Successful Resolution and Narrativism

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

This is my reply to Callan (Noon).

Callan, you are 99.99% of the way. Almost exactly right. Here's the one little bit to consider, in several parts.

All else being equal, Fortune-in-the-middle is indeed a superior resolution technique for Narrativist play ... if the group likes having overt authorship around the table. By "authorship," I do not mean Director Stance (popping stuff into play or having stuff happen externally to one's character), but rather the sense of communicating, during play, to everyone present - "This is the important part."

When you use SA's in TROS, or spend a wad of coins in Universalis, or blow a Hero Point to alter a result in HeroQuest, or narrate the outcome of one of the internal rolls in a series in Trollbabe ... all of those say, "NOW, here it is." Whereas rolls and stuff in which you don't do these things, although still logistically important to play, are not (um) money-shots, if you will.

Fortune-in-the-middle permits a "play" (in the mechanical sense, variability) in how a given roll gets interpreted. It imposes severe constraint, to be sure - in Sorcerer, if you fail that defense roll by two dice, you have two victories of damage/loss happening to you, period. But there's "play" in what they are and how they get applied, and retroactively in game-time, how they happened. This is absolutely central to deciding upon and playing the character's next action, in a way which is nearly indescribable until you've tried it out thoroughly.

I cannot over-stress that the constraint imposed by the quantitative outcome in a Narrativist Fortune-in-the-middle technique is absolutely crucial to the technique's power in fulfilling this Creative Agenda.

Fortune-at-the-end is certainly usable in Narrativist play. However, that "importance" now exists only in the internal emotional experience of each player, and may or may not get reinforced at the Social Contract level. And hey ... if you miss the defense roll, and if you go to the Critical Hit table for the NPC, and you roll there, and then you fail your resistance check, and ... hey, pierced lung, you die. The creative reward? That you knew it was plausible, and that is all you get. Never mind whether it's important or not.

Many groups use classic Fortune-at-the-end systems (GURPS, Rolemaster, Hero System, BRP) for Narrativist play, which means they must alleviate the above phenomena via social mediation or simple "trust the GM not to apply certain results" social expectations. To do this, they have to develop an in-game sense of shared "how we do it" that borders on the telepathic, and often relies on Ouija-board thinking (see my Narrativism essay about this).

They also often Drift things without realizing it: "Oh, we use the Hero System, so how can we be playing Narrativist? What? Oh, those are Whimsy Cards. Yeah, we use'em all the time." Burning experience points for re-rolls or quick-heals is one of the oldest house rules in RPG history for such systems, and that's why.

See why people get confused? When they're accustomed to Fortune-at-the-end, they equate ignoring the dice with Narrativist play because a lot of the time the dice provide results which are incompatible with the group's sense of importance for this conflict. But when you use Fortune-in-the-middle, that problem is gone, and therefore the power of the dice to provide absolutely necessary constraint cannot be ignored without hosing the play-experience.

Narrativist play which relies on the techniques of Fortune-in-the-middle, conflict resolution renders the whole "roll vs. role" debate completely meaningless. That debate lies only within the purview of struggling with primarily Simulationist-facilitating systems, whether toward Narrativist play or toward Force techniques within Simulationist play.

And you'll notice that I did not spend one word on the issue of who narrates within the entire discussion.

Best,
Ron

[Jason Lee]

Tragedy is not always failure. Many Greek and Sakespearean plays are tragedies, but not failures. They set out to explore a question and do so quite well. The survival or happiness o the protagonsit is not the point.

Doh!  You're so right, a tragedy is a success at high cost.

Personal anecdote: Many times in my recent D&D-playing years, I've tried to maneuver my character into a "You escape, I'll hold the bridge" type of scenario, or some other heroic, idiomatically-appropriate death scene, only to be foiled by my friends leaping in to save me at the last moment, aided by a DM who presents challenges but doesn't really want to kill the PCs. How weird is it to feel deprotagonized by being saved?

Boy, I can certainly sympathize with that.

*****

I don't know Jason. I can see the potential in story variation from success or failure. The conflict will always resolve yes, but not necessarily to the protagonists desires. The story asks a question, the protagonist gives one answer, the forces of antagonism another, then they duke it out. The meaning or message is determined by who wins.

Yeah, Brendan's got it. Failure can be just as "protagonizing" as success. Charcters fail in Sorcerer a lot, about half the time I'd say. But it doesn't matter. Because success is not what makes a protagonist - it's the decisions that lead to the conflict that matter.

