How much Premise does it take?

[James V. West]

How much Premise do you need to create an egaging rpg?

This is me asking because I’ve suddenly become very aware of Premise or lack of it in my ideas. At least, I’ve become aware of what I think is Premise.

Help me out. If you create a game in which players are fantasy heroes like knights and wizards, and they fight monsters for good over evil purposes...is there a Premise in there? Can it be that simple and still be engaging?

You could expand the good vs evil idea into a major war between the two and put the pcs smack in the middle of the fray. That would be a more substantial Premise, right? But what if you didn’t do that. What if players were just given clever tools to create interesting characters and pretty much left to do what they will (maybe with some minor guidance in the form of adventure seeds and what not). Does that mean the Premise is weak or non-existent?

What if the game was generally light fantasy adventure along the lines of the typical fantasy rpg, but the characters were somehow unusual. PC items for example. You play a sword or a magical brooch or something. Or perhaps the PCs are all children and every humanoid character in the world is child-like. Would that alone be enough to constitute an interesting Premise, or am I confusing the term Premise capitol “P” with simple idea little “i”?

I’m very curious about this.

[Zak Arntson]

I would say that if your concept can be summarized in a single (with maybe a semicolon) sentence, that's your Premise. It's up to you to decide how refined it should be.

Most of my Premises are simple:
- Roleplaying antisocial wackos from an online sketchbook.
- Emulate pulp science fiction, with an emphasis on naive science.

Others are more complicated:
- Reward creativity and practicality, while allowing for player-driven complications and a high price for ambition.
- The anthropomorphized and competitive evolution of species.

Some are just nutty:
- Sitcom.
- Cubicle workers trying to avoid management while dealing with office problems.

-----

As for "engaging," I would say that after Premise, you need Presentation. Nobody would take a Sitcom game seriously, so I couldn't give it a serious treament. On the other hand, Courts & Corsets needed to carry effete airs so the language and gaming terms are flowery.

The problem with some games is that they nail one or the other, but not both. And this isn't taking into account the System. Fading Suns has both a great Premise and Presentation, but the System (at least 1st ed) seemed like a Sim-heavy White Wolf retread with some "narrative" afterthought. Planescape is one of the best games for Premise and Presentation, but it's laden with the D&D system that does little to promote the feel of the setting. The list goes on ...

Then you have games like Zero & Sorcerer, where the all three are intimate and make the game unbelievable.

Enough out of me!

[hardcoremoose]

Are we talking about Premise or premise.  I think the examples Zak gives are more related to the lower case version.

From Ron's GNS article:

The real Premise exists as a clear, focused question or concern shared among all members of the group.

I can't really do this concept justice, but Premise is a question - whose importance is shared by the players - which will be answered through game play.  In a Gamist game, the Premise often sets up the "victory" conditions, while in a Narrativist game the exploration of Premise reveals the story's theme (don't ask me for Simulationist explanations, I'll just end up quoting Ron's text).

As far as James' inititial question goes, I'm not sure you can have too much or too little.  Games tend to have Premises* whether their designers meant them to or not (with a possible exception being made for truly generic systems), and the only question is how far do the game mechanics go towards supporting that Premise.  That's something I'm struggling with myself at this point in time.

- Moose

* This is not to say that these Premises are readily evident, or that other Premises are not possible within a given game.  A great deal of dysfunction probably arises from play groups who are not sharing the same Premise, and it's one of the reasons I'm such a proponent of up front, OOC discussion of Premise at the character generation stage of any game to be played.

[Gordon C. Landis]

hmm . . . OK, I'll take a stab here.  I suspect this'll mstly be obvious stuff, but maybe I'll stumble on an insight or two . . .

How much Premise do you need to create an egaging rpg?

Well, not everyone needs a Premise to be engaged.  And many folks who do will take whatever scrap you give 'em and run with it, creating the Premise as needed.  I suspect the issue here isn't so much "how much Premise do you need? as it is "are you clear about how your game deals with Premise?"

Help me out. If you create a game in which players are fantasy heroes like knights and wizards, and they fight monsters for good over evil purposes...is there a Premise in there?

Depends on how you build the game, and what other details you put in.  Certainly, a play group can put Premise in there - have you given them tools to help with that?  Or left them to handle Premise issues entirely in social contract terms?

Can it be that simple and still be engaging?

Sure . . . if the group is engaged by that kind of thing.

You could  [. . . ] What if players were just given clever tools to create interesting characters [. . .] Does that mean the Premise is weak or non-existent?

