Layered Premise

[Jack Spencer Jr]

On the drive home last night, something occured to me about Premise in Narrative play. That is, that it can be layered. This may be old news but I'll explain anyway.

Sorcerer has a Premise It's the question of what price you're willing to pay to get what you want. This is the Premise of the game. However, when actually playing, the group could decide to Explore a different Premise like, say, the healing power of love. Whatever. Their play Premise has little or nothing to do with the Premise of the game itself. In a sense, but in another sense it does.

The Premise of the game, as Ron conceived and wrote it, set up the five elements of roleplaying in a particular way. So when the group address the heal power of love premise, they are doing it within the context of paying a price for power. They may never directly address the main premise, but instead address it when addressing their play premises (premii?)

[Mike Holmes]

Yes, that's true, and, yes, it's old news.

A Narrative Premise is whatever question the player is answering. The game can suggest one, but I can't think of one that forces you to answer that and only that premise. Further a player can answer as many questions as can be proposed in a session. So he may be addressing many Narrativist Premises at once.

In fact, Sorcerer is a good example. Because before play begins, the overall Premise is automatically transformed by the players as they decide on the meaning of Humanity. Thus if Humanity is chosen as Sanity, the "What will you do for Power?" uberpremise becomes "How much sanity would you risk for Power?" Then each player making his own character neccessarily defines that even further. Thus if my character is about raising the dead my premise becomes "Is the insanity of being able to raise the dead worth the people who it brings back?" Then in play, this is transformed yet again based on what the character encounters. For example, if he kills someone accidentally the question might become, "Is insanity worse than guilt?"

And meanwhile the player can also, even simultaneously (if he's good), be addressing some other premise about love.

People somewhere along the way got the idea that somehow Narrativist Premise meant some single thing that a particular Narrativist game promotes. But that's just not at all correct. A game can promote adressing certain sorts of questions, but they don't limit the premises as a rule. A Narrativist Premise is simply whatever suitable question the player is having the character address at the moment. And that can be as multivariate as the player is capable of producing in play in conjunction with the other participants.

Mike

[lumpley]

I've been thinking about this too.  A Narrativist Premise is like a family of Egri-premises.  "What would you do for power?" becomes, in play, any of a bajillion possible Egri-premises about power: "pursuing power leads to isolation," "love overcomes ambition," "real power restrains itself," so.

That is to say, in addressing the Premise via her character, the player makes a thematic statement.  Which is, yes, old news.  I just find it useful to think of a Narrativist Premise as a family, not as a single thing.

However, when actually playing, the group could decide to Explore a different Premise like, say, the healing power of love. Whatever. Their play Premise has little or nothing to do with the Premise of the game itself. In a sense, but in another sense it does.

Jack, am I getting you, or did you mean something different? Did you mean that the group might choose to make thematic statements outside of the Premise's family?

-Vincent

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Jack, am I getting you, or did you mean something different? Did you mean that the group might choose to make thematic statements outside of the Premise's family?

Sorta.

What I had meant is that the premise of the game effects any premise that is addressed using that game because this main premise sets into place items of character, system, setting, situation, and color which will inevitably "color" the addressed premise. In effect making it a part of the family, as you had put it.

[John Kim]

What I had meant is that the premise of the game effects any premise that is addressed using that game because this main premise sets into place items of character, system, setting, situation, and color which will inevitably "color" the addressed premise. In effect making it a part of the family, as you had put it.  

Just to throw in my two cents:  I think of a game as consisting of mechanics, setting, and a template for stories (i.e. a "family of Premises").  For example, _Shadowrun_ assumes that the PCs are illicit agents-for-hire, who are contacted and used for one-off operations (aka "shadowruns").  This is it's suggested template for what stories the group should tell.  Similarly, Sorcerer has the template of sorceror's facing personal dilemmas over what they will do for power.  

However, a given group may use some or all of these.  For example, I may use the Hero Wars rules, but not the setting of Glorantha.  On the other hand, I may use both the rules and the setting, but create very different stories from the sort which are suggested by the game.

I have found this important in my gaming because some of my games have had a deconstructionist elements to them: taking a setting and situation from a standard but then twisting it to illuminate its underpinnings.  For example, I have a plan for a chronicle of Vampire: The Masquerade entitled "Williamsburg by Night", which is a deconstruction of many assumptions in V:tM.  The vampires there are secretly promoting a plan for democracy among the Kindred, as well as other revolutionary "new" philosophy.