Internal cause and Premise

[Marco]

Someone got back to me on my techniques article with some questions. Rather than listing them here, I'm going to distill them and discuss them here.

It was pointed out, and I agree with this, that "internal cause" and extremely plausible consistency was held as a priority over Address of Premise in my play-style.

If one or the other had to go, it would be the premise. This was inferred by the fact that my appreciation of premise-ful play was secondary to my responsibility for most-plausible events (dramatic timing aside since it didn't apply to premise in either of our oppinions).

But I don't believe that that prioritizing internal cause over premise constitutes the sort of barrier to Narrativism that would shut it down in any reliable or important way.

So I concluded that "Everything must happen in the most likely manner" cannot be the "point" of a Sim game because that rule, IMO/IME, does not represent a premise-killer.

-Marco

[Walt Freitag]

Hi Marco,

"If one or the other had to go..." can be a misleading determinant because it makes a difference whether you're talking about an instance of play as defined in the Big Model, or about some smaller unit of play such as an individual event.

I've been using the following example to illustrate this difficulty: It's February 13th, I'm madly in love with my sweetheart, and I want to express that emotion in a form suitable for presentation on Valentine's Day. I decide to write a love sonnet, a poem in which the verses must rhyme in a particular way.

I now have two concerns to deal with simultaneously: expressing my feelings, and making the words rhyme. If you observed me as I wrote, you would likely see me, probably several times, jotting down verses or phrases that perfectly express my feelings, and then rejecting them because they don't fit the rhyme scheme. From this you might infer that rhyming was a higher priority for me than expressing my feelings. In other words, "if one or the other had to go," when it comes to an individual word, phrase, or verse, the one to go would be the (momentarily best) expression of my feelings.

But if it's getting toward the wee hours of February 14th, and I've for some reason failed to express my feelings adequately in a sonnet, that's a different case of "one or the other has to go." If you'd concluded that sonnet-rhyming was my highest priority, you might expect me to switch to a sonnet about an easier subject, such as a happy turtle named Splashy. But of course what would actually "go" is the sonnet form, and I'd settle for expressing my feelings in a different form, such as free verse or prose, indicating what my real priorities were all along.

And -- here's the important new part of this example -- such a revealing crisis (running out of time and failing to write an adequate sonnet) is very unlikely to actually happen. Because my decision to use the sonnet form in the first place is based on my being pretty certain that I WILL be able to express my feelings in sonnet form. In fact, I believe that the constraints of using the sonnet form will help me to express my feelings better, because it forces me to reject some ideas (including most of my usual habitual ways of expressing things) and cast about for others that I might not otherwise have thought of. So even when I appear to be prioritizing rhyme over expression, when the context is understood, the rhyming turns out to be supporting my expression, in a more subtle way, all along.

Similarly, you hold that "internal cause" and extremely plausible consistency had priority over Address of Premise in your play style. That's true at the level of individual decsions, due to your explicitly stated commitment to plausibility, just as once one commits to writing a sonnet, rhyming has priority over expression when it comes to individual verses. But suppose you discovered that because of the characteristics of the system, the players, and/or the imagined space you started out with, adhering to internal cause made it impossible for Premise-ful play to occur? Would you continue playing that way for a whole session? (In the analogy, that would be like settling for the sonnet about a happy turtle named Splashy.) For four sessions? Which one would "have to go" then? More to the point, you probably don't think such a conflict would be likely in the first place, given the system, players, and techniques you chose. In other words, you probably started out expecting that you could maintain consistency and still expect Address of Premise to arise over the course of play, and made decisions about play (including the commitment to internal cause) consistent with allowing that to happen. Can you see that from that viewpoint, over the entire instance of play, it's reasonable to say that Address of Premise was prioritized? That your commitment to internal cause and plausibility might be seen as a supporting priority to that?

