Narrativism as design process (split)

[Mike Holmes]

So you'd like to work out some shared terminology.

No, I want to use the terms to mean what they've been defined to mean here. Sorry, but any use of the terms that reinterperets them without argument about whether or not it's a good idea to do so is a bad idea to me.

Sign up all these guys without actually getting their consent (as they'll never protest) and there's something in it for you...otherwise you'll loose your job.

How do you describe that position, in real life terms?

A moral dilemma. Had this been an in-game situation, it would have been supportive of narrativism. But it wasn't an in-game situation, so I'm quite sure that your friend didn't get the narrativism thrill of working through the situation. It's precisely because the player is detached from the character and authoring him that he can enjoy his character being in sticky spots. Roleplaying games and real life are very dissimilar.

Further, how about this in game example: Your playing a god, and you determine stuff like when earthquakes happen and various natural disasters. You control them to an extent, but they are going to happen. Your a good god and your flock are basically a bunch of good people...but you have to inflict these disasters on them. But you can choose which groups of your flock get it. The question is, who? Basically none of them clearly and easily deserve it.

Clearly a narrativism supporting dilemma. As is the office situation. In both of these situations, the character has the choices to make. With your system the characters are not making the decisions, the player is. And that makes all the difference. That's not to say that one even has to act through a character to be practicing narrativism, the GM can do it, too, in terms of setting up situations, etc. But it all has to be about altering the SIS in some way. Because if you expand the terms to designing or altering the system, even as a normal part of play, they lose their predictive abilities.

And I'm not even going to say that the mechanisms that you have can't be used to drive one of the three modes of play by an individual player. A particular player could create rules that were meant to support narrativism, or even, in fact, to support particular premises. If, for instance, somebody put in a rule that said that you were going to use the Sorcerer humanity rules, then you're creating a narrativism premise by doing that.

But, when it gets down to it, if the mechanism in question does not in any way relate back to the in-game situation mechanically, the use of the mechanism cannot be informed by the game. It's as likely to be used to promote gamism or simulationism. And, again, the decision to go one way or another is at best that mode, no matter how much of a personal dilemma it is for the player. Again, doing things that look like one mode, but that end up with another mode is the latter mode. A player may agonize over a gamist decision, because it forms some real world dilemma for him, "If I make the wrong decision, then I've wasted my time playing because I'll lose the game, so maybe I should just quit playing." The play produced is still gamism.

What word would you prefer to use (assuming I described them in enough detail to decide)?

What words do the vast, vasy majority of people who've never heard the term narrativism use? Moral or ethical dilemmas. Ethical questions. Philosophical debate. Quandry.

So, if you wanted a way to describe what you currently have, I'd simply say that it lets players redesign the game to whatever goals they have for it, with the caveat that other players will have some input, too.

I don't see how that's at all problematic.

Mike

[Callan S.]

So you'd like to work out some shared terminology.

No, I want to use the terms to mean what they've been defined to mean here. Sorry, but any use of the terms that reinterperets them without argument about whether or not it's a good idea to do so is a bad idea to me.

Okay

Sign up all these guys without actually getting their consent (as they'll never protest) and there's something in it for you...otherwise you'll loose your job.

How do you describe that position, in real life terms?

A moral dilemma. Had this been an in-game situation, it would have been supportive of narrativism. But it wasn't an in-game situation, so I'm quite sure that your friend didn't get the narrativism thrill of working through the situation.

I'll be he didn't. But although he found it unpleasant, he recounted the experience to us. There must be something rewarding about telling us that.

So what about this situation: The same person who is presenting you with some RL problem (not as large as the above though) is also enabled in a way that makes it rewarding to tell that same person about the problem and how you prefer to answer it. Just like the above where it was rewarding to describe that to friends after the event. Enabled by some mutually agreed mechanic.

It's precisely because the player is detached from the character and authoring him that he can enjoy his character being in sticky spots. Roleplaying games and real life are very dissimilar.

Detachment is one method, just like imagining your in a car with the breaks cut, if you like the idea of danger but would hate it if you were actually there. Safety precautions like a rollercoaster has are another method equally as valid as detachment.

People enjoy danger in real life, they just want safety first (making it more the sense of danger).

So something like lowering the danger/the stake you can loose, down to something like having a position which is the center of attention/being the GM. Then supporting the communication of why they gave up that role, so it doesn't become a conflict but an enjoyable to explain it, like my friend explained his dilemma to us.

