I can't tell whether I've lost all interest in a 'specifically' story-game, or if I've hit a whole new level of 'holy shit!'.
#1: A DM/GM/Referee, in a role-playing game aka story-telling game (as I see them), basically serves as coach and facilitator for the rest of the players. You give storytelling tips, rules reminders, and just keep an eye on the overall social dynamic.
#2: Getting rid of the Facilitator (or GM) means the players have internalized the whole process, and now work much like a musical Band of folks jamming. Think of the period of time when they need the Referee as the time when they still learned their instruments, needed someone to write a song for them to practice, and keep them on track.
#3: But then, no matter what, you can tell two types of Story. One, 'Let's build a world together', and Two, 'Welcome to my World'. In both stories, fully realized players will influence the world and events, but on some level the buck stops with the World-holder. They have final say on what does or doesn't exist in their World, and this creates a different kind of story-experience for the rest of the players. The rest of the storytellers use their 'story minds' to engage with a world that they walk as guests in.
I think switching back and forth, between 'Let's build a world together' (like in In A Wicked Age, Primetime Adventures), and 'Welcome to my World' (Dogs in the Vineyard, Sorcerer) between sessions could create some really cool effects.
You could have all of this within the purview of a single system, a single game, that allows for switching back-and-forth to stretch different storytelling skills for folks.
In the end, developing the players/story-jammers ability to vividly and collaboratively dream in a waking state really sums up the end goal, for me.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
More Brain-diahrrea on an Animist Storytelling Game
Animist RPG
Make stories that connect to place, beginning with one's local watershed. A place where you can actually GO, you know? Where you can take other folks and tell "What happened here" that mattered. This game will differ from others in that way - keying off of a map of your area, you pick places you can actually go, and tell stories of what happened THERE. In fact, maybe a player can call bullshit on another player by saying "can I go there?" and then the story-telling player has to take the group there to prove it exists.
These places would hold stories in a 'dream time' sense - that either within human memory, or directly observably, one can find aspects of the landscape that one looks for.
In fact, maybe the story arc of animist RPG would have several basic scenarios, one based on reclaiming EMPATHY with the land (a 'forgiveness/gratittude' quest), one based on reclaiming family with the land (a 'coming home' quest), one based on choosing human family over false success (a 'ohana' type quest). A funeral, a birth, a wedding, a reunion. Maybe all these would go in a random-generator 'oracle', like In A Wicked Age?
Yeah, the story arc would go from one to another, escalating stakes, combining the everyday family drama with demonic and spirt courting of the local land relatives/gods, and also struggling with the local Machine agents (civilization).
The bottleneck of trying to make it through this last little time before the end decades of collapse, keeping the land alive and appreciated, plugging leaks and balancing out forces as best as possible.
HUGE REALIZATION
To wit: it could work like the In A Wicked Age Anthology machine, but each series of location, character, etc. would come from the festivals, feasts, and worthwhile events of the Neogypsy life. Thus the demonic adversaries would come from that too.
I want to avoid players playing the Dark Machine side, but maybe they have to, to make a good story? Does the GM have to? Eh?!
Players receive "fan mail" for good role playing, which they can put towards building new connections/relationships with humans or wights.
CONCRETELY
Stats/traits distributed on character sheet, shaped like tree: family and friends hang like fruit from the branches, one's land the trunk of the tree, one's ancestors the roots.
A bandanna = one's characer sheet = spirit bundle = assortment of objects that underscore relationships = mobile nature museum = bundles w/in bundles
each object adds coins to one's 'spare change' coffer (tiny box/cup that holds your change)
You play yourself
-your traits
-you step through the 'doorway to the land of 1,000 Kings/the game gives you permission to tell story this way
Fanmail = stuff you can't use yourself, but that you can offer to other players to help them (scavenger hunt for objects that will count as fanmail - the harder the hunt, the higher tracking level needed and/or developed)
Objects that come from Real Places on the Land. Soil from where your mother birthed you.
