Re: Sim has not be discussed as process yet it needs to be s

[John Kim]

But the very same points apply when the group is essentially generating its own genre through play as well. As long as the assumption/agreement is to confirm our fixed "stuff," then the "stuff" can be a little patchy, sketchy, or cobbled-together just as easily as it can be unified.

This is where my pastiche argument comes from. Some pastiche is pretty much imitation - like Derleth's Lovecraftian fiction. Some, on the other hand, is patchwork, sort of like "Hey, a Westward Migration pioneer drama, on Mars!!"

People are really good at working with just-introduced material as if it had been assumption all along. If the group is committed to this idea, then their techniques of introducing original or incongruous elements can still support the whole notion of Story Before.

Well, you're pretty hazy about what the "stuff" is.  I get that prior to play, the group has agreed to some "stuff" that is fixed.  But from my understanding of your view, the haziness is unnecessary.  The only "stuff" that matters is theme.  The players can agree to restrict themselves to any amount of stuff -- whether cobbled together or unified -- including character, setting, situation, color, system, etc.  They can even pre-decide on certain outcomes, such as MLWM where you know that an endgame is coming where the Master will be killed.  None of that makes any difference as far as "Story Now".  However, if they agree upon theme, then it becomes "Story Before".  "Story Now" is simply play which generates a story without having a pre-defined theme.  

I think we're agreed on this part.  I think you agree that "Story Now" is a misnomer -- i.e. it doesn't mean what it literally says.  A more accurate phrase would be "Theme Now" or perhaps "unpredetermined theme".  On the other hand, it's not as catchy, and I'm willing to live with it as a code phrase as long as it's made clear what it really means.  

I'm not sure if you were responding to me--but my point was that I thought that in a scenario like mine or MJ's (one with Premise that would support Nar play) then Theme is not there already and therefore it doesn't make sense to call the scenario Story-Before.

I'm not sure if that was clear--I understand what you are saying about a specific type of game, and I'm good with that. But I think it's possible to have Sim that isn't Story-Before or Story-After, as MJ described.

If it isn't Story-Before or Story-After, what criteria make you say it's Sim?  It seems to me that yours and M.J.'s examples are describing games which are liable to be Narrativist.  It seems to me that you are correct that your scenario has no pre-determined theme.  Going by the definition, if a story is found in the Transcript, then it is Story Now and hence Narrativist.

[Marco]

If it isn't Story-Before or Story-After, what criteria make you say it's Sim?  It seems to me that yours and M.J.'s examples are describing games which are liable to be Narrativist.  It seems to me that you are correct that your scenario has no pre-determined theme.  Going by the definition, if a story is found in the Transcript, then it is Story Now and hence Narrativist.

The criteria by which I say the play has potential to be Sim (and still not be Story-Before) is this:

1. Theme is composed of character actions in the transcript with respect to Premise in the situation.
2. Narrativism definitonally requires player impact by the premise and player actions based on that (and therefore character actions).
3. It is possible to have character actions without player impact.
4. Even without player impact,  no one at the table will know what those player actions (and therefore character actions) will be at the start of the game.

.- The players don't have enough information to create an appropriate guiding cliche prior to play.
.- The GM isn't providing direction.

5. The action on the part of the players will, if the situation contains premise, still create transcript with theme, but in an unpredictable fashion (i.e. not "Story Before")

Example: A gamist makes a stirring speech about how one must do a distasteful patriotic duty for the better of all--the player wants to get to the kewl fight at the final castle where the Nazi is). When the final battle is over, the PC is presented with the Nazi and an NPC makes a passionate arguement that he should be killed.

The player flips a coin to decide.

The coin says "kill" so the player has his character say "Justice will be done. It's more important to keep true to what we are fighting for than to sacrifice it for victory." And executes the Nazi.

The player is satisfied with his last victory--but doesn't care about the final question. This isn't Narrativist play--but neither is it Story Before.

From the Nar essay:

The key to Narrativist Premises is that they are moral or ethical questions that engage the players' interest.

and

Substitute Premise for theme, and theme for the "something," and that's just about right. I especially like the implied causality: (1) the actions of the players (2) teach the players something, which becomes non-circular when play actually addresses Premise.

[see footnote]

That's why Feng Shui and Hong Kong Action Theater are hard-core, no-ambiguity Simulationist-facilitating games including their explicit homage to specific cinematic stories, and that's why The Dying Earth facilitates Narrativist play, because its Situations are loaded with the requirement for satirical, judgmental input on the part of the players.

(all emphasis added)

etc.

It is clear that:
1. GM railroading or force is not required for Sim play.
2. A state of mind (as indicated in the quotes) on the part of the player which I've described as "engagement with the premise" is necessary for GNS Narrativism.
3. Judging from recent clarafications, Author Stance is not necessary for Narrativism. Vincent says (and I agree with him) that with a fit character one can play in an immersed state and still be Narrativist.

