Why does the Amber crowd like diceless play?
A particular question that I'd like to answer here is adamdray's question in comments to his post "System Does Matter". He originally wondered, "How cool would the Amber DRPG be if it didn't rely so much on trust? How much fun would the Amber community have if they had a set of rules that supported them better?" After I described my AmberCon NorthWest experiences, he asked: "What do you think it is that the Amber crowd likes about Diceless play?"
Before answering, though, I want a brief roundup of recent talk on immersion, which may be tangentially related. ewilen has his post on "Situations and Stories" suggests that immersive-leaning players take up a combination of "PC proactivity" and "PC magnetism" rather than Forge-style "protagonism". eyebeams has his post on "Food is the first thing. Morals follow on!" looking at immersion versus narrativism in light of Stanislavski and Brecht. Lastly, Jonas Barkå collects together a bunch of RPGnet thread links in "Immersion on RPGnet".
But to answer Adam's question:
I think the key draw of Amber Diceless as a system is that it has a much larger fraction of direct fictional description. That is, most words spoken at the table are descriptive language about what is happening within the game-world. There's still a lot of false starts, take-backs, and meta discussion, but less so than most other tabletop games. There is often a lot of misunderstanding about the idea of "system taking back seat" or being "transparent". The system (in the sense of way of doing things) is still an important influence on play. Usually this means there are not a lot of words spoken about the mechanics at the table.
Why would anyone want that? Well, in principle I think that it makes for a more richly described fiction, which some people prefer aesthetically. I note that the same thing is true of Olle Jonsson's Jeep-style freeforms and Scandanavian larp. In the extreme, there are some games where everything done is 100% in character (though there is a briefing and debriefing). This greatly limits what can happen in the game, but within those confines what happens is very richly described.
Other games often admit more metagame talk at the table, which affects the descriptive bits but does not directly describe anything in the fiction. I was just listening to Matt Snyder's Nine Worlds actual play on the drive home, for example. For a faster read, though, you could also take a look at lordsmerf's sample of Capes over IRC. Note that the product of game-play is the whole text, including both IC and OOC. Since this was over IRC, that is the entire game. Unlike most forms like theater, literature, or film, a lot of what is happening doesn't directly describe fictional events.
On the Forge, play is often described as the process of negotiating statements into the Shared Imagined Space. However, some techniques handle negotiation with a minimum of time, words, and effort. In particular, I think that ownership is a key concept. Ownership streamlines the process of negotiation. If I have ownership of something, that means that I know clearly what I can say and be assured that it will be accepted into the fiction. Ownership doesn't have to be absolute -- there can be exception cases. However, the more often the exception cases, the more time is eaten up.
I've been meaning to get back to my incomplete Game Chef design entry -- Morpho Londinium. One of the key concepts of that game is that abilities are always 100% reliable. If I use my Persuasion, I will always persuade you. However, there is the possibility that I will lose the ability after I use it. I was thinking of this as another way to streamline negotiation.
Before answering, though, I want a brief roundup of recent talk on immersion, which may be tangentially related. ewilen has his post on "Situations and Stories" suggests that immersive-leaning players take up a combination of "PC proactivity" and "PC magnetism" rather than Forge-style "protagonism". eyebeams has his post on "Food is the first thing. Morals follow on!" looking at immersion versus narrativism in light of Stanislavski and Brecht. Lastly, Jonas Barkå collects together a bunch of RPGnet thread links in "Immersion on RPGnet".
But to answer Adam's question:
I think the key draw of Amber Diceless as a system is that it has a much larger fraction of direct fictional description. That is, most words spoken at the table are descriptive language about what is happening within the game-world. There's still a lot of false starts, take-backs, and meta discussion, but less so than most other tabletop games. There is often a lot of misunderstanding about the idea of "system taking back seat" or being "transparent". The system (in the sense of way of doing things) is still an important influence on play. Usually this means there are not a lot of words spoken about the mechanics at the table.
Why would anyone want that? Well, in principle I think that it makes for a more richly described fiction, which some people prefer aesthetically. I note that the same thing is true of Olle Jonsson's Jeep-style freeforms and Scandanavian larp. In the extreme, there are some games where everything done is 100% in character (though there is a briefing and debriefing). This greatly limits what can happen in the game, but within those confines what happens is very richly described.
Other games often admit more metagame talk at the table, which affects the descriptive bits but does not directly describe anything in the fiction. I was just listening to Matt Snyder's Nine Worlds actual play on the drive home, for example. For a faster read, though, you could also take a look at lordsmerf's sample of Capes over IRC. Note that the product of game-play is the whole text, including both IC and OOC. Since this was over IRC, that is the entire game. Unlike most forms like theater, literature, or film, a lot of what is happening doesn't directly describe fictional events.
On the Forge, play is often described as the process of negotiating statements into the Shared Imagined Space. However, some techniques handle negotiation with a minimum of time, words, and effort. In particular, I think that ownership is a key concept. Ownership streamlines the process of negotiation. If I have ownership of something, that means that I know clearly what I can say and be assured that it will be accepted into the fiction. Ownership doesn't have to be absolute -- there can be exception cases. However, the more often the exception cases, the more time is eaten up.
I've been meaning to get back to my incomplete Game Chef design entry -- Morpho Londinium. One of the key concepts of that game is that abilities are always 100% reliable. If I use my Persuasion, I will always persuade you. However, there is the possibility that I will lose the ability after I use it. I was thinking of this as another way to streamline negotiation.