Spare Change random resolution: penny, nickel, dime, quarter.
You 'take damage' by losing coins in relationships. Once you go down to zero, that relationship turns into a Demon, and starts gaining power. Your opponent picks where to injure you.
Key words that create a conflict Demon. Trust, Grief, Anger, Self-doubt, Addiction, Entitlement. You start out with one conflict Demon. You claim it by telling a story from your own life when you struggled with this "demon'. Every time you lose a conflict involving this demon it gains one coin. If you win twice in a row, it reduces a coin.
A player can heal Demons only with the help of another player.
The focus of the game revolves around keeping the Land 'alive'. It's 'spiritual health' goes up or down (starting in a place the players choose), depending on the connection of the players to it, how well they court it and tend to it. Once it goes to zero, the Land gives up in grief, shrugs off her children, and starts over (or dies...). Once it gets to ten, the present cycle ends a new one begins.
You can raise coins in relationships by courting them. Whoever you have a relationship with has the same size coin in a relationship with you.
Coins go in circles on character sheet tree. Concentric rings with 4 sizes of circles. Blood, Bond, Trade, Introduced.
Quarters = Blood
Dimes = Bonds
Nickels = Trade
Pennies = Introduced
Relationships used once per game, unless refreshed by a courting scene. Relationships used go up a coin size between games, plus the amounts of time you refreshed it during the game.
Sets: home turf. You have relationships with certain places, and then a larger relationship with the Land itself. On your home turf you have more coins to throw, in essence.
Players can offer one bonus coin per scene to another player. Bonus coins/fanmail come from Scavenger hunt items that the GM rewards with one of the four coins, according to the item and the story behind it (the player sells it, telling the best tall tale full of travails and successes they can). They also can come from a story that you know of another player, in real life, that shows they have experienced a (distantly) similar situation.
Conflict Escalation and Taking the Blow:
Talking reduces die in Family and Friends
Physical reduces die in Land
Cursing reduces die in Ancestors
Praising raises die in Family and Friends
Dancing raises die in Land
Blessing raises die in Ancestors
Or...
Talking, Physical, Killing/Cursing.
or..
You can only use each relationship once per game.
All the rules on the character sheet, in an envelope, in the bundle.
Start the game by lighting a candle with a bowdrill fire, and everyone gets one bonus coin.
Baskets, bundles, boxes, and pots: four different bundles.
Teaching the Game:
The game has many levels of play. You start out at the simplest level. Each session adds a level of rules, until finally you have the whole ruleset in play.
Killling someone adds a Demon to your character sheet. Your family all share demons.
CONFLICTS
Look at their relationship map. Each branch represents an in-group. Conflict one branch's goals with another's. Conflict one person's goals with another's of the same branch. Etc. Conflict what an ancestor wants with what your brother wants.
Put your family members down as your first relationships, including immediate family (uncles, aunts, grandparents). If you have a pet, put them down. They all start at a penny. Put down your favorite animal, tree, plant, bird, fish.
If someone else has the same relationship (with the same being) as you, your coin there falls a level each time you conflict with them, at the end of the scene. You also can't use that relationship against them.
NEW RULE
When you 'take the blow', and lose a coin, you lose that coin until you set a special scene to court it back, or at the end of the session. Every time you use lose a relationship coin, it goes up in size between games.
Stakes determine whether or not you die (if you've staked your life on it!), how you get injured, consequences and such.
If you die, you become an ancestor, which means you still participate in the game, but instead of 'killing' you 'curse'.
Relationships to:
Skills, objects, family (IRL), friends(IRL), non-humans, places (personal sets) on the land, pets (IRL). Physical objects (proofs), held in a bundle, raise the coin level one. A photo of a grandma or a friend, a wristwatch, a leaf or piece of bark, a whisker, etc.
