Narrativism

[Paganini]

This came up in another thread (the one about player vs. GM power), but I thought it deserved it's own topic. Also, it's more appropriate for here, than for the design forum. :)

The thing is, Ron just clarified his definition of narrativism to me, and I'm not satisfied with it personally. I think of myself as a narrativist player, but I don't fit his definition.

For one thing, I'm uncomfortable with the idea that the story produced by a game must meet some subjective quality level before the game can be called narrative. According to the GNS definition, the focus of a narrativist is having a good story once the game is over. Who decides what "good" is? How good does the story have to be before the game is narrative?

IMO, the story doesn't have to be "good," so long as the people involved had fun making it. That's the nut of the issue to me... my enjoyment as a narrative player is derived from the act of creating the story, rather than some nebulous rating of the resulting story's value. (For those of you following the other thread, this is what I meant by Story Exploration.)

So what do you guys think about this? Is there any validity in this distinction? Using Ron's terms, what would you call someone who doesn't care about the quality of the completed story, so long as enjoyment was derived from the creation of it?

[Marco]

Any attempt at an objectivation of "good", when it comes to fiction--and, I think, roleplaying-generated storylines in particular--threatens to slide in sheer snobbery.

If you think it's good, it's good. That's it.

On the other hand, you can enjoy a story for reasons other than it's "critical merrit" (where you're the critic)--so keep that in mind.

Finally: someone might try to define good in terms of literary merrit. There's a whole school of criticism that exists to do this in literature. It relies on critics and cannon. There are not critics (other than the participants) and there there is no cannon in RPG circles so I don't think that's golbally applicable (i.e. it might work for Joe, but Susan is perfectly right--and intellectually correct and sophisticated in doing so--to reject it).

-Marco
[ Edited to add: As little as I could possibly speak for Ron, it sounds like a missinterpertation. I can't _imagine_ him saying a story has to meet some standard to be Narrativist play. ]

[jburneko]

I think this ties into the whole Story Result vs. Story Creation thing.  The purpose of Narrativist play is to CONCIOUSLY address a central "moral" (broad definition) conflict in a consistent and thematic way.  If the addressing of a moral conflict happens as an accident or a side-effect of play then it's not Narrativist play.  You might very well end up with a story but if you weren't conciously trying to create a story through role-playing then it isn't Narrativism.

This is a common argument I run across that I'm constantly trying to figure out how to best address.  Many a fistey Simulationist who claim they are story oriented and that they don't railroad use this as their argument: "If you create a logically complete and consistent setting/situation a story will naturally arrise from the exploration of that setting/situation."  I know, because I used to use this argument myself.  I used to believe this whole heartily.  Then Ron said something rather profound to me, "Life is not a Story."

So the rest of the conversation now goes like this:

Me: "But the world and situations you live in are logically complete and consistent.  Is your life a story?"

Simulationist: "Yes."

Me: "How so?"

The Simulationist then proceeds to tell me an amusing anecdote from their last camping trip.  And that's what good non-railroaded Simulationist play procduces: a series of interesting, "fun", accidental anecdotes with the boring bits in between basically cut out.

But an anecdote or series of anecdotes is not a story in the Narrativist sense.  There does not exist a concious choice of a single unifying Premise, nor is there a concious creation of a Theme from each of the characters.  Theme, here meaning an action derived commentary on the central Premise.

If you have that you have Narrativism.  How well you succeed at producing something 'good' is a matter of personal aesthetic.  Take my Deadlands game for example.  I think it's a fairly Narrativist game because I keep pushing a moral question.  How much evil can you allow in your good?  It's an examination of do the ends justify the means?  It's kind of a weak Premise but everyone genuinely cares where the other players stand on this.

Does my game produce a 'good' story?  I doubt it.  It's my first attempt at serious Narrativist play.  The players are not quite comfortable and don't fully understand what I'm trying to do.  In my opinion the game is a train-wreck of ideas and rather unfocused.  If it were written down I think it would be a rather poorly constructed story.  BUT, it IS a story in the Narrativist sense.  We are TRYING to create a story of litterary merit.  We're just not very good at it yet.

Does this make sense?

Jesse

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I think what is meant by "good" here is complete. That is, a story, by definition, has several elements, and much roleplay (and real life) does not contain those elements. I'll go through them here so as to make sense.

