Costick on Story/Games

[Mike Holmes]

Walt will want to check this one out. Herr Costickyan gave some sort of presentation recently on story in games, and getting beyond the implicit dichotomy. The Power Point presentation for this is here:

http://www.costik.com/presentations/Where%20Stories%20End%20&%20Games%20Begin.ppt

Might be problematic to look at just the bullet points, but I thought it was thought provoking anyhow.

Thoughts? Does Narrativism accomplish what he's looking for? Or does he rightly see a continued "problem" with story and games?

If Greg is watching this space by any chance, any expansion on these ideas would be interesting to hear. Actually if a webconference could be arranged so that we could hear the whole presentation, that would be even better.

Mike

[Selene Tan]

I'm reminded of an old-ish (1996-1997) article by Chris Crawford, where he suggested a mindset/method for "interactivizing" stories:

http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/Lilan/interactivizing.html

Thus, an interactive Romeo and Juliet would NOT be about Romeo and Juliet; it would be about the collision between love and social obligations. This distinction is crucial to understanding the advantages -- and disadvantages -- of interactive storytelling. If you insist that an interactive Romeo and Juliet must be about "Romeo and Juliet", then you must also insist that it follow the plot of the original play. But if instead you shift your point of view and require that an interactive Romeo and Juliet be about the collision between love and social obligation, then a great many plot developments are possible which remain true to the focus of the work.

That's very much Narrativism. I know Chris and Greg know each other, but I don't know how much they communicate now, or if Greg even remembers that Chris wrote this once upon a time. :P

(Incidentally, Chris came out with a book on "Interactive Storytelling" recently. It mentions this, a bit, but most of it focuses on ways to manage the behavior and relationships of the NPCs.)

[John Kim]

Well, his conclusion is the crux of it:

To think of games as "a storytelling medium" leads to futile attempts to straightjacket games, to make them more effective stories at the expense of gameplay. Instead, designers should use story elements to strengthen their games when appropriate--but should not be afraid to shy away from story entirely, at times. Because ultimately, what a player takes away from a game is not the story it tells (if it tells one at all), but modes of thought and ways of attacking problems, and a sense of satisfaction at mastery.

So, I agree that designers should not feel limited by story elements and methods.  However, he characterizes pursuing story as making things more linear -- which we don't think is true.  A good game for story creates an environment and methods which allow the players to make a story -- not giving one to them.  On the other hand, bear in mind that he's dealing with computer games and many other genres, not just RPGs.  

At the same time, I think he has a point here if you'll take his point and re-cast it as the clash between Gamist and Dramatist/Narrativist agendas.  Look at his conclusion -- the idea that the point of games is sense of satisfaction at mastery.  I think the clash he suggests is in agenda, and the solution is not to pursue pure ludology or narratology, but to accept that many games are going to be blends of the two which may pursue other agendas.  

Experimental RPGs

[*]Sorceror, "Dice Pool" games, My Life With Master (www.the-forge.com) [*] Pushing tabletop away from game & simulation and toward roleplaying & story [*] Minimal rules set [*] A dichotomy between those that emphasize RP (e.g., Sorceror) and those that emphasize story (MLWM).[/list:u]

I'm interested in his claimed dichotomy.  I'm having trouble seeing it, myself.  i.e. Where would Trollbabe or Dogs in the Vineyard fit?  

Thoughts? Does Narrativism accomplish what he's looking for? Or does he rightly see a continued "problem" with story and games?

I think there are clashes of agenda underlying the clash that he sees.  I just don't agree with his solution.

[contracycle]

So, I agree that designers should not feel limited by story elements and methods.  However, he characterizes pursuing story as making things more linear -- which we don't think is true.  A good game for story creates an environment and methods which allow the players to make a story -- not giving one to them.  On the other hand, bear in mind that he's dealing with computer games and many other genres, not just RPGs.  