It means the GAME provides very little direct support for any particular Premise.  It might be quite suited for some, and unsuited for others, but the game designer has apparently not done anything in particular with the issue.

What if the game was generally light fantasy adventure along the lines of the typical fantasy rpg, but the characters were somehow unusual. PC items for example. You play a sword or a magical brooch or something. Or [. . . ]

OK, time to reread the Premise part of Ron's essay . . . let's see if it helps.

"Premise is whatever a participant finds among the elements to sustain a continued interest in what might happen in a role-playing session. Premise, once established, instils the desire to keep that imaginative commitment going."

And,

"Premise is the real-person, real-world interest that instils and maintains a person’s desire to have that [the RPG] experience. At this early point, though, Premise is vague and highly personal, as it is only the embryo of the real Premise. The real Premise exists as a clear, focused question or concern shared among all members of the group. The initial Premise only takes shape and shared-focus when we move to the next chapter"

That next chapter discusses the differences between Gamist, Narrativist and Simulationist Premises.

Which brings me to say . . . any of the stuff you've mentioned could be engaging, even in terms of Premise, if that's the sort of stuff the folks involved happen to be engaged by.  Most of your described situations work fine as Simulationist Premises (Premisi?) that could support their Exploration as an end in and of themselves.  Some folks would love to explore the "We're magic items!" thing, others would love the "we are, and everyone else is, child-like" situation - and that would be all they'd need.  If your game doesn't provide some (or enough) mechanics that help reinforce that experience, the group will come up with ways to do it themselves - or they'll walk away in search of something that does a better job for them.

Let me try another cut at it . . .

Would that alone be enough to constitute an interesting Premise, or am I confusing the term Premise capitol “P” with simple idea little “i”?

It seems to me that a little "i" idea can be a capitol "P" Premise, for people who are sufficiently engaged by the idea.  In GNS terms, it's not enough for a Gamist or a Narrativist Premise, but as a Simulationist Premise . . . that's really all it takes.

I suppose the real question at this level becomes "what can you do to help them be or become engaged?"

Anyway . . . hope that helps.

Gordon

[Zak Arntson]

Are we talking about Premise or premise.  I think the examples Zak gives are more related to the lower case version.

I would argue that my examples are big-P Premise. Most just don't address lofty or incredibly emotional issues for the players. If I'm in the mood for heavy emotional gaming, I will use something like Sorcerer or Zero, where the Premise has tons of emotional punch. I certainly wouldn't use the same game for playing a Tex Avery cartoon or over-the-top dungeon crawling.

I don't want to see a line drawn between "fine art" and "pop culture" gaming; I believe both have their place in the world of rpgs.

[hardcoremoose]

Hey Zak,

No offense intended.  For me - and this is strictly me speaking, because Ron's article does not explicitly state this - it's the wording of the Premise as a question that makes it so.  I'm not exactly sure why I feel that way, but it may have something to do with the fact that questions require answers, and that makes for a nice division of power between the GM and the players (the GM asks the question, the players answer it).

They certainly do not need to be deep or emotionally challenging questions.  Even something as simple as "should we put an end to the villain's reign of evil" is valid.

- Moose

[Zak Arntson]

No offense taken, don't worry. I hope I didn't react too strongly. (short Zak bio: Dropped out of college shortly after a prof told him: "Illustration isn't art.") I do jump up and down when I worry about lines being drawn between legit and not-legit forms of expression!

I see what you're saying about it being a question brought up to the Players. I wonder, though, if you couldn't take any premise and make it Premise by rewording into a question. Mostly, "What would it be like to XYZ?" Granted, that plants the game into escapism or pure fantasy ("What would it be like to be a dragon?"), but that's okay, too.

I do like your answer to why it should be a question: Questions require answers.

But then, why do we need answers? Why not a dialogue? I think the most powerful literature offers a question and its implications, and leaves answers (plural! there's hardly ever an easy answer) up to the reader.

So then, instead of Players trying to answer the question, the Players should be exploring it. Roleplaying is a form of dialogue tied around the Premise. What do you think of that?

[hardcoremoose]

Hey Zak,

Now we're talkin' (and probably hijacking this thread).

I wonder, though, if you couldn't take any premise and make it Premise by rewording into a question. Mostly, "What would it be like to XYZ?" Granted, that plants the game into escapism or pure fantasy ("What would it be like to be a dragon?"), but that's okay, too.

I'm sure you could, although I've been mentally trying to reword the Premises from your initial post since we started this discussion, and while some of them are easily expressed as a question, others would take on a slightly different skew once you try it.  Do you think they come out the same after rewording them, and if not, do they suffer or benefit from it?

