Karma, Fortune, Hunh?

[Supplanter]

I've been puzzled by Ron's claim that GNS orientation is completely independent of resolution method, meaning "Jonathan Tweet's triad of Karma, Fortune and Drama." Specifically, it always seemed obvious to me that the more Drama you used, the less simulationism or gamism you could have. Now, paging through my copy of HB Sorcerer, I find:

Here I follow Jonathan Tweet's suggestion (found in the rulebook of the excellent RPG Everway) that there are three modes of resolution in role-playing:

(cut to)

Drama, in which the GM (or rarely, the player) resolves the outcome by saying what happens ("You skewer him!" says the GM, without rolling or consulting numbers of any kind).

Now I play Everway every day. This is how Tweet defines The Law of Drama:

When you, as gamemaster, apply the law of drama, the needs of the plot determine the outcome of events. As in a novel or play, events proceed in such a way as to make the plot and story more engaging and enjoyable. The hero succeeds if doing so helps the plot. The hero fails if that helps the plot.

There follow examples that make it clear that Tweet means what he says - there is no question that he means that The Law of Drama refers to any generalized fiat power. He clearly does not.

The change seems to have important ramifications. Frex, in Ron's review of Puppetland he describes a PC whose character sheet includes "has a boat," and who says, "Oh look, it is my little boat on the shore," as an example of pure drama method. But in Tweet's own scheme, this incident and much of Puppetland, looks like pure karma - the puppet sheet shows a boat, therefore the puppet can use the boat to do things. The GM may then apply Tweetian drama to frustrate or facilitate use of the boat for the sake of the story.

Ron, can you share your thinking in taking three terms but only two definitions from Tweet, while continuing to refer to it as Tweet's scheme?

Best,


Jim


[ This Message was edited by: Supplanter on 2001-09-02 18:51 ]

[Ron Edwards]

Why hello,

This is Henley Answer #3 of the day.

"I've been puzzled by Ron's claim that GNS orientation is completely independent of resolution method, meaning "Jonathan Tweet's triad of Karma, Fortune and Drama.""

Two comments. (1) "completely independent" is over-stated, as I think there are biases and combinations and correspondences between DFK and GNS. I also think these are not understood and under-explored, and make no claim to special expertise about the topic, with one exception. To wit:

"Specifically, it always seemed obvious to me that the more Drama you used, the less simulationism or gamism you could have."

And this is precisely where I differ with you. I consider that "obvious" point to be false. Much Amber play, for instance, is overtly Gamist (and No, Jim, this is not an accusation of your play!). This is also where the debate surrounding Theatrix, as well as the game's own text, becomes impossibly tangled and confused, continually confounding "story" with "not using dice." It is also the basis for our disagreement regarding system-lite Simulationism. I do not see any special reason to think that reducing Fortune and Karma facilitates or is in any way consistent with a Narrativist priority.

Historically, most specifically during the late 80s, the only Fortune methods available WERE highly Simulationist and Gamist. This is a historical fact, but it is not the whole megilla. Also, do not forget that DFK elements are highly combinable – a game's system (like Amber's) is often a blend.

Now, on to a discussion of Drama and your perception that I have corrupted the words of the Great Tweet, creating an Edwards Heresy of some sort.

Starting with the quote from Everway:
"When you, as gamemaster, apply the law of drama, the needs of the plot determine the outcome of events."

I suggest that such rhetoric represents the Great Flaw of trying to explain Narrativism in the early 1990s. What the fuck is meant by "needs of the plot"?
- what the GM wanted to happen during preparing for play?
- what the group as a whole would enjoy the most at the moment?
- what the group as a whole WILL enjoy most, in retrospect, after the climax plays out?

Are we to think that when the GM uses the Fortune deck, all story-value elements of play are abandoned? That the ONLY time that one considers "is this good story stuff" is when using Drama alone? Utter bullshit.

"For the sake of the story," "for the needs of the plot," "to make a good story," and so on, as definitions of Drama, are phrases of desperation without practical meaning. I don't think we started to see coherent rhetoric for CREATING story together until recently.

I look at the examples of Drama in Everway and all I see, again and again, is assertion (speaking, saying, suggesting, whatever) as a resolution mechanic, as opposed to dice/cards/chicken guts, as opposed to comparative fixed scores.

Tweet was undergoing, at this time, exactly the same crisis that any of us of his age and inclinations toward play were undergoing at that time. We were experts at traditional play and molding it to story-creating ends. We were exhausted from the effort involved, and frustrated at the continual – as it appeared to us, sabotaging – efforts and priorities of other players and much of game design. Tweet struggled mightily to express what "story" means, but fails.

