Narrativist vs Director Stance

[Tony Irwin]

Hey folks, have I got this right? That you can have a narrativist game where the players have no director stance at all?

I suppose that the premise would automatically be addressed by the situations that the gm creates for the players. But then how can I demonstrate narrativist behaviour as a player in a game like that?

eg: I finally agree to hang up my daisho to play this weird Vampire game my friends all rave about. I read the core book and to my surprise am immeadiately converted. I spend hours writing out a back story and character that create and address a conflict between humanity and the beast within. Unfortunately that's the only story telling the Storyteller system lets me do - from then on the gm calls the shots - I just blunder around his world investigating stuff and adjusting my willpower and humanity scores appropriately.

When I first read the G/N/S theory I thought "Yeah I get bored with that because Im a narrativist player and everyone else is enjoying the sim", but am I right in thinking that its not narrativist play I want, its actually more director stance? There is a narrativist premise being addressed throughout the game but the gm has all the director privliges. The gm is telling a story about "What it means to be human" and we're just actors in it.

Is that how this works? Help!!

Confused in Glasgow,

Tony.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Let's see if I can help. You might be surprised at how simple this is.

1) You're right - Director Stance is not a requirement for Narrativist play. In fact, to pull back to the real issue at hand, none of the three GNS modes is defined by any particular Stance.

Think of a GNS category as a goal or mode, expressed by your decisions during play. There are hundreds of these decisions made in any given game session; I'd have to see a fair number (by role-playing with someone) in order to say, "OK, that guy's doin' the Narrativist thing" or whatever.

Now, think of Stance as one of the many things to make a decision about. There are three of them, and a person can shift very rapidly among them during play. How they do this, shifting from what to what, and when, is the issue. So it's not the presence of a Stance, but rather how Stance is managed, that expresses (along with other things) a GNS goal.

2) Now for Premise. You've got yourself right off the tracks with your first sentence:
"I suppose that the premise would automatically be addressed by the situations that the gm creates for the players."

That's not going to fly. GMs do not create Premise. Premise arises from individual interest in what's going on, and to start, it's personal and internal. For it to be present as a group role-playing phenomenon, the question is whether the group interaction brings something they can all relate to into existence. (Sure, there might be a couple "somethings," but to keep it simple, let's stick with one.) The point is that Premise is not conceived, assembled, polished, and handed to the players by a GM.

3) Now for your Vampire game ... your experience is making me wince in pain, because late in my Champions-GMing career, that was what I was doing to players.

Here's the deal, as far as I can tell. That ain't no Narrativism, you see. You say, "But there's a Premise being addressed," and I say, "Nope. There's a Premise that's been front-loaded, and your play doesn't have a thing to do with it." This is why I'm so big on Actual Play, and why I have to keep telling people, Narrativism (or either of the other two) = a process, a set of in-play decisions and priorities, not a product. What you're playing in sounds like Simulation with a strong emphasis on Situation, which is not Narrativist Premise, because your play isn't making one happen. Your play is only making the GM's pre-planned Situation happen.

More obviously, it ain't no Director Stance either, which you have correctly figured already, so no point in belaboring the point.

However, as for which one of the two you want, I can't say.

Best,
Ron

[Paganini]

Tony:

You are correct, Vampire does not facilitate Narrativism very well. It can be played in a narrative manner, but only if everyone in the group is thourghouly comitted to doing so.

You are also correct that you can have Narrativism without Director Stance. I had this discussion with Mike Holmes a few weeks ago. The important thing to be aware of is that a lack of Director Stance does not mean that the players have no input into the game. Director Stance simply means that the players alter the environment completely independently of their characters.

That being said, Narrativism works *very* well with lots of Director Stance. Universalis and Shadows are two of my favorite games. (And both of them can be traced back to the Pool, which is a *huge* director stance game).

You might try joining the Indie-netgaming Yahoo-group. We're devoted to trying out various indie games via electronic venues (mostly we play on IRC right now). Some actual play experience might help you understand more what Director Stance is about.

[Tony Irwin]

Many thanks for replying folks, I appreciate the time you took out to explain all this for me!

