Narrative Voice

[Victor Gijsbers]

Victor, where does that term come from?

It's used in Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan's Narrative Fiction, but was introduced by Gerard Genette in 1972. I think it is pretty standard terminology in narratology. There is a good webpage on narratology here.

[Mike Holmes]

Excellent.

Mike

[Trish2]

Hi all I am very new to the forum here. :) In fact this is my second post here.

I was reading this thread and others like it and I was wondering what types of games are played here and what types of games are being related to in this topic in specific, because of all the different types of games out there. Are we talking about play by web (IRC, PBeM and BBS/newsgroup) or face to face? Or both? I currently play in PBeM and IRC... used to LARP and I used to do tabletop too.

I found this topic to be of particular interest because I am a GM for a play-by-email game of Star Trek called:

Star Trek: A Call To Duty
http://startrek.acalltoduty.com

In the play by email game I run, I play a character who is the Commanding Officer of Denali Station. In addition to playing, I organize the storyline, present challenges to the characters and players, plus give them information and some direction so that they can write a part of the overall story.

I would say that while there's a good deal of structure in the posting (a post could be likened to a brief session in tabletop gaming) the players agree to write the story together in a more (but I do not think that precise archetype) narrative environment. LOL its the occaisional gamists types we have that seem generate the player conflicts... but its my job to monitor the flow without confining the players. There is a great deal of creativity, but its within a set SIS (canon star trek).

To be consistant in our posting, we all (for the most part) write third person past tense (mostly limited). This is so that there's no shifting of perspectives and tenses in the middle of a post as the posts are often written back and forth between two or more players until a scene is complete. Find below a link to a finished example of what I am talking about.

http://archive.acalltoduty.com/?3::1775

Sometimes, but not often, I write some of the scening of the story but I do this from a cinematic view or to let the characters know to about an action that happened that the characters should react to.

For example: Denali Station recently came under attack from the Gorn. When the station was fired upon, I described in a paragraph in one of the posts, how the station shook so that the characters could react to this appropriately.

My character wasn't in that specific post, so I did it from a broader perspective, but in a post that occured in a different location but at the same time, I had my character react, and then the other characters in the room followed suit and also reacted.

Anyway, I wanted to say I did find the topic interesting and wanted to see how and where these different styles cound be found or would be applied.

About this:

Danny hits on this. I completely agree that the tendencies are real. That is, I think using the constant narrator voice in PBEM or PBP does tend to reinforce author stance. In fact I'd go so far as to say that the association of freeform RPG (not freeform LARP, obviously) with online formats, is telling here. People just don't as often get together to play freeform. It seems much, much more common to write it.

Playing in a PBeM game, I don't think that players necessarily fall into the author stance. That being the person's priorties vs the character's.

I think that usage of the smokescreen is dependant upon the quality of the roleplayer. How much of the ego of the player is tied up in the character and how much the player chooses to use their character as a weapon against other players so that they can hide behind the character and not take responsibility for their attitudes.

I seen players who use player knowledge rather than character knowledge. Its really annoying when that happens. Really even more annoying is the rationalization of how their character knew (whatever) that follows the OOC confrontation. LOL.

Btw. Love the smoke screen explaination given by Mike. I've seen that used a ton of times by some roleplayers more than others, who use their characters to get back at a player because of their issues with a player and make an excuse for it as the "Its just in character..."  Oh ugh!

The IRC game I play in uses two rooms one in character and one out of character, so that makes it fairly easy to distinguish which is which. Still that style of play is probably first person present tense.

An example of this (from the D&D game I play) would be:

Rhynthillias says:
:: He places a hand on her shoulder. :: Randiel: Are you sure? I remember how a stubbed toe used to keep you from walking for a week. :: He offers her a bit of a good natured smirk. ::

Randiel says:
:: smiles at his smirk and tease and smirks back :: Rhyn: I'll stub my toe on your armor giving you a swift kick in the shin if you aren't careful.... :: also teasing ::

Still all of this gives me lots of thought... LOL but presently no practical usage I think. Tell me how I can use this information... if its not too much to ask in all of that LOL.

