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[Ozy_y2k]

R.I.P., suspension of disbelief

[Simulacra]

Re: R.I.P., suspension of disbelief

[MageSteff]

Re: R.I.P., suspension of disbelief

[Flynn]

What Magesteff said

- but... I'm new to this, and what I love is the "is it actually real" feeling. With project Mu, where I first found this whole genre, and now with Acheron, I frequently find myself thinking "what if?" - what if Armageddon is about to hit? - to use an Acheron theme. For me, and again I am relatively new to this, the continuity that I've found is one of the best things for me. Even when the PM's have had to give us, the players, obvious (with hindsight *damn that pale horse*) puzzles in order to get further, the suspension of disbelief has not been difficult.

I'm rambling, but what I want to say is that the continuity I've seen in this genre is way beyond what I've seen in film & TV recently - and potential critics would do well to see that!

[krystyn]

Re: R.I.P., suspension of disbelief

[Ozy_y2k]

Precisely. And, because of that, my views on the topic really HAVEN'T changed in the past year, if anything they've just stubbornly calcified. I mean, people know "me" out there, this little bundle of neuroses and personality tics that we like to call "Ozy". But for anyone to specifically play a game that they knew (or suspected) I was PMing, with an eye toward solely trying to provoke ME (and not the character I'm portraying) into some sort of response, I'd be a bit disappointed. Not just in the player's own lack of interest in honing their personal role-playing skillz, but also in their lack of respect toward the game milleu as a result of their obsessive attentions to its META machinations.

To be fair, a little bit of "paying attention to the little man behind the curtain" goes a long way. I mean, AFTER I see a movie I am always kind of curious to rent the DVD and listen to the director's commentary, largely because I'm curious to see whether my interpretations of the film meshed with the creator's intentions, esp. with regard to subtext, symbolism, and what have you. Sometimes they do, and that's fun, and sometimes they don't, and that's fun too. And that's why I love doing "postgame PM chats" and all sorts of generality-laden genre-related deconstructions on a meta-level, in forums like these. But I also know that if I were to see the "making of" feature before I ever got to see the film, I'd be denying myself the ability to react to certain scenes in the moment and my ultimate enjoyment of the final product would be irretreivably diminished.

What really interests me now, from a more intellectual standpoint, is exactly how this whole thing fits in with the "spoiler" worldview. I mean, there are always gonna be those people who wanna know JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE than what they can see unspooling on the screen (or, in our little ARG case, on the series-of-interlocking-websites) in front of their eyes. These are the sorts of people who haunt spoiler websites and get off on knowing the endings of their favorite books and movies before anyone else. And yeah, if you're asking my opinion and if it's evolved in the past year: I think that's fine, and I don't begrudge anyone the little frisson of power that they might get from knowing (or THINKING they know) a little bit more about the inner workings of a piece of art, and god knows I've even been That Guy once or twice or a dozen times. Curiosity about the creator is an inherent element of human nature; it's why we have artist biographies. (One could even argue that that's why we have RELIGIONS.) But at what point does one start scrutinizing the painter so carefully that one forgets, or loses interest, in what the painting itself looks like?

O