A day at GenCon, and a simulationist comes out of the closet

[Hans]

My first post.  I shiver in fear and anticipation...

Here is my first day at GenCon.  I relate it, because during the course of it I finally nailed down my place in GNS, and exactly what that place means: I prefer simulationism, but simulationism doesn't mean what I used to think it means.  Perhaps someone else will read it and see something of interest, or use it as a starting point for some more useful discussion.

Here is the picture: myself and two old friends (we have been gaming together for at least 19 years) decide to do GenCon together.  Therefore, we three stooges do almost every session together.

First session: D&D Open Tournament.  We signed up for this on a lark, not really knowing what to expect.  Oh, wow!  What a mistake.  The D&D Open Tournament is gamism role-playing taken to its logical extreme.  Functionally, it was really a tactical war game ala Car Wars or Battletech.  Both of those games were tactical miniatures games first, then added role-playing elements;  the D&D open is an example of convergence from the other direction.  Don't get me wrong; I love tactical games.  I cut my teeth on Squad Leader before I ever picked up a role-playing game, and I remember running squad-level tactical combats in high-school during my on going Traveller game.  But it was during this session I realized the difference between those experiences and the D&D Open.  In the first case, I never expected Squad Leader to allow me to Explore (in simulationist terms); it was "just a game".  In Traveller, the combats were a form of exploration for myself and the players; we were exploring the world of military sci-fi, enjoying the visceral thrill of picturing grav tanks zipping around and FGMP's thumping away.  The D&D open had none of this.  I know little more about the game world of Eberron than I did before I started.  If I had had some hint of what to expect going into it, I think I could have made it fun by exploring the System; "lets see what this special power does of my character", "lets try this combat maneuver available in the D20 rules", etc.  But I think that would have pissed off the poor three Wisconsinites we were teamed with even more, because they were there to WIN, and my friends and I, from the first few minutes, were obviously the lead weights around their necks.  Me just trying stuff out willy nilly because it sounded interesting would have made it worse.

Next, we did a Living Greyhawk module.  I had all of three modules under the belt of the only character I have for Living Greyhawk at this point, mostly because it is what happens once a month at my game club, and its either that or stay home.  I have ran more modules than I have played, and the only consistent criticism I receive is that I take too long.  One comment on my GM style with LG: "Sometimes you just have to read the stuff as its written and move on to the next encounter."  My reply: "If I have to do that, then it isn't worth doing."  There was a time when I would have called my take Narrativism, but now I know better.  I would have once described what I was doing as "concentrating on the story", but now I realized what I am really trying to do, with funny accents, more realistic dialogue and interaction with NPC's, is make the setting more explorable and experiential.  Some people really enjoy that.  Many, however, find it gets in the way of the serious business of killing stuff, acquiring swag, and earning XP.  I do not judge them for this (maybe a little), but I have to have my fun somehow too. 

This particular module was nothing to write home about, and the GM was not particularly interesting, but there was a fun fight near the end that was very difficult.  I found myself truly concerned for the safety of my character, actually chewing my fingernails about it.  I realized after the fact that this was not the fear of losing (i.e. from a Gamism perspective) that was causing this, or even a feeling of the premature and unsatisfactory end to a story (i.e. from a narrativist perspective).  It was fear of an end to the adventure with this one person, Khorsu the Broom, a young fighter/cleric from Ket with the bad luck to both be homosexual and ugly in a world of very attractive macho men.  I wasn't through with him yet!

Finally, that evening we participated in a Victorian-set LARP, sort of a Jules Verney kind of thing, run by Dean Edgell.  As an aside, if you ever see Dean's name associated with a game at a convention, pay the fee, drive the distance and make the scene.  This was just about the most fun I have ever had in public for 6 hours.  First of all, almost all 26 people involved had really made an effort to come in costume; at a minimum, no one was disruptive to the setting (i.e. no Rage against the Machine t-shirt).  The mechanics were of Dean's own design, and very simple.  The characters he had provided, nay, cast people into (we all completed "casting" questionnaires by internet beforehand) were incredibly detailed, each one with a list of goals.  There were several plot lines involved, but there was absolutely no control or force from above; all the action was driven by the characters themselves and their interaction as they tried to work out their goals. 

