5 giocatori? Tutti Cani? Mmm... :?
Prima di tutto, direi che devi fare un discorso a tutti, da giocatore a giocatore, per spiegargli che se non si dividono durante le "indagini", si divertiranno ben poco. Primo perchè non ci sarà mai tensione o suspense nwi risultati, secondo perchè fatalmente i più lenti di loro staranno zitti senza fare niente. Senza bisogno di stare separati per forza senza motivo, ma insomma, afferrere al volo i motivi adatti e volare da soli senza stare nel millepiedi.
Poi dagli questi motivi: parenti. Un sacco di parenti. E spunti personali.
Altra cosa: che città è per il gruppo? Io consiglio di pensare a fare cose "originali" quando hai già giocato la decima-dodicesima città, non prima. Perchè tante volte "fare cose originali" diventa "invece di fare questa cosa scritta nel libro che funziona benssimo, perchè non ne facciamo una che non funziona per niente? Dai, su', per divertirsi!".
Pensa al livello di "improvvisazione" (in senso buono) presente in questi giochi, di almeno due ordini di grandezza superiore al gdr classico "imbinariato", e pensa che fra le tecniche che aiutano l'improvvisazione ed evitano i blocchi c'è "Be obvious" (cioè, fai la cosa ovvia, non cercare di essere "originale" che blocchi tutti quanti). Peccato che Knife-fight sia ormai non più raggiungibile per il 90% perchè c'era un thread molto indicativo lanciato da Graham W (l'autore di "Play Unsafe", che sul "Be obvious" dedica un capitolo), in cui descriveva una situazione iniziale e chiedeva a tutti di scrivere (1) la prima cosa ovvia che gli veniva in mente come prosecuzione, (2) la cosa che gli sarebbe piaciuto succedesse, e (3) la cosa più originale che gli veniva in mente, e poi dopo un tot di risposte ha provveduto a spiegare il senso del thread mostrando che dalle prime due risposte era possibile partire con scene fichissime senza problemi, mentre la terza non solo bloccava il gioco, ma era anche invariabilmente la più brutta delle tre...
Anzi, visto che io "Play Unsafe" ce l'ho, magari faccio un po' di pubblicità a Graham citando il brano dal libro...
Dall'introduzione (che "inquadra" tutto il libro):
The Zen of gaming
What do you want from this book? Many roleplayers
will want things they can do to improve their game.
Now, of course, I’ll describe techniques like this:
reincorporating items in stories; changing status;
building on other players’ ideas. These techniques will,
I hope, improve your game.
However, techniques are only half the story. Many of
the ideas in this book are Zen-like: they involve doing
less.
For example:
• “Be more boring!”
• “Do nothing!”
• “Stop trying to be clever!”
Perhaps you can see sense in these ideas now: for
example, if you do nothing in a game, you’ll listen
more to other players.
Throughout this book, I’ll explain both the technique
and the Zen. Perhaps one will seem more natural to
you: perhaps you relate better to things you can do
than mystical Zen language, or vice versa. However,
the two work best when used together.
Altri brani da capitoli successivi:
Stop working
Often, we treat gaming like a job. We study rulebooks,
we try to gain an advantage, we care more about
experience points than enjoying ourselves.
I remember, as a teenager, playing Dungeons and
Dragons. At first it was fun, but it became work: in one
session, I remember negotiating for a business permit.
It was dull.
Later, I carried my work ethic to Vampire LARPs. I
studied rulebooks, working out tactics. I memorised
lists of powers and combat rules.
But it’s a game. So work less. Stop thinking. Don’t be
clever.
There are two reasons. Firstly, and most obviously,
working hard is no fun.
Secondly, if you’re working hard, you’re no fun to play
with. The other players see your seriousness and
respond to it: your game will soon feel like a business
meeting. Lighten up, play around, and you’ll be more
fun to have around.
Be average
Don’t try to be good at games. Don’t try to play well.
Whenever I try to be good, I’m bad. I’ve given
speeches in Vampire LARPs, straining to be
entertaining: I never was. I opened a HeroQuest game
with an in-character monologue, trying to be funny: I
wasn’t.
Now, I’ve been entertaining and brilliant at the table:
but never when I’m trying to be entertaining and
brilliant. It doesn’t happen because I try: it happens
when I just play.
We’ve all played with people who try to be funny or
try to shock. It doesn’t work. When you’re trying to be
good, you’re bad. The harder you try, the more you fail.
Instead, be average. Be boring. Be dull.
Paradoxically, when you try to be boring, you’re
interesting to watch. When you try to be average, that’s
when you’re good.
Be obvious
If, while gaming, you can’t be clever or try hard, what
can you do? The answer is: be obvious.
