Abstract Premises

[jburneko]

First off I'm using Premise in the narrow Narrativist Sense.  I was thinking about Science Fiction and how it often has rather abstract Premises.  One of the things that gets battered around about Narrativist Premises is that they must, in some way, be 'real' and that means relevant to the human condition.  My question is, does that include abstract philosophical questions that the CHARACTERS don't really have a choice about but rather the narrative as a whole answers?

Consider the movies Total Recall and Dark City.  They have the same Premise which is: Do memories define who we are?  But their Themes are different.  Total Recall says that yes, they do and Dark City says, no they don't.  But in both cases that decision is more part of the cosmology of the world, not the characters.  What I'm getting at is that the central moral delima isn't one the characters are free to decide about.  

In Total Recall Arnold is a pretty nice guy who discovers he was once an asshole.  But at the moment he doesn't feel like an asshole and so it's more of a survival instinct in that he doesn't want to BE an asshole that drives him to fight.  In Dark City the central character wakes up with no memories.  At one point he is told that he was once in love with this woman and low and behold that even without memories of her, he discovers he still loves her and thus he is driven by something HIGHER than memories alone.

Now, in my understanding the Premise is something the PLAYERS are expected to address and not necessarily the Characters, thus the concept of Author Stance.  So on one hand this seems like it's a very valid Narrativist Premise because the Premise is presented to the players and then they go to town authoring a theme through their characters which ultimately they don't really have any say in the matter, the characters that is.

But on the other hand this Premise doesn't really feel very relevant to the immediate human condiition.  I'm not likely to have my personality overwritten any time soon.  I suppose it's still a semi-valid considition since memory problems DO exist in the real world but it still feels very abstract and that's what I'm getting at here is that A LOT of science fiction works on this abstract level.

Asimov's Foundation Trillogy asks, 'Is there a predictable mass psychology?  And if there is, what can the individual do about it?'

Any story that involves clones of some kind usually asks some variation of, "If it looks, talks and acts like you, what makes you, you?"

Even something like Castle Falkenstein has a Premise that is also fairly abstract: 'Were the technological improvements of the 20th Century really worth our 19th Century Romantic Ideals?'

And so on.

It think that this has gotten a bit rambly but my point is, are these rather abstract Premises really Premises in the Narrativist sense or is there some more concrete more immediately relevant Premise at work in the above examples?

Jesse

[J B Bell]

. . . my point is, are these rather abstract Premises really Premises in the Narrativist sense or is there some more concrete more immediately relevant Premise at work in the above examples?

Ron's def. of Premise is modified from Lajos Egri's as defined in The Art of Dramatic Writing, I think.  In the "Egrian" sense the Premises you have identified, the big-scale, abstract ones, are, um, well, hm.  I, myself, am strongly influenced by The Tools of Screenwriting by David Howard and Edward Mabley.  This latter tome denies there is any such thing as Premise--you can't prove something with a movie, they say.  This is a pretty good argument, really, but Ron avoids it somewhat by casting the Premise as always being a question.  Stick with me, I really am going somewhere with this.  The other thing I see phrased as a question, in the second book, is called simply the Main Conflict.  This centers on the success or failure of the protagonist.

OK, so:  I think the Edwardsian (hee hee) Premise is in some ways a compromise between the Egrian Premise and Howard/Mableyan Main Conflict.  Now, to untwist our brains, some examples:  Egri says you prove with a play:  "Love conquers all, even death"; Howard and Mabley disagree, leaving only room to raise the issue with the audience, who decide for themselves; and Ron says you ask, "Does Love triumph over all, even death?", and the players provide an answer by their play.  But the GM needs to work out the Main Conflict too, IMO, thus we get:  "Can Hamlet overcome age-old bigotries to win the love he desires?", answered by "no, but he is joined with his love in death."

Hrum, so what I'm trying to say is, I think that if you find a Premise too vague and philosophical, bring it down to a question of human aspirations.  Sorcerer could have asked (and, truly, does ask) "what does it mean to be human?"  But to provide conflict for the players, it instead asks, "can you stay human when you can grab all the power you want?"  This is what I mean by Ron's compromise, though I rather wager he might not think of it this way.

