Adults in Wonderland: Mutable Settings

[Fade Manley]

Consider the original Alice in Wonderland (the book, not the cartoon or movie) and Through the Looking Glass. Especially because of the implied "It was all just a dream!" aspect, every part of the setting comes directly from Alice's own mind. Her toys and pets (kittens, chess pieces, the caterpillars outside, books and cake) become living figures and the landscape: the Cheshire Cat, the playing card guards, the Red Queen, the smoking caterpillar, the Tea Party. Dialogue and exposition follow nursery rhyme logic, or actually are nursery rhymes. The whole place is full of talking animals, but is ruled by an arbitrary and omnipotent (and thus to a child's eye parent-like) authority who can't be defeated, but can be argued back against, avoided, or otherwise worked around.

So what's Wonderland like for an adult? Children have Interesting Incidents, and wander, so Alice moves from place to place meeting people; adults have Goals and Direction. Children have authoritarian and often incomprehensible adult authority figures, so Alice gets the Red Queen; adults have large indifferent forces or vaguely hostile peers to work against.

Which brings me to point, such as it is: Alice in Wonderland is the setting with a single PC, and that one a child. But if there are multiple PCs, and they're adults, Wonderland is suddenly a very different place.

Alice's skills never really mattered much, so forget defining PCs in terms of those. Instead, they have Interests, Goals, and Motivations; the combination of all these things creates the setting, so that making the PCs is actually making Wonderland for the game. If a PC leaves the group, suddenly Wonderland changes, because it no longer has those things making it; if the only poker-player in the party has Woken Up, suddenly the skittering of the poker chips in the casinos of Red City falls quiet, and there are no card-shaped gamblers skulking in the corners. If a PC joins the group, their psyche modifies the setting; the fisherman on the Salty Sea are now strange mechanical contraptions with glowing red eyes, and the Good King of the city has been mumbling and falling asleep on his throne.

This is, of course, just one example of how this can be treated. But the core idea is this: a setting that's defined, not just influenced, by who the PCs are, and changes right along as the PCs change. The PCs, in turn, are defined (in game mechanics terms) by their mental states which define the setting, plus perhaps one or two Contradictions to resist becoming part of Wonderland. Alice had her Logic, but PCs might have Love, or Stupidity, or Science, or Persuasiveness...

I'm having a hard time seeing how to do this in game mechanics, but the theory of it is, I think, something work poking at further. Does anyone have an idea of just how something like this could be made into solidly defined mechanics, or even other examples than Wonderland of how this would work? Much as I like the Wonderland structure as an example (and I'll have to go into detail about Landscape NPCs and Primal NPCs some other time), it's hard to define what the players would /do/, or even how.

[JimmyB]

I'm having a hard time seeing how to do this in game mechanics, but the theory of it is, I think, something work poking at further.

To be honest I'd say that your best bet would be to simply offer guidelines, rather than trying to set down mechanics. Give a handful of interpretations of particular mindsets, or a few sample mindscapes, and let the GM work from there on their own.

Much as I like the Wonderland structure as an example (and I'll have to go into detail about Landscape NPCs and Primal NPCs some other time), it's hard to define what the players would /do/, or even how.

Try and work out where they are might be an interesting start. Curing neuroses, working out abstractions that're troubling their characters. It might make an extremely interesting metagame for something like CoC, or just about anything else for that matter.

[contracycle]

Well I have been thinking vaguely along these lines recently.  On the basis of some of Egris premise stuff I've touched on briefly and the specifically the necessity to keep the imaginative construct that is the the world in which fictional characters move coherent and focussed.

It seems to me that the objective externalised world may not be the best way to go about things.  I wonder if it would be more appropriate to consider the world called into being by the presence of the players much as Hetehr describes.  Only not so surreal.

The kind of thing I mena is that in classic fantasy, if you have a thief, then is the appropriate time to consider the criminal underworld and the local guilds and what have you.  When you have fighters, then you consider the local standing bodies and structures of authority.  When you have a magician, then you consider thos elements of secret gnosis or what have you that make wizards arcane.

The game world does not have to be defined in toto; only those elemtns that characters are going to seek to invoke through character action need be realised.  There was some talk a while back on an idea I think is sadly under-explored, that of Arenas of Conflict.  These are fairly abstracted zones of conflict that exist external to the players, and with which they can engage by the adoption of appropriate character traits.  I suggest that the relevant arenas aree only those for whom there are committed characters; a change in character cast implies a revision of the available arenas.