Conflicts with people with the same relationship as you cause you to lose that coin for the game. This of course will raise it up one size for the next game.
ESCALATION/BACK AND FORTH
Dogs in the Vineyard seems to most powerful parallel the rhythm I want, of call-and-response. What a genius. I wonder if you could do that with cards?
low stakes, because, like you said, otherwise they won't hesitate for a second
big bad raises, because those'll make them want to escalate
Make stories that connect to place, beginning with one's local watershed. A place where you can actually GO, you know? Where you can take other folks and tell "What happened here" that mattered. This game will differ from others in that way - keying off of a map of your area, you pick places you can actually go, and tell stories of what happened THERE. In fact, maybe a player can call bullshit on another player by saying "can I go there?" and then the story-telling player has to take the group there to prove it exists.
These places would hold stories in a 'dream time' sense - that either within human memory, or directly observably, one can find aspects of the landscape that one looks for.
In fact, maybe the story arc of animist RPG would have several basic scenarios, one based on reclaiming EMPATHY with the land (a 'forgiveness/gratittude' quest), one based on reclaiming family with the land (a 'coming home' quest), one based on choosing human family over false success (a 'ohana' type quest). A funeral, a birth, a wedding, a reunion. Maybe all these would go in a random-generator 'oracle', like In A Wicked Age?
Yeah, the story arc would go from one to another, escalating stakes, combining the everyday family drama with demonic and spirt courting of the local land relatives/gods, and also struggling with the local Machine agents (civilization).
The bottleneck of trying to make it through this last little time before the end decades of collapse, keeping the land alive and appreciated, plugging leaks and balancing out forces as best as possible.
HUGE REALIZATION
To wit: it could work like the In A Wicked Age Anthology machine, but each series of location, character, etc. would come from the festivals, feasts, and worthwhile events of the Neogypsy life. Thus the demonic adversaries would come from that too.
I want to avoid players playing the Dark Machine side, but maybe they have to, to make a good story? Does the GM have to? Eh?!
Players receive "fan mail" for good role playing, which they can put towards building new connections/relationships with humans or wights.
CONCRETELY
Stats/traits distributed on character sheet, shaped like tree: family and friends hang like fruit from the branches, one's land the trunk of the tree, one's ancestors the roots.
A bandanna = one's characer sheet = spirit bundle = assortment of objects that underscore relationships = mobile nature museum = bundles w/in bundles
each object adds coins to one's 'spare change' coffer (tiny box/cup that holds your change)
You play yourself
-your traits
-you step through the 'doorway to the land of 1,000 Kings/the game gives you permission to tell story this way
Fanmail = stuff you can't use yourself, but that you can offer to other players to help them (scavenger hunt for objects that will count as fanmail - the harder the hunt, the higher tracking level needed and/or developed)
Objects that come from Real Places on the Land. Soil from where your mother birthed you.
Spare Change random resolution: penny, nickel, dime, quarter.
You 'take damage' by losing coins in relationships. Once you go down to zero, that relationship turns into a Demon, and starts gaining power. Your opponent picks where to injure you.
Key words that create a conflict Demon. Trust, Grief, Anger, Self-doubt, Addiction, Entitlement. You start out with one conflict Demon. You claim it by telling a story from your own life when you struggled with this "demon'. Every time you lose a conflict involving this demon it gains one coin. If you win twice in a row, it reduces a coin.
A player can heal Demons only with the help of another player.
The focus of the game revolves around keeping the Land 'alive'. It's 'spiritual health' goes up or down (starting in a place the players choose), depending on the connection of the players to it, how well they court it and tend to it. Once it goes to zero, the Land gives up in grief, shrugs off her children, and starts over (or dies...). Once it gets to ten, the present cycle ends a new one begins.
You can raise coins in relationships by courting them. Whoever you have a relationship with has the same size coin in a relationship with you.
Coins go in circles on character sheet tree. Concentric rings with 4 sizes of circles. Blood, Bond, Trade, Introduced.
