Damn the continuing story

[contracycle]

Very interesting discussion.  I think this coincides with the recent thread on generating play from character design.  I have come to think that not only is the ongoing campaign a particular type of game, but that its also mostly an ineffective game as described above.  Even the goal that the campaighn game seeks is not addressed by its methodology; it seeks a sequence of stories but that would be better addressed by a non-campaign approach, IMO.

When reading Egri's book I was struck by the extent to which he insisted that everything in the designed work should reinforce the premise.  This was also relevant in foreshadowing, and I think the principles should be applied more strongly to RPG (in lots of ways).  So I have come to think for example that we should really only express for a character those attributes which are of direct relevance to the story; and more particularly, to THIS story.  Campaign play defines a character outside of any given story, but I think we can differentiate between the persona of the character and the mechanical expression of the character.  So that you would design a character for a story as an expression of this fictional person, and then re-express them mechanically for another story.

If a character in linear media had a skill, but they never ever used it in an adventure about which you read, how would you know that it existed?  You wouldn't and couldn't, for it doesn't.  In RPG a character with useless skills is deprotagonised; they are in the wrong story and they are not having much of a bearing on its resolution.

This is something I am rather groping towards, but I think it should be possible to re-approach the conventional structure of designing characters and then stories about those characters (or more often, simply incorporating them).  The alternative would be to design the characters for the story, and represent only those aspects of the characters which have a bearing on that story.  I can see ways to be more open and have story-less, perhaps setting related values, but there might be ground to discover by aiming at a mode of play which starts and stops explicitly, and which portrays only the premise supporting elements of those characters.  My hope is that such a mode would produce premise supportive (although perhaps not necessarily addressing, I don't know) activity automatically without it feeling restrictive, as the player would still be empowered to act in every arena that was important.

[contracycle]

On a related note, I have a questrion about kicker-driven play which mihgt be relevant to this discussion basd on the thoughts I outlined above.  When you have characterrs generating there own premises - of which we have seveal recent cited examples - how do you manage the framing such that none of them terminate prematurely?  I am aware that kicker design is intended to be carried out well prior to actual play, but is merging the timing of kickers resolutions an explicit part of the GM's wotj with them?

I'd like comments fomr those who have used kickers to set up play how they felt about using those characters in continuing play - do you feel like they required new kickers to engage with a new story (as opposed continuing to wander about) or conversely, does anyone feel explicit new kickers would have been intrusive?  Well, any thoughts appreciated.

[Jake Norwood]

I think the beginning/end issue is really the thing that gets me. It's the difference between a movie (say 2 game sessions) and a miniseries or trilogy (perhaps several weeks or even months of play). I've had many very satisfying 1-2 night "stories" and some of my fondest memories involve "campaigns" that both started and ended and which went on for as much as 6 months.

It is all about the story for me, in the long run. I love the thrill of the duel, as it were (see TROS mechanics for combat), but when it comes down to it, the story needs to be worth retelling to someone who isn't a gamer (see TROS SA mechanics).

the 20-year campaign, I think, is really a combination of these things, ala Robert Jordan. He's running a 20-year campaign in his WoT series--and in the eyes of many, it's a lot of fun and very successful (regardless of whether many of us as individuals love or hate what he's doing with his 10,000 literal pages without a solid ending...). WoT is what the 20-year campaign can create at its best. (Well, best is subjective...)

Jake

[John Kim]

I has been my observation that a lot of pre-planned scenarios get created separately from the characters: you can't reliably do that if the game is to have a satsfying classic narrative structure. I think that has something to do with continuing vs. classic-narrative campaign design.

Actually, I think that there are intrinsic qualities to RPGs which cause this.  In RPGs, the narrative is created spontaneously in play and there is no way (or at least little reason) to rewrite what came before.  Even if a scenario is pre-planned around the characters, it was not (and could not) be planned from the start of the campaign.  Unless the campaign is very short, then the progression of scenarios is likely to diverge from what anyone (GM or players) had pictured.  

On the one hand, I don't see anything wrong with this.  Long campaigns produce depth and interest to the characters and setting.  My current campaign has gone 28 sessions and is still going strong, IMO.  Like television or comics or series in many other media, I don't see any reason to stop.  

On the other hand, sometimes you do want to draw things to a satisfactory conclusion instead of letting a campaign peter out.  I think a good step towards this is to have a dramatic premise to the campaign -- i.e. a distinct event which starts off the early chain of events.  Adventures can range widely from this, but hopefully the original event will lead to a series of recurring developments.  

For example, my current campaign was started off by the return of Thorgerd Thordsdotter from exile.  Most of the events of the campaign can be traced to having some relation to that initial premise.  I had no idea where it is going to end up, but I could probably arrange for some sort of tying up of the dramatic premise by arranging a large concluding event which results from this.

