[cite]Autore: Domon[/cite]che tipo di perversione è? 
Una brutta, non quelle che piacciono a te! ;-)
il termine è stato coniato da Ron per una dicussione / conferenza / panel alla Gencon 2006, e poi se ne è parlato in questa discussione su Story-games:
Big Gencon stakes discussion(erano ancora i tempi in cui Ron seguiva story-games, quindi partecipa alla discussione)
E' una perversione del concetto di "Posta", e in particolare è un escalation di poste contrapposte.
Citando dal post di Ron:
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Hey guys,
I'm thinking maybe a Q&A will be the best way to do this. I'll start by asking myself a question and answering it, and then you guys just fire questions from there. If you could, try not to dogpile me, OK?
Q: Why do you have a bug up your ass about this Stakes thing? All sorts of people are using the term and their games rawk.
A: "Rawk," right now, is not yet evidence of the games working out for consistently fun play across a whole bunch of different people, outside the immediate community. I do not yet acknowledge that we have rawking as a consistent feature across most of the games offered for sale at the booth this year. I'm seeing a feature in many which will instead be a consistent trip-up of fun, despite essentially sound and powerful game design, especially in Currency. That feature is pre-narration of outcomes and calling it "stakes."
What I'm seeing with this stakes-type play that's got up my ass is this: not fun. I'm seeing the same thing that is probably familiar to all of us, but in a new guise. The familiar thing is this:
GM: Make your stealth roll to get past the guard.
Player: Made it!
GM: You get past that guard and the other guards surround you.
Player: What? Total ass! My roll says I made it through!
GM: No, your roll says you got past that one guard. That's what I said.
(Totally annoying conversation ensues, all about what "would" happen and "if that happens then this," and similar. Note that the same thing could happen if the player were being an asshat about a roll's outcome instead of the GM.)
So what's the new thing? The same interaction, only before the roll rather than after it.
GM: The demon-guy is going to burn the book with your mother's secret letters in it!
Player in PTA, playing Buffy (by whatever name): That demon has gone too far this time. I kick his ass!
GM: If I win, then your mother falls in love with him!
Player: Oh yeah? If I win, then his dick shrivels up!
It's the same chesting (not "chest-beating," a listening-error made by some people that evening, but rather butting and shoving with chests) as in the previous example - but positioned before the roll, not after.
It can go on to pretty absurd extremes, with people really expanding the scope ("if I win, the school burns down!!" "If I win, you're really a man in disguise!"), but it's not that absurdity I'm talking about, but the basic structural problem.
People who say, "But we have fun! This works! You're just inveighing against something you don't like, as usual, Edwards!" are using exactly the same argument that used to be applied to the older version. "It worked for us!" Why? Because they enjoy chesting with one another, and have little to no interest in whether the demon-guy burns the book or whether he gets his ass kicked. All in-game conflicts are present only for the opportunity to chest. Any minute now, they'll say "you just have to find the right group" to support their point, which is no argument at all.
I discovered at the conversation that most of the authors whose games have this feature fully understand it as a problem, and did not intend for their use of "stakes" to be used in this fashion. Jason, based on what you said there, I think this is your situation, when you said, "The text in The Roach is ambiguous" about it. I agree. I do not think the Roach rules advocate this kind of nonsense, but I do think they lend themselves to it in the same way that many traditional rules-sets lent themselves to the early version of the same problem.
I am seeing a serious issue in play-reports, too. In posts about the very games I'm seeing this "stakes" talk in, I'm seeing frustration and fatigue in attempted play, especially from the most important group, the people who bought the game upon reading fun posting about it, but without direct contact with the designer and acquaintances. You can like me or not like me, but I do suggest that my experience with reading and assessing actual play reports might bear a little respect ... enough, at least, to take a second look for yourself.
And this is a serious issue. Until now, one thing we could always say was that if you bought a game that had been "baked at the Forge," you could fucking well play it. Dust Devils? My Life with Master? Universalis? Elfs? Like them or not, confused about a detail or not, you could open the book and sit down and actually play, and decide for yourself if it was your thing. If we lose that, we lose the single most important thing about independent publishing, that it can produce playable games more consistently than the other sorts of publishing. (Note: more consistently, not "always")
OK, that's my answer to my own question, to start off the discussion if anyone's interested. That's what I'm talking about and that's why I have a bug up my ass about it. I'd love to answer further questions.
I also think the link to the Forge thread is really important for understanding all this too, because it's based on actual play and therefore can be utilized to make sense.
Best, Ron
P.S. Jason, I thought that look of glazed intensity on your face was evidence that I was both convincing and riveting ... now I realize it was your Hunter S. Thompson moment, trying to maintain while desperately ignoring "your grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth," as he would say.
P.P.S. I just realized a question I can expect is, "which games are you picking on, specifically?" There's a fair version of that question, merely seeking pure information in order to understand my point, and there's a shitty version of that question, which is designed to paint me as a bully and a game-picker-onner. On the internet, they're indistinguishable. I'm going to have to ignore that question, and will choose games for examples as fairly as possible, as issues come up, like I did with the Roach in this one.
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Il thread su the forge citato è
questo, è un actual play di CnV in cui il problema si è presentato.
La discussione su story-games è lunga, se volete seguirla ci sono altri post interessanti. Qualcuno ad un certo punto cita Polaris come un gioco che soffre di questo problema, ma prima Lehman chiarisce che Polaris non si gioca così, e poi Edwards chiarisce che non si riferiva a Polaris : "Polaris is probably the poster child of pre-narrated outcomes which work well, because it contains a formal de-escalation mechanism - "you ask far too much." De-escalation cancels chesting"
In generale, non solo con Polaris ma con la maggior parte degli altri giochi con Poste, se giocati seguendo le regole non avrebbero questo problema: ma spesso le regole vengono lette male, o frettolosamente, e si gioca con "poste contrapposte" (cosa che non si dovrebbe fare) e si corre il rischio di incappare nel problema...