I don't see this so much as a particular world, or setting, opr game, but rather as a stance to analyse extant games.  I'm not sure my own preference for causality would survive an explicit and overt re-writing of the game world, although I grant this may appeal to others.  What I suggest instead is that in game choices limit the zones of likely/probable/predictable future experience, and aspects of the game world that are relevant to those zones/arenas are de facto called into being only when referenced (or shortly before).

PErhaps I could try to sum up this rather vague approach by borrowing a string from Sorcerers bow: instead of pre-defining cities in all detail, each character must have a home city described as part of their character definition.  And this is not merely backdrop - the act of definitiion implies that action will take place there or that these aspects of the character will be directly relevant to the action.  Just as when a player selects skills, and thereby conveys to the GM what actions they wish to undertake in their problem solving.  So I suggest trhat a whole game mechanism - or approach to mechanisms - can be structured around defining areans of conflict for the characters, and negotiating changes, updates and revisions of those arensas through play actions.

[simon_hibbs]

If my memory serves me, some of the GM advice in Amber follows this line. The suggestion was that if many of the players have invested heavily in Warfare, the onus is on the GM to make combat and epic battles an important element in the plot. Similarly in HeroQuest if one of your characters is a Shaman, then it makes sense to make dealing with spirits and ghosts a more prominent feature of the adventures you run. I've touched on this point in other threads.

In genre fiction it doesn't realy make much sense to ask whether the genre determines the nature of the characters in the story, or whether the story belongs to that genre as a consequence of the characters in it. Did Enio Moricone make wsterns because the characters in his movies were cowboys, or were the characters in his movies cowboys because he made westerns? Does the question even make sense?

In roleplaying such questions do make sense partly just because they are collaborative, but also partly because of the fact that creation of the characters and creation (or at least portrayal) of the game world are placed in the hands of different people.

My gaming group fell foul of this very recently. The GM wanted to run a particular style of game, but pretty much canned that game concept because the characters the players proposed playing were badly out of synch with the style of the setting.


Simon Hibbs

[Michael S. Miller]

Hi, Heather.

MAJORLY cool concept. I'd buy it. Let me preface my remarks by stating my biases: I greatly dislike pre-defined Settings and love making them up to fit the character like a glove. My wife even wrote an Everway adventure about a city wherein what ever the characters went there seeking actually manifested. Read a bit about it here.

What your post popped into my head was that the fun of this game is going to be located primarily in making the surrealistic "window-dressing" that hangs on the deep, underlying Real Life issue or Real Life object. I mean, the most evocative paragraph in your post (the one with the skittering poker chips) is all about that aspect of the game. If this were my game, I'd want to spread the wealth and make sure that everyone got a chance to play with the setting. Something like Player A is GM for Player B who is GM for Player C who is GM for Player A. I'd have the player come up with Real Life issues and the Real Life objects, and maybe prioitize them, as well. Then they hand them to "their" GM, who elaborates how they manifest and runs the scenes.

As to what the adults do, I'd say "Why did Alice go to Wonderland?" Some may say she was just bored and daydreaming, but I think she needed help in growing up. Why would adults go there? They need help working through some personal issue. Or, if I recall my Intro to Psych., each stage of life has a similar conflict to that which Alice faced, namely, how to move into the next stage.

Just an aside, I'd also have a Rule of Surreality written really big that states something like "Alice never refused to believe that Wonderland was real. I'll bet neither do you when you sleep. Don't waste game time by disbelieving."

Hope that helps.

[Shreyas Sampat]

In a more radical version of my game The Calligrapher's Sword, this would be done overtly, but as it is, it isn't entirely open.  The game's mechanics sort of sneakily generate the inner states of the characters and ask that you generate events that are consistent with making the character feel that way.  The fact that the setting is openly mutable and the characters are permitted to deliberately change it is just window dressing - the whole point is that the characters Experience Things and Overcome Challenges in interesting manners.  In TCS, the Thing You Do is - for whatever reason - take the nine-night trip to the City of Sorrows, the everchanging beating heart at the centre of the world.

The thing that makes your idea different from generally good GMing principle (of one style) is that it's overt and has an in-character explanation, and that the setting is defined as a place where nothing is logically impossible.  That's how I see it, anyway.

[LordSmerf]

You've got some interesting ideas here Heather.  First of all i believe you articulate something that, to a lesser degree, has been present in gaming all along:  Parts of the world do not functionally exist unless there is a player there to utilize them.

As for devoloping this idea into a truly fluid gameworld through mechanics, i think that would be an amazing piece of work, but i'm not sure how to execute it.  After i finish reading Universalis, maybe i'll be able to bring some of the fascinating concepts from that to bear on the subject.  Sorry i don't have much to offer, but i do think that this is definately something worth pursuing.

