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+
+  /* lumpley games* <lumpley.html>*: Roleplaying Theory*/
+
+Roleplaying Theory
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+anyway. <opine.html>
+A Penny for Your Thoughts <mailto:lumpley@earthlink.net>
+Read & Post Comments (488) <http://www.quicktopic.com/21/H/dae5AcNgPVdS>
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+back to lumpley games <lumpley.html>
+
+	
+
+
+    *Roleplaying Theory, Hardcore*
+
+I haven't written the all-encompassing essay yet, which so it goes and
+ever shall. Instead, how about a running chronicle?
+
+(I've put them oldest to newest, and foof to blog convention, foof I
+say! The newest is Burning Down the Firewall <#10>, 4-22-04.)
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+    Doing Away with the GM
+
+You need to have a system by which scenes start and stop. The rawest
+solution is to do it by group consensus: anybody moved to can suggest a
+scene or suggest that a scene be over, and it's up to the group to act
+on the suggestion or not. You don't need a final authority beyond the
+players' collective will.
+
+You need to have a system whereby narration becomes in-game truth. That
+is, when somebody suggests something to happen or something to be so,
+does it or doesn't it? Is it or isn't it? Again the rawest solution is
+group consensus, with suggestions made by whoever's moved and then taken
+up or let fall according to the group's interest.
+
+You need to have orchestrated conflict, and there's the tricky bit. GMs
+are very good at orchestrating conflict, and it's hard to see a rawer
+solution. My game Before the Flood <flood.html> handles the first two
+needs ably but makes no provision at all for this third. What you get is
+listless, aimless, dull play with no sustained conflict and no meaning.
+
+In our co-GMed Ars Magica game, each of us is responsible for
+orchestrating conflict for the others, which works but isn't radical wrt
+GM doage-away-with. It amounts to when Emily's character's conflicts
+climax explosively and set off Meg's character's conflicts, which also
+climax explosively, in a great kickin' season finale last autumn, I'm
+the GM. GM-swapping, in other words, isn't the same as GM-sharing.
+
+Any solution to this is bound to be innovative. There's not much beaten
+path.
+
+*6-5-03*
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+    Roleplaying's Fundamental Act
+
+Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true
+in game, all the participants in the game (players /and/ GMs, if you've
+even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're
+roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be
+true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to
+determine whether they're actually true or not.
+
+So you're sitting at the table and one player says, "[let's imagine
+that] an orc jumps out of the underbrush!"
+
+What has to happen before the group agrees that, indeed, an orc jumps
+out of the underbrush?
+
+1. Sometimes, not much at all. The right participant said it, at an
+appropriate moment, and everybody else just incorporates it smoothly
+into their imaginary picture of the situation. "An orc! Yikes!
+Battlestations!" This is how it usually is for participants with high
+ownership of whatever they're talking about: GMs describing the weather
+or the noncombat actions of NPCs, players saying what their characters
+are wearing or thinking.
+
+2. Sometimes, a little bit more. "Really? An orc?" "Yeppers." "Huh, an
+orc. Well, okay." Sometimes the suggesting participant has to defend the
+suggestion: "Really, an orc this far into Elfland?" "Yeah, cuz this
+thing about her tribe..." "Okay, I guess that makes sense."
+
+3. Sometimes, mechanics. "An orc? Only if you make your
+having-an-orc-show-up roll. Throw down!" "Rawk! 57!" "Dude, orc it is!"
+The thing to notice here is that the mechanics /serve the exact same
+purpose/ as the explanation about this thing about her tribe in point 2,
+which is to establish your credibility wrt the orc in question.
+
+4. And sometimes, lots of mechanics and negotiation. Debate the
+likelihood of a lone orc in the underbrush way out here, make a
+having-an-orc-show-up roll, a having-an-orc-hide-in-the-underbrush roll,
+a having-the-orc-jump-out roll, argue about the modifiers for each of
+the rolls, get into a philosophical thing about the rules' modeling of
+orc-jump-out likelihood... all to establish one little thing. Wave a
+stick in a game store and every game you knock of the shelves will have
+a combat system that works like this.
+
+(Plenty of suggestions at the game table don't get picked up by the
+group, or get revised and modified by the group before being accepted,
+all with the same range of time and attention spent negotiating.)
+
+So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's
+another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and
+constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the
+table. That's their sole and crucial function.
