Polaris Setting Introduction

[Darren Hill]

Has anyone wrote up an introductory summary of the Polaris setting - say, 500-1000 words or so?
I'll be playing the game next week, and would like something like that to give them something like that (or use as crib notes).

[Ben Lehman]

Hi Darren.

I want you to open your book and look at the first page after the table of contents.  It's labelled Moments Frozen From the Flow of Time.

There it is.

yrs--
--Ben

[Darren Hill]

I've looked at that, and while it's evocative, it wouldn't do anything for me as a player had I not already read the setting chapter. (In fact, it didn't do anything for me when I first read the book.)
I was hoping for more condensation of things like coming of the Sun, and the Mistake, etc. Information.

[Darren Hill]

Hope that last post didn't come over as too curt!
When I said, "it didn't do anything for me when I first read the book," I menat that it didn't give me the kind of detailed information I wanted - the kind of information the setting chapter does contain.
It looks like I'm going to be doing it myself - boiling down the salient points into a page or two handout for my players, to give them ahead of time. And in the process, sadly stripping it of its poetic majesty. But tragedy is the name of the game after all :)

[Ben Lehman]

Darren, I'm going to be a little harsh here.  I hope that you take this in the manner it is intended, which is to help you play the game better.

What you seem to be looking for is a canon.  This is problematic, because Polaris as it stands right now does not contain canon, outside of the passage I referred you to.  You could make a canon out of the other texts, but my hunch is that doing so will make your play suck something fierce.

In short:  All that introductory material is intended strictly as a spur to play and is in no way to be taken as a restriction on play.  Condensing it into a list of bullet points effectively removes any inspiration value it might have had, and at the same time sets it up as a series of inviolate limits to play as it stands.  Further, because you wrote it, it sets you up as "the guy who knows the setting" to whom other players must bend.  This is explicitly against the rules of the game.  The Mistaken has guidance over the setting, not you.  Even if, especially if, the Mistaken in question has not read the book.

I have this feeling, given the way that you're talking about "my players" that you are usually the GM for the group.  My strong advice is that you arrest that shit right now.  Do not write your own setting material.  Do not condense anything for the group.  Rather, before play starts, have someone else (not you) read "Moments" out loud to the group and, if the group has patience for it, also "The Mistake."  (the part with "maybe this happened, maybe this happened.")

Then play.  You, and you explicitly, should never talk about the book, and try to enthusiastically support other players' contributions to the setting of the game.

(If, at the end of the first session, you feel like you don't have a strong grasp on the setting, have an out-of-game discussion about what you want to see in the game's setting.  Don't refer explicitly to the book during the discussion.  I have a feeling you won't need to do this.)

yrs--
--Ben

[Frank T]

Hey Ben,

I humbly disagree with you here. There is the automatic aspects (Knight Stellar, Starlight Sword) and the veteran rule (Solaris Knight, Frost Maiden). And the Remnants, the Mistake, and the day-night-cycle are pretty much prerequisite to play. So, there is a canon apart from the Moments Frozen from the Flow of Time.

I really do think that the Moments alone are not enough setting information to start play. The six scenes I have played so far have confirmed that to me.

- Frank

[Ben Lehman]

I humbly disagree with you here. There is the automatic aspects (Knight Stellar, Starlight Sword) and the veteran rule (Solaris Knight, Frost Maiden). And the Remnants, the Mistake, and the day-night-cycle are pretty much prerequisite to play. So, there is a canon apart from the Moments Frozen from the Flow of Time.

I really do think that the Moments alone are not enough setting information to start play. The six scenes I have played so far have confirmed that to me.

Frank -- I clearly can't argue this with either of you.

Time and again in actual play, I've had experiences which run directly counter to what you are saying.

Come to think of it, I've only played one game where we actually *used* the day-night cycle.

yrs--
--Ben

[Victor Gijsbers]

We don't use the day-night cycle; the Remnants play a very sketchy role at best. I did give a short rundown of the setting material to the players that had not read the book (only one of them, I think), something along the lines of: "Well, there was a great city, but somehow it has been almost completely destroyed and there's a smoking whole at the exact north pole, the Mistake. There are raging demons all around, trying to kill the last of the people, and someday they'll succeed. We'll play knights trying to prevent that from happening, and all of our characters will either die or become demons ourselves, so we're personally as doomed as the people as a whole." I don't think this hurt anyone's willingness to wildly improvise during play, but then again, two of my co-players are used to playing indie-games with me and the third is a girl who's only ever played one session of InSpectres before - so there are no "this guy knows the setting" habits around.

I would read aloud the section on the Polaris Knight and the Frost Maiden once someone becomes veteran, though. Simply because it is so beautiful. The last sentence makes me shiver every time I read it.

[Sydney Freedberg]

My attempt to distill this exchange to its essence:

Darren: Ben, you're bending that spoon without touching it! How can you possibly make it do all those strange and wonderful things? In order to replicate your feat, I must have more detailed data on the material composition of this spoon!
Ben: There is no spoon.

[Arturo G.]

I strongly agree with Victor.
For me the important thing in Polaris is to get the feeling. All the setting details may be really skipped. Indeed, there are some details about the Calendar that I don't like, and I will surely skip. No problem. I agree that the setting is really beautifull, and reading it you get more and more into the mood. But that's the only important thing to play. We may create the details as needed. There are isolated ice castles hanging in cliffs like you cannot dream in my Polaris setting, and who cares if in your setting the remnants are smaller or bigger, or the only surviving cities. We will build a Polaris world while playing.

The Frozen momments and a general description like the one Victor presents should be enough to grab the interest and the feeling of the game.

Cheers,
Arturo

[Brand_Robins]

My attempt to distill this exchange to its essence:

Darren: Ben, you're bending that spoon without touching it! How can you possibly make it do all those strange and wonderful things? In order to replicate your feat, I must have more detailed data on the material composition of this spoon!
Ben: There is no spoon.

That could be just it.

It could also be something like this:

Darren: I'm a details-oriented sensing thinker who likes discrete elements that I can perceive in order that I may use them to build a story. What are the discrete elements of Polaris?

Ben: I am an intuitive-oriented improvisational thinker who dislikes discrete elements because they interfere with the theme that is the focus of my attention. Discrete elements do not exist in Polaris because they would suck.

Darren: But I like details.

Ben: But I don't, and I wrote the game, and so the game doesn't support details like that.

Others: But there are –some- details in Polaris

Bed: Sure, but not that kind of details.

Different Others: Being detail oriented sensing thinkers is BadWrongFun. (Maybe not generally, but in Polaris for sure.)

Brand: Oh for the love of God.....

Ben: Shut up Brand.

Brand: :: shuts up:: 

[Frank T]

So there are people who can pull off a game of Polaris with only the Moments Frozen from the Flow of Time as reference regarding fictional content? Wow. That's pretty... intimidating.

- Frank

[Bret Gillan]

So there are people who can pull off a game of Polaris with only the Moments Frozen from the Flow of Time as reference regarding fictional content? Wow. That's pretty... intimidating.

Well, there's the rules too, and those do a whole LOT of work.

[Bret Gillan]

Oops, my bad. You specifically said "regarding fictional content."

[Bankuei]

Hi,

It's also worthwhile to note that many of the things people would normally associate with setting details, are kept in the appendices as examples and extra material- not as part of the core of the book.

Chris