The Forge Archives

Two Day Game:

This is a description and analysis of a game that took place over 2 days. The system was JAGS (a rules-heavy sim system that we've developed. Think GURPS or Hero if you don't know it).

It is interesting for a variety of reasons--one is that it's a study in how to run a game of very short duration (note the pacing). Another is that it sheds, I think, some light on game focus.

Finally, there were a few momemts of tension between player and GM (and there was a point where my narrative sense was totally thrown off). These might be interesting. If not ... well ... it's a LONG post ...

Premise:
GM: "I'm coming down--the window for gaming will be very narrow. What should I run?"

Me: "What do you have ideas for?"

GM: "Like Warren Zevon, I work better with parameters."

Me: "1950's-style/essence alien invasion story but set in modern-day surburbia. Invasion of the body-snatchers vibe."

GM: "What will your characters be?"

Me: "Hmm ... I dunno scratch that."

GM: "Hmm ... the alien idea is *too* good. I need more time. Give me another."

Me: "Three potential PC's. One is an artist--depressed ... or was ... very good, one owns a gallery in NYC: rich, a little weird. One is a dealer--a shady guy who deals with the underworld and tracks down artwork that's hard to find or might deal in stolen stuff."

GM: "done."

----
OBSERVATION: I had just finished having an email discussion with Valimir about whether or not games should be focused in terms of rules supporting game-world. In this case I wouldn't know whether to reach for Call of Cthulhu of Top Secret ... or Sorceror. We just didn't know. Because I know and trust the GM, I expected there would be some element of the fantastic but I had no idea what it would be.

Also: not knowing is part of the fun. As events unfolded we didn't know what to expect and a systemic-give-away might have hurt that.

Note: The issue isn't closed. There were some intereseting revelations at the end which apply here.
----

Characters: since one of the players wasn't available, we drew characters from a hat (after determining no strong preference).

We were told to tell the GM two things that were going on in our lives at the start of the game (note: unlike Ron's Kickers, which I discussed with the GM after, there was no request to make them things to which we had to immediately respond--this would have remained the case even if I'd suggested Kickers at the time).

---
OBSERVATION: I suppose there are people who like *genres* of fiction--who will read anything with a dragon or a ring or maybe a space-ship in it. Most people I know, however, prefer *authors* and do so because of their vision or maybe their characterization or writing style.

That was the case here. I wasn't so concerned about being de-protagonized as I was interested in the story he had to tell (he told me it was good when we met after the plane trip). As a result, with only 2 days to play, something like Kickers would have meant time outside his vision--his story--which is what I and the other player was interested in. This isn't meant to be anti-kicker at all--I'm simply pointing out that if what you want is the GM's intellectual property as a story teller then you may want to get to, and interact with, that story.
---

Me: The dealer (Vance McKain)--GM mandated history with cops. I played a guy who was (in addtion to being a art expert) an excellent private investigator. I had instinctive intuition, an almost super-natural visual perception roll, and photographic memory.  I had been arrested when a con-game to swindle art-buyers was busted.

.-Thing 1: After a year of being clean, but with a ruined repuation, I'd been made an offer to be in on a deal going down involving eBay and vanishing escro accounts.  It was the kind of deal that had unsavory people showing up at my house at 2:00 AM and threatening me. I was reluctantly going along--but having seriously cold feet.

.-Thing 2: His annyoing sister was coming into town and any scent of improrpriety would be relayed to the family.

Player1: (Treya Vivian) The artist--GM Mandated a history of depression, now mostly cured with anti-depressants and therapy. A female character who was essentially going to be one of the world's best artists. She had style and flare, a awesome skill roll, and some other liberal-arts style skills.

Her works were described as visualizations of puzzles based on literary themes (i.e. characters from related works of fiction were involved and there were some interesting insights from the terrain and organization).

.-Thing 1: Her wardrobe had some catastrophic flaw and she needed a new one. There was, she said, "too much yellow."

.-Thing 2: She had realized after selling a piece that there was some horrible flaw with it (an intellectual flaw). She wanted it back badly to fix it--and had hired my character to track it down (it had been re-sold since).



Observation: Player1's Thing 1 was (IMO) pretty lame--it had no obvious conflict and, if I'd run it, would have led to a "shopping scene." The others were good (Again, IMO) and would have given the GM some hooks to work with).


The opening: The Naseby Gallery

Myself, NPC Brian (the gallery owner), and his girlfriend (Melissia) were at the gallery The Naseby, working on getting ready for the show where several pieces of Treya's art would be shown. It was hot, summer, and before going outside we sprayed each other with mosquito repellant (I live in Florida and we are just learning the peril of West Nile Virus--since I live near swamps with many mosquitos and have a young daughter I found the campaigns mosquito fixation very disturbing).

We went outside and started workign the caterers. At one point  Brian mentioned that a man (an old man--but big and strong looking) named Gothe had come looking for me and left a card.  I paused. My character could remember the face of the first cab driver he'd seen in New York ... could memorize and repeat 32-digit number strings forward and backwards after hearing them once ... but although I *knew* I'd *met* Gothe, I couldn't remember him ... or his face.

He'd left a card upstairs. I went up to get it.

Upstairs in the creepily empty gallery was a huge wooden crate that held Treya's paintings. A corner of the box was opened (Brian had started to open then and then stopped). Next to the box was Brian's bag with the card.  As I went to retrieve it I paused: I smelled something rotten from the triangle of darkness on the huge box--like a dead mouse caught in a trap. Then the scent was gone. I waited, worried by the "blind spot" in my memory--and feeling a vauge sense of fear at the name 'Gothe.' I took the card and my phone rang.

It was Harriet Ashford, a "patron" of the gallery. She was young (21), cute, and marvelously rich. Brian was wealthy. Harriet's father was like "Sam Walton" rich. She had commissioned Treya and hired me (despite my ruined reputation). She was a "good girl" who didn't smoke or drink, and often fought on the phone with her conservative mother who lived out in like Colorado and was often very unhappy due to pressure from her family despite having amazing resources.

She was downstairs: Brian and Melissia were fighting over the location of the Sushi platters and Harriet wanted to know if I had some time to kill--to actually go out--with her. We'd gone places together--the group were all "friends" but never just me and her. I decided to.

CUT TO Treya

She was sleeping (the times were off) and she was having terrible dreams that her paintings, finished after months, and already framed, packaged, and shipped, were wrong. somehow VERY WRONG.

There were two paintings:both HUGE (bigger than 8' on a side) oil paintings.