[Mike Holmes]

Hi Trish, and welcome to the Forge, if nobody's already done so. :-)

The discussion here at The Forge tends to center around FTF play. Note that we discuss LARP above almost as though it's an exception. Really most of the issues that John and I have been discussing are only relevant at all in the context of speaking from one player to another.

Which is not to say that looking at written RPG forms isn't also interesting. I, too, play PBEM, and via IRC. And there, I think, it's a bit more straightforward that you can use literature terms just as they're found - but even then I'd be careful. There are some peculiarities to these forms of play.

The most obvious ones that I can think of are that many groups, including all of mine, for instance, use present tense exclusively for such play. So it looks like:

Mike: Opening the tent flap, Aysha finds Marek waiting for her.
Aysha: enters the tent and sits next to Marek.

Note that we use pretty much all third person narration here, however, just like you do. You don't see:

Aysha: I enter and sit next to Marek.

Again, that's just my game, however, I've seen people play using the first person in IRC. Can't say I've seen it in PBEM, however.  I think sans the immediacy of IRC, third person just seems to "fit" PBEM somehow. Can anyone explain that phenomenon? Has anyone seen an exception - a first person narrated PBEM?

Playing in a PBeM game, I don't think that players necessarily fall into the author stance. That being the person's priorties vs the character's.

That's not quite what author stance is. Author stance is thinking, "What would I the player think woul be cool to have happen here. And then how can I make that fit into play plausibly."

Using Author stance you never have a character do something that they wouldn't do. You just don't use the "what would the character do?" logic first to determine what he does. Usually this isn't a problem or even a task step in the process, because what the player thinks is cool for the character to do is usually something they would do anyhow.

I think that usage of the smokescreen is dependant upon the quality of the roleplayer. How much of the ego of the player is tied up in the character and how much the player chooses to use their character as a weapon against other players so that they can hide behind the character and not take responsibility for their attitudes.

Well, yes, that's what I've been saying. What we refer to as My Guy Syndrome is a player not taking responsibility for his character's actions by arguing that he as a player has no choice in the actions. That the way the character is designed, the system, and the situation presented all say that X must happen, and even though X is really painful to the other players that the player is not responsible because he's "just playing his character."

So, pretty much what you said. A good roleplayer understands that there are always lots of ways to handle any situation, and that even when using Actor Stance that the player is making the decision on what the character does. And that he has a responsibility to meet group expectations about what is fun play (these may vary wildly, however).

I seen players who use player knowledge rather than character knowledge. Its really annoying when that happens. Really even more annoying is the rationalization of how their character knew (whatever) that follows the OOC confrontation. LOL.

Well, actually this is a stylistic variance. You're indicating a preference here. That is, there are many here (myself included) who would tell you that it's just as fun to play with OOC knowledge as long as the rationale is provided. This is just an extension of Author Stance, really. Some people dislike this, but some see it as a completely valid way to play.

The IRC game I play in uses two rooms one in character and one out of character, so that makes it fairly easy to distinguish which is which. Still that style of play is probably first person present tense.

We use the same set up (I actually run multiple IC rooms at once for different concurrent scenes). And yes, I think it does help somewhat.

Because I think that some of these sorts of problems develop when there are traditions like, "If you say it, your character says it." This is simply untennable in the long run, and everybody realizes that when you ask where the bathroom is, that it's not the character doing so. So there actually is a back and forth between IC and OOC, but it's masked by the assumption that everything is IC. Often in such cases people resort to some sort of symbolic gesture that indicates that the player is playing OOC. What I find easier, however, is to assume that everything is OOC, until such point as the player does narration to indicate that what he's describing is in scene. Like:

Player: I come up to him and say, "How are you doing?"

That distinctly first person narration is unmistakably IC. It's only when using what I've been calling Voice Acting above that the confusion can set in. Leading to questions like, "Did you say that, or did your character say that?" or "Did you say that for real?"

