I was having trouble finding a home for this post at the forge, because it didn’t quite fit, but then I remembered I haz blogz!
The discussion was about trait usage (didn’t quite fit the thread topic, though, and I don’t have just the right actual play). Basically I’m saying if ALL narration has to take into account the result of a trait, then all latter uses of traits will have to fit into that narration. That’s fine if your using what were currently calling ‘Before’ traits. But it’s completely screwy if you want to implement ‘After’ traits. And cause it’s my blog I’ll randomly say I dislike the terms ‘before’ and ‘after’ and would prefer internal traits and external traits, in reference to whether they are inside/restricted by the SIS in how they further effect the SIS, or if they are outside the SIS and are not restricted by the SIS in how they affect the SIS.
After Christoph’ post, this is my phantom, doesn’t have a home yet, responce (I have PM’ed it to him at the forge, block quotes are Christoph. ):
Your alleviation of the “impossibility” for “after” traits seem to me to be superfluous, in the sense that otherwise we’re not talking about “after” traits in the first place
Yes, your not talking about ‘after’ traits. After traits are your goal, but the logic in your design is flawed and will not meet your goal. No biggie. It’s like writing a computer program and writing code your certain will meet your goal, only to find it does something screwy. I’ve done that a million times!
Also, I don’t see the use of traits on such a long time-scale. I’ve understood this discussion of “after” and “before” to be purely based on the immediate conflictual situation. Of course, my “Killer Instinct” trait example would be “before” if we took the whole history of play into account, but then we wouldn’t be distinguishing between “has already been mentioned (or is obvious when pointed out) in the situation leading to the resolution of the present conflict” and “will be used once mechanical resolution of the present conflict is done, as part of the narrational resolution of the present conflict”. Then again I could be wrong.
Your thinking in too compartmentalised a way. The immediate conflict may be whether Rupert the red is killed, but after it’s resolved and narrated that he dies, are you going to keep playing as if he’s alive, or dead? As you can see, the narration is on a longer time scale than the immediate conflict because the narration is on a longer time scale.
Actually, should clarify that. If someone HAS to take Rupert’s death into account in their narration, is that for ALL narrations after that, or is that just for the narration that happens in the conflict? Say for example we kill Rupert, we narrate him being decapitated, then I roll a pass on working a copy machine and narrate Rupert walking in and helping me operate it. Was it only the kill conflicts narration that has to take the kill into account? Or is ALL following narration supposed to take his death result into account? If it’s the former, oops, you don’t have a problem in the logic of the wording! Sorry to type so much! If it’s the latter, your wording is indeed bugged (as noted, specifically the use of the word ‘ALL’, without any exemptions. Must have exemptions!).
The CDS Weblog 