The Road Goes Ever On...

[hardcoremoose]

Hey guys,

I'm sure everyone's aware of the phenomenon in which a random gathering of casual gamers occurs, and with little to no planning, they decide to play a game.  With no prep and no more reason to game than to hang out with some friends, everyone grabs whatever characters they have handy.  Usually the game is D&D, since everyone has a character for it.  A GM is picked and the game commences.

You've all seen that, right?  It happened all the time during my college years, and even after.  We could never be sure who would show up for a game, or who might drop in unexpectedly and want to play.  Things were kept free and lose to accomodate our friends, who we very much did enjoy spending time with.  But the games themselves were never that much fun...not for me anyway.  They lacked continuity and internal consistency.  Very unsatisfying...so much so that in later years I often declined to play.  

I was staggered to learn recently that some people might actually prefer it to other styles of play.  The idea being - I think - that, since it's not a campaign, it isn't subject to fizzling out.  And because it's not a closed story arc, it carries the illusion of perpetuity (i.e., it sort of feels like a campaign).  But this is just me speculating.

Does anyone out there actually consider this their preferred style of play?  Does anyone else have any experience with it?  Is it inherently dysfunctional, or does it actually satisfy a GNS priority (my guess would be Gamism, if any).

And as a subset of the above questions, how many of you guys have had someone take a character from a campaign or closed story you were running, play the character in a pick-up style game, and then expect those events to be part of your continuity?  Does that piss you off?  What brand of dysfunction is that (failure of the social contract)?

Take care,
Moose

[James V. West]

hardcoremoose wrote:

And as a subset of the above questions, how many of you guys have had someone take a character from a campaign or closed story you were running, play the character in a pick-up style game, and then expect those events to be part of your continuity?  Does that piss you off?  What brand of dysfunction is that (failure of the social contract)?

OOoooOOoooohhh I hate that.

I had that happen on numerous occasions. I'm not sure how to answer your question, but I'd say it does stomp on any social contract.

Another pet peeve of mine on the same lines is this:

You design a cool new campaign/story arc and invite some players. You tell them the scoop, and let them work on some characters. Even though the style is very specific, some folks still create characters that are OBVIOUSLY not suited to what you have in mind. IN fact, they seem to be literally plucked from a previous campaign. Like wanting to play an anthropomorphic duck PI with a penchent for Ricky Martin-style dancing in a Tolkien-esque high fantasy Quest.

[Joe Murphy (Broin)]

On 2001-12-29 16:31, James V. West wrote:
[snip]
You design a cool new campaign/story arc and invite some players. You tell them the scoop, and let them work on some characters. Even though the style is very specific, some folks still create characters that are OBVIOUSLY not suited to what you have in mind.

The 15 year old kid in a Vampire LARP that wanted to play a Jedi. Not just a guy with psychic powers that would let him levitate stuff. A Jedi.

Poor sod.

Joe.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Hah. You all laugh now but Clanbook: JEDI is in the works at White Wolf even as we speak.

"Kids like vampires!"
"Kids also like the Jedi Knights from Star Wars!"
"Hey! We'll do Vampire Jedi Knights!"
"Great idea, Biff!"
"Thanks, Renaldo!"

- J, who means little to no offense to people named Biff or Renaldo.

[Joe Murphy (Broin)]

On 2001-12-29 19:58, Jared A. Sorensen wrote:

Hah. You all laugh now but Clanbook: JEDI is in the works at White Wolf even as we speak.

Can you just go away, Jared and write something brilliant? Quit slumming it in this off-topicness.

Yes, you can write Clanbook: Jedi if you must.

Joe. =)

[Laurel]

When you see those light sabre wielding protagonists in Demon the Fallen, you can all blame yourselves.

Back to Mooses' original comments, I think those games were fun in college because it matched social life in college (mine at least) where 'hanging out' with my friends and us being goofy was way more important than deep,meaningful roleplay.

My preference is chronicles, with set players who make characters after learning about the pre-established setting and then the GM finalizes the plot after studying the characters.  A game a week, usually 7 games in two months, same bat time, same bat channel.

Laurel

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

Guess I'm the odd man out here - that particular social construction of play that Scott describes has always been alien to me.

In the 80s, I decided that playing in my/our group was a privilege, not a right. Invitation only, fun people only, love of source material only, willingness to commit socially only. I recall that my rule "If one person doesn't come, no one plays," was received with great shock - and then embraced with a sense of insider membership, as well as of responsibility to play well and intently. People could join, but the size of the group was kept small, so new folks came in as others moved away (or broke up romantically, or whatever).

Was this clique-y or arrogant? Hard to say, although I did not perceive any larger, coherent community of gamers within which our group could have been judged. Nowadays I belong to two groups, each with a similar social context - us, always us, and invite-only.

However, I also am the faculty advisor and eager participant in a much looser, much more welcoming, much more fluid student-gaming group. And actually, I'm having a lot of fun with that too. Part of it is that there are no continuing games, or continuity of characters, so that the problems Scott describes do not occur there either.

Best,
Ron