This is precisely why people continually confound Narrativism with (a) Drama methods and (b) railroading. Coming from an 80s-sim-heavy context, these are the only mechanisms they can think of, if story-notions are involved.

"There follow examples that make it clear that Tweet means what he says - there is no question that he means that The Law of Drama refers to any generalized fiat power. He clearly does not."

I disagree with you again. The Law of Fortune means, "GM uses the Fortune deck." The Law of Drama means, "Look at the relevant scores of the characters." The Law of Drama means, "Don't use either of those," and relies on the GM *saying* what happens without recourse to anything else. In practice – unless we are to use secret ninja hand signals – this means ASSERTING something.

"The change seems to have important ramifications. Frex, in Ron's review of Puppetland he describes a PC whose character sheet includes "has a boat," and who says, "Oh look, it is my little boat on the shore," as an example of pure drama method. But in Tweet's own scheme, this incident and much of Puppetland, looks like pure karma - the puppet sheet shows a boat, therefore the puppet can use the boat to do things. The GM may then apply Tweetian drama to frustrate or facilitate use of the boat for the sake of the story."

Sigh. Jim, you are mixing in issues of stance, but let's not dwell on that. The difference in our views here rely on my confining Karma methods to NUMERICAL qualities, and you defining it as STUFF ON THE SHEET. By my view, the presence of a statement on a Puppetland PC sheet is a "right to Drama," not a Karma element of the mechanics at all. It is a means of focusing what a player's Drama efforts may be about. In fact, all of Puppetland's system consists of a set of ways to make Drama cooperatively functional for a group of people. (And by the way, you've misquoted my puppet/boat example in a crucial way. We can deal with that some other time.)

Clarification: Actually, Karma requires any method of graded comparison, the most common of which are numbers. There are verbal ones, too, like Fudge's scale of adjectives, if one is not rolling Fudge dice to resolve something but just comparing the scores.

Clarification: In Puppetland, if Ahmed the Finger-puppet can "see the future," he is not BETTER than seeing the future than the other puppets. This phrase on the sheet is the contract among the group that Ahmed is the guy who performs this action, and the other puppets do not. Whether they "can" or not is utterly irrelevant. That is a very, VERY different concept than the GURPS notion of some puppets having the skill and other puppets not having the skill.

And finally: Notice that when Everway was being written, the very idea of a PLAYER having a "right to Drama" during play itself was practically unknown, the exception being Amber, and even that is/was a modification of numerical Karma rather than a basic resolution mechanic. (I am referring to Amber as written, not as the semi-to-all LARPing that much of its play has become.) This why Puppetland is a very innovative role-playing game, not just another so-called "no-system" game that scrubs dice out of the picture and leaves nothing behind. It permits Drama to be functional consistently during play. That's why the Laws in Everway do not account for Puppetland very well, because the GM is not the only person making use of aesthetics-alone for story-generating purposes, and because the idea of REGULATING Drama in some way was utterly foreign a few years earlier. (This is why people inaccurately refer to Drama methods as "free-form," because back then, they were.)

So I claim that Tweet was puzzled and unclear, and that I in my wisdom have clarified his thinking for all of us. All Hail Me! Or, to put it differently, where do I get off telling YOU what TWEET "means"? How dare I, etc, etc.

That's why I went to the Master and presented my notions. They have passed inspection and I'm quite comfortable with my take on DFK and its correspondence to Everway and Tweetian Wisdom alike.

Best,
Ron

[Uncle Dark]

Ron,

So does this mean that the Cult of Ron is merely the first set of initiatiory degrees before one enters the Cult of Tweet? :smile:

Lon

[Supplanter]

Ron, would it be too private a reference to drop the name of Harold Bloom here? :wink: (Note that the correct answer is: I sure hope not.)

Now, shorn of the sarcasm, for which I don't blame you based on my original post, your argument comes down to:

1) Tweet was "confused."

2) You abhor the word "plot;" therefore, even though there's a whole world out there that finds it a perfectly intelligible concept, Tweet couldn't really have meant it.

3) You improved Tweet's scheme, but an improvement does not constitute a change.

4) The fact that the examples of the Law of Drama that Tweet gives reference "the needs of the plot" after Tweet has said that the Law of Drama is about making decisions based on the needs of the plot is incidental - the essential aspect turns out to be what interests you, which is fiat power.

5) Because your improved-but-not-changed Tweet's scheme is indistinguishable from Tweet's original, "confused" scheme, there is no difference in how one characterizes Puppetland according to one scheme or the other.

