GCG

Hi everyone,

The Kickstart to provide the annotated/new version of Sorcerer with amazing covers is now live, at:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/847190685/sorcerer-upgrade

The text for these books is in English ... so far.

Best, Ron

My answer is much less complicated than Moreno's: Tunnels & Trolls, 5th edition, 1979 (1st was in 1975).

Best, Ron

Fixed.

I think this is on topic: I've just begun a group activity at the new forum which I think will be fun for many people who post here at GCG. Come by and see it in the "My Stuff" section.

Best, Ron

Meaning #2 is correct. “Interest” in this phrase always means “to a character’s advantage.” As I’m applying it to role-playing, I am strictly staying with the in-fiction character. Players’ desires or sense of advantage in the real world are completely irrelevant. I am especially not talking about what the player or anyone else wants to see happen to the character.

The concept is quite flexible for certain variables, however, and different games permit different ranges within the flexibility. For instance:

1. The character’s perceived advantage may be real or mistaken, which means there are three subset possibilities: he accurately perceives an advantage, he perceives an advantage but there is none, he does not perceive an advantage (and therefore is trying to do something else entirely), but one does exist. Some games permit the conflict to occur in all three cases, some in only the first two. An example of a game mechanic which plays this distinction for comedy is the Dumb Luck score in my game Elfs.

2. A character’s action relative to the advantage may be knowledgeable or ignorant. In some games, the character may only participate effectively in the conflict if he is aware of it, whereas others permit both. For an example of the latter case, a character might oppose being shot from ambush by stooping to pick up an interesting rock, despite being unaware of the impending attack. In some games which allow the latter, the distinction is absent in the mechanics; in others, it is represented by two different mechanics. An example of this last type of game is Extreme Vengeance, which includes two scores, one for Guts and one for Coincidence … either of which can harm the opponent.

The simplest version is obviously that an advantage exists (not being eaten by the ghoul), that the character is aware of this advantage (the ghoul is attacking him), and the character takes action to prevent it (he tries to smash the ghoul’s head with his hammer). However, this simplicity can be a trap because it seems so obvious that you solve the conflict through completing one or more tasks as necessary … but that “obvious” perception is grossly mistaken. Many games break down mechanically as soon as the situation becomes more complex than this utterly simple situation. When this happens, understanding that the conflict of interest is what needs to be resolved, no matter what the task or tasks being undertaken, is crucial. Otherwise you instantly enter the Murk.

Best, Ron

Hi Ezio,

I will tell you, although in English.

Playing in character is something you can always do, with any character. When you feel a strong identification or inspiration for that character, then speak for them, say what they do, and I hope, do these things in a creative, engaged way.

(The owner of a principal character has veto powers over anything substantial (see the Flashpoint effects lists for what that means) stated for that character by someone else, but notice the very limited nature of that rule. You cannot, for instance, veto a stated action for your principal and say what he or she does instead. Nor is your permission required for anything non-critical stated for your principal.)

It is very, very simple - perhaps too simple when a person has spent their life creating, owning, speaking for, and stating the actions of a single character as the defining act of the hobby.

Think of all the reasons why - the purposes - of creating, owning, speaking for, and stating the actions of a single character. All that effort. All those sheets of paper. All the chapters of the character history. All the numbers. Think about what you do it for, in play.

Now skip all that stupid bullshit, forget that you always associated that purpose with ownership, and simply do it for any character you want, for the simple reason that you feel like you understand that character and have a very strong urge to do it.

That is why the two principals are not necessarily player-characters. Or to put it better, any character becomes a player-character when someone is playing him or her in that way.

You may be running into some trouble because you associate playing a character with creating that character and exerting exclusive ownership rights over him or her. Abandon that association and role-play any character in the story when and how you want.

Spione offers more individual-character role-playing to everyone present than any other game ... because you can always do it when you really want to, with any character in the story.

Best, Ron

Moreno, I've come to think of Illusionism as the negative extreme, with any "in the know" indicating some degree of Participationism.

The distinction you're drawing is very finely-drawn, as I see it, perhaps too finely to matter. I see almost, perhaps complete identity between your two phrases: "the player's knowlege of being in a 'story before' situation" and "on the use of the 'Black Veil' by the GM." Well, maybe not complete. But very nearly complete.

It's no surprise that the author of Under Illefarn was Steve Perrin, no stranger to devotees of early RuneQuest. In fact, I recognize most of the authors of that series, notably Aaron Allston, one of the heavy hitters of early Champions.

Alessandro, I agree with Moreno. Not all settings are suitable, not intrinsically. I think it's possible to invent certain depth or details into a printed setting to make it more interesting; I found myself doing this when I was reading the Al-Qadim material, for example. The only problem with doing this is implementing it for actual role-playing, when I discovered that (whenever I tried) I was forced actually to re-write the whole setting.

My personal list of settings in the three relevant categories include

Powerful as written, play as written, bask in the wonderfulness: DeGenesis, Center Space, Glorantha (in a class by itself), Venus 2141

Plenty of potential but the authors didn't use it, highlight it, or perhaps even know it, or if they did, it was dodged or buried under crusts of other nonsense: Justifiers, Planescape, Underground, Fading Suns, The Whispering Vault, Tribe 8, The End

Very pretty but ultimately unusable for Story Now play, needs to be rewritten and profoundly re-focused in order to be played in this fashion: Al-Qadim, Jorune, Space: 1889

Please note that the above lists refer to the settings as written, without reference to the systems or instructions for play. Also note that I have omitted certain settings which are very good but require specific input from the GM (Zero, Lacuna), or any games in which setting is built by the group in some way (shock;, Sign in Stranger, In a Wicked Age, Sorcerer). Finally, the lists are not complete, merely intended as a snapshot.

Leonardo, I think the step you've raised deserves deep discussion in an Actual Play thread. It is, I think, an issue specific to this particular kind of play, both socially and procedurally.

... I feel that what makes a setting-centric Story Now game click in the long run and what makes some players interested in the game at first doesn't always coincide.

I agree. What that means to me is, my priority is not to make as many people in my gaming group attracted to this particular project for play, but rather to play it only with people who are.

... if you want the game to be even possible, you better put your project on hold or find someone who is almost as excited as you are.

Yes. Again, I think you should start a thread about how this was actually brought into practical, functional role-playing activity. I'd love to contribute to a discussion about that issue.

Best, Ron