Well, look at it this way: if the game IS going to give people the necessary components, and the course of play IS going to compel or prompt an address of premise, then is there actually any virtue in describing this, or thinking of this, as a "story-telling medium"?  I could play word games and suggest that Narr is more of a story creation medium than a -telling medium, but I think its simpler just to use the term much less.  I think the danger of the story paradigm is that it directs attention away from structure and towards content, and away from activity and towards passivity.

[pete_darby]

I'm with Gareth; "story" in this presentation mutates between the product and the process. If we recognise that MLwM and Sorcerer are two methods of controlling and rewarding the same process (address of premise), then the supposed dichotomy disappears: actually, I see it as very similar to Ron's dissection of character-led premise, setting-led premise etc.

Giving Greg some dues, the imprecise use of "story" is pretty endemic to the computer game industry, and we all know how much trouble it causes even here.

I think Crawford's work on NPC management may well be Nar facilitating: R-maps by the back door...

[Mike Holmes]

Not to confuse the issue further, but I think it's interesting to note that in the boargame design community they refer to a dichotomy between "Theme" and "Mechanics." That is, some games they say focus on the theme, and try to make the mechanics fit the theme. Other games have a theme tacked on to a set of playable mechanics.

For example, in Monopoly, there's a theme of grabbing up land to have monopolies on certain real estate markets. But the mechanics only vaguely are a simulation of how this would occur in real life. So the game is more strongly gameplay oriented. From this POV, RPGs are simply very heavily theme driven games (don't conflate this term with the GNS use of it, of course, I'm using it in the boardgame jargon sense here).

I think this is a very pertinent question. Are RPGs simply games that have gone sorta overboard in the theme direction, or are they something else? Are they not-games? More importantly, are they a medium for story, making them something different from games entirely?

I'm thinking that some RPGs are still, largely, games, and some are not, and many more are somewhat confused as to what they are. Is this the Gamism/Non-Gamism boundary? Or something else that's more subtle?

I very much like this discussion, BTW, because it's breaking out of the internal dialogue here at the Forge, and forcing us to look at some of these things from the POV of wholly different communities.

Mike

[C. Edwards]

Beyond theme, RPGs also require creative interpretation. In this thread, Gareth links to a speach by Raph Koster. In the speach Mr. Koster speaks to the increase in complexity of outcomes and choices provided by the actions of other human participants in a game (In this case specifically computer games).

For RPGs, the level and of complexity and interpretation this can result in is enormous. It is to my mind another defining feature of RPGs.

The difference in seeing Romeo and Juliet as individuals in a situation and seeing them as vessels for theme creation/addressment and dramatic conflict certainly sounds like the switch to Narrativism to me. At least a switch to a Narrativistic mindset.

-Chris

[Mike Holmes]

For RPGs, the level and of complexity and interpretation this can result in is enormous. It is to my mind another defining feature of RPGs.

FWIW, my personal boundary (one criteria for RPGs) here is that RPGs generally expect that there is some infinity of actions that are allowable to be declared. That infinity may be a relatively small infinity (hard concept to grasp for some), but still infinite.

So that may be part of what we're talking about here. But there's the question of things like rising and falling action, and other conventions of drama. Things like plot. Which seem to be pretty independent of the RPG boundary here.

Mike

[C. Edwards]

So that may be part of what we're talking about here. But there's the question of things like rising and falling action, and other conventions of drama. Things like plot. Which seem to be pretty independent of the RPG boundary here.

Right. I consider all of that to be tied up in the infinity of actions, the complexity and interpretation aspects of play. Much of the other media encompassing dramatic conventions are of the predetermined variety. RPGs being improvisational is another vector by which they can be measured.

If you take the properties mentioned in this thread (plus some others that  have not been mentioned), such as theme (as in your boardgame example), infinity of actions, improvisational, and so on, you can get a pretty good idea of what defines an RPG. The rest is just matter of degree.

-Chris

[Mike Holmes]

I'm not sure I get that last part. I don't think that a definition of RPGs is what we're looking for here. What the discussion is about is how do they, or can they, relate to the concept of "Story." Are you saying just that some RPGs are more related to story than others? Or something more profound?

