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Saturday May 14th, 1994, 1:00pm-8:00pm; Gallery Four, Metro Arts Centre, Brisbane, Australia
Present: John Mack (Moderator), David Redfern, Kathy Fitzgerald, Hugh Breaker
The aim of the workshop was to introduce experimental forms and techniques to Queensland roleplaying . Several modules described as "cathartic", "atmospheric" etc. by southern experts were played wholly or in part, with the intention of "taking them apart to see how they work". The participants were all experienced roleplayers. In addition, while the moderator came from a background in Psychology, the other participants came from backgrounds in drama, including Extended Improvisations (EI), or "Drama Process". All modules were provided courtesy of Grant Chapman at the ARIEL archives.
Memory was played in its entirety. It had been widely recommended as the essential cathartic module. Some modifications were made, eg. the music which the writers recommended playing at apparently random points in the module, was instead used as a segue to denote the passage of time, at points where such was needed and as close as practical to the original positioning of the music. In addition, it was often necessary to make explicit the fact that the game had gone into a flashback, as Queensland gamers are not familiar with the technique.
The main comment was the lack of "dramatic drive", those devices known to roleplayers as character objectives, conflicts, and external events that motivate characters in most modules. Orthodoxy among dramatists states that dramatic drive is needed to fuel dialogue; simply asking two people to interact will rapidly degenerate into small talk, which could just as easily be coming from the player as the character. The reason why the module worked without it was that it was not dialogue driven, rather, the emphasis was on visuals and atmosphere. Characters did not need to be motivated to action, as the device of flashbacks broke up the module so there was no chance for any interaction to become exhausted. On the downside, the alienation techniques (eg. suddenly and arbitrarily changing scenes, not telling the players they were now in a flashback) were superfluous and needlessly confusing.
After studying character sheets, players were led through the opening and first speaker for this module.
This module represents a genre of concept-based rather than character-based modules. While concept based modules are a viable form, the execution in this instance was lacking (eg. players felt that the degree of specialised knowledge of the Catholic church, and the degree of interest in the church, necessary to appreciate this module, would only be found in certain segments of the community). De-emphasising the personalities of characters in favour of exploring abstract ideas is potentially useful as a means to educate players about a topic, but there are doubts about the potential for enjoyment in this form. Concept-based modules often involve playing opinions, rather than playing the people who hold them. Other concept-based modules were referred to for purposes of comparison. NVE (John Mack) dealt with sex and censorship, and as such was probably less dependent on specialised knowledge than Maxim 387, but the feedback from players when it was run at Noncon 93 was similar, in that they felt they were being educated instead of entertained. What Price Liberty (Robert McLean) was unavailable for the workshop, but from reviews it was a more successful example of this genre, using the moderately accessible subject matter of terrorism, where again the characters' personalities are secondary to their role as representing aspects of terrorism.
This was played through in condensed form, losing much detail for the sake of brevity. Unfortunately this undermined the impact of the module, which depended on character identification up until the major plot twist. Its main impact involved the alienation effect, of normal, real people suddenly finding out that they are only toys.
Players felt that the module was hard to take seriously, that it appeared to be weirdness for the sake of weirdness. Particular reference was made to the convention in drama, where any truly bizarre or outlandish precepts must be established in the first few minutes, for the audience to assimilate them into their suspension of disbelief. Such concepts, if suddenly introduced half-way through, will not be accepted by the audience.
The module was supplied without character sheets. The opportunity was taken to explore the use of masks in roleplaying. Masks used as totem fetishes or representations of spirits are particularly of interest for this module; the characters represent the urban equivalent of primitive spirits and totems, and given that at the start of the game they have no memory and no identity, could be represented easily by fetish masks rather than character sheets. The players were shown a set of masks, each a stylized representation of one of the character concepts, and asked to pick the ones they liked. The first few scenes of the module were then played as written.
The players appreciated the idea of starting characters out as blank slates, and having their personalities defined by events, although they noted that it was difficult to motivate their characters in this way (eg. why should a brick wall do anything other than stand and be a wall?). The blank slate format has also been explored with Persons Unknown (The Cthulhu Collective) and an obscure game called The Sandman, although in all cases they were pre-defined characters gradually revealed, rather than being wholly defined by their actions and experiences. Entertaining as the module was, the setting was far more intriguing, extraordinary characters in a quasi-real world setting, a reversal of the usual format of ordinary characters in an extraordinary situation.
The workshop considered a four-stage typology of gaming originally proposed by Greg Rickards.
At one end of the scale, he placed purely tactical role-playing, of the "roll up a character and start rolling dice" variety.
