DCU reboot

So, they're essentially rebooting the entire main-line DC Comics universe. My feelings about this are complex. In no particular order:

* Well, there's your death knell for comic shops. They're done. They've been dead industry walking for a while, but it's over now. Which means paper comics are also done. Graphic novels will probably still hang on for a while. I love comic shops and I'm going to miss them. But if this means I can get my *&^%$#@! comics without 50% of the pages being advertisements, I'm still probably pro.

* Didn't they just reboot Wonder Woman? And the Flash again? And restructure the whole line of Bat-comics? And change the whole setup of the Justice Society? Seems like a waste now.

* They're not going to be able to finish the stories they have now satisfactorily. Any of them. They'd need at least another six months lead time to be able to arrange an appropriate closing for the universe. As it is, it's just going to stop. Which sucks for everyone.

* I approve of the Reyes Blue Beetle and the Kane Batwoman likely getting some spotlight.

* Most of the main-line series I like are almost certainly gone. But if they touch Vertigo, I'm going to personally go down to their offices and break about a dozen necks.

* I really hope that a) Secret Six survives and b) they leave Gail Simone on it. A world without that comic would be a worse place, and I don't think anyone else could do it justice. It's so idiosyncratically hers.

* The Marvel "Ultimate" experiment in a similar vein worked out really well critically, but it seems to not have been self-supporting economically beyond a smaller niche. I believe that good stories can result from this shift, but I'll be really, really curious to see whether or not it works out as a business move.

* There's always a precarious balancing act between building on the history and innovating to draw new blood in with comics. This really does upset the apple cart. I'm not sure how any fan of the comics can respond to this-- it's just different. So very, very different.

Storytelling theory question

So, almost every story with any dramatic traction revolves around some character doing something that's against their best interests. This is extremely difficult to arrange in roleplaying situations-- people are extremely protective of their characters and are generally there because they want to "win." They don't react well to bad things happening to their characters and they don't usually choose to do it on their own.

There are ways to try and get around this. Classics include:
Withholding Information: The GM stacks the deck so that the character & player don't know enough to make the best decision. It's true to life, but players hate it; part of the draw of the game is that it's "fair" and their decisions matter, and this damages that illusion.

Gordian Knot: Give them a situation that can be solved, but not cleanly. They get to retain their sense of agency, you get a strong negative consequence to build some drama from. You also run the risk of them coming up with some creative and valid solution where they get to win free and clear. Players get rapidly disenchanted if you use too many of these.

Unintended Consequences: Take a good thing and make it bad by adding context. In its favor, this method doesn't require the players to do anything additional-- the GM can invent whatever circumstances are necessary to make the victory Pyrrhic. On the other hand, if you do this often or with a heavy hand, you're poisoning the well by essentially ruining fairly-won player victories.

Falling Masonry: Bad stuff just happens to characters through no fault of their own. This method is by far the easiest to implement for the GM, but can offend the players' sense of justice and fair play and doesn't have the same emotional resonance that actual mistakes do.

All of these methods are essentially storytelling sleight-of-hand, though-- they're attempts to get something into the story that the players don't want there. The real and more pressing question is how do you get players to want to make dramatic mistakes? Can that even be done in a roleplaying game?

Any thoughts?

Or, to look at the problem from a different perspective

The two fundamental tenets of roleplaying games as a player are:
1) I have control over what my character does
2) The game should be fun for me

"Dramatic" behavior in the classical sense frequently violates either or both of those rules.

TV Calendar

White Collar: Tuesday, June 7
Burn Notice: Thursday, June 23
Leverage: Sunday, June 26
Torchwood: Friday, July 8
Haven: Friday, July 15
Sherlock: Fall
Clone Wars: Fall
Doctor Who: returns Fall