** Définition du jeu de rôle

- Abbrev. JdR ou jdr. Pl. Jeux de rôle. Jeu de négociations entre

  participants des évènements se passant dans un espace imaginaire

  commun (rêvalité).

*** Objectifs

Avoir du plaisir (jouer) en:

- Rêvant;

- Participant;

- Racontant quelque chose;

Le modèle des jouets indique que ces trois objectifs sont tous

nécessaires.  Le GNS ajoute qu'un seul objectif doit avoir la priorité

sur les autres.  La définition de chacun des termes est vague.

*** Manière

- Le contrat social détermine comment la négociation se déroule.

- Le système est l'ensemble des moyens techniques auquel les joueurs

choisissent d'abdiquer pour régler certains aspects de la négociation

défini par le contrat social.

- Un moyen technique est une procédure permettant de transformer la rêvalité en 

** Le Jeu

**** GM-tasks (from lumpley.txt):

- start and stop scenes;

- truth regulation; what happens?

- orchestrated conflicts;

*** From HowRPGRulesWork.txt

On 1-20-05, *Vincent* wrote:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ben, I reread that thread, most of it anyway. Here's a thing:

The goal of designing rules is to change social contract.

When I design a set of rules, I'm trying to change the way that people

relate to one another, within the confines of the game. I'm trying to

force, trick, or provoke them into treating one another in particular,

possibly unnatural ways. I'm fuckin' around with their working creative

relationships.

Beyond apportioning credibility, rules create /permission/ and

/expectation/. Permission and expectation are the real building blocks

of social contract; cunningly designed rules have access to human

interactions at a deep level.

So, sure, there are no complete RPGs; as you say, the complete RPG is

playerless. It may work better to think of RPG rules as strong or weak,

flexible or brittle: a strong RPG draws the players into its particular

play, where a weak one allows them to play however comes naturally. A

flexible RPG can survive or redirect a broad range of preexisting social

dynamics, where a brittle one requires a particular social dynamic to

already be in place, or the game crashes.

Am I making sense? Am I kind of on your topic?

/*I bumped this thread up to the front page. Let's talk about my diagrams

here.*/

------------------------------------------------------------------------

** Le Jouet

** L'Histoire

*** Why a character died? (from lumpley.txt):

  When a character dies in a novel or a movie, it's a) to establish

  what's at stake, b) to escalate the conflict, or c) to make a final

  statement.  Or perhaps some combination. It's never by accident or

  for no good reason, unlike in real life.

** Meta-gaming elements in Resolution

[From Burning Down the Firewall in lumpley.txt:]

*** Out-of-scene characters

Conventional wisdom: *if your character's not in the scene, you can't

participate.*

Text from Dogs in the Vineyard:

    The game calls for lots of free table talk, with you and your fellow

    players calling out suggestions, kibitzing, and expanding on one

    another's descriptions. Don't shut your mouth just because your

    character's off the stage.

*** Metagame knowledge

Conventional wisdom: *if your character's not in the scene, you

shouldn't let information from the scene influence your actions.*

Text from Dogs:

    The game works *even better* when you bring your own metagame

    knowledge into your character's actions. If you're choosing between

    two possible, realistic actions for your character to take, don't

    limit your decision-making to your character's point of view. Choose

    the one that *you* prefer!

*** Immersive Surprise

Conventional wisdom: *when your character's surprised, you should be

surprised.*

I can't beat Ron Edwards' answer to this one. The whole answer's here on

the Forge <http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=114267#114267>, but

here's a quote:

    I'm now going to say something very harsh - traditionally, the focus

    on "must ... surprise ... players!" is trying to solve the basic

    problem that the encounter with, e.g., the goblins, is fundamentally

    a stupid and irrelevant event in the game. Gotta have a fight.

    Goblins. Must make it exciting. Um, well, I guess the only way is to

    "get into character" and "be surprised," so I gotta figure out how.

    OK, tell them to immerse, surprise the characters with GM-rolls-it

    Perception checks, and thus the players will be surprised, right?

    Wrong. The perception check is a big fat meaningless waste - the

    encounter only takes on player-relevance if, in fact, the goblins

    are relevant to the Creative Agenda of this group.

*** Out-of-scene Participation

Conventional wisdom: *it's boring when your character's not in the scene.*

Text from Dogs:

    Like every social fun, playing Dogs in the Vineyard depends on

    constant feedback and demonstrated enthusiasm. When somebody says

    something cool, show it. When something's funny, laugh. When you

    have a suggestion, shout out. (I know, I know, duh, right? I only

    mention it because I've played other games where you didn't, y'know,

    do things like that.)

    Also, to really deliver, the game shouldn't be isolated from your

    regular socializing, it should blend in. Chat about the game before

    and after, just like you would a book or TV show or movie. Chat

    about books and movies and catch up with each other, during! You can

    think of it as commercial breaks if you want, but tied to the social

    rhythms of your little group, not on TV's 15-minute cycle. If the

    game's worth playing, it'll draw your attention back in.

    Interspersing some time of just hanging out like friends can be

    pretty effective for maintaining a pace, prolonging suspense, and

    giving payoff moments real punch, so don't worry too much about

    digressions.

    ...

    Your game will have an overall story, made up of the interwoven

    individual stories of your characters. If it's not as fun and

    engaging as the best TV shows, I haven't done my job.

** Conflicts vs Tasks Resolution

*** From lumpley.txt:

In task resolution, what's at stake is the task itself. "I crack the

safe!" "Why?" "Hopefully to get the dirt on the supervillain!" What's at

stake is: do you crack the safe?

In conflict resolution, what's at stake is why you're doing the task. "I

crack the safe!" "Why?" "Hopefully to get the dirt on the supervillain!"

What's at stake is: do you get the dirt on the supervillain?

Task resolution is succeed/fail. Conflict resolution is win/lose. You

can succeed but lose, fail but win.

In conventional rpgs, success=winning and failure=losing only provided

the GM constantly maintains that relationship - by (eg) making the safe

contain the relevant piece of information after you've cracked it. It's

possible and common for a GM to break the relationship instead, turning

a string of successes into a loss, or a failure at a key moment into a

win anyway.

Let's assume that we haven't yet established what's in the safe.

"I crack the safe!" "Why?" "Hopefully to get the dirt on the supervillain!"

It's task resolution. Roll: Success!

"You crack the safe, but there's no dirt in there, just a bunch of

in-order papers."

"I crack the safe!" "Why?" "Hopefully to get the dirt on the supervillain!"

It's task resolution. Roll: Failure!

"The safe's too tough, but as you're turning away from it, you see a

piece of paper in the wastebasket..."

(Those examples show how, using task resolution, the GM can break

success=winning, failure=losing.)

That's, if you ask me, the big problem with task resolution: whether you

succeed or fail, the GM's the one who actually resolves the conflict.

The dice don't, the rules don't; you're depending on the GM's mood and

your relationship and all those unreliable social things the rules are

supposed to even out.

Task resolution, in short, puts the GM in a position of priviledged

authorship. Task resolution will undermine your collaboration.

(later, in Practical Conflict Resolution Advice):

In Conflicts Resolution, Success/Failure give you a bonus/malus on

accessing what's at stake.

About suspense, from lumpley.txt:

==> Suspense comes from putting off the inevitable.

Put complications to inevitable outcomes and you get suspense.