 - protagonist and antagonist: These are actual characters in the story that are the real movers and shakers. In an RPG game, there are often multiple protagonists. The antagonist must directly be opposed to the protagonists in reference to the conflict.

 - conflict: A story revolves around one conflict (or goal - I'll refer to them both as conflict.) The conflict is what the story's about, and reflects the game's Premise. In a Simulationist game, there is not a clear cut conflict (at least not defined before play.)

 - complications: A story has complications, smaller conflicts that lead up and drive toward the main conflict. These must lead toward the main conflict. A random encounter in the wilderness is not a complication. It's a direct element of Simulation and modelling another world. It has no reference to the conflict, thereby eliminating it from being part of a story.

 - turning point: This is the most overlooked part of stories (both written and in gameplay.) There must be a turning point, a moment where the protagonist(s) make a decision or come to a realization that not only allows them to resolve the conflict, but forces them to.

 - climax and resolution: The conflict is faced and resolved. The protagonists may not win, but they face the conflict and end their involvement with it. At the end of this, the conflict must be resolved completely.

---

This is where much of the confusion about story comes in. A story is not a sequence of events. A story is a sequence of events that are all about one thing, determined ahead of time. While a random, or even pre-plotted, sequence of events may lead to an enjoyable time, and an enjoyable anecdote, without the above elements, it cannot be considered story.

[joshua neff]

I wouldn't get hung up on the use of the word "good". I don't think Ron means it in any sort of "objective" sense--I know I don't. When I say narrativism strives to create a "good" story, that means a story that is satisfying to the audience, which in an RPG is the play group.

The more important word is "narrative". Narrativism isn't about, as Ron has noted, "story after the fact", it's "story being created right now". This means a number of factors:

--The players have to have some sort of hand in authoring the story. This can range from the "vanilla" narrativist techniques of story points (or some other currency that allows the players to pay to affect the story) to further out in the field techniques (examples of which I'm blanking on at the moment--bleah). This doesn't necessarily mean the GM is rendered "redundant", but it does mean that the story cannot be predetermined, or even primarily authored, by the GM. For example, a Call of Cthulhu scenario that forces the PCs into certain paths so that no matter what they do, they end up at the final location for the big showdown with the evil cultists (or whatever).

--The PCs must be the protagonists of the story. Which means that it is their issues that drive the story. The narrative may involve a mystery of some kind, or appear to revolve around some mcguffin, but in actual fact, the narrative comes from the players' conflicts, & the central issues, the thorny problems (the Premise), must be resolved by the players.

There may be other stuff I'm forgetting, but I think that's a good start.

Now here's the thing: a lot of people involved in RPGs think of themselves as "story-concerned". I blame the big push of the 90's for "ROLEplaying over ROLLplaying" garbage & White Wolf's big "storytelling is the best!" that fostered this whole "yeah, epic stories all the way!" attitude. But if you look at a lot of the "story-centered" games (White Wolf, I'm lookin' at you), they don't facilitate story-creation at all. There's nothing in, for example, Vampire: the Masquerade, besides so lip-service to how important story is, to really push the PCs as authors/audience of a story in which thorny issues are addressed & resolved. Not anymore than any other RPG.

But if your enjoyment comes from "creation of the story at the moment", rather than looking back & saying "yes, that story was good", then that, to me, is narrativism. It's not about creating "classics of literature" or anything like that. It's about "story right now" rather than "thanks to some tricks by the GM & some careful pushing of the PCs into pursuing certain pathways, a good story was played out".

[joshua neff]

Okay, having just read Clinton's post, which he slipped in before mine, I'd say he hits the nail on the head. "Complete" it is.

[Epoch]

I think of myself as a narrativist player, but I don't fit his definition.

Hey, man, look on the bright side.  I don't think of myself as narrativist, but Ron keeps telling me I am.  :P

Anyhow, I think that there remains a semantic issue here:

Story vs. Sequence-of-events-in-time-which-may-be-interesting

A lot of people think that the latter is a "story," which is an arguably correct definition, but, if you use that, then the term "story" has almost no semantic value -- it can mean pretty much anything.

A "story" by the definition Ron uses -- and I'm comfortable putting words in his mouth, because this is one of those areas of GNS that comes up a lot -- is something more than an interesting series of events.

Okay, done putting words in Ron's mouth, back to speaking for myself.

