So, here we are, still with the issue of blinders. Blinders are practical things, they help shape your design and play, and as such we give them still more space.
When you use Blinders in specific games they tend to call them "Constraints", pointing out what you can do and what you cannot, the limits of the game. People pointed out games like Polaris or even Dogs in the Vineyard are akin to Board-Games compared to other RPGs. In other games you can play any sort of thing, or nearly, whereas in these games session length may be dictated, as well as what you play and how you play. It's often questioned if they are RPGs at all.
Someone else mentioned the difference between Video and Board games and RPGs(much like Thomas Robertson does here, but it was earlier during the week, but specifically mentioned competitive games). In Video games anything you can do is wired into the game, if it's not wired(coded) in, then you can't do it. Board games where strategies that weren't accounted for exist are considered 'broken' or require errata(can someone help me find said post?). RPGs that want to foster such a feel need to have every possibility accounted for or they'll fail.
And this folks is why CSI Games have such a strong inclination to include Blinders/Constraints; the more options available to the players, and this being hybrid-RPG means the options are numerous, the less you can prepare for all of them, which in turn can lead to the system falling apart and people abusing it. The more Constraints you add the less situations you'll have to deal with and the better you'll be able to plan for what you are to deal with.
Over on The Forge I created two specific Blinders posts, using Cranium Rats as an example. Though they may have seemed like they were about CR, they weren't, that was merely the example and the specific design question that related to them.
In the first post, "Codification of Session Length?", I talk about the prospect of tying session length down mechanically, much like in Board Games with plays. When a certain parameter is met the game session ends and unless it is met the game continues on. RPGs and their kin fill a certain niche in the social zone, so it may not work just yet.
In the second post, "On Flags Alone?", I coin the term "Tunnels" as opposed to "Flags". Flags exist to attract attention to things the players want to cover, but in most games, nothing forces the players to focus on the Flags. So why are they there? I thought "System Matters". The concept of "Tunnels" says that nothing but the Flags are addressed. As for "Emergant stories", that can be solved by putting in a way to create new Tunnels during the gameplay.
Last, I'll raise a new idea here, for you loyal readers, a third Constraint. The issue of "GM or Not?". It seems that CSI Games are much like Board games in this regard, and that there is either no GM(Gnostigmata, Capes) or the "GM" isn't really one and he's a player with different capabilities and responsebilities(Threads and Cranium Rats).
This is an antithesis to some of the games who had Party Vs. GM, they weren't CSI Games as you didn't have an option of allying, you were given that you were cooperative within the party, very much a proto-CSI Games issue. In a CSI Game you need the competition to be nigh all-encompassing, and there isn't room for "We" as much as "He and I, for now". And so the issue of "GM or Not" takes rise, and the answer for most CSI Games will be "Not", because if he's there, he's a Conflict stiffling and out-of entity.