+
+*6-9-03*
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+    Aside: GNS
+
+So you have some people sitting around and talking. Some of the things
+they say are about fictional characters in a fictional world. During the
+conversation the characters and their world aren't static: the people
+don't simply describe them in increasing detail, they (also) have them
+do things and interact. They create situations - dynamic arrangements of
+characters and setting elements - and resolve them into new situations.
+
+They may or may not have formal procedures for this part of the
+conversation, but the simple fact that it consistently happens reveals
+some sort of structure. If they didn't have an effective way to
+negotiate the evolution of situation to situation, their conversation
+would stall or crash.
+
+Why are they doing this? What do they get out of it? For now, let's
+limit ourselves to three possibilities: they want to Say Something (in a
+lit 101 sense), they want to Prove Themselves, or they want to Be There.
+What they want to say, in what way they want to prove themselves, or
+where precisely they want to be varies to the particular person in the
+particular moment. Are there other possibilities? Maybe. Certainly these
+three cover an enormous variety, especially as their nuanced particulars
+combine in an actual group of people in actual play.
+
+Over time, that is, over many many in-game situations, play will either
+fulfill the players' creative agendas or fail to fulfill them. Do they
+have that discussion? Do they prove themselves or let themselves down?
+Are they "there"? As in pretty much any kind of emergent pattern thingy,
+whether the game fulfills the players' creative agendas depends on but
+isn't predictable from the specific structure they've got for
+negotiating situations. No individual situation's evolution or
+resolution can reveal a) what the players' creative agendas are or b)
+whether they're being fulfilled. Especially, limiting your observation
+to the in-game contents of individual situations will certainly blind
+you to what the players are actually getting out of the game.
+
+That's GNS in a page.
+
+I don't think I've said anything here that Ron Edwards hasn't been
+saying. I do think that I've said it in mostly my own words.
+
+*1-23-04*
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+    Conflict Resolution vs. Task Resolution
+
+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?
+
+Which is important to the resolution rules: opening the safe, or getting
+the dirt? That's how you tell whether it's task resolution or conflict
+resolution.
+
+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.
+
+Whether you roll for each flash of the blade or only for the whole fight
+is a whole nother issue: scale, not task vs. conflict. This is sometimes
+confusing for people; you say "conflict resolution" and they think you
+mean "resolve the whole scene with one roll." No, actually you can
+conflict-resolve a single blow, or task-resolve the whole fight in one roll:
+
+"I slash at his face, like ha!" "Why?" "To force him off-balance!"
+Conflict Resolution: do you force him off-balance?
+Roll: Loss!
+"He ducks side to side, like fwip fwip! He keeps his feet and grins."
+
+"I fight him!" "Why?" "To get past him to the ship before it sails!"
+Task Resolution: do you win the fight (that is, do you fight him
+successfully)?
+Roll: Success!
+"You beat him! You disarm him and kick his butt!"
+(Unresolved, left up to the GM: do you get to the ship before it sails?)
+
+(Those examples show small-scale conflict resolution vs. large-scale
+task resolution.)
+
+Something I haven't examined: in a conventional rpg, does task
+resolution + consequence mechanics = conflict resolution? "Roll to hit"
+is task resolution, but is "Roll to hit, roll damage" conflict resolution?
+
+*2-5-04*
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+    A Small Thing About Suspense
+
+I have no criticism cred to back this up. Just amatuer observations. So
+kick my butt if you gotta.
+
+*Suspense doesn't come from uncertain outcomes.*
+
+I have no doubt, not one shread of measly doubt, that Babe the pig is
+going to wow the sheepdog trial audience. Neither do you. But we're on
+the edge of our seats! What's up with that?
+
+*Suspense comes from putting off the inevitable.*
+
+What's up with that is, we know that Babe is going to win, but we don't
+know /what it will cost/.
+
+Everybody with me still? If you're not, give it a try: watch a movie.
+Notice how the movie builds suspense: by putting complications between
+the protagonist and what we all know is coming. The protagonist has to
+buy victory, it's as straightforward as that. That's why the payoff at
+the end of the suspense is satisfying, after all, too: we're like /ah,
+finally/.
+
+What about RPGs?