Mike

[C. Edwards]

Sorry about that. My mind has been working in right angles lately.

I'm trying to say that "story" in play is a matter of degree, yes. But that the very ability to produce story in an RPG is predicated on other factors that are not an issue for other media encompassing dramatic concerns that don't rely on the same combination of elements that are at the core of an RPG.

-Chris

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Guys,

Hi admit I may be a bit rusty around here right now, but it seems to me this is old ground.

The issue is creative agenda.

For Greg, it seems, to go for the Story is to lose sight of the game. Greg doesn't care much for Narrativist play, apparently. And that's fine.

His arguements rest on a bunch of failed (and common) assumptions. The main one being that "Story" depends on a pre-set linear plot in play of an RPG. This is of course. And, of course, to assume that even a novelist or a screenwriter works from a pre-set novelist plot when typing is in itself an odd (and common) error. Narrativist play (as Gareth pointed out) is more rightly called a "story-making" event than a "story-telling" event. Gareth is rather light on the implicatins of this switcheroo of the wording, but I think it is profound.  And I think it might even lead to a lightening of the confusion of coming to terms with the understanding of Narrativist play.

I believe this because many people, when discuss Story and RPGs, always look to movies and books and say, "But see! It's already done!" But I can guarantee you, when you're writing a book or a screenplay, it sure as hell doesn't seem that way.  "Kiddo," Saul Bellow once said wearily to his editor, "don't they understand that we're making it up as we go along?" (http://slate.com/id/2116502/)

Narrativis play isn't about the final thing (which is what Greg kept pointing to at the start of his Power Point presentation to mean "Story": A final product the consumer "recieves". The "game"-like stories were still finished products that were game-like as someone read them.

But that's not what Narrativism is about. It's about the making of story. That's why it's called Story Now.

It is also why Greg can confidently, and narrowly, state that recounted tales from an RPG session are going to be dull. Well. A lot of the time, yes. When making a story wasn't the focus. But "Moose In the City" and other examples suggest that making Story Now leads to fine stories to recount afterword. Because everyone is on their game to make a story. And voila! A story worth retelling.

Greg also trips himself up when he states, "game is not the story it tells (if it tells one at all), but modes of thought and ways of attacking problems, and a sense of satisfaction at mastery," he's kind of right. But he's also missing the boat. Or, at least, another boat. The boat of Narrativism. As a guy who's just written the best script I've ever written, and know why it's the best script I've ever written, I could assure Greg that "ways of attacking a problem" and "a sense of satisfaction" are all part and parcel of focusing on Story Now as they are in good solid game play where Story isn't the focus.

It seems to me that throughout the slide show, Greg keeps working from the Dramatist notions of Story in an RPG framework... Which is great, except that Ron blew open the notion of Story can be in an RPG with Narrativism. And it seems kind of odd to keep harping on how story in an RPG is shackled by the expectations of story being like recieving a story via a novel or movie -- when Narrativist play isn't about that at all. (Again, Story Now. Story Making, not Story Telling.)

Now, of course, Greg can like, design, and advocate whatever he likes.

But when he writes, "To think of games as 'a storytelling medium' leads to futile attempts to straightjacket games, to make them more effective stories at the expense of gameplay," he's only revealing a narrow-thinking on what the medium can offer.

Watch: "To think of Story Now as 'a gaming medium' leads to futile attempts to straightjacket Story Now, to make them more effective games at the expense of Story."

I have no idea how that twist on on Greg's words will sit with other folks. I like it. Because it reflects, in my view, the radical possibilities of Story Now. I mean, folks. What if we just assumed Story Now was simply that wierd a thing?

Now, if Story Now is all Story, why the dice, why the numbers.

Because its still play. In Greg's presentation, he carves out some special place for things that involve Play -- and a different place for things that are Stories.  Why?  I'm going to have to point out the apparently facile, but truly important point that plays are called PLAYS. They involve actual adults walking around onstage in clothes they would otherwise never wear, often speaking with "funny accents" (that we so often loath in our RPG sessions) making pretend to be someone they are not. This might strike some as odd, many many of us enjoy this kind of goofing around, even if we get paid for it.

