Theme: Subject, Thesis & Hypothesis

[Ian Charvill]

Theme is analogue not digital.  The word slips on the page, like the typewriter ribbon was soaked in mercury.  It will not stay put.

Theme is subject – a thing.  The theme of Hamlet is revenge.    Hamlet is revenged against his mother, Claudius, Rosencrantz & Guidernstern; Ophelia is revenged against Hamlet, as is Laertes; and the Ghost is revenged against the living.  The theme of Infinite Jest is addiction: addiction to work, addiction to entertainment, addiction to drugs, addiction to violence.  Addiction to footnotes.  And so on.  Theme used in this way unites a piece.  It ties different parts together.

Theme is thesis -- a judgement.  The theme of The Tortoise and the Hare is "slow and steady wins the race".  The theme of Spiderman is "with great power comes great responsibility".  The overarching theme of Checkov's plays is simply "My friends, do not live like this".  Theme used in this way is a parable, is a message, is a moral.  You lose a certain amount of breadth, obviously, you inevitably become more parochial, but what you gain is closure.

Theme is hypothesis -- and hypothesis here is from rhetoric not science -- a value judgement specific to an individual. Traditionally, hypotheses were about legendary or historical characters.   You wouldn't give a student studying rhetoric the thesis of "should a man avoid an unjust punishment" it's too broad as a teaching tool.  Instead, you use something narrower: "should Socrates have fled the judgement of Athens".  Works of fiction contain multiple hypotheses.  Every character who takes action rather than just behaves acts on a hypothesis.  The hypothesis of a typical advert is: if you buy *this product* it will make you happy.

Within Big Model terminology, "premise" is a thesis in the form of a question and "theme" is a thesis in the form of a statement.  Far more common in play, theme takes the form of a subject that is expressed -- amongst other ways -- through a series of hypotheses.

So where does that leave us?  First of all it leads us to an understanding of why people might be partial to certain games and not others.  On one hand you may have vanilla narrativists who prefer systems like GURPS, JAGS, Over the Edge but turn their noses up at systems like My Life With Master or Sorceror.  The former allow theme -- in the sense of subject -- to be open even after play starts.  The latter require theme to be nailed down as a thesis as part of prep – Sorceror as a thesis question in the form of "What will you risk you 'humanity' for?" and MLWM as a thesis statement "We would rise up against oppressive evil X".  On the other hand you have people who can't see why you wouldn't want to play narrativist with a narrativist facilitating system (to which the answer I'm suggesting is what kind of narrativism does the system support).

Whether one see the divide as 'ego vs empathy' or 'making a stand vs dithering about' probably indicates which side of the line one might be on.

From there it opens up the possibility of a broader range of techniques that support narrativism (or some forms of it anyway).

[Marco]

So where does that leave us?  First of all it leads us to an understanding of why people might be partial to certain games and not others.  On one hand you may have vanilla narrativists who prefer systems like GURPS, JAGS, Over the Edge but turn their noses up at systems like My Life With Master or Sorceror.  The former allow theme -- in the sense of subject -- to be open even after play starts.  The latter require theme to be nailed down as a thesis as part of prep – Sorceror as a thesis question in the form of "What will you risk you 'humanity' for?" and MLWM as a thesis statement "We would rise up against oppressive evil X".  On the other hand you have people who can't see why you wouldn't want to play narrativist with a narrativist facilitating system (to which the answer I'm suggesting is what kind of narrativism does the system support).

For my part (as someone who definitely enjoys ... um ... say ... JAGS ...) I haven't had much experience with Sorcerer or MLWM (although it's true that for MLWM that's pretty far outside of what I'd look for in my RPG-play). Sorcerer isn't as far afield (it has a lot of elements that'd support my play, I think).

However: I think you're on to something. I've been saying for some time that I think the way that people want conflicts presented or "phrased" in gaming is different and because of that fundamental variance whether a system "supports" a given mode of play is a matter of perspective.

-Marco

[Ian Charvill]

Hey Marco

I'd certainly say that Sorceror is a broader game in terms of theme than My Life With Master.

In terms of "phrasing conflict" do you mean does the system ask you 'what would you risk for love?' as compared with 'how do you think people act when they're in love?' or 'would you kill for love' as compared with 'what would Mischa do right now because she loves Tony and he's seen her with another woman?'.  Or do you mean something different?

[Marco]

Hi Ian,
By 'phrasing' I mean (and it's not a clear term) "the way a conflict is manifested and interacted with during play."

Take the same conflict in MLWM and Hero: the PC recieves an order from an abusive powerful master to do something he doesn't want to and must reconcile obedience with his own morality.

In MLWM there are mechanics that handle this conflict and the tactical use of these on both parts determines how it'll play out.

A large part of resolution is at the mechanical layer. The "phrasing" of the conflict is in the lexicon of the system.

In Hero the conflict might touch on some mechanics but it may just as easily be resolved in the situational context and the players might never touch dice.

I see these as two fundamentally different phrasings of the combat: one is predominantly mechanical. One is predominantly situational.

-Marco

[Ian Charvill]

I think I understand what you're saying: phrasing is the combination of mechanical and non-mechanical elements that we use to explore a particular situation.  So MLWM would use a large proportion of mechanical elements to explore the conflict and Hero might use a smaller proportion of mechanical elements or even none at all.  And these combinations will effect the feel of a particular conflict.  So we're talking about the way a conflict might be framed or contextualised by the system.  Yeah?

[Marco]

Yeah--that's it exactly.

-Marco

[Ian Charvill]

In that case I agree with you.  I was thinking more in terms of flexibility, but the way a system contextualises what people are saying would have an impact too.