If there were a possible mechanic to let gamers experience something like Dark City, you could make a (Ron-style) Premise of, say, "Can you hold on to your humanity when your memory means nothing?"

Whew.  Do let me know if that makes a smidge of sense.

--TQuid

[Ron Edwards]

Folks,

What you're missing is the role of Situation. The Premises in question have all been well-stated, but you don't hop from there direct into "story-making," you re-cast the Premise using the imaginative components at hand.

Character and Setting can provide a lot of those components, but ultimately it is Situation which provides exactly what Jesse is looking for.

I presume TQuid meant Romeo, not Hamlet ... hence:

Premise: "Does Love triumph over all, even death?"
Characters: lovers
Setting: in this case, who cares - oh, say, Renaissance Italy (big whoop)
Situation: lovers are from feuding families

Situation is, basically, like pulling the trigger, or putting the money where the mouth is, or any other metaphor you want that means, "Put to the test." They're gonna fuckin' die, OK? Or at least, we know that awful conflict and bad things are going to result from the love affair, and that some painful decisions will be made.

But you see, without Situation, all we have is a few people sitting around drinking latte and talking about, you know, stuff. With Situation (characters and setting being obligatory in order to have Situation), then the people - authors or audience - are imaginatively engaged.

Best,
Ron

[Christopher Kubasik]

Two things, only from my POV:

One:
When I think of "proving" a premise I don't think it the same way Egri does.  (I haven't look at the book for a few years and will be tracking it down today to refresh myself on the terms.)

Because I too have trouble assuming I can "prove" something that humans have debated, since, oh a long time.

However, and this is a big however, my *screenplay* or my session of the The Questing Beast can prove that it is about the premise time after time, scene after scene, and can certainly come to a conclusion for *itself* by the end.  Whether or not the audience buys the conclusion, if the movie or session proved that it really was about that premise, the audience will have plenty of food for thought and, going out after the movie, people will debate the matter.

For example: I'm writing a SF adventure screenplay right now.  The Premise is: Are we born to serve ourselves or others? (I know what the answer is: it's so we can serve each other.)

I'd say that's fairly abstract.

But, like Ron said, you need a situation to spin off the Premise so you can prove that your story is about the Premise time and time again.  (And, for the record, I had the situation first, and worked to find the premise contained within.)

My situation is a mutiny of genetically engineered slaves against their masters.  There's a scene in the first act, when my protagonist is going to flee during a battle with his pregnant wife, and his father gets wind of the plan and confronts him.

"What about us?" the father asks (really asking about himself). "We're about to go into battle and you're going to abandon us."

The son says, "I do what I want."

Am I proving the premise?  Yes.  Because me scene proves that I'm writing about the premise. Did I prove it to you.  No.  You can't definitively prove any of these themes outside of the story, but you can prove that your story is about the premise.  That's what provides a thematic spine through the whole movie/sesssion.

And this is really, really helpful in, let's say, TQB, because it gives everyone a little hum at the back of the brain to keep everyone focused and on the same track.  Along with the motifs (the motifs! I'm gonna weep)... Along with the motifs, this keeps the session coherant -- and thus rich and satisfying.

Two:
I'd look at the movies again.  I am an obsessive movie nut.  Fair warning.  I'm not saying anyone who doesn't look at movies the way I do is wrong.  I'm just saying, when I'm in a movie theater, I might as well be destroying somebody on the raquetball court, because that's how hard I play.

Total Recall is not about whether our memories define who we are.  To really nail down the premise of the movie, you have to look at all the situations.  (This is working backward from what Ron said, but that's the game you play as an audience member.  And I find it results in unexpected rewards.)

The situation of Total Recall is not a guy trying to recover his memory.  It's the story of a guy who's life is tanking who goes to a neural-injected fantasy land to get away for a while.  Remember, that's the Act One kicker, when he gets the injection for a fantasy and something goes wrong.

