Underkoffler's Overviews: Jeepform

[chadu]

I've finally had a chance to read and play this type of game; here are my brief impressions.

This is not a review, per se -- you probably won't get much out of an Underkoffler's Overview if you haven't read or played the game. And this Overview is going to be even more overviewy for a couple reasons

Comments

[anonymous]

It's fun to read your thoughts on this!

I've played and run The Upgrade with a full eight participants and it is so, so good.

The temporality thing (dividing the play space into past, present and future) is a technical conceit of The Upgrade. It's game-specific, but it's a common enough thing and a good example of the way Jeep bends the form to serve the premise, game by game.

--Jason M

[chadu]

The temporality thing (dividing the play space into past, present and future) is a technical conceit of The Upgrade. It's game-specific, but it's a common enough thing and a good example of the way Jeep bends the form to serve the premise, game by game.

I think the underlying concept is good technology, that can be remixed as needed.

Thanks, Jason!

[lesingesavant]

I am really glad you enjoyed The Upgrade. As for Jeep, I think there are ways to make the form more inviting and less intimidating to American roleplayers, and I hope your input into FINDING that middle ground will be invaluable.

[chadu]

Thanks, mang.

I think there is definitely something here.

[matt_rah]

>>the rest of the civilised role-playing world.<<

Is there an uncivilised role-playing world? I want to game with them!

Matt

[chadu]

You WOULD.

Showdown rocked. Despite my bitchy comments.

I think, tho, if you do add the "roll your own" movie recipe, you will DOMINATE.

Just reinforcing my overblown opinions,

Love, Chad

[matt_rah]

Thanks.

The game was awesome, and the feedback I got from both you and drivingblind was awesome.

Your idea about restructuring the scenes for different genres is brilliant, but more of a second edition thing.

Matt

[chadu]

The look on your face when I said this at the roundtable was priceless, tho.

[ex_gobi]

Cool introduction to the genre. I've been curious about it since I've heard so much enthusiasm for the style. It still doesn't quite sound like something I'd be really into, but at least now I know what it's all about.

[chadu]

Dude, I thought you'd played jeep already?

[ex_gobi]

Nah, I'm too crunchy and detached for that style, I think. No biggie though, to each their own. :)

[zonemind]

"Jeepform" gets a few things that I've been saying, one way or another, for awhile. It's valuable to me because it also elaborates on those things, highlighting some other things I've been wrestling with for awhile as I try to both be a successful adult and retain the pleasures of role-playing games (thus far with limited success).

Jeepform it also goes in a direction I've no interest in going -- for one thing, it is self-consciously personal, sincere. That is Not Good for me.

So, sticking to the metaphor of the nomenclature, I admire the vehicle but not the view from the cab.

[chadu]

No, dude, I dig.

UNEXPECTED personal/sincere reactions to a game are fricking weird.

In my case, they were good or at least not bad. I totally understand if peoples' mileage varies.

It's... It's not for everyone. (I think everyone would love it, but also that everyone might confront shit they'd rather not.)

[zonemind]

I've never been a recovering alcoholic, but I imagine that in some ways it's a little but like giving up Method. As an alcoholic, you escape the self by drugging it into somnolence. Following Stanislavski's multiply bastardised spawn, you instead escape the self by murdering it in cold blood, and then putting something else in its place. Do it enough times, and the self becomes injured. What is, for others, a pleasant fogging of the strictures we place upon ourselves (perhaps bearing with it the freedom to discover a new mode of being), instead becomes a tissue-width threshold to an all-encompassing abyss.

Following this allegory, playing Jeepform as written would, for me, be a little bit like an alcoholic cracking open a bottle of ouzo "just for the experience".

Or at least, that is what I imagine to be the case.

[indie_insurgent]

Well it's kind of the opposite of the Method. You're not subsuming your own psyche to bring yourself to the story, you're creating elements in the story that hook into you.