This was the time when I realized truly that what I always thought I was as a role-player, I wasn't.  Before this game, I would have told you I was all about the story, and making a cool narrative and playing it through.  But as this night progressed, I quickly realized I am most emphatically NOT about the story.  In fact, for most of the night, I really had no idea what was going on, or if there even was a story.  The reason I loved the game so much is because I was THERE.  To me, the cheap wall paper of a hotel conference room dissappeared, and I really was a reporter for a London newspaper (and secret French agent) riding a bathysphere to Atlantis.  It was not a matter of achieving my goals, or telling a story, but of BEING that reporter/agent, in that place and time.  When the rules of the game intruded, I didn't hate them because they mucked with the story line, I hated them because they reminded me I wasn't really in 1900 deep underwater. 

So there you have it.  At the beginning of the day, with what I now think was a faulty understanding of GNS, I would have told you I prefered a narrativist creative agenda.  But I would have been wrong.  I had, as many new readers of the theory do, I think, conflated simulationism with realism.  But now I see a bit more clearly.  I am all about the exploration, the experience of the thing.  I might be exploring character (as I find I am in Living Greyhawk), or both setting and character (as I was in the LARP), but it is the exploration that appeals to me. 

I'm not sure what purpose this serves to the community, but a first post has to contain something. 

Hans

[cappadocius]

A great first post. There aren't enough of us Simulationists around here. :)

So, as someone still blindly groping around as to what makes for good *great* simulationism, maybe you could go into a bit more detail about what really helped sell the immersion in this last game? Was it just the enthusiasm of everyone there to not break the illusion, or do you think there was anything special going on in the GMing or the particular playstyles?

[Hans]

Well, I would say several things really helped, only one of which I would say is solely a LARP thing:

Costuming - people really went all out on this.  A couple of girls there had dropped at least $60 US on renting authentic Victorian-era dresses.  This wasn't strictly necessary (just being non-disruptive would have been fine) but it did really help that when I was talking with the "Countess DeWinter" she really LOOKED like she could be a French Countess.  Of course, costuming is one of the biggest differences between pen and paper and LARP, so this probably is no surprise.  I will also say that there was a crew of about 8 college age kids from Florida that really did a bang up job, not only with accents and costumes, but just with general feel and panache.  Which brings me to...

Physical action - This was the first LARP I had ever played in.  I never would have guessed how much the physical actions involved (helping a women to a chair, pantomiming a Marquis of Queensbury rules fist fight, etc.) would enhance the experience.  I used to laugh at those people that ran around in forests wacking each other with nerf covered swords, but I definitely see the draw to it now.  However, I think the subject matter of this game really made it work well, because it limited the physical activities those that made sense from a Victorian perspective, which leads me to...

Maturity - Probably because of the way the game was advertised in the GenCon catalog, everyone there was someone who really wanted to experience something Victorian, something Jules Vernesque, something a bit Gaslight Cthulu even, and I am guessing this made a difference.  The overall maturity level (not in age, but in outlook) seemed very high.  People knew what they were there for, and came prepared to do it, and enjoy it.  Which leads in to...

True politeness - These people were all incredibly polite.  I don't mean that all the characters they played were polite; my friend played a mad Russian monk who kept buttonholing people to tell them about the angels and the red chariots.  No, the players were polite; everyone recognized that everyone else was there to have fun too.  People would expressly approach players who seemed to be distracted or out of sorts and draw them back in.  People would do their best to not interrupt another's conversation to ensure that the conversers got the most enjoyment out of it.

Note that the two above have nothing to do with LARP, and nothing to do with system or even creative agenda.  I suspect that they would enhance the enjoyment of almost any game.

Specific to simulationism, I would say it was the detail of the character history that really made it.  For example, in the four jampacked pages of character backstory for my character, it noted that I had a seduced a young American college student about 10 years before in order to steal a MacGuffin from her father.  In the end, the MacGuffin was stolen by someone else, and I was framed for it.  Within the first five minutes of the game, I realized that a) this girl was another character in the game itself and b) she was ALSO a reporter.  From that moment, I suddenly had something that really pulled me in to the character.  Would she recognize me?  Was I really in love with her, or was she just a tool to achieve an end?  What had really happened to the MacGuffin that was stolen?  These seem like narrative questions, but I would argue against that interpretation.  All this was, at least for me, much more experiential than narrative.  It served to draw me in to the experience, and gave me a realm to explore.