Quarters = Blood
Dimes = Bonds
Nickels = Trade
Pennies = Introduced
Relationships used once per game, unless refreshed by a courting scene. Relationships used go up a coin size between games, plus the amounts of time you refreshed it during the game.
Sets: home turf. You have relationships with certain places, and then a larger relationship with the Land itself. On your home turf you have more coins to throw, in essence.
Players can offer one bonus coin per scene to another player. Bonus coins/fanmail come from Scavenger hunt items that the GM rewards with one of the four coins, according to the item and the story behind it (the player sells it, telling the best tall tale full of travails and successes they can). They also can come from a story that you know of another player, in real life, that shows they have experienced a (distantly) similar situation.
Conflict Escalation and Taking the Blow:
Talking reduces die in Family and Friends
Physical reduces die in Land
Cursing reduces die in Ancestors
Praising raises die in Family and Friends
Dancing raises die in Land
Blessing raises die in Ancestors
Or...
Talking, Physical, Killing/Cursing.
or..
You can only use each relationship once per game.
All the rules on the character sheet, in an envelope, in the bundle.
Start the game by lighting a candle with a bowdrill fire, and everyone gets one bonus coin.
Baskets, bundles, boxes, and pots: four different bundles.
Teaching the Game:
The game has many levels of play. You start out at the simplest level. Each session adds a level of rules, until finally you have the whole ruleset in play.
Killling someone adds a Demon to your character sheet. Your family all share demons.
CONFLICTS
Look at their relationship map. Each branch represents an in-group. Conflict one branch's goals with another's. Conflict one person's goals with another's of the same branch. Etc. Conflict what an ancestor wants with what your brother wants.
Put your family members down as your first relationships, including immediate family (uncles, aunts, grandparents). If you have a pet, put them down. They all start at a penny. Put down your favorite animal, tree, plant, bird, fish.
If someone else has the same relationship (with the same being) as you, your coin there falls a level each time you conflict with them, at the end of the scene. You also can't use that relationship against them.
NEW RULE
When you 'take the blow', and lose a coin, you lose that coin until you set a special scene to court it back, or at the end of the session. Every time you use lose a relationship coin, it goes up in size between games.
Stakes determine whether or not you die (if you've staked your life on it!), how you get injured, consequences and such.
If you die, you become an ancestor, which means you still participate in the game, but instead of 'killing' you 'curse'.
Relationships to:
Skills, objects, family (IRL), friends(IRL), non-humans, places (personal sets) on the land, pets (IRL). Physical objects (proofs), held in a bundle, raise the coin level one. A photo of a grandma or a friend, a wristwatch, a leaf or piece of bark, a whisker, etc.
Conflicts with people with the same relationship as you cause you to lose that coin for the game. This of course will raise it up one size for the next game.
ESCALATION/BACK AND FORTH
Dogs in the Vineyard seems to most powerful parallel the rhythm I want, of call-and-response. What a genius. I wonder if you could do that with cards?
low stakes, because, like you said, otherwise they won't hesitate for a second
big bad raises, because those'll make them want to escalate
Friday, December 14, 2007
The Most Powerful Demon
I would say, the great demon that faces all the players, comes in the form of the Machine. For this era, and no other, it defines our greatest struggle.
The Machine wants what it wants. It needs submission to complete its desire of devouring the world.
End of Story.
The Machine wants what it wants. It needs submission to complete its desire of devouring the world.
End of Story.
Ron Edward's Sorcerer Game
I've enjoyed reading Ron's game, because it has a lot of parallels to the world I want my players to experience.
Animists regularly perceive all influences, whether anger, cold, sunlight, trees, wolves, as individuated forces with their own personal agency. One could call these 'demons', like in Sorcerer.
