[Breaking the Ice]How does it relate to the Czege Principle?

[Andrew Morris]

Lately, I've been wondering if Breaking the Ice helps support the Czege Principle ("When one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun." ) as an example, or whether it disproves the principle, by offering up a counterexample.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I really enjoy BtI. So, on the one hand, I know I'm having fun, and maybe the Czege Principle is wrong, or at least too strongly stated. Of course, I could just be misapplying the principle. However, I also wonder if having the Active Player control both characters, as well as the narration of elements like environment and NPCs, limits the potential of the game, which would tend to support a softened version of the principle (perhaps "play is less fun" instead of "play isn't fun").

At the moment, I think that the Czege Principle is sound (if overstated), and BtI could be a much more exciting game if the Guide had some more active form of control.

I'd like to hear any thoughts others might have on this.

[Andrew Cooper]

Andrew,

I *think* I would have a problem having much fun with BtI.  Of course, I'd be happy to give it a try before fixing that opinion firmly into my belief system.  The reason is pretty simple.  I don't like games (generally) where there is no struggle against things I don't control in order to get the things I want.  The struggle is a large part of the fun for me.  If I control both the adversity and the resolution, then to my way of thinking, I should just be writing a traditional story and I'm not really playing a *game* anymore.  I'm not promoting this as gospel for everyone but it's pretty cut and dried for me.

I agree that the Czege Principle might be overstated but it is spot on with respect to me and probably a large portion of the gaming community.  I certainly think that in any game that supports a strongly Gamist style that the Czege Principle is perfectly stated.

[Andrew Morris]

I tend to agree that having a player in charge of their own adversity and resolution pretty much kills any attempt at Gamist play. And you're right about BtI not providing much external struggle -- you're really only struggling with your own creativity and the roll of the dice. At least, that was my experience.

[Paul Czege]

"When one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun."

That is not the Czege Principle. That is the "http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=1167">Lesson of Chalk Outlines." The Czege Principle is that all principles other than the Czege Principle are named after Lumpley or one of his games or play experiences.

Paul

[Adam Dray]

I've run into similar struggles in my Verge game, which requires the player to set the number of dice the GM gets to roll against himself. There are some external factors encouraging players to give the GM more dice -- namely, the reward is directly proportional to the risk -- but in one of my two playtests, players found the system uncomfortable. They didn't like switching "between player mode and GM mode" (probably more a change of Stance, really).

[Andrew Morris]

That is not the Czege Principle. That is the "Lesson of Chalk Outlines."

Ahh, my mistake. Well then, change all references to "Czege Principle" to "Lesson of Chalk Outlines."

[Ben Lehman]

"When one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun."

That is not the Czege Principle. That is the "http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=1167">Lesson of Chalk Outlines." The Czege Principle is that all principles other than the Czege Principle are named after Lumpley or one of his games or play experiences.

Paul

You're forgetting the Baker Principle -- no one gets to decide what principles are named after themselves.  Heh.

yrs--
--Ben

[Andrew Cooper]

That is not the Czege Principle. That is the "Lesson of Chalk Outlines."

Ahh, my mistake. Well then, change all references to "Czege Principle" to "Lesson of Chalk Outlines."

I just like the fact that now the principle is called LoCO.  Heh.  We needed a principle called that.

[Andrew Morris]

Adam, I don't know if you're familiar with BtI or not, but it's different from Swing in that the player controls how many dice they receive, but there is no risk to using more dice.

[Ben Lehman]

I have to say I'm a little puzzled at the question, here.  I think it comes from the following: I'm not sure what you mean by "conflict."

Breaking the Ice has, essentially, only one central conflict: Are these people going to hook up or not?  (Or, at a micro-level, "are we going to get an attraction / compatability from this scene?)  Anything else, like the "conflict" on your sheet or any adversity that comes up in a scene, is just window dressing to this main conflict.

That conflict isn't introduced by either player -- it is introduced by the game itself.

If you are talking about the inconveniences, etc introduced via the re-roll mechanism, I don't really think that these are conflicts, and so we don't have to worry about protagonism when dealing with them.  But, generally, they are not brought up, then resolved.  The general pace of "good things happen -> roll -> bad things happen -> attraction" in BtI is important, here.

It is possible I am totally off the mark from what you are saying.  If so, I apologize.

yrs--
--Ben

[Andrew Morris]

Perhaps you're right. Instead of "conflict," maybe I should stick to "adversity." As to whether that's the answer, I think it depends on how you interpret the statement of "When one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun." (Are we calling this LoCO, now?) I certainly don't think that the system can be said to provide either adversity or resolution (though it does mandate the method of resolution).

Looking at how the game plays out, we have one character at any moment who is responsible not only for controlling the characters, but setting the scence, introducing adversity, filling in the details, determining how many dice are used, narrating what the results of those rolls are, etc.

[Ben Lehman]

Hmm... No, when you call it adversity, I'm still not with you.

Here's how I see the play of Breaking the Ice with regard to the Czege Principle:

I'm the player, you're the guide.

I do this big performing monkey act to get dice from you, describing what my characters do, how she does it, etc.  You give me dice or not as to your whim, supported by the basic rules of bonus dice.  Then, we do a second performing monkey act where the things I introduce are more negative.

Then we switch.  You do your performing monkey act in two parts, and I give you dice.

The dice are all about resolving "Do these people get together?"  The performing monkey act is just that, a performing monkey act.  We don't actually care about the contents of it except inasmuch as they generate dice.

The adversity to the big question of "do they get together" is the incredibly high bar set by the die rolling system.  It is really difficult to get 3 or 4 successes.

The "adversity" and "conflict" generated by the rerolls is just a part of the performing monkey act.  It is resolved, or it isn't, at either players discretion, because it isn't important to the overall game except inasmuch as we milk it for dice.

yrs--
--Ben

[Andrew Morris]

Okay, I'm not getting what you're saying. That sounds to me like you're saying that the mechanics provide adversity (in the form of rolling dice and getting successes) and the players resolve the adversity (by narration). Is that it?

[timfire]

Looking at how the game plays out, we have one character at any moment who is responsible not only for controlling the characters, but setting the scence, introducing adversity, filling in the details, determining how many dice are used, narrating what the results of those rolls are, etc.

Ahh, I think I see what's going on. I'm not familiar with Breaking the Ice at all, so I might be off-base, but here goes:

The reason this doesn't break the Czege principle (or whatever it's called) is because of the dice. The dice add some sort of randomn element, so the player isn't totally in control. The deal with the Czege principle *as I understand it*, is that the players have to be in control of everything. Following me?

[Andrew Morris]

I'm following you, Tim. If your assessment is on target, I would probably agree with you.