Looking deeper into Intuitive Continuity

[Le Joueur]

The situation referred to in my post, which happened about 4 years ago, was doomed to result in stasis from the start.  The players (a group of 3) refused to accept/try/experiment with any role-playing elements that were outside their, very limited, experience.  None of them had been role-playing for much over a year and they had all used the same system (rpg) during that time.  All attempts by me to make the gaming experience more dynamic were met with a wall of stubborn close-mindedness.

I had that too (more like 13 years ago, oh my god...).  As a matter of fact, many of the original Scattershot techniques (Sine Qua Non, Precipitating Event, Character is a Part of Setting/Setting is a Part of Character, and et cetera), were born at that time to trick, cajole, sneak them into, and outright force players to get me more that I could use to seduce them into 'really participating.'

I think the key is to have the tools pre-existing in the system

That's how my personal style became Scattershot's techniques (after a suitable number of requests for tutoring).

Fang Langford

[Steve Dustin]

First off, apologies to Fang for being a hot-head. I read the "trouble in paradise?" line as some sort of jab.

Ok, I follow your logic finally, about Illusionism. It seems to me that Illusionism and vanilla Narrativism are really just to sides of the same coin. Side A is a frustration for the players, Side B, a frustration for the GM. With that said, I find the term "vanilla Narrativism" to be misleading, when juxtaposed with (ok my understood) definition of Narrativism: a group of roleplayers cooperating to answer a Premise. But "vanilla Narrativism" still has the GM with total control over the story, even if he doesn't want it. Why is this called Narrativism when its really not? You can see why I equate this with Illusionism. To me, the important aspect is the control over story -- not any communication breakdown or outright lies between the involved parties. I'm not sure what the utility of a definition if its just to point out someone is being lied to.

Chris --

I believe I've got a good group of players to attempt the kickers. They definitely not beyond reform (my DnD'ers on the other hand...) Still, players I think hold themselves back, because they expect to be held back. It's not players per se that I feel is the problem, it's the prevalence of the dominant RPG paradigm: GM control, players react.

Lately, I've been thinking that group character creation may alleviate a lot of this. I bought Sorceror, so I know about the kickers, but I still see a disconnect between players. The traditional group would all go into a corner and create seperate and totally unrelated kickers. I've been thinking that characters, with strong relations to one another, created by the group may alleviate some of this. The playing group would develop maybe as many as 10 characters set in an intricate character map, and then individual players decide who they want to play. Almost like a reverse relationship map -- instead of for the scenario, it's for the PCs. I'm tooling around with a few ideas that may see the light of day on the Indie Game Forum.

Finally, as for that Pool game, I must dissappoint, it didn't happen for various reasons. I did have an extended conversation with one of my players about Illusionism, how the group plays, etc; discussing some of the points brought up here. I also did a poor job of explaining GNS. He actually had reservations about the Pool, but not about the MoV, but instead what he saw as a low chance of success. He actually gave me a copy of the Interactive Toolkit a few months ago, and I completely forgot! He thinks very highly of it, and tries to pattern his gaming style on it. So I think there's a lot of paydirt to be made here.

Next week, I guess I'll give my low-down on how the Pool went.

Take care, Steve

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Fang and Steve, both of you are missing the point of the concept of Vanilla Narrativism. Vanilla Narrativist play does include the players being committed to story creation, authoring, Premise, protagonism, and all that stuff. However, they are not doing so with overt game mechanics or a lot of out-of-character acknowledgment of these goals. Think of it as "quiet" Narrativism.

Both of you are perceiving the term to mean that the players are not playing in a Narrativist mode, and rightly, that would seem to be a form of Simulationism. I agree with that logical step. However, the initial perception is incorrect.

Vanilla Narrativism is Narrativist play with no exceptions or buts. Its distinguishing feature is that the various aspects that make it Narrativism are not verbalized much nor are they adopted with a lot of conscious effort or negotiation.

That's been the definition all along. Check out the relevant threads if that seems like I'm being revisionist, and if it requires further discussion, let's do it on a new thread.

Best,
Ron

[Le Joueur]

It seems to me that Illusionism and vanilla Narrativism are really just to sides of the same coin. Side A is a frustration for the players, Side B, a frustration for the GM.

Not when the gamemaster wants it that way.  How many styles of play work for people who don't want to play that way?  Side A usually results in frustration for players, largely because they weren't asked if they wanted to play that way.  Side B works fine if the gamemaster wants to do it that way.  You see the major difference is on Side A, most of the people are never offered the choice, by definition.