What all that taught me, in the end is that what I would have called simulationism (a game like Twilight 2000, for example, that's all about "realism") is really just a subset of the overall idea.  You can have a very "unrealistic" game that nevertheless simulates an experience in the minds (and in the case of a LARP) the bodies of the players.  Do you really need "realistic" rules to simulate an Father Brown locked room mystery?  A trip on Verne's Nautilus?  Not really; "realism" may even get in the way of the simulation, because the source is not "realistic".

[Callan S.]

This particular module was nothing to write home about, and the GM was not particularly interesting, but there was a fun fight near the end that was very difficult.  I found myself truly concerned for the safety of my character, actually chewing my fingernails about it.  I realized after the fact that this was not the fear of losing (i.e. from a Gamism perspective) that was causing this, or even a feeling of the premature and unsatisfactory end to a story (i.e. from a narrativist perspective).  It was fear of an end to the adventure with this one person, Khorsu the Broom, a young fighter/cleric from Ket with the bad luck to both be homosexual and ugly in a world of very attractive macho men.  I wasn't through with him yet!

The rest of your post sounds like a pretty spot on analysis. But here, thinking narrativists want a good end to a story? Dude, what they want is what you wanted here...to really address a character like you just described. It looks just like vanilla narrativism, from this short description. Actually, real twist the knife in the wound vanilla narrativism! It doesn't mean your always into nar, but will head over there at times.

[Ron Edwards]

Keep the god damn Narrativism out of this thread, please.

Thanks,
Ron

[Lance D. Allen]

Viva la Sim!

I know exactly what you mean, Hans, about believing all along that you were "narrativist". I fought against the idea for the longest time because I'd fallen into the same false belief that any focus other than story was "bad roleplaying".. It was either munchkinism (gamism) or My Guy Syndrome (simulationism). Once I accepted the fact that I prefer the sim CA, it clarified a lot of my previous game play, things that irritated me, things I loved. I played V:tM forever believing that it was a "Storytelling" system, but when I look back, I realize that the game mechanics were much more about creating situations and characters to explore than setting up themes to explore, and that's why I enjoyed it. I'm all for serious themes, but I find that I'm more interested in figuring how how my character will deal with them than with figuring out what it means to me.

As for the things you mention that 'made' your LARP experience, I can also agree with most. A good character is a must; the character needn't necessarily be hugely detailed, but it does have to be a character that you can really grasp. It has to be a character which is fully realized in your mind before you can really get into it. Also, your mention of the Live-Action elements is something that I find particularly characteristic of my play. I like to stand, posture and gesture, do voices and accents. It helps me feel like the character, and helps others see me as the character. Add costuming and what appears to be a real unity of focus (Meg might refer to this as Intent?) and you were really able to achieve an immersive state that made it very real for you. And while not all simulationist agendas are necessarily about feeling real (note your desire to just play around with powers and abilities during your Eberron game) immersion is a very frequent focus for Simulationist play.

Just a quick note before I go: The RPGA is shortchanging Eberron with their tourneys. I have a friend who is awaiting a contract to write for Eberron, and is on good terms with Keith Baker, the writer of Eberron. The setting is actually very cool, and fits extremely well with what D&D is meant to be. I played in a Eberron RPGA game with a bunch of my friends (no strangers makes a big difference) at GenCon '04 and other than a little bit of over-nitpicky rules adjudication, we had a blast.. We didn't even come close to finishing the module because we spent too much time roleplaying (my friends roleplay DURING combat) but were invited to the next portion of the tourney because our DM thought we were fun.

[cappadocius]

And while not all simulationist agendas are necessarily about feeling real (note your desire to just play around with powers and abilities during your Eberron game) immersion is a very frequent focus for Simulationist play.