That last one is interesting. It's sorta like the smokescreen, but used by the GM to question player response. "Was that really what your character said, or what they want to say?" The whole OOC IC thing again. Except in this case, the GM is warning the player that saying such a thing will have certain repercussions that the player has to be willing to accept to allow the narration into play. I've done this a lot myself.

An example of this (from the D&D game I play) would be:

First Person present tense. Pretty standard, I think.

Still all of this gives me lots of thought... LOL but presently no practical usage I think. Tell me how I can use this information... if its not too much to ask in all of that LOL.

Well, at this point I'm just intending to create some taxonomy. I think that we're seeing some applications of these concepts emerge here, but really my only intention is to understand the terminology and it's place in RPGs so that we can have better discussions in the future. What happens at The Forge is that, if these terms seem useful, people will start using them as part of the language herabouts. And that helps facilitate discussions.

That said, I'm not against anyone coming up with some practical ramifications of the observations here and posting them in the thread should they have any. I just don't have any at this time.

Mike

[Trish2]

The most obvious ones that I can think of are that many groups, including all of mine, for instance, use present tense exclusively for such play. So it looks like:

Mike: Opening the tent flap, Aysha finds Marek waiting for her.
Aysha: enters the tent and sits next to Marek.

Note that we use pretty much all third person narration here, however, just like you do. You don't see:

Aysha: I enter and sit next to Marek.

Ohh... in FTF games I've seen it played more like:

Mike: I'll go into the tent.
Aysha: I'll go in too.
(then IC dialoge ensues)

Or even:
Mike: Marek goes into the tent.
Aysha: Aysha goes in too.
(then IC dialoge ensues)

But yeah, I can see the difficulty where you are doing everything in character and someone suddenly breaks. Happens in LARPing too. But sometimes the character breaks are apparent.

In this one FTF Trek game I played, I think it was quite apparent when I was almost literally rolling on the floor laughing from what the guy playing the Zaldan character said (in character) that I was not in character -- since I was playing a Vulcan.

I think sans the immediacy of IRC, third person just seems to "fit" PBEM somehow. Can anyone explain that phenomenon? Has anyone seen an exception - a first person narrated PBEM?

In a D&D PBeM game I played, while it was not first person, it was mostly third, but the tenses kept shifting. Some would use past tense and some would use present tense like:

Ariel walks up to the fighter and says, "I found tracks."

The reason I think third person works best in PBeM is for ease of reading. The perspective isn't shifting all the time and you aren't reading a post later and saying: Ok... now who is this "I" this time?

Now I can see a possibility for first person PBeM if everyone only did solo posts, making the perspective -- first person (THIS Character).

That's not quite what author stance is. Author stance is thinking, "What would I the player think woul be cool to have happen here. And then how can I make that fit into play plausibly."

Using Author stance you never have a character do something that they wouldn't do. You just don't use the "what would the character do?" logic first to determine what he does. Usually this isn't a problem or even a task step in the process, because what the player thinks is cool for the character to do is usually something they would do anyhow.

Thank you for the clarification. I had read the glossery terms for actor and author stance alone.

Well, actually this is a stylistic variance. You're indicating a preference here. That is, there are many here (myself included) who would tell you that it's just as fun to play with OOC knowledge as long as the rationale is provided. This is just an extension of Author Stance, really. Some people dislike this, but some see it as a completely valid way to play.

Fair enough. Not that we aren't all guilty of this at some point. Just sometimes the rationale seems far fetched and if player knowledge gets abused, its almost reaches into the realm of powergaming. Its the extreme instances of this that I am talking about. I am sure your play is far more balanced.

Because I think that some of these sorts of problems develop when there are traditions like, "If you say it, your character says it."

