This is something that's been bugging me for a while, and not with this game -- this has been on my mind for the past week or so, after reading through some indie game descriptions and previews.

I like lots of indie games.  BW is cool, Sorcerer is cool, 3:16, Dogs, etc.  But for some reason the idea of roleplaying some indie games (Poison'd, Steal Away Jordan, Bliss Stage, etc.) makes me uncomfortable.  

One game that I've been tossing around in my head is Bliss Stage, especially since finding it came right on the heels of defending Evangelion when I was in a debate with a friend over "enjoyable" movies/TV shows.  Put short, Evangelion is one of the first anime I watched, and had a really profound effect on me.  Some of the quality of execution and art direction were iffy due to budget problems, but there were still ideas in there that really struck a chord in a way that nothing had prior in my childhood.

Now, a friend of mine made a statement along the lines that depressing films/tv series aren't "enjoyable", and I disagreed because the purpose of art is to move someone, not necessarily by instilling feelings of joy or happiness.  But for some reason I don't find myself defending games like Bliss Stage in the same way.  For some reason, watching a finished piece of art is ok, but the act of trying to execute something deep and moving with amateurs and an impromptu setup would just seem to make for really awkward situations and perhaps even end up with a bad taste in some of the players mouths.

I'm not sure.  Maybe I don't like games that strike too close to home.  Maybe as a video-gamer I'm used to fun gamey bits and perhaps some exploration of a "cool" setting.  But I don't see myself playing some of these games.  Not because I have some dislike for the designers -- they seem to be nice enough people, but because I personally have trouble figuring out how to derive enjoyment from using these systems when they're tied to certain subject matter.

Sorry.  I don't know.  That's how I feel, and it's hard for me to qualify any of it into logical reasoning other than certain stuff makes me feel uncomfortable, and I prefer creating more positive experiences, even if I may enjoy darker or more difficult subject matter when presented as a finished work.  Degrees of separation from normal people and the real world also allow me an easier time of getting into a game.

I think you raise a good point, Ed, and it gets to the root of the problem for some people I bet.

There are GURPS books that matter-of-factly address human sacrifice and cannibalism and give you the tools you need to play German soldiers in the Second World War. I am guessing that's OK with you because it's just information. How a captor should behave when his prisoner of war is ritually slaughtered, that sort of thing. And that's fine, that leaves it up to the group to work out what it means. If you want to play Einsatzgruppen, it is no skin off Steve Jackson's nose.

A game like Steal Away Jordan has some ideas about what it means, and those ideas are mechanically reinforced. It has a point of view, it is not just information. Another game that does this is Dungeons and Dragons, which mechanically reinforces the tropes of heroic fantasy. Some people really, really don't like this. I'm obviously OK with it.

Peregrin, that's a great post.

Your thoughts on the line between creating and consuming seem key to me. Creating requires vulnerability and risk. Trust is involved. With roleplaying you are asked to have this collaborative experience as a default, and the more extreme the content the more trust you need.

Quote from: Jason Morningstar;404007We discussed it before we played and none of us were comfortable with it, so no racial epithets were used, Sergeant Space Wizard. The naming thing really affected me, and I thought it was a good example of a game's potential to show the institution of slavery in a different way than a text. Worked for me and honestly took me by surprise.

I can't speak for anybody else, but I'm pretty sure I know why informed people have a problem with it. I can't argue against a position like Eliot's, which is founded on subjective personal beliefs and is well articulated, and I wouldn't try.

Oh! And the blaxploitation comment is sorta true. The game has a pretty wide dial, and none of us were really into complete, ugly, brutal reality, because we were all outside our comfort zone to begin with. If that is a 10 and total conjure woman magical fantasy is a 1, we played a 6 or 7.

Well, that you can understand why people might have a problem with it is something I will give you credit for. You guys obviously didn't want to take it all the way because of comfort levels which is perfectly understandable.

But what I guess I don't get is why play such a game at all? On the one hand playing with the dial up to 10 seems self indulgent and masochistic, yet dialing it back is not treating the subject with the gravity it deserves. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Again, I am not personally offended, and could imagine playing a game set in America before abolition. But playing "Roots: the RPG" just feels kinda wrong to me.

Quote from: Koltar;404009Yesh, thats because I'm fairly sure SJ Games has the common sense not to do such a thing.


- Ed C.

Don't be so sure. After all they did put out that instruction manual for computer crime called GURPS Cyberpunk. That's how me and all my friends learned how to hack the internetz...

Quote from: Patrick Y.;404006And yet the rpg and board game hobbies have had games about the Vietnam experience on the market for decades, and I don't see a lot of threads talking about how inappropriate Advanced Recon is.

False equivalence is false.

Quote from: SgtSpaceWizard;404023But what I guess I don't get is why play such a game at all? On the one hand playing with the dial up to 10 seems self indulgent and masochistic, yet dialing it back is not treating the subject with the gravity it deserves. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

I see your point, for sure. Having that dial to set meant I got to play it, and by playing it I learned something and also had a great experience and made some friends. We tempered the experience to our comfort level so it wasn't 100% hardcore emo authentic slave narrative, and that was the right choice. I think "100%" the wrong goal anyway, for many of the reasons Eliot espouses - you're never going to achieve perfect empathy or verisimilitude. You can honor the ground truth while accepting that you are creating derivative fiction, and pushing too hard beyond that is going to be, to borrow a phrase, pretentious. Find a middle ground, be respectful to the source material, play.

