cause-based presupposes that the group (players and GM) have a means of deciding what is appropriate for a certain power (or origin, or what have you) and thereby what gets into play.
Exactly. Which is part of what I'm trying to build. Imagine the defining of Causes as being analgous to a PtA Pitch session, where everyone agrees to how the supers setting will work rather than be bound by what some designer who isn't at the table thought was a good balance some two decades ago.
No, on to the other part of this thread....
The idea that "Any control I have is part of an implicit agreement that the GM will take my wishes into account in the direction of the story" is a nonsense compared to the actual rules of, say, Dogs in the Vineyard, which I would take as very much a Narrativist game, but one without a central 'story authority'.
OK, I haven't read DotV, so I might be out of line here, but I am sticking with my earlier counter argument to this - the development of those rules was to take the decision making away from the GM (and, based on the anecdote in A&E this month of how DotV originated as a means to prevent strong personality players from overbearing their fellows, from the other players) and giving it to the rules is an inherently Gamist solution. Everyone sitting down at the table might well be agreeing that their goal is to create a good story. The game's setting might explicity deny the GM the right to make moral judgements or force issues (because that's the PCs job in DotV), which shifts narrative tools to the players. But the implementation is a Gamist one. The player who has the best understanding of the game mechanics can manipulate them to have the greatest effect on the story and best overcome the challenges presented by the GM.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-04-11 02:25 pm (UTC)Exactly. Which is part of what I'm trying to build. Imagine the defining of Causes as being analgous to a PtA Pitch session, where everyone agrees to how the supers setting will work rather than be bound by what some designer who isn't at the table thought was a good balance some two decades ago.
No, on to the other part of this thread....
The idea that "Any control I have is part of an implicit agreement that the GM will take my wishes into account in the direction of the story" is a nonsense compared to the actual rules of, say, Dogs in the Vineyard, which I would take as very much a Narrativist game, but one without a central 'story authority'.
OK, I haven't read DotV, so I might be out of line here, but I am sticking with my earlier counter argument to this - the development of those rules was to take the decision making away from the GM (and, based on the anecdote in A&E this month of how DotV originated as a means to prevent strong personality players from overbearing their fellows, from the other players) and giving it to the rules is an inherently Gamist solution. Everyone sitting down at the table might well be agreeing that their goal is to create a good story. The game's setting might explicity deny the GM the right to make moral judgements or force issues (because that's the PCs job in DotV), which shifts narrative tools to the players. But the implementation is a Gamist one. The player who has the best understanding of the game mechanics can manipulate them to have the greatest effect on the story and best overcome the challenges presented by the GM.
No style of play is 100% G, N or S