I often quote the aggravations of what I call "bookkeeping" in a gaming context. Some of it is literal; last week I put together a conglomerate spreadsheet of all the Elfquest game characters and their statistics. I had a few (example: Glitter and the Glamour) spreadsheets I've used before to run analyses and keep track of the little number details, but it always ends in heartbreakends up meaning administrative details that either consume my time and energy, or being fairly irrelevant.
You'd think this would push me harder to go to descriptor-based systems rather than numbers, but the truth is, I don't like the vagaries of words compared to the hard truth of mathematics. Is "va-va-voom sexy" higher or lower than "knock-out sexy?"
Monday we discussed another kind of administrative detail: the gaming contract.
The LintKing had been observing my grumblings about the game and had asked me if I was enjoying it.
My first response was, "I'm gaming." You know that response: it's probably a little passive-aggressive, with a tinge of, "Would I be feeding my left arm to sharks if I didn't like it?"
My second response was, "Yes, but I'd enjoy it more if I weren't responsible for it," which also isn't fair. For one, it shocks everyone who knows me and "knows" I prefer to GM. For another, I'm only assisting. For the third, players are at least half responsible for teh AWESOME! [sic] and I know that as well as anyone.
See, the LintKing's a fairly smart guy. He had pointed out while I was musing on the nature of games in this difficult genre (just keep asking yourself, "Where's the conflict?") that it relies a lot more than usual on the GM's ability to express his or her personal view of the world. If you're going to replicate a "look and feel" you have to know the "look and feel."
I have the same problem with pulp games: I don't really feel comfortable or that I even like "the pulp genre" so I am at a loss as to how to develop characters and plots who would fit into the idea. (A sidenote: I was helping determine some books for a potential book club at the coffeehouse I frequent, and one of the people near me listed a number of classic science fiction shorts, and then declared them as "pulp." Oh. Well, maybe I have some familiarity after all. I just don't see the tropes for the, erm, tropics, I guess?)
In the Elfquest universe, part of this is knowing what "The Way" is.
"The Way" is like art: I know it when I see it.
"The Way" is like a mission statement. It's what gathers the core activities and goals of the Wolfriders and how they relate to the environment around them. It's a contention amongst them as well, as it's an instinctual issue and does not lend itself well to analysis. Understanding it, though, is essential to certain roles within the tribe/clan/pack.
I had suggested to the GM that maybe we run through a "day in the life" and we used it as an opening discussion point, asking each person what their character does on a regular day and how it relates to "The Way" as they understand it. Of course she made me an example, as I had my hooks into a pure-elf character I designed on a lark to follow the process with everyone else. (I think my character had fallen in love with Timmain, but I haven't really created a backstory. Maybe when I have that laughable chimera, "Free Time.")
The other thing we discussed was what our character and player goals were, which digressed a little into what brought us to the table.
The good part is that I have them written down...the bad part is that it reinforced my feeling that the experienced in the group are stifled by previous roleplaying. I, for example, expect that a strong showing in something on the character sheet is an implicit statement to the GM that my PC is good at that thing and that I want to have challenges and conflicts that relate to that. At least one player indicated that, on the contrary, that meant they wanted to know more about it!
We managed to flow from that to a player-instigated plot issue that had people involved and made the rest of the game time go quite quickly. I think it might have helped with that - as well as pointing out Yet More Issues we'll have to discuss (like a particular player who is overriding the game.)
Also, props to me: I managed to create an interesting map "on the fly," as it were. No one mentioned it, so I'm just going to give myself a gold star, darnit. [laughing]