So, when you say "prioritizing internal cause over premise constitutes the sort of barrier to Narrativism that would shut it down in any reliable or important way" I agree completely, provided you're talking about individual decisions in play. But a commitment to prioritizing internal cause as the main focus of interest or meaning in play, over an instance of play, would be Simulationism and would tend to conflict with those same big-picture Narrativist priorities.

Applying this "sonnet paradox" analogy to role playing has led me to believe that inferring Creative Agenda from individual decisions in play is problematic, not just because decisions can be congruent or because priorities can shift from moment to moment on a small scale, but also because the apparent "agenda" of an individual decision, or even of an extended series of similar decisions, can be completely misleading.

- Walt

[Ron Edwards]

What Walt said.

Atomic single-decision analysis will not help much with identifying Creative Agenda.

However, it is an interesting topic in its own right and justly takes its place in things like Ephemera and sometimes Techniques.

And furthermore, I do not think that this point forces one to take a bogus loosey-goosey, "know it when you see it," totally holistic view toward identifying Creative Agendas. It is instead a matter of knowing what scale and what type of variables to look for.

Best,
Ron

[Erling Rognli]

As I understand Narrativism, and the content of your posting, I would disagree with you on the claim that prioritzing the integrity of internal cause will not severely hamper the adressing of premise. Which was more or less what you meant, right?

In my grasp of the big model, the defining feature of narrativism lies in the absence of reference points within the SIS for making choices at crucial instances of play. Playing gamistically the reference point for choosing would be the maximally effective tactic in the relevant situation. In a simulationistic context it would be what best maintains internal cause and consistency. In narrativist play the only such point of reference is within the player. There is no answer or guidance given within the SIS, which is the very point and attraction of narrativism. While it is possible to make tactical misjudgements, and to be out of touch with the dream, contributing inadvertedly disruptive input, the premise has no right or wrong adress. You can only fail to adress it, by letting som intra-SIS factor, such as internal cause, decide the course of action which would otherwise have been adressing the premise.

(And just as a side note, I am not spelling this out in such relative detail in an attempt to lecture or anything, but in hopes of getting some feedback on my understanding of the model.)

My point of disagrement is therefore that I believe the social contract clause of "Everything must happen in the most likely manner" indeed will severely hamper narrativist play, because it represents an intra-SIS point of reference for any choice made about character actions.

-Erling

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Erling,

I think that's a pretty good way to state the idea. I didn't really think of it in those terms myself, because to me, "most likely" is one of those after-the-fact things that people project into fictional accounts and doesn't play much role in the process of constructing them.

(which is why it's so problematic in role-playing procedures and always has been - what the hell does "71%" with a sword mean, anyway?)

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

Walt,
I don't know how long I'd last in the situation where I can't address premise because of internal consistency. Can you give me an example of how that could happen?

But let's turn it around: For four sessions in order to address premise, I have to abandon causuality ... that wouldn't make me happy either.

For maximal enjoyment, both have to line up in the ways I stated it. In the glitch-event that it's one or the other, usually premise goes (speaking as a GM). There are several things you might mean by internal-cause prevents address of premise so let me explain my general case (and you can construct an example that fits the bill):

1. I don't consider character hijack disadvantages to be "internal cause" any more than I consider hit-location to be internal-cause (or damage effect). It's an artifact of mechanics but is not related directly to situation, IMO.

2. I don't consider an "internal cause" driven game to have the GM say something like: "No one ever beats the galactic empire--and because I know this, some logical event will occurr to prevent a PC plan from working because the tactical geniuses at GE-Command already thought of their plan of attack."

3. I don't consider being (more or less literally) stuck in a box (or in a jail cell) where nothing interesting is happening gamable for a variety of reasons. I wouldn't play 10 games in a jail cell with nothing doing. I'm not sure if that's related to anything but it seems to have come up in this forum once in a while.

Ron,
I don't think this viewpoint forces anything specific in regard to Creative Agendas.  I do think that it leads to a lot of misunderstanding though. For example: I see many posts that say the crucial singularity--the decision point where one CA is upheld over another is the distinguishing event that makes GNS analysis possible.