The same is true for writing a book or a screenplay. Yes, it can be hard work. And sometime frustrating to the point of surrender. But at its best, its play. It's pattern making, finding the best solution for what you've got so far in the moment. Like Story Now.  The idea that games have no place for Story because games are about Play strikes me as something that could only have been created by someone who's spent a lot of time making games -- but not much time making stories.

Play is play. There are many ways to play without it being a "game" in the sense that so many people uncomfortable with story in their RPGs use the word.

Finally, yes, the medium of Story Now is a completely different process of making stories than one finds in the making of screenplays or novels or epic poems.  So what?  A point I don't rember seeing anywhere (but I'm sure it has been made) is that the needs of different literary genres will force a story to be "made" in completely different way.

Forget about the end product for a moment. The needs of each literary genre will require the creator(s) to approach the story and the act of creation in very different ways. Anyone who tries to write a screenplay with the same expectations of writing a novel is going to end up with something unfilmable. The same "story" told as a comic book, a novel, a screenplay, and an epic poem will be definition stretch out the process of the "making" of the story.  

As far as I'm concerned, RPG Narratvism is simply one more lit genre, with its own needs and process of creation. Yeah, making an RPG Story Now is not like making a novel. But making a novel's not like making an epic poem. So?

While I do see Greg's points as valid from a certrain vantage point, it seems to me they completely fall apart from other vantage points. One of those vantage points is Narrativism.

Best,

Christopher

[Mike Holmes]

Well then, how do you explain Costickyan's embrace of games like MLWM, Chris? Have you read Paranioa XP? The redesign is based to an extent on some of the concepts of narrativism (I'm still trying to decide whether Varney and gang hit or missed there, but...).

Here's an interesting article from Ed Heil way: http://www.polytropos.org/archives/2003/09/greg_costikyan.html

Mike

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Mike,

I'm sure that's a good point...

But I actually, I can't explain his embrace of MLWM... cause I didn't know he did.  I'm only responding to the slide show he put up -- specifically his use of definitions and ideas that I find limiting and rather retro.

For all I know he's running a Sorcerer game on the weekends full on Narrativism techniques... but I wouldn't know one way or the other from his PP presentation.

Christopher

PS I'm checking out the link now.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Mike,

Okay, I clicked on the link, and read, and clicked on more links, and read....

and what I came away specifically was this:

"I have not closely followed the tabletop RPG scene in many years, and it is entirely possible that My Life with Master is less innovative than I give it credit for."

I am about to be rather cold to a very bright man. But his "embracing" of MLWM seems to me to be like a man who, having travelled far enough from shore, accidently comes to the conclusion that the world is round after all.

He seems startled that the game could work (as many people are when they play full blown Narrativist techniques for the first time). That doens't change the fact that he's still startled becuase most of his thinking, by definition, is pre-Story Now.

And that's my only point. Greg works very digilently from a certain point of view that I think is so limited in its perspective that the arguement is sort of irrelevant. Remember, I didn't claim Greg hated Narrativist games with an irrational passion. My believe he's being completely rational -- with his rational arguments resting on flawed assumpions.

Yes, he's stunned by MLWM. Because it works! Who knew?

That doesn't change the fact that he sees it as some sort of unique artifact.  It isn't. I mean, it's good. And unique. But it's also part of a larger design and play philosophy worked up here at the Forge and other place he apparently doesn't visit very often. A philosophy, that, as far as I can tell from his writing, he doesn't think can exist as a functioning way to have fun. People might try it, he seems to be thinking but clearly they're missing the point of RPGs and would be much better served playing RPGs the way games were meant to be played. MLWM is this strange thing that puts all that in question. And... guess what... he's a little behind the curve.

I offer that he may or may not like more games that are often bandied about here -- but only by trying them would he even know they exist and that people have a great time playing them.

Christopher