GMs & Players: The Contract

[Christopher Kubasik]

He's a smart guy. You should game Narrativist with him.

I've seen a couple of Sorcerer One sheets around here.  I'm getting the impression that GMs are putting them together (but leaving some flexibility).  Shouldn't the Sorcerer One sheet be at least as collaborative (see, I'm on topic, I am) as character creation?

Rich

This is a thread spun off from another thread over in actual play.

I just had my first round of CharGen with my Witch's Brew players and I am damned excited.  Good players, really wanting to dig in deep with emotional creepiness.  (The Premise is: "Is getting love worth the loss of the ability to love."  It's set in coloanial Mass., and one of the PCs is an older man, married to a much younger woman, who's returned ill from travels on a slave ship.  The Kicker (at this point): He's in bed with a fever and here's a man and woman, his wife, talking, making love: "No," she says, "he can't here us.  He's old, asleep and sick."

Yikes.

Another PC, a doctor and minister in the town, was called in to deliver the baby of the woman who married another suiter and killed the child as it was born.  (Not a Kicker, but man, the guys sure seem to be willing to dig down deep into the nastiness of need.)

Anyway.  Rich's comment:

I repeated several times my mission statement that "We're all in this together."  Yet Rich has a point.  I did come up with the original one sheet.  

The way I look at it though:

a) It's got to start somewhere, and I've always found one person starting is easier than getting a committee to start.

b) I presented the one sheet for approval.  If no one said yes, then I would have gone back to the drawing board.  It seems a "Yes, wanna play" shows a willingness to then add on to the possibilities of the one sheet.

In a game where the Players and GM are partners in creation, is there a responsibility for someone starting things off?  What is the role of the GM in terms of getting things going?  Keeping things focused -- at least at first?  Or is that role now dissolved?

I could see it working either way, actually, and assume as my players get into the gaming style we'll have that option.  But in general, is the breach of the Narrativist/Author Stance faith when the GM comes up with ideas and presents them for approval?  Organizes material?  Gets things going?

Or is this part of the old school and needs to be reexamined?

Christopher

[Rich Forest]

Hi Christopher,

These are good questions.  I'm still getting started on figuring out narrativism, particularly from a practical, "implementation" standpoint.  I wish I could have conceived of these questions clearly enough to ask them as well as you did.  As it is, some parts of narrativist approaches are still too unclear in my head.  Probably the ones I think I understand the most...  

a) It's got to start somewhere, and I've always found one person starting is easier than getting a committee to start.

Clearly, you have experience with committees;.)  You're right, of course.  Without an agenda, it is very hard to get things moving.  Someone has to take the initiative.  In this case, the Sorcerer One sheet is providing the agenda, and it does fit established norms for the GM to take this role.  

Now, I haven't thought about this much, but what if everyone were encouraged to come to the Sorcerer One/character creation session with multiple ideas regarding what the game could be.  Say, hand out a blank Sorcerer One sheet and encourage people to fill in the blanks with (preferably multiple) possibilities.  So, I come with my list, and I have a couple ideas about what Humanity could be, and what Demons could be, etc.  Then, we go through and work from point to point to establish what each of these things are.  Would something like this work?  Would it have advantages or disadvantages over the GM bringing the ideas with the understanding that they're flexible?  What have other people done?  

But in general, is the breach of the Narrativist/Author Stance faith when the GM comes up with ideas and presents them for approval? Organizes material? Gets things going?

I don't think it's a breach of faith with Narrativist/Author Stance.  The contract is among the players (I'm including the GM here), and as long as everyone is happy, it sounds like a contract in good faith.  Still, I agree that it's worth asking whether this is "a part of the old school and needs to be reexamined."

Interested,

Rich

[Christopher Kubasik]

Rich,

To be honest, I don't think trying to jurry-rig a one sheet off a lot of different one sheets would not work.  You can see a blow by blow of my logic on this on this thread: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1620 .  But in brief, a one sheet, especially the "Humanity Matrix," as I've come to think of it, needs to have every element touching off every element, weighing each other out and related to each other with thematic and narrative sensibility.  By the time you re-work all the components to "line up" you wouldn't have anything left over anyway.  A lot of talk would enuse, but you'd have so much changed, for all practical purposes everyone's "say in the matter" would alredy be lost.

Also, *someone's* going to have to make decisions if it's going to be coherent.  To go off and do it on your own means people can "no" to your idea, but saves you the responsibility of saying "no" to the players -- and I'm more comfortable with that.

At this point, I think the One Sheet is best served by single vision, with suggestions for revisions made by other players.  However, I don't think the GM has to be the one to *make* it.  Anyone could make one.  A group could have several on file, and someone might read one and go, "My God, that I want to run."

The only justification I have for any of this is that I tend to prefer movies that were written by/developed by the director, rather than the chop-shop version of movie assembly.  In both cases lots of people are involved.  But in the first everything just seems to hang together better.

Christopher

[joshua neff]

Here's my take on it:

I think Christopher's right--it's easier to for one person to start. That's what I do, too, & if the players don't share my enthusiasm, I try something else.