+
+Yes, it can be suspenseful to not know whether your character will
+succeed or fail. I'm not going to dispute that. But what I absolutely do
+dispute is that that's the only or best way to get suspense in your
+gaming. In fact, and check this out, when GMs fudge die rolls in order
+to preserve or create suspense, it shows that suspense and uncertain
+outcomes are, in those circumstances, incompatible.
+
+So here's a better way to get suspense in gaming: put off the inevitable.
+
+Acknowledge up front that the PCs are going to win, and never sweat it.
+Then use the dice to escalate, escalate, escalate. We all know the PCs
+are going to win. What will it cost them?
+
+My game Chalk Outlines <chalk.html> was a stab at this, and Otherkind
+<other.html> was a better stab, but where it's really coming home is in
+Dogs in the Vineyard and the Good Knights <goodknights.html>.
+
+*3-22-04*
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+    A Small Thing About Character Death plus a mini-manifesto
+
+Along the precise same lines:
+
+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.
+
+I've been thinking about examples. Obi-wan Kenobi in Star Wars? /This/,
+his death says, is worth fighting for. Boromir in the Fellowship of the
+Ring? The right death redeems betrayal. Brad and wha'sname at the
+beginning of Pulp Fiction? The cop in Reservoir Dogs? All those random
+people in Total Recall? Tara in Buffy? To escalate conflict, plain and
+easy. Leon and Gary Oldman's character in the Professional? Final
+statementville, but Matilda's family? Escalation plus some stakes.
+
+So that seems pretty solid to me.
+
+Before I go on (I'm sure you've already figured out what I'm going to
+say anyway) but before I go on, *my mini-manifesto*.
+
+First: if what you get out of roleplaying is a) the accomplishment you
+get from rising to the challenge, not letting yourself or your friends
+down, learning the rules and just frickin' /owning/ them, or else b) the
+satisfaction of peer-appreciated wish-fulfillment, you're off the hook.
+None of what I say applies to you, you're happy.
+
+If, on the other hand, what you want out of roleplaying is suspense,
+resolution, story, theme, character, meaning - listen up.
+
+Second: conventional RPGs can't give it to you. I'm sorry.
+
+So, third: that stuff you want? You get that by approaching roleplaying
+as though it were a form of fiction, a form of literature. All that
+stuff is well known to fiction writers and they can tell us how to do
+it. Roleplaying isn't like writing, just like singing pub songs in a pub
+isn't like composing songs, so the skills themselves are different. But
+the same structure underlies both. You can't ignore the structure and
+still get consistenly good results.
+
+So that's my mini-manifesto and here's character death in RPGs:
+
+PCs, like protagonists in fiction, don't get to die to show what's at
+stake or to escalate conflict. They only get to die to make final
+statements.
+
+Character death can never be a possible outcome moment-to-moment. Having
+your character's survival be uncertain doesn't contribute to suspense,
+as above <#5>, just like we don't actually ever believe that Bruce
+Willis' character in Die Hard will die. Instead, character death should
+fit into /what it will cost/. This thing, is it worth dying for? Obi-wan
+Kenobi and Leon say yes.
+
+Here's a piece of text from Dogs in the Vineyard:
+
+    Also, occasionally, your character will get killed. The conflict
+    resolution rules will keep it from being pointless or arbitrary:
+    it'll happen only when you've chosen to stake your character's life
+    on something. Staking your character's life means risking it, is all.
+
+In fiction, You never die for something you haven't staked your life on.
+
+*3-23-04*
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+    Practical Conflict Resolution Advice
+
+My friend anonyfan asks: *"Do you have any ideas on how to effectively
+and meaningfully implement 'what's at stake' in a non-narrativist game?"*
+
+I sure do.
+
+You won't have any trouble at all, and in fact your group will wonder
+how you got along before, if you find the magic words. I don't know what
+your group's magic words are but here are some I've used:
+"The danger is that..."
+"What's at stake is..."
+"What you're risking is..."
+"So what you hope to accomplish is..."
+
+Say the magic words every single time, when the dice are in their hands
+but before they roll 'em.
+
+At first, you'll need to finish the sentence every time yourself, with a
+period, like:
+"The danger is that you'll set off the trap instead of disarming it."
+"What's at stake is, do you make it to the ferry in time or do you have
+to go the long way around?"
+"What you're risking is being overheard by the goblins on the rooftop."
+"So what you hope to accomplish is to get through the doorway, whether
+this ogre lives or dies."
+
+But after you've said it three or four or ten times, you'll be able to
+trail off with a question mark when you want their input:
+"What you're risking is...?"