And then remember that the movie ends with blue skies appearing over mars after generations of dry death.  But what' s the name of the story implanted into Arnie's brain? Blue Skies Over Mars.

If you look at the movie again with these two things in mind, I think you'll see that it plays like a narrative Escher drawing, where all the events could be actually happening, or all the events, as some of the characters claim, *really are happening in Arnold's brain.*

I bring this up not to show how to read too much into a movie, but to show how all the pieces in a movie are there, and if you're going to break down a premise, you've got to vacuum them *all* up.  (Looking at movies this way will also help play The Pool, because you'll start thinking in terms of spewing out story elements to prove the conceits.)

So the Premise of Total Recall might be something like, "Is living a fantasy life worth giving up your real life."

Premise proof moment: the shrink who shows up and tells arnold he's really going crazy and can still save himself.  Arnold shoots him.  Clearly, he's made a choice for himself in this manner.

Again, looking at all the clues help, because we'll drive ourselves nuts if we pick a Premise that looks like it's the right one, but isn't, because all the movie elements don't line up and we're wondering why it doesn't fit right.

Dark City, which I loved but haven't seen since opening weekend and so I shouldn't even be talking about it, is much more about Power than memory if I recall ? about exercising the power we all have.  But I'd actually have to see the movie again, pay attention to the scenes, situations and relationship between the characters to really get something lined up, using as many of the elements as I could to form as *inclusive* Premise as possible.

[Seth L. Blumberg]

So the Premise of Total Recall might be something like, "Is living a fantasy life worth giving up your real life."

Premise proof moment: the shrink who shows up and tells arnold he's really going crazy and can still save himself. Arnold shoots him. Clearly, he's made a choice for himself in this manner.

And (tangential to the main discussion, I know, but I feel compelled to point this out) from that moment on, the film is much less interesting than it had previously been. Why? Because the question has been definitively resolved.  After that, it's all over bar the stuntwork.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Metal Fatigue,

I agree with you about the end of the movie.  But not because the moment ends the premise, but simply because the premise is dropped as a concern for the rest of the film.

I haven't thought through the Premise of Star Wars in the Egri sense (via Ron and Jesse via my own way of working that's proving productive right now), and I'd have to see the movie again to make a stab at it, but my guess it has something to do with the nature of being a hero.  Luke begins by being restless and impatient, and the big moment is not when he destroys the Death Star, but when he calms down enough to simply do the job that needs to be done.  (Moments like, "Don't get cocky, kid," are probably proofs of premise.)

The fact that he begins to calm down and use the force correctly in the training scene on the Falcon doesn't impede the fact that he tries to first dismiss, then finally trust, Obi Wan's instructions in the X-wing -- creating a scene that is still strange, dramatic, and an extension of the question brought up the moment Luke complains he isn't "going anywhere."

So if in Total Recall Arnold was given the choice again and again of leaving the fantasy life and accepting the responsibility of real life, we'd have a premise that was in their air the whole time. If he met the shrink's "children," and was confronted with the truth that simply shooting peole in the head probably isn't a viable solution to tense problems in real life (but it is in a violent fantasy movie (calling John Tynes!)) I'd say the ball would have still been in the air.

So, for me the premise was definitively over not because of that moment, but because no other moments came after it.  (I think.  I haven't seen it in a while, but I've thought several times about my disapointment with the cool ideas that are raised and then lost in the movie.)

I offer all this matters to a story game because it might seem as if the premise has been answered during a scene of play, but since I believe there's always one more choice, I'd offer the players can keep going and *will* find ever new and deeper examinations of the premise as they go on.

This is important so players don't freak and say, "Oh, jeez, I better not go with this idea. I'll shut down the premise."  No.  Do the scene, and then go *deeper* into the premise with future scenes.  

What do you think?

