[S/lay W/me] When "You" and "I" no longer switch.

[Hans Otterson]

Hey Ron,

S/lay W/me arrived in the mail today, and I promptly read through it, then hopped around on the net reading AP and stuff here at the Forge. There's only one thing I still want to understand about S/lay, but I need to set it up a bit.

The rules state that "When you stay with a lover, your character's story is over and your play as 'you' wholly ends." Sure--clear, makes sense. Your posting here, though, illustrates the implications of this that I didn't get at first:

The rules for having your adventurer die are that you either choose to end playing adventurers, as staying with a Lover mandates, or to make up a new adventurer and continue as normal. I'd like to do the latter, which means Maura and I keep playing with only me playing an adventurer, until either that one dies too and I say "stop," or until I choose to have that one stay with a Lover.

Your fellow player's character had chosen to stay with the lover, which ended her life as an adventurer. Your character died, and you made a new one, so you guys keep playing but you don't go back-and-forth switching "you" and "I" roles again until your character's story is over.

Why is this? Why can't Maura just make up a new adventurer? What kind of impact were you wanting this constraint to have on play?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Hans,

The answer is associated with the final line of the rules. All else is in service to the essential aesthetic task of each player, to induce (accidentally or otherwise) the other player to have his or her character stay with a lover. The decision to do so is so profound that it literally halves the game, because the game is half done at that point.*

Best, Ron

* in terms of content, not time or number of adventures, or relative number of adventures per character