Author Stance

[Bankuei]

Well, Mike, in Trollbabe, I honestly don't know where one begins and the other ends.  In something more like D&D, I see author as being a drift where folks use OOC knowledge to have their character choose to do interesting things, with only minimal plausibility as the requirement.

That might be an interesting excercise...Play D&D with the explicit intention of playing author stance throughout...

Chris

[Mike Holmes]

Huh, I see Author Stance as what D&D most promotes. No drift at all. And usually the sub-set called Pawn Stance.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

THING ONE
Gentlemen, I believe we all established a while ago that "D&D" isn't going to be useful term, as everyone has a different experience and emotional commitment to what playing a game of that title is "like." The Cargo Cults, remember?

Maybe another game title would be useful.

THING TWO
On a more general note, is this helpful?

Overall
Stance refers to the announcement component of IIEE. (Note that "announcement" is handled differently in different games.)

Actor Stance
- The announcement concerns the character's actions.
- The player is operating strictly by his or her personal identification with the character and/or by knowledge and concerns that are identified with the character by others.

Author Stance
- The announcement concerns the character's actions.
- The player is operating from an agenda that the character has no information about or awareness of. This agenda may concern in-game events, out-of-game events, or both.

Director Stance
- The announcement concerns a character, in-game object, or in-game event that is not that person's personal player character.
- The player is operating necessarily from an agenda that the character has no information about or awareness of.

See, it's like you have two issues, Aa or Bb. Actor Stance is AB. Author stance is Ab. Director Stance is ab. You can't have aB (character's actions, no identification); it's not possible.

Note that the GM is just as much a player as anyone else in this system. This is very important. It means that a GM is most often in Director Stance but shifts into Author or Actor Stances for characters that are particularly important to him or her for whatever reason.

Champions and other superhero games GMs will recognize how much stance-shifting they have to do during an elaborate combat scenes with really great villains, for instance.

THING THREE
Mike, I think we should take the IIEE vs. Stance thing to its own thread. At this point, I agree with Ralph - confounding the two issues is muddying the waters. I do think, however, that the two separate concept-sets have identifiable relationships and "usable shared space" between them, just as GNS and Stances do.

Best,
Ron

[Tony Irwin]

Finally, Trollbabe gives power to the players over requesting, and handling conflict, which I think is a very important aspect to expressing character.  When in conflict, you can decide if you just want to bail out early, or be committed towards this, in which case the conflict becomes pivotal, risking relationships and life and limb in the process.  You decide what this conflcit means to your character, which is a very Author sort of thing.

Thanks Chris you've given me some really good stuff. So to put words in your mouth could I say that

conflicts that require a sequence of player commitments

would be a good means for me to build author stance into a game?

I can see how that works for Paladin - every time I activate a trait or use animus it forces me to step back and look at my character and what's happening to them from author stance.

In your opinion what's the trick in making sure that its not actor stance that gets used? I can see how even with a player having to make a sequence of commitments to a conflict that at every step they still might be asking themselves "What would I do now? Would I keep fighting at this point?" which is more actor stance.

I'm musing out loud here - Mike described how metagame stuff can force author stance. Is it because the animus is metagame that it makes the players step outside of their characters into author stance every time a new commitment to the conflict is required?

Onto trollbabe... how is that working? Is the stuff you can activate in conflicts really metagame? Would I be right in hazarding a guess that because all the stuff you can activate for rerolls has the same mechanical effect that it forces you to make an author stance decision? (ie which option is coolest for my character?). But then they don't have the same mechanical effects do they, because you can pick something (like an ally opposed to an item) that will have implications for the whole story not just this conflict. So is that director stance or is that just "stronger" author stance? Thinking about my character's contribution to this story, rather than just this conflict.

Aaah! (light bulb... I hope) Is that the way to do it then, make the traits that a character can bring to bear on a conflict, all have identical impact on the conflict at hand, but potentially very different impacts on the future of the story. That forces the player to look ahead and jump into author stance instead of pawn stance (I'll use an axe because its got better damage) or actor stance (My character loves his bow).

