Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Davenport
I do have to disagree with your suggestion that this is a game for a "traditional roleplayer," insofar as I see collaborative storytelling as a different sort of activity from "traditional" roleplaying on a fundamental level: once you no longer see the world through your character's eyes, but rather as the author of your character's adventures -- whether affected by game mechanics or not -- you're no longer playing the same type of game.
|
I have a funny story about this.
I'm sitting in Vincent's living room floor, maybe June 2005? I'm preparing the text of Polaris for the final layout bits, Vincent is doing the final runs through the second edition of Dogs in the Vineyard.
Vincent: "Hey, Ben, do you use 'role-playing game,' with a hyphen, 'role playing game,' with a space, or 'roleplaying game' without a space?"
Ben: *thinks for a minute* "I have no idea. Let me check in Polaris." *checks*
Ben: "Actually, I don't use the term 'role-playing' once during the whole book?"
Vincent: "Oh. I guess that would fix my problem."
--
Ultimately, I don't have a strong attachment to whether or not Polaris is consider a role-playing game. Some people strongly believe that it is not, some people strongly believe that it is. Here's what I can say:
* For me and many others, it scratches the same itch that role-playing scratches.
* Practice has shown that people who like role-playing games will like Polaris, and will learn things from playing Polaris which will help their other play.
* Polaris shares many many elements with primal RPGs (D&D, T&T, and so on), including talking in character, getting in touch with your character's emotions, making decisions for your character, announcing in-character actions, multi-session play with a stable group, heroic adventures, and so on.
* For those who feel like role-playing == immersion, some people who are into immersive play have reported that Polaris is really great for it, other people have reported that it has been really bad for immersion. I'm not one to judge either way, since I'm no longer trying to be possessed by a character while I play.
yrs--
--Ben