Playing mindf*ck by Thomas Munier

DeReel's picture
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Hello,
An excellent, if old, article by a man who GMed a large number of mindf*ck sessions - pardon my french.

Here dated June the 25th

Paul T.'s picture

It's fun to read about this kind of thing, when it's been somewhat lacking from my gaming since I was much younger. I've largely dropped the "mindf*ck twist" approach to GMing, since it often leaves the players in the dust or without agency (as they cannot be active participants). It would be interesting to revisit some of these ideas.

DeReel's picture

That's why I love this article (in fact, the conference, but it's in French, so...) : Munier departs from the idea that the GM only has control. No more mother may I : any player can interact with a dream or a memory, get out of it, etc. Bringing back player agency and using the very mindf*ck to fall back on the table's feet. Of course, you can structure how "dimension travel" works, which is exactly what @Asif Day trippers does. What I learned with Nerves of steel is this : with an RPG plot technique don't try to get a perfect plot. It's both easier and funnier. With mindf*ck, the antidote is simply more poison !

Tod's picture

My DayTrippers campaign over at LegendsOfTabletop is entering its 4th year. In the season finale of season 3 the players had a hand in literally destroying reality and ending up in another timeline. Thing is, although they've guessed that the timeline they witnessed the destruction of was not the "real" one they originated from, they still don't know whether the one they ended up in is the "real" world or *yet another* copy... nor how far back the whole problem began!

As you can imagine, this is both (a) complicated enough to be mind-bending, and (b) flexible enough to be non-falsifiable in almost every direction. It's a near-perfect Fruitful Void of Metaversal Vertigo. :-)

DeReel's picture

And do you feel that there's difficulty or deception in it ? I think not.
Since the earliest Play pretend, gaming the game is part of the game. I want to strongly proselyte on this.

Tod's picture

A willingness to be deceived is part of the package for numerous forms or genres of media (mysteries and thrillers among them).
I wouldn't go so far as to say this is a required aspect of RPGs, but it is a common one, and not necessarily restricted to "Trad" games either.

DeReel's picture

That reminds me of a game I set up for my usual table, and I had eyes full of stars after days of reading Bankuei same page tool, so I asked them what they would want in the game and all. And in the end, there was something they wanted and didn't think of asking : and that's surprises.

Yes, the hobby is unsafe by nature, but it's not like forcing a horror or mystery scenario on a table who doesn't want to be surprised. It's just "one abstraction level away".