Meh, sort of, if you want to frame it that way. I look at it more in terms of communication between colllaborators. If we sit down and say, “We’re going to play Dogs in the Vineyard” I don’t think I’m making a power play if I expect to have a lineup of funky dice in front of me. Cause, I mean let’s be frank here, I like playing with fiddly dice. But if we sit down and say, “The game is Dogs in the Vineyard, but we’re not going to resolve every conflict with dice.” then I won’t be expecting my parade of funky dice as much. Dig?

“Here’s what I think: I think I need to see 1000 Stories.”

Yea, yea, yea….

I’ll actually get the playtest file done as soon as I finish my current project. One book more, then I’m done and can do it and Lion in Winter.

Of course, I can’t finish the book until I finish writing lists. Fucking Jason.

Yeah, I’ve never played one without a mix of both either.

It would be really hard, functional or not, to design mutually desireable options 100% of the time, given that people are what they are (and that we’re talking about the desires of both players and characters). But damn, if you could do that, fuck RPG’s, I think *life* would be easier!

You said:

“Which is not to say that I dislike drama resolution or social interaction; in fact, when I sit down at the table to play a game where those play a large part of the game, I’m all about playing with those tools. But if I sit down to play a game with one set of tools, and you sit down to play the “same” game but want to use a different set of tools, we’re headed straight for some disconnect.”

Right, so both of you need to get on the same page.

Which brings the question — why should one person get to just assume that their set of tools and ideas about how to play is the priveleged one, the correct one, or the obviously right one?

If Mo goes to do drama in the middle and you go to do fortune at the end, who says you are right? Who says that your fortune resolution ideas about how to play the game are the ones that everyone else should follow in order to make the game go?

In other words: isn’t this really all a question of who has the power and how they use it? You can be just as much a socially manipulative ass by rules lawyering, insisting that you want to play the game ‘by the rules’ that are only your interpretation of the rules, and melling and vetching about mechanics as you can by refusing to interact with the mechanics, avoiding conflicts, and short-circuting the system.

No body gets to be right here. There are just methods of making a game work (or not work) and a need to identify them and why they work (or don’t work) in specific situations, with specific groups, and in the hands of specific people.

So using drama-based pulls is as kosher in every game as strict reliance on fortune resolution in every game is.

Of course, I’ve never seen either one actually happen in any game ever. Usually its a mix of both. (In fact, I’d say a pure and total application of either in a real game is probably impossible without some level of dysfunction. I could be wrong, but I’ve neither seen nor heard of a case where a total example of either worked out well.)

*looks at Brand who’s supposed to be turning our notes into a first draft*

Here’s what I think: I think I need to see 1000 Stories.

Well, yeah, of course we are, have I ever given you reason to think that I would make a post advocating that it’s a good healthy strategy to bitch and moan or use emotional blackmail to get your way or is this just a reader baggage bias?

It seems to me, though, that Dogs is built on the assumption that Say Yes is reserved for stuff that doesn’t especially matter, or situations where dice would be an anticlimax to what’s already been narrated.

I disagree. Strongly disagree.

The Yes is there because what matters is that dice only be rolled when there is a reason for the dice to be rolled. So if the drama is good and premise is addressed and we can both agree on what’s happening in the fiction, then essentially there is nothing at stake, and the dice should not be rolled.

Consider this: I don’t mind my character completely losing face in public. You want to make my character lose face. You push it to a conflict. We set the stakes, I give as soon as the dice are rolled. Would that be more satisfying? What would be the point?

In the example, I used in the post, I said that the puller, pulled drama resolution from the other player and the other player accepted it even though “FatE is his mechanical right in the game” So, the player is getting what he wants, right? The point isn’t making a demand to use one resolution over another, it’s to produce play satisfying enough for both players, so that the other resolution isn’t required.

But if I sit down to play a game with one set of tools, and you sit down to play the “same” game but want to use a different set of tools, we’re headed straight for some disconnect.

