[Capes] Wanting to win

[TonyLB]

Jay:  Yeah... YEAH!  With one caveat, that sounds very much like what I'm feeling.

The caveat is this:  Players, particularly smart, devious, dominant players who know how to become "the player who makes things happen" can just as easily end up in the position where their actions run the risk of ruining the fun of other players.  It's primarily a GM thing, but not exclusively.

And while I agree in theory with Vaxalon that you can work these things out at the level of social contract, you can't do it by just saying "Let's work this out".  Words, and particularly the words of just one person, don't really make a lot of impact on social contract, in my experience.  People will say "Yeah, of course, we're the players and we're driving the story... so, what story do you want us to drive?" (actual quote, may God have mercy on us all)

Hrm... I'll have to consult my search-fu, but that might be a question for RPG Theory as well:  "What are the tensions and impacts of Stated Social Contract versus Actual Social Contract"?

[coxcomb]

And while I agree in theory with Vaxalon that you can work these things out at the level of social contract, you can't do it by just saying "Let's work this out".  Words, and particularly the words of just one person, don't really make a lot of impact on social contract, in my experience.  People will say "Yeah, of course, we're the players and we're driving the story... so, what story do you want us to drive?" (actual quote, may God have mercy on us all)

Yes, my problem with sorting things out on a social contract level is that most gamers that I know take any such talk as an attack on their beloved playstyle. e.g."You wanna play different? Are you saying I'm a dick?!?"

[Vaxalon]

I totally agree with Vaxalon that players and GMs using any system can work this out at the raw social contract level. But having it in the system as written is a huge help.

You don't seem to be getting my point... the only reason that the players FOLLOW the rules as written, is that the social contract demands it!  The rules as written have NO intrinsic power in the game group, NONE, they only have the power ascribed to them by the participants!

Game groups produce game systems (in the Forge sense of the word) that conform to the way they want to run their games both by selecting rulesets that facilitate their style of play, and by drifting those rulesets to further conform to their style of play.  People are INCREDIBLY stubborn.

...some games have mechanics that provide overt support for negotiation of what happens. In other games this sort of negotiation still happens, but it is covert and/or tacit.

When all the negotiation is codified you don't have lingering worries about using social position to dominate play. You don't feel like you're trampling the other player's contributions. With a system that allows their contributions to have mechanical support you don't worry about them just not speaking up. I mean, the rules tell them to do so.

A game group that values player contributions will value them whether the ruleset supports negotiation or not.  I don't see a big difference between making a contribution, and expressing dissatisfaction if one's contribution is being "trampled".

[TonyLB]

A game group that values player contributions will value them whether the ruleset supports negotiation or not.  I don't see a big difference between making a contribution, and expressing dissatisfaction if one's contribution is being "trampled".

This runs directly and unequivocally counter to my experience.  Not to go all Galileo (*)  but I have seen groups hampered by a bad ruleset with no negotiation, and within days seen the same groups functioning more cooperatively and creatively under a better ruleset.

To analogize to government:  More women voted in 1921 than were suffragettes in 1919.  There is a huge difference between making a contribution that the system supports and being willing to contravene the system to protest your inability to contribute.




(*) When Galileo looked at Saturn he "saw" three moons, rather than any rings.  Mostly, I assume, because his telescope was rudimentary and he was accustomed to seeing moons.  When later, better telescopes made the rings obviously clear, he insisted that he still saw the moons, just more clearly, and that was that.  He saw what he saw, and no amount of theory ("how would three moons hold steady in the configuration you claim?") made more impact on him than the evidence of his senses.

[coxcomb]

You don't seem to be getting my point... the only reason that the players FOLLOW the rules as written, is that the social contract demands it!  The rules as written have NO intrinsic power in the game group, NONE, they only have the power ascribed to them by the participants!

Game groups produce game systems (in the Forge sense of the word) that conform to the way they want to run their games both by selecting rulesets that facilitate their style of play, and by drifting those rulesets to further conform to their style of play.  People are INCREDIBLY stubborn.

You're right. I don't get your point.

I do not argue that system is a social contract thing and not explicitly a rules as written thing. That's a given. But my experience (which is all I can attest to) has been that the choice of system usually equals a social contract level decision to abide by the rules as written. That is, if I can convince a group to play Capes instead of D&D, then the group is open to player input in a way that they are not when playing D&D.

I argue that rules as written *do* have intrinsic value in that almost all humans that I have met are conditioned to abide by the "official" rules of play when playing a game of any sort. Yes, some drift happens. Players and GMs say, X rule sucks, let's bag it. Or, I think X rule from game Y is cool, maybe we could adapt that to use in system Z. But the amount of drift that can happen in most cases I have observed is very small compared to the bulk of the rules as written.

My assertion is simply that it is easier (at least has been easier for me) to modify the social contract regarding player input by convincing the group to try new rules, than to layer freeform drift on top of another set of rules.

And speaking of drift...I'm afraid we're drifting from the point of the original post (sorry Tony). Perhaps I should start a thread about the credibility of the rules as written in theory?

[TonyLB]

At this point I think my original question may have been given an answer that (if not necessarily true) is supported by most of the posters.  To wit:

[*]My recent good experiences are due to a feeling of being one among equals, and therefore not required to "hold back" lest my mighty thews of GM-authority should overwhelm some poor player's fun.
[*]That feeling of equality and non-responsibility comes from being on an equal power footing with other players.
[*]That feeling of equality and non-responsibility cannot come from accepting and approving their requests, no matter how scrupulous I am about doing so.
[*]Rules systems may (or may not) have something to do with that, which is a whole different discussion.
[*]The feeling should be reproducible under the same conditions.  Yay![/list:u]If people have something genuinely new to contribute (either as an alternate explanation of my experience, or to elaborate or contradict one of these points) then the thread should stay open.  Otherwise, yeah, I think we could spawn off a "Rules Credibility" thread in Theory and close this one.

My search-Fu has failed me on Rules Credibility.  "Social Contract" doesn't really narrow it down here, y'know?  If anyone with more experience knows of a previous discussion that covers much of this ground then we won't have to reinvent the wheel.

[LordSmerf]

At this point I think my original question may have been given an answer that (if not necessarily true) is supported by most of the posters.  To wit:

[*]My recent good experiences are due to a feeling of being one among equals, and therefore not required to "hold back" lest my mighty thews of GM-authority should overwhelm some poor player's fun.
[*]That feeling of equality and non-responsibility comes from being on an equal power footing with other players.
[/list:u]
<snip>

I believe that the term "equality" is too strong.  Instead I would suggest that what is actually needed is a distribution of power sufficient to give the players a sense of freedom in contributing.  In Vaxalon's case, the mechanics-power needed is apperently almost nil.  In my own case it's pretty high, and that high requirement seems to be pretty well reflected by the experience of others.

This may belong in a different thread, but if not "equality" then how close does it need to be?  Clearly that depends on the group, but many of us seem to have a pretty similar level of need on that issue...

Thomas