Interstitials...

[the_dragonmaste]

Got to thinking about this after the last Indie Explosion session. The character I was playing was a jackass. It was sort of the point of the character. A scene came up and I narrated it basically with the whole point being for it to be an interstitial scene (purely flavor, no actual conflicts resolved during it), but the GM refused to leave the

Comments

[nihilisticmind]

What was the conflict?

[the_dragonmaste]

The scene was started with my character entering the parking lot for the circus the event took place at on his motorcycle. I narrated him parking in a spot up close to the line, and showering the people in the line with gravel as he came to a stop, then stepping into line at the newly vacated portion (several of the patrons having abandoned their spots in line to get out of the way of the gravel). For me ending it right there, or having a character confront him about it and ending it at that, with out establishing more than that yes, he had likely parked the way he did in order to get exactly the reaction he did, would have been plenty. Would have served it's purpose. Instead the GM wanted to play through every step to see if he was talked into going to the back of the line; and, when he wasn't, to whether he was physically forced to the back of the line; and, when he wasn't, to whether he was physically expelled from the circus.

[nihilisticmind]

Hmm, interesting.
It seems like you wanted to establish something about the character during the scene, while the GM wanted to establish something about the setting's reaction to the character.
It looks like there is a misunderstanding of goals within that particular scene.

Was there another scene within the same campaign that you can think of where things went well and both your, as a player, and the gm's goals were met?

[the_dragonmaste]

Not just a misunderstanding as such, since I explicitly said what I wanted from it, but rather a clash, and incompatibility.

The "campaign" was really more of a one-shot. Part of a series of one-shots within the system/setting we're using to fill in the gaps of our play schedule. It's been a couple weeks since that session, but the only scenes I remember our apparent goals lining up were my characters entry scene (him hijacking a motorcycle) and the scene where I collected the materials needed to ascertain what the threat we faced was. Though there weren't that many scenes that evening, and fewer that involved my character.

[nihilisticmind]

Was it really unreasonable for the GM to have goals too, even if they conflicted with yours?
It seems to me like he wanted to bring the conflict into the game, and saw this as an opportunity?

I'm not siding against you, I wasn't there to witness how things went... I'm just wondering why your style clashes as you say, with that of others, or why other people's style clashes with yours.

[the_dragonmaste]

It's not so much an issue of being unreasonable. Just a difference in goals. To me the question of where a character stands in line while waiting to enter an entertainment venue (no, it never became anything more than that) isn't all that important. So I'm not really sure what it was about the conflict that was interesting to him (haven't seen him since that session due to scheduling).

I just haven't found many players who have similar styles to my own. It also doesn't help that I'm still piecing together what that style actually is. Though I'm thinking I'll have more luck with figuring that out by sticking closer to the media that brought me into gaming in the first place (procedural TV shows).