And as far as the escapism/dragon thing goes, that is the basic Premise implied by many Sim games.  There are others of, of course, but I think that's the most common.

Why not a dialogue? I think the most powerful literature offers a question and its implications, and leaves answers (plural! there's hardly ever an easy answer) up to the reader.

Yeah, plural answers are great.  Each player should be free to come to whatever conclusion he sees fit, as it relates to the Premise.  Depends on the game - some questions will be easier or more obvious than others - but the whole point of the question/answer thing is to not predicate the answer, but to leave to that to each individual player.

So then, instead of Players trying to answer the question, the Players should be exploring it. Roleplaying is a form of dialogue tied around the Premise. What do you think of that?

I think that's perfect.  When people ask me what Premise is, I give them a sort of Narrativist skewed answer, where I tell them that "Premise is a question of moral significance, that, through exploration by the characters, allows theme to arise."  So yeah, if you want to say that playing a roleplaying game is a form of dialogue, I'm right with you on that.  Many times on this forum I've likened roleplaying to literary criticism, where the critics (the players) consider and debate meaning through the proxy of their characters.  Sounds like a dialogue to me.

Before signing off I just want to say that I absolutely will never claim one form of expression to be more "legit" than another (specific game designs, on the other hand...).  I like to deal with some fairly highbrow conepts, but every so often I need a good dungeon crawl to change things up.  It's all good in my book.

- Moose

[contracycle]

Hmm, well I still struggle somewhat with premise too.  Have to say I am unconvinced by the necessity that it be morally relevant.  But more importantly, I have troubles marrying up some of the above discussion, which contains a number of ideas I like.  However, while the idea of multiple premises seems intuitive, this appears to mitigate against the use of an explicit premise up front.  Secondly, if there are multiple premises for the players, how is it that a game proper can have a premise, or be answered by a theme.  Would not each character ben answering their own premise according to their own theme.

All in all I don't think the dramatic concept of premise really translates to RPG, or more accurately that it does not translate without severe modification, which I am not able to do because I have only a shaky comprehension of what behaviour terms like premise, theme and protagonism are deployed to describe.  Part of my problem is that I am seeing the "premises" I come up with as, not to beat about the bush, the most railroady thing I'm doing.  I'm not sure what virtue there is to making a premise explicit, if not in attempt to manipulate the players.  Perhaps thats an overstatement, but its all still very fuzzy IMO.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Zak,

But then, why do we need answers? Why not a dialogue? I think the most powerful literature offers a question and its implications, and leaves answers (plural! there's hardly ever an easy answer) up to the reader.

I disagree with this. I think the most powerful literature definitely does answer the questions it raises. Macbeth offers an answer to its question about the price of ambition. Answering the question positions the reader to either agree and be galvanized in his understanding of humanity, or to disagree and still be galvanized in his understanding of humanity. The kind of writing that throws out a bunch of questions and flops back and forth on the issues it raises doesn't resonate for the reader the same way. It just deconstructs him. He doesn't know what he thinks afterwards.

So then, instead of Players trying to answer the question, the Players should be exploring it. Roleplaying is a form of dialogue tied around the Premise. What do you think of that?

Again, yuck. If it's a gamist Premise..."Who among these brave companions kicks the most ass?"...you definitely want an answer when all is said and done. The same thing is true of a narrativist Premise. "Can man avoid paying too high a price for his ambition?" must be answered by each protagonist. They may come down on different sides of the issue, but they have to answer the question. They aren't a protagonist and it's not a story if they fail to do so.

Paul

[Zak Arntson]

Hmm, well I still struggle somewhat with premise too.  Have to say I am unconvinced by the necessity that it be morally relevant.

It doesn't! Most Simulationist games play on the Premise of "What would it be like to be XYZ," often without moral ramifications in the Premise.

After the above discussion the only criteria I have for Premise is that it's a Question that causes the gaming session to be a Dialogue. So plain-vanilla D&D asks the question: What if I were a hero in constant physical struggle? (at least, it seems to: A whole chapter on combat rules, combat Feats outnumber the others, etc.)  There's no moral implications (heck, you can slay orcs left and right without worrying about their mothers' feelings, according to its System).

Paul ...

You've got a good point about literature also answering the question. But we can always see the motivations behind even the author's antagonists. Dragonlance, with it's how-good/how-evil-am-I-meter, encourages the PCs to fiddle with morality. Though they all generally have a big Answer (i.e., don't be bad), the Dialogue occurs with how to approach this. The D&D alignment system bolsters this with Lawful, Chaotic and Neutral bent towards Good & Evil.

