Mo Gets Interviewed
Right now Thomas is interviewing Mo over on his blog, Musings and Mental Meanderings. It’s quite an interesting read for those of you who may not have heard Mo’s gaming history.
I’d like to call special attention to her second reply where she talks about her experience with “soap” play live on stage — and the way that their blocked scenes resemble and do not resemble scene framing, scene targets, and that odd and illusive form of authorship in which people still create both character and story despite not being in directory control nor having final say over the shape of the story. It seems, to me, to point to a divide between authoring your character and authoring the story that has been under explored to this point. I know that it would explain a lot of why I can’t be comfortable playing in trad games while I can GM them with no problem — I am not a good author of character, only a good author of story. So when I can’t author the story in a moderately direct way, I choke. Mo, otoh, has a perfect background for authorship of character as primary and is used to indirectly pulling the story through character focus — which may be why she has a harder time GMing.
Anyway, my blathering speculations aside, it’s interesting stuff. Check it.
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Oh MAN! Authoring character. Of course! That’s one of the missing pieces I’ve been looking for.
Hmm… I wonder if there’s a strong correspondence between people who author character and people who read character… I wonder if there’s a similar correspondence between people who read character and people who author their own stories out of static text. I wonder if this is even the place to talk about this stuff.
Ah, sorry ’bout that. But, Brand, thanks. You just helped solve something that’s been bugging me for months. I guess I owe you one.
(Also, I’m still having to log in to comment. Just so you know.)
Thomas
Damnit with the logging in! Frag. I’ll have to go to the help forums at this point.
Anyway — you may be onto something. I also think that a lot of your recent posts have been pointing towards a difference between T/F styles of RP (and possibly I/E, though I’m less sure on that point). I do wonder if there is a link between TE players and authoring story and IF players and authoring character.
Now I need to finish the MB gamer type quiz….
Oh, for those wondering what the hell T/F and such are, the post is here: http://games.spaceanddeath.com/yudhishthirasdice/26
Need to finish the quiz? YES YOU DO! I mean, I really found your original article incredibly interesting, but what have you done for me lately, Brand?
Thomas
With the MBTI stuff, have you looked at the whole talk MB got into about inferior function and its development (I think its discussed in Gifts Differing)? I sort of wonder if you might track one style of player who plays their inferior function–who, through rp, develops that function more robustly.
On immersion–one of the best immersion games I played was run by a guy who definitely GM’ed in an SF mode. He has a knack for describing the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells of a scene in order to evoke an emotional response…hmmm, interesting line of thought. I’m glad I saw this.
Ian
Crap! I’d managed to miss MB’s stuff. That’s odd, I normally read her very closely. I’ll check it out.
Just so you know–I have been thinking a lot about all the typology stuff. There is a big chunk of brainspace dedicated to it in my head which I had totally forgotten about until I read this. It’s making up fo lost time.
When I went back and looked at you MBTI profiles, you are almost picture perfect–development of the inferior function through the medium of the auxiliary function…wow. Mo not so much…
Aside: my wife dislikes the new title ‘Wounded Lion.’ She heartily encourages a title like “Fisher Kings” if you want the injured motif, in spite of the gender issues. But she does spend a lot of time with Arhturiana, so take that with a grain of salt.
“Fisher Kings” is one I’d considered. Wounded Lion is the working title just because of the poem that heads off the MS (”the wounded lion still knows how to roar”). It almost certainly won’t be the final title.
I’m inconsistant like that.
In case you’re interested, here is my partial take on typology and gaming (had to get it out of my head):
Post 1
Post 2
I’m always a little unsure how kosher this sort of link posting is, so please say if it seems invasive. It just seemed nicer than glutting your comments.
–Ian
I am having comments eaten…now, the eaten comment had a link, which makes me wonder–is posting a link here a no-no?
(This is also an experiment to see if it will post without linkage…)
It’s a anti-spam thing, if you have two or more links it holds the comment for moderation. Now I have moderated, and your post is back up.
Yay!
Actual commentary in the next day or so, as I have to do birthday stuff today.