[Narrativism] Premise and Stance

[Paganini]

So, it occurs to me that a much simpler and clearer way of explaining and supporting what I've been saying all week has to do with the three Stances.Ron had this to say about stances a while back:

# In Actor stance, a person determines a character's decisions and actions using only knowledge and perceptions that the character would have.
# In Author stance, a person determines a character's decisions and actions based on the real person's priorities, then retroactively "motivates" the character to perform them. (Without that second, retroactive step, this is fairly called Pawn stance.)
# In Director stance, a person determines aspects of the environment relative to the character in some fashion, entirely separately from the character's knowledge or ability to influence events. Therefore the player has not only determined the character's actions, but the context, timing, and spatial circumstances of those actions, or even features of the world separate from the characters.

. . .

...I think it's very reasonable to say that specific stances are more common in some modes/goals of play. Historically, Author stance seems the most common or at least decidedly present at certain points for Gamist and Narrativist play, and Director stance seems to be a rarer add-on in those modes. Actor stance seems the most common for Simulationist play, although a case could be made for Author and Director stance being present during character creation in this mode.

. . .

A Narrativist approach to Stances usually involves keeping Actor Stance confined to limited instances, such that Author and Director Stances may generate a lot of metagame impact on the storyline.

. . .

(and here's a bit for Marco)

Immersion is another difficult issue that often arises in Stance discussions. Like "realism" and "completeness" and several other terms, it has many different definitions in role-playing culture. The most substantive definition that I have seen is that immersion is the sense of being "possessed" by the character. This phenomenon is not a stance, but a feeling. What kind of role-playing goes with that feeling? The feeling is associated with decision-making that is incompatible with Director or Author stance. Therefore, I suggest that immersion (an internal sensation) is at least highly associated with Actor Stance. Whether some people get into Actor stance and then "immerse," or others "immerse" and thus willy-nilly are in Actor stance, I don't know.

It seems to me that Vincent desires Narrativist play in which the players never leave Actor stance. I support the notion that a player can Address Premise by means of character creation Techniques such that, during play, the player never has to leave Actor Stance. This is one kind of Nar play. It is an effective knid of Nar play. It is a kind of Nar play that I have personally experienced and enjoyed. My view here is contrary to Gareth's, in that I feel character creation is a part of play in this case, and thus we have Narrativism.

I believe that Marco's "immersion" is equivalent to continuous Actor Stance, which is why Vincent's notion appeals to him. Marco, weigh in, does this sound right to you?

However, It seems to me that Vincent is also saying that this sort of Nar play is definitive of Nar play; that there is no other sort of Nar play. It seems to me that Vincent is saying that if you ever slip into Author stance you've hopelessly screwed up your character. And this is wrong. Here's some relevant threads. Note that some of these are old and you have to account for adjustments of terminology and such in a few of them.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=93
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=875
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=2448
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=4188
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=4704
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=4738
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8533
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9050

So, while I do agree that Vincent's style of play is Narrativism, I don't think it's the most common variety of Narrativism. I'm also sure that it's not the kind of Narrativism that Ron was originally describing, given the way Sorcerer and Trollbab work, and the stuff in the original two essays.

Marco, you were worried about identifying Nar vs. Sim in practice. Each Stance is described as a decision-making behavior. They are the foundation for the invisible, internal thought-processes that I was describing a few posts back in the "Caring" thread. Author Stance is the one where you make decisions based on your meta-game priorities that may or may not support in-game causality. In the case of Narrativism, your meta-game priority is to Address Premise: to create a certain conflict, or bring about a certain resolution. If you are in Author Stance, you will break causality to support your meta-game goal, then retro-justify to preserve Suspension of Disbelief. If you are in Pawn Stance, you will dispense with the retro-justification and just take it as given that *somehow* it all worked out.

Even if your eventual decision turns out to not break causality, you can still be in Author Stance. The requirement for Author Stance is that you consider your options from the standpoint of "What would best support my meta-game goals?" If it turns out that supporting your meta-game goals doesn't break causality, then *no one else knows* whether you were in Author Stance or Actor Stance.

So, how do you identify Narrativism? First, check the transcript. If you see a problematic human issue, then you've got a candidate. If you *don't* see a problematic human issue, then stop here. It's not Nar.