[ThreeGee]

Hey all,

To use an analogy, I would like to address dramatic improv. Having done a fair amount, mostly in school, I would say that good improv goes something like this: the actors are given a rough sketch of a situation; they go through the motions as their characters, reacting to the situation; someone introduces a critical piece of information leading to a conflict; the conflict escalates; the conflict is resolved; the actors quickly find a way to end the scene gracefully. Sometimes, we get a series of peaks, but to be good in the narrative sense, each conflict needs to be resolved in a way that leads to even greater conflict. Once the highest peak is reached, the energy quickly leaves the scene.

How does this apply to mini-series and campaigns? It applies in the sense that good dramatic form is roughly the same in any media. What works for books works for movies works for theatre works for role-playing. Improv simply works as a good analogy because many campaigns start with poorly defined characters thrust into a situation.

Later,
Grant

[clehrich]

Hi ThreeGee,

The improv thing has been discussed in various contexts, but you bring up an interesting point.  My only problem with it as a model, though, is that it does tend to presume a pretty short run.  I guess this is my problem with some Nar-type games that are heavy on the improv ideas: they really work best for one-shots.  (Some of them are written so, of course.)  I do believe that a long-running (I'm talking a year or so, not 20) campaign can be wonderful, and is not a myth, but there has to be a lot of thought about long-term goals (in terms of meta-stuff, not just in-character issues) done by all the players.  I think the big problem is when a GM thinks, "Hey, I've got this great campaign world all laid out, and then it will just run itself."  The players, given no long-term guidance or structure, just wander along some story threads, then lose interest.  If the GM forces long-term structure by designing a campaign arc, you've just got a long mini-series, not an endless campaign.

[Marco]

Actually, I think that there are intrinsic qualities to RPGs which cause this.  

No doubt--and serial fiction is as valid a model as "standard narrative." A campaign envisioned as a continuing story is easier to start with "a bunch of guys" as far-reaching growth and development of the story-line is almost a total unknown at start time and there is plenty of room to explore.

If the situation involves a very specific set of events with a definite conclusion (not a pre-planned conclusion, just some logical stopping point) then it's more likely to be satisfying if the characters are wrapped tightly into the situation-design.

-Marco

[contracycle]

If the situation involves a very specific set of events with a definite conclusion (not a pre-planned conclusion, just some logical stopping point) then it's more likely to be satisfying if the characters are wrapped tightly into the situation-design.

I agree.  However I suggest that necessary compromises made at the setup of sundry characters into the very first story pretty much establishes the pattern for that set of characters; all subsequent stories have to be shoehorned into this framework.  This is what makes the production of scenarios so hard, the fact that each existing group has its own particular history of play.  The attempt to posit some sort of socially recognised adventurer in order to provide a common structure has IMO generally tended toward the utterly implausible.  The inherent problem is the character is tightyly bound into their own implicitly developing story or "story" and thus cannot be tightly bound into whatever story the collective you would like to actually do.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi everone,

Gareth: to answer your inquiry about Kicker resolution.  I've only used Kickers once, but it seems to me, like improvised music, like sex, the players all sense the climax starting up -- either within themselves, or off a cue from another player.  The players are either in tune with this and decide to come along for the climax -- or they don't.  As Ron pointed in one of the Sorcerer books (somewhere), there's a fine tradition of Protagonists "showing up" just as the movie is about to finish.  I don't think there's anything wrong with the for RPGs.  Again, though, it's not a matter of "real world" logic, or whatnot -- it's a matter of responding to story.  When the story is starting to climax, you can choose to participate - or not.

Jake (and all): I, too, think long term stories are possible.  As you point out, the beginning/issue is key.

After thinking it over a bit more, it occurred to me that the AD&D model of the campaign is especially strange.  What is the campaign "arc" at its purest form?  Starting at first level and rising.  There is no real completion built into it.  Remember that in the basic rules there were upper levels to reach.  And then supplements allowed you to exceed those.  And then become gods.  I think this encouraged a style of "onward and upward."  Again, the campaign just kept grinding on because, well, it could.  "Where are we going?"  Further.  "When will we get there?"  We don't.  (Or rather, We get there when the group actually can't play anymore.)

Keep in mind that my comments upthread were in reference to folks frustrated with games "petering out" -- which I think is more likely than not without any kind of shape built from the beginning. But I'm sure there are folks who had a blast just playing and playing and playing.

Christopher

[Jack Spencer Jr]

The comparason to soap operas intrigues me. Maybe there's a lesson there that can be applied to RPGs somehow. One thing I've noticed about Soap Operas and things like Soap Operas (pro wrestling) is that it is really, really easy to get caught up in the story. You watch one, maybe two episodes and you can wind up hooked. This makes it hard to get out of the habit because you remain constantly hooked. What is actually going on and how can an RPG mimic this?

