GCG

To yet clarify my Narrativism point before the thread dies: I indeed use it in the broader, not-so-Forgean sense, as it has been appropriated by several people, apparently individually, from the older roots (such as historical narrativism - seeing history as a set of stories - which was referenced earlier). Ron's definition is one very essential to role-playing, but professional ludologists such as Juul and Aarseth have come to it from a different direction. The sense in general is "players who want a very clear, strong story to unfold, for either themselves or for the game in general" - which is of course somewhat different from Ron's no-one-story, due to the other theorists also covering stuff like video games.

And when I speak of Serpente failing in the case of Narrativist people who require a "clear GM vision on the story", I do not mean railroading. No forced plot or theater-expectations there. The issue, in my view, is about how much instruction the differing players want/need/request/presume from the GM on the issue of making the game provide them with sufficient stories. In other words, some players seem to want very clear instructions/permissions on how they are supposed to make the game their own (as opposed to being forced to follow a railroad), or establish story background, where many others just adapt and invent.

I witnessed this myself at Modcon, where one player kept running to me during play (off-game) for extra information while others just adapted and invented. What makes that case intriguing is that the player who asked for more info was then easily able to add those to the way he played, and made it all a stronger experience for everyone because of it. (Very typical - larps do benefit from playing style differences.) But his need for a "GM permission" on the choices was very obvious. A certain demographic of players apparently feels it problematic to follow their own impulses if the GM's intents seem to contradict (to them, true or not) their needs. And then the game seems "bad" or "insufficient" to them.

Yes, it is. It works mostly on a very low-key level of interaction (unless the players choose otherwise themselves), and this is one more way to facilitate the player freedom. Other games of mine can be very different in structure, play-style and intent. Serpente is supposed to go very, very near real-life experiences by former cult members, and for that (too) it needs a certain lack of pre-defined codes of conduct. And unlike in many other games, for Serpente some normally very useful low-key instructions would be just distorting (for most players, anyway).

Indeed there is no point in continuing this further, as you refuse to see any other point of view besides your own as even remotely valid, Moreno, and twist refusals to accept that into supposed ad hominems against you..

1. As I said above, your opinions and critique have been noted as a valid minority opinion, and I have at no point suggested you lie. I simply do not, as so many other people have contradicted your comments over these years, accept that your viewpoint is anything more than just your own, or that of a very small minority demographic. This is not data manipulation, but basic statistical analysis. "One Moreno does not a crowd make, but his opinion, too will be noted as a valid point of view."

2. I have at no time claimed that you have lied. However, I do think that you enter many games with the expectation of seeing them fail, and thus - at least for you - they do. And furthermore, you have very clear pre-expectations on what is a "good game", and that it differs in many cases a lot from that of others.

3. To add text for a more defined instruction on how to play would be to remove some freedom of choice. So no, ultra-explicit-clarity-requiring people like you were not worth making the game less good for the great majority.

4. In the games where no changing of opinion was included, it was always, always clearly said to be so. Thus no contradiction.

Until now, I have really valued your criticisms of the games we have been discussing, because they have shown that there really is a set of players whose preferences differ a lot from the rest, and that they get easily ignored.

But at the point where you claim that since I do not consider you the majority opinion of what is good and proper in a game, I must be forging my research data, you go well over the line. And that offends the game designer, the university theologian and the professional  scientist  in me, to the point where I will have to simply disregard your commentary as inherently supremacist to the level of potential non-credibility.

(Should anyone besides Moreno have more to talk about on the scenario, please do. I will be happy to continue any reasonable discussion on it.)

Again, brief commentary for some of those multiple points that arose during the night:

1. Moreno, yout comment on the problem of not knowing "can I change my mind" completely explains everything: In any setting in real life, most people change their minds constantly (in very small ways, at least), or are at least given new thoughts about what they have encountered, if they stay their old course. And since Serpente is a larp, not a theatre piece, any player who is incapable of understanding that they can change their character's mind during play will very likely be utterly unable to grasp the point of the game - because he's of the type to whom changing a viewpoint is very alien in the first place in his real life, too.

2. Mauro, the whole point of this particular scenario is that beyond the setting and the discussion, which are very obvious as concepts to most (their value may not be, which is a part of this debate now), is that it grows and changes according to what the players do to it. To add "How should I play this" kind of things would make it actually more restrictive. As would a general "what can I or can't I do in the game" beyond the parts said in the text.

3. All of the characters are based on the psychological profiles of so-called "cult survivors" in real life. They all contain a bare minimum of material in them, meaning some have clear opinions on subjects others do not. The way I (and many) see Moreno's character is that it just gives his/her style of talking ("speaks a lot, is sarcastic, sometimes even mean"), his opinion of religion ("not sure right now") and his personal reason for showing up. It does not, however, define for example his views on many things the other characters will want to talk about.

If I want to make an argument go round and round, I will write into the character something like "You will never change your mind" or "You are a fanatic" - but that will in my view always make said character effectively an NPC, because his choices are now limited. This is very different from Moreno's inability to read basic liberties and the addition of normal human behavior on a half-page of character text.

All of my convention games work on the premise that people should not change anything from the character background, but they are free to fill in the blanks and add more. I personally always emphasize this before play, and it's written down in most of them. But, again, this is very different from "am I allowed to change my mind".

Moreno, it is now obvious to me that you have completely missed both the adaptability of the character and the point of the game. Because strangely enough, many people in various countries have somehow managed to make that character their very own, and have had no problem with making the game run very differently from one run to the next.

As I have said before, the problem is that you have a very limited concept yourself on where a character should offer freedoms, and where you can add more yourself. And that is not an issue of debate, but an issue of your prejudices against certain types of design. You somehow manage to take a very, very open script and consider it limiting in a manner you are not comfortable with, then call that a general fault, and blame people for defending it.

And thus you are indeed moving towards the "murk" approach, just from a different direction. If the design has one problem - and this one it certainly does  - is that it does not work at all for people who have such a narrow vision of "playable larp" as yourself. This also happened, for example, at a run in Scotland to some extent. And my view, based on actual field data (Serpente, for example, has now been run at least 17 times, in at least 10 countries - as some people may have not told me of running it) instead of just a personal opinion like yours, is that most of the people who have a strongly negative reaction to it are people who want a communicated narrative vision - but on their own terms, and do not see adaptability even when it stares them in the face, because the game's nuances are too subtle for them.

As I will not want this to develop into me defending the design, Moreno insulting it (as he most certainly will, if the last post is any indicator), I suggest people take a look at it themselves. The communication gap is obvious enough. For me, the numbers say that the problems is at the other end, not in me constructing straw men to cover the "design fault" that some players simply can't adapt to different styles of play.