Confusion about Nar and Story

[clehrich]

There cannot be any "the story" during Narrativist play, because to have such a thing (fixed plot or pre-agreed theme[/b]) is to remove the whole point: the creative moments of addressing the issue(s).  [--emphasis added]

I don't quite follow this, and I get the impression that this is really very important to understanding the Narrativist Agenda.

In particular, I don't get why a pre-agreed theme eliminates creative address of the issue(s).  Ron has said elsewhere, teeth gritting, that nothing whatever requires that a Premise be developed before play, and in fact that whether Premise per se is developed or explicitly formulated before or during, or even never, is irrelevant.  But doesn't this say that it can't be explicitly developed before play?

I'd have thought that Sorcerer has a predetermined theme, in that it demands that PC's consider what and how much they will give up for power.

My impression, then, is that the quoted line must not refer to theme in this sense.  Where am I getting lost?

Chris Lehrich

[james_west]

In particular, I don't get why a pre-agreed theme eliminates creative address of the issue(s).  

I think it's a semantic problem; the difference between premise and theme. Theme is the premise after it's all worked out. Premise is 'Is friendship more important than life ?', while theme is 'friendship is more important than life' (or 'life is more important than friendship'). The point is the first is asking a question, which you can resolve through play, while the second is making a statement, which eliminates choice about what you do during play.

- James

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

James, you're right about theme vs. Premise, but once that's disentangled, Chris, you're still asking about pre-play explictly-stated Premise, right?

Sure there can a stated pre-play Premise, as a means of honing or focusing character creation, for instance. Sorcerer represents a mild version, in that a Humanity definition is, for all intents and purposes, a very broad Premise. It is swiftly localized through a series of well-defined steps from character creation through demon creation through Kicker through first session or two of play.

But that pre-play Premise is just like pre-play anything: merely prep. Will it be expressed and realized (in the classic sense of the word)? Dunno. Maybe it'll all shift around some other way through the "Address through play" process. Maybe it'll be so grabby from the start that it will indeed be seen as initially conceived.

My real point is that this issue doesn't matter for purposes of defining Narrativist play, although it may matter a great deal for the specific desires and interactions of that particular group and/or game. If you check out the section "where little Premises come from" in the essay, as well as looking at the table of a pretty diverse bunch of Narrativist-facilitating games, I think you'll see the whole spectrum of pre-play to deep-later-in-play Premise.

Best,
Ron

[clehrich]

Okay, I think I got it, but let me check:

But that pre-play Premise is just like pre-play anything: merely prep. Will it be expressed and realized (in the classic sense of the word)? Dunno.

So fixed plot or theme removes the point of Nar play when a pre-play Premise gets forced to be the dominating issue in actual play.  So long as it's a genuinely open option, we're OK, but when the game dictates that X must always be the Premise, then we've lost the creativity of issue-address.

Is that right?

Chris Lehrich

[Paganini]

Nah, I've played in games were we sat down and explicitly decided what the premise would be before the game got started. The important thing is that *how it all turns out* is not pre-planned; it's discovered during play by the choices of the characters.

If the premise is decided before play, and everyone knows which direction the decision points will swing, then it's not nar play. It might be Illusionism if, say, only the GM knows how the decision points will swing and he cleverly manipulates the players into swinging it his way. You've still got story. You've still got premise. You've still got theme. But it's not generated during play by the actions of the players.

So, it's fine to hardwire your premise before play, just so long as you don't hardwire *what happens* before play.

If the premise you're playing with has to do with the value of loyalty, then the player has to be able to decide whether to betray his freind and take the bribe, or get beat up by the thugs. This part can't have been predetermined. The player may have decided that his character will always make a particular choice a certain way. That's fine - still narrativism. (Heck, the player might even change his mind at some point.) But the group can't have decided ahead of time how the character *must* choose. That's genre sim (or pastiche, or whatever) with theme, but it's not narrativism.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Chris,

I'm pretty confused about now. Your post was making perfect sense to me until the last bit:

So long as it's a genuinely open option, we're OK, but when the game dictates that X must always be the Premise, then we've lost the creativity of issue-address.

The game? How can the game dictate anything? It's a bunch of paper. I thought we were talking about the group setting Premise pretty tightly beforehand. Whatever the game says is only, and can only ever be, influential at most.

Nathan's reply makes the most sense to me, and maybe I'm best off just pointing to his post and saying, "That," with the repetition of my point: when Premise becomes realized (in the classical sense of the word) is a wholly free dial.

