Exploring theme without addressing premise

[pete_darby]

Well I don't know about "no-one has attempted it", because, as far as I can see, this is just the sort of play nominally promoted by the Storyteller's section of the Vampire 1st ed rulebook.

But, just as I've only in the last week accepted the inherent nar drift in Universalis and kpfs, I think the energy required to maintain exploration of theme without address of premise becomes too great for any reward over time. To a great extent, looking at Vampire, you can see how it would ultimately become a form of illusionism of colour, rather than the usual illusoinism of situation, with the usual variations of illusionism.

Frex, participationism being the mutual policing of the boundaries of theme, trailblazing being pretty much what the Vampire text suggests of placing thematic colour throughout play without explicitly referring to it.

Of course, with trailblazing, once the players recognize and begin to co-author and challenge theme, we have nar drift.

[Valamir]

I think he missed A.5) in the absence of a designated referee, the players by consensus defined and enforce the core vision, utilizing group veto over individual actions which violate that vision.

Didn't miss it MJ.  In fact, I addressed it specifically in the previous post where I said.

I'll note here that I also include in this the voluntary willingness of the players to abide by the stated expectations so that the GM never actually has to enforce them. Abiding by the law is still abiding by the law even if the police aren't looking over your shoulder while you do it.

Its also why I said "GM like figure".  If there is an agreement to adhere to a given theme, there will still need to be a vision for that theme that gets expressed in play.  If its not the GM enforcing it, it will be the player at the table with the greatest force of personality and desire to see their vision of the theme enforced.  Ultimately the same effect just using the tools of personal charisma rather than authority.

Of course, with trailblazing, once the players recognize and begin to co-author and challenge theme, we have nar drift.

Yup.  In fact, I'd say that the innate tendency of people to understand the elements of story, makes this the default as soon as they're given enough freedom (and actually believe they have the freedom and its not an illusion).


So are we all pretty much in agreement on the general principles anyway?

Thanks for the thread Pete.  I don't think "exploration" of theme is a very good term for it, but I at least understand what you mean now as far as theme and Sim.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I'll tell you, after looking at the thread here and the replies thus far, it seems to me like two things are a-goin' on with this topic. The first is Oujia Board Roleplaying as explained in the Narrativism: Story Now article. The second is a bizzare question on the order of "How can you swim without getting wet?"

For the most part, though, it sounds like an element of metaplot, as per Pete's MT example. I had thought that we had established that while metaplot can indeed be a story, it is story that may be beside the point of play. What the theme of a metaplot means will vary wildly depending on the actual play. It could mean nothing. It could be seized and used in narrativist play.

[pete_darby]

I don't know about "swimming without getting wet" as a metaphor, but I'd say it's more like "exploring London without leaving the M25"

for those who don't know, the M25 is a 3-5 lane highway that completely encircles Greater London. You can go all the way round and say, only slightly mendaciously, that you've been "all around London", and you can certainly say you know where London is, but you've never "been to London".

Oh yeah, ouija board RP... defiinitely.

AS for metaplot: I'd say more generally it's use of colour to  emphasize theme, but meh. same thing.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I don't know about "swimming without getting wet" as a metaphor, ...

Well, it's like this, as I see it, anyway. When you address premise, you establish a theme. So it's like "How do I swim?" "Well, first, you get in the water." "But if I go in the water, I'll get wet. How do I swim without getting wet?"

But it looks like we're in agreement on the Oujia board & metaplot thing, which I suspect is where the real meat is here