A novel thought on Nar currency

[Mike Holmes]

I think you're misrepresenting my points.

Wouldn't be the first time. :-)

Remember, I'm the one who supports in-game success/failure based on dice outcomes in The Pool. I won't play it with people who simply use the mechanic as a narration-trading device. Note my comments that octaNe does not particularly, or at all, facilitate Narrativist play.

Well apparently I misremembered that completely. I thought that dropping success/fail was your idea.

In Hero Quest, my take is that in-game cause is Explanation A for real-people actual-game impact.

I'd argue that this is true in all games where the mechanic has some relation to the character and not the only the player.

But sometimes Explanation B works better. In that case, the fictional love or whatever represented by the great-high-numbers relationship does not have to be stronger, in-game, then the love represented by a numerically-weaker relationship.

I'd argue that you can have both all the time. It seems to me that Explanation B serves mostly to asuage the problems that people have with how the mechanics work. That is, in the HQ thread where you explain that this is the case, it's so that you can show how Relationship mechanics aren't broken in HW. I'd argue that they may or may not be broken, but I think they are supposed to represent relative strength in-game. From a philosophical POV, dramatically speaking something like Love is always just as potent in the story as it is in the world in question. IOW, there's no difference between the strenght of something dramatically, and it's strength in a mythic world. On a more practical note, I don't have any problem dealing with it as pure psychology in-game. It's just a different focus than some people are used to.

Since I consider all role-playing to be real people agreeing about a fictional creation, the only real-reality we can ever perceive is dice clattering on a table, dialogue delivered and responded to, and markings on paper. Sometimes, regarding the in-game causality (plausibility, whatever), we use Explanation A. Sometimes, we use Explanation B.  

I happen to think A is a subset or application of B, but that is a very non-traditional and even upsetting suggestion to most role-players. My point in mentioning it here is to state, categorically, that I do not consider A and B to be either/or and this-way/that-way exclusive options for role-playing.

I guess what I object to is that if you present only B that people think only B is valid. I guess I'd prefer the semantics that says that it's both, or whatever you need it to be at the time. I do believe that both are always available, no matter what the Ability. Again it's just a mindset to get those "difficult" areas into perspective in terms of plausibility. Hero Quest goes the extra mile, however. By putting relationships in the game with equal footing as Swordsmanship, I think it says to the reader that in Glorantha, feelings are magical. That how characters relate to each other is just as potent in physics terms as any other Ability.

And if you can buy Superpowers, Magic, Mystical Martial Arts, whatever, in your games, why can't we buy relationships as just as powerful. Indeed, if Feng Shui is Simulationist in it's portrayal of such things, then a game can just as surely simulate the dramatic effects of love and hate in story terms. Basically, I don't see any Abilities as any different in this way, as long as they're not blatantly metagame. An Ability like Modify Plot would be out, but something like Karma is, for most players, I think, acceptable.

What I'm saying is that for all games the explanation of Abilities could be that they are the tools by which the player explores the in-game reality in as dramatic a way as the group will accept. That, to see abilities properly, players should see them both as a representation of the game reality, and as the tools they have for creating story within it.

Mike