Updates and Gamer Personalities
Quick update. I am doing well. Got a nice review this year at work so that is a bonus I really wasn't expecting give some of the project problems we had earlier this year. We had a good Scion game on Saturday, and a good one last week, so I think we our on our way back into a good period. I was getting a little worried for a few weeks but the problems seem to be sorted out. We have semi-permanently moved the game to my office which has conference rooms wired with sound and white-boards, comfy chairs and big pleasant tables. I am not sure which if any of that is what is making the improvement in quality of game session we have seen, but the improvements did coincide with the move so there is something there. I also asked one of the players that was only showing up every other game to bow out. Now I only have one player in the group doing that. It probably has a lot to do with that as well.
knockabout and I have started a little bit of a project. We are trying to produce a M.B. style personality test that can be used in gaming. As we worked on it, we quickly found that it can be usefully applied not just to people, but to games systems themselves and possibly all the way down to classifying individual scenes in a story or actions in a game. I can easily see myself using a questionnaire (once we have written a good set of questions) to help me choose or warn off potential new players when starting a new game. If I know what kind of game I usually run and the player is too far off from that, they won't have any fun, I won't have a lot of fun with them in the game and they will likely irk the other players in the process. As a brief summary of the axes we have chosen we have:
1: Railroad/Sailboat
Some people prefer to have a great deal of direction in their stories. They like to know what they need to do next in order to "progress". You can get from point A in a story to point B with a limited amount of guessing. Other players prefer a more sandbox like approach. They effectively like to play The Sims with pen and paper and possibly super-powers. In a sailboat, you have the whole ocean ahead of you, you can visit many ports and need have not set path.
2: Ronin/Horde
With few exceptions (Maze of the Riddling Minotaur anyone?) RPGs are essentially a social endeavor. This axis actually helps gauge whether a player likes to have the meta-game grouping be enforced or highlighted in the stories thay tell and the games they play. Some players (Ronin) like to have their games be a set of stories most about each of the characters individually, that somehow are woven together in a beautiful dance. Others (Horde) prefer that the story be told about the group as a whole, focusing on what they do together, with only minimal tangents into separate players individual stories.
3: Achievement/Narrative
Another concept inherited from the earliest days of gaming is the idea of a character becoming more powerful through their actions in the game (often through abstractions such as experience points and such). The achievement oriented player often views their games as the work they need to put in to gain access to more powerful abilities. Or they may simply like to feel they have accomplished success in game in other very concrete ways. They have solved many puzzles or defeated powerful foes. The narrative oriented player on the other hand remains focused on telling a good story, whether that means success for their character or not. Their preference is on continuity and believability rather than objective accomplishment.
4: Fluff/Table
This last axis works to describe how much a player prefers to have his or her RPG inherit from their theatre parent or their gaming parent. To the table player, there is nothing finer than feeling you have found just that perfect combination of abilities and scores that will let you do what you want to do. He or she will prefer to know EXACTLY what her characters powers allow the character to do, and know what the adversaries are going to be able to throw back. To the fluff player, the pleasure comes in defining his or her character in more literary terms. What is the characters motivations. What do they like. Where did they come from. The rules of the game to are essentially a useful if inconvenient tool for helping to resolve conflict in the game. To know if the cop says "Bang! I shot you!" and the robber says "No you missed" whether the cop or the robber is right.
Those are the axes so far. We have a few questions, but I will wait to post those tomorrow after I have extracted them from the IMs.
knockabout and I have started a little bit of a project. We are trying to produce a M.B. style personality test that can be used in gaming. As we worked on it, we quickly found that it can be usefully applied not just to people, but to games systems themselves and possibly all the way down to classifying individual scenes in a story or actions in a game. I can easily see myself using a questionnaire (once we have written a good set of questions) to help me choose or warn off potential new players when starting a new game. If I know what kind of game I usually run and the player is too far off from that, they won't have any fun, I won't have a lot of fun with them in the game and they will likely irk the other players in the process. As a brief summary of the axes we have chosen we have:
1: Railroad/Sailboat
Some people prefer to have a great deal of direction in their stories. They like to know what they need to do next in order to "progress". You can get from point A in a story to point B with a limited amount of guessing. Other players prefer a more sandbox like approach. They effectively like to play The Sims with pen and paper and possibly super-powers. In a sailboat, you have the whole ocean ahead of you, you can visit many ports and need have not set path.
2: Ronin/Horde
With few exceptions (Maze of the Riddling Minotaur anyone?) RPGs are essentially a social endeavor. This axis actually helps gauge whether a player likes to have the meta-game grouping be enforced or highlighted in the stories thay tell and the games they play. Some players (Ronin) like to have their games be a set of stories most about each of the characters individually, that somehow are woven together in a beautiful dance. Others (Horde) prefer that the story be told about the group as a whole, focusing on what they do together, with only minimal tangents into separate players individual stories.
3: Achievement/Narrative
Another concept inherited from the earliest days of gaming is the idea of a character becoming more powerful through their actions in the game (often through abstractions such as experience points and such). The achievement oriented player often views their games as the work they need to put in to gain access to more powerful abilities. Or they may simply like to feel they have accomplished success in game in other very concrete ways. They have solved many puzzles or defeated powerful foes. The narrative oriented player on the other hand remains focused on telling a good story, whether that means success for their character or not. Their preference is on continuity and believability rather than objective accomplishment.
4: Fluff/Table
This last axis works to describe how much a player prefers to have his or her RPG inherit from their theatre parent or their gaming parent. To the table player, there is nothing finer than feeling you have found just that perfect combination of abilities and scores that will let you do what you want to do. He or she will prefer to know EXACTLY what her characters powers allow the character to do, and know what the adversaries are going to be able to throw back. To the fluff player, the pleasure comes in defining his or her character in more literary terms. What is the characters motivations. What do they like. Where did they come from. The rules of the game to are essentially a useful if inconvenient tool for helping to resolve conflict in the game. To know if the cop says "Bang! I shot you!" and the robber says "No you missed" whether the cop or the robber is right.
Those are the axes so far. We have a few questions, but I will wait to post those tomorrow after I have extracted them from the IMs.