No-Death and Trollbabe

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Wilhelm - actually, I'd like to keep the discussion here focused on Trollbabe, not "character death."

Your point about Gamism is good - but remember, you're talking to the guy who invented the concept that Narrativist and Gamist play are often interchangeable at the Techniques level. And more generally, of course you "can" play Trollbabe Gamist; you can play anything Gamist.

I'd like to clarify a couple of points about that.

1. Husbanding points or other resources in order to utilize them fully on future events is not an ipso facto Gamist behavior. A lot of people say that, wrongly. It's just resource management, period. In my model, it'd be in the Ephemera category.

2. When I say Trollbabe is not a Gamist game, what I'm saying is not, "You can't play it Gamist," but rather, it doesn't facilitate Gamist behavior as well as it could."

If I had wanted it to do so, then every roll in Trollbabe would entail risk of some sort beyond that of "failure." Incapacitation carries no "punishment" mechanical effect - that's what I'm talking about.

Best,
Ron

[rafial]

1. Husbanding points or other resources in order to utilize them fully on future events is not an ipso facto Gamist behavior. A lot of people say that, wrongly. It's just resource management, period. In my model, it'd be in the Ephemera category.

Thanks, that's a good point.  I had read the "here's the whole model" post and this example has helped make that part of it "click."