[Jason Lee]

The comparason to soap operas intrigues me. Maybe there's a lesson there that can be applied to RPGs somehow. One thing I've noticed about Soap Operas and things like Soap Operas (pro wrestling) is that it is really, really easy to get caught up in the story. You watch one, maybe two episodes and you can wind up hooked. This makes it hard to get out of the habit because you remain constantly hooked. What is actually going on and how can an RPG mimic this?

They lead into the next story thread (conflict) at the end of the episode, then develop that thread (possibly to conclusion) in the following episode.  They sort of force you to watch the next episode by linking all the episodes into one long series of interwoven threads, making it seem like the episodes never really end.

The show 24 is an awesome example.  I can't stop watching the show once I start, pacing is so fast and each episode demands you watch the next one.  24 also feels very RPG to me, albeit one with an extremely cruel GM.  Farscape also does this quite often.

With self contained episodes (Star Trek) you've got no need to watch the next episode.  With TV this is all sorts of complicated, because a continuing story appeals more to regular viewers, but turns off casual viewers.  So, TV has pros and cons directly linked to their pocket book to deal with.  However, with an RPG you can be pretty certain all viewers will be present next episode.

RPG's can mimic this will multiple simultaneous story threads that are paced and conclude independently from one another.  

Example:
Maybe you rescue the princess from the dragon this week, but that meant you had to ignore the orc raid on Nowhereville that was happening.  At the end of the session you can go to the burnt remains of Nowhereville and find children hidden in a well, who tell about how unfair it was that the orcs attacked just after the mountain bandits stole the Incredibly-Powerful-Evil-Item from the village shrine.  So, now next week the characters have to deal with the bandits, but that means letting the orcs burn more villages, so they might instead choose to deal with the orc now and the bandits later.  And so forth, resolving and adding more threads as the character's lives progress.

[clehrich]

I spent two hours waiting for someone in a bar yesterday afternoon, scribbling away on little scraps of paper about soap operas and RPGs.  I'm not going to post all my thoughts on this here (applause, sighs of relief), but here's a few points:

1. Soaps are extremely good at a limited number of things, so using them as an RPG model will tend to encourage your game in certain directions.  

What soaps are good at: (1) continuing forever; (2) highlighting interpersonal drama; (3) handling very large casts of characters; (4) sucking in and holding an audience.

What soaps are not good at: (1) extended action scenes; (2) dominant story-arcs; (3) focusing intently on one issue or set of characters.

Much of the usual RPG model focuses on things which soaps aren't good at.  The example of "24" has been used, but that's not really a soap.  It will end: that's pre-determined.  Soaps are not the same as cliffhangers.

2. The episode structure of the true soap (General Hospital, Days of our Lives, etc.) has to be abstracted from the weekly structure for RPG purposes.  If you've ever watched a soap for a couple weeks straight, you know that nothing happens Tuesday through Thursday.  On Monday you have a setup of stuff left over from Friday, and on Friday you have resolution and some new stuff.  So for RPG purposes, since nobody wants to play the same scenes session after session, we have to think about the entire week as a single session.

3. The session structure of the soap-week, as it were, is built on a series of loosely linked cycles.  We have, let's say, 6 plots running simultaneously.  
-Between the start of the show and the first ad break, most or all of these plots are touched on, at least briefly, and there is an exposition of what went before as well as a setup of this week's dramatic problem.  
-Between the first ad break and the third, we return to each plot, not necessarily in the same order as we first did, and we milk the week's dramatic problem by introducing a delaying factor (a mystery, a confusion, a new character arrives and holds up the private conversation between the main two, etc.); this delaying factor is also a source of tension within the dramatic problem.
-Between the third ad and the show's end, each dramatic problem is concluded in cliffhanger style: it is brought to an emotional and dramatic "high," then cut to reaction shots ("oh my god!" "my baby!" etc.), then end.

4. If we imagine this as an RPG session, you're going to have to have a lot of balls in the air at once.  Every PC must have his own personal plot; the other characters in that story should be played by other players, but the focus is on the main PC.  The group of PCs (assuming we don't want to discard this entirely; I personally cling to the PC group atavistically) should have one and possibly two running plots.  There should be at least one background plot; here the GM may play all the characters, but can certainly farm out a lot of them to players.  By a background plot I mean essentially, "Meanwhile, the villainous rich manipulator is discussing his plans with his current henchmen."