One was a woodland scene with mythological beasts hidden in the leaves and scenes from fairytales and fairytale-themed works represented.

One was a mountain scene (ski village) with red brick houses. This had strong elements of optical illusion to them. Sky and ground and frozen lake were sometimes reversed. The sky was whitish with clouds and it seemed almost that the painting might be hung upside down.

When she awoken, having a fit, she took a look at the polaroids she'd taken of the finished pieces before shipping: in the picture the frames were blurry--as though they'd refused to come out on film.

She ran to her closet to get dressed--she had to see them--maybe "recall them before showing." When she opened her closet the mass of yellow clothes looked like a spread of jaundiced flesh--she was repulsed. She recoiled and in a panic dialed her therapist.  She didn't get him.

She knew what he's say (this, the paintings, and the reactions were role-played).

He would say that her works were intellectual masterpieces but almost devoid of emotional content. They were puzzles that were made to appeal to the mind, not the spirit and that this was a "break through" ('Dr. Carter has a sunny disposition--that's why I keep him around," she quipped at one point in the game).

In a cold panic she dressed (in black) and left for the gallery, beliving she had created masterworks--possibly the only things in the universe that were utterly devoid of beauty.


OBSERVATION: This was interesting. The character was psychologicaly analyzed by the GM and the player disagreed with some of it--the descriptions of the work were intellectual but the player was kinda 'hmmph.' about it.

It did work though--the Player accepted the analysists opinion (she quietly held her own--it is TOO emotional!) and the idea that Dr. Carter saw her as essentially being healthy was establsihed. It was a counter point to the sick flesh-tones of her wardrobe.


CUT TO VANCE
I was driving with Harriet. She told me she had to go "check in" and parked behind a building. Mosquitos buzzed in the sodium lights above us. I went in with her, feeling a little weird--it was the back lot, it turned out, of a church. She went down stairs very deep (two sub-basements) to a sick ward where a desparately ill homelessman moaned "catch me momma, I'm falling! Catch me!" and a woman named Sophia worked with the ill.

It turned out that Harriet worked at the church--the same church her parents went to--and she was "checking in" with someone they knew. She went upstaris to light a candle and I went as well.

Upstairs was strange: there were stained glass windows back-lit with men featured: Seth and Enoch ... names I didn't know--but that I as the player remembered from ... somewhere (this was disturbing to me). Behind the altar was a glass window of a cruifixation with the word Docete underneath. My Art Appreciation skill told me something was wrong with the Christ-figure: the depection showed other objects represented with shadows ... but not Him. I asked the Church's name and was told: "St. Timmothy's"

She lit the candle and we left. We went to her apartment (she paid the door man not to report me to her mom--"they pay the staff to keep tabs on me ... I pay them not to .... it's a good racket" and she proceeded to rant against her mother and get drunk (a new thing for her, it seemed.).

Quote
Her: "They want me to come home. They're demanding it ... I've got tickets. (she looked scared) "I'm afraid something BAD is going to happen.

Me: "Something ... bad?"

Her: "To New York. Or worse. I don't think they'd call me home unless it was the end of the world."

later
Her: "You smell good. What are you wearing? Is that cologne?"

Me: "Um ... no ... nothing."

Her: "You smell like ... like a birthday party. You smell like a birthday party when I was five years old. I *loved* that party. Mmmm... it's so good."

later[\b]
Her: They make me do those things for them... make their phone calls ... I *hate* it."

later
Her: "I'm going to fly off that balcony."
Me: "Umm ... no you're not." (moves to stop her)
Her: (delighted) "You know what you are? You're what Leonardo was in that Titanic movie."
Me: "Irish!?"
Her: "No--(laughs). If I fell, you'd catch me. Ohhh ... that's what it is!"
Me (laughing): "What what is?"
Her: "It isn't cologne at all ... the smell. It's Off."

She collapsed, drunk, and I carried her to her room. I felt disconcerted. I stopped by her phone and before I left, on a hunch, I went through the numbers. I found Gothe's. I was chilled.

THE NASBY
We were back the next morning (which, in the time-line coincided with the arrival of Treya). We got together and went up to open the package (the NPC's thought Treya was having pre-show hysterics ... I wasn't so sure).

Standing before the crated paintings, Brian called for wine to celebrate their unveiling. Treya was urgent. I suddenly felt that waiting all the time in the world would be a *great* thing. The plastic coating looked, from an extreme angle, wet--as though the inside of the crate was coated with decayed muck or slime.

Brian opened the first piece. There was a collective gasp.

The woodland scene was ... amazing: the brushstrokes seemed simply to change color in mid-stroke as though paints had simply altered composition. There was an eerie depth and a darkness to it. The texture of the canvas was gone--it seemed as though Treya had painted over feathers instead.

To Treya it was completely new: some of the things she recalled painting there were there--but the piece was somehow more resonant more vibrant and far stranger. It was alien to her--and the layering and depth was something she hadn't even intended.

She felt afraid and awestruck at the same time.

Then we did the snow-scape.

It was horrible. She'd gotten the ice and cloud and water tones wrong--it looked like  flesh-scape of plaid, diseased skin. The brick buidlings of the ski-town were like a rash across the undulating surface and dead center a train-track came as a black tongue from a tunnel which was a mouth. She felt revolted as did we.

Worse, the texture of the canvas on this one was strange too. It seemed that small bulbous things were trapped under the paint.  The glass was broken.

Brian: "We ... are not hanging this one."

We opened some of the studies she'd done (a Gnome for the forrest scene). It was a canvas of gray paint--as though seeing shadows through mist. A study of nothing. She recalled trying to sketch the gnome--and picking out colors. She realized she had no recognition of ever laying paint to canvas for it.

There was pandimonium ( Melissia conforting Treya, Brian and I trying to decide if she was crazy or not, Harriet looking a little miserable). I hit on something ("I don't remember it at all like that!" wailed the artist, while making an appointment with Dr. Carter, her psychologist).

I grabbed Harriet and went to get my gear--art examination gear (high quality digital camera, magnyfing glasses, etc). In the car, I asked her how she knew Gothe. At first she denied it. Then she confessed.

Gothe was a friend of her family's. A scary man. He worked for the government more than a decade ago--and he had contacts there. He was in town, she said. He was watching her ... and me ... and had men watching the Nasby Gallery. When she told me this, I could, with my vision and my memory, pick them out. We were being contained by multiple surveilance teams.

I was stunned. She was utterly credible and miserable. I dug out the 10mm I'd brought when feeling paranoid a few years ago. We went back.