Also, the Humanity trait in the Sorcerer game reflects well on the modern (and really, eternal) human challenge of empathizing with the other over immersion in one's own narcissistic world of self. The Machine of modern day harnesses this narcissism for its own use (talk about a FUCKING DEMON!), but in the end, this challenge works intrinsically inside a human being. Human people have always struggled with this.
Where Sorceror diverges from my desired player experiences, begins in the notions of 'binding', of control over the demons. In T@EFW the players never control anything...they explicitly learn that all control operates illusorily. But they can sweet talk the world into helping them out, and they can create sincere friendships and family that back them up when needed.
To befriend, say, the Cold, doesn't mean that one can cause it to go, or come, or starve according to one's whims. But the player CAN enrich the Cold's life, feed it sweet things and sweet words, and sweet feelings, and warm (so to speak) the relationship between them. Then Cold becomes a welcome friend.
So how to see the world as populated with demons, with needs (for enacting of their own lifeway), and a desires (for appreciation), but not needing us to fulfill them? No binding, banishment, or summoning. But rather invitation, courtship, and (when the relationship falters) the loss of trust?
Animists regularly perceive all influences, whether anger, cold, sunlight, trees, wolves, as individuated forces with their own personal agency. One could call these 'demons', like in Sorcerer.
Also, the Humanity trait in the Sorcerer game reflects well on the modern (and really, eternal) human challenge of empathizing with the other over immersion in one's own narcissistic world of self. The Machine of modern day harnesses this narcissism for its own use (talk about a FUCKING DEMON!), but in the end, this challenge works intrinsically inside a human being. Human people have always struggled with this.
Where Sorceror diverges from my desired player experiences, begins in the notions of 'binding', of control over the demons. In T@EFW the players never control anything...they explicitly learn that all control operates illusorily. But they can sweet talk the world into helping them out, and they can create sincere friendships and family that back them up when needed.
To befriend, say, the Cold, doesn't mean that one can cause it to go, or come, or starve according to one's whims. But the player CAN enrich the Cold's life, feed it sweet things and sweet words, and sweet feelings, and warm (so to speak) the relationship between them. Then Cold becomes a welcome friend.
So how to see the world as populated with demons, with needs (for enacting of their own lifeway), and a desires (for appreciation), but not needing us to fulfill them? No binding, banishment, or summoning. But rather invitation, courtship, and (when the relationship falters) the loss of trust?
Two more Ceremonies
And the ultimate Ceremony, for most pitched of eloquence battles:
a meeting of the King's Court. Where a circle of elders and important adults who represent the will of the people, sitting on crates and boxes, upturned pails and pots, listen to the antique and eloquent articulations of different plaintiff's and defendants. They then adjudicate correspondingly.
And, of course, who can forget the Renewal ceremony, where the adults initiate adolescents by using their vitality to save the world again?
a meeting of the King's Court. Where a circle of elders and important adults who represent the will of the people, sitting on crates and boxes, upturned pails and pots, listen to the antique and eloquent articulations of different plaintiff's and defendants. They then adjudicate correspondingly.
And, of course, who can forget the Renewal ceremony, where the adults initiate adolescents by using their vitality to save the world again?
ELOQUENCE and POETRY SLAMS
Now I think the central focus of this game needs to revolve around this:
Eloquence and one-up-manship, in the spirit of Poetry Slams, but closer on the heels of the other. A kind of escalation, where players reward each other for particularly well delivered and heart-felt declamations.
This eloquence directly serves to maintain and build the relationships to the human and non-human family network. I focus on this because I want this game to develop LANGUAGE and ORATION skills, not just make pretty stories.
I think I could represent this network by using cards, each card representing a relationship with an entity (or group of entities). By using a version of a Relationship Map, per Ron Edward's Sorcerer and Soul supplement, one represents one of four kinds of relationship with a card: Blood (family), Bond (Friend), Trade (Associate), and Outland (stranger). This works with humans and non-humans (I'll only say that once - all relationship rules apply to everything).