The confusing aspects (I think) are these:
1. Much Sim play doesn't contain the actions and situations which constitute wide open Premise possibly because the GM is railroading or the game is something like Mike's "Open Sim" and the premise situations do not arise in the character's path with any predictable commonality (I think Contra's objections are somewhere near here).

(Certainly some Sim play is like this--but some won't be. And a lot of it depends on the game. A game may very commonly have open-premise (a redundant term, IMO, used here for clarification) as a basis for the situations the PC's find themselves in)

2. Much Narrativist play seems to be done in Actor Stance where the player is making discrete conscious judgments about the message their play implies (Nathan in the discussion with Vincent on Actor vs Author Stance).

3. However, if the scenario is designed with a reliable motivation for the PC's (being agreebly sent on a mission, being immersed in a society near crisis-point as in Orc Rising, etc.) and the situation contains premise, then it is reliable that "it will be answered."

4. Before Play or even "right at the start" no one at the table will have all the information necessary to say what the Theme Before is. Even though the GM will have the information necessary to describe what the Premise will be, he or she will, by nature of it being premise, not be providing guidance necessary to lead players.

Thus, the GM will not be able to say on what basis the players will decide the actions of their characters. Therefore there can be said to be no pre-established Theme.

Note: if you have a player who really hates the concept of atrocities and Nazis in particular it might be predictable that he'll kill the scientist--but that 'predictability' isn't Theme-before: (a) he's still in charge of his character--he could still decide not to execute the Nazi (playing 'in character,' for instance with a pacificst--and make a statement about how he thinks pacificism provides weak justice) (b) if he is all riled up by the atrocities and says "To hell with 'patriotism,' here's some justice!" the play is still Narrativist--even if utterly predictable.

-Marco
* Edited to add:
Note: It is (1) the actions that make up the transcript.
        It is (2) the impact on the players necessary to have "address of premise"

Other CA's may produce the same actions--however, prior to play, the motivations for those may not be clear. In order to say that there is Theme Before, I think that implies that "We know what action the players will take in a situation presenting a given premise."

I maintain that we don't really know. It may be predicted that a hard-core gamist will follow the chain of combats to the castle--but when he gets there, his decision to let the guy live or die might be a coin-toss.

If, indeed, a player is entirely unpredictable as to their choice when presented with a premise-rich situation, how can we say there was "pre-determined theme" when theme is composed of player actions that appear in the transcript?

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Now it's all getting weird again.

Marco, tons of Sim play isn't Story Before, Story After, or Story Now. I think you're getting really focused on "well, we have a story, so what kind of play was it?" ... when my emphasis would be "well, we played in a particular kind of way, so did we get a story?" (with a variety of possible answers if the "way" wasn't Narrativist)

If you say "Story Before and Story After" are Simulationism, then you're all backwards. Start with Simulationist play, period - so no addressing Premise. Now see if there's a story that came out of it. Then look for any of dozens of Techniques-combinations that encouraged that to occur. You may find none at all ("monkeys flew out my butt"). You may find really obvious Story After or Story Before. You may find more subtle things. Whatever.

The key is addressing Premise; if it's absent, then Sim (positing no Gamist play either). Or if that's too negative for you, then find some version of "celebration" or "confirmation of in/out" or perhaps "bricolage" that makes you more comfortable with something to look for - as the priority of play.

John, we simply disagree about Story Now as a term. I think the disagreement lies in the concept of the "Now," which is more than just "during play." It's during the key social and creative interactions and decisions of play. You know that's what I always focus on when we discuss Creative Agenda in the Actual Play forum.

That's why what I just described to Marco isn't Story Now. None of those key interactions occur until the group nails down Theme through various subtle means, even if play is occurring. Once it's nailed down, then the key interactions may occur, and plain old Solid-Sim Participation is under way, in our multi-genre Explorative context. You guys are getting a little too hung up on "Before" as meaning "Before anything."

As usual when I interact with the two of you on-line, I very quickly get aggravated with someone proposes a special case, then some secondary feature of that special case gets highlighted, then some "but/if" comment about a detail of that secondary feature gets emphasized, and then whatever gets said about that is suddenly bumped up to apply to the whole damn topic. I'd like a little help from both of you in avoiding that tendency.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

Ron,

My man, and I mean this sincerely: I'm am really and truly not trying to aggravate you. There are some things we do disagree on--yes, but, I think, not this--and I'm sure not trying to annoy you.

John asked me how if Sim Play wasn't Story-Before or Story-After we could know it's still Sim.

My answer was: "'cause the players aren't engaged with the premise."

I think that's like, completely what you said. In fact, I think that's right in line with what you said here:

I think the disagreement lies in the concept of the "Now," which is more than just "during play."

I agree with that: the Sim player's foundation for making a thematic decision will be different from a Nar players--in fact, that's the distinguishing point. Not the transcript.

Note: I didn't say that'd be 'Story Now' (examination of the thread shows that, unfortunately, I did, further back, use 'NOW' in quotes to denote 'during play'--I'm sorry if that created confusion. I shouldn't have done that.)