So to give myself some more design specs for building author stance into a game (which Im hungry to do), how does this sound?

Different character traits should make identical contributions to conflict resolution but have different impact on future game events.

Many thanks to all who replied,

Tony

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Tony,

One last thing ... you used the phrase "making them" get into Author Stance, and I think that's a red flag. Mechanics and social elements of play can encourage Stances, but Stances are behaviors - they aren't something you make people do.

All of the games you're talking about are extremely oriented toward the characters' decisions being important, so important, in fact, that they make the story (as opposed to, say, eventually getting to the villain's hideout for the planned fight-scene).

People aren't going to believe you when you tell them this, so all you can do is play - and watch people gradually understand their participatory-power to create the story, and watch them become more comfortable with Author Stance (or rather, with fluid and fun Stance-switching as the moment calls for it).

It might just have been an accident of short-hand writing, but I thought I'd call attention to it for you to consider.

Best,
Ron

[Bankuei]

Hi Tony,

I think I've miscommunicated my idea.  Let me clarify what's going on.  Traditionally, conflict and character are linked in stories, and controlled by one author.  Is Hercules strong?  Conflict: Wrestle the Lion.  The conflict tells us about the character and defines the character.  In most rpgs the conflict/character control gets split up between GM and players.  Since in many games the players can only control their characters and define their characters through their actions, players slide into actor stance.

Ok, theory part done, now to the concrete part.

conflicts that require a sequence of player commitments

No, you're going into something different here.  What I am saying with Trollbabe in particular, is that conflict 1) can be declared by the player, "I want a scene where the Dark Lord tries to tempt me" 2) can be determined HOW important to the game it is by the player("I'll make the 3rd reroll...I'm not going to give into him no matter what!")

The first enables players to say something about their characters in a traditional fashion.  The second, also says a lot about the character based on how important the results are.  Compare failing to open a locked door to failing to catch the arm of a loved one falling off a cliff...  Which one are you going to work harder for?

Bringing this whole idea back to author stance...although calling in a relationship is an excercise in Director stance, it also requires the player to weigh who would be cool to bring in, and who would be worth risking, which are decisions an author would make crafting a scene.

Aaah! (light bulb... I hope) Is that the way to do it then, make the traits that a character can bring to bear on a conflict, all have identical impact on the conflict at hand, but potentially very different impacts on the future of the story.

Well, that's one way to do it.  Let's step back and check Ron's quick recap:

- The player is operating from an agenda that the character has no information about or awareness of. This agenda may concern in-game events, out-of-game events, or both.

So technically, Rune, would also be a good game to look at for Author stance, since the agenda is based off "winning" a scenario, which the character has no idea about.  Riddle of Steel can probably also slide into Author stance rather easily as well...

I'd highly suggest looking at reward systems(which are a great way of encouraging a mode of play) as much as your basic resolution system.  I suspect between the two, its probably possible to encourage anything.

Chris

[Tony Irwin]

What I am saying with Trollbabe in particular, is that conflict 1) can be declared by the player, "I want a scene where the Dark Lord tries to tempt me" 2) can be determined HOW important to the game it is by the player("I'll make the 3rd reroll...I'm not going to give into him no matter what!")

Thanks Chris, I've been ill recently and unable to reply, but appreciated all the posts people have made to my questions.

Yeah I see what you mean now, the scene requesting is really powerful (and essential) when you put it like that. For the rerolls I guess what I said about conflicts requiring (or permitting) a series of commitments from the player would cover that, but then I'm not sure how that couldn't just become actor stance: I'll make the reroll/spend the blood point/whatever because "that's what my character would do"? Does that mean that author stance can be used to reinforce sim play? ie I'll spend my points to ensure that what should happen, does happen.

So technically, Rune, would also be a good game to look at for Author stance, since the agenda is based off "winning" a scenario, which the character has no idea about.  Riddle of Steel can probably also slide into Author stance rather easily as well...

I'd highly suggest looking at reward systems(which are a great way of encouraging a mode of play) as much as your basic resolution system.  I suspect between the two, its probably possible to encourage anything.