"Fess up."

She did: What my and Treya's "missing time" had to do with each other or Gothe was totally unclear to her--but he was in town and interested in me ... and  I couldn't remember him--just like Treya with her paintings.

So we went to see Gothe. He was staying in the Waldorf Astoria Tower Suite.

Quote
GM: "Have you ever been to the Waldorf?"
Us: "No."
GM: "It has bright, lurid yellow wallpaper all through it."
Us: "Ugh."

We were met and brought up. Gothe had what I think of as "diplomatic" security--two men outside his door, two out on the blacony, several inside. He was a dark, commanding figure. He spoke in a low voice and it held hints of threat.

He had distain for Harriet but accepted that she had finally brought us--"It would have happened anyway."

We asked what the hell was going on.

Quote
Gothe: "What does a chess piece see when a Knight Jumps?"
Treya: "Chess is 2-dimentional--it seems ... to vanish?"
Me: "They see it fly up in the air?"

Gothe: "It is two dimentional, yes, you're quite right--but no--it doesn't vanish. When the *knightness* leaves a square, the other pieces see what was there ... appear to die. On a chessboard each square contains innumerable invisible vessels that only appear to the players when the square is occupied by a pawn-ness or a bishop-ness or other piece-ness."

Treya: "What does this have to do with anything?"
Gothe: "It has everything to do with you."
Treya: "Me?"
Gothe: "You are a knight--and one that is ready to jump--perhaps the last one before the end of the world. You are going to die."

A mosquito borne virus that had been created in the 60's was loose along the eastern seaboard. It was created to cause tiny breaks in the flesh of the brain inducing petite-mal seizures and changing the perspective of the person infected--it was an attempt to create a viral form of LSD.

In a small percentage of the population it caused encelaphalitus like swelling and death. Treya and the rest of us were infected. She was in the small percent. She felt sick now--had for some time. Within four days she would be dead.

He told us more.

The world was littered with pieces: knights, bishops, pawns ... in a game where to us it appeared as death and re-birth. The person's intellect (the vessel) didn't travel from square to square, only the "piece-ness" did.

However, the piece-ness didn't die with the vessel. It re-entered the world somewhere else after traveling through the "outer aeons"--the afterlife. When it did so--when the knight jumped, it would see the future. It would see life after death--and so would the vessel it would leave behind. Of course since the vessel was discarded ("to fall into the abyss") that did no good. You couldn't bring the person back.

Unless you could catch them.

He had met me--back when I was seven years old in a children's hospital in Minnesota (I had vague memories of tonsilitis). There had been an experiment. I had been built, he said, I would remember it in time--to do this--to catch her--to bring her back.

"That's what you meant last night," I told Harriet quietly. She nodded.

"Your brain was destroyed and rebuilt with a Fourrier Transform," Gothe told me.

He gave me a book to read--the book that contained the code-keys to my memory: Catcher In The Rye

We wanted to know why. He told us: The Forgotten Gospel of St. Timmothy. The followers (Gnostics) believe that the Christos was an illusion, a being of pure light that cast no shadow and had no physical form. He told the Truth to Timmothy and it was hidden and misunderstood but now has been reconstructed.

When we die we stand before the abyss. There is knowledge--special knowedge that will get us to the outer aeons--paradise. No one has all of it. They (the Ashford clan and Gothe) had some of it--but not the last piece. When the knight jumped, I would go with Treya and see it negoiate the last Archon (we didn't know what that meant). When I returned, they would have the final piece.

Quote
Gothe: The truth was that it is not good works that usher us into heaven--but only knowledge--knowledge that has been lost.

Treya: That's not true--what about the 10-commandments? What about right and wrong?

Gothe: handed down by the Demi-urge who, in its sad, deluded state belives itself to be god. (thundering voice)

He told us to prepare--her to die, me to be with her--they would tell us what we needed to know to succeed. What they were looking for in the afterworld. And he told us to prepare for the end of the world. He said that we would be told where to go to perform our operation--and that he would safely transport us and our friends back to the compound.

Quote
Gothe: "When I was part of the government's project we saw the danger in a massive outbreak of a change in perspective--a massive revelation. The response will be nuclear quarantine against the east coast--maybe more. From the information coming out of Washington the bombers are already warm--ready for takeoff."

We left, dazed and thunderstruck. I held the book in trembling hands--I could feel it's explosive power within me.

We returned. Treya started to feel sick: bad sick.

As I read, Treya and the others tried to figure out what to do. They examined the paintings, and such--and noted, importantly, that although we had discussed the paintings with Gothe, he'd dismissed them ("You're dying. Perhaps that explains it.") They agreed that there was probably "something there."

I read--and remembered. I rembered being in a room at the age of about 5 and being asked who I was. When I didn't know, I was taken (by important men) into a room where they would "look for me." When I did know, the women--nurses who worked with me--were glad--relieved that they wouldn't have to keep on looking for me.

In the room was a table that raised into a pyramid of red lights. I remembered the red glowing panels above me getting closer and Gothe's voice saying "Start phase 1." It was a trauma machine and it broke me inside. There were other children in the project at the begining. In the room Gothe "looked for them" until something called an embolism happened and then there was one less patient in the wards.

Once, coming out, I remembered answering "I protect Vance." This was what they wanted. They gave me a code-name "Banana-Fish." When I went into the lights Vance was curled up inside a Vance-shaped tank, perfectly safe and warm while the lights were on outside. Bananan-Fish felt no pain nor fear at all.

They began teaching Banana Fish to shoot and when he shot straight there were no lights. Banana-Fish shot very straight indeed.  I looked up from the book blinking--feeling the reflexive skill of an expert marksman.

Downstairs Treya had decided to go to St. Timmothy's and demand answers. Harriet could answer some questions: she had been excommunicated by her family and had come out here. She had been told they had located a Knight and to make contact with her and me and keep tabs on us. She didn't know much about what they were planning and she hated Gothe. That made two of us.

I kept reading (this was done with the GM also going over Catcher in the Rye--each revelation timed to a chapter). Banana Fish burned with a cold fire of addrenline without fear. He could jump, run, lift and hit harder than Vance. He was trained in the burning state to kill with his hands--to fire heavy weapons--to detect surveilance, to hotwire vehicles, to open safes.