Surprisingly enough I have seen this happen in PBeM during a joint post. There are times when a player makes a mistake that a character never would.... so I've encouraged people to ask about a questionable action of another players character before over-reacting, kind of like what you mentioned below. But this is more about making sure the player didn't make a mistake vs the character making the mistake, like a person who lives in the world of Star Trek would know certain things, that a person living in the 21st century on earth wouldn't -- like under what conditions the transporters would work and under what conditions they wouldn't.

Still, now I have to try an experiment into first person PBeM. What an unusual idea. Thanks!

[Mike Holmes]

Ohh... in FTF games I've seen it played more like:

I was, at this point, talking about IRC and PBEM. My examples were of that sort of play. I was saying that it varies from literature mostly in that it's rare in literature to use first person.

You said that you're group uses past tense, but then your examples were in present - where am I confused there?

In this one FTF Trek game I played, I think it was quite apparent when I was almost literally rolling on the floor laughing from what the guy playing the Zaldan character said (in character) that I was not in character -- since I was playing a Vulcan.

Interesting note. I think it's fascinating that in RPGs where you're supposed to be IC most of the time that you have to prevent yourself from laughing. Beacuse your character isn't laughing.

This is my bias showing, but something about this seems dysfunctional.

In a D&D PBeM game I played, while it was not first person, it was mostly third, but the tenses kept shifting. Some would use past tense and some would use present tense like:

Ariel walks up to the fighter and says, "I found tracks."

The reason I think third person works best in PBeM is for ease of reading. The perspective isn't shifting all the time and you aren't reading a post later and saying: Ok... now who is this "I" this time?

Well, I'd agree that it's made explicit in most PBEMs early on what tense and voice to use. For the reason you state - reading when tense shifts back and forth is just a pain.

But what I've found is that the tense or voice doesn't much matter as long as you pick one standard and stick to it. So I'm less concerned with why to stick with one standard, as why the Third Person past tense seems to be so common.

Now I can see a possibility for first person PBeM if everyone only did solo posts, making the perspective -- first person (THIS Character).

Not sure what you mean by "solo" here. Could you elaborate?

The first person present tense standard would look like:

I go to the man and ask him, "What's your name?" Then I go to the wall where there are some frescoes and look at them closely.

Thank you for the clarification. I had read the glossery terms for actor and author stance alone.

Well, that's what those entries say, too. Your assumption that author puts player and character motives in opposition is something you read in somehow. It doesn't say that.

Not that we aren't all guilty of this at some point. Just sometimes the rationale seems far fetched and if player knowledge gets abused, its almost reaches into the realm of powergaming. Its the extreme instances of this that I am talking about. I am sure your play is far more balanced.

Hard to explain, and getting way OT. But what you're describing are either actual other valid modes or player abuse. Any stance can be abused so, and using OOC knowledge doesn't particularly lead to this. The abusive player exists first, and then abuses in this fashion. See the difference? The point being (and this is practically a Forge Axiom), that players and game texts try to address this by forcing players to adopt certain stances or "banning" OOC knowledge. When the problems that are arising cannot be fixed by this, and are being misdiagnosed anyhow. What you've mentioned as examples are either Mode Incoherency, which is fixed with system (or a lot of player study), or abusive players, which can only be fixed on the social level.

Using OOC knowledge has nothing to do with any of these problems.

But this is more about making sure the player didn't make a mistake vs the character making the mistake, like a person who lives in the world of Star Trek would know certain things, that a person living in the 21st century on earth wouldn't -- like under what conditions the transporters would work and under what conditions they wouldn't.

Yep, there are always valid reasons to retcon. This example is mostly a positive one that I'm giving (though, again, I've seen people abuse it - in this case GMs using it to take away player autonomy).

Still, now I have to try an experiment into first person PBeM. What an unusual idea. Thanks!

No more unusual than playing FTF and using, say, third person past tense, like Puppetland does. Put another way, I'm sure that there's some group somewhere (or whole forms of play like some of the freeform styles) where this is standard.

Mike

[M. J. Young]

More than one person has commented that in online games players tend to refer to their characters in the third person.