+
+And then, once the dice are on the table, always always always make it
+like this:
+- If they succeed, they win what's at stake. They accomplish their
+accomplishment or they avoid the danger.
+- If they fail, they lose what's at stake - and you IMMEDIATELY
+introduce something new at stake. It might be another chance, it might
+be a consequence, but what matters is that it's more serious that the
+former.
+
+"The danger is that you'll set off the trap ... and you do! A dart
+thocks into your shoulder. The danger now is that you'll succumb to its
+poison!"
+"You reach the dock as the ferry's pulling away. Do you want to jump for
+it?"
+"The goblins overhear you and start dropping in through the skylight.
+They scramble all over you, biting and screeching. The danger is that
+they'll get you off your feet!"
+"Not only does the ogre keep you away from the doorway, it's pushing you
+back toward the chasm..."
+
+In combat, you'll probably want to have an overall what's at stake for
+the fight, and little tactical what's at stakes for each exchange. When
+you describe the setup, mention two or three features of the
+environment, like hanging tapestries or a swaying bridge or broken
+cobblestones, plus an apparent weakness of the foe, like worn armor
+straps or a pus-filled left eye, and then when you say what's at stake
+for an exchange, incorporate one of those: "the danger is that he'll
+push you back onto the broken cobblestones" or "so what you're hoping to
+do is to further strain his armor straps." This is on top of hitting and
+damage and whatever, just add it straight in.
+
+It's especially effective if you always give a small bonus or penalty
+for the exchange before. What's it in D&D now, +2/-2? Give it every
+single exchange, linked to whether they won or lost the what's at stake
+of the previous exchange. "The broken cobblestones mess up your footing,
+so take a -2." "He has to shrug and shift to adjust his sagging armor,
+so take a +2."
+
+In Forge terms, you've used a couple of nonmechanical techniques to
+build a conflict resolution system around your game's task resolution
+rules. Guaranteed plus-fun.
+
+*3-27-04*
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+    Arranging the Pieces of a Game
+
+/This is another straight transplant from the Forge. You'll have to
+forgive the GNS talk, or not, I mean, it /is/ how I think about things:/
+
+How do you treat Character, Setting, Situation, System and Color in
+Narrativist game design vs. Simulationist vs. Gamist, is that what
+you're asking?
+
+After setup, what a game's rules do is control how you resolve one
+situation into the next. If you're designing a Narrativist game, what
+you need are rules that create a) rising conflict b) across a moral line
+c) between fit characters d) according to the authorship of the players.
+Every new situation should be a step upward in that conflict, toward a
+climax and resolution. Your rules need to provoke the players,
+collaboratively, into escalating the conflict, until it can't escalate
+no more.
+
+Character creation in a Narrativist game might work by creating
+characters who, in some key way, have nowhere else to go. Life o' Crime,
+the rpg: create a character who owes somebody more money than he can repay.
+
+Setting in a Narrativist game might work by applying pressure to that
+key point in the characters. Life o' Crime: there's recession, few jobs,
+no way up or out, but worse class difference than ever before anywhere.
+You see wealth but no opportunity.
+
+Situation in a Narrativist game works by increasing the pressure. Life
+o' Crime: Someone depends on your character to bring home groceries and
+pay rent. Someone else has just been evicted and is facing homelessness.
+Someone else asks you if you know where to get drugs. Someone else just
+got beaten by the authorities. Someone else just got beaten by the guy
+you owe money to. Someone else offers to cut you in on a job. Someone
+else wants the whole take for himself. Someone else knew you'd never
+amount to anything. Someone else can't be trusted. Someone else can be.
+
+System in a Narrativist game works, again, by resolving one situation
+into the next. Life o' Crime: what do you do? How does it work out for
+you? Does it a) hurt? b) give you breathing room? c) piss someone else
+off? d) hurt someone else? and/or e) set you back? How does it increase
+the pressure? Remember the moral line defined by your Premise, and
+remember that the players are the authors!
+
+And Color permeates a Narrativist game same as any other. Life o' Crime:
+is it Thatcher's England? Victoria's England? Shakespeare's England?
+Bush's US? Hoover's US? Colonial Massachussetts? Mars? The Kingdom of
+Thringbora? The details change, but the core of character situated in
+setting - the fit characters locked into conflict defined by a moral
+line - doesn't.
