Let's Talk About "Meaningful" Choice

[jburneko]

Hello,

I almost put this in RPG Theory or even GNS but I'm going to be talking almost entirely in terms of Adept Press products and I don't mind responses being in terms of Adept Press products so I decided to put it here.  Also, this post might show case just how incredibly dense, narrow minded and/or arrogant I really am.

Okay, now all of Ron's games are obviously geared towards a Narrativist mindset.  And Narrativism is based on addressing moral and ethical issues (Premise) through play.  Okay, gotcha.  And yet in the example sceanrios/setups/source litterature, either in adept press products or in some other people's games I've seen, I continually fail to see where the "issue" or or "meaningful" choice is in the majority of them.

Example:

Joshua Neff's one-on-one Trollbabe game.  I'm assuming the following was "preplanned" or at least GM provided, correct me if I'm wrong.  The dead sheep.  The two farms and the farmer's assumption that Ursh the Troll is the sheep killer.  Berek the hired hunter.  And the Hunter in Dark entity which is the real killer.  MAYBE, Gar the son who becomes enarmored with the Trollbabe.  Okay, this is a really cool little fantasy setup.  Where's the choice?  Here's what I mean.

In Trollbabe, there are no Kickers so it's the GMs job to provide Situation.  That means that "walking away" is not really a viable character option because it means abandoning the GM's Situation (not Story!).  Okay, so in order for any game to take place the player must in some way address the Situation brought to the table by the GM.  I DO understand that the NATURE of that Situation is influenced by the Player when he/she sets the stakes of the Situation.

Okay, so once we've eliminated the passive choice and, this is going to be harsh and show off that arrogance I was warning about, I maintain that in the above Situation there is only ONE morally correct course of action: Kill or otherwise eliminate the Hunter in the Dark and clear Ursh.  That's it.  That's the OBVIOUSLY correct course of action to take here.  Given a set of reasonablly heroically minded players and run the scenario 100 times I can almost guarantee that 99% of the time, that's what's going to happen.

At THAT point all that's left is methodology.  Does the player try to enlist Berek's aid first or not? Where and when does Berek and or Ursh complicate or other wise interfere with this situation?  At this point, I REALLY don't see a difference between a D&D game (I think the above Situation is practically spelled out in the DMG under "low level adventures") and a Trollbabe game except that Trollbabe's mechanics give the player a lot of power over how these "methodology" questions get answered outside of how their character directly approaches the problem.

I could run down the little sample situations in the Trollbabe rule book and tell you how they will each turn out.  The scenarios in Sorcerer's Soul really don't look all that different from how I used to structure my "Hunt-The-Wumpus" style Chill games (Find my old "Accidental Narrativist" Thread) right down to the fact that the supernatural element was there to put pressure on real human villainy.  In most (not all) of the source material from Sorcerer's Sword & The Sorcerer's Soul, I just don't see a lot of "meaningful" choices being made.

Now here's where I'm willing to concede some points.  First, I'm defining "meainingful" to mean "difficult."  

Example:

I think the most haunting decision from fiction I will remember for the rest of my life actually came from the TV Show Angel.  Okay, so Angel is hunting his vampire ex-girlfriend, whom he knows he must kill eventually.  He finds her about to slaughter and feast on the entire board of directors of his nemesis the Wolfram & Hart law firm.  The trapped board of directors plead for help.  What do you do?

Fuck.  I don't know.

I know what Angel did.  He says, "I just can't bring myself to care." (a line one of the board of directors threw at him earlier), shuts and locks (!) the door and walks away.  Chilling.  That scene still bothers me deeply whenever I think about it.

THAT's a meaningful choice.

The second point I'm willing to conceed has to do with my group in particular.  Frankly, I don't think they're all that imaginative when it comes to methodology as an expression of character, particularly when they've met up and are working as allies.  That is, if the decision to take a course of actions doesn't thematically define their characters then what set of specific actions they are taking most certainly won't.

