Creative Agenda In One Lesson

[jburneko]

Hello There,

This post could almost go in Actual Play but since it isn't about a role-playing game I'm putting it here.  I want to show  what happened while playing a non-roleplaying game and how that relates to Creative Agenda for role-playing games.  This has nothing to do with Gamism, Narrativism or Simulationism.  This is about the broader category of Creative Agenda.

A common statement made by gamers is that "people can socialize more around a card or board game."  Last night I put that to the test.  My regular Tuesday group decided to take a break from our Capes game and do a poker night.  I paid very careful attention to what happened.

Guess what, for four hours straight the entire topic of conversation was the game itself.  That includes comments about how others were playing, how ourselves were playing, general poker strategy, anecdotes about other poker playing experiences, etc.  The few times the conversation wandered away from the game it was during break periods such as when someone was shuffling or away getting a drink.  At one player was shuffling the deck and he brought up the "Doom" movie.  We all commented a bit on it and then as soon as the deal went out everyone shut up and it was back to the game.

Other observations:

There was usually dead silence whenever someone made a bet.
No one left the table except to get food or go to the bathroom, even once they were out of the game.

And yet everyone felt like they had "socilized more" even though their entire discussion had been from start to finish ABOUT the game.  Why?  Because we had achieved the poker equivalent of a Creative Agenda.  We had socialized, successfully, ABOUT the game, not around or despite it which is what happens in so many unsuccessful role-playing sessions.

That social connection over the contents of the game is what defines a Creative Agenda.

Creative Agenda disconnect is the equivalent of half of us wanting to play poker and the other half of us wanting to build card houses.

I thought this might be useful for anyone still stumbling over what a Creative Agenda is.  Hope it helped.

Jesse

[Vaxalon]

I think that's a function of two things:

1> It's poker.  Success at the game requires tight, focused attention.

2> It was new to you.

I've attended poker games that were just another iteration of a weekly game, and there was lots of off-topic chat going on, both in between hands and during them.

Remember your first DnD session?  I doubt there was much offtopic chat in that game, either.