Death and story

So this has become where on the web I put thoughts inspired by something else on the web, but that I don't think quite fit in that location. From here: "I'm looking [...] to perform a sort of magic trick. They have to do both: Create the impression of real threat. While at the same time, they secretly protect from death. What do people reckon? Is this viable? Or a can't-have-the-cake-and-eat-it situation?"

My, this is  more complex to answer than I thought - and I thought it was pretty complex! For now, the short version: I'd say you need to threaten something meaningful, but not death unless it IS appropriate to threaten death. Real threat to something the players care about, combined with flexibility of narrative, i.e., there's not a PARTICULAR narrative you're trying to forward, just trying to make a good one as you play. . "Secretly" is very, very rarely worth the downside in RPGs (IMO).


Another option is possible if the players can simultaneously realize the threat is quite unlikely to be mortal, but still play as if the characters expect it to be mortal. Then you can just stop hiding that the possibility of random-combat character death is usually (but not necessarily always) an illusion. Even this is made easier if there really is something important threatened (anything from pure-player level "man, we did that poorly" to character-based "your honor is besmirched").

Anything more will have to await further discussion - and suddenly I see a way in which G+ might actually be useful, the way spawning a sister thread sometimes works with forums ...

GNS-driven possible-drivel

OK, I don't think this fits in the anyway thread, but I find I need to type it up, so - this shabby corner of the web is where it gets put. This thead  reminded me of the old "when push comes to shove" idea of identifying G, N or S play (one method among many, sometimes praised, sometimes denigrated). If I come into play of Doomed Pilgrim with goals of both "doom that pilgrim" and "make it interesting," that might become a push-comes-to-shove determinant. That is, I might (or not - not is perhaps more likely) find I could no longer do something that I find interesting that also doomed the pilgrim.

If I chose to doom him anyway, maybe (given a bunch of other stuff) that'd be a G decision. If I didn't, maybe it'd be a (again, with a bunch of givens) N decision.

Now, one way to make this go away: if we stipulate that since the rule says doom that pilgrim, you've already agreed to always find that interesting. So stop yer bellyachin', already!

I don't think I buy that stipulation. I say "I don't think" because I haven't entirely convinced myself yet, but - here's what I'm thinking. The very fact that you often can get both your pursuit of doom and another goal invites the attempt, and what one finds interesting (or whatever type of "other goal" you have) may well be - or even become, through play - a stronger influence on behaviour than "merely" following a rule. Especially when that rule is attempting to dictate a choice driven by "what I'm thinking/feeling about an imagined situation right now". Perhaps this is a way in which RPG play is unlike chess play. The goal "doom the imaginary pilgrim" is perhaps not, in fact, the same kind of thing as "checkmate the other player." Because of the primacy of imaginary content (what the words about a doomed pilgrim represent matters, that this piece is a "rook" doesn't really) over an actual thing (the words themselves, or a chess piece on a board)? Or another way of thinking about it, harking back to the anyway thread: once you throw such powerful forces as moral/passionate elements/conflicts into the mix (esp in the mix of RULES), you lose the ability to absolutely prevent them from becoming the goal of play. Chess minimizes (to just about 0) this by NOT including them in the mix, except insofar as humans can't help but include them some.

OK, that last paragraph is messy - my thinking on that part right now is messy. But my suspicion about the stipulation - that's very real, and I think a good read on where the problem lies. There may be ways to allay that suspicion, or perhaps not.