I think there's a difference between feeling real and "realism". Playing with powers and abilities just to "see what they do" helps a setting or game very much feel real to me, even if the setting or powers aren't realistic. It's like... I know Paris is out there in France, somewhere, but it won't ever be "real" to me until I experience it. Fiddling with Kewl Powerz is like taking a trip to Paris. A well designed Sim game's Kewl Powerz should be illustrative of the world they take place in. So, even if I'm not looking to get immersed in the sense of "It's like I'm really there", I think immersion in the sense of "I know as much as I can about this world without being there" is always going to be an important element of sim-play.

The RPGA is shortchanging Eberron with their tourneys.

I've been hearing this a lot. It's a shame, too, since Eberron is one of the best D&D settings for hitting both the world exploration and genre emulation branches of Sim.

We didn't even come close to finishing the module because we spent too much time roleplaying (my friends roleplay DURING combat) but were invited to the next portion of the tourney because our DM thought we were fun.

This really surprises me - in a good way. Too many RPGA DMs seem intent on following the letter of the rules, rather than the spirit.

[Lance D. Allen]

I think there's a difference between feeling real and "realism"

Oh, definitely. Realism is when something closely emulates what we think of as the real world. Physics act realistically, people react based on realistic expectations, etc. Mind you, what we think of as the "real world" may change a bit when considered in terms of RPGs and Sci-Fi/Fantasy. In Star Trek, the ability to beam your atoms through space is realistic. Captain Kirk ripping a man in half with his bare hands is not.

Feeling real is entirely different. Real probably isn't the best word for it, to be honest. Feeling whole, complete, might be a better way to describe it. This can apply to situations as well as whole settings, too. For example, in the LARP Hans mentioned, it didn't appear that he needed to know everything about this Jules Vernesque setting for it to feel whole and complete; It seemed that his character, combined with the situation and the other characters and their players was plenty enough to do the task.

re: Eberron - I'm likely biased, however, considering the aforementioned friend has become an Eberron fanatic. The DM was a letter of the rules sort, but I guess we were still amusing enough for him.

[Silmenume]

Hiya Hans!  Welcome to the Forge!

I must say that your observations jive very nicely with many of my own preferences.

The mechanics were of Dean's own design, and very simple.  The characters he had provided ... were incredibly detailed, each one with a list of goals.  There were several plot lines involved, but there was absolutely no control or force from above; all the action was driven by the characters themselves and their interaction as they tried to work out their goals.

Bolding added.

Right on!  Though I have been here at the Forge for 2 years I am rather inexperienced in this particular Forum, so Ron if I am not operating appropriately let me know please.

The parts I bolded not only are pretty much the foundation of the game I play in, but they also line up pretty neatly with some theory work I have been struggling with here and here.  The more details the Character has the more opportunities for "motivated" interaction.  To try and make this germane - the Character history are the entailments I talk about in the linked threads while the goals are the driving force.  Any who – off my horse and onto your experiences!

The reason I loved the game so much is because I was THERE.  To me, the cheap wall paper of a hotel conference room dissappeared, and I really was a reporter for a London newspaper (and secret French agent) riding a bathysphere to Atlantis.  It was not a matter of achieving my goals, or telling a story, but of BEING that reporter/agent, in that place and time.  When the rules of the game intruded, I didn't hate them because they mucked with the story line, I hated them because they reminded me I wasn't really in 1900 deep underwater.

Again your experiences mirror mine!  I have a couple of questions I would like to ask.  Could you give some examples of what "mechanics" were used in the game?  I'm not sure if you are familiar with Forge terminology, but if you aren't by mechanics I mean anything that was used to represent something about the Character (like a Character sheet) or how events were resolved – i.e., did you roll dice, did you use special phrases or compare certain traits, did you use rock-scissors-paper, etc.?  Did you have "character sheets" at all or did you just work from the histories worked out a forehand?  Can you explain why and how the invocation of rules "broke the Dream" for you?"  Were they inconsistent with the Setting?  Were they used at what seemed to be inappropriate times, thus drawing attention to themselves?  Despite their simplicity, were the mechanics not "intuitive," thus causing you to shift your thinking process abruptly?

I am curious about the "casting" process.  Could you elaborate on that?  Was it a process of determining what kind of person you are or what kind of Character you would enjoy playing?  Did you have any input on the Character's background?  How much was the Character's background really information about the Setting?  (where the game would be set, cultural norms of the time, etc.)