Thomas

[Fade Manley]

It's quite true that most settings are 'tweaked' according to who the PCs are, and that (so far as I've seen) usually makes for the best games; it's an excercise in frustration to, say, run a combat-oriented game when all of the characters have maxed their social skills, and to a certain extent character creation is a way of telling the GM what the player wants to see.

However, what I find most fascinating is the idea of a setting that's entirely dependent on the PCs; not just influenced by them, but completely made by them. It's the difference between a player making the home city her PC came from, and the city being an externalization of the PC's fuzzy nostalgic memories about the good old days with mom and dad and baby.

I like the idea of swapping GMs, and the PCs taking turns exploring/resolving some issue; one could argue that Alice starts her story as an uncertain self-conscious little girl--note the part where she's wondering if she's become someone else, and how horrid it would be to suddenly be someone stupid--and by the end she's openly arguing with authority figures, showing that she's grown up. However, if there's just one PC at a time, Wonderland is only influenced by that particular psyche, which leaves out all the wonderful opportunities for clashes and combinations with the mindscapes of multiple people.

Granted, that would make the mechanics significantly easier. And I do like the GM-switching idea... Of course, if players could take turns playing the Primal NPCs who remain constant (unlike the Landscape NPCs who change according to whose mind is influencing Wonderland) as well as the single PC, that would make for interesting group play with rotating GMs, even if it would cut out the fun of conflicting mental images from multiple PCs.

[LordSmerf]

I find this idea to be a rather compelling one.  Though, i think i agree with you that it is more interesting if you can work out some way to have multiple minds controlling the mindscape simultaneously.  I just don't know how to set something like this up.  It seems like it is taking Universalis one step further; instead of having shared directorship by the players, you have shared directorship (of a sort) by characters.  Although the distinction is sort of nebulous it does exist.  I would like to explore this more since it may lead to a more concrete (or simply better understood) delineation between players and characters.  If i have any great ideas (or even ones that suck) i'll be sure to let you know.

If you have any more thoughts on this subject i would love to hear them.

Thomas

[simon_hibbs]

I think one problem with this idea is the amount of information you would need up front about the characters. How can you incorporate icons from their childhood if you don't have it fully worked out?

One obvious way roudn this is to have what is presented in play retrospectively incorporated into their childhood, reversing the process. The narrator introduces some fantastical element into the story, and it's then up to the player to explain how this relates to the character's childhood. The player still has a degree of controll as to how that incorporation happens so it's a very collaborative process between the narrator and players.


Simon Hibbs

[LordSmerf]

I really think that's an interesting idea.  What about a combination of the two?  Stipulate during character generation that X number of important landmarks of a character's psyche (whether childhood memories or dominant personality traits or what have you) are required.  Perhaps even incorporate those things into your Trait or Skillset.  Whenever the narrator (whether this is a single designated entity, or whether responsibility is shared) introduces a fantastical, signifigant (as determined arbitrarily by someone) element then and explaination must be generated for the character.

I'm still eagerly awaiting my copy of Universalis, perhaps the base mechanic there could be modified such that introducing elements into the environment automatically introduces elements to a character, and anytime you add an element to a character you must add one to the environment as well.  In fact, this seems to be a very interesting idea now that i look at it again.

Someone with more Universalis experience (ahem, Mike) could probably better judge the feasibility of this...

Thomas

[Mike Holmes]

I'm still eagerly awaiting my copy of Universalis, perhaps the base mechanic there could be modified such that introducing elements into the environment automatically introduces elements to a character, and anytime you add an element to a character you must add one to the environment as well.

You've written the Rules Gimmick right there. To be specific, the rule would have to say that Traits given to the setting force the player to buy a reflected Trait for some suitable character, or that you get one free. And vice versa.

I'd suggest the former, paying, as the latter is pretty abusable. Making players pay the extra cost makes them think twice (double entendre intended), before adding Traits. Which I think would result in better, and more comprehensible play.

I think that'd work well. I'd play it. Probably only once, though. That's the kind of thought game that I'd only want to experience a single time. More would be redundant.

BTW, if established as a Fact (the world refects the characters), it would have almost exactly the same effect.

Mike

[LordSmerf]

Just a heads up.  We played a game of Universalis last night with the first Tenet being that any trait given to a character had to be accompanied by an object in the game world.  The two were linked such that if one was destroyed the other was as well.  It was fairly interesting, but the game wasn't really geared toward a wonderland style of psyche exploration.  Once i gather my thoughts on the subject i'll try to post more.  If we do it again, i'll suggest some more tenets to tend the game toward a Wonderland setting.

Thomas