After all, if there are not single discisions then how do we analyze masses of congruent play?

I'm not saying that anything is inconsistent--just that I didn't see holding causuality on a point by point basis over "let's get this premise situation front and center" didn't seem to have a negative effect on premise over all.

Erling,
The idea that Narrativism is incompatible with with prioritizing internal cause is certainly, IMO, a logical conclusion from some of what I've seen posted. What is your analysis of my play and technique?

-Marco

[ErrathofKosh]

After all, if there are not single discisions then how do we analyze masses of congruent play?

It's like calculus, you can't...

You can tell what the slope of the line is at a point, but that slope may not coincide with the average slope of the line.  Too often, IMO, people are search for the equation that gives all points on the line.

CA's are like the average slope, not the equation.

Cheers
Jonathan

[Marco]

After all, if there are not single discisions then how do we analyze masses of congruent play?

It's like calculus, you can't...

You can tell what the slope of the line is at a point, but that slope may not coincide with the average slope of the line.  Too often, IMO, people are search for the equation that gives all points on the line.

CA's are like the average slope, not the equation.

Cheers
Jonathan

Understood--there have been many posts here that suggest that there are certain "key" decisions that allow someone to separate a distinct CA preference from a lot of congruent play.

I think this depends on whether you observe that most play is congruent or indistinguishable as to distinct CA or think that post play exhibits a strong CA tendency throughout.

I'm not sure if one view is preferred or not.

-Marco

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Speaking for myself, I just let everyone take care of himself or herself regarding that particular point. It seems to be something that one can work out over time, and then realize it doesn't really need to be a debate topic.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

Hello,

Speaking for myself, I just let everyone take care of himself or herself regarding that particular point. It seems to be something that one can work out over time, and then realize it doesn't really need to be a debate topic.

Best,
Ron

Okay--but that speaks against someone comapring it to calculus and saying "you can't." Maybe it's more like "sometimes you don't."

Since this is my thread, I'll say two things:

1. I don't like comparisons of RPG theory to calculus and physics--I think that it creates more confusion than it clears up and it reads to me* as condescending (look Marco, it's like Calculus--well, if it is, then it is. If maybe it's not then it isn't like calculus). It also advances the idea that this is a universal, physical or mathematical phenomena that can simply be proven (like with a science experiment that proves sound travels slower than light)--and I don't agree with that either. You can make an argument but very little that gets said here seems to me to be indispuatbly true (and that goes for what I say as well).

2. I don't think that how GNS analysis is done is relevant to this thread. Walt's question, IMO, did not hinge on analyzing a single decision. I never said "my play is Sim because I prioritize internal cause over premise at a given juncture."

What I said was "doing so doesn't seem to be antithetical to Nar play."

Re-reading the thread, Walt's analysis issue was picked up by Ron (who added some stuff about analysis not being loosy-goosey-holistic that seems a bit off topic)--but what that was arguing was actually in agreement with my original post.

So why do the last two posts seem to be adopting an antithetical position? Isn't this one of the things in the sticky we don't want anymore (the original poster arguing against themselves)?

-Marco
* I am not saying it was intended that way--just that every time someone has used a physics or math analogy to try to explain GNS it has come across that way to me.

[Ben Lehman]

So check this out:

I, for a long time, identified my play style in the same way that Marco has done in the past:  "Well, its Sim, because its all about just having this situation and letting people run around in it, and mostly it's just me unfolding the situation as it would happen, so Sim, right?"  Well, wrong.  We had this whole discussion of front-loaded Narrativism and Actor stance and so on.  In the end, I sort of went "Oh, that's Nar?  I've been doing that all along."  And so I was.

But the point here is that even while doing that, and even though I would now say that I prioritize meaningful decision over internal cause, it isn't like internal cause doesn't figure into it, right?  Because it totally does.