Physical action - This was the first LARP I had ever played in.  I never would have guessed how much the physical actions involved (helping a women to a chair, pantomiming a Marquis of Queensbury rules fist fight, etc.) would enhance the experience.  I used to laugh at those people that ran around in forests wacking each other with nerf covered swords, but I definitely see the draw to it now.

Bolding added.

I don't play in a LARP, but I find that physicalizing make an enormous difference.  In many cases executing the action is far more efficient method of "communicating" than just trying to describe it.  Also one can dialogue while acting out thus allowing for an even more nuanced and/or layered play.  Finally I find that by being physical, i.e., acting out helping with chairs, pantomiming a fight, actually intensifies thus making it easier to get into the emotional moment of the game.  I am also a firm believer that most communication is non-verbal, thus by physicalizing the game one is opening up a huge avenue for subtle communication.  Ultimately being physical can also give propriosensory feedback which is another source of perception based information.

On the other hand the very act of "helping a woman to a chair" is a form of input.  It is an act that is relevant to Sim play.  For example – you are playing in the Victorian era where such activities are expected.  Now if no one else has done this "act" while there have been opportunities to do so prior, then you have added to and expanded the Dream.  If you do it when it has been regularly done, then you are confirming the Dream – making it normal and in a sense predictable.  Now if this "act" is commonly performed and one either forgets or better yes chooses not to do so, then some sort of communication has been made (perhaps one is trying to slight the woman at hand?)  Did you find this to be the same or similar with you once you "got into the game?"

However, I think the subject matter of this game really made it work well, because it limited the physical activities those that made sense from a Victorian perspective, which leads me to...

I think I understand what you mean by "the subject matter," but could you expand on this as well?  To me this is similar to space battles in a Star Wars game or having a scene where the transporter was involved in a Star Trek Game.  Is this what you were getting at?

Specific to simulationism, I would say it was the detail of the character history that really made it.  For example, in the four jampacked pages of character backstory for my character, it noted that I had a seduced a young American college student about 10 years before in order to steal a MacGuffin from her father.  In the end, the MacGuffin was stolen by someone else, and I was framed for it.  Within the first five minutes of the game, I realized that a) this girl was another character in the game itself and b) she was ALSO a reporter.  From that moment, I suddenly had something that really pulled me in to the character.  Would she recognize me?  Was I really in love with her, or was she just a tool to achieve an end?  What had really happened to the MacGuffin that was stolen?

Bolding added.

Bingo BA-BY!  All that stuff represents opportunities to expand the Dream!  All those questions are opportunities for directing your Exploration.  All those questions are effectively "holes" in the Dream that you feel would be interesting to fill in via Exploration.  The types of questions you proposed are very similar to the types of questions I am always asking myself when I play in my game.  Rock on!

Feel free to answer as many or as few questions as you see fit – though I am interested in all of them!

[Wade L]

  Also my first post.  My first post was going to be one very simmilar to Hans' here, but from a slightly different perspective(I am indeed a longtime LARPer - I've been running LARPs in one form or another for 5 years, playing in them for going on 8).  Now I'll have to make sure I have more original points to contribute when I get around to making my second post to the Forge.

  Suffice to say...mistaking the Simulationist desire to be the character and experience the situation in all its drama for a Narrativist desire to have the story be the focus is an extremely, extremely common mistake in my experience.  I'm sure if I polled 20 of my LARPer friends on what is important in a good LARP, they'd also go on about "the story" and "drama".  But most of them would probably prioritize immersion as one of the highest goals of playing in a LARP, and usually that goes at odds with putting the story first.  The only ones who seem to put story ahead of immersion are some of the people who have ran far more events than they have played in, for some reason.

  This all being said...I'm finding more and more my immersive Simulationist preference for play isn't enough.  I still prefer it, but re-examining the Forge(I ran across the Forge some time ago, read a little bit, and then moved on to a different game design forum) has awakened in me an increasing desire to try playing in other ways.  Not taking a Narrativist game and trying to play it in a Simulationist way, but trying to play in ways that are unusual for me.  Thus far, that's been the biggest benefit to my lurking on the Forge.