The net result of this is that when I plan bangs, I end up only accepting bangs that if I were confronted with the given situation I would have great difficulting in deciding what path (goals) to take, yet alone what steps to take on that path would be.  And quite frankly, this is rather difficult.  It also has the effect of making my games rather grim because the players are always having to choose between lesser evils or some level of sacrifice.  But then again you're talking to guy who's favorite films of all time include: Brazil, Pi, Night of The Living Dead, Cube, and if the trailors are to be believed an upcoming little gem called The Phone Booth, will probably be added to that list.  Basically, anything where I can point at the screen, throw my head back and laugh, "Oh you are so fucked!" at the protagonists.

Thoughts?

Jesse

[Valamir]

First let me say I've seen 3 episodes of Angel only.  That was one of them.  That ending was one of the coolest most anti "happily ever after" endings ever...I was floored.

On to the issue.

I'm thinking that "meaningful choice" does not have to mean "central choice of the situation".

Forget all of the possible explanations about the sheep situation and alternative approaches the GM may or may not have allowed or whether walking away ever was a possibility.  Let's assume the situation was really as pat as expressed above.

I agree that the obvious choice is as you described (though I'd set it much lower than 99% but why quibble about that).  However, I contend that the real meaningful choice is not whether or not to get involved but in fact imbedded in what you call the methodology.

Whether to kill Berek, convert and befriend Berek, or thwart then ignore Berek is a meaningful choice.

Whether the player immediately assumes the Troll is innocent or accepts that the troll may in fact be guilty, or initially believes the Troll probably is guilty says a tremendous amount about the personality of the Troll Babe and is an immediate focus on the inter racial issues...one that has overtly obvious parallels in real world race relations regarding assumptions of guilt or innocence and racial solidarity.

How the Hunter is dealt with is a similiar powerful choice.  Is it killed, driven off, bribed.  Perhaps the Hunter actually does have a legitimate claim to be able to hunt these lands and it is the humans who are interlopers.  Perhaps the hunter was an ancient spirit that the humans used to appease according to ancient law and tradition.  Perhaps the "new religion" that stamped out paganism has caused the humans to break the ancient contract and the Hunter is merely abiding by the terms as the "aggreved party".  Whether or not this is the case...the key question and powerful choice comes in the form of whether the player character actually investigates these as possibilities or immediately dismisses the hunter as an evil to be killed.  Or even more telling, knows that the one of these is true but decides to kill the Hunter anyway (even though the Hunter is in the right) as a way of improving Human/Troll relations.

Point being that the Situation might be totally rail roaded, but that doesn't eliminate the possibility of premise being derived from the choices made within the framework

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jesse,

I agree with what Ralph's written, but I also think that you're confusing how you would react/play with what's being presented. It's a lot like all those folks who played the In Utero scenario at GenCon - many of them pointed at the character sheet as they announced an action or decision, and said, "That's the character," ... and you know what, there ain't nothin' on a Sorcerer character sheet that dictates character behavior.

I've played most of the scenarios in the Trollbabe scenario multiple times, and outcomes are much more various than you describe. The trollbabe cannot leave an adventure; that's the rule. But anything can happen to the Stakes, literally anything. Say the Stakes are defined as a family's pig-farm. Sure, there's a Wumpus out there, and the whole damn countryside is up in arms about it. But what happens to the Wumpus and the countryside is wide open, relative to the fate of the Stakes.

I can't emphasize that enough. Dealing with what everyone in the scenario calls "the problem" does not have to turn out one way or the other regarding how the Stakes turn out. This is exactly where I think your habits of play are affecting how you read the material.

[And I remind you that other perceived elements of Sorcerer play, notably the time a given relationship-map-based scenario will take to run, have not survived your experience with the game in actual play.]

