Ultimamente vedo in giro un sacco di descrizioni o di actual play che mi fanno una brutta impressione. L'elemento comune sembra sia la perdita del senso delle cose, della logica interna delle vicende, della caratterizzazione dei personaggi, in cerca dell'"effettaccio" facile.
E allora, credo sia utile postare questi brani, che avevo già postato tempo fa in un altro thread, ma stavolta dedicargli un thread apposito
Da
"Play Unsafe", di Graham Weasley:
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.[...]
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.Già che ci siamo, ecco un altro consiglio ESTREMAMENTE utile per giocare ai gdr narrativisti:
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.
[edit: sistemata la formattazione per il nuovo forum)
