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.
Friday, December 14, 2007
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
---------------
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.
----------------
Friday, December 7, 2007
A Design Diary for an Animist RPG
With the help of Jason Godesky, I've started to see both the power and possibility of role-playing games as ritual aids to transforming our minds and hearts.
Jason's trail of inquiry led me to discover the indie role-playing games movement. Much like indie comics, these games seek to push the perceived limits on what we can experience when we play role-playing games.
I'd love another tool in my basket to accomplish my constant question: how can I experience an animist worldview more deeply? How can help others do the same?
Would a role-playing game help accomplish this? Perhaps. Lets find out together!
Jason's trail of inquiry led me to discover the indie role-playing games movement. Much like indie comics, these games seek to push the perceived limits on what we can experience when we play role-playing games.
I'd love another tool in my basket to accomplish my constant question: how can I experience an animist worldview more deeply? How can help others do the same?
Would a role-playing game help accomplish this? Perhaps. Lets find out together!
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