Maybe you could suggest that players put heavy emphasis on phrases that are meant to change reality? i.e. "I DO open the door and find my guards in there!" or "I AM going to put on a rock concert right here, right now!" Would this help, do you think?

Ash

Yes maybe. Gregor just suggested on the phone that I just go for the simple telling the GM that you intend to make a change

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

Is the only time a player can introduce content when his character uses magic to do so?

That is, if my character is in an office and I narrate 'I pick up the fire extinguisher and bash the guard's head in', am I allowed to narrate the extinguisher? The guard? The bashing?

Or must I resort to magic?

You must resort to changing reality when the current narrator blocks you with his Veto over content, or doesn't agree with your contribution.

So if the GM or another player is the narrator for the current scene, and has described a guard in an office and you say that you pick up the extinguisher and bash their head in, they can agree with you and let it happen, or disagree, in which case you can change reality to take control of the narration.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

Wait, I'm getting confused here.

Admittedly I haven't been keeping up with the exact mechanics and specifics of the game (I was hoping that I'd have time to look over a more finished manuscript late, sometime between late draft and layout), but I'm seeing a big problem here:

As a GM or player, Blocking in anathema to me. I can't run or play a game which requires Blocking, I just can't do it. Someone says "Is there a back door" and I actually get a bit pissed off that they're asking: if you want one, then yeah, of course there is.

I mean, there's only going to need to be reality alterations if it's something that's outlandish and unreasonable. In your example, "is there a back door?" in just not a question I want to hear at the table, the players should be saying "I go to the back door". That's not a character using a special power, it's the player wanting something to exist in the SIS which is perfectly reasonable and is therefore there.

It'll be obvious that they're asking for something they need to change reality for because it'll be something reality does not permit. Like pulling a chainsaw out of your pocket or opening a doorway into another dimension.

Heh ... I guess the door is a bad example, but the principle is the same even with a large change.

The examples in the rules are about intent, not fiddly details of environment. Its not "is there a back door" but "I want to get into the locked building, how will I do it"

The narrator is presenting a possible challenge "there is this building you can't get into" and the player wants to get in, how they do it is only relevant in the sense that it will more or less match their character's vision (and therefore be easier or harder).

However the player has the option to see if there is some other way to do what they want to do that consensus reality is not objecting too, like whether there might be a back door open already. You don't have to find that out, you can just do it your way straight off if you want.

So the narrator says "You arrive at the evil corporations factory. The huge doors are shut and locked, with armed guards patrolling up and down the lot in front of it, with snarling dogs".

You, the player, can see if the narrator had some way in already in mind by asking "Is there a back door? Is our friend the security guard on the gate? Could we hide in the back of a truck?", to clarify more details of their narration, but you don't have to. You can just skip straight to "(I change reality so that) the guard on the door is actually my brother, and he'll give us false passes and let us in"

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

This is probably going to come across as somewhat antagonistic. It's not meant to be, really, it's just hard to articulate this properly in slow-ass text via Teh Interwub.

Yeah, this is what I thought you might say. Basically, the GM has already decided what the "correct" answer to the problem is and will Block any other attempts to solve said problem. I don't/can't play like that.

The answer to all those questions is "Yes". Except maybe the one about a friend on the door unless the player has a lot of contacts or is really likely to have a friend on the door. So the answer to that is "Depends...", but most likely "Yes" because the player probably wouldn't ask for it unless they could justify it.

So, wait, the GM has utter control over the setting and the players may not contribute without using their character's magic? The players sit there with that "Mother, may I?" thing.

I'm not saying the design is bad, but I'm saying that I really don't think I could play this game.

...I think, is that what counts as needing a change of reality and reaching for the rules will emerge from the preferences of the group.

With more traditionally minded players they'll ask the GM what's there, and defer to the GM's word on what is and isn't real. I see the players pushing against the reality that the GM has found. So changes in reality will be made to the one the GM presents.

With more laissez-faire play I think players will be biting on more dramatic changes coming from a reality that the group finds together. So changes will be made to the one the group finds they can accept. When one player says "No, that's not how I see it" then that's agreat cue to go to the rules.

I think both are fine ways to play and the rules arbitrate once you find the reality you want to change. I guess it depends on the group's preference for what that reality is and who creates it. If that makes sense?

Oh, it's not always the GM that sets the narration either. When a player chages reality then they're the narrator and saying this is how reality is based on my Obsessions and Limitations.

