Non-literary Narrativism?

[Mark D. Eddy]

Note that this is my first post, so please don't bite if this has come up before.

If I'm following the logic correctly, Narrativism is based on Premise, whether or not there is a conscious knowledge of the Premise. Decisions made in-game to further the Premise (which has a literary equivalent in Theme?) are considered Narrativist.  

If the Premise *is* "exploration of a strange new world," does this mean that Narrativist and Simulationist/Explorer decisions are inseperable? Or is this a non-premise? If the latter, why?

I tend to be a GM first and a player second when looking at game theory. This leads to my second question: If I'm running what works out to be the equivalent of a Soap Opera or Sit-com (ala Teenagers From Outer Space or Heaven and Earth), is there any hope that I can "buy off" my gameist player (tendency of play, honest) with obstacles that are only his own?

Or is this the wrong place to ask this?

[jburneko]

Hello Mark,

Well, you've hit upon what I and couple others think is the greatest weakness in Ron's current essay.  He expanded the concept of Premise to fit across all three major modes of play.  The result, I feel, is some confusion since before we could use the word Premise and everyone knew we were talking Narrativism.  Now we must be specific and say we are discussing a Gamist, Simulationist or Narrativist Premise.  However, in most of the discussions we're talking about a Narrativist Premise by default.

According to the most recent essay, "Exploration of a Strange New World" is a Simulationist Premise.  The implied prioritized goal of play is Exploration of Setting.  This Premise, by definition is not Narrativist.  Here's why:

For a Premise to be a Narrativist Premise it MUST contain an element of ethical or moral dillema.  

There is really no moral choice in "Exploration of a Strange New World."  One can simply go out and see what he can see.

Example Narrativist Premises:

"Is the life of friends and family worth achieving a politcal ideal?" (The Premise to a lot of Spy and Political thrillers)

"What do you do when you can no longer blanketly view the enemy as 'evil'?" (The Premise to Blade II)

"Does a Savage have the right to rule "Civilized" men?" (The Premise to a lot of the Conan stories).

"Where is the line between a savagery and civility?" (The Premise to Brotherhood of the Wolf)

To answer you question about Soap Operas and Sit-Coms:  Soap Operas and Sit-Coms VERY much contain Narrativist Premises.  Usually very simple ones.  Because the Premise is so obvious and up front, it can't help but grab the audience's attention.

Teenagers from Outer Space is an EXCELLENT candiate for Narrativist play (probably with some Drift) because it does contain an implicit Premise.  The Premise is the same as all the Teen Dramas that seem to have become the WB's (a TV Station here in the States if you're not from the States) bread and butter.  Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Smallville, Dawson's Creek all pretty much work off of the same Premise:

"How do you deal with the growing responsibilites of encroaching adulthood without 'selling-out' in the eyes of your peers?"

In the case of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Smallville the two central character's "Powers" are just metaphores for the new set of responsibilites we all have to face at that age.  Teenagers from Outer Space can be used in much the same way.

Hope this was insightful.

Jesse

[Paganini]

Jesse, Mark, I've got a simpler idea about how Premise fits in with Simulationism / Narrativism. (I noticed Mark's very question the other day when I was rereading the essay.) I'm not sure what this means for Gamism; maybe someone can chime in and help out.

Anyway, I was reading, and I noticed tht Premise was one of the things that Simulationist play can prioritize. A little alarm bell went off... I said "Wait a minute... how is Exploration of Premise different from Narrativism?"

Well, in practice, they probably look very similar. The difference has to do with what the players care about while they play. In Simulationism, the Exploration is all. It doesn't really matter to a Simulationist player if the sequence of events produced during Exploration has any sort of literary merit. Note: It's my belief that such a sequence of events *would* indeed be more likely to be of literary merit than that produced by Exploration of Setting, for example, but such is neither a goal, nor a requirement of Simulationism with emphasis on Exploration of Premise (S:EP). To a Narrativist player, though, the focus of play is to create a narrative that meets with their own standards of literary merit. The result of a Narrativist game session can therefore be very subjective - as long as you are making decisions in the desire to create a "good story" (whatever that means to you) then you are playing in the Narrativist mode. This may be contrasted with S:EP where the sequence of events is not motivated by a particular goal for finished product - rather the goal will be to put the Premise through as many permutations as possible. As Ron puts it, the goal is to maintain the in-game causality of the Premise. In more accessable terms, this means that the game remains "true" to the Premise. The game progresses such that each scene addresses the Premise in such a way that its natural cause and effect is displayed.