Another point is that once the Stakes go one way or another (or another), the adventure is over. When the Stakes are as simple as one person's life or fate, and if the Stakes are settled for good, then the trollbabe may leave the Big Bad Wumpus to rampage across the countryside. Or if she does deal with it, that conflict can be resolved early or late in the scenario, or turn out well or badly.

Best,
Ron

[Ron Edwards]

H'mmm,

Jesse, I thought about this a little more, and particularly given your accounts of the Gothic game and the Space Station game, I think that my previous message was probably wrong - you do have the skills, understanding, etc, to play "full Narrativist," and I'm afraid that my message might imply otherwise.

So screw that whole line of argument. What we're talking about is game text, which is to say, conveying an opportunity for such play through a written scenario.

Bluntly, it's a bitch. How can you say Play Narrativist with This, when "This" is a Premise? How can you provide Setting without people who are used to Sim-Setting going into that mode upon reading it? How can you provide Situation without railroading, at least in terms of their reactions to it (we worked that one over in the Art-Deco Melodrama, didn't we?)?

I don't think a standard presentation method exists for Narrativist play. On the one hand, if it's more detailed (ie stuff is added that was developed during play) it slips into Sim-Situation, and then on the other, if it's wide-open Premise, it looks like a bunch of goob. It's like trying to present a jazz score ... if the musicians dutifully play what's written, it's not jazz, but if they get a blank sheet with some chord changes scribbled on it, then (if they're not skilled jazz musicians) they don't know what to do.

Jesse, please consider this post to be my real answer. Most of what I presented above is valid, as points, but I don't think those points apply to you.

Best,
Ron

[Jake Norwood]

Hey-

I've been following this thread pretty closely (even though it's pretty small), because I think this is a valid issue. What is meaningful choice, and--more importantly--how can we present it and other "narrativist stuff" in a game book?

I know that when I personally write out scenarios it's like those jazz musicians--lots of chords and notes and issues and ideas, but rarely anything that resembles structure. Perhaps, though, structure could be added to a degree by setting up something along the lines of a flow chart that poses questions and possible directions those questions lead. This is *sort of* what I tried with the "adventure seeds" in the TROS rulebook (succeding to different degrees). What do you all think? How can we present narrativist issues and scenarios without as much of the aforementioned difficulty?

Jake

[Bankuei]

I think this thread is going to be a Pandora's box...

Let's start with the idea of "Meaningful Choice"...more importantly than the stakes or the ethical issue at hand, in most stories a meaningful choice is designed to demonstrate an aspect about a character.  

In the case of Joshua Neff's game, unless the Trollbabe is callous or villainous, the choice of turning away from the situation fails to provide any sort of insight to the character.  It's the same thing as Superman seeing people in danger.  People being in trouble doesn't provide any kind of choice, since we all know he will save them instead of turning away.  A more meaningful choice comes up when he has to save a city, or Lois Lane...

Instead of conflict being between two people, or a group, we're talking about a conflict between two ideals or goals.  Taking the classic samurai conflict, it's usually love vs. duty.  The antagonists only serve purpose to set up that conflict and spike it.  You could say the situation is a rorschach test to let the characters demonstrate something about themselves.

Of course, as Ron put it, how do we introduce this to folks who would only see it as an "Encounter" to be defeated or an Illusionist metaplot?  The only thing I can think of that might lead some clues would be to take a close look at Narrativist play, and perhaps giving examples in text.

Chris

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Chris,

What fascinates me about most examples in role-playing texts is that they use the character names but describe player actions. I'm looking at the Arrowflight rules (chosen because it's one of the most honest Illusionist game texts I've ever seen), and that's just what they do: "Gythara rolls 4d6 ..." (paraphrase). In other words, the distinction between player and character that's central to Author Stance is deliberately obscured in most game texts, most especially in examples of play.

[Side note: that same Author-Stance player/character distinction is common in and even necessary in Gamist play, and Arrowflight is explicitly, even insultingly anti-Gamist.]

I think I ran into this problem to some extent in the Sorcerer core book, but the supplements are much, much clearer about it - and the upcoming third supplement is grossly clear about it.