With that said, I find the term "vanilla Narrativism" to be misleading, when juxtaposed with (ok my understood) definition of Narrativism: a group of roleplayers cooperating to answer a Premise. But "vanilla Narrativism" still has the GM with total control over the story, even if he doesn't want it. Why is this called Narrativism when its really not?

I was in the process of assembling a large description of what 'vanilla Narrativism' is but Ron beat me to it.  What he said!

Having control "even if he doesn't want it," is not a feature of 'vanilla Narrativism' or of any kind of Narrativism.  It's a feature of disfunctional play; don't do it.  You can use any tool wrong; using a hammer to drive screws doesn't make it hammering in any functional way (but it is kinda screwy).

You can see why I equate this with Illusionism. To me, the important aspect is the control over story -- not any communication breakdown or outright lies between the involved parties. I'm not sure what the utility of a definition if its just to point out someone is being lied to.

Is there any utility in differentiating between a cold and a sneeze?  Sometimes a sneeze is something you want to do, but a cold is always something one must either cope with or get rid of.  Illusionism was coined not as a preferable manner of play, but as a retrospective on years of dissatisfaction (well, maybe after the fact).  Those who defined Illusionism have always spoken of it as a borderline dysfunctional form of play (barely on the dysfunctional side).  'Vanilla Narrativism,' or bringing the players more 'on board' was a first step towards functional play; the idea being that 'vanilla Narrativism' could be a 'window' to larger Narrativism and more 'control sharing.'

The utility of the definition of Illusionism is that once you have identified it, you might be able to 'fix it.'  Lately however, several people have begun 'softening' the definition of Illusionism (it is a 'sexy' term) to suggest that it might be a functional form of gaming; I remain highly dubious because the whole concept of an illusion is to 'pull the wool over someone's eyes,' and that road always leads (as well said above) to disillusionment.

I hope that clears things up and, even if it doesn't help you 'chart your course,' it helps you see a way out of your current situation.

Fang Langford

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, I know, here I am again. I just would like to state a couple of perspectives.

Those who defined Illusionism have always spoken of it as a borderline dysfunctional form of play (barely on the dysfunctional side).  

Only if all forms of play are borderline dysfunctional. I would call Illusionism difficult, problematic at times, and other things, but there is a form of Illuusionism that is not dysfunctional and is, in fact, a mode of play that I would promote as fun. I've had way mor problems with my Narrativist games than my Illusionist ones. Does that mean that Narrativism is dysfunctional? No, just that, as with everythig in life, it's never perfect, and has its own peculiar advantages and drawbacks. As does Illusionism.

If I thought that Illusionism was dysfunctional I'd stop GMing that way.

Mike

The utility of the definition of Illusionism is that once you have identified it, you might be able to 'fix it.'  Lately however, several people have begun 'softening' the definition of Illusionism (it is a 'sexy' term) to suggest that it might be a functional form of gaming; I remain highly dubious because the whole concept of an illusion is to 'pull the wool over someone's eyes,' and that road always leads (as well said above) to disillusionment.

Unless the players expect it. I know you think this is not Illusionism, but you are the one refining the definition in a way not intended, or useful. What you describe as "Vanilla Narrativism", because the players are complicit in the GMs Illusions, is also not an accrate description of Narrativism at all. Why? Becasuse the players are not using any Author stance or any other tool to produce the story. If they are participants in the creation of story it is only by accident. Agreement to allow the player to create the story is maybe Dramatism, but certainly not Narrativism. Both Paul and Ron have made this point, but you keep ignoring it.

Also, the example of Illusionism that you give is but one Illusionist tool. You may not have intended to make it seem like the sum total of Illusionism (or perhaps you did), but it comes off that way. Another example of Illusionism is having players enounter things that did not previously exist but making it look as though they did. Or changing NPC motivations to get things to look more like a plot. More importantly, I still claim that Illusionism has nothing to do necessarily with sticking to a pre-planned plot. That is a subset of Illusionism, and describes a good portion of such activities. But in addition, there are cases of just making taking what exists, and creating new elements and events such that some story does then occur or is created from what exists. Again, (and this is where we agree on the definition) the Illusion here is that the players caused the plot to occur by their action when in reality the GM created it all on his own. (This, I believe, is what Ron called using IntCon as a tool for producint Ilusionism).

You may proceed to call this a moving target of a defintion if you will, but I can only ascribe that to the fact that the definition of Illusionism was never really nailed down firmly. I think we've all had a specific definition in our heads since the original discussion, and no agreement was ever made. So we probably should nail this down.

