Wednesday, October 7, 2009

A comment about my Traveller experience

I've realized that maybe I should not have tried to be so subtle. The medium isn't good for subtleties. So, what I felt might need clarification about my former post about Traveller is that it was consciously written with a subjective view of things.

Naturally not everyone will be feeling bored after reading through the Traveller trading rules, and thinking about Accounting! It was my way of showing how my disenfranchised mental process went along. I'm aware that some people like accounting. My problem was more along the line, why did I get enthusiastic about this in the first place?

Something else have occured to me as I've been thinking about the relation between expectation, rules, actual play and the social space that gaming is. Gregor Huttons elegant game 3:16 Carnage Among the Stars is another game where issues like this might affect the game. Taking a look at that game, it looks like it's all about rolling a d10 under your FA and then you killed some aliens. Lather, rinse and repeat. It's not a very exciting game when presented like that. Still, it can be very cool. I think I've gathered as much from reading what Gregor himself posted on The Forge, that if they players are not getting in the spirit of the game that is all you'll get. Roll d10, roll damage and why is this supposed to be worthy of awards? Buy in, baby. From everyone, GM included. If only we could make it happen by writing it in the rule book...