In the end Commander Gothe created a new code inside me: Frannie and Zoie. This code-word was the control command. Under its influence I had all the abilities of Banana-Fish and would do whatever I was ordered to. My last memory was the four graduates entering air-tight chambers and, standing at attention before ranks of men in military uniforms adorned with dark glittering medals. We pulled levers to drop hydrogen-cynaide into tanks of water ... and stood straight at attention until we died.

We went to St. Timmothies.

Treya was feeling *really* bad. But she felt that she wanted to paint something to make up for the bad picture--and something else ... and she felt glimpses of insight.

At the church, we met Sophia (who they told us was some kind of angel) and saw another sick man--a Knight, we were told--who was ready to jump but unprepared.

I held his hand while he died and this is what we saw (I saw--but the others sort of experienced).

A city washed with rain (there was a massive storm coming) suddenly going silent and then blasting to pieces under nuclear over-pressure. I saw bridges crumple and land ripped up and swept in black clouds away from the blast sites. I saw people come apart and then blow into pieces in the rubble.

And then a gasp of silence and white-hot light and then it all begin being swept back together into the rising mushroom cloud. I saw dark rivers of souls being carried back across the river and up into the rising cloulds like black jellyfish filled with squirming souls and tentacles of smoke and ash hanging down.

Up in the sky were seven massive planets--the "aeons" that Gothe had spoken of--each pale and bigger than the moon and filled with giant monsters (a lion with three crowns, an amphibian that spoke in many voices and hissed horribly, something that ran on four legs ... others). These were the Archons--the guardians or the demons that the souls had to pass.

I made a WIL roll to try to catch him--and failed it and he died.

We were told that we would be safe here--that St. Timmothy's was a fallout shelter and blast-resistant. They would be ready.

We came back. We begin making plans to run.

Treya decided she was going to paint one last picture before her vision went. She began to work, but before she could start, Dr. Carter made a "hose call" to the Gallery to look at the work.

She wanted to avoid telling him what was going on (she didn't want to be "baker acted") and he was, indeed, impressed but not upset by her work ("It *is* a break-through--your intellectual part didn't see the emotional part's contribution--but like automatic writing it came through in the work.")

He saw that she was feeling sick and took a look. Diagnosis: Strep-throat. He gave her a perscription for antibiotics and told her to take it easy. He also told her she should keep painting--she should nuture her emotional and expressive side. She did (she also gave him an invitation to the opening night exhibition party ... not that we were sure we were going to have it).

Through the night she painted. What she painted was a blasted mountain about to crumble with screaming faces rendered in ice along its face. As she painted (shaking with fever) Melissia wrapped a sheet around her and brought her water so she could keep going. Around 2:00 AM the headaches were so bad that Treya had to be held up, in order to stand--to keep on going.

OBSERVATION: This was a tense bit--the GM and player clashed here. The GM wanted to see an emotionally evocative scene of what the character's "final" piece would be like. The player described the piece but with not much emotion--and didn't describe the process of painting it.

It was interesting--The GM kept asking questions and the player was annoyed that the answres weren't "right."  In the end, I almost terminated the game for the night (it was late) but the GM realized his "questions" were wrong--and they got back on the same page.


In the morning it was the third masterwork of her life--very abstract, unfinished--but elementally powerful. And she could stand--with out help. In fact ... she didn't feel all that bad ... just a sore throat.

OBSERVATION: At this point I was narratively lost. I could see everything building towards her "dying" and me going into the afterlife to catch her ... and the end of the world and stuff--

but when the GM said "it feels like a bad case of strep-throat" I was stunned. It didn't make sense to me. Everything I saw coming from a story stand-point was de-railed. If I'd been consciously trying to make Author-Stance decisions, I wouldn't have known what to do. If I'd had directoral power, I'd have, I think, tried to omit that bit. I didn't get it.

NOTE: I didn't *not like it*--I was just not adding 2+2 and getting 4 so to speak.


We had a discussion--and decided to have the show. We were being watched--I could see them (they were farther back and more professional than the first guys--but Banana-Fish could spot them in a heart-beat. I armed myself (I went to the Diamond District where the diamond trade happens and the guards are armed like the army).

We thought we could maybe escape to Conneticut and hide out there--but we weren't sure. I'd seen dozens of mushroom clouds. And then there was the strep-throat: what if she *was* okay? What if Gothe *was* crazy? I felt I could shoot like a sniper but I hadn't *tried* it (and the guns were illegal so I couldn't go to a range).

Our plan: have the show--all the characters PC and NPC alike agreed that even if the world was going to end we'd have that damn show--and at the end of the show sneak out in a catering truck.

We prepared for it and the storm got closer. On the news we heard about massive tests for West Nile Virus from roving health-resource trucks.

We were summoned by Gothe to be prepared for her jump.

We went. At this point we were pretty sure it wasn't rampant brain-swelling. She felt a bit hoarse but her fever was down and her cough was better. We played her as more sick than she was.

Gothe was in a warehouse with black SUV's and motorcycles all around it. Inside was a massive computer set up and on the loft was a video conference center where we spoke to Mr. Ashford (Harriet's father) from his compound in Colorado. He explained to us that each Archon had a secret to getting past it and we needed the last one.

Quote
Gothe: "The virus isn't just a bringer of disorder. A revelation on the scale that we are talking about won't just make the government unable to control people, it will bring down the very walls of reality.  I have looked into the eternal abyss. You think that people can be cruel here? We have *nothing* to teach them. Nothing."

She was prepared by walking across the floor (with big painted circles representing the Aeons) and taking tests (and repeating the dogma). I watched.  I asked Gothe what had inspired him to belive this stuff. He didn't tell me--but I suddenly knew that somehow it was *me*,

The final Archon ("the boss at the end of the last level") was a donkey wiht two crowns, each with a word on it. You had to greet it as one of its two terrible aspects. The right one and you'd pass--the wrong one and you were damned.

They could ensure that I would tell them the truth because he could command me. They had no other people capable of bringing a knight back--of catching her--and they needed 100% reliability.

When we left (with books detaling their dogma for the others to read should they die) we returned to the gallery. When the catering vans came and the storm arrived, Treya started to feel badly sick again.

THE PARTY
The party was interesting. There was a large cast of unusual characters and people to talk to. My mob-story was touched on--but unimportant at this point.

Strange things started happening. The guests began behaving strangely. A homeless man showed up at the door and wanted to go in and get some food and wine. We gave him some around back--and he sat against the wall singing and asking us if we wanted to see the moon (it was totally storming--but he said he knew where to look). I saw a crashed blood-mobile and found some mideval looking testing gear inside--a chair kind of like an iron maiden. There were no people and when I called 911 I couldn't get through.

