Virtual Play

In this episode of Virtual Play, I continue to fill in for Mel. I use some actual play recordings of games (mainly from Camp Nerdly 3) to examine the “Big Model” of Forge Theory. Essentially, I try to make the case that it may not be clear what we’re actually referring to when we use the terms; I suspect that the ambiguity won’t stop us, though.

Critics of the episode may point out that Creative Agenda aren’t located in moments of play but rather in the totality of the interactions among players and the encounter between players and game texts. To which I’d say totality-schmotality: the totality emerges from the moments of play, and you have to start somewhere.

I mention Emily Care Boss’s article in Playground Worlds on the Big Model; it is supposed to be available on-line shortly, but until then (or until you head to one of the Knutepunkt conferences to pick it up) you can look at Ben Lehman’s “Intro to Forge Theory” on This is My Blog for an accessible overview. Roger Caillois is a French sociologist of play; his book Man, Play, and Games is oft-cited in scholarly game studies. Tony Lower-Basch’s Muy Macho credo is available on-line, as is Mo Turkington’s discussion of “sockets” as a player’s “loci of enjoyment” in playing a game. An early instance of Vincent Baker discussing Simulationism is located on his blog “anyway”.

Excerpts from a number of games are used, including WEGS, my own forthcoming game Ganakagok, and Trail of Cthulhu. Players included Paul Czege, Nathan Herrold, Danielle Lewon, and Ryan Macklin in the first Ganakagok game; GM Larry Wick and players Bill Segulin and Jeff Collyer in the WEGS game, among others; Krista Evanouskas, Travis Farber, Anna Kreider, Kit Kreider, and Andrew Morris in the second Ganakagok game; and Jeff Hosmer, Ami Jackson, Shane Jackson, and Phil Walton in the Trail of Cthulhu game.

Excerpts of Trail of Cthulhu, with Bill White

The title is a bit of a jest, since while I complain about the game a little in this podcast, I spend a lot of time talking it up as well. Trail of Cthulhu is supposed to fix the issues that its predecessor Call of Cthulhu has with games stalling because clues aren’t found, or devolving into illusionist romps where player action really doesn’t matter. It does this by saying that if there’s a clue to be found, you’ll find it. The real question at hand is whether or not Trail of Cthulhu is a case of “Design What Doesn’t Matter”; that is, expect that play groups will address What Really Matters in the game with their role-playing or other table-level procedures, so the point of the rules is to abstract everything else so that this emergent play procedure can get to What Really Matters.

Here are Web references for some of the things I mentioned in the show:

Camp Nerdly home page
Trail of Cthulhu page on Pelgrane Press/

“Drifting to R’lyeh” thread on the Forge

Playtest review of ToC on RPG.net (Comments thread is worth reading, too).
Discussion on systems that “get out of the way” on Cultures of Play
Josh Roby and others talk about “Design What Doesn’t Matter”
Bill

“I had a great time at Knutepunkt! Freeform games are by definition “all about the role-playing,” so one interesting thing about listening to freeform play is trying to listen for those moments where players make consequential choices for their characters. This Virtual Play episode focuses on the “opening game” of the conference; the organizers broke up the participants into groups of 6 to 10 and had them play a specially written game called “The School Trip.” The characters have arrived at a class re-union 15 years after graduating high school, and find themselves re-living a shameful incident from their senior trip to the big city. There is some discussion about the game on the Nordic larp forum at http://laivforum.net/showthread.php?t=17830.  Sorry about about the sound quality on the audio; I promise I’ll do a better job on my next “guest host” spot!”

Primetime Adventures from Dreamation, 2009

I hope you’re still out there!  It’s taken me a while to put this show together but when Jeff Collyer sent me the files of a couple of Primetime Adventures games he ran at Dreamation, I knew I had to do something with them.  As I mention in the show, I’m a big fan of PTA.  It’s a great game that I think even my wife would play!  Who doesn’t like TV!?  Plus, I’d like to do more of this kind of thing in Virtual Play:  listen to audio files of games that I didn’t play, and see what to make of them.  I think this worked pretty well in this case, in the sense that the games were entertaining and it was possible to interpret what was going on in the game in terms of stance and frames and other concepts that are written about describing ‘how players play.’
So here’s the show, thanks for hanging in there!  I can guarantee that the break before the next show will be very short because my brother, Bill White, is already doing final editing for Virtual Play 38.  He was at the Knutpunkt convention and has a lot to say about that experience!
Mel

Highlights of Timothy Kleinert’s ‘The Mountain Witch’ from Charcon 2008.

