Theme as character for 'GMs'

[Stivven]

This is sometihng of a passing though that stuck me after my ongoing game last night - when there's a stong theme embedded in a game (formally or informally) it tends (quite rightly) to filter into many different aspects of the game. I also get the impression that the theme appears in the game as what is effectively a 'character' that the PCs interact with.

I guess what I'm getting at is by purely reductionist logic the 'theme' of the game unifies and codifies the actual events in such a way that the game becomes PCs interacting with a dispersed NPC.

Does that make sense? And if it does does anyone have any thoughts/comments??

Steve

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Steve,

I guess I'll understand your point better if we're talking about "theme" as Answer or Question. I'll call it an "issue" pending your reply, and I hope that doesn't confuse things.

I also can't really tell if you're talking about a single NPC who personally embodies or expresses the issue, or about the issue being expressed across a variety of NPCs.

For instance, in my long-running Hero Wars game, the primary NPC was the clan leader, an eighteen-year-old woman named Aething. She was originally built as an Antigone figure, with the players put in the position of deciding the morality of her claim to leadership. As a major NPC throughout the game, she became, essentially, an ongoing issue - but never an answer; the answer was provided in all cases by the players and their decisions about their characters' actions.

As play progressed very far beyond my opening/prep thoughts (as in, many months beyond!), all sorts of issues of problematic sexuality were addressed in the various scenarios that followed. In each case, obviously, NPCs were involved in the plain old in-game sense - which, in highly thematic play, means they were also emblematic of aspects of the issue. (This isn't any kind of high-flown symbolism so much as plain old story logic.)

So my thought is: if prep and conduct of play, in a given group, raises an Issue, then ipso facto, some NPCs will be touchstones for aspects of that issue, and perhaps one NPC will be an ongoing touchstone. However, this doesn't strike me as ... you know, hard, or controversial, or difficult to achieve. Perhaps I'm missing some aspect of your question.

Best,
Ron

P.S. The idea of a thematic question, to be answered through play, is synonymous with my definition of Narrativist Premise. I've tried to avoid that term in this post in order not to sideline Steve's question into yet another What Is Premise hoo-ha.

[Mike Holmes]

I think that what he's saying, Ron, is that functionally, for the GM, the theme of the game becomes a character that the GM plays. Not that it coalesces into NPCs or anything, just that the interaction between players and the theme in question (Which might be Premise in your book, I'm not sure what definition he's using either), makes the Theme itself somehting like a character to be played.

Or is your point, Ron, that one can't interact thematically in any way except via NPCs? That they are the GMs only expression of the theme?

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mike,

You wrote,
"... is your point, Ron, that one can't interact thematically in any way except via NPCs? That they are the GMs only expression of the theme?"

Good Lord, no. Nothing so extreme. NPCs would be utilized as a GM's expression of the issue at hand (Premise, thematic question) just as anything else the GM can affect in the game-world, up to and including time and space.

My point is that any and all GM input, NPCs included, may well be playing this role - and that such input has to play that role, to lesser or greater degrees (including "rests"), during the course of play that puts the thematic question at the main priority. And again, I don't see that as a profound or difficult point.

Best,
Ron

[Stivven]

Hmm I guess that I was less than clear, but it was a quick post on the way to catch a train. What I was trying to convey was touched on in Mike's response, and I'll try to expand & clarify somewhat.

The theme that I briefly nattered on about is indeed the 'theme as question' idea aka premise etc. I completly agree that the process of its exploration almost inevitably leads to recurrent motifs in the game, and that such a situation is neither strange or difficult to routinely achieve.

When  Mike said that:

the theme of the game becomes a character that the GM plays

he neatly summed up what I meant - that the theme becomes something like 'playing tips' for the GM, and that it penetrates all aspects of the game, from NPCs to anything else in the setting.

The percieved theme then becomes something that the GM is - to a greater or lesser degree - influenced by, perhaps to the extent of subordinating other concerns to it. (Of course if this is so integrated into the GM i.e. the GM would be in something analagous to actor stange with respect to the theme, then its not an issue.)

Steve

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Steve,

I believe that I've commented about as fully as I can in the final paragraph of my second post.

The only addition I have is to say that using the phrase "as a character" is extremely confusing, and I don't see the value in expressing your point that way. The GM is definitely prioritizing the thematic question, yes. That's Narrativist play on his part, by definition. Why anyone would refer to this as a "character" thing - when it is expressed by anything from NPC activity, weather, inanimate objects' relationship to one another, or any other GM-input, is not clear to me at all.

Is there anything that you can clarify or want to develop, relative to these points?

Best,
Ron