The 'Why would anyone want to GM?' seems to provide evidence that there are some emotional stakes there...it's not like you'd be giving away nothing.


Now, to add an extra layer of confusion here: I'm not trying to pimp this as a fun game. I'm trying to suggest this game is already being played by hundreds of thousands of roleplayers...the trade off between player and GM role and over what events you'd give up either for the other. At it's dysfunction end, it's the sort of bitch fest that Rons warns people not to go into in the actual play forums. The 'Oh, they are just so crap...they don't understand my message!' 'Oh yes I know...were so brave to try and get our special message out as GM's, despite all the problems these players give us. Oh, I just want to play but no one else can ever do the game justice! Oh, such a terrible position to be in!'.

Gawd. I'm sure you've seen them. That's the crap end. Now if they were explaining it to their group why they give up their player position, or whatever, with rules to it so it doesn't become in your face/springer sort of stuff, it'd be a challenging but interesting element of play.

Perhaps I ought to just collect some of these actual play accounts with their drama elements from various sources, chuck its link and relevant paragraph in notepad and start a split off thread from this one, some time in the future when I'm done. Because I can see this drama going on all over the place (the dysfunctional ones show up the most), but I think I'll need to provide some evidence.

[Mike Holmes]

I'm not saying that people don't get social reinforcement from telling each others stories, or even that they can't enjoy being in a moral dilemma, just that these things, themselves, are not the creative act of roleplaying. Roleplaying is roleplaying, not all these other things. The thrill you get from roleplaying has an agenda. This is important because others may not share your agenda, or a particular system may militate for or against it. Outside of these considerations discussion of such agendas without this context is meaningless. The conclusions of the theory simply do not apply.

To use another analogy, it's like saying that the loan you gave Bob is a Home Mortgage. While it might have some superficial similarities, the fact that there's no contract, no home collateral, none of the legalities surrounding mortgages, etc, makes calling the loan a mortgage pointless. If you start doing this, then eventually the term mortgage becomes uselessly indistict from loan. The situations are not synonymous, so we should use different terms to discuss them when they're available.

And they are available in this case. Consider what happens if we say that the sort of mechanic that you're discussing supports narrativism. Can a player also use it to support Gamism solely, outside of the supposedly narrativism decision to support Gamism? Well, then we have narrativism supporting gamism. Which defies the definition of narrativism as mutually exclusive from gamism.

Part of the problem here, I think, is that you think that all of the talk about TROS being both Gamism and Narrativisim means that it actually has both agendas (and that, therefore any game can have two agendas). That would be a misunderstanding of the definitions, too. When I or others talk about it being partitioned off or something in terms of what it does, we're debating where the different sources of support come from and what the overall agenda might be that is supported. That is, as a game, nobody plays Gamism and Narrativism in TROS. As Ron points out in his essay, he thinks that it overall supports narrativism. If, in fact, there are strong gamism elements in the combat, and that some people will play to that, while others play to the narrativism outside of combat, then what you have is incoherence instead.

Again, you can say that your system is "switching" to narrativism and then back to gamism, but there's no "switching" inside of an overall agenda. In the end, if the underlying game is Gamism, then you'll find with your system that the agenda supported is gamism, and, most importanly that for players playing that way, any attempt to play another way will be problematic. That is, if somehow somebody does actually use the rules change system for narrativism, you'll have incoherence and a bad game.

To the extent that you don't think this would happen, then you agree that the overall supported agenda is gamism in the case of your system sitting over another that supports gamism. Again, "narrativism in support of gamism" is just gamism.

Mike

[contracycle]

If I may crash this private party briefly, I'd like to mention here that IMO a lot of play in the world at present probably does switch back and forth in terms of CA.  IMO all players engage with all 3 modes from time to time, and further, probably have a main subordinate mode.  Theirs no methodological basis to this claim but that is how it feels to me, and I think to many of the players I have seen.  And this can produce a form of play that makes most people happy most of the time IMO, but also leads to inevitable clashes some of the time.

Moving on to systems, and TROS specifically, a thought here might be that TROS enables *A* transition from one mode to another, a locally succesful transition from Gam to Nar.  The SA's serve to integrate the act of combat with the addressing of premise.  Describing TROS as Nar is perhaps not quite as illuminating as describing it as Sword and Sorcery Nar; that is, this feature enables it to produce *sword and sorcery stories* in the mode of fictional S&S.  The general coexistance of N and G in TROS should not distract attention from their specific relationship.  I don't think TROS could be used very succesfully for other types of stories (occurringly necessarily in  Nar, of course).