We called 911 from a land line inside and got put on hold and hung up (the part was way strange--people taking their clothes off, singing "The World Turned Upside Down," painting on windows, and otherwise going insane).

When I looked out the back door where the homeless guy had been I saw collapsed rags and the bottle and skin-colored paint flowing from underneath them, dissolving in the rain. He had melted.

Brian and Melissia were salvaging the artwork ("Cover the Warhols!") while I was trying to keep things under control (ready to "Banana-Fish" and bust heads if necesary--it wasn't). We were hearing about storm drains backing up and the tunnels being closed off the island. That worried us--what if we couldn't escape.

Quote
(Conversation with Treya and Melissia)
Treya: "I don't believe it. Knowledge *isn't* what gets you into heaven. Good works are what get you into heaven ... and belief or something--guys like him don't get into heaven. Good works do!"

Melissia: "I wish someone had TOLD ME before now."

Treya: "I always planned to give to charity ... after I had absolutely everything I wanted already ..."

We were in a state of trying to run or deciding to stay and go to the fallout shelter--and hope we could handle Gothe's guys--even with my codeword when Dr. Carter called. His car had broken down in the flooding and he needed a lift.

I got Treya and we went. When we got to him (leaving behind dark streets with overflowing storm drains) the gas station was rain-drenched but well lit and fairly clean.

We picked him up and he asked how we were doing. I said next to nothing while Treya tried to put a good face on it.

We arrived back at the gallery and things had gotten worse--the guests were out of control--but having a great if drunken (or worse) time. Dr. Carter mused that "art world parties were more like fraternity parties than he'd been led to believe."  I got a call from Gothe and he demanded we come in: "The sanction happens and midnight--" he thundered. "The world ends in hours!" When he tried to use his command word, I hung up. He'd said he was sending men to collect us.

"We're leaving."

We piled the weapons and Dr. Carter (who seemed sane if a bit disturbed by our fire-power--I had a walkman electrical-tapped to my head so I could play music at max-volume so as not to hear control words). I put him and Treya in the back of the truck and took off.

Carter questioned Treya and asked "have you called the police?"

Treya: "We can't--the lines are down--people infected with this revelations virus are going crazy all over the city."

Carter: "Cell phones get tied up and during an flooding 911 can be overwhelemd--it's hardly the end of the world. Why not--and I don't want to sound like a broken record--call the police."

I stopped at a gas station and got out.

Me: "We can take the bridges--but there's not so many and they'll be slow as hell and watched. We may need to re-think this escape plan."

Dr. Carter went to call the police. I looked at him and then didn't stop him.

Treya and me watched him dial. Could he be working for Gothe? He returned. "I'm speaking to Seargant Travis, he understands threats have been made against you. Now he needs to talk to someone who actually knows what's going on."

We were stunned. The world wasn't going crazy?
Treya: "The police have time for this?"

Carter: "It's flooding all over the city but terrorist threats against wealthy art galleries still take precidence."

Quote
Me: "It's like there's two worlds ... one that Carter lives in ... and one that Gothe does ... and it's INSANE."

Treya: "I'd rather live in Carter's."

Me: Looks up. Checks sky. Thinks. "Me too. We go back?"

Treya: "We go back."

We went back. The place was surrouned with a few police cars and black SUV's. Inside the patrons were catatonic, the place was painted like a day-glo Cistine Chappel--works of genius and insanity. The armed troopers (the SUV's showed up as belonging to a private Manhattan Security company--not as mysterious government shock troops) were missing.

I found what was left of them upstairs in the attic--they had reached the top of the building and gone into where the creepy painting was being stored. They had discharged weapons--and the room smelled like blood.

The hole from which the train-track came through had changed: it was upside down ... in a smile. I got out of there.

We came down and in the rain, we were standing outside. It was 30 minutes until midnight. Carter suggested that we go out to the diner down the street for some desert.

I checked my watch--enought time to get to St. Timmothy's ... I shrugged. No sense in going early. Gothe was mad and  ... Treya didn't seem to be feeling so bad.

We walked down to the Moonlight Cafe and found a friendly man who served us deserts on the house. My phone rang at 11:55 PM. Against my better judgement, I answered. It was Gothe.

"Where are you! Does she feel better? Of course she feels better--she has *minutes* left. The bombers are flying! They're coming--you have to reach shelter now! NOW!"

Melissia: "What's that?"

Me: "W-what?"

Melissia: "I see the moon."

I stood. "The Moon!?"
Treya: "The Moon!?"

Outside we could see a slice of moonlight on the face of the high buildings. It was coming from a hole in the clouds--a hole in the still massive still thundering storm--a hole--over St. Timmothy's.
We walked outside.

We were standing there, out in the rain, seeing the moon shine down on the shelter.

Me: "Oh god."
Treya: "Oh shit."
She ran for the truck and felt the red-hot thunder of pain as he brain, swelling, surged against her spine. She felt her heart stop and her vision go blurred and double and she fell.

I ran--calculating the minutes to reach shelter and coming up very, very tight.

Dr. Carter: "What--what's going on? Have you been taking your medicine?" (rushing over with me).

Me: "Doc--we have to go NOW!"

Carter: "No--let's go inside and pay the check and then we can go. Okay?"

Me: "I--"

Carter (to Treya): "Have you been taking your medicine!?"

Treya: "Like a tripple dose ... (gasping)"

Carter: "Then OF COURSE YOU DON'T FEEL GOOD! Get up now--and let's get you inside--you're soaked."

I stood in the rain, looking up. I could hear thunder. It sounded like the growling sonic booms of high-altitude bombers.  I looked at the diner. I looked at the truck ... and at the moon.

Me: "If I die, I'd rather die in this world."
Treya: nods.

We went back inside and finished desert. Well after midnight we were still together.

THE END.


OBSERVATION: The world ... our world, at least, did not end. We did get a postscript of the 12:01 phone call from Gothe--hatred and fear and despair and nuclear pandamonium thundering out of the phone--out of his world and into ours before the circuit broke and he went silent.

In the after-game discussion we got the whole story. There *were* two worlds--one that was a Gnostic nightmare world and one that was "the real world." The link between them was (in this case) the artist (more on that in a moment).  

There were some moments of real power--even the dysfunctional "painting" argument was declared by the artist player to have been an immensely powerful scene.

There was not one round of combat in the game--a rarity.