  But I'll stop there before I drift the thread.  Wanted to just express how good it is to read Hans' post and see simmilarities with my own experiences.

  I am tempted to start discussing the "What makes for good immersion?" question in more details, but I'm imagining that would verge on hi-jacking the thread.  I've taken a look around, but in case I've missed something, are there any living threads on that topic already in existance that someone could point me to?  If not - is this thread appropriate to expand upon that discussion, or if not that, what forum(if any) would be most appropriate for that discussion?

  As you can tell, I'm a bit nervous about making sure I'm following the ettiquette on my first post, but I trust if I have made an error it will be politely pointed out to me.  Thanks for your (anticipated) indulgence.

[Lance D. Allen]

Hello Wade, and welcome to the Forge.

Also, because it appears that no one said it specifically, Hello Hans, and welcome to the Forge. ::grins::

As for what is specifically appropriate in this thread, there is a post about what's appropriate for Actual Play in general, but beyond those guidelines, it is Hans' prerogative to decide what direction of discussion is appropriate for his thread.

Still, there have been at least a few threads, either here in Actual Play or over in RPG Theory on Immersion. I'm not really keen with the search option on this forum style yet, but if you dig a little, I'm sure you'll be able to find them. They're not "live" anymore, but reading them would give you a good basis for starting your own thread on the topic, if you so choose. Please refrain from posting to those old threads, though. If you wish to respond to specific points within them, start a new post and quote and link back to them.

[Bill Cook]

.. me just trying stuff out willy nilly because it sounded interesting ..

I have the same instinct, especially when looking at systems I haven't played before. TROS is a real good example. In TFOB, there are all these cool weapons. I want to try them all! Yes, let's have some combat. How else can I get the opportunity I seek? No, I don't care about winning, especially. I want to bring that picture to life of this weapon in action. I want to experience its distinction.

It was not a matter of achieving my goals, or telling a story, but of BEING that reporter/agent, in that place and time.

This is something I wonder about from time to time. Do character goals support Sim? I don't know. I do know that I prefer play with characters that are trying to do something. I think for Sim, a character's drive is a platform.

There were several plot lines involved, but there was absolutely no control or force from above; all the action was driven by the characters themselves and their interaction as they tried to work out their goals.

This is interesting. In your description, control is like a bridle; an agent that is foreign to a system that is busy relating to its own parts. Goals are catalysts for interactions. It sounds like you trade to lose pacing, though. That goes along with the criticism you've received for taking a long time to do anything.

I don't know if you've read the definition of Force in the glossary. (Which, BTW, I recognize that you meant "force" with a little "f," above.) Big "F" Force pertains to having thematically-relevant choices made for you. But it doesn't sound like you're actually deciding anything if by the end of play you're not sure what the story was even about. Then again, maybe things are being .. "settled," I guess you could say. This really piques my interest: Assuming Force is native to Sim, and therefore, likely at work in the play Hans describes, how is it that the experience is distinguished by an absence of control?

Costuming - people really went all out on this.

Preparation enriches game play. A costume can be the key to finding a character. Or it can act like an anchor, dragging every player deeper and deeper in.

Specific to simulationism, I would say it was the detail of the character history that really made it .. It served to draw me in to the experience, and gave me a realm to explore.

To me, this is a cornerstone of Sim: that it reacts and forms from itself. My Seneschal led us through a light-hearted "zombie kill" campaign, and in it, we wound up on a farm that felt somehow familiar. I came across a rope tied to a tree that grew at the edge of a canyon and dangled into the air below. Then I realized: this was the same town my city folk character from our previous campaign had visited to uncover an ancient Fey temple in the side of the cliff. And now I was playing a farm boy who lived there! Huge Sim moment for me.

You can have a very "unrealistic" game that nevertheless simulates an experience in the minds .. the bodies of the players.

Yes, yes. For Sim, the only credible reality is the one produced by play. i.e. Things aren't real because they stump the junk science critics; they're real because play references and integrates them.

P.S. Thx for posting about Sim. Although not my strongest leaning, it's wonderful to celebrate its value.

