Two Lists
Nathan Paoletta, whose name I enjoy spelling, outlines at his blog his Two-List Method for identifying play preferences. This is very hot shit, and I’m going to do it myself using this week’s playtesting for the specific game.
Here’s my General List:
- I like games where I have some control over my own success (spending willpower for a bonus, for instance).
- I like games where I am able to create details of the broader setting in the midst of play.
- I like games where the GM is constrained or there is no GM at all.
- I like games with stakes setting.
- I like games that are set up with an explicit premise for that one game (you are members of an elite special ops team…).
- I like games that can be played in one two-to-four hour session.
- I like games with an endgame.
- I like games that utilize history or present-day culture rather than oddball alternate realities.
- I prefer science fiction over fantasy.
- I like games with a strong social reality that impacts play and can be affected by play.
- I dislike “starting characters” who are barely competent and have to “earn” competency through play.
- I like games that I can play with my wife.
Specific List to come on Thursday the next day I don’t completely and totally forget to go to the game session.
July 10th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
I’m interested, since #12 is there if you share any of the other 11 with Laura. Some of them (one two-to-four hour session, no GM at all, endgame) sound really antithetical to what one might find on her list, though of course I haven’t actually played with her in years so she might play differently now.
Has she done a list?
July 11th, 2006 at 8:51 am
I should poke at her to do a list for comparison’s sake.
I highly suspect that we share the first and second items. We’ve talked at length about the explicit premise (and were building a MUSH on that foundation), and our current gaming is all in one-session chunks. And she’s despised “starting characters” long before I did, back when I would try to convince her that there was some value in earning your fictional ability that allowed you to participate in the game. And she likes to play games with me.
Laura is only so-so on the GMless and GMful designs, and she’s highly suspicious of stakes-setting thanks to Dogs. She prefers fantasy to scifi any day of the week, and isn’t as gaga over games with social repercussions. My girl likes her some smash and bash on occasion. Overall, Laura does prefer her play to be more open-ended and unstructured than I do — but really, most people on the planet prefer things less structured than I do, so that’s no surprise.
You and Brand should do two-lists and see where you intersect!
July 11th, 2006 at 11:51 am
Why is she suspicious of stake-settings thanks to Dogs?
July 11th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
A long story. We were playing online, so we did not have the dice out in front of us and easily seen or referenced. To her, it seemed like no matter what she did, there was always more crap piled on to make her lose — because there were more dice to be spent. She prefers decisive action (see FLFS conflict resolution) and the inability to get a decisive ‘win’ really rankled.
July 11th, 2006 at 3:12 pm
But then again, she too always had more dice…
Then again, you’re saying the Conflict rules for Dogs didn’t work for her, and that led to her not liking anything about it, including the Stakes?
July 11th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
Also, I can’t see the FLFS conflict resolution, since when I’ve seen your site first the playtest was already down
July 13th, 2006 at 8:57 am
She had more dice, sure, but she wanted the conflict to be over, not to keep grinding on. Which led to her disliking most of the system, yes.
FLFS resolution is a one-roll narration-dispensing mechanic. You set quickie stakes, you roll dice, you apply your thematic batteries, and whoever wins gets narration rights until they give them to someone else or another die roll takes them away. One roll takes maybe sixty seconds. It’s a quick-bang let’s-move-on sort of thing.
July 13th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
I look at your list above, and I must ask.
Did you create FLFS’s system this way because this is what you wanted, or because you wanted to create a game to suit your wife’s desires?
July 13th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
FLFS is wholly and unabashedly written for my wife.
However, with the exception of crunchy conflict resolution, it hits pretty much all the items on the list above.
July 13th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
Rock on man
July 25th, 2006 at 5:17 am
Well?
August 7th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
[…] Edit: Joshua BishopRoby (who’s name I almost always end up misspelling) is giving the two-list thing a whirl on his blog. Rock. […]