So, the natural question that follows is, "if story's more than a sequence of interesting events, what more is it?"  Now, I can answer that for myself -- I would say words to the effect of narrative flow of the action, interplaying thematic elements, and all that jazz -- but, fundamentally, I don't think that it matters.  You and your group decide for yourself what more a story is than a sequence of events.  If you're willing to sacrifice other aspects of game play for that "whatever else," whatever you may decide it is, you're playing in a Narrativist style.

And, thus, we've neatly avoided the "external standard" problem.  Your stories don't have to be "good" by any definition of mine, they just have to be more than events.

This definition of story also neatly solves your original problem -- why can't players be "creating a story" if they act purely from "within" their characters?  Because, by definition, a story involves meta-world elements (it's more than a series of in-world events).  Thus, if players are to create a story, they must be able to create meta-world elements (even if they do so totally covertly from hidden author stance).

* * *

Now, you'll recall from the very beginning of this thread that I mentioned that I don't consider myself a narrativist player.  There was a reason for that -- I wasn't just being snarky.

In my own wholly subjective opinion, too much Narrativism leads to stories which aren't as interesting as the series-of-events that you get out of less Narrativist play.  I like the less focussed, more slice-of-life-y approach that you get from primarily Simulative play.

I do use Narrativist techniques to push away from purely slice-of-life play, but I keep them subtle and small, so as to maintain a sense that the PC's are real people doing real things that, I feel, you don't get quite the flavour of from highly Narrativist play.

So, that's my final point in this perhaps controversial message -- that you should remember that just because one thing is a "story" and the other is a "series of events" doesn't mean that the story is more interesting or compelling or evocative or able-to-comment-on-the-human-condition than the series of events.

[Marco]

This is a common argument I run across that I'm constantly trying to figure out how to best address.  Many a fistey Simulationist who claim they are story oriented and that they don't railroad use this as their argument: "If you create a logically complete and consistent setting/situation a story will naturally arrise from the exploration of that setting/situation."  

A coupla notes:
1. The "fiesty" simmy is quite right (so are you and that's why you're having trouble addressing this). They and they players are trying to create a story. At the end of the night a story was created. The reason you're not getting through to them is because, at the core of it, you're arguing method and he's talking result--and both are "right" (although each of you only want one to be).  

If you tell him: "I define Story Creation as roleplaying with player-authorial power and/or _specific intent_ to create a story of literary merrit" I think he might agree with you. Hell, why not? If I define real Role-Playing as LARPing and tell you you're not doing it, are you gonna argue? Only if you want to quibble about definitions. Otherwise you'll agree that under my definition you aren't really roleplaying and walk quietly away (those fiesty pencil and paper guys, I swear ...)

2. They might go on about how suspension of disbelief is necessary for them to enjoy the story and that if they aren't experiencing it, no matter how good it is, it isn't working for them.

They're still story-oriented, they just want that immersive quality one gets from a really good book or movie. They still might want all of the drama, the literary themes, whatever--they just want it from a different direction than you're pushing it from.

3. Final Note: In many Sim games the conscious choice of a theme *does* exists (ever made a self-destructive character--and then had a simmy GM give him a great chance to self destruct?). My standard CoC character is someone drinking himself to death--when the monsters get him first: conscious theme, created by the player, executed by the GM. Not Narrativist at all.

-Marco

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Two quick points:

So, the natural question that follows is, "if story's more than a sequence of interesting events, what more is it?"  Now, I can answer that for myself -- I would say words to the effect of narrative flow of the action, interplaying thematic elements, and all that jazz -- but, fundamentally, I don't think that it matters.  You and your group decide for yourself what more a story is than a sequence of events.  If you're willing to sacrifice other aspects of game play for that "whatever else," whatever you may decide it is, you're playing in a Narrativist style.

I flatly, whole-heartedly disagree. The word "story" has a definition, just like the word "theorum" or "equation." Literary criticism is not just about reviewing books - it is a science, with established terms.

I might be confused, Epoch, but it seems you are saying that a story is whatever a group of people decide it is. That sort of relativism applied to the definition of a word would not fly in one of the "hard sciences" and I can't imagine it's correct here. (I also think it's the downfall of America, but go figure.)

(Of course, I could be wrong. This should probably be said, especially since I just grabbed a dictionary and looked up 'story' to find, " An account or recital of an event or a series of events, either true or fictitious.")