The question becomes in creating a new definition, which serves us better? I think that a broader definition is best here, as I think that observers would intuitively include play of the sort that I describe. The limited formats could serve to illuminate a dysfunctional or very narrow form of play, but then we are left with no definition for similar forms of play and will be correcting people till the cows come home about its usage. Better to have the broad category and further subcategories. Like the aforementioned forward/backward, and dysfunctional subcategories. Hell, I'd even append a note on the definition that "it is noted that the difficulties of Illusionism often lead to a dysfunctional version".

But I would prefer not to sign on to a definition of Illusionism as necessarily dysfunctional, or only included pre-planned play.

Mike

[Walt Freitag]

I've been thinking about sharing and control, about the question of who creates the Story. And looking at it with a dialog model.

I previously said on the RPGnet thread that led to this one, "Theme is a question posed by a protagonist and answered by the world." Does love conquer all? Can you recapture the past? What is life worth? Is it possible to be forgiven? Whoever creates the world ultimately provides those answers, although often in a form that must be interpreted by the players/protagonists. That's usually the GM.

For the players to participate in providing the "answers," the players have to share in the control of the world, controlling things like the behavior of NPCs or the outcome of probabilistic causal events that traditionally are under the control of the GM.

Kickers appear to relate to this sort of theme. Notably, they are typically player-selected. The player is "asking the question" that the kicker embodies.

But a theme (or perhaps something similar to which a different term may apply) can also be "A question posed by the world and answered by the protagonist." Is it possible to be sane in an insane world? How far would you go to protect a loved one? What is your life worth? Is it possible to forgive?

For the GM to answer such questions, the GM has to share in the control of the character in one way or another (including illusionism and railroading as well as more consensual means). For the player to answer such questions, the player also has to control aspects of the character that might conventionally be left up to the system or random chance, such as when the character exerts sufficient effort to succeed in a very difficult task.

Currency mechanisms appear to relate to this sort of theme. Notably, they are typically GM-selected (i.e. built into the system, like Sanity or Humanity). The GM is "asking the question."

So let's break it down according to "who asks, who answers:"

GM asks, GM answers. Welcome to 97% of the RPGs out there. The game system and the metaplot define the themes, codified into the system (Humanity in VtM), and the GM runs the world in conventional pre-plotted fashion thus also providing the answers. Small wonder that the worlds in which these games take place are usually described as being indifferent to the player-characters (they're just lowly whatevers in a world dominated by big powerful whatevers). Small wonder that participants (including the GM) get the impression that, on the narrative level, the GM is talking to himself.

GM asks, players answer. This appears to characterize mainstream (Chocolate?) Narrativism. Such tools as relationship maps help to codify the questions and keep them in the forefront, and consensual resolution mechanisms give the player more complete control of the character's fate by which the answers are determined. The GM is focused on the characters' conflicts, using the world to challenge the protagonists with new questions or new instantiations of the thematic questions. GM egotism is a liability here, and much is demanded of the players -- even to the point where the required player contribution can be seen as constraining the protagonist's free will, hence stance issues arise.

Players ask, GM answers. This appears to characterize Vanilla Narrativism. I'm comfortable with this description as applied to myself, at least. As the GM I expect to control the Story (though not the story). This is a viable niche for elitist and egomaniacal, but still player-focused, GMs. I would pick a GM on the same basis as I would pick a novelist to read: because he or she appeared to have things of interest to say and the ability to say them. I assume that others who pick me as GM do so for the same reasons. But protagonists "ask" not only through their initial character concepts but through their every decision, so it's crucial that protagonists have free will to interact with the world, or else this defaults back to "GM asks, GM answers."

Players ask, players answer. This description would apply to systems that marginalize the GM. "Player asks, other players answer" still, however, has possibilities for rich Narrativist interaction and should not be dismissed. "Player asks, the same player answers" would generally, I believe, be unsatisfying except insofar as the presence of the group gives the players a convenient audience for telling stories about themselves.

While there's nothing that appears to fundamentally rule out a combination of "PAGMA" and "GMAPA," it's apparent that this could get complex and/or lead to conflicting system design goals (if not conflicting GM temperaments). It also appears that matching the right kind of thematic questions to the dialog/play model is important. PAGMA could address "is it possible to be forgiven?" more effectively than "is it possible to forgive?" while GMAPA would be just the reverse. Get it mismatched, and it could start resembling a piano duet with the soprano-alto player seated on the left and the tenor-bass player seated on the right, and wondering why they keep getting in each other's way. (Have I heard that song before somewhere?)

Please, challenge this analysis. (That's what I come here for.)