In parallel to this, one has something akin to a Humanity/Machine score, where the more one compromises with the Machine world of civilization, by driving, watching TV, etc., the more one loses one's empathy and Humanity. So Humanity directly means the ability to court another being, using skills of empathy, etc. This also means that one can use pretty language and get bonus dice, but that if one's empathy/Humanity sinks too low then one doesn't have the sincerity to back it up.
The Machine, in the game, directly tempts the players to co-opt themselves for power, for safety, for influence, out of fear and a desire to control their lives. The Machine must seductively do this whenever possible.
Eloquence battles and relationship-building occur in four distinct ceremonies:
Funerals: someone or something has died
Christenings: a birth
Mootfeasts: a reuniting of friends or family
Seekings: a one-on-one sacrifice to open or renew a relationship, somewhat like a VisionQuest
The more people you can bring to your ceremony (besides a Seeking), the more powerful your ceremony.
Eloquence and one-up-manship, in the spirit of Poetry Slams, but closer on the heels of the other. A kind of escalation, where players reward each other for particularly well delivered and heart-felt declamations.
This eloquence directly serves to maintain and build the relationships to the human and non-human family network. I focus on this because I want this game to develop LANGUAGE and ORATION skills, not just make pretty stories.
I think I could represent this network by using cards, each card representing a relationship with an entity (or group of entities). By using a version of a Relationship Map, per Ron Edward's Sorcerer and Soul supplement, one represents one of four kinds of relationship with a card: Blood (family), Bond (Friend), Trade (Associate), and Outland (stranger). This works with humans and non-humans (I'll only say that once - all relationship rules apply to everything).
In parallel to this, one has something akin to a Humanity/Machine score, where the more one compromises with the Machine world of civilization, by driving, watching TV, etc., the more one loses one's empathy and Humanity. So Humanity directly means the ability to court another being, using skills of empathy, etc. This also means that one can use pretty language and get bonus dice, but that if one's empathy/Humanity sinks too low then one doesn't have the sincerity to back it up.
The Machine, in the game, directly tempts the players to co-opt themselves for power, for safety, for influence, out of fear and a desire to control their lives. The Machine must seductively do this whenever possible.
Eloquence battles and relationship-building occur in four distinct ceremonies:
Funerals: someone or something has died
Christenings: a birth
Mootfeasts: a reuniting of friends or family
Seekings: a one-on-one sacrifice to open or renew a relationship, somewhat like a VisionQuest
The more people you can bring to your ceremony (besides a Seeking), the more powerful your ceremony.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Random Thoughts on The Game
I have so many notes on this game, I almost feel overwhelmed by the amount of ideas. So I just wanna throw 'em up here. Brace yourselves!
Tears at the End of the Fourth World
About what does the game concern itself?
T@E4W concerns itself with secret underground tribes in the modern world holding families together and the connection to the land in the face of the last dying throes of an impossibly powerful and seductive world-devouring civilization.
What do the characters do?
They heal imbalances in the spirits of the land, stuck in the civilized net of pollution and mechanization. They travel through the Dreamtime to cure family sickness, to beat back demons. They resist the seduction of the machine world which always seeks to turn them to its ultimate purpose of reducing the living world to ash and ruin. By feeding the land and each other with poetry, song and gifts they build up the strength of their families and their relationships to the wild community of life to accomplish these purposes.
What do the players do?
They immerse themselves in the a web of relationships based on gifting, heartache, and peerage with wild non-human persons. The use their characters to explore the struggle central to the game, strengthening their family networks, deepening the relationship with their landbase, by taking risks to offer precious gifts to those they want to keep in their network of family and land. They take on the role of the Machine, pursuing nonstop these free families, until it can catch them and either put them to use or destroy them through spiritual and/or physical death.
IDEALLY
About what does your game concern itself?
Eloquence, Relationships, and the importance of Family and Connection to Land.
What do the characters do?