I brought this up to Ron a long time ago, and his response is that, for narrativism, the use of a randomized resolution system is merely a springboard for creativity. That is, it gives you some structure to play around. But it doesn't direct play. Unlike in a Gamist game, where player manipulation of the resolution system is ususally what the game is all about.

I think you guys are right.  I think I'm conflating the need for control over failure (fortune in the middle, conflict resolution, concession mechanics, complications, metagame resources, etc) with total avoidance of failure.

I think that what I was struggling to get across was that failure that is a 'stop' does nothing for Nar.  Failed resolution needs to escalate the situation, not conclude it.  Which I suppose is old news.  Though in the context of resolution, this helps me to see why it's so vital to have methods for defining the nature of failure in a Nar game.  Without the ability to attach meaning or dramatic flow to a failure the resolution system is basically telling you, "What you just did is now irrelevant.  Start over."

[Jason Lee]

I have a question about The Pool.  

It's defined as a game that supports Nar.  I can see that.  It has conflict resolution, traits are often defined by character goals or emotions, and the advancement system develops the character from the events that occur in play.

However, the actual fortune system seems to have bit of a conflict with Nar in that a decent chunk of character effectiveness (1 to 3 dice) are determined by GM fiat.  Which gives the GM a sizable measure of control over the probabilities of every conflict.  I suppose it could be said that the GM dice are how the GM's agenda is expressed.

I'm just sort of curious about this.

EDIT:  Ya know, I started off by saying I had a question, and then I never stated one.  Oh well, I suppose it's implied.

[Alan]

I have a question about The Pool.  
..
However, the actual fortune system seems to have bit of a conflict with Nar in that a decent chunk of character effectiveness (1 to 3 dice) are determined by GM fiat. ...I suppose it could be said that the GM dice are how the GM's agenda is expressed.

Let me turn this around on you:

What is the GM's agenda in the Pool?

[Ron Edwards]

Alan's nailed it yet again, Callan.

Another common myth about Narrativist play is that the GM is (a) a humble servitor or (b) discarded. In fact, I suggest that out of the three Creative Agendas, the GM is most necessary in Narrativist play, in the sense that some of the GMing-tasks (see the Narrativist essay) literally cannot be left to consensus, when protagonist-style decision-making is under way.

What confuses people is that Narrativist play does not permit a particular family of techniques that result in GM-Force (the power to manage and determine others' player-characters' protagonist-level decisions). Perhaps it will be easier to understand if you examine the exact parallel phenomenon in Gamist play - imagine if the GM were able to tweak the order and effectiveness of announced actions, had final authority over characters' decisions, and was able to turn any aspect of the system into whatever he wanted, in Gamist play. Bluntly, no one would play.

Because, in Simulationist play which emphasizes the tropes and features of a given sort of story, exerting GM-Force is just about the only way for in-game events to turn out appropriately, people have come to associate "GM" with "story-controller." Thus they wrongly figure that Narrativist play must not need a GM, or if he's there, he's kind of boring or humble.

Nope. Look over all those GMing-tasks. Think about the "buck-stopper" concept that I described earlier this week. Just leave the Force out of it, and you'll see that the Narrativist GM is still a rooting tooting unique member of the role-playing process, with special roles and skills. Just not that skill.

Hell, man, in Sorcerer, the GM plays the demons. And I mean, he or she plays the demons. That ain't a small thing.

Best,
Ron

[Jason Lee]

Ahhh...

So, Alan and Ron, are you basically saying that because it's assumed that the GM's agenda in The Pool is Nar, then the GM's dice are in service of Nar?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jason (cruciel),

That's too vague. What is the point of a GM in Narrativist play? I claim above that this Creative Agenda benefits greatly from a designated person (or more accurately, from certain tasks being under someone's control at any given point). That's a strong statement! Why would I make such a claim?

Check out the Narrativism essay again, and see if you can articulate it. Don't try to guess what Alan and I are thinking. Just read, ponder, and say it yourself.

Best,
Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Following up from my post, I seem to have been discussing "the buck" for quite a while, without realizing it.

Director Stance (this is the one I was referring to above)
Deciding scope for conflict-based resolution
harsh Humanity (specific to Sorcerer)
Play contrack "checklist?" (more about explicit Social Contract in general)
Shared narrative vs. Exploration of character in Trollbabe
Stance is still not power (very very useful)
Rights of narration (rather intense)
Who gets narrative power?
Problems narrating again
TMW:COTEC - Rewards and The Thrust of the System (see my post contrasting the "veto" vs. the "buck")
Player control (boy, this one's from all the way back in June 2001, and I'm still trying to get the point across)

Hope these are helpful.