As the game session rolls along, you cut from plot to plot quite rapidly.  At the start of the session, each scene focuses on some dramatic tension or issue for that plot thread; as soon as the drama looks like it's approaching climax, you cut to the next plot.  In the latter part of the session, you actually have the climax occur (fight scenes would be included here).  As soon as the highest point of tension is just barely past, you cut.  This then tells you where to begin that same plot next time: in denouement, leading to drama in reaction, leading to new climax, etc.

5. These several plots have their own dramatic arcs, and are not synchronized.  If a plot is quite dull right now, background it --- spend less time on it until it begins to build again.  When a plot comes to an end (they do), you introduce a new plot for the same slot.  You won't have lots of plots ending at the same time, so there's never really any way to end the campaign with a bang: you just keep going, and going, and going.

If you think this is long, you should see my actual notes!  :>

[John Kim]

...We should really only express for a character those attributes which are of direct relevance to the story; and more particularly, to THIS story.  Campaign play defines a character outside of any given story, but I think we can differentiate between the persona of the character and the mechanical expression of the character.  So that you would design a character for a story as an expression of this fictional person, and then re-express them mechanically for another story.

If a character in linear media had a skill, but they never ever used it in an adventure about which you read, how would you know that it existed?  You wouldn't and couldn't, for it doesn't.  In RPG a character with useless skills is deprotagonised; they are in the wrong story and they are not having much of a bearing on its resolution.

I would disagree with this, both for RPGs and for other writing.  In nearly all of the creative works that I enjoy, the creators have useless detail.  For example, a novel writer may have piles of notes about the family trees of the characters, their language and history, research of their job, and so forth.  In collaborative works like film this is even more true.  A good actor will generally conceive a whole host of unseen detail in order to get a grasp on his character.  Art directors may spend days on a prop or piece of scenery that only gets peripherally seen for a few seconds.  

To me, this is a large part of what I enjoy in fiction:  not the central story (which tends to be very generic), but the sense of character and background.  The central Premise is important to have it for dramatic closure, but that doesn't mean it is most important for the quality of a work.  For example, Tolkien had a huge amount of detail on Middle Earth and even a fair bit of the manuscript before he knew what the story of The Lord of the Rings was about.  

In RPGs, there is a further reason to have useless detail -- because you cannot be sure that it is useless.  Having characters complete with "useless" detail empowers improvisation.  For example, you might think that gardening is a useless skill for the story -- but unless you plan in advance what every scene is going to be, then you don't know for sure.

[Shreyas Sampat]

John:

Then the real issue isn't about the ultimate utility of skills at all; it's about the percieved cost/protagonism ratio.

While a skill isn't being protagonizing, it's deprotagonizing, on the grounds that it probably cost you some kind of Currency to get your hands on it, and now you don't have that Currency to use more immediately.

In every RPG I've played, there has been a great deal of not-immediately-game-related detail, but none of it has been unseen; we traded character histories and dreams, tossed around discussions of their thoughts.  This was really protagonizing, but a whole lot of in-game stuff wasn't, because it had no impact.  To me, "You cannot be sure it is useless" just says to me that "you don't know what your game is interested in".

How this relates to the topic at hand:

The "you cannot be sure it is useless" attitude, IMO, can lead to dysfunctional "campaign" play; players cling to their characters in an attempt to squeeze protagonism out of every game element that they paid for, because so much of it was taken "in case".  Every case of "in case" I've seen was secretly a situation where the player wanted to use that ability, not one where the player thought that the ability would have future utility.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

In RPGs, there is a further reason to have useless detail -- because you cannot be sure that it is useless.  Having characters complete with "useless" detail empowers improvisation.  For example, you might think that gardening is a useless skill for the story -- but unless you plan in advance what every scene is going to be, then you don't know for sure.

Tools
Thirty spokes meet at a nave;
Because of the hole we may use the wheel.
Clay is moulded into a vessel;
Because of the hollow we may use the cup.
Walls are built around a hearth;
Because of the doors we may use the house.
Thus tools come from what exists,
But use from what does not.

This is purely my opinion, and one I had gleaned from the above passage from the Tao Te Ching, hence why I quoted this particular interpolation of the passage.

I personally believe that there is too much emphasis is placed on having things "figured out" ahead of time in RPGs.

[*] A character's abilities are clearly and exhaustively laid out
[*] A character's background is developed and/or written out before play
[*] the setting is defined via the world book or some similar material that lays out not only the lay of the land but also things like the culture and such.[/list:u]
And so on. But with all of this pre-play development, what is left for play? We cannot find out more about a character because we already know all about them via the background. We cannot learn about the setting because it's all there to be read in the setting description. In my mind, all of this makes play redundant. Sure there are places to take games with such preparation, but how much better if this preparation was the focus of play?

This sort of thing is explored a bit in Sorcerer & Sword with the advice on setting development found in that book.