[Elfs] Director Stance Not Disturbing If System Supports It

[epweissengruber]

My new [ur=http://roleplayers.meetup.com/261]Indie RPG Group[/url] had an impromptu runthrough of Elfs.

The challenge was to play it with only 1 player.  It seemed as if there would be no chance to really get into the Low Cunning rules.

I was lucky enough to have a player who got the "director's stance" instinctively.  If you use Dumb Luck you can gently hose your own character: Your elf wants to exectue a Legolas-like bow shot and but you declare that the bozo will end up bouncing a luck arrow off of the Genital Elf's "Mighty Jockstrap of Charisma."  Roll the dice and see how well you as a player did and to what extent the Elf accomplished his own aims.

My player ("Two-Fishes") ran an Elf duo called Weisy (short for Wise-ass and my brother's old nickname in highschool) and Larry the Lounge Lizard.  And he managed to have them gently hose and compete with each other.  

In other words, he was able to enjoy role playing two different characters AND to set them at cross purposes with each other.  Granted, Two-Fishes is a Forge reader and his mind is open to Stances other than the Actor Stance.  But it was a real piece of creative Director Stance for him to set his Elfs in a competition to see who could kill the most Ice Weasels first and rack up the "Kills."  They also had to out kill the Barbarian Elfs.

Naturally, the little bastards took care of the Weasles hurting them first.  Larry got a potent Wonky Effect with his Kzapp and ended up Gooping and ice weasel in its place.  Weisy got one meager success but managed to get high initiative.  He simply turned from his Ice Weasel barbecue and crossbowed the Gooped Weasel.  He was outfoxing himself!

Despite the potential for distraction, Two-Fishes was very good at playing the particulars of each character AND coming up with a "meta Dumb Luck" whereby he set his characters into risky interactions with each other but which would, in the long run, help both of them get a hold of the Pipe.

It was a pleasure to watch.

1) Why didn't Larry the Lounge Lizard use his name when dealing with the Cosmic Fire Lizards?  I suspect that he had enough on his plate and missed the joke.
2) We played in the same location the Toronto Role Player's Alliance meets  but during the pub's Texas Hold'Em Poker Night: It felt good to get the hobby out in front of other social gamers and out of the basement.

[Ron Edwards]

Geez, it sounds like playing with Sybil!

I like this, though. What I'm interested in is something I always observe when playing Elfs in larger groups - an immense amount of informal encouragement among the people, sometimes interspersed with comparisons with D&D experiences.

Did any of that happen between the two of you?

Best,
Ron

[epweissengruber]

First, we knew we were playing a game that had an ironic relationship to D & D gaming.  So we were open to a lot of side-comentary and discussion of our play experiences.  Moreover, we had the presence of card players who were intensely focussed on their personal play but also attentive to the overall rules that enabled the group to function together.  We had an object lesson in functional group interaction that spured us to dissection of our early play experiences.

Moreover, we self-consciously threw in our early playing experiences.

- I proposed that Gryphe had a skull-shaped castle just like the multi-level dungeon I saw in my D&D "Dragon Defending The Horde" basic set.
- I chose to do a classic get-into-a-brawl-and-attract-a-patron hook that was part of my early RPG experiences
- I introduced the magic slinging elf through a pretentious astral-plane navigaing meditation session that went bad
- I remember my GM rolling for the sexual responsiveness of NPCs and I put Weisy up against a seductive bar maid
- I played up railroading NPCs whose job was to give "hints" just like my old GM did
- I explained the magic item rules by recounting my experience with "Gerby," a PC played by an absolute doof at our library's local club.  "Gerby" (the name became attached to PC and player alike) cut off his left hand and sacrificed it to Satan to obtain some nasty assasin's dagger from the GM guide.  What was dysfunctional in 1983 became functional in 2005.