I think this offers a point of entry into the discussion about whether or not *setting effects* are Nar, for that is how I see the conversation in regards nominally or actually ethical decisions in the course of play.  I would actually like Ron to weigh in on this as we had a bit of a row about it once before, issues over politics and why Nar is generally conceptualised in regards sex and death.  So what I would propose now is this, that the distinction lies in the immediacy of the relationship, and the physicality of it.  Yes you can have ethical dilemmas about political problems, or those of criminal dishonesty or whatever, but if they are happening to strangers, or to strangers in abstraction, then they produce rather distinct effects, I think.  Lawyers arguing for a client, even passionately, are not wrestling with the same kind of problem as trying to decide if you should tell your sister that her husband, your best friend, is cheating on her.

Returning to TROS, I think this perception disposes of the notional ethical dilemma of expending lifespan with TROS magic.  This feature is clearly designed as a limitation, and although nominally a serious decision, unless you are heavily into an Ars Magica style of game the lifespan of your mage is unlikely to concern you much, IMO.  And TROS is not built in that manner, so I don't think it can be said to be supportive of that as a serious concern, unlike the 'might of right' expressed in the combat mechanism.  A game could be built around that central feature, perhaps as a serious Nar issue, but TROS is not that game.

A further issue which I think may distort some of the discussion is that it is still the case that we expect to play out a whole situation, or several situations, with one game.  I'm not sure thats such a good idea any more, and that the search for hybrid or multi-modal facilitative games is a red herring.  Perhaps instead there should be a search for methods of building a game that meets current situational need (both in game and out), and transitioning between games (rather than modes).

[Mike Holmes]

And round and round we go.

If I may crash this private party briefly, I'd like to mention here that IMO a lot of play in the world at present probably does switch back and forth in terms of CA.  IMO all players engage with all 3 modes from time to time, and further, probably have a main subordinate mode.  Theirs no methodological basis to this claim but that is how it feels to me, and I think to many of the players I have seen.  And this can produce a form of play that makes most people happy most of the time IMO, but also leads to inevitable clashes some of the time.

You're getting into "little N" and such again. Nobody is saying that all decisions in an agenda would point to just one CA. Remember its' a Instant of Play, meaning probably a session or more taken as a whole from which you discern an overall agenda. Those little tell decisions inside do not make up CA.

So this is just yet the umpteen-zillionth attempt to make GNS about smaller units than it's actually about. At the very least, if we're going to use terms to talk about specific decisions like this, let's use some of the various models that have been generated to discuss this sort of thing (though I'd agree that using "Little S" and such is just irritating).

Mike

[contracycle]

So this is just yet the umpteen-zillionth attempt to make GNS about smaller units than it's actually about. At the very least, if we're going to use terms to talk about specific decisions like this, let's use some of the various models that have been generated to discuss this sort of thing (though I'd agree that using "Little S" and such is just irritating).

Yes, round and round we do go.  Thats my position, deal with it.  Has been since the beginning, is going to remain so for the forseeable future.  And further more I think its more useful; the big categories are too big, they merely establish that "this thing exists".  If you ARE going to use them constructively you have to address the local incidence, not keep looking back at the abstract.  Also, do not confuse the diagnostic criteria we employ with the phenomenon we are diagnosing; there are reasons for "instance of play" being vague, that does not imply it is never specifically present for an observable duration.

Frankly I am surprised and thought that remark unworthy of you.

[Callan S.]

I'm not saying that people don't get social reinforcement from telling each others stories, or even that they can't enjoy being in a moral dilemma, just that these things, themselves, are not the creative act of roleplaying. Roleplaying is roleplaying, not all these other things. The thrill you get from roleplaying has an agenda. This is important because others may not share your agenda, or a particular system may militate for or against it. Outside of these considerations discussion of such agendas without this context is meaningless. The conclusions of the theory simply do not apply.

Emphasis mine.
Okay, I thought narrativism would be the right term to use. I'll take your point now...it was somewhat like forcing an oval shape through a round hole. So I'll ditch the nar term...it felt pretty damn close to me, but I'll ditch it.

Okay, now, that stuff in bold. Can we arrange some rules for that, so it's more organised? In as such that it'll end up fun more often than it would if there were no rules.

If you agree we can, it doesn't matter what we called these rules. What they assist with is what I'm trying to get at.

And they are available in this case. Consider what happens if we say that the sort of mechanic that you're discussing supports narrativism. Can a player also use it to support Gamism solely, outside of the supposedly narrativism decision to support Gamism? Well, then we have narrativism supporting gamism. Which defies the definition of narrativism as mutually exclusive from gamism.