Next step is to talk to the players (or observe them, if you're trying to identify Nar during actual play). Is the setting up and resolving of (a) problematic human issue(s) a central focus of the game, or does it just kind of happen as a by-product? Another way to say this is, does a large part of play center on actively creating and resolving problematic human issues in ways that the players find "cool?" If so, you've got a candidate. If not, it's not Narrativism. However, it's still only a candidate, because there are styles of play where the players are really interested in the problematic human issues, emotionally attached to them - grooving on them, if you will - but where the players aren't the ones setting them up or resolving them. This would be the one from the Nar essay where the GM is doing all the Nar stuff, while the players are just watching. I can't recall the jargon term for it just now.

So, the last step is to check if the players themselves are taking an active hand in setting up and resolving the problemtaic issues. The Players actually get to say how the issues are set up, and / or how the issues resolve. System is responsible for portioning this power out to greater or lesser degrees, and in different ways. Some games allow the players say only in resolution, some games only in creation, some games allow say in both, at varying degrees. If the actual game mechanics don't specify, then the Social Contract level element of system (i.e., Lumpley Principle apportioning credibility) must do it.

[lumpley]

Nathan!  We're home free.  I agree with you about every single thing except a) your take on my position and b) some non-substantive nitpicks.

My position is: you can play Narrativist by limiting yourself to Actor Stance while you're actively playing your character, provided that you use Author Stance effectively during character- and scenario creation.  I even strongly support Premise-minded reflection and planning between sessions and during lulls within sessions.

In other words: while you're saying what your character does, it's possible to think of nothing but what your character would do (Actor Stance), and still play Narrativist.  In more other words, you can't tell whether you're playing Nar or Sim by checking to see that you're staying in Actor Stance while your character's on stage.

Are there other ways to play Narrativist?  Absolutely.  Abso 100% lutely!  My position is that it's possible to play Narrativist this way.

So: right on!  I agree!  And very good thinking bringing the Stances in.

-Vincent

[clehrich]

That's funny, Vincent; I could've sworn you were saying something a bit different -- or maybe I'm misreading Paganini's post.

As I understood it, Vincent is saying that addressing Premise cannot, by its very nature, be a violation of character integrity.  It is possible that a character can be drawn so shallowly that addressing Premise could violate the simplistic frame, but in that case you have an "unfit" character for Nar play.

By shifting focus to Stance, it seems to me that Vincent's point gets rather submerged.  If what I've described above is accurate, then it makes no difference what the Stance is.  In short, "character" and "Premise" are linked terms, inseparable, in Nar play.  Therefore to say that addressing Premise can violate character is intrinsically illogical, meaningless, or just not Nar.

What is necessary to make that make sense, though, is that we recognize the possibility of character change and development, something that seems oddly hidden in these debates.  Let me put it like this: if my character approaches a difficult situation and thinks, "There are three options for me here," but at the same time the Premise dictates that a fourth option would be best, then it must be true that my character is excessively limited.  Forget about whether character thoughts are real and whatnot for the moment.  Imagine that the character faces the situation, struggles with the three initial options, but then chooses (deliberately or otherwise) to take the fourth option.  From a story perspective, what is now required is subsequent explanation and development.  It is a given that the character has acted somewhat differently than we -- and he himself -- expected; why did he do so?  People are not always consistent, and they change over time.  Shouldn't the effect of addressing Premise often be a dramatic change in the character?  If taking this hypothetical fourth option, i.e. going with Premise, would actually require that the character change in a fashion that seems impossible, implausible, and just dumb -- i.e. a violation -- then either the character is too narrow, or quite possibly the Premise is overdrawn to the point that it is Force.  

People do not experience dramatic, intense moral conflicts and act exactly as they do when bumming around drinking beer with their friends.  Nor do they suddenly turn into raving psychopaths or whatever (at least, when they do it's rarely interesting as a story).  If "character" and "Premise" be defined coherently for Nar, then violation of character because of addressing Premise is intrinsically impossible under any circumstances.

Vincent, have I got you right?  If not, what do you think?

[Marco]

Nathan,

It's a good post--yes, I'm familiar with the stances--and, yes, I saw Gareth's take on what I was doing and Vincent's as a fundamental disagreement. And if you agree that's fine too.

Now, this is very close to what I'd have said before this started: and it has a few issues for me.

1. It seems to me that the social reinforcement for All Actor Stance All The Time (which is what I'd call fully immersive play) will be identical to Sim play. Where there's a premise question in the situation (and, yes, this is what Ron says in that bit I quoted--but ...

Ralph (and others) say that one must be "mindful" of premise during Narrativist play. Being immersed throughout play does not sound to me like being mindful of premise (unless the term simply means 'aware of the in-game situation' which seems very unlikely to me).

2. A player who is doing fully immersed Narrativism would seem to be putting emphasis on exploring character and situation so long as they set up a human interest problem with their character or gravitated to one in the situation.

