Lately, I've been wondering if Breaking the Ice helps support the Czege Principle ("When one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun." ) as an example, or whether it disproves the principle, by offering up a counterexample.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I really enjoy BtI. So, on the one hand, I know I'm having fun, and maybe the Czege Principle is wrong, or at least too strongly stated. Of course, I could just be misapplying the principle. However, I also wonder if having the Active Player control both characters, as well as the narration of elements like environment and NPCs, limits the potential of the game, which would tend to support a softened version of the principle (perhaps "play is less fun" instead of "play isn't fun").

At the moment, I think that the Czege Principle is sound (if overstated), and BtI could be a much more exciting game if the Guide had some more active form of control.

I'd like to hear any thoughts others might have on this.

Andrew,

I *think* I would have a problem having much fun with BtI. Of course, I'd be happy to give it a try before fixing that opinion firmly into my belief system. The reason is pretty simple. I don't like games (generally) where there is no struggle against things I don't control in order to get the things I want. The struggle is a large part of the fun for me. If I control both the adversity and the resolution, then to my way of thinking, I should just be writing a traditional story and I'm not really playing a *game* anymore. I'm not promoting this as gospel for everyone but it's pretty cut and dried for me.

I agree that the Czege Principle might be overstated but it is spot on with respect to me and probably a large portion of the gaming community. I certainly think that in any game that supports a strongly Gamist style that the Czege Principle is perfectly stated.

I tend to agree that having a player in charge of their own adversity and resolution pretty much kills any attempt at Gamist play. And you're right about BtI not providing much external struggle -- you're really only struggling with your own creativity and the roll of the dice. At least, that was my experience.

"When one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun."

That is not the Czege Principle. That is the "Lesson of Chalk Outlines." The Czege Principle is that all principles other than the Czege Principle are named after Lumpley or one of his games or play experiences.

Paul

I've run into similar struggles in my Verge game, which requires the player to set the number of dice the GM gets to roll against himself. There are some external factors encouraging players to give the GM more dice -- namely, the reward is directly proportional to the risk -- but in one of my two playtests, players found the system uncomfortable. They didn't like switching "between player mode and GM mode" (probably more a change of Stance, really).

Paul Czege wrote: That is not the Czege Principle. That is the "Lesson of Chalk Outlines."

Paul Czege wrote: "When one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun."

That is not the Czege Principle. That is the "Lesson of Chalk Outlines." The Czege Principle is that all principles other than the Czege Principle are named after Lumpley or one of his games or play experiences.

Paul

Andrew Morris wrote:

Paul Czege wrote: That is not the Czege Principle. That is the "Lesson of Chalk Outlines."

Ahh, my mistake. Well then, change all references to "Czege Principle" to "Lesson of Chalk Outlines."

Adam, I don't know if you're familiar with BtI or not, but it's different from Swing in that the player controls how many dice they receive, but there is no risk to using more dice.

I have to say I'm a little puzzled at the question, here. I think it comes from the following: I'm not sure what you mean by "conflict."

Breaking the Ice has, essentially, only one central conflict: Are these people going to hook up or not? (Or, at a micro-level, "are we going to get an attraction / compatability from this scene?) Anything else, like the "conflict" on your sheet or any adversity that comes up in a scene, is just window dressing to this main conflict.

That conflict isn't introduced by either player -- it is introduced by the game itself.

If you are talking about the inconveniences, etc introduced via the re-roll mechanism, I don't really think that these are conflicts, and so we don't have to worry about protagonism when dealing with them. But, generally, they are not brought up, then resolved. The general pace of "good things happen -> roll -> bad things happen -> attraction" in BtI is important, here.

It is possible I am totally off the mark from what you are saying. If so, I apologize.

yrs--
--Ben

Perhaps you're right. Instead of "conflict," maybe I should stick to "adversity." As to whether that's the answer, I think it depends on how you interpret the statement of "When one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun." (Are we calling this LoCO, now?) I certainly don't think that the system can be said to provide either adversity or resolution (though it does mandate the method of resolution).

Looking at how the game plays out, we have one character at any moment who is responsible not only for controlling the characters, but setting the scence, introducing adversity, filling in the details, determining how many dice are used, narrating what the results of those rolls are, etc.

Hmm... No, when you call it adversity, I'm still not with you.

Here's how I see the play of Breaking the Ice with regard to the Czege Principle:

I'm the player, you're the guide.

