Hey Folks,

This is quick and fun. In 25 words or less, describe your creative agenda from an actual game or campaign you have played.

What do I mean by creative agenda? From Ron's the whole model this is it thread:

Creative Agenda is the blanket term for any and all GNS modes or priorities of play. The Venn diagram is supposed to indicate that any Creative Agenda is an expression or application of Exploration among the real-people group.

Dimensional/Time Travel Homebrew: Realistic and complicated interpersonal dynamics among characters from a wide range of religions, cultures, and strata. Experimenting with different mechanics. Playing multiple characters.

Hey Em,

That's a pretty personal question! I don't think you've even answered it yourself, yet. It's not something simple like "what was the rockin'-kewelest" moment" or "what makes you want to play a vampire." It is this: When you sit down at that table, it is your own specific, self-held intent to generate play in such a way that when you leave that table, you do so with a sense of satisfaction.

All normal caveats about people knowing their own minds apply; you might not realize until after the game the whats and whys of why what you did feels so good.

There are a few oustanding play experiences that stick with me. One of them is the Shadows game from a year or two ago. Every player in that game was on the same page; we were all working together to create a specific kind of atmospheric color. That kind of shared vision is really chilling when applied to the kind of freaky stuff we were doing. When Zak read the transcript, he said the hairs on his arms actually raised. I always remember that comment, because it exactly captured my own attachment to that game. Everyone in there "got it." We understood the mechanics, and we went about creating the texture that we wanted with extraordinary singleness of mind.

So, time for a Dogbert quote. "That took a few more words, but I think it was worth it." :)

Emily Care wrote: In 25 words or less, describe your creative agenda from an actual game or campaign you have played.

Shadowrun, 2nd ed.: Every person who came to a game in a publc place (WoTC Game Center, Seattle) had fun and talked about it later.

Keyword: Fun.

Mark D. Eddy wrote: Shadowrun, 2nd ed.: Every person who came to a game in a publc place (WoTC Game Center, Seattle) had fun and talked about it later.

Keyword: Fun.

Please tell us what you consider to be fun about your game!

Fun!

Thanks!

Interesting. Maybe the key word should have been "Every" -- It may be an exaggeration to say and mean *every*, but I GMed the durn thing, and I've had people I don't remember playing in the game come up to me six years later saying how much fun they had. It's why I've been the loser who believes that a good GM can overcome GNS priority issues, if he or she balances play correctly.

We had a combat just about every game. We explored a new city every game (the Rocker had landed a world tour). We pursued the question of the border between friendship and love every game. And I had a blast, because the players had a blast.

Nah, no loser: you and your players had the game of all games going there!

And I'd say you were playing the priority expert, giving folks just what they want, when they want, and everyone else was grooving on that.

Yeah, nothing about "System Does Matter" says that GM's don't matter. It's always been accepted that a good GM can overcome these problems. It sounds like a potentially complicated Creative Agenda that you were forging, but a coherent Creative Agenda in the sense that it gave everyone what they wanted. This doesn't contradict anything in the theory.

Mike

Paganini wrote: Hey Em,

That's a pretty personal question! I don't think you've even answered it yourself, yet. It's not something simple like "what was the rockin'-kewelest" moment" or "what makes you want to play a vampire." It is this: When you sit down at that table, it is your own specific, self-held intent to generate play in such a way that when you leave that table, you do so with a sense of satisfaction.

There are a few oustanding play experiences that stick with me. One of them is the Shadows game from a year or two ago. Every player in that game was on the same page; we were all working together to create a specific kind of atmospheric color. That kind of shared vision is really chilling when applied to the kind of freaky stuff we were doing. When Zak read the transcript, he said the hairs on his arms actually raised. I always remember that comment, because it exactly captured my own attachment to that game. Everyone in there "got it." We understood the mechanics, and we went about creating the texture that we wanted with extraordinary singleness of mind.

CA involves very deeply the methods prioritized in achieving the feel. Ron points out that people mistake his use of Agenda, to mean the sought end products, but rather that he meant it more like a meeting agenda - a routine for getting to the outcome. So I'm not seeing any CAs above, I'm seeing goals of play sans the methods to get there.

