Narrativism and Judgement

[Christoph Boeckle]

This is a very enligthening thread to me, helping me to define better what Narrativism really is (I think I sometimes mix it up with types of Sim). Great job Victor & al. ;)

But the kind of judgement that could distinguish narrativist play as you describe it, is the kind that takes the form "if the story were to continue with A, that would strike a chord with something deep within me". Or, dare I say it?, these judgements take the form "if the story were to continue with A, that would really allow me to explore this interesting, half-hidden part of my psyche". Would you agree with this analysis? For if you do, we have reached a strange result: there are modes of narrativist play where Exploration is king... (And that is generally thought to be the defining characteristic of Simulationism.)

From what I've understood, Simulationism is exploration of the SIS (be it Character, Setting, Situation, System, or Color). What you are suggesting is exploring one's own beliefs, psyche, etc. Whatever it eventually turns out to be, it seems to me that what is being explored is outside the SIS. There is no "world-coherence", no dream to sustain. Which makes us pretty surely navigate off the shores of Sim.
"Exploration is king = Sim" only is true for Exploration with a capital E, as defined in the provisional glossary.

And furthermore, this kind of narrativism would have nothing to do with judgements of the kind Egri speaks about, for we do not take sides.

It all depends on how we understand "taking sides". The way Egri puts it, we're supposed to take sides with our convictions. This I will definetly refute in the light of this thread.
One just needs to take sides with something. Take a decision and pull it through, even if it's not what you would do.


My two cents ;)

[Victor Gijsbers]

(I'm sorry for answering people in this piece-meal way. I just don't have enough time to keep up with all your thought provoking ideas and questions!)


Tony

Sorry, I indeed misunderstood you. Before I try and connect the situation you describe with what I've been saying in this topic, I need to ask for a little clarification. How does one show, in play, that a character can do both A and B for good reasons? Does that involve internal monologues where the character agonises about the choice and gives reasons for both sides?

Anyway, I'd say that it involves a normative judgement: both courses of action which are considered can be chosen for good reasons. But I think it would be hard to understand this judgement as an answer to a premise - unless the premise is something like "Is there always one single right action?", which seems pretty far-fetched. How do you see this? If play revolves around the premise "Is justice more important than love?", and you show somehow that both justice and love can be chosen for very good reasons, even by the same person in the same situation - is that then an answer to the premise? Are you taking a stance in the Egri way? Or is something more subtle going on?


John

I'm very much aware that my examples of Simulationist play have all been examples of bad, shallow Simulationist play. I don't want to suggest that Simulationist play is always, or even typically, of such a shallow type. I think your example serves as a veyr good illustration of deep, interesting Simulationist play.

As for your three options (portraying a character sympathetically, unsympathetically or in a shallow way), I do not think the correspondence with my original three options is the way you make it out to be. Your 1 and 2 both involve a moral judgement on the part of the player, and thus both map on my number 2. In addition, you stress that the moral statement is made through believably portraying a character.

This is interesting. In my original number 2 example - "playing DitV where my character is my moral avatar" - believability was not an issue, at least not explicitly. If my character comes out unbelievably, that may say a lot about the internal consistency of my moral outlook, but it does not diminish the moral import of my statements. Here, unbelievability does not lead to shallowness.

What you point out is that generally - especially in written fiction, but probably also in roleplaying - the choices of the character are not supposed to be the choices of the player. In such a case, the humanity of the character, that which makes him or her an interesting character in the first plavce, must be established by portraying him or her in a believable way. Thus, an element of 'Simulationist thinking' enters the picture, which is absolutely essential to exploring human issues in a meaningful way.

Now my question is: must the player take a stance in order for this exploration to count as narrativism? You distinguish between sympathetic and unsympathetic portrayal, but it seems to me that there is also such a thing as neutral (or ambiguous) portrayal. We do not have to take a stance. Can we not do this and still be a narrativist? The result of play, I submit, will still be a thematically loaded narrative which was co-authored by the players. Is that enough?

What status do you claim for your number 3, when a shallow tale is used to comment on other narratives? Is that narrativism? (It doesn't seem to be Gamism or Simulationism, but I don't feel very comfortable with classifying it as Narrativism either.)

[TonyLB]

How does one show, in play, that a character can do both A and B for good reasons?

Why is showing it important?

If play revolves around the premise "Is justice more important than love?", and you show somehow that both justice and love can be chosen for very good reasons, even by the same person in the same situation - is that then an answer to the premise?

Yes, a very particular, specific answer to the premise.  It is an answer, but makes no claim to being the answer, even for this person, this situation.  It answers the question without preventing you from asking it again.  Which may well mean that I'm not answering it in the Egri way.  But since Egri isn't one of my players....

[Victor Gijsbers]

Why is showing it important?

Showing it is the only way to incorporate it in your game, isn't it? You can't claim to have shown, through play, that a person could do both A and B if possibility B never comes up in play. (Unless you tell the other players 'out of narration', as it were, that B was also a good possibility.) I'm just curious about how you make the kind of point you say you often maken in play, because it seems tricky to me.