It's not like I have this scene where I might need to stress the internal cause to push a meaningful decision, and I say "Well, I'm a Narrativist, so I have to push the meaningful decision no matter what."  I'm doing this thing where if I need to break the internal causality *a lot* then I won't do it, especially if it is not-that-cool of a meaningful decision.  I mean, actually, I'm just winging it on the fly, but that seems to be what's going on when I look back at it.

I think everyone does this.  I certainly see Marco doing it when he says that, like, sitting in a box is not cool enough so let's do something else.  A little bit of a push to make the situation a good bit more meaningful.

Everyone has different priorities, but that doesn't mean that they only care about one thing.

yrs--
--Ben

[ErrathofKosh]

1. I don't like comparisons of RPG theory to calculus and physics--I think that it creates more confusion than it clears up and it reads to me* as condescending (look Marco, it's like Calculus--well, if it is, then it is. If maybe it's not then it isn't like calculus). It also advances the idea that this is a universal, physical or mathematical phenomena that can simply be proven (like with a science experiment that proves sound travels slower than light)--and I don't agree with that either. You can make an argument but very little that gets said here seems to me to be indispuatbly true (and that goes for what I say as well).

Sorry, I didn't intend it to be that way...  It was the analogy that popped into my head.  I like using analogy and sometimes that gets me in trouble, because it can obscure the true intention of my explanation.  

2. I don't think that how GNS analysis is done is relevant to this thread. Walt's question, IMO, did not hinge on analyzing a single decision. I never said "my play is Sim because I prioritize internal cause over premise at a given juncture."

What I said was "doing so doesn't seem to be antithetical to Nar play."

You did ask:

After all, if there are not single discisions then how do we analyze masses of congruent play?

What I was trying to say was, "no, I don't think the single decisions are important to analyzing masses of play, I think looking at the masses of play afterwards, in totality, is the way we should analyze them."  Of course, this is my opinion and I apologize for coming across too strongly in my earlier post.  However, I think this point of view backs up your statement that "doing so doesn't seem to be antithetical to Nar play."

IMO, internal causality isn't antithetical to Nar play as long as that causality doesn't dictate your response to a premise. It's only when the game's initial premise dictates that your character respond a certain way to an in-game premise that you run into trouble.  If a mass of play is true to the game's initial premise, it may contain points where in-game premise was addressed, but overall the Sim CA was prioritized.  OTOH, if a mass of play explores in-game premises, it may stay true to the game's initial premise, but it was Nar.  IMO, the first happens more frequently than the second, because often the initial premise is vague enough to allow for freedom in addressing certain premises.  The second doesn't happen as often because the players feel no constraint to "stay on topic."

Cheers
Jonathan

[Erling Rognli]

Erling,
The idea that Narrativism is incompatible with with prioritizing internal cause is certainly, IMO, a logical conclusion from some of what I've seen posted. What is your analysis of my play and technique?

After actually reading about the game we're discussing, and the subsequent discussion, I can at least attempt to make an analysis. Although I might be wrong, and I am making this judgement on only one reading of your description of the game, I will offer the tentative judgement of "not narrativism".

In this game, I am guessing that the emotional impact was created by seeing the story unfold, in all its wierdness and beauty. Unfold is a key phrase here. Not that it was predetermined; I have no such impression, but it still unfolded according to some inner logic of the setting/situation/character dynamic. These three seem to me to be exeptionally tightly interwoven in this game, to the point where it is becoming hard to tell them apart. Of course, the players were the ones making the actual choices all the time, the relevant question is on what basis they made them. Another interesting point is the use of mystery-investigation; it might be called exploration of the high level links between character and setting through situation. The players are not aware of the magnitude and scope of their characters connection to the setting at the outset of the game, but through reacting to the situation this is gradually revealed. I think that player feelings of ownership over the character coupled with a gradual revelation of character importance in the setting creates an increased level of emotional impact, a sort of "Wow, My Guy is important"-effect. However, emotional impact is not the essence of narrativism. If the revelation of importance leads to the characters facing dilemmas not readily answerable within the frame of who their character is, and the players are picking up on this, we are zooming over to narrativism, but I couldn't really see that happening in this game.

