Thus the words "go overboard in trying", above. Oh well, even when I am dead-on in predicting what people will jump on, it still doesn't help to try and head it off at the pass... :)
> You imply, deliberately or otherwise, that the GM is the sole
> creator of the 'narrative', and that the players are merely the
> passive consumers of same. Yes, I know people do play games which
> verge in style towards same, but that's hardly the point of the
> 'storytelling' mechanisms of games like HW, where the _whole point_
> is to induce players to come up with their bits of the 'narrative',
> and rather than as in Brian's game imagining it to themselves,
> with a quiet smile of unassuming satisafction on their faces,
> _sharing it when the rest of the group_. Not a complex or a
> particularly subversive notion, I'd have thought, and one which HW
> may or may not succeed in facilitating, but let's not get sidetracked
> into some entirely blind alley over what's meant by 'storytelling'.
Well, first off, we were talking about the GM describing the results of combat damage...now unless you're proposing that the players get to decide the effects of the damage (or the "negative outcome of the contest" for non-combat stuff) for themselves [shudder], then I don't see the problem with my statements.
As for the players sharing it with the rest of the group, I think I've already made it clear that I don't think players will continue to do this effectively for long. Even if they did, it turns the game into an exercise in impromptu speech-making, with the best speech-makers (also known as loudmouths by some) dominating all the game time. Since it's already hard enough to draw out the shyer players and have them actively participate in each session, this is a Bad Thing, IMO.
One impression that I get in listening to the HW drumbeaters is that there's this feeling that all the players in the world are mature, outgoing, adept at expressing their opinions and thoughts when on-the-spot, etc. In fact, though, if you asked most any outsider who doesn't play RPGs at all, they would tell you that the average "DnD" player (they don't know about other games, of course :)...) is exactly the opposite of these things. That's the stereotype...and like most stereotypes, it's based on kernels of truth (and then exagerrated to absurdity, a la Stormbull).
Another point I should have expounded upon (but its difficult to always predict every facet of one's posts that will be nit-picked) is that the "imagined events" of each player and the GM are *all* better than any detailed narrative that would come from *anybody*. When the big bad monster fights the hero, everyone imagines it in the way that seems the "coolest" to them personally (the same applies to basket-weaving contests or other non-combat events :)...). It takes only a basic level of description to get the imagination-ball rolling for this...
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #546
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