Elfs serves as a good forum for discusing dysfunctional play, and for many object lessions in functional GAMISM ("hosing" in ELFS is actually "step on up" via Low Cunning), NARRATIVISM (players making informed decisions about how they wish the narrative to be created) and, SIM ("what details and events can I introduce to Fictional World 2 ("Nurth") that capture the way of life in Fictional World 1 (Bad '80's D&D play).

Plus, the Genital Elf attempted to seduce the June Cleaver-esque Cosmic Fire Lizard.

[epweissengruber]

Old reflexes die hard.

For a while I was rolling for NPC successes when I remembered the ELFS rules: only rolls for PC's have consequences.  The players' decisions and the PCs' actions dictate what resolutions occur or not.

This is so radical in its protagonization that I overlooked it completely.  This mechanic completely subverts the wargame paradigm of "NPC monsters versus PC heroes."

[epweissengruber]

I had Weisy run into a mysterious cloaked figure smoking a pipe in the corner of a tavern.  His name was "Stepper."

But the literary allusion DID manage to pass off one of Gryphe's magic items,  drawing the magician's addle-brained attention.

But in ELFS, cheesy references to Tolkein or to Monty Python seem to fit.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi,

You are 100% correct about every issue you've raised regarding reflecting on D&D, group-function, hosing/Step On Up, and so on. Elfs tends to be a therapeutic experience.

However, your GNS talk is frightful. Here's the way it goes:

Gamism = yes, everything you said.
Narrativism = incorrect. You're merely talking about narration (how we say things), not Narrativism (theme creation).
Simulationism = incorrect. You're merely talking about Exploration, the necessary foundation for anything in role-playing.

Best,
Ron

[epweissengruber]

However, your GNS talk is frightful. Here's the way it goes:

Gamism = yes, everything you said.
Narrativism = incorrect. You're merely talking about narration (how we say things), not Narrativism (theme creation).
Simulationism = incorrect. You're merely talking about Exploration, the necessary foundation for anything in role-playing.

Ok, how could the play experience of ELFS lead to theme creation?

And how could playing ELFS work serve as a way of reflecting on Simulationism?

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

I think we're miscommunicating somehow. I don't see how your questions follow from what I said, or from anything, really. I'm suggesting that your play of Elfs is classic wonderful Gamism and that the other two terms do not apply. You seem to be asking me how they apply.

Best,
Ron

[Alan]

Would it help to mention that Ron has said his intent with Elfs was to design a game system that supported gamism?  Further, much of Forge discussion indicates that a game system works best when designed to support only one of the three Creative Agendas.  Finally, a system designed to support one CA may be modified to support another, but this is called "drift" and we understand that to mean the rules aren't being played the way they were originally intended, though they may produce a perfectly good gaming experience.

[epweissengruber]

Hey,

I think we're miscommunicating somehow. I don't see how your questions follow from what I said, or from anything, really. I'm suggesting that your play of Elfs is classic wonderful Gamism and that the other two terms do not apply. You seem to be asking me how they apply.

Best,
Ron

Sorry for the disorganized posting.

I was just fishing for suggestions on how I might use the kind of events that happen in ELFS as a springboard for occasional insights into Narrativism and Simulationism.

ELFS gave me and my player a lot to talk about concerning Gamism and Social Contract.  I hope that future play will allow me to talk a little about other aspects of GNS and roleplaying theory.

Guess I need to understand that theory a little better, and I shouldn't be asking anyone else to do my homework for me.

Thanks for the responses Ron -- sorry to come off snarky.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Let's get back to the actual play, because I love Elfs.

You mentioned many object lessions in functional Gamism, and I'd like to follow up on that. In writing the game, I tried to take everything I could remember about how D&D play went horribly wrong (in my aesthetic framework) and turn each of those things into functional rules.

What object lessons did you and your players especially enjoy?

Best,
Ron

[epweissengruber]

If I get a chance to run ELFs with a group, rather than forcing one player to go Multiple Personality Disorder, I will start a followup thread.