Core Premise Trait

[Alan]

Hi,

I was just reading the material about premises for RPGs on the Universalis website (http://universalis.actionroll.com/StoryElements.htm) and had a revelation.

As I understand it, a good narrativist premise is expressed as a question that can be explored, and it involves moral decisions.  
What doesn't get said explicitly is that a good premise also assumes conflict between each end of the moral decision - AND persistent counter-tempations at each end as well.  

A good moral premise has both attractions and counter attractions.  A good game implimentation would have mechanics for both - and at their best, these mechanics would hook the player (as opposed to the character).  

For example, Sorcerer rewards the player for binding demons (they're fun, they provide story, they provide in-game power) but also rewards having a high Humanity score with better human interactions and some rolls.  The Core Premise Trait of Humanity acts as a see-saw between these two ends.  

I think I can see a framework for a "Premise system" for use when designing an RPG.

What do you think?

[contracycle]

Sounds plausible to me, I'd; like to see this explored.

[mahoux]

I was having the same thoughts as I was beginning work on Future Perfect.  I originally thought about a Sim oriented game, but decided I would rather turn to Narrativism.

I looked at some of the games and saw this-
Sorcerer, of course.  Like you said, Humanity and binding.
Paladin with its light and dark animus points, and the lure of the darkness.
Hard Travellin' by Mike Gentry, with its Pencil Bum vs. Mountain points.
And Sean Demory's Le Mon Mouri, where power is balanced by keeping a balance between one's Aspe.

For Future Perfect, my time travel game, I was leaning towards some kind of Constancy.  Since these characters are charged with going into the future to change events for "national security", they are mucking about with the natural order of things.  Their actions will always have ramifications on future events-from the ones they are sent to change to the ones that are changed down the line because of their actions.  I think making players focus on the impact of this may keep them from playing a "kill 'em all, who cares?" attitude.

Just my $.02 and contribution.

Aaron Houx

[Alan]

For Future Perfect, my time travel game, I was leaning towards some kind of Constancy.  Since these characters are charged with going into the future to change events for "national security", they are mucking about with the natural order of things.  Their actions will always have ramifications ...

Hi Aaron,

Travelling into the future to make changes?  That's different.  The classic time travel story is travel into one's own past to make changes.  This gives the tension between what the adjuster might think of improvements, and the cost of it in changes to self, friends, and environment.  A character might have a Future Shock Trait and you might have two kinds of XP: development and RE-development!  I don't know if this applies to travel just into the relative future though.

To look at another use of premise, I've been reading the Sabriel books by http://www.garthnix.co.uk/">Garth Nix and have been thinking how to capture the flavor of there stories.

Then I twigged on the idea that his world and the journies of his protagonists both have the same premise

Seven legendary progenitors created the Old Kingdom when they bound Free Magic into Charter Stones.  In ages since, the conflict is between Free Magic (often including the undead) and the descendants of the progenitors who maintain the Charter.  The temptation for those on the Charter side, is to use Free Magic because its chaotic effect can be more powerful.

In question form the premise might be:

"How does a kingdom (or a young woman) deal with the dark legacy of its (her) own origin?"

Character Creation for an Old Kingdom RPG would almost certainly require each character's relationship to the blood of the Charter keepers (like Amber ties players into the family).  Ideally, there would be some device which separates the character from their true legacy, and there would be some difficult elements to accept once discovered.  This might be handled with formalized Bangs to be inserted periodically a certain number of game sessions.  Or players in on the premise might come up with Kickers every five sessions or so, like in Sorcerer.

- Alan

[Mike Holmes]

Interestingly, I see this as only one sort of Narrativist Premise. There are others that are not strictly speaking dilemmas. I use the term dilemma very specifically because it has an exact meaning that speaks to this sort of Premise. A quick dissection: "di" meaning two or two halves, and "lemma" meaning proposition or argument. This is exactly what you describe, and I suggest that we useit for a term to describe the sort of Narrative Premise that you describe.

