thoughts on brain damage

Excellent article on dysfunctional play up in the Forge. At the core of what we do there is a lot of dysfunctional behavior. I'm beginning to believe that the concept of "bait and switch" that is discussed in the article is the core of most gaming instruction (rule books). "GURPS lets you play in any setting", they promise, unless you want detailed rules that are fortune and resource based to socialize in the game. What it should say is, "GURPS lets you play in any setting that needs detailed combat". Now before you post a comment telling me how you had a session where meaningful social exchange took place understand that what I'm saying is not that *you* can't have social exchange in *your* version of GURPS. I'm saying that out of the box GURPS has little or no social rules.

If you don't believe me tell me how you would set up a scene where a PC and an NPC had a duel of wits. Imagine that both characters have "Social!" at skill 12. How do you determine how long the engagement takes? What are the core arguements in each player's stance? Do the players have to role play to get bonuses? What determines the bonus amount? In other words, isn't it just the GM deciding how well the wits of the PLAYER are acted out? Would your players stand for this arbitrary ruling if combat were involved. Yet, in GURPS, it's acceptable and even sometimes welcomed.

As we shake free of dysfunctional gaming it takes a lot of self observation and awareness to stop the patterns of years of "play". I feel like daily I wake up to some new pattern that is broken for me in terms of game play. When I decide to be open and honest about our play it means admitting all the ways that I've forced stories, bullied players, abused my role, and made it nearly impossible for my players to get their stories told. All of this on top of my players telling me that I'm the best Storyteller they've ever known.

Perhaps it's just evidence that we are starving for stories.