Stance is Still Not Power

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi all,

I've been turning the GM Secrets thread around in my head all weekend, and I'm not sure I can find the problem.  I mean, there is a problem if you're looking for a solid state RPG that requires no negotiation between players ever and runs while gliding effortlessly over all bumps.  But my guess is that RPGs are about the negotiation between players -- so the "fear" of GM secrets or players getting too much power is a chimera.

I'll say this again, because I think it's important.  Stance is not Power.  Stance his how to stand in relation to what Power you have.

What we're talking about in terms of secrets and stuff (or crossed dressed NPCs suddenly revealed) is Power, not Stance.

In Universalis, Power is negoatiated equally between players, using their ability to manage resources.

In games with GMs, though, everyone at the table has agreed that one person has more power. It's simply that simple.

So: If I'm the GM and I decide I've got a femal NPC dressed as a man and the players don't know this, she's a she until I decide to change that.  (And perhaps I might.)

Now: if I'm a player who rips off this NPC's shirt during a fight and says, "I rip off his shirt, revealing his hairy chest...!"  No.  I don't get to do that.

Why?  Because that statement is tampering with the "reality" of the game world, which is an issue of power.  And on some issues, the GM wins, and we all agreed to that when we sat down to play.

But in a game where Director Stance an option, won't there be a coflict?  A burp yes, a conflict no.  Because Director stance implies Stance, not Power.  I know that some people confuse the two.  I even know that some people use the term "Extreme Director Stance," to indicate the stance with this power, but I'd say that this is a falacy.  To create "Extreme Director Stance" with Power is what leads to this problem.  And it's a problem no one needs.  There is no such thing as Extreme Director Stance. That's GM Power, and no longer a stance.

With Director Stance you can add details until you... can't.  That's not a "veto" from the GM. That's the player disocvering, in most cases, a surprise.  Which is a very different thing.

Any player thinking it's a veto should be playing Universalis.  Anyonee else signed up with a GM knowing that he's be playing in a session with boundries he does not yet know about, and that working toward and pushing those boundries until they reveal themselves is part of the session.

Those boundries are Power.  

Many are set by the GM.  Many are set by the players.  

The GM can't say, "You're character feels this."  And that's cause that's within the sphere of the player's power to determine.

Finally, the dice and other Fortune mechanics are third person power invited by all players to the table.  The dice, too, shape the reality of the game.  We all negotiated and agreed to this before play, and that what we get.

It is possible for the power to shift with negotiation.  

Player: "But he killed my parents."

GM: "Okay.  Take another die."

Or:

"It'd be cool if he was my father."

The GM remains silent.  Maybe.  And later, by testing the boundries of the world, the player finds out one way or another.

These boundries of power between player, GM and dice are permeable where they meet.  That is why negotiation is vital and, in some games, why OOC conversation is so vital and often so much fun.

But no one, using any stance, can simply claim Power.

And the distribution of Power, between the GM and players, at the outset of play, is not equal.

Christopher

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

100% agreement, and many thanks, Christopher, for posting this.

It strikes me that many of the earlier debates about Director Stance especially (if you're feeling very, very brave, do a Forge search on "Ajax") ran into this problem - the notion that Director Stance automatically granted GM-level powers to insert, alter, or simply say what is going on in the game-world. I wouldn't be surprised if I fell into that trap myself in many instances of trying to explain it.

The problem is compounded by the fact that the GM/player division of Power is variable from game to game, such that "the GM" is actually a very misleading term in discussions unless we provide a lot of local context.

I was planning to start a thread called "Hairy chests and firm young breasts" to discuss this issue, but it looks like Christopher beat me to it. Here's what I was planning to present, based on an example from an earlier thread.

1. An NPC is a woman disguised as a man, and there's a big ol' conflict scene going on at some point.

2. A player-character is tussling with the NPC and in one fashion or another it's established that the NPC's shirt rips. The player narrates, "His hairy chest is exposed." The player is merely role-playing, having fun, usin' a little Director stance to add some Color for everyone. Ordinarily, no big deal.

2'. And as a side note, it's still not a big deal even if you're using a game like Dust Devils or The Pool in which player narration is formalized. OK? That's a big point - none of my following points depend on such a mechanic either being there or not being there.

3. Problem? Disaster? Spoiled story? GM-prep instantly forced to backpeddle and destroy the original notion?

Nope. No problem at all. What we now have is the same kind of negotiation that you have to have for any narration, including GM narration.

In fact, that last point will help me illustrate. What would happen if I'd had my character draw a curved sword, and the GM had said, "Your sword presents a straight line of steel barrier to your foes." No problem!! The player says, "Hey, remember, it's curved," and the GM goes, "D'oh! Oh yeah," and fixes it. I'm betting that in most of our groups, no one would even blink. That sort of negotiation is no big deal.

It may sound amazing or unheard-of to you, but when the player narrates, the GM (or anyone else, but especially the GM because of the role of prep) can do the same thing. Given the medium of role-playing, a little bit of "whoops, it's ..." goes on all the time.

4. So, here we are, with the shirt open, and a statement about what was revealed. But it's only a statement. The GM merely has to say, "Actually, I have some prep that comes into play now!" And the response is not, "Dude, I'm narrator, the rules say so, I has Da Power, shut yer yap," but rather, "Really? I find something out? Cool, what is it?"

The result is that the shapely, rounded, pink-nipple tipped, nubile, entrancing breasts are brought into play, not the hairy chest.

'Scuse me, lost my train of thought.

Oh yeah! The point is, player-rights of narration (formal or informal) are not Word of God Takes Over in terms of the game world or anything else. They are a jumping-off point for negotiation about what happens in the game world, just like anyone's narration. The issue of where the buck stops about what happens is entirely separate from the issue of who gets to do the narrating.

