I found an article via Treasure Tables that discusses Active and Reactive play in RPGs. The article by Stephen Jarvis talks about the author’s troubles in the game he is currently running with regards to incorporating character beliefs in play.
One of the reasons we seized upon is that our Beliefs are too big, too long-range. They don’t have much immediacy about them, so it’s hard to play on those beliefs down in the dirt of the actual events of the game when the Beliefs are floating way up in the sky above all the time. We need to bring those Beliefs down to where the game’s being played. … Because our existing Beliefs are sorta large and amorphous, we’re having trouble doing things that seem to focus on the Beliefs.
I find myself seeing similarities here between Stephen’s game and the Fire and Ice game I’m playing in currently. We’ve got three major characters who share the same long-term goal, but it’s a goal which is unattainable in the near-term and there’s no clear course from the near-term to the long-term. I’ve noticed this lends itself to a sort of “What now?” approach — Which I strongly dislike. Although I know there are some people who grapple with that question in real life, usually there are too many vagaries of existence for that to become a sticking point. “What now?” — Your next meal is an hour away, you’re starting to get tired, you need to wash, you need a place to stay, you need to meet rent, you’ve got to get to work.
These things don’t enthuse me, and ideally they’d be nothing more than asides, so long as your characters are doing well enough to pay for food and shelter. But I do think they are good pacing points. Since, in my own campaign world, NPCs were scheduled to do certain things at certain times, pacing was a serious issue to me. My players always seemed to want to press onward and I found myself reminding them that they should eat or sleep — Not altogether important in most situations, but when you’ve just been awakened and fought and long and hard battle with your foes, you’re not in the greatest shape to mount a counterattack or any number of other active tasks. When I play my own characters I do try to keep in mind these sorts of things — “I’m tired,” or “I’m hungry” may not be things that heroes ever say, but they’re regular and persistent conflicts that must always be resolved in the near future.
Now, one thing that Martin of Treasure Tables mentions is the dichotomy of “Active” vs “Reactive” play. The difference is pretty easy to grasp, it’s the difference between having your character abandon his watch to go out and hunt small fauna and having the DM tell you that you’re getting really hungry and will start accumulating penalties if you don’t go out and do something about your hunger. According to Martin, “Action vs. Reaction is a major social contract issue.” I’d agree with this, with the particular caveat that this is especially true when playing at a tabletop, and less-so when playing online through chat or Play-By-Post/Email. It’s a lot easier to juggle side-action (such as one character leaving the group to go do something else) online than it is offline, when such things either result in interrupting one storyline or excessive time spent passing notes (which themselves can take a long time to write unless you’re typing them). I also get the sense that the physicality of the person sitting there but not actively helping the group can lead to some resentment.
One of the things I’ve been discussing with my GM in the Fire and Ice game is how my character seems to at once (a) have his own goals and agenda and (b) have some minor friction with the other characters. Now, I can’t say for sure what’s going on with the other players in this game — They may indeed be pursuing their own agendas and I’m just oblivious. But my GM has indicated that she thinks they are playing the game in a more reactive way than I am, and I get the impression that, because of that, my character seems to be taken as not-entirely-on-board with the goals of the group. I’m hoping Martin’s wrong here and that it’s not going to blow up into a “major social contract issue” with the other players, but I guess we’ll see.
I guess I’ve sort of wandered a bit, but then I’m not entirely sure where I’m going either– Bankuei has a D&D “gamehack” (ie, house rule) on character bonds. I think something like this is a good way to encourage people to get a better handle on their goals, and a very similar idea occurred to me for the purpose of encouraging players in my own campaign to be more active in their play. The danger, as Stephen Jarvis’ and my own Fire and Ice campaigns seems to demonstrate is that even using one of these systems is no escape from reactive play. You’ve still got to try to deal with characterization and figuring out what your character wants to pursue in the near-term and the long-term.
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