2) Now for Premise. You've got yourself right off the tracks with your first sentence:
"I suppose that the premise would automatically be addressed by the situations that the gm creates for the players."

That's not going to fly. GMs do not create Premise. Premise arises from individual interest in what's going on, and to start, it's personal and internal. For it to be present as a group role-playing phenomenon, the question is whether the group interaction brings something they can all relate to into existence. (Sure, there might be a couple "somethings," but to keep it simple, let's stick with one.) The point is that Premise is not conceived, assembled, polished, and handed to the players by a GM.

The reason I was thinking that way was because a really common question on the indie boards is "What's your premise for this game?". That matches my experience of say L5R and Vampire where sim and narrative premises are presented packaged with the game: "What is it like to be part of a hidden world of darkness where supernatural creatures are real?" or "How can one maintain a code of personal honour that sometimes flies in the face of common sense right and wrong?"

So I kind of assumed that in games like this where I have no director stance (except say when building a character or asking the gm to bend things my way) that the only premise we're going to explore is the one the gm presents us with. If he doesn't stick us in the middle of moral connundrums then we never get to address narrative premises of Honour. But if he does land us in it then we're addressing it by default.

Here's the deal, as far as I can tell. That ain't no Narrativism, you see. You say, "But there's a Premise being addressed," and I say, "Nope. There's a Premise that's been front-loaded, and your play doesn't have a thing to do with it."

So how can I build a "narrativist game" - wait maybe I can answer this, you just build one that supports narrative play? Am I following this right? I'd be grateful if maybe you could point me to some threads on front-loading?

You are also correct that you can have Narrativism without Director Stance. I had this discussion with Mike Holmes a few weeks ago. The important thing to be aware of is that a lack of Director Stance does not mean that the players have no input into the game. Director Stance simply means that the players alter the environment completely independently of their characters.

Yeah Im slowly beginning to grasp this - I think part of the problem is that I figured Narrative=Story but it doesn't does it? Sim and gamist play yields stories that are just as exciting to be a part of.

Can you give me any examples of narrative play in actor stance?

You might try joining the Indie-netgaming Yahoo-group. We're devoted to trying out various indie games via electronic venues (mostly we play on IRC right now).

That's very generous, thanks! But Uk/US time differences would make it very tough on me to play, Cheers though :-)

Tony

[Paganini]

So how can I build a "narrativist game" - wait maybe I can answer this, you just build one that supports narrative play? Am I following this right? I'd be grateful if maybe you could point me to some threads on front-loading?

Exactly right. There's no such thing as a "narrativist game." When we say "narrativist game," we mean "a game that facilitates narrativst play."

Yeah Im slowly beginning to grasp this - I think part of the problem is that I figured Narrative=Story but it doesn't does it? Sim and gamist play yields stories that are just as exciting to be a part of.

Can you give me any examples of narrative play in actor stance?

Narrative does = Story (a series of caused events), but *all* actual play produces narrative, regardless of player priorities. "Narrativism" and "Narrative" are actually unrelated. See many recent threads about how the terminology sucks. :) Narrativism means that the narrative produced by play deals with some moral or ethical "thematic question." The "thematic question" is what Ron calls "premise." How can this be accomplished? By players having their characters make choices that relate to the premise. This means that Author or Director stance are pretty much required, since Actor stance is about players making decisions based solely on the perceptsions and knowledge posessed by their characters.

Director stance is easier than you think. Take a traditional GM / player split RPG like D&D. Director Stance is "being the GM." Now take a look at the Pool. Getting a MoV allows a player to "be the GM."

Now that we're coming from the right direction, we can abandon the idea of a traditional GM, and look at component parts. In actor / author stance, the only way a player can alter the shared reality is through the actions of his character. In Director stance, player can alter the shared reality without referencing his character *in any way.* The player doesn't even have to *have* a character. (See Universalis.)

Now we can see that there's really no split between the traditional "player" and "GM." There's simply a difference in the stances assigned by the system. The GM is a player allowed to use director stance, while the other players are limited to actor and/or author stance.

That's very generous, thanks! But Uk/US time differences would make it very tough on me to play, Cheers though :-)

Hah! One of our players is from New Zealand, and another is from Australia. You think you've got time zone problems... :)