players: Natalie, Emily, Tim, Ben

Natalie facilitates Polaris! Adopt A Game powers, activate!

I don't think we asked anyone to start the thread, so here's some thoughts before ECCC erases all memory:

I had a lot of fun with this one. I was playing an *extremely* kind-hearted protagonist (Circinus of the Peacegivers) but Tim did a great job bringing trouble back to me. It looked for a second like we might get locked in Circinus and Angetenar having angry and (very reasonably) irreconcilable confrontations but Tim brought in the "but only if you get involved with one of his kin" and that opened up the whole second chapter of marriage, parenthood, etc. The whole Peacegiver ritual / 'is it or is it not a magic wand?' discussion was a great reflection of the society falling down. I really enjoyed trying to constantly bring it back in ("Marriage? Oh yeah, there's a peacegiver ritual for that. Executing my daughter? Oh yeah, peace on the axman.")

I loved the part in Natalie's story where Eridanus suddenly got very sympathetic to the young orphan who basically mirrored her own story. Emily, Auva was an excellent character to bring in and I think it was the high point of Eridanus' story. Like we talked about last night, I think in hindsight having Eridanus' secret come out (that she wasn't really the knight Eridanus) took pressure away and turned the story towards a less personal ending, particularly since everyone Eridanus cared about was okay with it. Not that I would have guessed that until after the fact.

That is the thing I love about Polaris: you can totally see how each decision gets embraced or falls flat the second you do it.

Thanks for starting this, Ben! Had a great time facilitating my first Polaris as well as taking the Heart for a spin. Random thoughts and questions, go!

-It was interesting to discover that there's really no way to say 'I don't want this to be a conflict' apart from negating the last two statements (which seems like a cheap move when a conflict is starting, since you're losing nothing) or rolling the die (which has a slim chance of succeeding early in the game).

-I could have fought harder for Eridani's secret identity, but Emily was such an excellent mistaken so I wanted to roll with the conflict to see what would happen next! The renegade knight on the run story that resulted was still very cool.

-I might have failed some as the Heart; I figured I should lobby to keep the things my character would want, but maybe that resulted in a less interesting story. Should the Heart add to their own antagonism?

-Another tough thing playing as the Heart is that big decisions happen so quickly in conflict, it can be hard to convey that they make sense. Even if in my mind's eye I can see the emotions, thoughts and reasoning that would lead to these actions, that isn't really ever portrayed, so I worried I might have made her more a caricature than a character. Is there any way to solve this, or are the broad strokes of Polaris part of the beauty?

-Watching and aiding in Circanus' story was a lot of fun; I liked how intimate and...well, peaceful it was compared to the waves of blood crashing through ours.

Yeah, I didn't really feel the secret identity coming out was a flaw in our game, Ben. As the Mistaken I put that card on the table, and the Heart picked it up because it was where she wanted to go. If she wanted to stick with the tense secret storyline, she just needed to say, "But only if: my allies don't believe the rumors that I'm not Eridani." But instead she said that her allies stood by her in spite of knowing her identity, because she wanted to see where that would go. I actually thought that was a pretty successful example of Polaris communication.

-If you don't want a conflict, you can do an interaction like, "I am crowned Queen of the Ice People." "But only if you you kill their former Queen." "And that was how it happened. Now, as Queen of the Ice People..." We typically only stop scenes for big conflicts, so if you don't want a fight you can just give in. But yeah, there's just no way to just say "Let's not do that!" when your antagonist says something.

-You were awesome too!

-I'm usually in favor of the Heart trying as hard as they can to be a good but realistic person. You want to leave chinks in your armor so the Mistaken has something to work with, but if you then go on to hammer on those chinks yourself you wind up taking away the Mistaken's cool job. But I didn't think you failed at all.

-I agree with you, this is a problem with Polaris, and not one I know how to solve. It's a bit like Arthurian tragedy, where huge terrible events happen and you only have occasional glimpses into the minds of the players.

-Yeah, that's what happens when you're a Snowstriker :-) I like Circinus too. Even if it should be pronounced Sir Sinus.

It was interesting to discover that there's really no way to say 'I don't want this to be a conflict' …

"You ask far too much" is the go-to 'I don't want that' response.

Until a conflict actually starts, you are technically allowed to talk freely, make suggestions about other people's characters, or even ask that something not happen. But we don't emphasize that because it makes it harder to learn the game. We're trying to get people to understand how the very strict boundaries work (you control X characters, conflicts work like this), so saying "ah, but you can also ignore all that" can be very confusing, at least until you have the core mechanics down.

You want to leave chinks in your armor so the Mistaken has something to work with, but if you then go on to hammer on those chinks yourself you wind up taking away the Mistaken's cool job.

Yep. The game breaks if you antagonize yourself (or if the antagonist protagonizes for you).

Natalie, check out Antagonism 101. The whole point of the game is to see what the hero cares about and see what they'll do to protect it, so that's a winning recipe: let the other side have what they ask for, but attach a price.

Or think of it this way: if there's something you want as the hero, feel free to go for it a less than spotless way (particularly when your Zeal is low). But never just create trouble for yourself without in some way having it be about you trying to do something positive. Like chasing my daughter in the ice cave: I wasn't father-of-the-year, but I was rescuing her from demons even if I was doing it harshly.

Another tough thing playing as the Heart is that big decisions happen so quickly in conflict, it can be hard to convey that they make sense. Even if in my mind's eye I can see the emotions, thoughts and reasoning that would lead to these actions, that isn't really ever portrayed, so I worried I might have made her more a caricature than a character. Is there any way to solve this, or are the broad strokes of Polaris part of the beauty?

Polaris shifts gears very quickly. Intimate dialog, then cities burn and years go by, then back to intimate dialog. The trick, I find, is to seize every moment of role-playing to really show what the hero feels. The hero is the center of the story, so always show your feelings in big capital letters. The conflicts flow from that. Also, do it backwards: if you just had a big conflict and missed expressing what you felt about it, talk about it in the next scene. That's a huge part of the protagonist's job: being an open book.

Likewise, if you feel the conflict is zipping past parts you want to explore, that's a really good sign you should probably stop the conflict. It's easy to get caught up in the raw godlike power of conflicts and blow past the good stuff.

That's a good rule of thumb: when in doubt, stop the conflict. You control that pacing.

All of this is why I think Polaris is a great game for learning mad story game skillz. You learn to control and fine tune all these things.