- Walt

[Steve Dustin]

I'm with Mike on using a broad definition of Illusionism. If it's to be used as a tool to "fix" dysfunctional play, wouldn't it be easier to say, "that's Illusionism with player approval" than to say, "well, that's vanilla Narrativism, not Illusionism, and [any other ism that may apply]"?

When I see the term Illusionism, I see it as meaning total GM control over the story (which is not depend on when a story is planned or whatever the ultimate result of that play will be). To me, that's what is important about using that term. It doesn't take much to add a caveat (with or without player approval), but it does take a lot to redefine many narrow terms over and over, in relation to one another.

It seems to me, a better idea than re-working a definition of Illusionism right now, is to first add elements about the social dynamics between people during gaming first, so we all know who's satisfied, who's in control of the game, and possibly even how people at the table relate to one another. Dysfunctional play has already been identified. Are there ways to describe different kinds of dysfunctional play in concrete terms? And with it, are there different ways to describe functional play?

It's a big can of worms, but it will definitely separate out the factor that I see as muddling up these conversations, and make GNS even more of a "layer" theory, where you take simple understood terms of goals, techniques, and social contract, and layer them on top of each other to describe a style of play.

Obviously, a whole new thread.

Ron --

Which leads me to vanilla Narrativism. This is really similar to what I was talking to Fang above about that if the result is the same why use a different term. I'll forgoe that argument and just say, I think it's a bad term. Its very obscure. Wouldn't unconscious Narrativism be a more intuitive way to describe it?

And finally, where does my group fit in all of this? The players are not being protaginists, I definitely don't see it as any form of Narrativism. Hmm. Maybe Simulationist focused on Situation?

And finally Intuitive Continuity -- did we decide Illusionist or vanilla (excuse me, unconscious) Narrativism?

Steve Dustin

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Steve,

I think I've pretty much stated my take on Intuitive Continuity, which is to say that identifying the technique with any particular single GNS category is not necessary or valid.

From my first post on this thread:
"My only initial point is that Intuitive Continuity, as a form of scenario preparation and running, is not necessarily linked to any particular form of GNS. I have noted in my experience that it tends to become "Roads to Rome" in application."

From my second post on this thread:
"It all comes down to this: Intuitive Continuity is a technique, and it has utility for either Simulationist retroactive "story creation" (by the GM) or Illusionism, as well as for some forms of Narrativist play." [Note: in this quote, I am referring to Illusionism as front-loaded GM-driven story creation; later posts rightly questioned the term being this specific.]

Let me know if my position is still unclear or if you think it's invalid in some way.

Fang and everyone, I am on record from the very first discussions of Illusionism on GO, as well as in my essay, as stating that Illusionism is not necessarily a dysfunctional form of play. I definitely agree, however, that it has a high potential to be dysfunctional when Narrativist-oriented players are involved, but that really isn't any different from saying that (say) some form of Narrativist play becomes dysfunctional when (say) level-up-style Gamist-oriented players are involved.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Which leads me to vanilla Narrativism. This is really similar to what I was talking to Fang above about that if the result is the same why use a different term. I'll forgoe that argument and just say, I think it's a bad term. Its very obscure. Wouldn't unconscious Narrativism be a more intuitive way to describe it?

Your term is probably better in some ways. But in Ron's defense, he came up with the term as a counter to what was going on at the time which was Wild-ass Way-out Narrativism. You see I wouldn't really label it as such, but it was just meant to be descriptive. The term Vanilla is being used in the same way that lots of people use it to refer to Vanilla Sex. Meaning sex, just relatively mundane sex. So it does have a further connotation which is important. I suppose one could play very conscious, very talked about Vanilla Narrativism. Vanilla just means not getting into really far out techniques or anything.

Take an example. I'm in this Sorcerer game. Sorcerer has no rules for taking control of scenes or anything like that, and is the poster-child for Vanilla Narrativism, therefore. But I did it anyway in this game I mentioned. This is a case of a player playing a Vanilla Narrativist game, and drifting toward Chocolate Narrativist play.

Ahem, may I introduce the Narrativist Flavor of the day:

Chocolate - Scene framing
Chocolate Chip - Fortune in the Middle
Mint - in-game retroactive character definition author power
Jimmies - plot points
Marshmallow - Play balance currency
Rocky Road - full directorial power

So, Vanilla Narrativism is just basic Narrativist play and nothing else. Which happens to require little thought or communication, just the decision to prioritize story.

Mike

[Michael Bowman]

I believe I've got a good group of players to attempt the kickers. They definitely not beyond reform (my DnD'ers on the other hand...) Still, players I think hold themselves back, because they expect to be held back. It's not players per se that I feel is the problem, it's the prevalence of the dominant RPG paradigm: GM control, players react.