Court and maintain friendship, family, and allies (human and non-human), while avoiding the pitfalls and seductions of the civilized Machine culture dominating much of the world.
What do the players do?
By taking on the roles of their primary character, and of the supporting cast, including the agents of the Machine, they struggle to strengthen their family and land relationships while playing agents of the machine
---------------
What does your game provide?
It offers a structure in which players can reflect on their experiences with people and nature, and learn from them through story.
Much Like Land of One Thousand Kings, players may mine their own experiences with animals and plants to help others out in their attempts...
One collects relationships like cards in a deck - the more relationships, the more mythdeck cards.
----------------
What kinds of fun does your game encourage?
Competitive eloquence poetry slamming...of a 'A: Thank you! B: NO, thank YOU! A: NO, THANK YOU! B: Not even, THANKS TO YOU MORE!'
Playing with non-human perspective, values, and needs, much as the demons in sorcerer - What do trees want? What does the wind want? What does a river want?
[appreciation, companionship, perpetutation, and diversity (which mechanically supports the first two]
Players fill different roles of both humans, non-humans, and Machine demons, because the game encourages EMPATHY - what needs and feelings do these other beings have? Players also have a primary character, because the game encourages SACRIFICE - what will you offer of your limited resources, the hairs on your head, the coins in your pocket, the effort in your heart, to those you wish to connect with?
Players choose relationship goals with non-humans to increase throughout the game (fox, cedar, willa river, thunderheads). Relationships = character effectiveness.
Players experience the fun of another culture, a culture where allies and family, developed and maintained through gifting and eloquent courtliness, drive the central issues of play.
Ritual elements and phrases - "Hat's off!" combined with the doffing of headwear. Burning sage when asking a favor. Offering an artifact (something found from outside!) to drive character story.
----------
gameplay drives through a cycle of 5 roles, which a player can start in any place. Child, Initiate, Adult, Elder, and Ancestor. Players have a specific dynamic tied to their role - children wish to grow up, but have the power of 'beginner's mind' and play. Initiates wish to acquire reputation, but have passion and foolhardiness. Adults wish to create security for their families, but have reputation and craftiness . Elders wish to understand tradition, but have emptiness and physical fragility. Ancestors wish to help, but have hungers for the innocent youth if their families do not feed them.
When a role reaches loses its gifts and gains its goals (as they slowly shift over play), it then moves on to the next stage of life.
A player's role shifts as a partnered player (playing the demonic force) pushes bangs to force the player to make decisions and acquire world-wisdom.
--------------
GM or not GM?
A facilitator, standing outside of play, but coaching from the sidelines, enable players to stay focused and immerse themselves fully in the experience/flow. A player cannot both fully immerse and facilitate play. Possibly, to distribute the facilitators role among the players means to break up/stagger/periodize immersion in the flow of play.
Does an open space require a facilitator for full immersion? Only to kick it off, to provide structure and permission/pressure to engage the structure. After it starts, if the players have engaged, the facilitator can leave. If the players have not fully engaged the facilitator must stay present to refocus play/participation. But then of course what about closing? The facilitator must return for that.
Facilitators hold a precise space. Sometimes players internalize a facilitator role and it unconsciously distributes among them, but they needed a facilitator to get there.
Much like the dream interview game: Dreamer, Interviewer, Coach.
----------------
Tears at the End of the Fourth World
About what does the game concern itself?
T@E4W concerns itself with secret underground tribes in the modern world holding families together and the connection to the land in the face of the last dying throes of an impossibly powerful and seductive world-devouring civilization.
What do the characters do?
They heal imbalances in the spirits of the land, stuck in the civilized net of pollution and mechanization. They travel through the Dreamtime to cure family sickness, to beat back demons. They resist the seduction of the machine world which always seeks to turn them to its ultimate purpose of reducing the living world to ash and ruin. By feeding the land and each other with poetry, song and gifts they build up the strength of their families and their relationships to the wild community of life to accomplish these purposes.
