Re: Film Noir Simulation

[Dan Lyke <danlyke@flutterby.com>]

WFreitag@aol.com writes:
> One suggestion: as a player, I'm really sick of being the
> detective. Detectives don't have any fun, they just clean up
> everybody else's mess. Can I please, just this once, be one of the
> mobsters trying to scheme, cheat, and murder my way to the top?

I'm down *hard* with a cold, hit up with antibiotics and the whole
bit, so pardon me if this comes across as barely coherent, but...

One of my problems in looking at simulation as story is that to have
interesting meaning I don't feel that the audience can have that much
influence on the story, just on the retelling.

It seems obvious to me that there are ways to warp the retelling
bassed on audience interaction if we can keep the player interacting,
because if they're having no substantive effect on the story they'll
get bored with it (ie: Me playing Homeworld).

So having a two-layered system, one the classic lemonade stand
simulation/game which the player interacts with as they try to build
their crime empier, and another as the story of the detective as the
detective interacts with the world that the player is involved in
(although not necessarily with the player) seems to have some
conceptual merit. You can extract elements of the simulation play to
look for cues on how to better pace the storytelling without actually
having to make the story interactive.

Okay, I'll go back to my pills and shut up now.

Dan