It was challenging and a little uncomfortable, given the subject matter, and I had to trust some guys I didn't know very well to be awesome, which they were. We had a good session and it was mostly the second sort of fun (by my definition up-thread) and overall a really rewarding time. I went into it expecting that, and that's why I played.

So it works for me, and really, this is one of those games that either speaks to you or it doesn't, and that's cool.

Quote from: Jason Morningstar;404013I think you raise a good point, Ed, and it gets to the root of the problem for some people I bet.

There are GURPS books that matter-of-factly address human sacrifice and cannibalism and give you the tools you need to play German soldiers in the Second World War. I am guessing that's OK with you because it's just information. How a captor should behave when his prisoner of war is ritually slaughtered, that sort of thing. And that's fine, that leaves it up to the group to work out what it means. If you want to play Einsatzgruppen, it is no skin off Steve Jackson's nose.

..................

Jason ,
 You're full of shit on this.

By-the-way - did you recognize me at Gen Con this year?
 Pretty sure I saw you in mid-conversation with someone. There was no reason for me to interrupt you. (Then again maybe I should have if you were recruiting them to play bin a misery tourism game.....)


- Ed C.

Quote from: SgtSpaceWizard;404023Well, that you can understand why people might have a problem with it is something I will give you credit for. You guys obviously didn't want to take it all the way because of comfort levels which is perfectly understandable.

But what I guess I don't get is why play such a game at all? On the one hand playing with the dial up to 10 seems self indulgent and masochistic, yet dialing it back is not treating the subject with the gravity it deserves. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Again, I am not personally offended, and could imagine playing a game set in America before abolition. But playing "Roots: the RPG" just feels kinda wrong to me.

I understand on some sort of visceral level that you feel it is wrong - but I have trouble making logical sense of it to me.  

That's why I asked earlier how people would feel about a Spartacus RPG - even if it had similar mechanics.  I haven't seen any answers about that.  

I haven't yet run Steal Away Jordan, but I ran a mini-campaign set in the Normandy invasion of WWII.  Over half a million people died in Operation Overlord, which makes it pretty damn serious - and I certainly didn't play it off as trivial.  Yet I felt like, while serious, it wasn't either self-indulgent or masochistic.  

What I find also curious is that many posters on Story Games reacted badly to D20 Afghanistan, voicing objections that it was inherently disrespectful.  So it seems to me that there is an element of just projecting biases about what games one likes.  Having read (but not played) both Steal Away Jordan and D20 Afghanistan, I think they both seem potentially fun without being disrespectful.

Quote from: Koltar;404074Jason ,
 You're full of shit on this.

Could you explain this statement a little?

Quote from: SgtSpaceWizard;404005I could be wrong, but I think this is less a story game issue than a subject matter issue. It would be as bad if it were a GURPS worldbook.

And if it were a supplement for 4E? The internetz would break...

Well you may be correct. However it points to story games in this thread--and not to games about slavery and racism.

I think the thread would make more sense if the story game bias were jettisoned and arguments focused on the misery tourism/slavery negative aspects instead. I doubt it will happen but it would make more sense.

I find my arguments better put forth in the forward of Providence by Lucian Soulban:
Our lives are filled with enough negative messages. when did gaming stop being escapism and start being an affirmation of our worst qualities?
When did we stop becoming heroes?

The whole prologue is pointed at those two lines and is a powerful message to my thoughts.

Pretty much that has been my focus as a game designer. The message I create in games may spread beyond me, may touch lives outside my circle of friends, or touch lives long after I am dead. What message that is, in the end for me is "I believe in heroes."

It is not just enough to write a game or story and accept that it creates "mere" entertainment. Entertainment like all other creations we touch carry a message, a moment of learning, and one hopes, understanding.

One needs to ask: Does this game create a positive moment of understanding for those who play it? Or is it just a negative affirmation of our worst qualities?

That's what matters.

Quote from: boulet;403996Is therpgsite open for debates or not? Are people who enjoy story-games welcome to join the debate or not?

Yes it is and yes they are. There are many here with dissenting views and visit other sites, including storygames.

However, Mr. Morningstar is heavily invested in the Forge model. I might disagree with people like yourself, Peregrine and others here over these types of game, but you aren't a C list Forge celebrity. I trust your motives are honest - i have trouble believing an invested person such as Jason can debate in good faith in these matters.

YMMV.

Quote from: One Horse Town;404122Yes it is and yes they are. There are many here with dissenting views and visit other sites, including storygames.

However, Mr. Morningstar is heavily invested in the Forge model. I might disagree with people like yourself, Peregrine and others here over these types of game, but you aren't a C list Forge celebrity. I trust your motives are honest - i have trouble believing an invested person such as Jason can debate in good faith in these matters.

YMMV.

But you believe pundit can debate in good faith when it comes to Forge games!?!

What could Jason do, other than what he's doing? I haven't seen him calling other games inferior around here or calling D&D players retarted. Jason is here, under his own name, discussing games he likes, not trying to convert people or ridicule other games, that seems pretty fair and honest to me.

Quote from: DKChannelBoredom;404123not trying to convert people

I admire your optimism.

Quote from: Axiomatic;403920Clearly that guy is not regular by definition, since enjoying a roleplaying game of any sort = not ordinary person.

So all those people playing at murder mystery parties through the years were not normal?

I know of parents who loathed and railed against their kids D&D and "role playing games from the devil", but went to murder mystery parties, and didn't recognize their hypocrisy.