The next stage up was starting to individualise characters, where the initial set of stats would be augmented by a thumb-nail description; eg. "this character is a mighty warrior, but has a drinking problem", but the world still consists largely of a stream of opponents and obstacles.
The next step up is characterisation; the characters have motives for being together and functioning as a group, beyond all having answered an ad at the adventurers' guild, and are functioning in an environment that has texture to it, that can be enjoyed for its own sake. Characters are starting to feel more real, but are still functioning in an environment that has some fantastical component.
The final stage is the elimination of fantastical elements, playing real people in a real-world setting; as one cynic has described it, "playing your own next-door neighbour, with all the excitement and adventure that implies".
There was some question as to the validity of the last two categories, particularly the idea that the real world was more valid a setting than one with fantasy elements to it. The contention that the real-world setting meant characters that were easier to identify with was challenged. After all, why is it more fantastical for a twenty-something male student, to play a twenty-something male dragonslayer, than to play a middle-aged housewife with three children? It was proposed that, rather than being a continuum, the last two stages should be treated as equivalent, and described by two terms borrowed from drama: Naturalism and Realism. Naturalism would equate to the fourth stage, where everyday aspects of behaviour such as scratching ones' nose and making pointless small talk are integral parts of the performance of a character; indeed, doing all the things your next door neighbour might do. Realism captures the essential features of the real life situation, and discards those details not essential to dramatic development; it is a more abstracted approach, allowing players to focus on specific elements that make their characters unique, rather than focussing on details that would be ignored by interactants in real life. The fantastical or larger-than-life approach to characters in Realism does not detract in the least from their development as characters.
Roleplaying could also be typified with a two-dimensional model. The first dimension is the continuum running from working models of reality (tactical games), to subjective illusions of reality (character-based games), similar to Greg Rickards' original proposal. Both extremes attempt to accurately reflect the world, but with emphasis on differing aspects of what to reflect. Someone who is more concerned with the ideas involved than with accurately reflecting the reality, might add the second dimension, abstraction from reality. As games become more abstract, accurately portraying real-life interactions is as unimportant as, say, accurately calculating the velocity of .45 slugs through kevlar. Moving along this dimension places us more firmly in the realm of concepts, rather than reflections of reality; hence, concept-based games.
To express the same idea in terms of John Hughes' character-environment dichotomy, games at the tactical end of the scale represent the subjective world of the character influencing the physical environment, including the physical forms of other characters (C>E). Character-based games represent the influence of the environment (including other characters) on the subjective world of the character (C<E, or even C<C; see next paragraph). Concept-based games are removed from both character and environment (C|E). Under this typology, for example, Memory would be highly character-based and has very little abstraction; what abstraction there is can be mostly attributed to the fairly extreme (larger than life) characters. Maxim 387 involves some influence of characters over their environment, but that influence is not a direct aspect of the game; also, the game is removed from characters to the extent that their personalities are not nearly as important as their ideologies and motivations; hence, high abstraction. Urban Fantasy, although it has a problem-solving aspect, is strongly character-based in that the characters are entirely defined by their interaction with the environment (C<E); the game is abstracted in that the characters are anthropomorphised representations of urban totems.
Mark Whelan has extended the idea of character based games even further with the distinction between cathartic and thematic games. He defines cathartic as involving emotions, interactions, and the inner world of the characters (C<C), where thematic games focus on the milieu in which the characters find themselves, and the exploration of the environment (C<E). However, this distinction does not seem to be universally accepted.
Freeforms run at Briscon recently were criticised for taking the hierarchical approach to character design; there were a handful of central characters, a large number of average characters whose importance hinged on the central characters, and a few peripheral characters who had no apparent purpose beyond making up the numbers. While the logistics of running a freeform where an indeterminate number of people are going to show are made easier by making some characters optional, from a role-playing point of view it is a questionable practice. One good feature of all the modules analysed at the workshop was the homogeneity of the characters; all were equivalent in terms of influence, importance etc., and there were no key figures. Even in Memory, where much of the story revolved around the character of Marion, it was more a case of her being a catalyst around which everything happened, than her dominating events.
It was noted that homogeneity in a module where the emphasis is on character-character interactions, rather than character-environment interactions, makes it vitally important to have all characters represented by players; while a heirarchically-designed module allows the most important characters to be allocated first, so that the module can still work with only partial teams. This problem is not an issue in tactical games, where adding or deleting extra characters is relatively easy. In concept-based games, it is probably easier for gaps to be filled by the GM, due to the less intense characterisation involved. However, a hierarchical solution is still to be avoided where possible, as its only justification is the logistics of getting the required number of players together.