From chapter 1 in the upcoming supplement:
So far, so cool. Here are all these characters, doing all these neat things, and it all turns out to mean something interesting and emotionally-engaging ... right? Wrong. Thinking in these terms is missing a crucial point about the whole process.

That point is blunt and undeniable: role-playing characters do not exist. They don't think things, feel things, or do things, ever, because they are fictional. For the content of the game to matter at all, what the characters "think" is not the foundation – the people must care, because they are the ones who invent what the characters think. Sorcerer is a game about fictional relationships created by a group of people who themselves have real relationships, and what characters think and do begins, happens, and ends based on the people.

All of which requires a very different approach to any example presented in the text, but most especially to scenarios. It's a developing art, and you can see its evolution in my writings: (1) the "punt" of the haunted-house scenario in Sorcerer, in which I say, "This is not a real scenario"; (2) the fairly linear and map-oriented Elfs scenario Ice & Fire, which is OK for that game; (3) the much more Humanity-grounded and open-ended scenarios in The Sorcerer's Soul, which are unfortunately readable as classic Hunt-the-Wumpus scenarios unless your understanding of Narrativism is "already there"; and (4) what I consider to be much more useful and teaching-oriented, the Sisters scenario in Demon Cops, in which I am more explicit about letting the player-characters literally define their conflicts and also about how Kickers are involved.

Based on actual play accounts by others, the approach in Trollbabe is far more "free" in terms of protagonist conflict becoming central than anything else I've done. I think Jesse's concerns are valid general concerns, but so far, Trollbabe seems to be holding its "meaningful choice" ground pretty well. I think one of the additions I'd most like to make to the website is "A trollbabe story from start to finish" specifically from the players and GM's point of view, all the way from initial character creation to scenario prep to play, and laying out all the creative decisions exactly as they really occur.

Best,
Ron

[GreatWolf]

I think one of the additions I'd most like to make to the website is "A trollbabe story from start to finish" specifically from the players and GM's point of view, all the way from initial character creation to scenario prep to play, and laying out all the creative decisions exactly as they really occur.

I think that this is a useful addition for any RPG, regardless of its GNS orientation.  This could also be incorporated into the text of the game itself, having one long Example of Play being used for all rules examples.  Universalis does this quite well.  So, for instance, the examples in the chargen chapter lead into the examples of play in the rules chapters, and each example also lays out the players' reasoning in making the choices that they made.  In this way, the examples show both how to apply the rules and also the creative process behind the application of the rules.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

[jburneko]

Hello Ron,

Hey, I didn't really read your first post as an attack on my understanding or ability but more like a reminder to keep practacing, which I'll be the first to admit I need and enjoy doing.  So that's all good.

Bluntly, it's a bitch. How can you say Play Narrativist with This, when "This" is a Premise? How can you provide Setting without people who are used to Sim-Setting going into that mode upon reading it? How can you provide Situation without railroading, at least in terms of their reactions to it (we worked that one over in the Art-Deco Melodrama, didn't we?)?

YES! YES! YES!  I think this is what I was driving at.  I realized that in my first post I'd already answered my own question when I wrote, "All that's left is methodology..." a little sign lit up that said, "Well, DUH, then methodology is where the meaningful choice is..."  When you eliminate the impossible, and all that.

I think one of the additions I'd most like to make to the website is "A trollbabe story from start to finish" specifically from the players and GM's point of view, all the way from initial character creation to scenario prep to play, and laying out all the creative decisions exactly as they really occur.

YES! Again.  Remember WAY back when when I used to pester you for anotated transcripts of actual play?

Jesse

[joshua neff]

I think there may be more of a "big picture"/"little picture" thing going on as well. Let's take my own Trollbabe run as an example (since everyone else seems to want to use it).