The FORK
In the end we had to make a choice: to go to the church or to go to the diner. The church would actually have worked--there was an adventure doing what Gothe wanted us to do. The fork to the diner was far, far shorter (it killed approx 5 hrs of gaming in our estimation). Had we lost our nerve and gone for St. Timmothy's at the last moment, the GM would have killed us.

At the end of the game I was completely unsure as to wether going back inside would get us killed or not.  It was real dramatic tension. I had written off the Dr. early on as a person who wouldn't see what "was really going on." At the end, even with the evidence we had (she sees the Dr. she gets better, she goes to see Gothe--worse--sees the Dr. Better again) I was reasonably sure we'd die in nuclear fire. The GM had done a really good job of setting the stage.

I also think that if I'd been making Author Stance decisions it would have been very, very hard to do that without directoral power (i.e. I get to say if the world ends if I go back inside the diner). Also, I wouldn't have had the dramatic tension of trusting my gut and going back, letting 100 megation city-busters fall if they would.


GAME FOCUS
The question of whether or not a game *should* be focused on the things it's used for is probably not answerable--however there is a twist here (that we discovered at the end in the after-gaming discussion).

The scenario was to be the introductory adventure for the not-yet published JAGS Wonderland, a modern-day surreal horror game based on an indepth study of the works of Lewis Caroll. It's something we have about 50% finished (you should see my reading list for research on it).

In JAGS Wonderland, Wonderland is a competing reality whose interface with our world takes the forms of delusions and puzzles at low levels and alternate realities at the higher ones. The Gnostic sect had interfaced with wonderland and experineced it through their filters. The government project was part of the spinnoffs that made initial contact with Red Queen (an entity IN Wonderland) back in the 60's.

The guys who unleashed the virus were The Underground ... an organization in the world book.

Now, all the gnostic mysticism isn't cannonical to wonderland and it slipped right by me (the chess motif is part of wonderland and I missed it).

So the question is: if I had know it was a JAGS Wonderland game (with all the special JAGS rules for Wonderland insanity--you can choose how your character will go insane)--with all the cool character options and special reaction grids ... would it have been better?

I have to say no. The complete surprise--the weird resonant richness of the Gnostic trappings, the bizarre paintings ... everything ... out of the Wonderland context (which I find pretty cool) was in even sharper relief. None of it made *sense* and that's what a good Wonderland game should play like. So having done it, I think that in this case, for this 2-day episode, I was better off not knowing what to expect.



Hope someone has found this interesting ... or at least read all the way to the end.

-Marco

All I can say is. . .whoa.  That was awesome.

Very.  Sounds superb.

A random thought.  I've mentioned before that I once threatened to drop an orbital rock on Florida in a Hardwired game, and that my players were "playing along" with a threat they knew I wouldn't use.  Turns out, they bought it after all.  I didn't know that till a couple of months ago.

So would you say Marco, that this game played out kind of like Myst?

A lot of really cool images to look at and wander through, but the appeal is mostly in uncovering the story that is already there?   Its hard to tell from your write-up how scripted all of this was by the GM vs. how much he was creating in response to your actions.

Quote from: ValamirSo would you say Marco, that this game played out kind of like Myst?

A lot of really cool images to look at and wander through, but the appeal is mostly in uncovering the story that is already there?   Its hard to tell from your write-up how scripted all of this was by the GM vs. how much he was creating in response to your actions.

I wondered about this myself and we talked a lot about this in the after-action review.

If you mean "The GM had a story to tell about Gnostic conspirators, Wonderland, and some art-guys and the end of the world," yes, that was there.

The outcomes (as I said above) were entirely up to us--choosing which world to live in--to the tune of 5 fewer hours of gaming with the choice we made.  Also, as I was tempted to write off Dr. Carter (from early on) as having little insight, it was quite possible that we wouldn't have even seen the choice (seeing the moon in the end was kind of dirty that way--it tempted us back to the cathedral).

Edited to note: The GM said that the scenario was basically groups of NPC's with their time-lines (subject to being disturbed by the PC's) and agendas. We could choose to interact or not. He'd set things up in a way that he felt would generate the best story.

I did feel that the story was generated by our participation in it--i.e. that the GM's story as concieved was both not "realized" and very incomplete without our additions to it (he agrees). That is, the act of gaming with its surprises, it's revelations, and the chance of the dice did sort of "realize" his basic partially-unformed idea.

I beliveve that in the best case (as I count this) that story is "organic" to the plot--that is, the PC's with perhaps only minimal Author Stance can be expected to take actions which will result in an interesting story (as opposed to an aimless anti-climax, meaningless tragedy, or simple "I shot and killed Vader" resolution).

So the GM had this idea building to the climax of the Nuclear Sanction. We could have fallen into line with Gothe and gone directly to the shelter. Story continues (we discussed that--there were 7 creepy acolytes there to follow us into the afterworld, a chance to see the Aeons and the Abyss). We could have left early and skipped the gallery party--story continues (we would have gone to Mystic Conneticut and Wonderland via the artist would have followed us).

What we chose was quite possibly the BEST outcome (i.e. the story the GM and the players later agreed was the best). It was also the one that follwed the path of most likely in-character actions.

The crux came when I tried to leave the island of Manhattan during the storm. The GM (who lives in Mid-town) described to us what trying to get off the island is like in a flooding situation.

I determined (from my tactical knowledge) that with the tunnels closed and only a few bridges to the mainland (the others were to other islands) that we'd be herded into a traffic-plugged choke point and either have to walk across the bridge or wait for a long time.

So we stopped to talk--Dr. Carter made his play. We could have said yes or no.

Does that answer your question? The answer is No--under the terms as defined on The Forge, we didn't "create story."  We had ideas that the GM hadn't pre-determined. We figured things out in some cases more rapidly than expected and did some things that were un-expected.  The GM was certainly interacting with us. But we weren't employing directoral power nor very much Author stance.

On the other hand, having been there: it didn't feel ANYTHING like Myst.

Edited to add: it seems obvious to me that there's such a broad spectrum of interactiveness between Myst and, say, multi-GM gaming that there's no comparison between Myst and a standard RPG.

For one thing, in Myst it doesn't matter WHO you are--in the above game, I created the characters concepts and our character's role-playing was definitely one of the great pleasures of the game.

I'm not sure what you think in the story might have been "scripted" (railroaded?)--but feel free to check it out and let me know. The GM is still available, I can ask.

-Marco

I'm sure it was just the abbreviated format of your transcript then.  It seemed to me from what you'd written that the NPCs played such a large role in what was happening that I couldn't tell if your PC's were just along for the ride.

