then on Sunday played a different RPG that had a more traditional GM / player role. By traditional I mean in the D20 sense where there are distinct and different roles between a player and GM, and didn't have the rules mechanic balance built into it. The intent in that game was to "support the players", not be against the "players". But I totally screwed up in my headspace and GM'd like I was the mistaken in Polaris. And the play didn't go well. Because in that particullar game as a GM I had to "hold back" in some places to support the story, it shouldn't of been all push, push, push like a Mistaken. In end it was a frustrating game for the players. Because I was still in the Polaris Mindset. (which brings up a point you might need something to clense your pallete when switching games like that).

(B) I see the mistaken v. heart more like what you might have in a game of Risk in a way (particullarly LOTR risk which I play a lot). In a board game like that there are two sides (the alliance of free races v. the orcs of Sauron and Saruman). But all the rules support equal and balanced play between them. If I am playing Mordor in Risk, I don't have to hold back or think about how I am supporting. Calling a Mistaken or a Heart in Polaris a GM is like saying in Risk the folks playing Mordor are the GM. Rather what I see is, is that some aspects of a GM are distrubuted to different players, and that changes based on who is the heart of the scene. But other aspects of traditionally GMing are completly left out of the game (such as the need for the GM in D20 to do a balanced "encounter" or the need to present encounters that "give a player the spotlight" and "handing out the rewards for their actions") or rather are redistrubuted.

As a small side point, while people focus a lot on the "GM-full" or whatever the term is for Polaris, a lot of folks miss another aspect when comparing to the game, that is that a protagonist's "effectivness" to impact the narration, for lack of a better word, is not constant through the game like it might be in other traditional games. During the scene when I am the heart my Protagonist is more "effective" than the protagonist controlled by one of the moons during my scenes. So one thing that is extremly illustrative to me from playing Polaris based on actual play it really comes out and seperates character and player to the point that it is really obvious, where in some other systems folks at the table still do the player=character to the point that sometimes interchange the two terms.

Just my two yen.

Cheers,

Steve

[Daniela Nicklas]

Hi folks,

interesting point of view -- in traditional games, the gm is mistaken and both moons, has to provide both opponent and supporting events and characters for the protagonists.

However, I still feel there is a strong connection -- maybe it's the feel of "Polaris is a game that GMs like to play". Or, to be more precise: it's a good game for people who are frustrateted if their contribution to the story is limited either to the GM part (missing the play) or the player part (missing the bigger scope of story contributions).

Thanks for the clarification!

Daniela

[Ben Lehman]

Or, to be more precise: it's a good game for people who are frustrateted if their contribution to the story is limited either to the GM part (missing the play) or the player part (missing the bigger scope of story contributions).

Daniela:  Yeah, I'd say that's perfectly accurate, or at least it was what was going through my mind when I wrote the game.  But, that said, I think it can actually be a good game for people to tip-toe into a more traditional GM role: Since you're only "on" in that capacity one quarter of the time, and further you have a good deal of support (in the form of the Cosmos and the Moons) to help you if you get stuck.

yrs--
--Ben