In the first session, yes, there wasn't much choice in terms of "do I address the situation or not?" Of course Julie would have Oga try to save the Troll. That was put forward by me, & to ignore it is to walk out of the scenario, which is, as Ron said, a no-no. But what wasn't put forward by me was HOW to defend the Troll. She ended up grabbing Berek's axe away from him & slicing it across his kneecaps (not to disable, but to wound his pride). She could've used Magic or Social, but she didn't. She could've conked him on the head & knocked him out. She could've chopped his head off. Either way, it makes a statement. The only rule was that she had to do something.

In our second session, which was played last night (& I haven't written about in Actual Play yet), she met a man who had been cursed by an evil sorcerer. He was on his way to kill the sorcerer & break the curse, & she offered to accompany him--because, duh, obviously that's what the scenario was. But, the way she dealt with this guy & the way she dealt with the sorcerer were completely up to her. There was a lot of talk about killing the sorcerer, but when it came down to the climax of the scenario, Julie rolled for Social to intimidate the sorcerer into ending the curse, backing it up with "a remembered spell." And the reroll succeeded. So, no violence, no death. Oga uses the force of her personality to cow the sorcerer & end the curse. That was completely Julie's decision. She even said during play, "Oga doesn't like violence. She wants to find a different solution to the problem." Great!

So, while an individual scenario may have some stuff put to the PC(s) to deal with, with little apparent Player choice, over the course of a run of sessions there's a lot coming from the Player in terms of addressing the Premise (whatever that may be).

There's a lot of lit out there in which the protagonists aren't working off of a "Kicker" but dealing with stuff thrown at them. The "dealing with a premise" still comes from HOW they deal with the stuff. Similarly, whether the PCs have Kickers of not, whether the scenario conflicts are coming from the PCs or from the GM throwing stuff at them, the real statements are coming from HOW the PCs deal with the conflicts. Aren't they just Bangs that the PCs have to deal with? That's how I'm doing Trollbabe--the dead sheep on the road is a Bang, & Julie dealth with it by shrugging & walking on. The first farm is another Bang, & again Julie shrugged & walked on. The second farm was another Bang, & this time, with the inclusion of the information that a Troll was being hunted, Julie decided to act. Because I hooked her as a Player (knowing that Julie would be hooked by kneejerk assumptions based on race). But I never dictated HOW she had to react to any Bang.

So, preplanned or GM-dictated, I'm not sure, really, what the problem is here.

[Bankuei]

Based on actual play accounts by others, the approach in Trollbabe is far more "free" in terms of protagonist conflict becoming central than anything else I've done. I think Jesse's concerns are valid general concerns, but so far, Trollbabe seems to be holding its "meaningful choice" ground pretty well.

I have to agree with you on this, Ron.  I think Trollbabe succeeds on this for several reasons.  

First, Trollbabe mechanics basically are about relationships...the fact that you're using relationships to acheive goals(and, in fact, risking the people in those relationships to do so), sets up meaningful choice right there.  Is your goal or your relationship to so-and-so more important?  Are you willing to risk them suffering injury or death?

Second, Trollbabe minimizes preplay definition of character.  You don't start with alignment, 2 pages of backstory, clan affiliation, or even spiritual attributes.  You are absolutely free to play your character as you see fit as Joshua pointed out.  Your character is defined through play, not through points, charts or class/clan/power choices.  By doing so, there is more opportunity for meaningful choice, although it still requires players to recognize it to take advantage of what this means in expression of character and protagonism.

Third, Trollbabe sets up a lot of player input as far as the story goes.  Since each player can narrate their failures, request scenes, and decide who's going to be a reoccuring character by developing relationships or breaking them.  In this way, players who recognize what is possible can set up a lot of meaningful choices for themselves.

But this comes back to the primary issue; how to communicate this concept to folks who have never heard of it?  I think your idea of a full play example, beginning to end, with Player intention behind the decisions is a great idea.  One thing that might be of great use is to examine previous experience with introducing new players to narrativist play, and asking them, "At what point did it click?"