In a traditional group I see that player being more bullish in saying this is how it is. In a less-traditional group it will be a more collaboratively created reality based on the Obsessions and Limitations of the narrating character.

I think by calling it "magic" you make it sound artifically bad.

Yes, if you want something to happen which isn't happeneing already you make it happen by using the mechanics, and there is only one mechanic, because the whole premise of the game is that all things that happen in perceived reality (from breathing, to walking, to flying to the moon) are illusions caused by the action of will on the animacules. There is no difference between walking across the room and conjuring up a dinosaur to ride, except degree.

The characters in the game are those with the will and desire to do more than follow the broad currents of consensus reality. The narrator's job (and they are not always the GM) is to interpret what is plausible in the current state of consensus reality. If the players have created a world where there already should be a way of getting into the factory, then there will be a way. If the current world is not like that then they can change it to be like that.

The GM's job is specifically not to decide how things will work in advance at all. I made that mistake earlier, but no longer. Their role is to track what the current state of reality is like. If reality is now like a Bond movie then it makes sense to say "sure there is a way to sneak in". If the reality is currently hard edged and gritty, however, then it doesn't.

Like in the example I posted the change of reality that makes the Vicar come and open the door also makes the world a place where churches are always open (all churches), musicians respect the church and so on.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

[ pedantic ]

...oh, and it's not magic. It's the bending of a plastic reality.

[ slash pedantic ]

Oh, I see David has picked up on that too. LOL

You are certainly right Gregor, and moreover its worth remembering that apart from the first scene of the story the GM doesn't define the setting, the players do by accumulating changes to reality.

The GM does get to introduce certain kinds of scenes not directly following on from the previous scene (Obsession, Limitation, Thread and Shadow), but the setting (and set of rules of story) in which they happen is up to the players.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

...we should stop posting together, people will talk. ;*)

Actually, I think Joe and Rich have quite different play styles from the groups that you regularly play in, David. (And for this game I think that will manifest in what is acceptable as reality and who is the custodian of that reality.)

But with Nerdinburgh on this weekend it will give you a chance to see how open some of the authority is around the table for some of these guys (Per, f'rex).

On the other hand, Victoria and John probably wouldn't enjoying playing that way at all, so they'd defer to the GM more when playing. I think Solipsist caters for both preferences personally.

Hmmm,

I think this is a problematic subject, by which I mean the topic and purpouse of this game are ones which are hard to create a game for.

For example, you're saying that the characters in the game are able to warp reality. When they see something in reality they don't like, they exert their special ability (which I will never again refer to as magic ;^) on that reality and that reality alters to suit them better, right?

When I'm playing an RPG, (any RPG) we have a shared reality which we play in. If I see something in that reality I don't like, I discuss it with the other players and we agree on a reality which suits everyone better. No need for my character to use I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Magic, or in fact, to do anything.

These two things are a bit too close to each other for comfort. My character, The Solipsist, essentially does something which I, the player, am doing already. It's all a bit meta, a bit post. Like maybe me playng a game in which I'm playing a sysadmin with glasses and a beard...

I want to like this game and I want you to prove that I can play this, but so far I'm left thinking that this is fundamentally not for me.

Well you aren't alone there, close examination reveals it is not for me either, though I love the concept and I've enjoyed writing it ... but it may well be for someone, we'll see if anyone buys it (and how much money I can waste on that question).

This game makes explicit as an ability (or in fact the only ability) of the characters, the sort of negotiation that certainly does appear out of character in other games. That is the way in which Solipsist assigns narrative responsibility.

It also provides for change beyond the scope of what normally lie within the realms of negotiation in most games, in that most games have a shared reality as a starting point that defines the space in which the game is played. In Solipsist that space is fluid and subject to in-character change. It is not fixed, rather it changes over the course of the game.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

Incidentally, have you ever read any of the Amber novels? No, me neither, but I'm led to believe they may feature some interesting abilities the concepts of which may make useful research. Have a copy of the RPG somewhere I think, but I hated it with a vengeance.

Ash

Talk of Amber, especially the RPG, makes me sad at the moment, given that the author recently found out that he has terminal cancer.

Ah well.

I have read those books, actually. Well, the first set anyway. They're kinda fun in a dumb way. The characters don't technically change reality though, what they do is travel, gradually and subtlety, to realities which already exist but better suit their desires.

Although Corwin does say that the Shadow travel may be an illusion, and they really just create what they want.

Amber is certainly an influence on this game.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/