unforum

[Wolf]

I remember being excited during the run of LJ very clearly...I went back to my fellow PMs and said "They're getting it! They're filling in the story and they're actually getting it!" The universe they ended up building in collaboration with us--whether they realized it or not at the time--made it a much more real place than we could have made on our own.

The stuff quoted below is essentially what I was going after. I like Gup's approach to it as "forensics."

And sometimes the players' theories and choices have more than slight influence...their meta spec actually gave us better ideas than we had on our own in a case or two.

[aliendial]

yeah, but if you were REALLY working with us you would have done something interesting with those damn apples!!

[rose]

I admit that I am slow to grasp these troublesome META issues. I never forsee trouble with a game until I trip over it or it jumps out of the woods at me -- and then I'm confused, hurt, and, not at all to my credit, angry.

I do recognize that in some ways playing a game to me is like reading a novel, I visualize vast portions without realizing it and it all seems very real. The level of immersion, the type of immersion as opposed to interaction, or the quality of immersion is almost irrelevant to me -- I admit it, I can create a vivd story around the "real" aquachat site we visited in AWARE: the story of who made it, why they go there, what they are like, everything -- so I have nothing to add to that part of the discussion.

But I feel strongly about the "role-playing" we have been discussing in this thread. I haven't seen the need to create a separate character to play AWARE in the completed pre-game or in the "prologue" stage we are in now. And I think only one or two players have, in fact, done so.

On the contrary, at a fundamental level my identity as a player reflects who I am and what I believe. I chose the side I am representing -- alone so far-- based on what I would choose if faced with such a choice in real life. I am trying to walk a line that may not be possible to hold. This has caused me and I am sure the PMs as well a certain amount of stress and extra work. And, sadly, has not brought out my best self.

Still I don't think I could play the game at all, much less with the same "suspension of disbelief," if I were trying to just play an assumed role. I have no interest in that.
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* By playing an assumed role I mean pretending to be a different character that acts in ways that are not true to myself... not interacting with characters in certain ways to achieve certain results.

[StercusMaximus]