+
+I've had fun writing this! I hope it's at all an answer to your
+question, and I should probably make clear that it's just how I think
+about it, and other people no doubt think about it in whole different ways.
+
+I imagine you could break down Simulationist and Gamist games in a
+similar way.
+
+*4-10-04*
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+    Pre-play / Play / Post-play
+
+In your game, the game you're actually playing, a) in which stage does
+/invention/ happen, and b) in which stage does /meaning/ happen?
+
+Invention - creating setting, character, nifty toys, potent powers -
+invention can happen before the game or during the game. (It can't
+really happen after the game, can it?)
+
+A game where the invention happens mostly pre-play would be one where
+there are maps, characters, factions, technology, societies, interests,
+all in place when the game begins. I can't think of a good example of
+this in fiction - maybe /Babylon 5/? - but clearly lots of roleplaying
+happens this way. Look at all the dang setting books!
+
+A game where the invention happens mostly during play would have the
+same list of things, maps characters societies etc., but they'd be
+created at need as the game progresses. We have one serious bazillion
+examples of this from fiction: Howard wrote /Conan/ this way, their
+writers wrote /Farscape/ and /Buffy/ this way, and lots of roleplaying
+happens this way too. It's underrepresented in rpg books because it
+doesn't call for or produce 'em.
+
+And it occurs to me that, in JRR Tolkein, we have an example in fiction
+of post-play creation, where he created a bunch on the fly, and then
+extensively rewrote and filled in to build his world. Apparently /the
+Hobbit/ changed a lot to match what he'd written for /the Lord of the
+Rings/, for instance. Can't really apply to roleplaying though.
+
+Similarly, meaning:
+
+A game where the meaning happens mostly pre-play is one in which
+somebody or everybody has something to say and already knows what it is
+when the game starts. You can always tell these games: the GM expects
+his or her villains and their schemes to be absolutely gripping, but
+they aren't; the players keep wanting to play their characters as well
+as the characters deserve, but it's not happening. I make my character a
+former slave but when it comes up in play it's because I force it to,
+and my fellow players dodge eye contact and the GM wants to get on with
+the plot.
+
+A game where the meaning happens mostly during play is also easy to
+spot: everybody gets it and is engaged. Other players than me are into
+my former-slave character, and when she gets passionate about something,
+the other players hold their breaths. The GM lets the players pick the
+villains through their PCs' judgements, then plays them aggressively and
+directed-ly and hard. Every session is hot. Nobody sacrifices the
+integrity of his or her character for the sake of staying together as a
+party or solving the GM's mystery - the action comes right out of the
+characters' passions.
+
+And a game where the meaning happens mostly post-play - telling it is
+better than it was. Sometimes there'll be one person, the GM or the GM's
+favorite player, whose needs the game mostly met, and if you talk to
+/that/ person the game will sound rockin', but if you talk to the other
+players, it'll sound eh. If people talk afterward about how cool this
+kind of game was, they'll talk about highlights that happened once every
+three, four, five sessions - as though a game with one gripping,
+thrilling, passionate moment per twenty hours of play were a successful
+game.
+
+My goal as a gamer and a game designer is to push /both/ invention and
+meaning as much as possible into actual play.
+
+Problem: the hobby, represented by the books in your game store and the
+conventional habits of most gamers, prefers the pre-game over the game.
+
+Seriously. How many times have you created a character who was far
+cooler in your head than he or she turned out to be in play? How many
+times have you prepped a campaign only to find that, in play, it didn't
+go as well as you'd hoped? Have you ever thought that, y'know, reading
+game books and imagining play and preparing for a game is almost as much
+fun as actually playing? Or even /more/ fun than actually playing?
+
+The hobby doesn't value or teach collaboration. It values and teaches
+competing sole-authorship. Pre-game invention sells books but robs
+players of their ability to contribute; pre-game meaning is thrilling to
+imagine but dull to actually play. This arrangement we've got going is
+frickin' broken.
+
+The solution is to design games that're inspiring, but daydreaming about
+how much fun the game will be to play seems pointless and lame, and you
+can't create extensive histories or backstories because that stuff's
+collaborative -
+
+- so you call a friend.
+
+*4-12-04*
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+    Burning Down the Firewall
+
+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.
+
+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!
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+*4-22-04*
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+	 
+
+ 
+ 
+