Best,
Ron

[clehrich]

100% for me, too.

I have a discussion of this issue at some length in the GM Advice section of Shadows in the Fog (near the end; check the table of contents).  In (as it seems destined to be known) ShITF, I'm stealing from InSpectres, Theatrix, Chalk Outlines, and anyone else who doesn't lock his pockets real damn fast (but I do cite), so here's what you've got:

1. Ordinary narration rights for players
Basically you can narrate whatever, however, but you're not to touch Big Stuff, including other people's feelings and obvious Plot Things.  This comes up a lot with Concessions: you narrate that the NPC kicks you in the head, but not how he feels about it.

2. Strong narration rights for players (Assertion)
Within certain confines, you can narrate whatever, however, and you can mess with Plot Things.  So if you're the Doctor, you can determine cause of death.  But you can't rewrite what's been written.  In Fang's No Myth terms, anything that is real, because it's been put in play, can't be made not-real by these means.

3. Very strong narration rights for players (Trumping)
Within extremely narrow confines, and paid for in blood -- er, I mean resources, yeah, that's the ticket -- you can rewrite things already set in stone.  But you can't go back much.  So if the Doctor says the guy died of being hit in the head with a blunt instrument, you can, under these circumstances, additively alter this: "Well, yes, blunt instrument, but actually that blunt instrument was the back of a bear's paw.  I saw an identical case while hunting in the Taiga, don'cha know."

The big point here is that it's a group "feel" thing.  If you do this a lot, you're probably doing it because it makes you feel powerful, but it's going to piss off everyone else.  So the whole group will rein it in.  If you every now and then Trump brilliantly, it makes the other guy's Assertion even cooler, by making it the center of attention.

4. Undoing things for GMs
If you must, you must.  But don't.  Do you really have to?  No, you really don't.  But if you really have to.  Are you sure?  Okay, if you really really have to..... BEG.  Whimper, cry, and generally bitch-slap yourself publically.  Humiliate yourself.  You're saying, in essence, "You win, you beat me, I can't go on, I don't know what to do, I'm too inflexible, I suck, here's some nice resources of whatever kind is appropriate, and I really really owe you one."  Then go ahead and smash whatever nice house of cards they've set up.

The big point about #4 is that I have never in my entire life seen any GM actually do this.  I mean, I've seen GMs knock down player constructions, sure.  But I maintain that if you really had to humiliate yourself publically, by appealing directly to social contract instead of "But I'm the GM," then nobody would ever knock down the players directly.  You'd weasel intelligently: their constructions are right, but in a very literal sense, so you don't have to lie when you agree, but you're somehow concealing something (which needs to be hinted at), and so on.

So I think you can extend Stance into Power if you like.  I do like, but I'm sure it's not everyone's cup of tea.  I just think that if it turns into a power relationship, the GM's ability to win all the time has to be paid for in GM blood, i.e. public humiliation.

[Mike Holmes]

Ah, but this is exactly why I wanted previously to divide up these things into authority and stance, etc.

See this thread seems to me to be a red herring. The idea is that somebody must be saying that these things are equal - that if a player can play in a stance, that he has some particular power. But nobody ever said that.

The confusion arises because the thread in question mentioned a particular mechanic that did allow not only narration, but was intended to give power to the player.

Now the point still stands that these things can be negotiated. But I prefer hard and fast mechanics (in Universalis, there is a mechanic for the negotiation) to just allowing it to fall to the social contract level. So I can understand if Stuart wanted to avoid the whole general negotiation principle with something more concrete. A mechanically distinct empowerment.

But I could also see leaving it to the more traditional level of power.

Mike

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Mike,

Well, yes.  But in the other thread someone brought up the idea of "accidently" shattering the GM's reality with color.  (The Hairy Chest Gambit.)  No one else commented on it, so it certainly seemed accepted that even the inadvertant use of Director Stance had power.

Hence, this thread.

Of course, you and I are already agreeing. But I'd suggest that while the purpose of the other thread was to build a new mechanic, the presumption of stance being part of that mechanic/issue was assumed.  It isn't.  Until this split is made explicit, I suggest there's gonna' be trouble.

Best,
Christopher

[Mike Holmes]

It can't hurt to mention it, certainly.

The Hairy Chest was, me, BTW. My point with the Hairy Chest was, very much that if a player is given power to do such a thing as the mechanic implied that the problem could occur. And that this is what Stuart was working around. A fact that people seemed to be missing.

So all this is my fault for not forwarding the thread agenda in the commentary. Sorry. :-)

Mike

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the reply.

I do understand that the purpose of Stuart's thread was about mechanics along these lines.

But you used the term "accidental color."  And the clarity of definitions and discussion, I'd have to offer that color isn't something that can bump authority.  In the example you gave, it would be something beyond color, beyond stance.  

I wasn't ignoring the discussion.  I was pointing out that the terms used were inappropriate.

In Universalis there is a clear, magically clear actually, split between Narration and Authority.  I don't think that unless these distinctions are made clearly, with appropriate terms (and maybe even new terms) Stuart's question is going to get answered.

I think too, that this matters for clarification about stances, specifically director stance.  Ron fessed up he's probably been unclear about this to folks new to these concepts.  I know I have.  "Shared Authorship" often gets confused "Director Stance" even though thery're very different things.   And in Stuart's thread these things items were blurring with Authority.  I thought it vital to point out the differences -- not because Stuart's ambition for such a mechanic was misplaced, but because what he's talking about isn't color, isn't stance -- but people were using those terms.

Christopher