So even if the Answer is plain and inevitable, there should be an exploration of this within the game (or literature).

Again, yuck. If it's a gamist Premise..."Who among these brave companions kicks the most ass?"...you definitely want an answer when all is said and done.
...
They may come down on different sides of the issue, but they have to answer the question. They aren't a protagonist and it's not a story if they fail to do so.

The G & N Premises are fine, but you don't need an answer at the end of the game. With a Gamist game, if it's Player-cooperation (D&D), the Premise is more of a "can we survive," with the answer never entirely certain (as long as there are more challenges to face). Uncertainty is what makes the game interesting.

Sorcerer's Premise (which I read to be: How much would you pay for your ambition) doesn't have any clear-cut answers at all. Each protagonist explores their own way. And that's what makes the story.

But why yuck? You're going to have to explain your feelings better, because the two Premises you listed seem fine, and a good game will encourage exploration and decision-making based on the Premise. So a game that ties Premise to its System will force protagonism (waffling on issues is also a valid part of literature; see the Elric series).

slight edit for clarity

[contracycle]

I disagree with this. I think the most powerful literature definitely does answer the questions it raises. Macbeth offers an answer to its question about the price of ambition. Answering the question positions the reader to either agree and be galvanized in his understanding of humanity, or to disagree and still be galvanized in his understanding of humanity. The kind of writing

OK sure, the Reader, the Audience.  But in RPG, the audience IS the character who answers the question, and the other players who can only access that answer OOC.  I guess that with a linear media, I can see this as an explicit necessity; after all the audience cannot read the characters mind, so they must take action to portray their thoughts .  But in RPG, this is unnecessary for the individual player, and difficult for the group.  So I guess my problem is this: I don't have the freedom to frankly construct characters that support my premise, as an author of linear media does, or to script up events that portray this premise and characters reactions to it.

[Zak Arntson]

So I guess my problem is this: I don't have the freedom to frankly construct characters that support my premise, as an author of linear media does, or to script up events that portray this premise and characters reactions to it.

You do, if the System is designed to support the Premise! That's what I'm getting at: The Premise and System should be intimately tied, so that the roleplaying session is forcibly centered around the game's Premise.

But then, that's why I'm not a big fan of generic games. Even lauded ones like GURPS or Fudge (though Fudge promotes tweaks towards a Premise, which I like).

[Paganini]

Well, this is just my take on Ron's essay, but I think it offers a worthwhile view. YMMV.

How much Premise do you need to create an egaging rpg?

I think that this is a totally subjective question. Whether or not an RPG is engaging is going to depend on who you ask. How much premise does it take? How many different gamers are there in the world?

Help me out. If you create a game in which players are fantasy heroes like knights and wizards, and they fight monsters for good over evil purposes...is there a Premise in there? Can it be that simple and still be engaging?

I think what you've got here are some game elements that can be formalized into a Premise. More below...

I can't really do this concept justice, but Premise is a question - whose importance is shared by the players - which will be answered through game play.  In a Gamist game, the Premise often sets up the "victory" conditions, while in a Narrativist game the exploration of Premise reveals the story's theme (don't ask me for Simulationist explanations, I'll just end up quoting Ron's text).

I don't quite see Premise this way. Premise is also not required to be a question; it can also be a concern. One of Ron's primary examples of Premise is from the X Files: The Truth Is Out There. When it comes down to it, I think Premise is inextricably tied to Passions. If a character can have Passions about something, then that something can be a Premise for a game. If a player is interested in exploring the Passions associated with that Premise, then he's engaged by that game.

To expand on James' (James's?) example:

If you create a game in which players are fantasy heroes like knights and wizards, and they fight monsters for good over evil purposes...is there a Premise in there? Can it be that simple and still be engaging?

We've got some game elements here that can be organized into a Premise... not neccesarily a question, but something that the characters can have Passions about. Like this, for example:

Evil monsters kill and loot in pseudo-medieval society.
Can powerful heros overcome dangerous monsters?

Passions tied to this sort of premise could be something like "Magic will prevail!" or "Swords will overcome Sorcery!" or "We must save the townsfolk!" or "I'll get rich by killing monsters for their loot!"

If you as a player are interested in exploring these passions, then then the premise is engaging to you. If you couldn't care less about the townsfolk, or you aren't interested in capturing monster loot, then it isn't.

So what do you think... is this a usefull approach?

[Paganini]

For some reason, my post appeared twice. How do I delete the extra one? The "edit" button has a tool tip that says "Edit / Delete," but after I push it I don't see any way to delete the message...