What do the players do?
They immerse themselves in the a web of relationships based on gifting, heartache, and peerage with wild non-human persons. The use their characters to explore the struggle central to the game, strengthening their family networks, deepening the relationship with their landbase, by taking risks to offer precious gifts to those they want to keep in their network of family and land. They take on the role of the Machine, pursuing nonstop these free families, until it can catch them and either put them to use or destroy them through spiritual and/or physical death.
IDEALLY
About what does your game concern itself?
Eloquence, Relationships, and the importance of Family and Connection to Land.
What do the characters do?
Court and maintain friendship, family, and allies (human and non-human), while avoiding the pitfalls and seductions of the civilized Machine culture dominating much of the world.
What do the players do?
By taking on the roles of their primary character, and of the supporting cast, including the agents of the Machine, they struggle to strengthen their family and land relationships while playing agents of the machine
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What does your game provide?
It offers a structure in which players can reflect on their experiences with people and nature, and learn from them through story.
Much Like Land of One Thousand Kings, players may mine their own experiences with animals and plants to help others out in their attempts...
One collects relationships like cards in a deck - the more relationships, the more mythdeck cards.
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What kinds of fun does your game encourage?
Competitive eloquence poetry slamming...of a 'A: Thank you! B: NO, thank YOU! A: NO, THANK YOU! B: Not even, THANKS TO YOU MORE!'
Playing with non-human perspective, values, and needs, much as the demons in sorcerer - What do trees want? What does the wind want? What does a river want?
[appreciation, companionship, perpetutation, and diversity (which mechanically supports the first two]
Players fill different roles of both humans, non-humans, and Machine demons, because the game encourages EMPATHY - what needs and feelings do these other beings have? Players also have a primary character, because the game encourages SACRIFICE - what will you offer of your limited resources, the hairs on your head, the coins in your pocket, the effort in your heart, to those you wish to connect with?
Players choose relationship goals with non-humans to increase throughout the game (fox, cedar, willa river, thunderheads). Relationships = character effectiveness.
Players experience the fun of another culture, a culture where allies and family, developed and maintained through gifting and eloquent courtliness, drive the central issues of play.
Ritual elements and phrases - "Hat's off!" combined with the doffing of headwear. Burning sage when asking a favor. Offering an artifact (something found from outside!) to drive character story.
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gameplay drives through a cycle of 5 roles, which a player can start in any place. Child, Initiate, Adult, Elder, and Ancestor. Players have a specific dynamic tied to their role - children wish to grow up, but have the power of 'beginner's mind' and play. Initiates wish to acquire reputation, but have passion and foolhardiness. Adults wish to create security for their families, but have reputation and craftiness . Elders wish to understand tradition, but have emptiness and physical fragility. Ancestors wish to help, but have hungers for the innocent youth if their families do not feed them.
When a role reaches loses its gifts and gains its goals (as they slowly shift over play), it then moves on to the next stage of life.
A player's role shifts as a partnered player (playing the demonic force) pushes bangs to force the player to make decisions and acquire world-wisdom.
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GM or not GM?
A facilitator, standing outside of play, but coaching from the sidelines, enable players to stay focused and immerse themselves fully in the experience/flow. A player cannot both fully immerse and facilitate play. Possibly, to distribute the facilitators role among the players means to break up/stagger/periodize immersion in the flow of play.
Does an open space require a facilitator for full immersion? Only to kick it off, to provide structure and permission/pressure to engage the structure. After it starts, if the players have engaged, the facilitator can leave. If the players have not fully engaged the facilitator must stay present to refocus play/participation. But then of course what about closing? The facilitator must return for that.
Facilitators hold a precise space. Sometimes players internalize a facilitator role and it unconsciously distributes among them, but they needed a facilitator to get there.
Much like the dream interview game: Dreamer, Interviewer, Coach.
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