For my latest game, I'd say that my CA is: Promote play that explores the setting of Shadow World in such a way that makes it come to life, while allowing character interactions with setting to produce theme.

Keyword: Adventure (as hackneyed as that is)

Now, that's not much better. But I don't think you're going to get good responses with that few words (I went over by 3 as it was).

Mike

To produce play fulfilling the wishlist the players gave me at the start of the campaign, commonly called "character sheets".

20 words! And a lot easier in HQ than other games I've played....

Keyword: errr, there isn't one in that, but it's "attributes"

Find out what they've written down as attributes, you find the agenda (relationships & traits, that'll be sim/nar then....)

I haven't replied to each response, but I'm reading them closely. I want to see what kind of variation there is in how we express our creative agendas. Are these the goals you would "expect" to see? Are they adequately address by using gns shorthand?

Mike Holmes wrote: CA involves very deeply the methods prioritized in achieving the feel. Ron points out that people mistake his use of Agenda, to mean the sought end products, but rather that he meant it more like a meeting agenda - a routine for getting to the outcome. So I'm not seeing any CAs above, I'm seeing goals of play sans the methods to get there.

Donjon: a Monkey's Tale: Have a no-prep game, easy to run with my younger brother as the only player. Playing a monkey.

Keyword: MONKEY.. well, not really. I could say something like "fun" but.. I can't imagine people who would play for not-fun, so why would that even be mentioned? So, a proper keyphrase would be more like "only one player".

Does that hit CA? For some reason it's just not clicking with me, I'm not sure if that's actually CA or something else.

Em,

I almost hate to reply, but this discussion is so good I'll risk momentarily derailing the thread.

Emily Care wrote: Touche! But what about the intent that you go into a game with? It's an agenda after all--that implies conscious intention and action taken to make it manifest.

This brings up a point I was wondering about: color (or tone) can be a critical part of a person's creative agenda. It often gets sort of short shrift in theorizing, but in play, it is actually quite important.

I have another question, Paganini (Nathan?), was it the color or the group-minded experience that made this game quite so special?

Michael,

Here's another thread, Creative agenda only retroactive? that may help shine a light on CA. It pretty much puts the intent vs. actions question to rest. According to the model, the CA is what happens in play. What's expressed by your actions and decisions, not what is dreamed up or hoped for. But that's what we've been talking about here. What came out of a given game, or what we put into one.

anonymouse wrote: Does that hit CA? For some reason it's just not clicking with me, I'm not sure if that's actually CA or something else.

Paganini wrote: Just as a foot note, I feel like we're using the term Creative Agenda a little loosly in this thread. Ron pretty specifically narrows it to comprise The Dream, Step on Up, and Story Now. It seems to me like we're not talking so much about specific Creative Agendas that we have enjoyed, but more that we're talking about specific Techniques and Ephemira and such that we successfuly used to support our Agenda, whatever it happened to be at the time.

Ron Edwards wrote: I swear, the more I try, the worse it gets. Now people are trying to separate "creative agenda" from GNS, which is absurd - the new term is defined as the generalized category of which G, N, and S are three types.

What actual methods did I use to make this work? There were a couple that were very important:

After every game session, I asked the players what worked and what didn't in that session. And listened, and modified the game as appropriate to take the criticism and kudos into account. That's why most games had a combat.

When a player introduced or asked about a bit of detail, I would use their idea as a springboard to larger things. There was an entire subplot that was introduced because one player asked "Can I record the session?"

I allowed the players to have sidebar, in character, activities that were allowed to be in-game as long as they told me what they had been up to. This may have been the most important method for the narrativist players, because they took shameless advantage of the opportunity to create themes to spring on the (rest of the) crew.

The secondary techniques that I used that were helpful were as follows:

Players were allowed and encouraged to use instant karma (a Shadowrun fortune mechanic) as an indicator of what they thought was important.

I used the Shadowrun "impact" rules (optional) to reflect the quality of each success or failure, which led to better descriptions of the action.

Some characters were more important than others, but every player got the time they wanted on center stage.

Recurring characters and settings were used as various of the characters discovered that there is a thin line between having a buddy and having a love when under stress.

Emily,

Really, it was memorable because it achieved what I wanted it to. I'm not sure I can really identify a proper CA; it was memorable cos it was fun.