[Rifts] Monster with a past; risking the chance of showing it

[Callan S.]

I'm not sure I'm being a good forgite writing posting this in a new thread, because I don't have much to add myself. But I dig the request since it may have put the other thread off topic: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=18066.30

This happened a few years ago, with a new group who I no longer play with due to personality issues. I also refer to this game in this thread: Anxiety and recognition of narrativism [long]

I had an adventure once where the players heard NPC's outside a bar they were in, encountering a monster. But see, he was actually formally a man who turned himself into a barely sentient monster in a fit of rage (through a certain process) when a girl spurned him for his rival. And now he was serving his own mage son, without either of them knowing it, since in his rage he'd raped his love and left her pregnant, before he made himself a monster (part of the reason he made himself a monster, anyway). The son grew up, became a mage and so on. The players, at this point, know none of this.

And frankly, these players got out there and pushed (You know what I mean - eyes bright, sitting forward kind of push) with their resources, to kill this sucker. As I manouvered him the hell out of there, I knew the stakes were not about anything I had in mind with him (I didn't know about nar, years ago when this happened). In fact, it made me quite desperate to get him out of there, because it wouldn't just kill the NPC, it'd kill what I hoped for in the game (and from my position now, I'd say it'd kill the type of game agenda I hoped for).

I didn't think risking the chance for a latter address of premise was what I wanted at all and could never imagine, for myself, ever wanting to risk that (as part of nar play). So I'm not sure I really buy into the idea of risking future address opportunities as the risk a player faces. It's a bit glib, but I think losing a character only breaks your heart a bit...while losing those future opportunities breaks the narrtivist agenda. So much so that I hypothesize that a GM that wants narrativism but threatens such opportunities (to add player risk to an address), may be making idle threats.

To further clarify "opportunity", I mean where the other players will be informed enough to understand and get what I mean by the characters death (or whatever else happens). Here, the other players weren't informed, so by risking his death I wasn't addressing premise at all - I was simply risking any future opportunity to do so.

I don't think this sort of risk can be applied in narrativist play. The risk involved has no thematic weight to it (rather, it disrupts narrativist play) and is out of place amongst the rest of the agenda appropriate risks. Attempting to add it to lend 'player risk' to an address doesn't add anything, as the risk doesn't match the agenda.

[TonyLB]

I don't get it.  You seem to be equating "narrativism" with never, ever letting an opportunity to address theme pass you by.  I get that, if you let that guy die, you lose your chance to tell that thematically charged story.  But I don't see how it stops you from telling some other thematically charged story.  If you miss the first bus, just wait ... another will be along in a minute.

By the way, did they actually manage to kill the guy?  You set up the whole issue of them trying hard to kill him and you trying hard to save him, but I don't see how it turned out, and I'm all interested!

[Callan S.]

No, letting an opportunity to address premise slip past is fine. But letting such a moment slip isn't something you celebrate as a great nar moment (you just forget about it). I think I'm right in thinking this: that if your risking something, your saying "Look, this is a signficant moment, because I'm risking something I'm pretty damn invested in". In my mind, it just doesn't combine to say "Look, this is a signficant moment in our narrativist play - where I'm (potentially) skipping an address of premise". You can't have a great nar moment because your willingness to skip an address. It's trying to build up an agenda, by being willing to undermine it.

As to the monster, he already had a 'fly as the eagle' spell on him, and he escaped by flying low over the rooftops around the town, as instructed. But I think there was some buisiness with a net/rope and some jumbo amounts of damage before he went. Basically one of those resolutions which is like spoon bending in the matrix, where the world bends to a particular resolution because your invested enough to bend yourself to meet it. But in the end, he and his master got wasted - the players were a gamist and an "explore efficiency" simulationist, as I'd like to put it. I think I remember a bit where the wizard got shotguned and knocked to the ground, but still ranted his cause even from the dirt, because he was that dementedly focused on it (As GM I didn't know he'd get knocked down, but I knew he was still going to say what he had to say when it happened). The gamist just scoffed at it, cause it looked stupid for him to do (Probably from some reasoning like: when you get your ass knocked to the ground, don't talk like your winning!)

[TonyLB]

So, just to check that I understand correctly:  You are not talking about the whole group jointly getting together and appreciating an address of premise.  That was completely impossible with the group you had ... even when you, individually, addressed premise they just scoffed at it.

You're talking about you, individually, addressing premise even when the other players want nothing to do with it.  Yes?