I mean this from both outside and inside that player's head.

3. I don't know about "creating premise"--short of kickers and making a character with in-built issues--I'm not sure what that looks like. Is expecting the GM to give me "a lot of meat" in that regard and being ready to speak up if I don't get it good enough?

Is a situation that's "ripe with premise" acceptable if I didn't use directoral power to create it?

Is a situation with only one (likely) in-game outcome acceptable if that outcome isn't central to my play but the method of getting there (answering the question) is.*

-Marco
* For the record, I don't know how feasible it is--but it seems logically possible from the essays so I'm getting it out there. The Assault on Everest scenario Mike postulated a while ago would seem to qualify.

[Matt Snyder]

Chris,

Are we raising the contentious issue of "the character does not exist" again? It seems like it, but I'm not sure.

my character approaches a difficult situation and thinks, "There are three options for me here," but at the same time the Premise dictates that a fourth option would be best, then it must be true that my character is excessively limited.

The character has no such thoughts; the player does. Are you saying something different? When you start talking about character thoughts, I'm at a loss. I immediately insert "player" because the character exists as a construct, a medium by which the player makes his thoughts happen in the game.

If you're saying that the character can have three, but not four thoughts, I'm even more lost. That's because you, the player, recognize a fourth choice, but refuse to "let" your player recognize that fourth choice. Why? Because it's "out of character"?

You describe this as the character being excessively limited. Is this synonymous with unfit? How is the character limited? Isn't he limited only by your pre-determined concept of who and what the character is. In other words, isn't the player the one doing the excessive limiting . . . . of himself?

Maybe I'm misreading you altogether.

[Matt Snyder]

Aha! I am misreading you, Chris. But, we've arrived at the same place.

I can't speak for Vincent, but your conclusion exactly my take on it. Yes, these "out of character" changes in the face of dramatic conflict are not in fact "out of character." They define character, one instance at a time.

[Marco]

It seems to me that Vincent desires Narrativist play in which the players never leave Actor stance. I support the notion that a player can Address Premise by means of character creation Techniques such that, during play, the player never has to leave Actor Stance. This is one kind of Nar play. It is an effective knid of Nar play. It is a kind of Nar play that I have personally experienced and enjoyed. My view here is contrary to Gareth's, in that I feel character creation is a part of play in this case, and thus we have Narrativism.

Emphasis Added

Additional question:

Is this Story Now? It kinda seems like Story Then, Play Now to me--but I've never really understood the term anyway.

-Marco

[Paganini]

Nathan!  We're home free.  I agree with you about every single thing except a) your take on my position and b) some non-substantive nitpicks.

w00t! Complete agreement here with your entire post.

[Paganini]

Is this Story Now? It kinda seems like Story Then, Play Now to me--but I've never really understood the term anyway.

That's a good point. Hmm. Have to ask Ron to clarify that one I guess. I'm pretty sure in other threads he's acknowledged this play style as Narrativism. But maybe he agrees with Gareth.

1. It seems to me that the social reinforcement for All Actor Stance All The Time (which is what I'd call fully immersive play) will be identical to Sim play. Where there's a premise question in the situation (and, yes, this is what Ron says in that bit I quoted--but ...

This is worded kinda funny. I'm not sure what it means in the context of your next paragraph:

Ralph (and others) say that one must be "mindful" of premise during Narrativist play. Being immersed throughout play does not sound to me like being mindful of premise (unless the term simply means 'aware of the in-game situation' which seems very unlikely to me).

I dunno anything about being "mindful." That's not a part of the theory that I know of. It seems needlessly vague.

2. A player who is doing fully immersed Narrativism would seem to be putting emphasis on exploring character and situation so long as they set up a human interest problem with their character or gravitated to one in the situation.

I mean this from both outside and inside that player's head.

This sounds reasonable to me. Most Narrativism emphasises character and situation, by nature.

3. I don't know about "creating premise"--short of kickers and making a character with in-built issues--I'm not sure what that looks like. Is expecting the GM to give me "a lot of meat" in that regard and being ready to speak up if I don't get it good enough?

In "front-loaded" narrativism what you do is set up a "Strong Backstory." I linked to the original "Strong Backstory" thread in my first post in this thread. Basically, you put your character in an intolerable situation such that inaction is not possible. Any behavior will further the conflict. Kickers are actually an example of this kind of thing, but they're pretty localized, whereas the Strong Backstory techniques can be broader and more general.

[Paganini]

That's funny, Vincent; I could've sworn you were saying something a bit different -- or maybe I'm misreading Paganini's post.