Yes, that’s absolutely true, but in a sense, it’s what we do every single time we sit down at a table together, isn’t it? The tools in Josh’s social toolbox ≠ Mo’s social toolbox ≠ Brand’s social toolbox ≠ Laura’s social toolbox. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk about push and pull in the first place.

Here’s the thing: were I at the table with you, and I was giving you everything you were asking for and you made a habit of demanding the fortune mechanic just for the sake of interacting with the tool that would seriously start to annoy me. Which one of us is dysfunctional? Neither. It’s a creative/technical agenda issue, plain and simple.

So yes, this is my long winded answer to say I assume that I can use drama based pulls in any game I play in unless it’s disruptive to someone, and then it becomes an issue of negotiating social contract. Nobody’s ever had so much of a problem with me giving them exactly the kind of drama that they’re looking for to ask me to stop doing it, though.

Now, when you’re talking about a pull in this case, you are talking about something that both sides really and truly want, not something that one side wants and the other side lets them have because they don’t want to argue over it any further. Yes? Because while I can see the glorious potential of the good pull, I think I’ve experienced a whole lot of bad, pestering, whiney pulls that are best described as “social pressure” rather than collaboration. So, unless I’m off base here, we’re talking about a player using a mutually beneficial and mutually appreciated pull rather than resorting to fortune resolution.

Now, in some instances, as in Dogs with its “Say Yes or Roll Dice” rule, this sort of sidestep is, indeed, Play As Normal. Dogs allows for this — up to a point. It seems to me, though, that Dogs is built on the assumption that Say Yes is reserved for stuff that doesn’t especially matter, or situations where dice would be an anticlimax to what’s already been narrated.

Rolling Dice, on the other hand, is reserved for the stuff that matters, and the GM is directed to guide play and players towards conflicts, to test and challenge them and to continually ask, “Is that true now? How about now? How about now?” The fortune resolution as provided structures that continual question, channeling play into (reductively put) “How far are you willing to go to stand up for your belief?” If the fortune resolution is sidestepped entirely and is consistently avoided throughout an entire town, that structure doesn’t get used. Could the players cooperatively and collaboratively replicate the one-ups-manship and pressure of escalation without the dice? Maybe. Could they do it reliably? Perhaps.

Now, I’m going to just skip the “But are you playing Dogs at that point?” question, because it’s a moot point. Whether or not your game at home matches the game at Vincent’s table is pretty much totally irrelevant. We’re talking about your game at your table and stuff that you can do to have an enjoyable experience with your friends.

Here’s the thing: were I at the table with you, and you made a habit of avoiding the fortune resolution, that would start to annoy me. It would especially annoy me if we got into any player-versus-player situation where I want to use the fortune resolution and the stats that I am provided with and you want to instead use drama resolution and social interaction.

Which is not to say that I dislike drama resolution or social interaction; in fact, when I sit down at the table to play a game where those play a large part of the game, I’m all about playing with those tools. But if I sit down to play a game with one set of tools, and you sit down to play the “same” game but want to use a different set of tools, we’re headed straight for some disconnect.

So I’ve taken a long-winded and winding approach to get to the point where I ask if the option of using drama-based pulls rather than relying strictly on the fortune resolution is something that is part of the social contract from the start, or do you consider this tactic kosher for any game you play in?

Drama instead of Fortune. It’s giving something the other player will want to say yes to before it comes to dice. It might be subverting the formal system, I guess, but that would depend on the system. If the system is, for example, “Say Yes or roll dice” then it’s not subverting it at all.

I’d also say that “social pressure” is a loaded term. There’s always going to be some social negotiation to get to the point of fortune, otherwise, how do you get to a “No” point?

I’m illustrating the difference between: “I choose to do the thing that opposes.” “I just choose whithout thinking whether it opposes or compliments.” and “I choose to do something we’ll both want.”