[Callan S.]

Well, no. The guts of my actions don't involve any attempt at address of premise at all (merely tactical actions and perhaps calvin balling to preserve my future chance at making an address). I do this only with the motive of wanting to make an address latter (the incapacity for my address to be appreciated by the group has not dawned upon me at this point in play).

I think this parralels a group who is doing nar, but all they say they are doing is working out whether a future address opportunity exists or not. At that point, are they forfilling a narrativist agenda, or deciding if they are going to do some narrativism in future? I think it's the latter as much as I think all those tactical actions I made in my account had nothing to do with nar. Those tactical actions were to preserve the agenda I sought, rather than actually play that agenda.

I dunno, it's like saying "I really want to live in house N, that is my agenda. Now I'm going to risk the monthly rent money of $1000 for a chance at...$1000, exactly what I bet in the first place"

I could understand it if that risk could earn you $2000, then you'd live there for two months (a dangerous bet, but I still get the reasoning). But if your risking $1000 for no extra return/if your risking your future address opportunity for no extra return, that's not taking a risk in the name of your agenda, it's merely deciding to put that agenda at risk for nothing that will at all further it.

In my own example, I don't think there was anything to gain from that risk that furthers a narrativist agenda, even if I was with a bunch of nar hippies from the forge. ;)

[TonyLB]

But ... you weren't with a group that was ever going to appreciate what you were pitching.  The more I hear about this, the more impossible it seems.  You didn't have anything to risk.  There was never a chance that you would get what you were hoping for.  You had already lost, would always lose, could never win.  Lost cause, man.  Let the monster die, keep the monster alive, it doesn't matter.

When a group shares an agenda then they make the story serve that agenda.  If the monster dies, it doesn't matter ... they make some other story that suits their agenda.  That's what they want to do, and no piddling speedbump like a dead monster is going to stop them.  When everyone is on the same page I would argue that you cannot lose.

Likewise, when you're fighting against people with another agenda, I would argue that you cannot win.  No matter how you manipulate the story, no matter how forcefully you put forward the kind of elements that you would appreciate, if you were in their place ... they're never going to appreciate them.  They do not want to care about how the monster came to be a monster.  They do not want to understand his tragic past.  They do not want to sympathize with his plight.  They want to kill it.  When you are done telling them the things that you hope will make them care, and understand, and sympathize they will say "Are you done now?" and they will kill the monster, just like they wanted to in the first place.

I guess I'm not seeing the situation where you could say "If I win this then I get to play my agenda, but if I lose this then I don't."  Either your agenda is compatible with the group or it isn't.  This sounds, to me, like saying "If I can get these dinner reservations then the girl will love me, otherwise she won't."  You can't make a girl love you by getting dinner reservations, or not love you by failing to.  And you can't make a group appreciate your agenda by keeping the monster alive, or prevent them from appreciating it by failing to.  Life would be simpler if you could, but you can't.

[Callan S.]

I don't think it matters if they were going to appreciate it (for the purposes of this thread), just that I thought they would. It doesn't matter whether the treasure chest ends up being empty or full, what matters are the motives that stem from me hoping it will be full. Whether the chest ends up being full or empty, will not change my motives until I know it for a fact (unless I suspect it will be empty - but I didn't, 'cause I'm a sucker!). I wasn't fighting to get them to accept my agenda - I was fighting to keep the agenda that I honestly throught was there.

When a group shares an agenda then they make the story serve that agenda.  If the monster dies, it doesn't matter ... they make some other story that suits their agenda.  That's what they want to do, and no piddling speedbump like a dead monster is going to stop them.  When everyone is on the same page I would argue that you cannot lose.

I don't know. Remember the various accounts in other threads of nar roleplay where people play for five hours, then have one narrativist address at the end? I see risking a future address opportunity as the same problem, "I'm going to risk going through X amount of time not building up to or making any address, as my player risk in doing this address"

I think twenty minutes of fun in five hours is losing (in terms of forfilling your agenda). And risking any amount of time of not doing nar, is losing in the same way (losing to various degrees relative to the amount of time risked). Accidently losing time because you start talking about a movie or something - that's okay. But actively risking session time - it's just losing.

Of course, the player might say he's risking that time/that address opportunity. But when he loses the opportunity, he switches to some other issue to make an address about (he catches the next bus, as you say). However, I don't see any risk involved if that is okay to do.