Many thanks Chris, (also for the Rune recommendation) its probably about time I carted my ideas over to the indie game design forum.

[Tony Irwin]

Hi Tony,

One last thing ... you used the phrase "making them" get into Author Stance, and I think that's a red flag. Mechanics and social elements of play can encourage Stances, but Stances are behaviors - they aren't something you make people do.

All of the games you're talking about are extremely oriented toward the characters' decisions being important, so important, in fact, that they make the story (as opposed to, say, eventually getting to the villain's hideout for the planned fight-scene)...

...It might just have been an accident of short-hand writing, but I thought I'd call attention to it for you to consider.

No that's a fair call - thanks for pointing it out. When I sat down and thought about my favourite times of playing its when I've been able to switch between actor and author stance as I felt to be appropriate, I've disliked times when the system (or gm) "pulls" me out of character to address metagame stuff. My questions about stance are from a game-design rather than gm point of view, but yeah its easy to forget that achieving fun, not author stance for the sake of it, is my objective.

Tony

[M. J. Young]

For the rerolls I guess what I said about conflicts requiring (or permitting) a series of commitments from the player would cover that, but then I'm not sure how that couldn't just become actor stance: I'll make the reroll/spend the blood point/whatever because "that's what my character would do"? Does that mean that author stance can be used to reinforce sim play? ie I'll spend my points to ensure that what should happen, does happen.

Um--Yes?

At first glance, it may seem that a metagame reroll mechanic is of necessity author stance, that the player wants it to succeed so he spends his capital to get another shot. But is that really what happens? I'm doing a Multiverser interface for a game in which that's part of play; in converting that aspect I've suggested we use a precognitive skill: if the first roll fails, the player can roll the precognitive skill and if that succeeds he can roll again. The in-game interpretation of this is that the character foresaw that what he was doing was going to fail, and adjusted at the last instant to attempt to succeed. Since the situation is then controlled by the result of the reroll, it is entirely possible that this adjustment might turn a failure into a botch. But at no time is it suggested that the character failed and tried again--only that the task was "almost" failed and then recovered.

Similarly, we've all played games in which a character has failed at a task and immediately tried again, or looked for another way to accomplish the same thing, as compared with a situation in which having failed he moved on to something else. Opening a door is a good example. On some doors, characters will knock themselves out if they're having bad dice luck looking for a way to force or finesse their way through. With others, they'll fail once, and move on to the next door. What's the difference? The difference is how badly the character wants to get through that door. Now, what if we had a mechanic which the player could use merely to say, no, he wants to succeed more than usual--in this case, he's putting extra effort into it, and so will give it that extra umph necessary to get it to work. That's represented by a metagame resource, a sort of "how many times can you give it your all" system. It thus could indeed be a simulationist mechanic, if part of the world simulated is that sometimes the characters are able to go above and beyond the norm when something is important to them.

Maybe you already understood this; I wasn't certain from your post, so I thought I'd expand it a bit.

--M. J. Young

[Tony Irwin]

Now, what if we had a mechanic which the player could use merely to say, no, he wants to succeed more than usual--in this case, he's putting extra effort into it, and so will give it that extra umph necessary to get it to work. That's represented by a metagame resource, a sort of "how many times can you give it your all" system. It thus could indeed be a simulationist mechanic, if part of the world simulated is that sometimes the characters are able to go above and beyond the norm when something is important to them.

Maybe you already understood this; I wasn't certain from your post, so I thought I'd expand it a bit.

No I appreciate you expanding that (and especially appreciated the examples you gave), because funnily enough mechanics like that in other games which aren't fully explained in the text* have always left myself and some of the groups i've played with a little confused. ie Is the character meant to be aware of, and choosing to use the blood points/void points or am I, the player, using the blood points/void points?

Sure enough when I looked at the mechanic I've been trying to make, it had the same problem. It was simmy enough to make you feel a little guilty for taking Author stance. (what I really wanted is a mechanic that will encourage efforts to take a step back from the character).

I've spent the week rewriting it, many thanks to you and everyone else who contributed to this thread.