For clarification, Mo, are you talking about using Drama resolution instead of Fortune, or using Drama to set up things so that, when the dice are rolled, the ensuing narration is something that fits the players’ sensibilities?

Cause using Drama-ish Pull-ness to set up the Fortune seems, to me, to be Play As Normal. Using Dramapull instead of Fortune seems, to me, to be subverting the formal system by means of social pressure.

Which is it, am I missing something, and can you clarify?

Danke!

I feel the same way

I mean, the trip we’re going on is fricken amazing, and I couldn’t pass it up, but I was actually really looking forward to it (which in itself is a miracle, given my past feelings of cons). That C&P should debut there without me? That you all should cavort and run amok without the Brand and Mo? A crime, that is.

Yes! I’ve give that some thought too, though it seems to big to tackle at the moment.

It would be interesting to get together a small, tight group of folks who have played and know a whole whack of the nar games well, to do just that kind of thing with what’s existing out there, just for fun.

I agree that many of the games are to bound up in their context to translate into a patchwork design, but they might produce interesting and unexpected results when put into a different context, and therefore might teach us something interesting.

Phew! I know it’s been, like 10? 11? years since we talked, but for a minute in your first reply you sounded like a different person altogether. Now you’re sounding much more like you.

I do wonder whether you can completely explore your ideas in a community that is overwhelmingly devoted to a totalist theory of gaming…

I would wonder the same thing, if I thought that that was the case where I am standing, but I don’t. I think the “community” that you refer to is not the “community” that I refer to.

I assume you’re talking The Forge. The community that I interact with on a regular basis are either Never Forgites (E.g. Jess Pease, Jessica Hammer, Nancy, Me) mostly lapsed Forgites (E.g. Jonathan Walton, Chris Chinn, Shreyas),a hand full of Forgites who fall into three categories (these are categories in my head, so nobody get mad here) Heretical Forgites (E.g. Brand and Christain) Borderline Forgites (Meg Baker & Emily Care Boss), to a lesser extent, Core Forgites (E.g. Vincent Baker, Matt Wilson) and the community on Story Games, which insists it’s not a Theory community at all. That’s hardly a uniform front.

So when I see something like Push/Pull I have to wonder wether or not it ought to be one of the keystones of a separate group of ideas, and whether or not it should, in itself, be appraoching from a position of power within its own framework *instead* of offering it to the dominant form of discourse.

I don’t think that the two things can or need to be mutually exclusive, unless I’m going to keep it to myself. I post things I think I should post on my own blog. I use my own language, I do my own thing.

Many of the folks I interact with are intrigued by some of the things I have to say, but they come from a Forge background and so they have been taught to speak in the dominant discourse, and this means that even though they may or may not be branching out or away from Forge models, they still need to evaluate what they hear against what they know in order to reach a point of understanding.

Just because it has been translated into the dominant discourse, doesn’t mean that it’s been lost, or that I won’t, over here in my corner of the world keep talking about it in my own language.

The benefit of it is, that a lot of those people now are beginning to speak my language too, and they are producing their own sparks and ideas that are growing the open application of the things I am talking about, not in my way, not in the Forgey way, but in their own hybrid way, and the effort of that extension has, been, for the most part, valuable if not always particularly fun.

are the subtleties of that dialogue going to be remembered when they are retold within dominant theory?

Should I care? (Really – Honest question.) I mean, so I’ll be a footnote over there. I’ll be a main body of work over here, and maybe the people who, like me, can’t find a home over there will come check me out.

In the end, revolutionizing the Forge isn’t my goal. Opening a dialogue about the social pathology of gaming is, and I’m being at least quasi successful at it. I’d also like to design a different kind of game, and I’m certainly doing that. I’d love for there to be others who create games that I will like better because of the dialogue I opened up. It looks like I’m starting to be successful there too, maybe.