[Hans]

Again your experiences mirror mine!  I have a couple of questions I would like to ask.  Could you give some examples of what "mechanics" were used in the game?  I'm not sure if you are familiar with Forge terminology, but if you aren't by mechanics I mean anything that was used to represent something about the Character (like a Character sheet) or how events were resolved – i.e., did you roll dice, did you use special phrases or compare certain traits, did you use rock-scissors-paper, etc.?  Did you have "character sheets" at all or did you just work from the histories worked out a forehand?  Can you explain why and how the invocation of rules "broke the Dream" for you?"  Were they inconsistent with the Setting?  Were they used at what seemed to be inappropriate times, thus drawing attention to themselves?  Despite their simplicity, were the mechanics not "intuitive," thus causing you to shift your thinking process abruptly?

I am curious about the "casting" process.  Could you elaborate on that?  Was it a process of determining what kind of person you are or what kind of Character you would enjoy playing?  Did you have any input on the Character's background?  How much was the Character's background really information about the Setting?  (where the game would be set, cultural norms of the time, etc.)

I hesitate to give too much description about the actual rules used, simply because they are designed, I think, by Dean Edgell, the writer/GM of the game, and I have no idea how much he would want released.  He does have a web site (http://www3.sympatico.ca/dean.edgell/waveswelcome.html) for anyone who wants to know more.  I will say that they were more detailed than "rock,paper,scissors", but at most there were 5 statistics for a character.  Each player got a little 2" by 5" booklet that had their stats, different things they can do (my character, for example, knew several different codes that he could use to send Telegrams, and several other languages).  The rules were simple enough to explain in 10 minutes.  The rules "broke the Dream" for me because any rules would have broken things at some points.  I don't mean this as a criticism; its simply a fact of gaming life that it IS a game you are playing and the rules do matter periodically. 

As to casting, you can, I think, find his little questionnaire on the web site.  This was a GREAT idea, and I have used a similar idea in a game I am running since then.  All three of us (myself and my friends) felt that the characters we received were very similar to characters we would have made up ourselves.  Whether that is due to the breadth of characters available, the efficiency of the questionnaire, or just plain skill on Dean's part, I can't say.  There was no input on the character background (although I think some characters changed gender before game start, because of the real-life gender mix of the players), and it is true that a large amount of what was in the character background was really Setting description masquerading as character background.

On the other hand the very act of "helping a woman to a chair" is a form of input.  It is an act that is relevant to Sim play.  For example – you are playing in the Victorian era where such activities are expected.  Now if no one else has done this "act" while there have been opportunities to do so prior, then you have added to and expanded the Dream.  If you do it when it has been regularly done, then you are confirming the Dream – making it normal and in a sense predictable.  Now if this "act" is commonly performed and one either forgets or better yes chooses not to do so, then some sort of communication has been made (perhaps one is trying to slight the woman at hand?)  Did you find this to be the same or similar with you once you "got into the game?"

Frankly, I was so deeply into the thing that I'm not sure I can answer this question.  Certainly everyone was using body-language to communicate with each other.  I know that at one point I (as a reporter) organized everyone into a group photograph (we had a real camera on hand for me to use as my "prop" camera, but no flash powder, more's the pity *grin*), and alot of the mail characters were organizing chairs for the female ones, makeing space for them, etc.  Whether this was spontaneous, observered and then mimiced, or something those people would have done anytime, I have no idea.

However, I think the subject matter of this game really made it work well, because it limited the physical activities those that made sense from a Victorian perspective, which leads me to...

I think I understand what you mean by "the subject matter," but could you expand on this as well?  To me this is similar to space battles in a Star Wars game or having a scene where the transporter was involved in a Star Trek Game.  Is this what you were getting at?

I guess what I meant was that because the subject matter referred to a specific era (Victorian), and a very specific place (a bathysphere under the ocean), all of the players recognized natural limits on their characters.  This would be as opposed to say a Cantina-type scene in a Star Trek game, where a much broader range of physical action could be justified.  "My character is an alien that has only one leg, so he always bounces around the room and is constantly hopping when he talks to people." "My character is a klingon poet who always speaks REALLY LOUDLY and constantly interrupts everyone else by knocking them over."  What I am getting at is that when you are all acting out characters amongst total strangers in a real-world hotel conference room, there are real-life limits to what is appropriate behaviour, so the closer the game setting mimics those real-life boundaries, the better.