With reference to Memory, it was noted that flashbacks can be understood as a special case of the technique of framing; additional scenes that are played, to show scenes that have already been played, in a completely different light. Framing is not a main role-playing technique, and has been described as being more like skilled work than something that is done for enjoyment. However, as role-playing develops more as an art form, framing may be used more often.
EI, unlike roleplaying, allows no grey areas between when a person is in and out of character. Marking techniques are used in EI to eliminate ambiguity over which mode people should be operating in. Examples include having the director snap his fingers, which is a cue for everyone to freeze and close their eyes while the director imparts new information, and characterisation exercises which require that the player do something in character, yet completely non-verbal and non-interactive (for instance, having their character write a letter to another character) for a little while before the improvisation starts, so that they are well into character before even opening their mouths. This is a clear contrast to the standard in roleplaying games, where players ease in to their characters over a lengthy period of time, reading their character sheets and asking questions of the GM at the same time as playing in character. In games where interacting with the environment is less important than interacting with other characters, it would be helpful to use such techniques, especially to allow players to talk to other players and the GM without causing confusion over whether or not they are in character.
Metagaming is a dirty word in southern states, apparently. However, to Queensland roleplayers at least, it seems essential that players be allowed to discuss the game with each other and with the GM, rather than being locked into character (see Marking Techniques). Useful techniques borrowed from psychodrama (eg. shadowing, mirroring, role reversal) depend on being able to not only act out a scene at multiple different levels, but to discuss all those levels. Note though that the psychodrama techniques listed are more likely characterisation aids than main roleplaying techniques.
Secrets: Again with reference to homogeneous character design, it is important to distinguish between those secrets that can be safely given to characters, and those that should remain the province of the GM. While empowerment of characters requires that all be given important information, not all players will be equally skilled in the dramatic timing of using or revealing such information. Inexperienced or stupid players can destroy an entire module (especially a freeform) in the first five minutes by giving away information that everyone else is supposed to be looking for.
Events: Pivotal events should always be the domain of the GM, and never be entrusted to players. Only GMs have the authority to convince players that what just happened is important to their character. It is interesting to note that EI directors, who invariably are working with highly trained and experienced actors, put much less faith in those actors and retain greater control of events, than do GMs of games, where players could just as easily be Battletechies who came to find out what a multiform is.
Catalytic Characters: Characters who appear near the middle or end of a module, or who have no actions of their own to perform but merely serve as catalysts, are best played as NPCs by the GM. The example was given at the workshop of an EI where the director froze the group and told them that when he left the room and then re-entered, they would all recognise him as the Lieutenant, and salute. On his re-entry, while they all saluted and acted appropriately deferential, he marched about the room, abused them all roundly, and barked at them to get it in gear and reach a decision. He then left. The simple intervention by a character who had not even existed previously, who imparted no new information, and caused no new events, vastly increased the emotional level of the EI. The role has no equivalent that could have been given to a player.
Roleplaying's ancestral heritage can be seen as a progression from wargaming miniature figurines representing a body of troops, down to figures representing a single squad and finally, figures representing a single character. Roleplayers seem to have stopped there, with the idea that one person plays one character. This ignores two areas of roleplaying that have so far been unexplored.
One is the idea of many players playing one character; either through the Sibyl paradigm, of multiple personalities within one mind, or the Herman's Head paradigm, where players play aspects of an integrated personality. Either of these, but especially the former, could lend themselves to a freeform approach. The Hermans' Head approach would be very much a concept-based module, where the players do not play complete characters, but aspects of personality.
The other area of composite roleplaying is where one person plays an organisation consisting of multiple people. The idea comes from cyberpunk, and one of the four aspects of the dehumanisation of intelligence represented in that genre: humans becoming more like machines; machines becoming more like humans; non-human intelligence (dolphins, extra-terrestrials, mutated animals); and corporations. The idea of the last is that emergent properties of organisations may include something that resembles sentience; the sum total of the individual actions of individual people who make up those organisations, produces behaviour that the contributing individuals have no way of being aware of or comprehending, and yet resembles that of a self-aware entity. The personalities and motivations of such a psuedo-consciousness would be truly alien, and a challenge to role-play. A module using this paradigm would not use face-to-face roleplaying; rather, all communication between entities would be completely mediated by the GM or GMs (it could perhaps be run between sessions at a convention).
Grant Chapman, John Hughes, the workshop participants (David, Hugh and Kathy), and everyone I've quoted, misquoted, or plagiarised.
Cathartic Role-Playing Workshop Zero | Return to Role-Playing Games Homepage