For instance you point to the choice that you made that resulted in cutting 5 hours of play time out.

It seemed to me (based on nothing more than what you wrote) that you as players had no idea what was going on and no real way of judging the consequences of your actions.  You had Goethe's version of events, and the Dr's version of events, and you more or less picked one.  

It wasn't clear to me that you were really making a meaningful choice.  It struck me as very similiar to a classic dungeon crawl decision where players get to choose...they can go right down a hallway to who-knows-where, or they can go left down a hallway to who-knows-where.  A "choice"...of sorts...but not a very meaningful one.

That's why I made the Myst comparison.  Obviously you didn't find it to be like that in your actual play.

Part of the problem in reading the report is the Immersioist nature of the text. There is no dissociation of player and character. To the extent that you related the whole thing as if you had actually done it all.

What happens is that we don't know when it was that you decided what to do and why. We are forced to assume that it was all Actor stance, and that you were just making the decisions based on the Tropes that your character represented (ex-cop, PI, etc). There's no commentary like, I went with this choice because I thought that my charracter was a hard case, or any of that sort of analysis. Which makes it seem like you were just following your cues.

OTOH, you do point out how at certain points you didn't seem sure what to do. So you did the obvious thing, like hunting down Gothe. Often it's not that the GM is railroading forcefully, but via ommission. If this seems to be the only rout to anything interesting, then, of course you do it. What else? But it still means that the choice of where to go is in the GMs hands. This plot reads that way. OTOH, again, it may just be a problem in translation.

Mike

A few quick notes ...

1. The *game* was, if anything, more immersionist than the text--for the duration of play there was almost NO player-player interaction. We were in character the whole time.

2. The end-game choice was far more telling that right vs. left: we had to choose whether we trusted our gut. Whether the sane world was worth belieiveing in enough to die for ... whether or not we would bank that the world wasn't as screwed up as Gothe thought it was.

And because we didn't have a total grasp on the situation or the Narrativist arc (for me at least), we weren't sure at all that we were right. In other words, we did trust our gut and decide it was worth dying for what we believed in. The dramatic tension in the end wasn't simply left vs. right for us.

-Marco

I don't disagree that the plot was "railroaded" or GM controlled.  It clearly was - but I thought that was explicit at the outset when the GM expressed how pleased they were with their own idea.  This is IMo a good example of how immersive, (contentiously) illusionist gaming can be and is succesful; the identification with the character is so profound that for all intents and purposes they DID experience it - and they got The Fear accordingly.

This is the kind of GM I like, and the kind of game that I like; someone with a Vision.  What I find uninteresting in many of the examples of Narratavist play is precisely the extent of player input.  I mean above, Valamir complains that the characters just had to decide which of the stories to believe, Gothes or Carters, on the basis of no more than what they the characters had experienced in game.  Yes exactly... just like life.  To me, if the players had acted on knowledge of dramatic need etc, it would have totally undermined the joy of the experience.  Kudos to a GM who is both willing to write 5 hours of play and bin it as necessary.

Valamir describes the choise the made as meaningless, becuase they didn't know.  To me, it was meaningful because they didn't know.

Quote from: contracycle
This is the kind of GM I like, and the kind of game that I like; someone with a Vision.  

I agree. It was making the determination based on what we had experienced *in the game* that was the fun--that's where the sensation of awe and satisfaction (at the end of the game we all went to the all-night diner and ordered the deserts our characters had ordered and discussed the game).

I am interested as to how the game was railroaded. I recall a large debate about whether or not railroading implied dysfunction--and it was agreed that it did (and I didn't feel this session was dysfunctional).

Edited to note: I don't at all disagree that there was an element of GM control in the story--that the game was, in essence, the GM's story, etc. That's all true--and as Gareth said and I agree, part of the fun.

Was it "dysfunctional?" Was the GM refusing courses of action that would break the story? I don't know:

The GM had a story--the major arcs and major players at the outset. The GM had a time-line that, while subject to change wasn't determined narrativistically.

After that, though, we were turned loose. Getting off the island by bridge was tough, by tunnel impossible--but we considered stealing a boat. None of us knew how to drive one and it seemed like a deep divergence into criminality when none of us were *completely sure* that the world was going to end. So we didn't--but we could have--we asked and he said that "yes, we could have gone." Does that make it railroaded?

There was never an action the GM stubbornly refused to let us take. I could even have hunted and killed Gothe--I was planning on it--but never got around to it. It would have been difficult and perhaps not have accomplished anything ... but I could have.

The final choice--the whole point of the game--was left entirely up to us: continue playing through the Archons in the nightmare after-life ... or risk nuclear death and go to the diner. We weren't railroaded in making that decision at all. Carter was asking us to come back inside. Gothe was thundering at us over the phone ("You KNOW what you saw.")

I didn't feel railroaded--I felt frighteningly free to choose.

-Marco

Hey folks,

Great discussion. I wanted to contribute a tad by saying that I think railroading really isn't an issue in this case. I don't see the GM taking over player-power regarding character decisions - only providing a certain kind of context for those decisions that some of us like, and some of us don't like. It is a Balance of Power issue, but not a railroading one.

Terry (Doc Midnight) and I are both pretty good at GMing this mode of play, especially for games like Call of Cthulhu. Some time, I'd like to discuss how to propose such play, as opposed to proposing, say, Sorcerer (or Otherkind or Dust Devils or, or, or ...), such that the other members of the group aren't blindsided. And vice versa.

In other words, what sort of language can we use so that the term "story" doesn't end up performing its usual negative, plural confusions.

Damn, getting off topic; must return. Marco, I'm especially interested in that moment of "disconnect" that you experienced. Can you explain that a bit better? Not so much from the "if I were in Author stance" perspective, but just explaining why and how you turned it into a positive experience.

Best,
Ron

Quote from: Ron EdwardsHey folks,
Damn, getting off topic; must return. Marco, I'm especially interested in that moment of "disconnect" that you experienced. Can you explain that a bit better? Not so much from the "if I were in Author stance" perspective, but just explaining why and how you turned it into a positive experience.

Best,
Ron

When I'm reading a story (watching a movie, whatever) I can often see the elements of building tension. Often the framework of the events are obvious (The nuke is ALREADY ON IT'S WAY TO BALTIMORE--WILL THE HERO GET THROUGH IN TIME!?)

I can see where it's going and how one action or another might effect the outcome.

When the artist came through the next morning with nothing but, it seemed, a sore throat, I was ... surprised.