Hi, I'm one of the players in Steve's game (the one he talks about below, actually). I'd say he's right about holding ourselves back. I'm playing with 3 (soon to be 4) other people, who am I to drag the story my way? I think if we make clear up front that that's what Steve expects of us, that I would be helped in overcoming this reluctance to take charge at times. I've done this in approach to a situation, once, but not in changing the story.

I don't think we'd have problems with "kickers" at all, if I understand kickers correctly. We all are related by a past event (the disappearance of my character's father on a expedition to Tibet). In fact, this has directly resulted in my character's goal: to find out what happened to his father 8-10 years ago.

I look on the current (our first) story arc as the prologue to the story. It's telling how the characters got back together again. We all started in different locations (London, Paris, French Indochina) and Steve's been bringing us together.

Lately, I've been thinking that group character creation may alleviate a lot of this. I bought Sorceror, so I know about the kickers, but I still see a disconnect between players. The traditional group would all go into a corner and create seperate and totally unrelated kickers. I've been thinking that characters, with strong relations to one another, created by the group may alleviate some of this. The playing group would develop maybe as many as 10 characters set in an intricate character map, and then individual players decide who they want to play. Almost like a reverse relationship map -- instead of for the scenario, it's for the PCs. I'm tooling around with a few ideas that may see the light of day on the Indie Game Forum.

I agree here. We are related by a past event, but we have separate characters, with separate concerns. A more cohesive group initially wouldn't require a "prologue" to get us together.

Finally, as for that Pool game, I must dissappoint, it didn't happen for various reasons. I did have an extended conversation with one of my players about Illusionism, how the group plays, etc; discussing some of the points brought up here. I also did a poor job of explaining GNS. He actually had reservations about the Pool, but not about the MoV, but instead what he saw as a low chance of success. He actually gave me a copy of the Interactive Toolkit a few months ago, and I completely forgot! He thinks very highly of it, and tries to pattern his gaming style on it. So I think there's a lot of paydirt to be made here.

My misgivings about The Pool was due to misunderstanding the die rolls. I thought if you didn't get any 1s that you failed. I didn't realize it was more about who controls the story than success or failure. After Steve explained that, I no longer have any problems and look forward to trying it out.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Christopher Kubasik for writing "The Interactive Toolkit." It had a very big influence on changing the way I play (and, even more, GM).

I look forward to participating in this forum and getting up to speed on the terminology and thinking.

Michael Bowman

[Walt Freitag]

Hi Ron,

I understand your point about Intuitive Continuity becoming Roads to Rome. I think this is yet another instance of the underlying Interactive Storytelling Problem poking through. Basically, the problem of resolution is the Interactive Storytelling problem. In other words, it's easy (or at least much much easier) for any interactive storytelling system to generate compelling narrative without constraining free will when the plot is in the process of "thickening," with new elements and characters and subplots able to be added at will. When it comes time for resolution, the bill for all that giddy freedom comes due.

Ask the folks who had to write the final episodes of X-Files. They, too, had been making it all up as they went along; they too were dropping in odd plot threads and disconnected elements just in case they'd be retroactively useful later. They sold the illusion that there was some hidden consistent truth behind it all. But what do you want to bet that their finale will consist of tying up the biggest plot threads in some klunky way, leaving a million loose ends and unexplained points? I'm expecting them to use The Big Distraction, some sudden "climactic" development like an overt alien invasion or a rescue of Mulder that can be quicky and dramatically resolved, hoping the audience will mistake the resolution of the Big Distraction for a resolution of the more important (but less obvious) plot issues. And they don't even have to worry about giving their characters free will.

What can be done about this? Besides the Big Distraction (as popular in RPGs as in action movies and TV series finales), here are a few approaches I've seen:

Don't Resolve. This is a crude solution. You can keep the narrative going indefinitely if you never resolve anything. In practice, never resolving anything seems to go hand in hand with the pretense of always resolving everything, except that the resolutions never actually resolve anything. (Is this another facet of Illusionism, perhance?) The WWF storyline is a great example of this. Their plots and rivalries always build toward (what else?) wrestling matches that will "finally" settle things "once and for all." Anticipation of this resolution creates suspense. Of course what happens in the ring cannot, and does not, resolve anything, but the camera quickly moves on to new permuations.

Similarly, RPGs can continue indefinitely using levelling or character enhancement as the perpetual non-resolution of the perpetually unresolved "conflict" of being greedy in a dangerous world.