I think that the current state of affairs will, unfortunately, require some textual violence, straight up. And it should be gladly meted out for the sake of the whole enterprise.

This is where you and I very much differ. I think that part of the problem on the current forums of discussion out there is due to textual violence. My general sense is that some strongly and clearly spoken textual ahisma is what is actually needed.

My question is: Are you willing to make other people feel uncomfortable?

Heh.

If you think I’m not already making people uncomfortable, then you’re not paying attention (or simply are not reading the screens I’m reading).

p.s. Brand told me today that you got married in the fall, and that you have a new step-son. Congrats! I was thrilled to hear it. I told him that I thought you’d make a great dad. Everything blissful on that front?

Assuming you’re right, and the structures I’m talking about are informed by a position hostile to my own and are an attempt to invalidate my experience, I’m a little confused as to why you (of all people) would try and deter me from initiating dialogue to expose that kind of aggressive subversion and devise strategies to undermine or co-opt it.

No no, that’s not really what I’m trying to say. What I’m saying is that I wonder where you could go *without* working within that structure.

I feel that one of the most important elements of discourse within a field is the dialogue between developed systems of thought, above and beyond a personal, marginal dialogue with a single intellectual edifice. So when I see something like Push/Pull I have to wonder wether or not it ought to be one of the keystones of a separate group of ideas, and whether or not it should, in itself, be appraoching from a position of power within its own framework *instead* of offering it to the dominant form of discourse.

Love ya, Malcolm (and it is good to hear from you) but what I hear in this reply is: “Stop talking.” just as clearly as I heard it when people told me “pull doesn’t exist”.

*Please* don’t get that impression at all. All I’m saying is that:

A) If you recognize issues there, there are going to be some difficulties arising from them.

B) If there are other avenues you can use to get around this, I think you should use them.

I do wonder whether you can completely explore your ideas in a community that is overwhelmingly devoted to a totalist theory of gaming, but I would hardly say that a dialogue is useless.

I do not see the Push/Pull as being “folded” into resolution. If Brand or Vincent had said P/P is, and only is DatE/DitM, I would have vehemently disagreed with them. What Brand did say is “However, I don’t think that DitM/DatE is all of push and pull…P/P was also concerned with emotional and social issues and how those effect game play.”

Well, Brand is a pretty smart guy:-)

I see the DatE/DitM discussion as a means to connect a section of a jigsaw puzzle (the trees, say) over to that section of sky over there. I don’t feel that its distinctiveness has been destroyed in any way, I just think that a bridge (temporary or permanent) has been established to allow the horizon to be opened.

Maybe. At the same time, are the subtleties of that dialogue going to be remembered when they are retold within dominant theory? Or is it just going to be a footnote in the way that years of gender discussion has, in the end, merited subjection within the social contract concept?

And immersion? Well immersion as a theoretical concept (rather than an actuality) kind of deserves to be hated, not because it isn’t real and valid and functional and fun, but because as a term it is a miasma of different playstyles that really shouldn’t be captured under the same header. It’s theoretical quicksand.

I have to disagree with you here, because to my mind, it breaks a rule of functionality in theory. People invent folk-terms like “immersion” because they reflexively experience and define these things. It is incumbent upon the theorist to ask why this is and to use that as the locus for thinking, instead of saying, “There’s this word, so let’s talk about what it *really* is,” as if it wasn’t performing a function to begin with. As if, y’know, the people talking about immersion were being dumb.

Eventually you and I and the rest of the community might get to a place where we can sort those styles out, and reach a clarity of discussion that won’t put people’s backs up so violently – and allow some actual work to replace all the shouting.

I think that the current state of affairs will, unfortunately, require some textual violence, straight up. And it should be gladly meted out for the sake of the whole enterprise. The heart of current theory is based on an entrenched totalist model that entertains the biases of its most vocal adherents. That’s one reason why I’m not suggesting you should reject the rest of the community. My question is: Are you willing to make other people feel uncomfortable?