Chris

[jburneko]

Hey Josh,

Thanks for the reply and the added detail that really helps.  I think the answer to my initial question was Methodolgy Matters and has actually opened up yet another set of doors in my thinking about how to run games like Sorcerer and Trollbabe.

Despite my conceptual understanding of these games I'm still very rusty in the applied department.  My current BIGGEST weakness is NPCs.  I really still only have two types of NPCs, beligerant antagonists and allied information databases.  BORING!!!  And I think this thread has really helped me figure out where I'm falling down.  I understand what NPCs want and what their function is in the larger scheme things but I have no idea how their wants and thematic purposes manifests as actual behavior.

An example of this would be the other night during our second session of the Space-Western Sorcerer game.  There's a bandit NPC I named Montegue Foreman and based on my sort of dashing portrayal of him the players have nicked name him "Gentleman Monte" which I liked, so I made it an actual in-game nick name for this guy.

The player of the Station Manger, who's name is Thomasina Quinn, hasn't had her character leave her office for the majority of the game because her demon's Perception ability allows her to monitor almost all other activity, and thus scenes, on the ship.  That was an element I was really enjoying because it runs entirely counter to the whole concept of an "adventure."  Here is this really compelling complex situation and the character dealing with it never leaves her office.  

Anyway Quinn's player was making a big deal out of how she treats each and every character who comes into her office.  The first time she left her office during this whole game was to go Gentleman Monte's quarters to look at some documents that he claims had mysteriously appeared there.  Upon arriving, Quinn's player looks at me and asks, "Everything has taken place in my office so far.  Now that I'm in his environment how does he treat me?"

*BLINK*, *BLINK*  I was thrown for a complete loop.  I suddenly realized I had no idea how to answer that question.  It had never really struck me as important before.  Which is funny, because I HAD noticed the significance while in her character's office because I was awarding bonus dice based on those details.

So, yeah, methodology matters and from now on I will pay more attention to it on BOTH sides of the table.

Jesse

[Tim C Koppang]

But this comes back to the primary issue; how to communicate this concept to folks who have never heard of it?  I think your idea of a full play example, beginning to end . . . is a great idea.

And I just thought I'd jump in and ask: how would you communicate this concept to the players?  Let's face it, not everyone in the game is going to read the rulebook.  So how do you let them know what's possible as far as expressing character is concerned?  Are the "open" mechanics enough - to the point where you can rely on in-game play to do the trick - or do you need to have a little prep discussion beforehand?  I suppose it would depend on the players.

[Bankuei]

One thing that I find helpful is to explain specifically what is available to players before play begins.  In the case of Trollbabe, I'd emphasize two things:  Player narration and Scene requests.  In play, I'd ask,"Is there any kind of scene you want?"  I think these two mechanics alone open a lot of doors for folks.

The Pool, Inspectres, octaNe, and Dust Devils all also open a lot of doors based on their play.  I think player authorial control is a big step towards understanding on the part of the players.  On the part of the GM, scene framing is the key.  The first part comes out naturally through many of the mechanics, the second part, well, no one has put forth a Scene Framing for Dummies manual yet, but that's something I'd like to see.  It really went over my head until Clinton slapped me with it in Riddle of Steel.

Chris

[Mike Holmes]

One thing that I find helpful is to explain specifically what is available to players before play begins.  In the case of Trollbabe, I'd emphasize two things:  Player narration and Scene requests.  In play, I'd ask,"Is there any kind of scene you want?"  I think these two mechanics alone open a lot of doors for folks.

Yep. Chris has it with the Zen obfuscation technique (also known in psychotherapy as reflection).

Player asks, "How does my character feel about humans?"
I respond, "I don't know. How does she feel about humans?"

Player asks, "What should my character do in a situation like this?"
I respond, "I don't know. What do you think would be cool?"

Beat them over the head like this for a bit, and the players will either strangle you, or they'll get it. I'm still alive, so...

Mike