Christopher

[contracycle]

I might suggest that the book on which Total Recall was based was called "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale".  I suspect we may have become derailed by considering the Hollywoodised film rather than the original work - especially as it applies to the thread question about abstract premises.  I have not read this book, but I am familiar with Philip K. Dick's other work.  To return to the question originally posed, I think it is definately true the SF makes use of premises that poses questions about what constitutes humanity, mind, consciousness.  I believe this all arises from the basic ambiguity of science in regards life and mind; working on strictly materialist assumptions life and mind are material phenemoenon and thus technically manipulable; which places us in a curiously existentialist position of being able to consider how or whether we would apply such technical methods to our own life and mind.

Furthermore, SF often challenges our perception of our place in the universe.  I think a big chunk of Alien is to recall the atavistic terror of being a chimp hiding from a leopard, or something to that effect - an experience which lies in our material past and remains present in our mammal brain.  It provides a situation in which our technical environment (no better symbolised than through a steel bubble floating in the void) becomes our tomb, to which our predator is perfectly adapted and in which we find ourselves reverting to soft-fingered monkey v. the universe.  The very conception of this human identity is even further challenged when it is revealed that human simulacra have been present all along, and suggesting that the distinction between the animal and the mechanical is itself purely a matter of perspective and perception; the very ship itself might be considered to be alive in some respects.  Giger, of course, deliberately exploits the disturbing synthesis of the biological and the mechanical; the alien exhibits a number of features associated with technology like its hard shell and acid blood - its an industrial strength people eater, and ITS INSIDE THE CAVE!

One of Dicks other stories is a pretty relentlessly grim tale of psychological decay through drug use, an essentially mechanical destruction of the synapses through chemicals.  Its not a great read, IMO.

Anyway, I think the initial proposition was substantially correct; the probable problem with the movie is that it has been pared down to an action adventure.  I don't think SF of this nature - where the SF is the point rather than just the backdrop - works very well on Hollywood terms becuase its hard to explain the science.  All we know in 'Recall is that they can do weird shit to your head.  I don't think most SF on screen is SF at all - SF is sciences equivalent of religious mythology.  The difference is that of course SF is employing the scientific method and is ostentatiously speculative and temporal examination of what it means to be human, rather than a claim to mythical truth or insight in this regard.

This means that strangely enough a movie like Independance Day contains more than a nugget of serious SF - the Locust model has been proposed as one of the solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the beggining of ID was a pretty fair working of what it might be like to be under the Locusts when they arrived.  This means the film has an interest value to me as an audience member quite beyond the jingoistic action and ludicrous climax.  Exploration of situation, surely.

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Can't quote--I'm stuck, for the moment, with a borwser that makes it ludicrously difficult to cut and paste.

Re: Total Recall, and the premise being ended by shooting the shrink vs. just lapsing because it's never brought up again: I agree completely. You've expressed what I had in mind more clearly than I did.

Re: "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale": it's a short story, not a novel, and it has almost nothing to do with the movie. It's not among Dick's best short fiction IMO.

[Christopher Kubasik]

For those looking for more information, or an introduction to, Phillip K. Dick, check out a write up over at www.themodernword.com.

It's a really cool site in general, by the way.

Contracycle

I don't think we've been derailed talking about the movie -- since I responded to Jesse referencing the movie.  And because we can learn as much from something that doesn't quite work as from something that does.  And because, well, we've been talking about the movie the whole time, so we can't have been derailed.

I take my movies at face value, adaptation or not, and assume any example of any medium can be just bloody fantastic as long as it stands as whole.  Dick's novella is his novella, the movie is the movie, and, in my opinion, both are worthy of consideration on their own terms.

Because I fucking love the movies.  (I also take great pleasure in sitting alone and reading Shakespeare and Homer out loud.  Essentially, I'm a story geek.)

[contracycle]

I take my movies at face value, adaptation or not, and assume any example of any medium can be just bloody fantastic as long as it stands as whole.  Dick's novella is his novella, the

I agree that any medium can be Fun, but I most certainly do not agree that they can all be Fun in identical ways.  I think the medium necessarily imposes heavy conditions on what kind of story can be told; furthermore, it imposes even greater conditions on whether a given story will in fact be told.  Movies have to entertain a mass audience in a very short period of time; pressures of profitability tend to produce work that will appeal to the widest possible audience at the lowest possible threshold.  I think trying to discuss this concept in reference to mass produced movies is likely to be fruitless; especially as by contrast we are engaged in the construction of story in a totally different artisan-like manner for a totally different directly involved audience - each other.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Contracycle,

Well, mmmm.....