But Ron made a point back in one of the Art Deco Melodrama threads that I'm really seeing in my Sorcerer run: Players look for a strong GM who's in control. Even if it's a loosey-goosey narrativist group, when the game actually starts, few Players are just going to jump right in & grab the story reins. Everyone's kind of nervous & unsure, especially if it's a game they haven't played before. And as a GM, I feel my role is to facilitate the creation of a kickass story. The best way to do that is to start out firm with lots of direction & over the course of play, give that direction over to the players. When I'm going to be starting up a game, I write up some notes for myself that get turned into the Players Guide. I'm pretty focused about what kinds of characters I want to see & what kinds I don't, & what I want the group of PCs to look like overall. But with the Players contributing Kickers, the story really starts out about them, not about my own NPCs or the cool stuff I want to happen. My stuff all becomes backstory & complications for the Players' stories. After a few sessions, I'm preparing less & less & just following where the Players want to go.

A couple of notes:

1) It doesn't have to be like this, of course. Some groups work very easily by committee, & having everyone collaborate from the outset can not only work, but be pretty cool.

2) This isn't particular to narrativism. ALL gaming would benefit from greater discussion of GM/Player relationships & responsibilities.

[Rich Forest]

Hi Christopher,

I see what you're getting at with the interconnectedness of the elements of the one sheet.  There is a need for them to work together, and you're right that the easiest way (perhaps even the only practical way) is for one person to come up with it.

By the time you re-work all the components to "line up" you wouldn't have anything left over anyway. A lot of talk would enuse, but you'd have so much changed, for all practical purposes everyone's "say in the matter" would alredy be lost.

I agree that in putting them together, everything would change.  Actually, I think this would be part of my hope for the process.  That is, I'd hope everyone came understanding that what they have is not so much a vision to fight for as it is a list of potential ingredients-- most of which would not be used.  I was thinking of the various sheets more as jumping off points.  When the group actually starts discussing them, then, they might find a few things that fit together or really grab them, and go from there.

Of course, that's not to say that it would actually work.  I've never tried it, and it is quite possible that it works best on an ideal level.  So, I don't know if it's actually practical.  Chances are, in most cases, you would either end up with a jury-rigged, somewhat incoherent sheet or only two players would even bother preparing anything, or (insert real world here), etc.  

Rich

[Christopher Kubasik]

Rich,

The "real world."

As I get older, more and more that's simply my measuring stick on which actions to take and which to discard even before I go down that path.

Joshua,

Thanks for reminding me of those comments about a stong GM being a help rather than a hinderence.


Christopher

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

I can't believe you guys are making this so hard. It's really, really simple.

1) A person takes leadership in suggesting what to do.

1a) It sounds good? Cool. The group now invests in transforming it to taste with some suggestions.

1b) However, it doesn't sound so good? Also cool. That person or another person takes leadership in suggesting what to do. (repeat)

2) New phase of leadership begins: all right, "this" is indeed what we're doing, so the non-leaders now get to work with filling in the areas of their responsibility (usually characters, but sometimes more depending on the game).

3) The "leader" now also gets to work in treating the others' contributions, as they arrive, as hard-and-fast, equal-author contributions. In other words, the "leader" status is organizational and inspirational, not dictatorial.

4) Actual play begins.

All of this is demonstrated in the Art Deco Melodrama threads in the Sorcerer forum. Again, I'm not sure where the difficulty lies.

Groups who are starting to work out their habits of play in this regard ought to cut out #1 and start with #2, perhaps with just a small bit of discussion to start. Is this hypocritical in some way? No more than learning to swim in the shallow end is hypocritical, which it's not. It's smart.

Does anyone out there play rock-and-roll or jazz music? I am very serious about the Narrativist GM being the bass player. The singer gets to "say" something, but without the bass being there and incontrovertible, nothing can be sung, said, or soloed.

(For those non-musicians out there, no, the drums do not "keep the beat." They, with the rhythm guitar, rely on the bass to produce a "rhythm section." The soloing and "speaking" instruments such as lead guitar or vocals rely heavily on the rhythm section - and everyone listens to the bass, all the time.)

The plain old rock-and-roll song has a leading, driving bass. More eclectic songs begin with (and are even structured by, in parts) vocals or rhythm or drums, and the bass comes in only occasionally, or is otherwise quite subtle. Please note that these latter songs are only possible for groups whose members know one another's style and idiom intimately.

If you can see that Vanilla Narrativism is the former, and Funky Monkey Narrativism is the latter, then we're getting somewhere.

Best,
Ron

P.S. As usual, I remind everyone who thinks I have some sort of extremist-Narrativist agenda that I personally prefer Vanilla Narrativism. It shouldn't surprise you that I prefer basic rockin' rhythm-and-blues over art-rock, too.

[Ron Edwards]

It strikes me (given some gentle Private Message encouragement) that my above post was awful rude ...

My apologies, folks. Continue with the discussion, no further cranky interference is forthcoming.

Sometimes moderators need moderation, so thanks, You Know Who.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Ron's right,

In any group effort there has to be at least one person with a vision. Or nothing happens. That isn't to say that said vision can't be influenced by the others in the group. It can be, it should be occasionally. And somethimes the vision is created or carried by a part, most, or all of the group from the start. But as long as the group agrees, everything is right as rain.

Mike

[Emily Care]

And to use a different but related musical analogy: in a drum circle almost everyone (depending on the instrument you are playing) can take a turn holding that bass and base rhythm, allowing others to take a turn "speaking", so too can players who agree on the premise etc. hold it for one another. Doesn't have to be just one person at the helm.


--Emily Care

[Mike Holmes]

Very apt, Em. Explains how you're group's troup style of play occurs while still employing the Band metaphor. Nifty.

Universalis is like improv chamber music or something. There is no single performer keeping time, the system is a metronome.

Mike