Events Take Over. Resolution occurs when you run out of free will. Sometimes you reach a point where all the important decisions have been made and it only remains to "play it out" and see what happens. This is often true in the real world ("The die is cast" – Julius Caesar), and it's a key element of classical tragedy, so why shouldn't it happen in even the most Simulationistic or Narrativistic role playing game? Perhaps it's okay, even beneficial, to drift into a different mode for the climax. Or even to have the GM or a player narrate the climax without role play. The key is to know when to make the transition, so players aren't in the position you described, of having no significant choices left to make while waiting for the climax to arrive.

Whther or not this counts as Roads To Rome depends on when in the narrative it happens. No matter how freely you allow the destination to be altered along the way, eventually a road has to lead somewhere, and there's a point where you're close enough to the destination that altering it becomes absurd. If you can delay that point until you're at the city limits, you've done pretty well; it's okay for all roads to lead to Rome if you're already in frigging Rome.

Blow It Off. Resolution is easy if you drop all continuity and realism. When I was a kid The Monkees TV show drove me bugfuck, because every episode they would build up to a big crisis and then instead of resolving the crisis, the episode would end in a music video. This broke so many rules my little story-arc-conditioned brain couldn't handle it. Perhaps the show's writers were way ahead of their time. Who cares how a bunch of singers solved their ridiculous problem, when you can just take the last train to Clarksville? I've never had the nerve to try this in an RPG. (For one thing, I can't sing.)

Fractal Resolution This approach is the "hard work clean living" answer. Opportunities to resolve are much rarer than opportunities to thicken, so the latter have to be given top priority. Unbound plot threads must be carefully balanced. Too few, and it's hard to find unforeseen ways to weave them together. Too many, and no matter how many you weave together you never get close to resolution. Resolution in Intuitive Continuity is just rowing against the current; it's not impossible, you just have to row harder.

Viewing the story structure as fractal also helps maintain the balance of expansion versus resolution because chapters, sessions, scenes, and encounters are regarded as successively smaller story structures that resemble the larger ones. They have their own lesser climaxes that are occurring all the time. In fact, this goes right down to the level of the individual action. Any mechanism for deciding results outside the character's control (whether it's a die roll or a player's OOC call) is really just "events taking over" in a micro-climax at the smallest scale. Applying fractal self-similarilty suggests that if your system gives a player the responsibility to decide whether or not the character succeeds in jumping across a gap, it's just as appropriate (and not really much different) to give a player the same degree of responsibility in deciding whether or not the protagonists win a climactic battle. It's still just Events Taking Over; at that point the character no longer has free will, even though the player might.

----------

In practice, for big climaxes I take Fractal Resolution as far as my skill permits it to go. Then Events Take Over, and I often do throw in an element of Distraction (essentially, exaggerating the relative importance of those plot elements most likely to be resolvable), helping to cover up any less important loose ends that might be left lying around.

- Walt

[Blake Hutchins]

Hello,

For an examination of how The Pool works in play, check out this thread:  X-Games group's experience with The Pool.

It may offer some insight as to what to expect.

Best,

Blake

[Le Joueur]

Those who defined Illusionism have always spoken of it as a borderline dysfunctional form of play (barely on the dysfunctional side).  

Only if all forms of play are borderline dysfunctional. I would call Illusionism difficult, problematic at times, and other things, but there is a form of Illusionism that is not dysfunctional and is, in fact, a mode of play that I would promote as fun.

As you define it below, it is a hard, but fun, gaming style.  I still maintain that you are conflating alot of things that don't seen to be related to what is directly Illusionism (thought they may be used to 'make it work').

And, okay, I'm being a grouch.  Technically, Illusionism can be made to work; I'm not an absolutist, but as Ron points out, "it has a high potential to be dysfunctional" (and I think it is more often than just with Narrativist players).

What Steve appears to be using is neither Illusionism nor functional to my understanding.

If I thought that Illusionism was dysfunctional I'd stop GMing that way.

Again, the way you play works, but you use a lot of techniques that aren't attached to Illusionism.  It doesn't work because it's Illusionism, if anything, I'd say they work in spite of being Illusionism (if they in fact are).

The utility of the definition of Illusionism is that once you have identified it, you might be able to 'fix it.'  Lately however, several people have begun 'softening' the definition of Illusionism (it is a 'sexy' term) to suggest that it might be a functional form of gaming; I remain highly dubious because the whole concept of an illusion is to 'pull the wool over someone's eyes,' and that road always leads (as well said above) to disillusionment.

Unless the players expect it. I know you think this is not Illusionism, but you are the one refining the definition in a way not intended, or useful.