Nowhere did I write that they'd be fun in the same way.  In fact, if we were to exchange comments about the use of different media, you'd discover that I'm aboslutely committed to the idea they are fun in completely different ways.

I've noticed you tend to slap dismissable absolutes onto the points of the person you're responding to that have nothing to do with what the person actually said.

Why is that?  

Also: denegrating a medium that appeal to a mass audience, complaining about the lowest common denomenator... I'll tell you: I find such discussions boring and insulting.  Boring because it misses the joy and challenge of making something that is good and engages so many people (like the folk tales and myths I've read to elementary school kids down the street and entertain me so much when I read them to myself), and insulting because I'm part of that mass audience and am either a twit for enoying a movie or above all the rable in some special way... Which I don't buy either.

I think it's a cranky, creaky point of view, one that I can find expressed in almost any culture -- from the ancient Greeks, with philosophers who complained about drama, to Elizebethian critics who complained about that hack Will Shakespeare who threw undignified sweets to the mob and had no refined and courtly sensibilities like a great playwrite, to today, when Jaques Brazan writes wistful tracts for times he misses but never lived in.  All of these people missed the point: some people actually enjoy people, and want art forms worthy of the hustle and bustle of the crowd.  This doesn't make it better or worse: but clearly different.

Finally and specifically to get back to, if not the topic, then this weird spin off from the topic, to assume that the medium of a story game, which involves sitting with a group, making up stories that must be told through expressed word and hanging on a shared understanding of events off the cuff will be better served by the model of the novel as opposed to a movie is to utterly miss what each medium offers and to miss the boat on which one will actually offer the greatest aid to a group of storytellers.

Thus: which medium will offer the greatest help in a group of people sitting around telling a story to each other?  One which is consumed silently in the mind and written, most often, from the internal point of view in a character's thoughts?  Or one which is consumed in a group, and revealed though the interaction of several characters at once through words and deed.

For the record, I'm pulling epic poetry into my camp as well -- Homer, Beowulf, as well as fairy tales and myths... because they're designed to be spoken out loud, designed for lots of people in the audience, and designed to be big, colorful brawling affairs that engage on a visceral level.

But a novel?

There are good novels and bad novels, and good movies and bad movies.

But as a model for a story game? I know which one I'd put my money on.  But best of luck to you as well.

[contracycle]

different media, you'd discover that I'm aboslutely committed to the idea they are fun in completely different ways.

... in which case, it may be that a movie would not be able to cover some of the ground that SF attempts to cover.  The fact that a story about identity gets converted into an action adventure may be entirely due to the media in which they are being executed.

I've noticed you tend to slap dismissable absolutes onto the points of the person you're responding to that have nothing to do with what the person actually said.

Often I will be accused of banging a political drum if I explain my thought process, so I default instead to saying what I think instead of all of why I think it.

Also: denegrating a medium that appeal to a mass audience, complaining about the lowest common denomenator... I'll tell you: I find such discussions boring and insulting.  

Thats fine; I find frex the assertion that human beings only respond to direct emotional premises boring and insulting, thats the way it goes.

I think it's a cranky, creaky point of view, one that I can find expressed in almost any culture -- from the ancient Greeks, with philosophers who complained about drama, to Elizebethian critics who complained about that hack Will Shakespeare who threw undignified sweets to the mob and had no refined and courtly sensibilities like a great playwrite, to today, when Jaques Brazan