Best,
Ron

[Callan S.]

Thanks Ron! :) I'm glad I wasn't far off in my understanding.

I cannot over-stress that the constraint imposed by the quantitative outcome in a Narrativist Fortune-in-the-middle technique is absolutely crucial to the technique's power in fulfilling this Creative Agenda.

Can I just ask about this, is it crucial to the narrativist CA directly, or is it crucial to the idea of 'play'. Without the contraint it isn't play (more just sitting around and making a group story without constraint), and without play, you can't conduct the narrativist CA? But the primary focus of the constraint is to support play first (which then goes on to support the CA)? Right? Wrong?

[Alan]

I cannot over-stress that the constraint imposed by the quantitative outcome in a Narrativist Fortune-in-the-middle technique is absolutely crucial to the technique's power in fulfilling this Creative Agenda.

Hi Ron,

I wonder if you might also clarify what "quantitative outcome" means.  A Sorcerer roll produces a quantity of victories.  On the other hand, while Trollbabe works for narrativist play, its rolls produce a binary 0/1 result must be sufficient - unless Pace changes this.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Callan, you asked,

is it crucial to the narrativist CA directly, or is it crucial to the idea of 'play'. Without the contraint it isn't play (more just sitting around and making a group story without constraint), and without play, you can't conduct the narrativist CA? But the primary focus of the constraint is to support play first (which then goes on to support the CA)? Right? Wrong?

All creative endeavors need constraints of some kind, in my view. That's probably going to be a highly personalized point of controversy, and I readily accept that some folks will disagree.

However, the precise constraint I'm talking about - that resolution results must include specific and ultimately non-negotiable success/fail outcomes for in-game results (with or without secondary modifiers like Hero Points, doesn't matter) - is certainly not a prerequisite for role-playing. Plenty of resolutions don't include it, or are subject to extremely wide latitudes for interpretation: Everway Fortune cards, for instance, or any game text which encourages the GM to fudge rolls.

Alan, you asked,

I wonder if you might also clarify what "quantitative outcome" means. A Sorcerer roll produces a quantity of victories. On the other hand, while Trollbabe works for narrativist play, its rolls produce a binary 0/1 result must be sufficient - unless Pace changes this.

As I was thinking of it, anyway, by "quantitative" I'm including binary procedures, which is probably a terminological abomination. However, I'll point out that many resolution systems which look binary actually aren't. In Trollbabe, each roll is potentially a series of rolls, with a stepwise increase in risk involved. It's only "binary" in that you don't choose the ultimate risk level and then roll all two or three at once. Same thing with The Dying Earth, which is really a dice pool system that rolls the dice one at a time; each die is binary (odd/even) but their cumulative probabilities are not.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

As I was thinking of it, anyway, by "quantitative" I'm including binary procedures, which is probably a terminological abomination.

Not at all, you should be a programmer. Pass is 1, fail is 0. Math is just expanded logical options, and, as such, subject to precisely the same theoretical models. Game Theory, for instance treats all cases of success and failure with some numerical value in order that the math can be done to discover things like dominant strategies.

Sans valuation of some sort, even the bitwise zero and one, players can't internalize value as well, and decision making becomes much harder.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mike,

My thinking (and training) exactly - but without a book or two to hand while I was replying last night, I was hesitant to get pedantic.

So yeah - quantitative indeed.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Interestingly, this might be indicative of the "right-brain/left-brain" dichotomy. I think people less disposed to be analytical than perhaps you or I, those sometimes described as "right-brained" in terms of being able to assemble information in other fashions, might need less of this sort of input, or find it obstructive at times. I mention it, because these people might be the ones for whom "freeform" seems to be optimum.

Just a thought.

Mike

[Jason Lee]

After some thinking, reading, and sleeping I had a total 'Doh!' moment in regards to resolution in The Pool.  I'd say I had an epiphany, but that's far too regal word.

The GM's dice are identical in function to GM set target numbers for a resolution.  I don't see a Nar conflict with that, as in Nar play it's perfectly peachy for the GM to be in charge of setting the risk level for a conflict (someone has to decide, might as well be the buck stopper, right?).  More dice equals more easy

I was fooled by the myth of opposed rolls, except in reverse - assuming that because the player was rolling the dice they had something to do with his effectiveness ratings.  I actually feel sort of silly for failing to notice this, oh well.

So, 'Doh!', thanks a bunch - I think I'm clear on The Pool now.  Ya know, The Pool is a pretty swell game.