We can't really say anything about intent, and the utility will have to become a different thread, suffice to say, I disagree with you.

What you describe as "Vanilla Narrativism", because the players are complicit in the GMs Illusions, is also not an accurate description of Narrativism at all. Why? Because the players are not using any Author stance or any other tool to produce the story.

Pardon?  I believe Ron has said, in no uncertain terms, that stance presence or absence has no connection to any of the modes in the GNS.  That is to say, you can play Narrativist without ever coming out of Actor stance.  I am strongly under the impression that the 'vanilla' is attached to the term to represent exactly this 'softening' of the 'requirements' of "tool" usage on the part of the players.  You'll have to speak to the experts though.

If they are participants in the creation of story it is only by accident. Agreement to allow the player to create the story is maybe Dramatism, but certainly not Narrativism. Both Paul and Ron have made this point, but you keep ignoring it.

I'm afraid I just haven't seen that in their posts.  I believe the appearance of 'accidental' story creation on the part of the players is a hallmark of Illusionism (where the gamemaster uses illusion to 'cause' those accidents).

I'm not sure what you're saying with the 'agreement' part; I thought the whole point with Narrativism was an agreement with the players that story was the priority (thus they are 'allowed' to do it too).  Can you quote Paul or Ron to support your point in a context that emphasized it?  I need to understand what you are saying.

Also, the example of Illusionism that you give is but one Illusionist tool. You may not have intended to make it seem like the sum total of Illusionism (or perhaps you did), but it comes off that way. Another example of Illusionism is having players enounter things that did not previously exist but making it look as though they did.

According to what I have read, that is an Intuitive Continuity tool, not one linked to Illusionism.  (While it might be an illusion, I think many styles make use of it, rendering it not a part of Illusionism's proprietary toolkit.)

Or changing NPC motivations to get things to look more like a plot.

This reads more like a Narrativist tool.  You know; story over predefined non-player character motivation.

More importantly, I still claim that Illusionism has nothing to do necessarily with sticking to a pre-planned plot. That is a subset of Illusionism, and describes a good portion of such activities.

I haven't made it clear, but I have backed down on the 'pre-planned' issue, I still see it as an issue of who knows it is all the gamemaster's 'story.'  Whether pre-planned or not, the illusions come out to hide the fact that it's only his.

But in addition, there are cases of just making taking what exists, and creating new elements and events such that some story does then occur or is created from what exists.

This, by Ron's description above, is Simulationism's "retroactive 'story creation'" and not directly associated with Illusionism.  It sounds like you are conflating any kind of illusion with Illusionism.  My understanding is that Illusionism is using any kind of illusion in service of hiding the fact that all ways are the gamemaster's way (to the story) not just any kind of illusion.

You may proceed to call this a moving target of a defintion if you will, but I can only ascribe that to the fact that the definition of Illusionism was never really nailed down firmly. I think we've all had a specific definition in our heads since the original discussion, and no agreement was ever made. So we probably should nail this down.

What I have been working from is what appears to me to be the most common factor in all the exposed descriptions.  That's what's giving mine the 'stripped down' look.  I think everyone agrees that 'using any illusion to cause the players to believe they caused a story, when they have not' is Illusionism.  Can it be made to work?  Yes.  Is it hard?  Yes.  Ultimately, I think the potential for 'disillusionment' is when it becomes dysfunctional.

The question becomes in creating a new definition, which serves us better? I think that a broader definition is best here, as I think that observers would intuitively include play of the sort that I describe.

And my philosophy would hold that a tighter, smaller definition is more easily assimilated, but I don't like the term at all.

The limited formats could serve to illuminate a dysfunctional or very narrow form of play, but then we are left with no definition for similar forms of play and will be correcting people till the cows come home about its usage.

I'm not sure how much of Illusionism, outside of the description I gave above, would not fall into 'vanilla Narrativism.'  I am not as confident about what 'vanilla Narrativism' is specifically, but I think it captures everything outside of my description of Illusionism that I have seen anyone 'add in.'

Better to have the broad category and further subcategories. Like the aforementioned forward/backward, and dysfunctional subcategories. Hell, I'd even append a note on the definition that "it is noted that the difficulties of Illusionism often lead to a dysfunctional version".

I, for one, am against the subcategorization method of definition.  I believe it can't avoid breeding more of the same that in the long term completely erases a definition by blurring it too much.  My way of creating jargon is to create concise terminology and staving off subcategories by creating additional jargon.  (Instead of Illusionism with subcategory this and subcategory that, I would have this, that Illusionism; if this or that are subcategories the latter phrase becomes redundant.)