6) You had a conversation of one sort or another with Tweet in which he either agreed with you that what you say now is an okay interpretation of what he said then, or he didn't care to disagree for whatever reason.

In response I must say that the only element of your argument I can credit is the implicit claim that your triad is an improvement on Tweet's original. Otherwise, I say:

Tweet was not confused. He was writing in the context of Everway itself. He understood, at least intuitively, the distinction between simulationism and dramatism and also the distinction between heavily-randomized simulationism and lightly-randomized simulationism. Not only had Everway sprouted markdown stickers before "gamism" entered the theoretical lexicon, the only concession to gamism in Everway's design is the point-based chargen, and it may be the most easily-abused point-based chargen going. Tweet's scheme was intelligible and useful advice to (mythical) new GMs about choosing among dramatist and simulationist options. That he did not anticipate your own interest in group authorship is not confusion.

Your reaction to the word plot is idiosyncratic. That you claim to find it a meaningless concept can't determine its utility to people who find it a meaningful concept - which group I would argue can be fairly characterized as "most people." Specifically, that you claim to find "plot" a meaningless concept cannot be taken to mean that Tweet found it a meaningless concept at the time he was writing GM advice for Everway.

You may well have improved Tweet's scheme, at least as far as replacing the plot-based decision with a generalized fiat power. After all, Tweet was writing in the context of a specific game that he and Wizards believed, perhaps under the influence of crack cocaine, was going to attract a lot of new and untutored gamers. But the "improvement" is so substantial as to constitute a change: it is not Tweet's scheme any more, it is yours. The problem is, people who encountered Tweet's terms in Everway (and there are at least seven of us) are going to expect those words to mean what Tweet said, and that will lead to confusion. It is a shame you couldn't have renamed your fiat leg something like "fiat." This is analogous to the problems that have come from your carrying over the word "simulationism" from rgfa but not its definition. Also, you've disimproved the Law of Karma by reducing it to "comparing two fixed scores."

Your argument about Puppetland's character traits are, to put it mildly, by no means necessitated by parsimony.

Yes, in the arena of roleplaying game design, I consider Tweet "great." Note that that has not stopped me from kicking hell out of different aspects of Everway, as those dozen or so people with access to the archives of Everway-L will attest. The implication that I was having some kind of abreaction to your abuse of his monument is unbecoming. I consider that a side issue, though. My main problem is, again, the confusion that comes from using someone else's term with your meaning, and secondarily, not owning up to that.

Best,


Jim

[Ron Edwards]

Rrrrrrghh ... my only comment

- aside from my actual enjoyment and appreciation of some solid RPG theory debate -

is that you have misread me. I do not consider "plot" a meaningless concept. And no, I am not in some conceptual zone separate from the rest of the world who enjoy stories.

What is meaningless is using the term "plot" as a guideline for role-playing, without clarifying what it means in terms of plain old, straightforward, person-to-person behavior at the table (or on-line, or whatever).

Given that clarification, the word "plot" would be a fine and wonderful element of role-playing design. But without it, you have everything from pre-planned scripted scene-by-scene, to free-form "where shall we start and where shall we end up" whatnot, to Premise-driven back-stories with morally-driven unplanned resolutions, to whatever.

In any of these, the phrase "for the needs of the plot" could be used, and in each, it would mean a separate and distinct thing. THAT'S why the phraseology is useless, WITHOUT clarification.

Everway lacked that clarification. A phrase you used to describe a while ago was "abashedly Narrativist," correcting my use of "unabashedly," and I agree with you entirely.

Without getting this point straight about my argument, there's no future in going on about the rest of it.

Best,
Ron

[Supplanter]

Given that clarification, the word "plot" would be a fine and wonderful element of role-playing design. But without it, you have everything from pre-planned scripted scene-by-scene, to free-form "where shall we start and where shall we end up" whatnot, to Premise-driven back-stories with morally-driven unplanned resolutions, to whatever.

In any of these, the phrase "for the needs of the plot" could be used, and in each, it would mean a separate and distinct thing. THAT'S why the phraseology is useless, WITHOUT clarification.

Ron, thanks for the explanation of your thinking. I've been considering this, and I believe that the question of what "plot" means in general RPG usage or in Tweet's on 1995-era mind is possibly an interesting issue in its own right but irrelevant to the discussion at hand. The topic at hand is whether putting what you wrote after the word Drama instead of what Tweet wrote constitutes a material change to Tweet's scheme, making it no longer Tweet's scheme.

