I totally get this. Stephen King kind of talks about this in On Writing. Basically he sets up a situation, creates a number of characters, puts them in the (generally unteneble) situation, and writes what happens. In his head he “watches” them react and deal with the situation.
First Person Instructional Voice
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Isn’t this a recursive game, in that if the characters in the book or game have free will, are we the characters in someone else’s game or book? Are we then hoping that the characters have free will, because we’d be terrified that we may not have free will if we were written by someone else?
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As many have said, this approach is very intriguing, but aren’t you concerned that the “voice” you’re giving the charater in the rules text could clash with the “voice” the character will eventually have in play?
To use an example, I remember a let’s player arguing they liked Fallout 4 way less than Fallout 3 because the protagonist had his own voice acted dialogue lines. For them it was as if the recorded voice of the protagonist interfered with the way they wanted to play their character. So in a way the protagoinst wasn’t their character but rather the character. This in turn detracted from replayability.
This is of course very subjective.
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This feels like one of many axes along which a designer can guide players. I’m not worried that an example of play illustrates and maybe inspires the sort of social interaction I want to see at the table, for example. Since I don’t know which character the reader will be portraying, the voice needs to be sort of neutral in any case. It’s just somebody from the setting (in this case, American west, 1900) talking to you.
The late Robert Nozick wrote a lovely little reflection on this topic. (Sorry for the ugly URL) http://www.naturalthinker.net/trl/texts/Hofstadter,Douglas/Douglas%20Hofstadter/The%20Mind’s%20I/VI%20The%20Inner%20Eye/Douglas%20Hofstadter%20-%20The%20Minds%20I%20Chapter%2027%20%20Fiction%20-%20Robert%20Nozick.doc
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Since I don’t know which character the reader will be portraying, the voice needs to be sort of neutral in any case. It’s just somebody from the setting (in this case, American west, 1900) talking to you.
Absolutely.
I suggest you to test the idea in practice with a group as soon as possible. I would go as far as rewriting in first person the basic moves of DW, or a similar game, and use those to test against a group that doesn’t know the system yet. Actually, testing the technique alone by applying it to a game that you know works can help you recognize if a problem at the table originates in this choice of style or in a rule of your game that needs changing.
The reason is that one thing is reading on your own, another is reading and discussing the rules at the table. I don’t know you but usually I’m the one reading and explaining the rules to my players.
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Nice. He even included a loop.
This is a good point. Does this style of presentation require each person to read their own rules to themselves? It might get weird and confusing if the GM reads everything out loud.
Something I really like about this voice is that, even in this short snippet, it evokes empathy. It doesn’t feel like an extension of me or my ego but like someone else that I’m responsible for - the opposite of PCs as stolen cars. I think I’d feel it a lot more if something happened to the character.
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