That has not been my experience. I ran a weekly chatroom game for a few months, an e-mail campaign for about the same time, and a forum-based game for several years now, and my impressions are that all of my players (including me when I was playing my character) wrote in the first person at all times. Referees tend to write in the second person when the intended affected character is clear, the third person if only one of more than one player is addressed by a comment (that is, speaking of Eric in the third person if Kelly is also in the thread and not involved in the comment, but the second person if the comment addresses both of them). First person by the referee is almost non-existent, except in the case of character dialogue.

This may be influenced by the fact that it's Multiverser play, and thus the character and player have the same name (it's an I-game).

--M. J. Young

[Trish2]

You said that you're group uses past tense, but then your examples were in present - where am I confused there?

Oops: "I'll go" is actually future tense. My bad.

In your example I was thinking you were talking FTF. I guess I too am confused.

I hadn't put any PBeM examples in except for the link. The post in the link is third person/past tense (for god sake I hope it is or I've been doing it wrong for years LOL).

In IRC my group uses first person/present tense.

FTF when I've played it... what ever person/tense floated one's boat at the time.

And LARP -- all first person/present all the time <G> excepting those annoying breaks in character one tries to avoid when LARPing. Same for Ren Faire... until the day is done and you are left muttering in the parking lot: "The beer is in the pickup truck" trying to get rid of your cheesy gypsy accent before going to cocos to eat.

In this one FTF Trek game I played, I think it was quite apparent when I was almost literally rolling on the floor laughing from what the guy playing the Zaldan character said (in character) that I was not in character -- since I was playing a Vulcan.

Interesting note. I think it's fascinating that in RPGs where you're supposed to be IC most of the time that you have to prevent yourself from laughing. Beacuse your character isn't laughing.

This is my bias showing, but something about this seems dysfunctional.

I suppose it might seem dysfunctional... I have a love for Vulcans... unfortunately I am not one... so as a human if I find something funny (in this case uproariously funny)... I laugh. :) I'll be the first to admit that I don't have the Vulcan's ability to control my emotions. I probably couldn't play one in a LARP.

Additionally... does my character's sense of humor have to match my own? I hope not.... for if that's the case I'd better never play another Vulcan again. I laugh far too much.

Now I can see a possibility for first person PBeM if everyone only did solo posts, making the perspective -- first person (THIS Character).

Not sure what you mean by "solo" here. Could you elaborate?

The first person present tense standard would look like:

I go to the man and ask him, "What's your name?" Then I go to the wall where there are some frescoes and look at them closely.

Right.

Solo posting vs Joint Posting. From what I can tell not a lot of PBeM groups do what I would refer to as a "Joint Post" a joint post is when you and another player (or more than just one other player) email each other back and forth and write a scene out until you are done then send a post to the list. Here's an example of a JP in progress...

--------------------
"Infected – Cool Down, Part 2"
===================================
USS Serpens, Deck 2, Crew Mess
Day 3, Evening
Lt. Aron Hoyt - CEO (Bafii)
Lt. JG. Naomi Briggs - FCO (Susan)
Ens. Eriaan - CTO (James)
Ens. Ariel Summers - OPS (Julie)
Ens. Rolanna Gesbari - CMO (Janaye)
Ens. Solihir - CSO (Trish)

Eriaan took another swallow before looking to each of them in turn
"May I inquire to each of you on your thoughts of Comm... I mean,
Captain Logan?"

Solihir looked around at her fellow crew. She almost bit her lip
nervous, afraid to say what was in her mind, 'Logan is a hypocrite and
a jerk,' she quietly thought.

Aron turned towards Naomi and exchanged a knowing look as he spoke,
"He is definitely a unique commander. Quite different from any other I
have had in the past."

Ariel shrugged."He isn't exactly what I would call 'traditional'." she said.

<to you>

--------------------

In this above example, several players have contributed to the post. They were all emailed the post and they add their two cents in to the conversation as their characters would and respond to all of the other players in the character list via email. These posts can be quite long.