This paragraph is mostly about using the word narrativism. Although I've ditched it now, there's still something I want to answer here. One way of looking at it is in the choosing of how you play...why are you choosing gamism, or sim, or nar? In the face of resistance from fellow players (who may bail over your choice), why do you choose this CA?

I just seem to have a perception that groups I've know and groups I've read about, have conflicts about choosing this. I'm thinking the individuals involced enjoy this, from many phrases I've noted where they are adamant about a particular play style in a sort of 'I'll persevere no matter what, with this CA'.

I thought it might be possible to make it an enjoyable conflict rather than an unpleasant one, by enabling everyone involved to more clearly see what things are important to each other...what aspects of play they'd give up playing/GM'ing for, rather than let those aspects leave play. Instead of it being a 'WTF!? Why are you having X in this?' it would let the gamers understand the descisions more, as in 'Well, I don't like X, but I admire how much you've shown this is important to you (by risking your GM/player role over it)'. This can lead to a better understanding of each other, since the other person is risking something rather than throwing their weight around trying to get something into the game (how it can appear to be sometimes). Basically it's just a numerical resources which, once spent, means you give up your current role. But since people can see the numbers, they have a better appreciation...and since the role switch between GM and player is enforced by rules rather than being an awkward social hand over, it should be more clear without such distractions.


On the rest of your post, it's basically a summery of how the term nar doesn't apply, so I'll skip that as I've ditched it.

Basically what I'm suggesting is people like making up rules (as noted in the post I split from) because it leads to the potential for problematic conflict with others at the table. They enjoy it because their willingness to enter conflict about X, says something about them as a player. It doesn't actually need to lead to open conflict (just the possiblity)...indeed, getting past such a moment without unpleasantness is even more satisfying.

I just made up a set of rules to help manage that (so it doesn't escalate to  unfun levels), to try and emphasize it as my answer to the other thread. I was being unfair to forge terminology in dragging in the term 'narrativism'. It just felt very right at the time. In some respects, it still seems very right...but I'm not arguing for it's use, just noting my position.

[Mike Holmes]

Okay, now, that stuff in bold. Can we arrange some rules for that, so it's more organised? In as such that it'll end up fun more often than it would if there were no rules.

Sure, what you have will do fine, I think. I'm not adverse to your rules in any way. All I've said here is that it doesn't support narrativism, which seemed at least to be the contention or goal originally.

If you agree we can, it doesn't matter what we called these rules. What they assist with is what I'm trying to get at.

I just seem to have a perception that groups I've know and groups I've read about, have conflicts about choosing this. I'm thinking the individuals involced enjoy this, from many phrases I've noted where they are adamant about a particular play style in a sort of 'I'll persevere no matter what, with this CA'.

I think this happens in every single group to some extent. First there's the decision of what game to play. That alone takes some serious decision-making on the part of somebody. Everybody, really, if you include the simple decision of whether to agree to play the decided upon game or no. And, yeah, for many people it is an enjoyable process.

I'll go out on a limb here and say that it's more a more enjoyable process for males than it is for females, but even women can enjoy it too.

I thought it might be possible to make it an enjoyable conflict rather than an unpleasant one, by enabling everyone involved to more clearly see what things are important to each other...what aspects of play they'd give up playing/GM'ing for, rather than let those aspects leave play.

Which makes sense. I have no problem fomalizing things like this. This is precisely what tenets are in Universalis. "I want X in the game." Challenges say, "Why X, why not Y?" And for all of it, you spend the currency of the game that allows you to participate and have control.

I agree with you that formalizing to something like numbers can actually facilitate this sort of process. Others, I've found, disagree with this idea, however, stating that the basic social skills that people have should suffice instead. I agree that they can, but personally I like the crutch of formalization - I'm just that way.


Gareth, I'm just tired of that particular argument, forgive me if my tone was offputting. It's an unwinnable one on either side. Yes, the definition of narrativism is somewhat tautological, but as soon as we try to redefine it the way that this argument redefines it, we lose the original value of GNS. Which is not to say that the discussion there is not valuable; I myself have attempted several times to put forward models that dealt with play at that level of enumeration. I simply think it's easy enough to come up with new terms for such models rather than destroying the old model by co-opting it's terms.

So, for instance if you want to talk about Callan's method allowing players to create something like theme at the moment of decision, I can get behind that language.

Mike