My friend Lars Ericson ran ‘The Mountain Witch’ at Charcon and the game was a lot of fun.  An early conflict between two player characters blossomed into a life-or-death struggle involving the Mountain Witch himself.  Lars and I talked about the game for Virtual Play, focusing on his preparation for the game, the use of scenes to allow players to foreshadow their characters’ Dark Fates, and some of the mechanics of the game.
Mel

A discussion of frames in RPGs through examples of play.

In advance of the upcoming Knutpunkt convention, the LARP and roleplaying convention that rotates among Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark, my brother Bill White has proposed a paper for inclusion in the journal that accompanies the various panels at the convention. Bill’s paper is an analysis at the negotiation that occurs between players in developing the ’shared imagined space’ of RPG play. In a recent visit, Bill and I talked about his paper, which focuses on an excerpt of play from a Spirit of the Century game he ran at Dexcon.
Mel

Two consistent RPG podcast review sites are Charles Tan’s Bibliophile Stalker and Doc Holaday’s Podcast Review. Charles selected Virtual Play for what I believe to be his first ‘Podcast Spotlight’ column, which I’m pretty pleased about. And Doc Holaday has provided some good critiques and insights into the last several Virtual Play episodes as part of his roundup on many shows every week. At both sites, you’ll find links to many other RPG podcasts–some of which may pique your interest.
Mel

I’m thrilled to be able to point you to Voice of the Revolution the podcast of Indie Press Revolution of which about 7 minutes is Paul Tevis and me talking about running games at conventions. A good portion of the actual play recordings I use come from convention games so I’m grateful to all the players out there who let me record the game for later analysis. Paul and I have been in one game together as players–Jason Morningstar’s Grey Ranks, which Jason ran at a recent Dreamation convention–while the co-host of Voice of the Revolution, Brennan Taylor, played in the Spirit of the Century Adventure I ran at Philcon, Rex Rich and the Warlord of Mars. With me or without, Voice of the Revolution is a podcast well worth the price.
Mel

This episode highlights skill challenges from D&D 4th Edition.

In the ‘Uerlan 4th Age’ campaign we’re using skill challenges in multiple ways.  First, skill challenges allow the players to resolve fairly complex tasks with just a few dice rolls.  Second, in an adaptation of the concept Don Corcoran presented in his D&D game at Dreamation, skill challenges allow players to introduce facts about game elements–people, places, or things–during play.  This episode presents some examples of those two uses.  In addition, I’ve noticed that in the Classic Traveller games my brother Bill and I have been playing, we’re using a method similar to the skill challenge system.  So I’ve included an excerpt from the Traveller game we played at Origins that demonstrates some of the similarities and differences.

Mel

PS  This is the complete D&D audio at the internet archive:Uerlan 4th Age
The Traveller game is here: Traveller, Origins

I’ve uploaded to the Internet Archive a collection of Dexcon and some older games. First up is Beast Hunters from Dexcon. Beast Hunters is designed primarily as a two player game where players rotate the roles of a hunter and prey.
Second is Blossoms Are Falling, also from Dexcon. The feudal era Japan setting for the Burning Wheel, the title for this adventure was ‘Mountain of Honor’.
Third, for something a little different, is the setting and character generation session for an upcoming D&D 4E mini-campaign. In the first half-hour, we use ‘The Deck of Many Things’ in a tarot-like manner to develop facts about the campaign world. The campaign is called Uerlan 4th Age. We’re planning on playing the first actual adventure this week. I’ll let you know how it goes.
I’m also posting a couple of versions of the Spirit of the Century adventure “Yangtze Rocket Patrol”. It’s interesting to me to see the development of the adventure through its various iterations. The first session was at Terpcon; Spirit of Terpcon. The second session was at Origins; Spirit of Origins.
And there are a few more to come!
Mel