Point the second:

I've said this before, but it bears repeating. If you feel you are an "X," but according to Ron's essay, you're not - then you are not an "X" according to Ron's essay. I know that's redundant, but look at an example:

Let's say you believe in an absolute good and absolute evil. You believe in the good, and you believe your soul will travel to a peaceful afterlife if you make sure and do good things. You call yourself a Christian.

That's really great for you, but according to the Bible, a Christian must accept that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and also must repent of sins. The soul of a Christian is saved not through works, but through faith.

(Note: Whoa. Where did that come from? I've been re-reading the Bible for literary merit. I'm not some sort of nutty religious fellow, and I'm making no condemnation or anything - which is a point I'll bring up again. Hell, I'm not considered a Christian by the Bible.)

So - according to the essay on Christianity (the New Testament of the Bible), someone who does not follow the above tenets is not a Christian. Accordingly, someone who does not follow the definition of Narrativist set forth in Ron's essay is not one according to the essary. There's no condemnation there, but it eliminates the argument that "I know I'm a narrativist, but Ron's essay says I'm not, so it's wrong."

The definition is valid within its scope, and your definition is valid within your scope.

[Epoch]

Two quick points:

So, the natural question that follows is, "if story's more than a sequence of interesting events, what more is it?"  Now, I can answer that for myself -- I would say words to the effect of narrative flow of the action, interplaying thematic elements, and all that jazz -- but, fundamentally, I don't think that it matters.  You and your group decide for yourself what more a story is than a sequence of events.  If you're willing to sacrifice other aspects of game play for that "whatever else," whatever you may decide it is, you're playing in a Narrativist style.

I flatly, whole-heartedly disagree. The word "story" has a definition, just like the word "theorum" or "equation." Literary criticism is not just about reviewing books - it is a science, with established terms.

Actually, like "theorum," "equation," "good," "evil," "christian," or whatever, "story" has a lot of definitions.  As you point out below, at least one of those definitions directly contradicts the distinction that Ron and other Narrativists draw.  That's okay.  Specialized fields often use more circumscribed definitions of terms within their purview than is the generally accepted definition.

I might be confused, Epoch, but it seems you are saying that a story is whatever a group of people decide it is. That sort of relativism applied to the definition of a word would not fly in one of the "hard sciences" and I can't imagine it's correct here. (I also think it's the downfall of America, but go figure.)

Well, I think you're a little confused, which is doubtless my fault.  Let me lay it out in a more detailed manner:

I'm not a hardcore relativist, but certain things are a matter of taste.  I'm not comfortable saying that, for example, "a story must have rising action, a climax, and a denoument."  First of all, there are doubtless many examples of stories (real stories, written in real books, by real authors) which do not have that kind of rising and falling action.  Secondly, why should that be definitive?  Why not any one of a million other aspects which, together, make up the holistic whole of "story"?  (And, mind you, the limited definition of "story" that we use, which, as you found out, is not the commonly accepted one).

You compare literature to the hard sciences.  That's great and all, but you should realize that a "story" isn't something like an "electron," or "the electroweak force," which can be easily defined.  If you want to keep the hard-science analogy, "story" is more like "organic chemistry."  Where exactly does "organic chemistry" end and physics or biology begin?

The real answer is that any hard-and-fast line you draw will be arbitrary, and sub-optimal in some way.  The only way to define one of these big, somewhat hazy concepts is by inference -- say, "It's things like this."

It actually shows that I'm not a relativist and am an absolutist when I say that those terms still have value, despite not having a hard-and-fast definition.

So, dragging this back to something like the topic, I'm saying that if Paganini wants to be a Narrativist who doesn't respect the concept of (to pick on my old example) "rising action, climax, denoument," but still values (again, for example) a focused plot centered on a moral theme and with protagonized characters, that's fine.  It's the act of sacrificing other priorities for meta-world "story" priorities that is Narrativist, not toeing the line on the exact set of priorities and to the exact degree.

Further, I claim that regardless of what personal subset of the broader "story" definition you're interested in, you behave the same way -- you want the same things (like meta-world control) that other Narrativists want.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating. If you feel you are an "X," but according to Ron's essay, you're not - then you are not an "X" according to Ron's essay. I know that's redundant, but look at an example:

I actually don't think that the definitions of "an Xist person" in Ron's essay are currently meaningful.

He proposes that "Gamist" (for example) means nothing more than "This person tends to make role-playing decisions in line with Gamist goals."  (This is a direct quote from his essay, for the record).

