Something That Isn't Pull
Until fairly recently I assumed that what Mo meant by Pull was actually something else. This something was Making Other Players Awesome (which Mo suspects might be my primary play socket).
To me, one of the primary questions about roleplaying in practice is, to use a volleyball metaphor, are you setting the ball or are you spiking it? Are you Doing Awesome Stuff or are you Setting Up Other Players To Be Awesome?
Obviously this changes from moment to moment, but I suspect that people who are good at the latter are rarer and often less recognizable, like a basketball player who has 4 points and 14 assists. Those are the kind of people you want in the GM's chair or, better yet, as a Producer in Primetime Adventures. But they are an absolute joy to play with in any capacity because they make everyone else more awesome. And that's the kind of player I want to be.
Now I think I need to go re-learn what Push and Pull are.
To me, one of the primary questions about roleplaying in practice is, to use a volleyball metaphor, are you setting the ball or are you spiking it? Are you Doing Awesome Stuff or are you Setting Up Other Players To Be Awesome?
Obviously this changes from moment to moment, but I suspect that people who are good at the latter are rarer and often less recognizable, like a basketball player who has 4 points and 14 assists. Those are the kind of people you want in the GM's chair or, better yet, as a Producer in Primetime Adventures. But they are an absolute joy to play with in any capacity because they make everyone else more awesome. And that's the kind of player I want to be.
Now I think I need to go re-learn what Push and Pull are.
posted by Jonathan Walton at 5:33 PM
2 Comments:
Jonathan...
Oi.
This is how I see you, which is not to say that it is right because I've not had the chance to observe your play, I'm just going by what you given me.
Profile of Jonathan Walton, gamer:
Primary Sockey: Social
Secondary Socket: Story
Payoff: "Participating in a social Endeavor where we mutually, harmoniously, create something that is greater than the sum of our collective input."
C/I Scale: 6.5ish
I/O Scale: 6.5ish (Remember that Other=Social / Story here, *not* character)
Goal: Create a supportive, constrained environment where everyone at the table can bring everything they have to the game and surrender myself to the story (possibly: in hopes that others will too).
Methods / techniques to achieve goal: Pull (and likely, Push).
You may recall that we discussed this a bit on the way back from Gen Con. One of the reasons I'm so excited about your personal interpretation of the ideas behind push and pull, despite how different they are from what I take Mo to mean by them, is that they result in cool games and cool play.
I mean, you operate from this basic assumption that everyone has all the cool ideas they need for play in their head, they just need to let them out. People don't need systemic guidance for what to contribute, only for when to contribute (all the time). That's why you get games like W/T and 5K, which are awesome.
I also really like your volleyball metaphor here. I think that there are tons of reasons to use a 'set' in play beyond just wanting to make other peoples' play awesome. I mean, sometimes having other people doing cool stuff sets you up so that you can do cool stuff. Immersing in a character, for instance, might be more fun if the other characters at the table are awesome.
Thomas
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