Chris, there's nothing new in your post. C. Edwards and I have both covered this exact same thing at least once. The whole deal with Author Stance is that it allows you to violate character integrity, if you need to do that to get what you want. Retro-justification of inconsistency is an explicit part of Author Stance. In the mode of play Vincent describes, you will never need to do this. But that mode of play is not the only kind of Narrativism there is. Does that make more sense?

It's really much simpler than it looks.

Actor Stance: Will never contradict established facts.

Author Stance: Will contradict established facts, then afterwords explain why the facts weren't as established as everyone thought.

Pawn Stance: Will contradict established facts, and doesn't care jack if anything makes sense, so long as the goal was accomplished.

[M. J. Young]

1. It seems to me that the social reinforcement for All Actor Stance All The Time (which is what I'd call fully immersive play) will be identical to Sim play.

I don't think stance can be mapped to agendum beyond a statement that certain stances tend to provide better support for certain agenda. (I thought this was established.)

I think that if you begin by creating a combat monster of a character and then drop him in a conflict-laden situation, you can play fully gamist without ever stepping out of actor stance. You've made a situation in which your character's primary motivations are all going to support your own: he wants to prove he can overcome the odds, and you want to prove you can overcome the odds through him, so everything works just fine. It can be fully immersive, if you like.

Meanwhile, you can play in pawn stance or director stance in fully simulationist play. It's a very different expression of the agendum, but it's certainly within the possible.

Thus actor stance is neither definitive of nor exclusive to simulationism.

I'm willing to bet that given the right situation and setting, you can play narrativist in pawn stance: the characters are pieces to be moved where we the players wish, to make the statement we wish to make. I'd wager there are a number of existentialist premises that could be addressed very nicely through pawn stance play. I just don't think that would be the preferred approach for most narrativist players.

--M. J. Young

[Marco]

I think there's a lot of good points being made here. I rather like the conclusions. I just wanted to say this:

1. Ralph (Valamir) has said to me explitily that during Nar play one must be "mindful" of premise. If that's not part of the theory, fine--if it is--then this doesn't sound too much like that to me.

2. In response to MJ, my point wasn't so much about never stepping out of Actor stance, per-se, but that this mode of play seems indistinguishable from Sim play.

3. I remain less sure what Story Now means in this mode (maybe someone else can clarify).

-Marco

[clehrich]

Chris, there's nothing new in your post.

I was simply trying to recapitulate Vincent's perspective, to be honest, but I see where you're coming from.

The whole deal with Author Stance is that it allows you to violate character integrity, if you need to do that to get what you want. Retro-justification of inconsistency is an explicit part of Author Stance. In the mode of play Vincent describes, you will never need to do this.

What I'm saying, if I get Vincent right, is that the definition of character within Narrativism is such that this isn't retro-justification.  It just looks like it.  As soon as character integrity is "violated," you know that one of two things was always already true:

1. The character was too narrow, unfit for such play; or
2. This was the correct, fully justified move for the character, although it may not currently be apparent why.

If the emphasis were exploration, as in Sim-Char, then the focus would be on discovering why it was always already true that the character really should have known he would behave this way from the start.  In Nar, that's a given: if you acted that way, it must be true.  You can tell, because Premise was addressed clearly.

You list several Stances.  I'm saying these don't matter a damn for the issue at hand.  If I understand Vincent's point aright, and maybe I don't, then there is no such thing as a Nar Stance that permits violation of a character -- ever.  That's a contradiction in terms.

[contracycle]

My view here is contrary to Gareth's, in that I feel character creation is a part of play in this case, and thus we have Narrativism.  

Agreed.  While thinking about it overnight, it occurred to me that Marco's premise-addressing character creation subsequently being frustrated by a GM is exactly the scenario one would expect to see if this was a standard stylistic clash between a Narr player and Sim GM; the character is formulated with the intention of addressing premise but never gets to do so.

But that said, you can see I'm still coming from the angle that the scenario presented does not actually look to me like a clash WITHIN Narr, and remain unconvinced that this has not largely been a snipe hunt.  Or at least, we need some reason for believing that the scenario exhibits Narr to be concerned about it.

[lumpley]

I have some actual play.  Maybe it'll help and maybe it'll be a train wreck, I guess we'll find out.  It's an old one so reply here.  (Or in a new thread if you happen to have a reply that's off-topic for this one, of course.)

Adventures in RGFA Simulationism

As far as I'm concerned, what Stance(s) I was in, whether I was violating character integrity or ignoring it or adhering to it, when things became true - are all up for grabs.  What's not up for grabs is whether the episode contributed to our addressing Premise: it did.

-Vincent