I do this big performing monkey act to get dice from you, describing what my characters do, how she does it, etc. You give me dice or not as to your whim, supported by the basic rules of bonus dice. Then, we do a second performing monkey act where the things I introduce are more negative.

Then we switch. You do your performing monkey act in two parts, and I give you dice.

The dice are all about resolving "Do these people get together?" The performing monkey act is just that, a performing monkey act. We don't actually care about the contents of it except inasmuch as they generate dice.

The adversity to the big question of "do they get together" is the incredibly high bar set by the die rolling system. It is really difficult to get 3 or 4 successes.

The "adversity" and "conflict" generated by the rerolls is just a part of the performing monkey act. It is resolved, or it isn't, at either players discretion, because it isn't important to the overall game except inasmuch as we milk it for dice.

yrs--
--Ben

Okay, I'm not getting what you're saying. That sounds to me like you're saying that the mechanics provide adversity (in the form of rolling dice and getting successes) and the players resolve the adversity (by narration). Is that it?

Andrew Morris wrote: Looking at how the game plays out, we have one character at any moment who is responsible not only for controlling the characters, but setting the scence, introducing adversity, filling in the details, determining how many dice are used, narrating what the results of those rolls are, etc.

I'm following you, Tim. If your assessment is on target, I would probably agree with you.

Hi all,

Thanks for raising this question, Andrew. I've thought about this issue in the past, but haven't come to any hard and fast conclusions about it. My thanks to everyone for your help in piecing this out.

I went back to Chalk Outlines and Paul's thread to see what the specific issues were. The mechanic with the problem in Chalk Outlines was the Concessions. A major part of the game consisted of the players framing situations that highlighted an aspect of the character (eg "keeping your mouth shut", "trusting your friends"). The characters always succeed in the actions, but how good they were at it (Lousy, Good, etc)determined how many dice were rolled, and in turn how many Concessions (complications) had to be narrated in order for the player to achieve success for the character. All this was done by the player. It ended up in a lot of what felt like flat, solo play for Paul's group.

So, it seems like there were a bunch of things missing in Chalk Outlines that are present in Breaking the Ice. Fortune determining success or failure, reward by the other player, different types of event needing to be narrated for resources to be put into play, and the potential of input by the other player. The way the narration of events occurs in Breaking the Ice it puts the players in the place of audience for each other, with feedback empowered by the resource mechanics. I think it's very important that the dice get awarded, not automatically gained. That creates a level of step on up in the game that is aimed at making the story one that is interesting to both players. If there's no feedback, each player can just come up with something they like that doesn't intersect with the other player's interests.

Having the adversity to the character not solely be provided by the other player in BtI, creates a situation where the players are strongly encouraged to cooperate. There is mechanical reinforcement for this (bonus dice and re-rolls are awarded for taking a suggestion from the other player). And the other interesting thing that happens in this game is that making bad things happen is actually the most fun part. So much so that a recent player (Autumn in this thread) re-worked the game to be about the players not getting together.

I think it comes down to what Tim & Ben pointed out. The adversity is provided on the player level, by the mechanics and by the need to elicit dice from the other player, and the dice themselves introduce enough uncertainty that the player is relieved of the feeling that they are just making it all up in a vaccuum.

I often think of this principle as the "you can't tickle yourself" principle (try it, it's possible but hard cause you know it's coming). It's hard to invest in something if you don't have outside input. Play so far has made it seem like the game is appropriately ticklish, but I'll be curious to see how this issue plays out over time.

best,
Emily

I'm pretty sure I get what you're saying, Emily (and Tim and Ben). I can see that the "adversity" is coming from the system, though it seems a bit iffy. I'll have to try a drifted game of BtI where the Guide narrates their character and see how the experience changes.

I'll have to try a drifted game of BtI where the Guide narrates their character and see how the experience changes.

Andrew Morris wrote: At the moment, I think that the Czege Principle is sound (if overstated), and BtI could be a much more exciting game if the Guide had some more active form of control.

What I'm thinking is that the Guide would narrate the result all dice rolls, not just re-rolls. I'll definitely post actual play, if it reveals anything particularly interesting.

I don't have a lot to contribute here, but... It seems to me that this general question/principle would apply as well to Donjon. Which, reportedly, at least, is fun for some people to play. (I'm still talking my group into it.)