So, I see this as Sim of the variant I have outlined above, as long as I am right in my assumption that the point of reference for decisionmaking didn't shift out of the SIS. I think the reportedly high level of emotional impact, or intensity, might be due to the above mentioned Wow-effect, at least in part. I guess I might be defining Narrativism too narrowly here, but that is how I see it today.

-Erling

[Walt Freitag]

I can confirm that most of what I wrote was, and was intended to be, in agreement with Marco's original observations, especially, that attention paid to internal cause does not preclude or interfere with Narrativism. My only dispute was with his characterization of the play he referred to as "prioritizing internal cause over premise" (emphasis added).

Really prioritizing internal cause over premise, over an instance of play (as Big Model theory demands play be analyzed and understood), would be Simulationism and would preclude or interfere with Narrativism. My point is that acting based on internal cause while paying little attention to premise, in any number of individual decisions, does not necessarily add up to prioritizing internal cause over premise at the level of an instance of play.

I don't know how long I'd last in the situation where I can't address premise because of internal consistency. Can you give me an example of how that could happen?

With the wrong system (in the Lumpley Principle sense) it could. The key antagonist driving the moral conflict could contract a fatal disease as a result of a mandatory weekly health check roll and die, trivially resolving the conflict, for instance. Or the player-characters could, as a result of a chain of plausible consequences for their actions, all end up in those jail cells you mentioned, and the players expect to then start playing out prison life, for all that you regard it as unplayable.

Likely to happen in your game? No, not at all, which is the whole point. Your System, judging from all those priorities and commitments that you listed in the parent thread, is intended and expected to prevent those very cases; that is, to prevent internal cause from being able to thwart addressing of premise. By, for example, not making disease-check rolls for major villains (or anyone else, most likely). Assuming that you follow internal causality should players play their characters so as to end up imprisoned, your system allows you to prevent that eventuality from ruling out the address of premise, by scene-framing them past the prison term or by including the seeds of new moral conflicts in the prison setting. Attention to cause and effect within the spotlight of resolution of on-camera character actions still leaves a lot of room for promoting the Narrativist creative agenda in other areas of play, including scene framing and front-loading of dramatic conflicts into newly-revealed settings, situations, and characters.

- Walt

[Marco]

Hi guys, a few things (I'm about to get clobbered by Hurricane Frances so I may not be available for a while).

Ben,
Understood. I think. I have seen things similarly to the way you did and do.

Jonathan,
I'm sorry if I jumped on you--there's a long history of analogies behind yours that you didn't do--and it was the cumulative effect that led to my response. That, and the fact, that I have seen a counter theory advanced and be accepted.

I agree that if Internal Causuality dictates your response to premise that could be antithetical to Nar play. IMO that's not the case--yes, for some character hijack disads a case could be made for it. Yes, a player who says "Well, this is what my character would do" could be said to be employing that form of play.

But mostly, IME, Virtuality/Internal-Cause is the purvew of the GM and my use of it as a player is simply Actor Stance.

I believe that fits both defintions resonably well and, IMO, doesn't interfere with Narrativism.

Erling,
I thought the character's answer to premise was most specifically hilighted in Corey's showdown with the Church of the Few and her decision not to throw in with them. I thought that Stephanie's was less clear--but there was a point where she decided she was going to pursue rationality over mysticism (that included making a pretty rational argument to the Indians and trying a failed rational argument with the Mayor).

In both cases these climaxes were relevant to the player's relationship with NPC's.

But at any rate, even leaving that bit out, I do agree that the action "unfolded." You say that's a key term--but I don't fully grasp what the alternative is.

I'm supposing that it would mean that the players "guided" the outcome. If that's true then consider this: to guide the development of a story as a player in a traditional game you must not be facing much hidden knowledge (i.e. you must understand the majority of the situation). Is it your continention that hidden knowledge is antithetical to Nar (would you conclude that?).

Walt,
I need a longer time to answer ...

Take care,
-Marco