I didn't see the shape of the question the campaign asked fully at that point--we had only one credible world-view (Gothe's). So I was surprised. Was the virus like Anthrax where you seem to get better just before you die? Was Gothe actually really crazy? What about the paintings? They were weird and some strange shit went on--but did that mean his end-of-the-world vision was true?

What it was, was the premise being established: you can choose which world you live in--or at least which world you're willing to die for. It wasn't hammer-handed obvious. It wasn't just a matter of "turn left for nightmare world, turn right for sane world."  It was something that my player and character both hadn't gotten their arms around.

So in short it was an exciting new direction emerging--it was a complex moral choice and one fraught with dramatic tension. It was tied to a dramatic event--it was interesting--and I didn't see the entirety of the GM's vision laid out--so I was fascinated and intrigued.

Essentially an already pretty deep game looked like it was turning out to be a lot deeper than I thought it was.

Does that help?
-Marco

Quote from: contracycle
Valamir complains that the characters just had to decide which of the stories to believe, Gothes or Carters, on the basis of no more than what they the characters had experienced in game.  Yes exactly... just like life.  To me, if the players had acted on knowledge of dramatic need etc, it would have totally undermined the joy of the experience.  Kudos to a GM who is both willing to write 5 hours of play and bin it as necessary.

Valamir describes the choise the made as meaningless, becuase they didn't know.  To me, it was meaningful because they didn't know.

To be clear, I wasn't complaining about anything.  It seemed to me that the game Marco was describing sounded like a what I call a "Myst" game...where there is a lot of interesting stuff to pick up and look at, but in the end the characters are just observing.  The quotes above (which you incorrectly characterize as complaining) was the reason it looked this way to me and why I asked Marco the question.  His response indicates that this was definitely not the case.

I'd like to explore this more and discover what it was about the experience that kept it from being this way.  To do so I'm going to try an analogy and see if that helps zero in on my question.

The players are nearing the end of a scenario.  They are faced with a decision.  They can go down either the right hall way or the left hall way.  If they go down the right hallway they'll find the treasure.  If they go down the left hallway they fall into a pit trap and die.  Throughout the scenario up to now the GM has seeded clues about which choice to take.  If the players picked up on those clues they'll know which way to go.  If they haven't, or haven't completely, then they're left guessing.

Now, from Marco's initial post above I read the following:

QuoteIn the end we had to make a choice: to go to the church or to go to the diner.

QuoteAt the end, even with the evidence we had (she sees the Dr. she gets better, she goes to see Gothe--worse--sees the Dr. Better again) I was reasonably sure we'd die in nuclear fire.

QuoteThe world ... our world, at least, did not end

QuoteHad we lost our nerve and gone for St. Timmothy's at the last moment, the GM would have killed us.

Now...here comes the analogy.

The choice between the church and the diner is the choice between going left or going right.

The evidence (such as the Dr making her better) are the clues helping point the direction to the right choice which Marco wasn't sure he'd interpreted correctly.

The fact that the world didn't end is the treasure.

Going to St. Timmothy's and getting killed by the GM is the equivelent of falling into a pit trap and dying.


The hallway scenario to me is just like those old text adventure games (like Zork) or the graphical equivelent Dragon's Lair.  In those games you were presented by similiar choices and you just kept playing till you figured out the "right" ones.

So...the ending of the above game session *seems* to map pretty one-one to this kind of situation.  The only difference (visible to me from merely reading the transcript) is that meeting Archons and dying as the result of the merging of worlds is a heck of alot more interesting than a pit trap.  In other words, its dressed up in some really cool "wonderland" imagery with lots of disturbing events and memorable images...but in the end, is it more than a gussied up hallway?

So that then is my question...I'd like to learn what about this ending (as an example of this style of play) was more meaningful or more significant than the hallway pit trap.  What am I missing that wasn't presented in the transcript that takes this beyond the kind of choices I used to have to make when pumping quarters into Dragon's Lair?

Or, maybe it isn't beyond this.  Maybe the appeal of it is the same appeal that kept me pumping quarters.  Is the only difference between the two that a hall with a pit trap is boring and plain but wonderland with a pit trap is exciting and interesting?  

Or to put it another way, what of the game made it more than just being along for the ride.  Or if you were just along for the ride, what was it about the ride that made it enjoyable?

Quote
The fact that the world didn't end is the treasure.

Going to St. Timmothy's and getting killed by the GM is the equivelent of falling into a pit trap and dying.

Sorry. My mistake.

We could have gone to the shelter earlier and lived and gotten to play in the afterlife.

We could have gone to the diner and lived and ended in the real, sane world.

We could have gone to the diner--said "okay we're staying," lost our nerve (almost happened), jumped in the truck and *tried* to make it to the shelter AFTER the last-possible-moment and died.

There were two plausible solutions (and we knew it--we knew we'd (probably) survive) in the shelter. We knew we had most if not all of the capability to "beat the archons." We knew that there'd be a dramatic show-down with Gothe ... i.e. we knew that there was a plausible story in that direction.

We chose to risk our lives to live in the sane world and it paid off.

It wasn't right-treasure, left-die.

Sorry that wasn't clearer.

-Marco

Yeah, it makes sense, Marco. Your explanation coincides with what I was thinking about - that what we are really talking about here is an element of trust, or rather Balance of Power (which is a trust issue if you prefer to take a positive spin on the terminology).

There are three or four threads all hitting this issue at once yesterday and today. They include Paka's Dust Devils inquiries regarding spreading narration across participants in a game, some of Max's comments regarding play at conventions in Jesse's thread, this one, and at least one other.

What I'm seeing is that the trust issue is essential to both sorts of play which are being discussed:

1) In GM-loaded story play (for lack of a better term), the player trusts that "it all makes sense" and moves with those curve balls like Marco describes.

2) In multiple-narration story play (for lack of a better term), everyone trusts everyone to contribute GM-type stuff sensibly. [This can vary from the GM-full play of Universalis, in which such input includes actual setting/situation elements, or InSpectres to the single-GM play of Sorcerer or Trollbabe, in which such input includes mainly time/space junctures.]

Now! Here's the hard part. My claim is that both of these are happening, in both styles of play. It's not a 1:1 thing like my numbering system above would imply.

That's why heavy GM-input during Narrativist play isn't necessarily railroading. And that's why a bit of OOC-discussion or break-times during the Sim-Situation play isn't "bad role-playing."

Thoughts? I'm really enjoying the interchanges across the various threads I mentioned.

Best,
Ron