Do the obvious thing: the thing that obviously
happens next in the story; the thing that you think
everyone expects to happen. Paradoxically, that
obvious thing may, to everyone else, seem original and
brilliant.
For example: in a game of Lacuna, a team of agents
was investigating a hospital, where people had been
disappearing. One player suggested there should be a
ward where former agents paid to have their faces
resculpted. The idea was obvious to him: to me, and to
everyone else, it was brilliant.
Another example. I remember running a scene, in a
Vampire LARP, in which someone had received letters,
written in blood. A player asked to examine the paper.
An obvious idea occurred to me. If the ink was blood,
the paper should be skin: parchment, made of human
skin.
When I said this, people were shocked, as if I’d said
something brilliant. I hadn’t. I’d just said what, to me,
was obvious.
Naturally, not every “obvious” thing you say will be
brilliant. Often, what you think is an obvious next step
in the story will, indeed, be an obvious step in the story.
That’s fine. When you respond obviously, 90% of the
time, you’ll carry the story forward naturally. If you'd
tried to be clever, 90% of the time, you'd have thrown
the story off course. And, when you're obvious, one
time in ten, you’ll be brilliant.
Try to be brilliant and you’ll fail. Be obvious and, often,
you’ll be brilliant.
Rileggendo il libro, ho visto che ha effettivamente citato esempi da quel thread su knife-fighr (non mi ricordavo che l'avesse fatto come preparazione per il libro):
An obvious experiment
I posted the following
story on an Internet forum.
"A thief moves across the
rooftops, keeping to the
shadows. He creeps to a
window, reaches through and
opens it. He sees a woman
and, behind her, something
shining on a desk."
Then I asked:
1. What do you naturally
expect will happen next
in the story?
2. What would you like to
happen next?
3. What is the coolest,
cleverest thing you can
think up to happen
next?
All answers to 1 and 2
were, in different ways,
natural extensions of the
story. Some seemed
brilliant.
• I want the woman to be
beautiful and to
embrace the man.
• She turns, holding the
shining object. It’s a
knife. “That was the
noisiest B&E I’ve ever
heard.”
• The thief dashes into
hiding watching the
woman continue to get
ready for a magnificent
ball or some such.
Constrastingly, most
answers to 3 were
overblown, clever ideas.
• From the waist down,
her body consists of a
dozen writhing
tentacles tipped with
ten-inch serrated
spikes, which tear him
limb from limb. He
laughs hysterically the
whole time.
• Behind the desk, a
grandiose chair swivels
to face the women. Bill
Clinton draws on his
cigar. Klaxons blare and
orange lights flash. A
countdown commences.
His bathrobe falls to the
floor.
Cosa voglio dire con questi brani? Che il mio consiglio è di non cercare di essere "originale" ma di fare la città che ti viene in mente dopo aver visto i personaggi, creata seguendo la scaletta nel manuale.
Già che ci siamo, ecco un altro consiglio ESTREMAMENTE utile per giocare ai gdr narrativisti, che non rispode a nulla del tuo post, ma visto che l'ho letta adesso cercando gli altri brani, la cito:
Let your guard down
We were playing Primetime Adventures, portraying an
18th Century version of the A-Team. I played “The
Mask”, a version of the A-Team's charmer, “The Face”.
Now, do you remember how cheesy the romances
were in Eighties shows? And how explicit? There was
always a love interest, always a romance and usually
sexual innuendo. I remember watching an Automan
episode, in which Automan was chatting up two
beautiful women, in a club. The women asked which
of them he preferred. He appeared to negotiate a
threesome (”It doesn’t seem fair to deprive either of
you”), before being called away to solve crimes.
I wanted The Mask to be a homage to these romances.
So I described him flirting his way into castles, past
beautiful female guards; chatting up gang members;
flirting with his torturers, who were twins.
Then I became uncomfortable. Was I, without knowing
it, revealing a sexual fantasy? Would the other players
think I was a pervert? Was I, accidentally, giving away
something about myself? So I stopped.
I censor myself similarly in Dogs In The Vineyard.
Sometimes, it’d be in character to, say, shoot a woman
carrying a demon baby. But what would people think?
That I was playing out a fantasy of violence against
women?
When roleplaying, we often play safe. We don’t want
to give anything away about ourselves.
You see this at conventions. Players want the GM to
lead them through an adventure. They sit quietly, not
wanting to do anything, in case they do something
wrong.
And, yet, play is more interesting when we let our
guard down.
In a recent Cthulhu game, my character flirted with a
girl of higher class. For me, that's close to the bone
and, hence, made the game more poignant.
Similarly, in Lacuna games, I've started using
management-speak: "We've had some comments about
your performance". This language sets my teeth on
edge: so, when I say it, there's an electricity in the air.
When you let your guard down, even if just a little,
you bring the game closer to home. Try it. It adds an
edge to your game.