Tony

*These things probably most likely are fully expounded upon in the appropriate texts, they're the kind of questions that would arise in the middle of a game and we'd forget to look them up once the game was over.

[Mike Holmes]

I refer to this phenomenon as Pseudo In-game (which is a shitty term, but I've yet to come up with something better). That is, it's obviously a metagame mechanic, or would be, except it's given some sort of explanation in in-game terms. Karma is always my favorite term for something like this. Sounds like it's just some pool of character metaphysical ability. But usually it's not really.

Is this a bad idea, to confound the issue? Well, I see it as an attempt to allow metagame, but to also simultaneously allow players to not expericence the disjuncture that some report on use of metagame. Does it work? That's hard to say. Is it problematic? Almost certainly so, as you've identified.

Still, it's interesting to think about. One thing that I think a lot of people appreciate around here are the "Dramatic Editing" rules from Adventure! Here's a perfect example of a metagame mechanic that makes no bones about it's metagame nature. It's not a character ability, it's a player thing. As such, there's never any confusion on what's appropriate to use it for.

Mike

[Valamir]

In fact, as I recall, the rules for Dramatic Editing are quite specific that the CHARACTER has no idea at all that this is going on, stressing that it doesn't represent any sort of karmic power on the part of the PC.

I enjoy metagame rules that have an in game reason for existing (in fact my current project uses this extensively).  One problem with them though is when the metagame effect isn't really a very good simulation of the in game justification.  I've seen people argue vehemently over the way "Void" should work based on various eastern philosophical mumbo jumbo* that the game rules didn't fit.

*where "mumbo jumbo" is defined as anything which requires sophisticated thought that I have no interest in :-)

[Mike Holmes]

Right, in a fantastic world of your own devising, this is often a simple thing.

"In the world of Klaytrosand, there is a unifying source of power called Soos. When someone is in tune with this force they can use it to alter the laws of probabilty in their favor, but this simultaneously reduces the measure to which they are in tune with Soos."

Game Effect: Soos is a pool of dice that you can add to any roll.

What's interesting here is how you get the metagame currency in the first place (this is Ron's point from the Sim essay to give credit). If I get Soos for slaying beasts of the dark, that's very in-game. If I get Soos for playing my character well, that's metagame, obviously. Sometimes it's less obvious, however, like getting the points for the character adhering to type.

"Warriors of Glahal get a one die of Soos whenever they say something witty in battle."

That's getting less clear. But it sounds like it could be functional.

I think that the thing you have to concentrate on is rewarding behavior that you'd like to see. Then the question of metagame or not becomes fairly moot, no?

Mike

[Bruce Baugh]

Our intent - I'd have to re-read to see how well we conveyed it - with dramatic editing was that generally characters wouldn't be aware of it in detail but that they might very well realize they've got remarkable luck and the the like. Pulp heroes often do. I have a particular fondness for the moment early on in Attack of the Clones where Anakin immediately leaps out a window miles above ground level to pursue a fleeing bad guy. He knows he can do it, and this is a good thing for a pulp hero to know. (Obi-Wan's later line "I hate it when he does that" just speaks volumes, too...) They just don't realize just how far this celebration of specialness can go.

[Mike Holmes]

Cool point. The extent to which a character is aware of how well the powers that be favor him is a very important consideration.

The Force is a great example of a mechanic that rides the line, however. The characters are aware that they have a mastery of this power, and as such it's much more in-game than what the Pulp character feels in Adventure!. They simply seem to know that they are very competent and that diving in headlong is the best way to accomplish things. So, yes, the universe ends up reinforcing the character's belief in a certain course of action. But the character's are also just as capable of thinking that they're hosed in a very RL way.

"Dr. Skeelevius has us trapped, there's no way we'll ever escape...Professor Wonder! How did you get here?"

Thus the character can follow pulp tropes. If he knew that he had the power to be rescued (as in the Force), then he'd never say that first line above.

Also, we could talk about the potential for self-referentiality in such mechanics. Heinlien's characters would realize that the universe was favoring them against the odds, and thus discover that they were fictional. Cue Over the Edge.

Mike