Best,
Ron

[clehrich]

The game? How can the game dictate anything? It's a bunch of paper. I thought we were talking about the group setting Premise pretty tightly beforehand. Whatever the game says is only, and can only ever be, influential at most.

Yes, OK, slip of the fingers.  Assuming that we replace "the game" with "the gaming group, prior to play, by one means or another," or whatever; I do see what you're referring to.  But am I right that it's the predetermination as opposed to prior inclination that's the problem here?  That this distinction makes much of the difference between Force and Narrativism?

Sounds like I actually got this.  Cool!

Chris Lehrich

[Blankshield]

The game? How can the game dictate anything? It's a bunch of paper. I thought we were talking about the group setting Premise pretty tightly beforehand. Whatever the game says is only, and can only ever be, influential at most.

Yes, OK, slip of the fingers.  Assuming that we replace "the game" with "the gaming group, prior to play, by one means or another," or whatever; I do see what you're referring to.  But am I right that it's the predetermination as opposed to prior inclination that's the problem here?  That this distinction makes much of the difference between Force and Narrativism?

I think (and people with more GNS Fu are welcome to rap my fingers) that it's not quite that.  The Premise can be tightly determined ahead of time - it can still be Narrativist when the gaming group says "Let's run this superhero game about "Is getting the bad guy worth the cost of the innocent bystander?""  What's *not* Narrativist is for the gaming group to start play with a yes or a no answer (explicitly or implicitly) to that, or to load the dice by making the choice a not-choice (illusionist) based on what whoever is guiding the story wants to play out.

Deciding the premise ahead of time is OK, deciding how it will be addressed is not.

James
[edited to resolve poor grammer)

[clehrich]

James put it better than I did.  What I meant by predetermination was the bit about deciding ahead of time what the answer would be, and if I get Ron's point, that's Force and not Narrativism.

Chris Lehrich

[pete_darby]

Actually, I'd be cool with any of the players going into play with a pre-conceived idea of what the answer to the premise was... just if they all agree, it's going to be a damn short game unless they agree to test it.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Chris, I also ought to point you to the very careful definition of Force: the co-opting of a protagonist's decisions by a person who's not that character's player.

That can apply even in (say) Universalis, in which, although ownership of characters may change from person to person, it is always explicit who is the owner at any given moment.

That also means that Force is not necessarily dysfunctional; in many of (say) my Call of Cthulhu experiences, I gladly relinquish that "protagonist decision" authority to the GM and enjoy Coloring my character as we go.

Another nuance: the person exerting the Force does not have to be the GM.

Therefore, your whole use of "Force" in this thread seems a bit off-base to me, in that you're hyped about the pre-play articulation (especially an incontrovertible articulation) of Premise vs. the lack thereof, and that really isn't a Force issue per se. It might be related to it, later in play, if a player goes "I do X" and X is shut down or subverted through Force techniques. But that could happen even without a pre-articulated Premise among the group; in fact, I submit that in many cases one person is playing with a pre-articulated Premise and theme, and exerts subtle Force to get play to express them, without ever telling anyone before or during.

As far as the issue of pre-articulation is concerned, I think people have covered that pretty effectively and that you've confirmed your understanding.

Best,
Ron

[clehrich]

Ron, I think we're on the same page here; I was leaving some points about Force in the background because they seemed incidental.

[1.] Force [=] the co-opting of a protagonist's decisions by a person who's not that character's player....
[2.] That also means that Force is not necessarily dysfunctional....
[3. T]he person exerting the Force does not have to be the GM.

Therefore, your whole use of "Force" in this thread seems a bit off-base to me, in that you're hyped about the pre-play articulation (especially an incontrovertible articulation) of Premise vs. the lack thereof, and that really isn't a Force issue per se.

All I meant, actually, was that if the group (not necessarily the GM, as you note) has decided in advance the outcome of their addressing of the issue, then everyone has handed over their protagonist decisions to another player, in this case the group, the GM, or whoever; that is, every protagonist action will be judged and indeed validated by reference to an already-present standard vested in the group.

I don't mean that this is what Force always is; I only mean that this form of pre-formed Premise isn't Premise but a type of Force.

We're in agreement, right?  Please read "is Force" throughout as "is an example of a particular type of Force," if that helps.  I was just trying to clarify exactly why pre-selection of Premise doesn't relate directly to whether X is or is not Nar, and I think I get that.

Chris Lehrich

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Same page! Same page! I'll split you the difference between "type of Force" and "Force-like effects of preparation," and buy you a beer in the middle.

Whew.

Best,
Ron