In point of fact, the dilemma between self and any single other element is the dilemma proposed in my game Synthesis. So, as such, this is an example of a game that has exactly the sort of "tailorable" premise that you speak of. I've theorized that one could replace Self with any other belief, and set up any other dilemma using the system as well (and I was thinking of putting that in the next version). So, yes, not only do I hope that it's do-able, but I think that I've got a functioning model. Still playtesting.

But one can easily see other options, the dilemma is merely the simplest, and possibly, therefore the most compelling. What about the "trilemma"? Certainly there can be more than two posible ways to go for a quandry. In fact, another sort of Premise would involve a huge array of solutions. Or an cross index of options as it were. Build this correctly and you have near infinite sets of solutions possible.

Questions like "What is morally the best way to build a society?"

And then I'm sure that there are other options for building Narrativist Premises that don't have to do with chosing conflicting options per se, but still adress a moral question. Can't think of any, but I think I'm just stuck in this box. Can anyone else help us out?

In any case, these other options would be harder to encode gamewise, I think. But not impossible. See The World, The Flesh, and the Devil, and specifically the Trial (IIRC) mechanic.

Mike

[mahoux]

I like the breakdown, Mike.  True, the dilemma seems to be the easiest way to deal with Narrativist play IMO, of course.  Dealing with higher levels of possibilities can really get involved. I'm sure that there are games out there that can deal with it, as well as adapting to the not necessarily conflicting choices.  But like you I can't think of anything.

Let's just keep going shall we?

Aaron Houx

[Mike Holmes]

I'm not worried about finding a game that does this. Such probably does not exist. What I'm looking for is just a Narrativist Premise, any Narrativist Premise, which does not manifest as a question that demands an answer from a set array, but instead demands some other form of answer.

I know, that's grossly vague. But I feel that we're stuck in a sort of loop where, since we've identified these easy to build Narr Premises, we can't concieve of others that might exist that do not follow this model. I'm looking for something that I can't even define well.

Just to get the thought process started, a question can be stated that does not represent a Narrativist Premise. "What should my character eat for breakfast?" does not seem to be a Narrativist Premise. Sim. So we normally would make it into a Narr Premise by giving it some moral context. So, "What should my character eat for breakfast when he's stranded on a desert isle, and the only edible things are the other charracters?" is a Narrativist Premise. But again, I've boiled it down to a dilemma, essentially. "Canibalism or Starvation?" I could give the player a wide array of options including sentient aliens, and artificial lifeforms, etc, but that only increases the number of potential answers. It doesn't change the nature of the fact that there's still a selection of choices.

What I'm theorizing is another modification to the Sim premise that does not narrow to a selection of choices. For example, I could ask "What do I eat for breakfast when there is nothing to eat and never will be again?" That does not give options. But then is it really a question?

I'm afraid that we may find that we are limited to at best an infinite array of possible answers as the way to address a Narr Premise.

Which would be fine, I suppose.

The next question is how do you build a mechanic that supports the infinite array possibility? I'm thinking it would have to do with player selected traits that expand as the game goes on, but somehow all pull against each other simultaneously, and are also pulled by the infinite other possibilities.

That would be cool.  :-)

Mike

[Valamir]

Actually Dillemma mechanics aren't that difficult to conceive of.  Pendragon's Passion system is specifically designed for a multitude of such things.

Which wins out, your obedience to the rules of hospitality or your hatred for a foe you just discovered among your guests.

Your sense of justice and mercy, or your loyalty to your lord who just committed (or ordered you to commit) a cruel and unjust act.

Your sense of justice and honor or your love of family when you discover your son is an outlaw.

Really the key to a good dillemma mechanic is giving the player a good ingame reason to desire a high score in two different bonds and then for the GM to pit those bonds against each other.

Sorcerer goes a step further and mechanically pits its opposed bonds against each other in a manner that makes that conflict unavoidable, but it isn't necessary to do that.

BTW:  Thanks for browsing our site Alan, I'm glad you found some useful stuff there.