Now a solo post would be a post that I'd written all on my own. It might have NPCs in it, it might not.

-------------------
"The Fortress - The Needs of the Many..."
==============================
Aboard the USS Cateria
Day 4, 03:30
Captain Jessica Blackthorn, Commanding Officer (ONPC - Trish)
Commander Sulnel, Chief Science Officer (ONPC - Trish)
Ensign Arlene Gardner, Engineering Officer (ONPC - Trish)

"Paranathran build up from the Cestus III!" the Cateria's CTO announced.

"Evasive Maneuvers!" Blackthorn shouted.

Again the flight control officer did her best, but the range was too close and they could not evade, the ship rocked. Blackthorn for a moment felt as though she was a pebble tossed about in an enormous wave and many of her crew went flying. All she could hope for was that her paranathran shield configuration would give her just the time they needed or maybe the element of surprise.

<snipped for brevity>
------------------------

So, that's the difference between a JP and a Solo.

In first person PBeM I would think that the perspective would have to be limited to solos only. Interaction then might be hard unless posts were short.

so... something like: (first person, past tense)

---------------
I walked into the Shady Tree, and this night it seemed to me to be even busier than the last. I wondered when Bob, the proprietor, is going to get any new help so that someone could get some decent service again.

"Bob!" I shouted at the portly innkeep at the end of the bar raising my voice over the din of the other patrons, "I want some wine."

He turned to me and gave me such an awful look, "For a Bard, Nefyavie, you're damn rude. Wait your turn!"

Bob sounded annoyed. Could I really blame Bob? Sure, but he was right, I was rude. I sighed in resignation and waited my turn to be served. I would think that a regular like me would get more attention. Eventually he brought me my usual.

---------------

LOL that sounds so... detective noir LOL.

The problem with the first person perspective in a joint post would be that you then have to determine, who gets the usage of the personal pronoun "I" and who doesn't. Who gets the rights to the first person perspective in the post? I can forsee that being a point of contention between players.

---------

On to the next thing... Abusive players. Got ya there. No matter the mode they use, they are annoying. I did not mean to suggest banning a mode of play. Cool. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

[Trish2]

This may be influenced by the fact that it's Multiverser play, and thus the character and player have the same name (it's an I-game).

--M. J. Young

Is this an avatar game where you are in essence playing yourself? I looked at your website right quick and could not find that information.

If its an avatar game I can totally understand why it would be "I" (first person) oriented.

[Mike Holmes]

The problem with the first person perspective in a joint post would be that you then have to determine, who gets the usage of the personal pronoun "I" and who doesn't. Who gets the rights to the first person perspective in the post? I can forsee that being a point of contention between players.

Hmm. I think that typically that everyone would use the first person. Simultaneously. All you need to do is indicate who is narrating and it works fine.

Mike: I went to the wall.
Trish: I went too.

Makes it sound like some sort of group rehab dialog, but...

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

Trish, the term we use around her for what I'm guessing you mean by "avatar game" is "I-game." It means that the player plays a character who is themselves that depart from our reality in some way at some point. One of the first I-games was Villains & Vigilantes.

Mike

[Trish2]

Trish, the term we use around her for what I'm guessing you mean by "avatar game" is "I-game." It means that the player plays a character who is themselves that depart from our reality in some way at some point. One of the first I-games was Villains & Vigilantes.

Mike

Oh cool. That is precisely what an avatar game is. I played one FTF using other suns as a system... I think it was other suns...

Anyway, yes there would have to be some way of distinguishing who's perspective a given paragraph was in a PBeM JP that was all first person. As I have done a lot of research on writing (particularly for novels) one of the things they say over and over is to not switch the story's perspective (between characters).

Now in a game... perhaps that's a bit different... and I suppose what you've got clearly defines who is saying what... but for some reason it lacks punch for me.

Ah well. Guess I'll stick with third person/past tense. :)

Again, thank you for discussing this topic with me.