In fact, my criticism arises from exactly this observation - I submit that it is precisely the contempt with which the buying public is held by the movie industry, especially hollywood, that produces this lowest common denominator effect.  It's precisely because it is Big Business and not art; its only purpose as a product is to sell, not to communicate or enlighten or even entertain.  It is the diametric opposite of what occurs directly between people when telling stories, whether myth or anecdote or shaggy dog story - the reward there is social, interpersonal, direct.  It prompts art focussed on those individuals, on what is relevant to them - not what is seen as relevant to A. N. Other Consumer by market researchers and the re-writers of movie endings.  The only distinction here between books and movies is the type of experience and the method of communictaion employed; the depth that the physical structure of books is able to attain by, at the simplest level, extending its exposition over many more hours, and usually with greater ability to discuss the mindset of its cast, that allows it to address certain themes.  Not all of these are unreachable through the film medium, but they might be a bad choice if what you want to make is a blockbuster.  Thus, it might not be suprising at all that certain themes explored by SF do not translate to cinema either well or often, and it might well be the case that movie SF is primarily restricted to employing SF as McGuffin or backdrop only.  Thus, I think the movie Total Recall is pretty much irrelevant to the original question, which is does science fiction pose abstract premises beyoind the control of the protagonists?  I think it does, but I also think you are not likely to see this on the movie screen.

Finally and specifically to get back to, if not the topic, then this weird spin off from the topic, to assume that the medium of a story game, which involves sitting with a group, making up stories that must be told through expressed word and hanging on a shared understanding of events off the cuff will be better served by the model of the novel as opposed to a movie is to utterly

I did not make any such claim.  I claimed that the premises of the two works might be different, and that this difference may arise in part through the difference in the form and context of the media employed.  I made no claims as to either being a better model for RPG.  As it happens, I think movies are a better model and employ devices I have learned from movies to some effect.

[joshua neff]

At the risk of derailing this thread, I'm going to jump in here with a few points.

Gareth--Are you talking about movies in general, or commercial Hollywood movies? Because they aren't necessarily the same thing. A movie isn't inherently "geared towards the lowest common denominator" any more than a novel, song, or TV show is. (I'm also not entirely convinced "aimed towards the lowest common denominator" is necessarily a bad thing.)

Also, the idea that movies can't touch on themes SF novels can is, as far as I'm concerned, off base. Length doesn't imply depth--otherwise, all paintings & photographs would be inherently "shallow". It's entirely possible to touch on a theme "in depth" in a short span of time &/or space. Just depends on what you do with that time.

The reason why most Hollywood SF tends to be, for lack of a better word, shallow isn't because of the medium, but because most Hollywood execs simply don't get SF, & they don't like it. Read stuff J. Michael Straczynski & Harlan Ellison have written about their experiences with Hollywood types regarding SF. Of course you can produce an SF movie that handles science-fiction themes well. Getting it produced in Hollywood may be difficult, but you can do it. (It's also possible to have a "schlock" SF movie that deftly examines a theme--crap commercial media can also have stuff stuck subtly in it. Don't mistake "popular" with "bad". The two aren't the same thing.)

As for Jesse's initial question--I wonder, has it been answered satisfactorily for him? I'm good with the answer. Yes, SF Premises, even part of the cosmology, can work for narrativism. Hell, that's what Hero Wars is predicated on--Premise of Setting, as explored by Player-Characters in Situations. Seems to me it would work just as well with an SF setting as a fantasy one.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Josh,

Agreed.

[jburneko]

As for Jesse's initial question--I wonder, has it been answered satisfactorily for him

Yes, it mostly has.  Ron pegged what I was missing when he mentioned Situation which when designing an RPG scenario and trying to deal with something fairly abstract is my greatest weakness.  I come up with great cosmological questions sometimes but have a hell of a time thinking up any kind of situation that would begin to address said question.

Even when I do, I have the problem in that I'm very opinionated, sometimes to the point of arrogance which means that often while trying to develop a scenario I've come to my own conclusions about whatever Premise I've come up with.  This applies even to NON-abstract Premises.  The result is either a heavily railroaded scenario designed to lead the players through my reasoning process such that they'll arrive at the same conclusion I did OR a non-railroady scenario who's backstory is so 'complete' and self-contained that the players' only purpose is to REVEAL the back-story and witness the conclusion that arrises from such revelation.

Back-story in motion and situation with no assumptions is something I'm still working on as a Narrativist scenario designer.

Jesse