But I would prefer not to sign on to a definition of Illusionism as necessarily dysfunctional, or only included pre-planned play.

What about the above: "using any illusion to cause the players to believe they caused a story, when they have not."?  No subcategories, no planning implied, no dysfunctional language, clear and right to the point.  Does it work for you, and if not, how 'bout let's start another thread on it?

Fang Langford

[Le Joueur]

When I see the term Illusionism, I see it as meaning total GM control over the story (which is not depend on when a story is planned or whatever the ultimate result of that play will be). To me, that's what is important about using that term. It doesn't take much to add a caveat (with or without player approval), but it does take a lot to redefine many narrow terms over and over, in relation to one another.

Only one problem, where are the illusions?

See you in the new thread....

Fang Langford

[Mike Holmes]

What Steve appears to be using is neither Illusionism nor functional to my understanding.

I agree that it's not functional. And he hasn't shown much evidence that he has done much Illusionism. What he has is like Marco's players who just want to be the window dressing in a story.

I tried to come up with a term for this earlier. Any worse and it'd be what I refer to as Joinerism. But assuming that they really are interested inthe game for the story produced, I'd be tempted to call them Dramatists. But that has too much baggage. Storyist? No. Receptionists? No, overlapping term. Lazy? No, we have to assume that this is a valid play style, as some GMs like these sorts of players.

Actorists? Getting better, but strong actor stancers probably want character control. Audiencism. Hmmm. Problems with the whole "Audience Stance", and not quite right. Passive Narrativism? Not really Narrativist, tho, which would be confusing. Audience Participationism. Wordy, but gets the idea across.

See the problem.

Again, the way you play works, but you use a lot of techniques that aren't attached to Illusionism.  It doesn't work because it's Illusionism, if anything, I'd say they work in spite of being Illusionism (if they in fact are).

Perhaps. But I find the output of Illusionism worth the work.

What you describe as "Vanilla Narrativism", because the players are complicit in the GMs Illusions, is also not an accurate description of Narrativism at all. Why? Because the players are not using any Author stance or any other tool to produce the story.

Pardon?  I believe Ron has said, in no uncertain terms, that stance presence or absence has no connection to any of the modes in the GNS.  That is to say, you can play Narrativist without ever coming out of Actor stance.  I am strongly under the impression that the 'vanilla' is attached to the term to represent exactly this 'softening' of the 'requirements' of "tool" usage on the part of the players.  You'll have to speak to the experts though.

I meant that "or" in such a way as to imply that the player must be doing some "thing" in making decisions to prioritize story to make play Narrativist. Let me rephrase: the players are prioritizing based on exploration. They are playing Simulationist. Simply allowing the GM to take you somewhere is anti-thetical to Narrativism which is defined by player participation in the creative act. If the GM has the power, then it's Simulationism of some sort.

Or changing NPC motivations to get things to look more like a plot.

This reads more like a Narrativist tool.  You know; story over predefined non-player character motivation.

This is the GM playing in a narrativist fashion behind the scenes, maybe, but the players don't know that (by the definition of Illusionism, the part we all agree on). The GM is still trying to deliver a Simulationist experience (this difference in the GMs experience and that which he's trying to give to the players is a one of those current valid GNS Issues of Gareth's). That's the goal of Illusionism: retain the Simulationist experience, while still delivering story that appears to have been created by the players. Tiptoeing around "The Impossible Thing".

What I have been working from is what appears to me to be the most common factor in all the exposed descriptions.  That's what's giving mine the 'stripped down' look.  I think everyone agrees that 'using any illusion to cause the players to believe they caused a story, when they have not' is Illusionism.  

That's a definition I can hang with.

Can it be made to work?  Yes.  Is it hard?  Yes.  Ultimately, I think the potential for 'disillusionment' is when it becomes dysfunctional.

Again, I'd accept that caveat.

I'm not sure how much of Illusionism, outside of the description I gave above, would not fall into 'vanilla Narrativism.'  I am not as confident about what 'vanilla Narrativism' is specifically, but I think it captures everything outside of my description of Illusionism that I have seen anyone 'add in.'

Since the players have no role in determining the story, all Illusionism is a subset of Simulationism, and therefore in no way overlaps with Narrativism. As soon as the players take control and actually start to propell the story, it's Narrativism, and no longer Illusionism. Even if the GM then disembles a bit for play's sake (he'd have little reason to do so having lost the Smulationist experience, anyhow).

I agree that we've split hairs so much here that we should have moved to a new thread long ago, probably. That is if anyone cares to continue to debate this point of terminology.

Mike