1. If someone says "During Sim play, thematic elments may added to the transcript in an unpredictable fashion by the actions of the players in a fashion that produces Story." they're correct.

2. If they say "Sim players are choosing their actions based on their reactions to the premise," that is wrong--that's Nar (yeah?)

And I think that's 100% in agreement with you.

It's just that I think some people are takin' the language to mean sentence (1) is impossible and if someone said it happened it must've been (had to have been) an unconscious re-write of the transcript after the fact.

That's all I was saying in this thread.

-Marco

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

Agreement! I'm with you on all counts in that post, Marco.

The funny thing is, looking back over the thread, I'm generally agreeing most often with Gareth (contracycle) in terms of the basic points on an individual basis.

I hope that goes to show that we're all working on articulating the same issue to one another rather than really disagreeing, but life rarely holds out a "group hug solution" to an intellectual problem, so I'm only cautiously optimistic.

Best,
Ron

[John Kim]

OK, so I guess I missed here on Ron's intended meaning of "Story Before".  So what I get of your position, Ron, is:

1) A story can be generated as a product of play (i.e. the true, unedited transcript is a story), and yet that play is not characterized by any of "Story Before", "Story Now", or "Story After".  

2) "Story Before" can be occurring even though there is no decision prior to play on what the theme is.  i.e. The group can dynamically create theme during the act of play, and yet the process is still "Story Before".  

Neither of these were clear to me before -- probably because the term "Story Before" isn't well documented.  (It doesn't appear in your Simulationism essay, your Narrativism essay, or your glossary.)  

The funny thing is, looking back over the thread, I'm generally agreeing most often with Gareth (contracycle) in terms of the basic points on an individual basis.

Hold on.  Contracycle is proposing revision to your stated view in the "Narrativism: Story Now" essay.  He sees it as relatively minor, though I have my doubts.  Do you support the change he suggests?  As he put it,

What I was refering to was (Ron's) Narrativism Essay:
...
(Emphasis in the original)

Fine.  That was the state-of-the-art then.  I am proposing that in the light of new development the state of the art is now different.  I may of course be wrong.  I still largely agree that the CA is not explicit in the transcript, but am suggesting that by dispersing some of the multiple senses of story we should be able to distinguish sequence-of-events story from premise-addressing story.  While we were/are treating story as an indivisible whole that was virtually impossible to do or discuss.

Do you agree with this point of Gareth's, or do you agree on other parts but disagree here?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi John,

I was definitely referring to other points made by Gareth, not this one. However, in reference to this particular interaction, it was not clear to me throughout the discussion when people may have been using different readings of the word "transcript," perhaps including interactions among the real people rather than just a recounting of the fictional events. Also, this particular exchange was written (in my experience of the thread) in the heat of rather murky debate, so frankly, just what point was being made relative to what isn't clear to me.

To be absolutely clear: I stand by my claim in the Narrativism essay that transcript (as I define it there) yields no clues to CA. Hell, it doesn't even yield clues as to who was a player-character, or when resolution systems were employed, or anything about play.

I do suggest, as I did earlier in this thread, that if we were to take a whole bucket of game-transcripts to compare, and if we knew which ones were played Gamist, Narrativist, Simulationist, and "other," then the Narrativist sample would feature proportionately more stories. That's a very different sort of claim.

Best,
Ron

[contracycle]

I was definitely referring to other points made by Gareth, not this one. However, in reference to this particular interaction, it was not clear to me throughout the discussion when people may have been using different readings of the word "transcript," perhaps including interactions among the real people rather than just a recounting of the fictional events. Also, this particular exchange was written (in my experience of the thread) in the heat of rather murky debate, so frankly, just what point was being made relative to what isn't clear to me.

I did make some dubious statements regarding the transcript, but I don;t think they were operational at this point any more.

But that said I am still perpeplexed by what statement John thinks I am making here.  I have never actually recommended a change to the glossary, I was merely trying to point out that its contents do not need to be carved in stone and should be seen as artifacts of the time and place in which they were created.  It is not valid to hold every current speculation to a relentless unity with every pre-existing document before it can be discussed; thats a sort of documentary fetishism.  The documents are tools we use, not divine writ from the heavens.

Furthermore, seeing as my suggestion has been mainly that we stop talking about story in sim, and yet this entire 6-page thread has indeed been conducted as a discussion and clarification of story in sim, it seems my suggestion has already been universally rejected.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Gareth, I'm definitely with you that the Glossary is not set in stone.

I also think that "story" will necessarily crop up in discussing any role-playing, in a million ways, even if it's merely to establish (in the most minimal case) that there isn't one.

Maybe it's time to close this thread. I like these last couple pages, but making new and very focused sub-threads seems like the most useful option. Marco, let me know if you think that's not called for, or whatever.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

Sure, I'm pretty good with closing it (unless, you know, John has somewhere else to go).
-Marco