BTW, thanks to everyone who welcomed me and replied.  I can already tell this is a very friendly place.  I feel the love.

[Hans]

.. me just trying stuff out willy nilly because it sounded interesting ..

I have the same instinct, especially when looking at systems I haven't played before. TROS is a real good example. In TFOB, there are all these cool weapons. I want to try them all! Yes, let's have some combat. How else can I get the opportunity I seek? No, I don't care about winning, especially. I want to bring that picture to life of this weapon in action. I want to experience its distinction.

TROS sounds incredibly interesting from all I have read about it, for exactly the reasons you hint at above.  Now if I can just get some players who would be interested...

There were several plot lines involved, but there was absolutely no control or force from above; all the action was driven by the characters themselves and their interaction as they tried to work out their goals.

This is interesting. In your description, control is like a bridle; an agent that is foreign to a system that is busy relating to its own parts. Goals are catalysts for interactions. It sounds like you trade to lose pacing, though. That goes along with the criticism you've received for taking a long time to do anything.

I don't know if you've read the definition of Force in the glossary. (Which, BTW, I recognize that you meant "force" with a little "f," above.) Big "F" Force pertains to having thematically-relevant choices made for you. But it doesn't sound like you're actually deciding anything if by the end of play you're not sure what the story was even about. Then again, maybe things are being .. "settled," I guess you could say. This really piques my interest: Assuming Force is native to Sim, and therefore, likely at work in the play Hans describes, how is it that the experience is distinguished by an absence of control?

You comment about pacing are spot on!  I think that the social contract (if I am using the term correctly) for really satisfactory Simulationist games must, to some extent, include a clause (unwritten, like the rest of the contract), that regardless how much any particular player (including the GM) is enjoying the exploration of some aspect of the Dream, all must pay attention to the others enjoyment, and move on when its obvious no one else is enjoying it.  The particular game I described was very tautly written, and the setting so narrowly focused (a single room and no more than 26 people), that loss of pacing was not an issue. 

If I understand the term "Force" aright, I would say that in my experience it has a different purpose than in Narrativist gaming, but still could be defined as "thematically relevant choices made for you."  In Simulationist gaming, instead of the Force driving the "plot" or "story", it is more of a police action.  A GM (or even the other players) may find it necessary to use Force on one player because that player is busy exploring some element of the Dream that everyone else is either done with, or completely uninterested in.  An example in the LARP above could have been (although I do not know if it happened), if the GM knew that one character had a goal that would allow a large number of other players to experience some major element of the setting, but also noticed that that player was so busy doing something else that there was a danger this element of the setting might not come out before the 6 hours are up.  The GM feel they have to step in and either directly ask the character to bring this new element in, or contrive to have some element of setting or another character do so.  Is this Force?  I have no idea.  It certainly makes a choice for that player, in that that player is obviously enjoying what they are doing more than bringing in this new element. 

[Bill Cook]

In a sense, because the fellow who prepped your LARP chose the goals that would drive a frenzy of player interactions, he employed Force. Not because he stood over you, checking his watch and said, "Ok! It's down to the wire. I direct you to reveal your love affair." It's Force because he chose that revealling the affair--as opposed to keeping it hidden or any other number of options--should catalyze exploration.

Maybe Force should by called Direction (some people get hung up on a perceived negative connotation), or you could simply say that the story is plotted. But it's not a bad thing. Imagine how disappointed everyone would have been if they all got dressed up but there was no place to go, story-wise, because the scenario author didn't make any choices. No character goals, no nothing. So as not to intrude, supposedly. Well, that'd be a crock. So friendly control facilitates. We expect a tour guide to take us from A to Z and not throw his hands up and say, "We can do anything. I'm totally open to your ideas."

On the flip side, still unrelated to pacing, Force that breaks the Social Contract (i.e. Railroading) is, by definition, a bad thing. To continue with the above example, you speak up and say, "But I don't want to reveal the affair. My guy is too clever to ever be caught red-handed like that."