What does that mean?  I tend to make role-playing decisions in line with Gamist goals, but I'm clearly less inclined towards Gamism than towards either Simulationism or Narrativism.  So does he mean "This person tends make most role-playing decisions in line with Gamist goals"?  If so, what does "most" mean?  A "vanilla Narrativist," as the term has been described in this forum, and as Ron has, to some extent, labeled my own play style, makes "most" of his decision based on Simulationist concerns -- Narrativism comes out at certain, fairly rare, rather important points.

Certain people are so strongly identified with one goal or another that it's useful to say that they are "a" Narrativist, Gamist, or Simulationist.  For others, I don't think that the essay describes well how to label them.

That's largely a discussion for another time -- I mention it primarily to say that Paganini might well get a lot out of Narrativism even if he's not "a Narrativist," whatever that means.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Certain people are so strongly identified with one goal or another that it's useful to say that they are "a" Narrativist, Gamist, or Simulationist.  For others, I don't think that the essay describes well how to label them.

That's largely a discussion for another time -- I mention it primarily to say that Paganini might well get a lot out of Narrativism even if he's not "a Narrativist," whatever that means.

Nothing much else to say here except I completely agree with these points. I think we can all get a lot out of each of the "isms," even if we don't self-identify with one of them.

[Ron Edwards]

Um, just to clarify ...

Mike (Epoch), as best I can tell without playing with you, your play corresponds to the Simulationist mode in which "story" emerges as a GM-retrofit to essentially laissez-faire player actions that are not particularly plot/story/theme oriented. This would be Narrativist if the players were oriented toward Premise/Theme/etc, but since they (ie the group, collectively speaking) are not, then the priority of play pretty much ends up being Character Exploration and/or Setting Exploration.

This mode of play is not described in my essay because I forgot or failed to conceive of it at the time of writing.

Correct me if my arm-chair, long-distance impression is wrong, but that is the impression I have at the moment. So no, I don't consider you a closet Narrativist (any more); I had my suspicions for a bit there, but subsequent posts led me to the current impression.

Best,
Ron

[Epoch]

Um, just to clarify ...

Mike (Epoch), as best I can tell without playing with you, your play corresponds to the Simulationist mode in which "story" emerges as a GM-retrofit to essentially laissez-faire player actions that are not particularly plot/story/theme oriented. This would be Narrativist if the players were oriented toward Premise/Theme/etc, but since they (ie the group, collectively speaking) are not, then the priority of play pretty much ends up being Character Exploration and/or Setting Exploration.

This mode of play is not described in my essay because I forgot or failed to conceive of it at the time of writing.

Correct me if my arm-chair, long-distance impression is wrong, but that is the impression I have at the moment. So no, I don't consider you a closet Narrativist (any more); I had my suspicions for a bit there, but subsequent posts led me to the current impression.

Muh bad.  I hadn't realized that you'd changed your opinion.  Sorry to mis-state about you.

Hope I did get it right that you think of story as more than "a series of events."

[Le Joueur]

You compare literature to the hard sciences.  That's great and all, but you should realize that a "story" isn't something like an "electron," or "the electroweak force," which can be easily defined.  If you want to keep the hard-science analogy, "story" is more like "organic chemistry."  Where exactly does "organic chemistry" end and physics or biology begin?

Oh wait!  I know this one..."Organic chemistry is the study of carbon compounds; biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl."

You know, I think we're all getting a little too serious....

Fang Langford

[Gordon C. Landis]

They're still story-oriented, they just want that immersive quality one gets from a really good book or movie.

This touches on the "Impossible Thing" Ron clarified somewhere recently . . . take a look at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1213&highlight=impossible+thing to get his words on the subject.  Here's how I think about it (and my first month or three at the Forge was spent trying to get clear on just what folks meant by "story" in "narrativism"):

When the creation of a "good" Story is best served by NOT maintaining that immersive quality - do you break immersion?  If so, that's a Narrativist decision.  If not, it's a Simulationist  choice.  The claim in GNS is that these issues WILL come into conflict from time to time - a claim that makes sense to me.  When someone says "I only like story when I get to stay immersed", what they're really saying is "there's something I consider more important than story."

That's how I've been thinking.  Now, there are folks who seem to LIKE hybrids of various sorts - choosing Narrative-style story for a while, or in certain situations, then switching to Sim-immersion focus at other times/situations.  If it works for them, great.  

Gordon