Yes, a very particular, specific answer to the premise.  It is an answer, but makes no claim to being the answer, even for this person, this situation.  It answers the question without preventing you from asking it again.  Which may well mean that I'm not answering it in the Egri way.  But since Egri isn't one of my players....

Nor is he one of mine. I'm not chastising you for not conforming to the Egri way, I'm trying to find evidence for the suspicion I have that Egri style premise answering is only a subset of narrativism, not the whole of narrativism. Your experience and mine seem to agree on this.

Could I summarise your examples in the following way? The premise might be: "Is justice more important than love". The answer might be: "In this situation, this time, this person chose justice, for good reasons. But she might have chosen love as well, for equally good reasons. There is no answer to the question. Neither of the two takes priority - and that is typical for the human condition, and boy is it beautiful."

[TonyLB]

Not really.  You're asking a question that no individual human action could possibly answer, right?

"Is justice more important than love" is a question that only God can answer.  "Is justice more important than love to you, in your life" is a question that individual human actions can address.

So if you want to address the God-questons then, yeah, there is no answer (in the context of human action).  But if you ask human-centric questions ("What will you do for power?"  "Power is fun, but do you deserve it?"  "Will you choose mercy for sinners over justice for the virtuous?") then you necessarily have lots of different answers, because of the continuous procession of "You"... "You today", "You tomorrow", "You after humiliation", "You in love", etc.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

I like the point that only God could answer the broad premise questions that we sometimes throw out.  Some of these questions are too big or too nuanced for one person to answer difinitively for all mankind.  But correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most of the premises Egri uses statements instead of questions?

Tony Wrote:

So if you want to address the God-questons then, yeah, there is no answer (in the context of human action). But if you ask human-centric questions ("What will you do for power?" "Power is fun, but do you deserve it?" "Will you choose mercy for sinners over justice for the virtuous?") then you necessarily have lots of different answers, because of the continuous procession of "You"... "You today", "You tomorrow", "You after humiliation", "You in love", etc.

So, in a good Narrativist design and in a good Narrativist play session the "brutal judgements/choices" must be kept player-centric and not examined in a broad human-context?  That's the only way we can procede with answering the questions for ourselves in a given instance, right?  I just want to be clear in what you are saying. :)

Victor Wrote:

I'm trying to find evidence for the suspicion I have that Egri style premise answering is only a subset of narrativism, not the whole of narrativism. Your experience and mine seem to agree on this.

I'd like to see this developed a little more, Victor.  Is it possible to merge this suspicion with what Tony is saying about focussing on a singular human instead of all humans?

Peace,

-Troy

[TonyLB]

Troy, I don't understand what you mean by the "broad human context."  Can you give examples from play?

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

I was just re-echoing what you said when you wrote:

"Is justice more important than love" is a question that only God can answer. "Is justice more important than love to you, in your life" is a question that individual human actions can address.

That's all.  I think my word choice was poor.  My appologies :)

Peace,

-Troy

[TonyLB]

Okay then.  I guess we're in agreement.  I certainly think that the practical questions asked should be ones that the players can, through their characters, answer immediately and specifically.

[Troy_Costisick]

Yes, we are in agreement.

[M. J. Young]

Why is showing it important?

Showing it is the only way to incorporate it in your game, isn't it? You can't claim to have shown, through play, that a person could do both A and B if possibility B never comes up in play. (Unless you tell the other players 'out of narration', as it were, that B was also a good possibility.)

I think players can agonize about decisions; but more to the point, perhaps, characters can agonize about decisions as part of their portrayal. Further, they can start an action and then change it--I've had many a player pull the rug out from under me by playing a character as if he was going to do A, and then at the last moment switching to B, because his character changed his mind.

The point would be to portray that the character who did B really thought about doing A and almost did A.

--M. J. Young

[Eve]

I think doubt and struggle are wonderful tools to show a player dilemma by means of a character (to make it his dilemma as well). This has one interesting consequence:

This way of "showing" could be nicely classified sim as well, because doubt etc are perfectly natural reactions when faced with an important dilemma. So why classify the situation as either sim or nar? I think claiming it for one case is simply injust to the other. Is it a bad thing to speak of hybrid agendas? (Or is it just an oversimplified PoV?)

[Christoph Boeckle]

I believe the difference has to be made depending on whether we're having a personal dilemma (or at least showing personnel interest in that dilemma), or if it's a character dilemma.
The first one is out ouf the SIS, the second is fully within. Thus I'd call the former Narrativist and the latter Simulationnist.

I could perfectly imagine someone interested in both levels of dilemma simultaneously. I don't know enough of Hybrids to make a call on that situation though.

Then again, let's not forget that Nar and Sim are juste convenient classifications, and that there is a continuous spectrum of games spanning from Nar to Sim.

[Christoph Boeckle]

I guess a player interested with the Narrativist aspect of that issue will get along fairly well with the Simulationnist guy.

Or am I completely forgetting something?

[Eve]

Then again, let's not forget that Nar and Sim are juste convenient classifications, and that there is a continuous spectrum of games spanning from Nar to Sim.

Well, if you speak of a continuous spectrum, you don't need hybrids, or vice versa: both can come down to the same point. It's just the way you name it. In my opinion, the important point is that there is more than just tree things. (but we need the tree categories first, in order to it's not just that).