I don't think what plot meant to Tweet at the time is that obscure in context, the context being the examples he cites of drama in action, the example quests in the GM's booklet, the fact that the game expects the GM to structure his campaign as a series of discreet quests in the first place. It boils down to a prospective motivated account of action leading to closure - what the GM thinks is "supposed to happen." It is a regulated pace of the gaming experience.

But as I said, it doesn't matter. If Tweet means "controlling the flow of events so we don't all wind up the evening an hour early" and Berkman means "three acts plus two pinches and a midpoint" and you mean "driving through pumice to expunge protoplasm" and the 100,000th purchaser of Everway, the adventure gaming craze that is sweeping the nation, means "the ratification through action of comforting new age nostrums," it remains the case that for each user, "plot" has a an ontology, even if a personal one.

Any of those GMs can make decisions based on "the needs of the plot," because even if the precise meaning of plot changes from user to user, for any given meaning, plot has needs. Tweet was not trying to provide an account of resolution mechanisms independent of a theory of orientation. He was rolling everything into advice on a handful of pragmatic all-in-one options. Tweet's resolution mechanism triad is actually productive of stance, so long as one realizes that it is productive of stances that people conceived at the time, which is to say dramatism or simulationism in heavily or lightly-randomized form. The more cards you draw, the more randomized your game. The more (Tweetian) drama you advert to, the less simulationist.

Tweet needed to explain how to play RPGs in terms that people who shop in crystal stores could understand. Others need more and more systematic theory. For a General Theory, it may well be worth breaking the decision layer free of the orientation layer, and there may be uses of fiat power that are not intended to be productive of "story," however defined.

But the change is material, no matter what. If Tweet's original Law of Drama (needs of the plot) was too confused to be useful, a claim I feel I have refuted, and your replacement (fiat decision) is not, going from useless to useful constitutes a meaningful change. If Tweet's Drama was intelligible, as I have argued, then your replacement may or may not be an improvement, but it still constitutes a meaningful change. A meaningful change to the definition of someone else's term(s) without an acknowledgement and an account of the thinking behind the change (which I do not believe we had until yesterday), will tend to confuse.

Best,


Jim

[Ron Edwards]

Sorry Jim, I see your argument on its terms, but I don't think it works.

I was and am going from the classic Everway plot and adventure construction model:

1) Arrive at a CONCEPTUAL problem faced by an entire realm, with special emphasis on conflicting interest groups and a metaphysical underscore of some kind.

Optionally, define alternate outcomes with the Fate card of the realm, and even multiple alternate outcomes given a Fate card for each major NPC.

2) Pop the PCs in there, each armed with a personal "goal" as well as Fate cards (possible alternate outcomes, specified only to content, not to detail or circumstance).

3) Establish among everyone, the live people, that the entire purpose of play is to resolve some or all of these Fate cards, and thus illustrate, experience, and create a moral judgment (theme).

I do NOT consider any of the foregoing to be my interjection into the Everway rules, but rather a fair paraphrase of the classic Everway "what to do with this game" text. And that is Narrativist.

Now, I agree with you that not all the parts hang together. I agree with you fully that, historically, just about any RPG text of that time is going to be using Simulationist-randomized and Simulationist-not-randomized language to attempt to explain itself (by the way, I put the writing of Everway at about 1992-93, not '95; it was published in '94). I agree with you, as we've discussed before, that the game tries to force a given set of themes as well as pose the questions about them.

However, here's where we disagree. I claim that the above "Narrativist core" is integral to the game's text. Therefore, upon scrutiny, the Law of Drama turns out to be incoherent and muddled to the extent that I have described in my previous post. It's "whatever, for the good of the story," when the whole point of ANY play is "for the good of the story," Fortune and Karma and Drama alike.

I do not accept the notion that I have CHANGED Tweet's definitions. I do claim that they need scrutiny, in the context of the game [and role-playing in general] as a whole, in order to be articulated rather than simply quoted.

Best,
Ron

[Supplanter]

Ron, I'm not going to drag out the Drama dispute because Someone wants us to stop arguing. But I'll note some ironies related to Everway and GNS.

You fairly articulate the structure of the sample quests and what they imply for an Everwegian "premise" generally, if it were to have such a thing. (Note that this means you agree that "plot" means something specific in the rules after all.) Everway fandom has a name for this premise you wish the game supported more completely: Star Trek Syndrome. It is commonly though not universally acknowledged among the game's users that an unvarying diet of STS quests would be quite tedious. This is not because the game does not adequately support that play. It's because a little of that play goes a long way.

(One of the most compelling Eway campaign backgrounds I've seen on the net, "The Body of Sun Goldstone," has nothing to do with the default "heal this realm" structure.)