<Edit: This distinction is important because it means that you can have a real Narrative Premise (implying moral or ethical dillema the way Jesse describes it) but *not* be playing in the Narrativist mode. You can have a very clear Narrative Premise like "Will love overcome even death?" but not be prioritizing story creation at all. An S:EP game based on this premise would be devoted to finding out what happens when the Premise is in focus, while a Narrativist game with that Premise would be devoted to constructing a story that adresses the Premise, including a final resolution that answers the question.>

Note: I've stated the above as though they are facts, because doing so makes for clear, convenient  writing. It's all still just theory though, so pound the heck out of it if you disagree. :)

[Mike Holmes]

Nathan,

All you're saying is that Simulationist play is Simulationist play, and Narrativist play is Narrativist play. And then that one can ignore the Premise if they want.

All true, nobody ever said that a Premise could not be ignored by a determined player. They often are. But that says nothing about what distinguishes such Narrativist Premises from the Simulationist ones.

It's circular reasoning to say that Narrativist play addresses Narrativist Premises, and then Narrative Premises are that which is addressed through Narrativist play. Doesn't tell you anything.

One could say that a practical test for whether a Premise was Narrativist or Simulationist would be to see how it ended up being addressed in play, but that distinction doesn't help us design a Premise that is one or the other. We already know that what we are aiming for is one or the other. We playtest afterwards to see if we've hit the mark.

So I don't see where you've added anything to the current theory. Have I missed something critical?

The usual difference cited is that a Simulationist Premise addresses exploration of something, and a Narrativist Premise looks at some moral quandry or ethical dillemma or something that engages the player into thematic rendering. That's not really difficult is it?

Mike

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Anyway, I was reading, and I noticed tht Premise was one of the things that Simulationist play can prioritize.

??? Where did you read that?

I just re-read the GNS essay to make sure, and it definitely doesn't say that.

[Paganini]

Anyway, I was reading, and I noticed tht Premise was one of the things that Simulationist play can prioritize.

??? Where did you read that?

I just re-read the GNS essay to make sure, and it definitely doesn't say that.

You know what? You're right!

DOH!

Ron explicitly states that premise comes *after* you decide what you explore. And I missed it.

<sound of head banging>

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mark,

Welcome to the Forge! You certainly decided to start swimming in the deep end ...

First of all, Jesse addressed your questions pretty well, and Mike's post is also relevant and accurate. Nathan (Paganini), I'm afraid, has muddied the waters with his "Exploring Premise" phrase, which is not a functional piece of the theory at all, as Seth points out.

I'll try to clarify things, as an answer to your post and not dealing with Nathan's detour.

Premise as a term currently exists at several levels. I won't go into why I chose to do it that way at this point. I'm considering, but not yet convinced, alter that for the re-write.

1) Most general Premise: what interests me or us about playing, right now. It has to be focused, both socially and operationally, from "what's neat" to "what we're going to do in play."

3) Premise in action: Gamist, Simulationist, or Narrativist priorities. This is where most people have trouble, about a bunch of different things, including why "premise" is used as a blanket word across the modes. For now, accept that Premise at this level goes as follows:

- competitive among people, of a wide variety of sorts (including a couple that some people strongly object to calling "competitive," which I acknowledge)

- addressing some moral/ethical/social dilemma, producing a theme (this is just what authors of movies, novels, etc, do), again in a variety of procedural ways

- focusing on the imaginative/experiential element of play, for its "own sake" so to speak, and varying across whatever component(s) of the imagined world or process are being focused on

I think what's tripping you up is recognizing that Narrativist Premise isn't "any and all Premise," but rather just one sort of Premise (the second one above).

Oh, and everyone? Please don't turn this thread into a big dogpile about why I shouldn't have done it this way. Stay with the priority of clarifying the essay to Mark, for now.

Best,
Ron

[Paganini]

All you're saying is that Simulationist play is Simulationist play, and Narrativist play is Narrativist play. And then that one can ignore the Premise if they want.

More or less, yes, but that was the question, wasn't it? How is Narrativism different from Simulationist exploration? The answer is that Simulationism focuses on the exploration act itself, while Narrativism focuses on the output that that exploration produces.

[Ron Edwards]

Nathan,

Beautiful. Well stated.

A corollary point is that Gamism shares this quality with Narrativism, with these two differing in terms of what outcome-phenomenon is being "looked at" as the priority.

Best,
Ron