There are plenty of people, I am one of them most of the time, who think that you are simply wrong to say that all elements of a game must support a tightly-focused premise-with-a-capital-P. (Where I would agree is games that are intended to be played for a limited span of realtime - Puppetland, Tree's Heart Dynasty and WYRD come to mind.) Everway's mechanics offer a whole different way to approach actual play, which is with an emphasis on the personal fortune - virtue, fault and fate. This allows an absolutely necessary variety of approaches.

The big irony is this: After spending lots of time with Everway, I am convinced that it is a far better simulationist game than a dramatist game. I don't think this is just because I'm a simulationist either. I've played a lot of DC Heroes (real version) too, and it's a better dramatist game than a sim game. It's because the baggage that comes with Everway ends up moralizing the plot. Fail to "fulfill" a DC Heroes quest and the worst they can call you is stupid. Fail to "fulfill" an Everway STS quest and you're insensitive, out of harmony with the cosmos, insufficiently appreciative of diversity etc. It's infuriating. Strip that metaworld stuff away, and you have a very nice exploration of character engine.

"Tighten the premise" and add author-power mechanics to the STS quest structure and all you've done is "empower the players" to do the same thing over and over. Author or director power does not make endless group ratifications that All life is sacred, All cultures valuable and Everything needs balance more appealing. If one were going to truly "narrativise" Everway, far better to focus on using author power to fulfill character as delineated in the fortune and specialties. We don't push characters to "meet their fate" in AW2, but there's no reason why a bunch of people couldn't agree to play it that way.

Also, you can have some rip-roaring fights in Everway too. I mean, really intense stuff. (I am not making this up!)

Best,


Jim

[Ron Edwards]

Jim,

ONE
A story about a character is just as valid as a story about a setting. Either is a story if it has a Premise that is dealt with via protagonist action. If time ends up being spent on a hero's Fate card, it's a story; if time ends up being spent on a realm's Fate card, it's a story too. We've gone around on this a couple of times.

What you are calling Exploration of character in an Everway sesion, I think might be one of two very different things: either Narrativism with Premise arising from character, or Simulationism with the Exploration factor being character. I have no trouble distinguishing between the two in a real play situation.

I agree with you about Everway's ST syndrome, and consider it a flaw - not OF Narrativism, but COUNTER to its Narrativism, as I stated in my above post.

TWO
In my attempts to articulate Premise to people, a great deal of variety must be sacrificed to clarity. For instance, "silence," "phrasing," "downtime," and many other elements on good story-making that keep the entire exercise from being See-Dick-Run are possible and often fun, even necessary. I believe your image of "how I play" is impossibly over-structured and rigid, when it is an AESTHETIC that is our shared group guideline, not a forced "now deal with this" march.

FINALLY
Well, folks, Jim and I went to the Mountain and received Word that (1) he's right about Karma (in the Puppetland example) but (2) I'm right about Drama in Everway.

He disagrees with #2, and I disagree about #1. In other words, we're bad losers, and I think we'll probably head down to the Sorcerer forum for a while and commiserate there.

Best,
Ron

[Paul Czege]

Hey Ron, Jim,

I'm in a hurry to catch a plane, so this is going to be quick.

Clarification: In Puppetland, if Ahmed the Finger-puppet can see the future, he is not BETTER than seeing the future than the other puppets. This phrase on the sheet is the contract among the group that Ahmed is the guy who performs this action, and the other puppets do not. Whether they can or not is utterly irrelevant. That is a very, VERY different concept than the GURPS notion of some puppets having the skill and other puppets not having the skill.

I've been thinking about Ahmed's karma since reading about him on this thread two days ago. And I had a realization this morning. I think you're both right.

Stepping outside the context of RPG's for a second, karma is a contract. It's a contract with the spiritual force of the universe. And the universe never cheats on these contracts. When I've paid the right currency into the universe, it keeps its end of the bargain...consistently...every single time.

Taking that into RPG's, it becomes apparent to me that Ahmed's ability to see the future is Karma. He can do it, consistently. He may not know that he's paid for it, or how, but we know he has. And the universe never cheats him on it. That's Karma. But it's also part of the group contract. The group contract is the game representation of the way the universe keeps its end of the bargain. The players all agree that Ahmed is the one who performs the action of seeing the future. The group contract pays that to Ahmed.

And of course, the same thing is true of numeric comparison. When I take my short sword and my 6 Fire score into combat with you and your 4 Fire score, the universe never cheats me.

Paul

[ This Message was edited by: Paul Czege on 2001-09-05 13:55 ]