Better/worse Narrativist (split)

[jdagna]

Maybe this is a good time to throw out a question I've been mulling on.  I come from that Sim/Actor background and happen to enjoy it very much, but I've been trying to wrap my head around Narrativism.  I can understand it as a theory, but what I'm not clear on is what exactly happens during a Narrativist game to make it Narrativist.

So, coming back specifically to this thread... you've defined Gamist and Simulationist players.  What makes a good Narrativist player?  What are his priorities and how does he make his decisions?  On what basis would I say "He's a better narrativist player than she is/"

[Ron Edwards]

This post was split from the thread Neverwinter Nights and GNS.

Best,
Ron

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Justin,

In my opinion, it doesn't take a lot to make a good Narrativist player. The elements I look for are:

- Commitment to the story. That sounds simple, but it does require someone who likes a good story, has read enough of 'em to understand the concept, and is willing to sacrifice "what his character would do" on the altar of "what would make my character's story good."
- Lack of embarassment. The typical gamer embarassment of his hobby doesn't really work. You have to go in ready to enjoy the game.

Well, shit, that's it. Someone else might have more to add, but I've had good luck with anyone who could manage the above.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I think I know what Clinton's driving at with this passage:

someone who likes a good story, has read enough of 'em to understand the concept, and is willing to sacrifice "what his character would do" on the altar of "what would make my character's story good."

... but in practice, I've found it to be confusing as stated. In my mind, from a novel, comics, or film based perspective, "story" is often or even usually synonymous with "character does." It's not a procedural issue; you have one author, and the audience sees the story as is. (Well, OK, sometimes more than one author; the point is that audience and author are different entities.)

In role-playing, things are trickier because authors and audience are the same people. Clinton, what do you think of this phrasing?

The Narrativist role-player is determined to establish, over all else, that his or her character's actions are about something. The player reserves the right to say when this happens, and what the something is, up to and including developing them through play rather than having them all set on the sheet.

My claim is that when this is happening as a shared group-priority, "story" is created. It's not the only way that a story is created, in role-playing terms. It's one way, and I think an effective one. What defines the Narrativism, though, is not the brute fact that "we made a story" but rather the agenda underlying the actual people's decisions during play.

Best,
Ron

[Bankuei]

Hi Justin,

I'm not really down with the idea of "better/worse" G/N/S player, I think that issue is highly subjective and wrapped up with a lot of other social issues.

However, I can give you an example of "what happens" in Narrativist play, and the kind of thinking that would be going on.  Consider Boromir's death at the end of the LOTR movie.  Let's say this was a rpg, and we'll say Bill is playing Boromir.

Let's say that Bill decides he wants Boromir to die dramatically.  This is his intention.  Now things can go a few different ways, depending on the group's social contract, style of play, and system:

1-Bill can request for a dramatic death scene and gets it, either through rules(the Pool), or the GM(and/or whole group) says, "Yeah, that's cool!"  Somebody narrates it, and its all heroic, tragic, and stuff, and people are a bit sad that Boromir is dead, but all the players are like, "That was cool though!"

2-GM delivers fight scene, and Bill decides Boromir's time is up.  Other than that, as above.

3-Whether requested or not, fight scene occurs, mechanics come into play, and Boromir dies.  Whoever gets narrative rights makes it all cool and dramatically appropriate.

4-As #3, except Boromir's death is wack and undramatic. "You get hit with an arrow, and fall, your head hits a rock.  You dead."  Group in general, and player is unsatisfied and unfulfilled.

5-GM steps in and uses his power to "engineer" a way for Boromir to live(Deus Ex Machina, last minute rescue, fudging dice, etc.).  If Bill wants Boromir to die, he just got his idea for "what's cool" all stepped on...

There's tons of subvariations and varieties more than what I list above, but consider the differences.  Bill gets an idea of what would be cool according to his idea of storytelling and narrative sense.  The GM may buy into the idea, may have a different idea, whatever.  

Can this sense of what the group considers cool and dramatically appropriate happen?  Making it a priority to happen, through rules or social contract, drift or whatever is what Narrativist play is about.

This depends on a lot of things.  

System- Many systems are designed to try to kick out more #3 than #4 situations.  Consider the various games that use "Hero" or "Luck" points as an in-game way of "fudging" the system.

The Social Contract- The GM and the players can make the difference between #5 and #1 happening.  This may be explicit, or more likely not spoken of, except as, "style of play", "good/bad GM/player".

The Band thing-As individuals, each person may have similar things about "what is cool" or very different ones.  When you're talking about the band analogy, everyone has to give everyone else enough musical space to play around, but not go so far off track as to disrupt the song("Don Fertelli, he was wacked...by Space Nazi Ninja Zombies!").  Its this ability to vibe on the same or different levels of what is cool that makes a group work or fall in the above regards.

If you check out the examples above, #1, 2, and 3 are all viable means of having Narrativist play happen, the key point is that the focus is shifted away from "What should happen plausibly?" and "What should happen for balance/according to the rules?" and goes into "What would be dramatically cool?"  In #4, no one really thinks its cool, so it falls from the Narrative range, and #5 involves one person getting what they think is cool at the cost of another, which typically happens without discussion or negotiation.  

Games which address this issue(Donjon, Pool, Inspectres, octaNe) give rules to determine who gets to make their personal vision of "what's cool" happen, which is a functional way to play.  Many games do not address this issue and it ends up being the "GM's fiat" which steps on the players' ideas and becomes the one man show.

Does this help at all?

Chris

[Mike Holmes]

Let's say that Bill decides he wants Boromir to die dramatically.  This is his intention.

This is all you really had to say. Simulationists will not want the character to die, because the character dies not want to die. The Narrativist looks at the possible theme to be created by the death, and says, "I want that."

Does the player have the character do something out of character to get that? No, as Ron points out, that doesn't make sense. No, the Narrativist finds some reason for the character to take some action that makes sense, and will still get him killed.

Thus, if a player playing Thod Giantslayer sees an opportunity for great ending for his character, he does not simply have Thod kneel before the Ultra-powerful Dark Lord (TM). He charges into a hopeless battle with his axe swinging, chanting the battlesong of his village as he tried to avenge the deaths of his friends. Either way we know he's going to die. But with the latter description, it's in character, and therefore meaningful.

The Sim player has Thod run away to fight another day...unless he can really, really feel that attacking the Dark Lord is really, really what Thod would do in this case.

Mike

[clehrich]

I think another part of the Narrativist player's priorities has to do with what the group seems to think would be cool and fun right now.  Now I do not mean that Gamist and Simulationist players do not care about the social contract.  Let's try Thod Wossname from Mike's post as an example.

The player thinks it would be awesome for Thod to get smeared into jelly by the Dark Lord right now.  He goes into a berserk frenzy, foam-at-mouth in appropriate style, and charges in axe swinging.  Since he does this because it's cool, that's in a sense a Narrativist approach.

But suppose the other players are thinking, "What, is he stupid?  I mean, we had a whole plan here, why is he messing everything up just to have a cool death scene?"  Okay, then his choice is still Nar, but not a great choice.

Instead, in this situation, he could go into a whole berserk frenzy thing except for:

1. He drops his axe, and decides to go in barehanded
2. He gives a LOT of warning to the other players/PCs
3. He fudges his berserk strength a bit, if necessary, so that the other guys can sit on his head and put ice in his shorts until he calms down

So now you've got double prioritization.  On the one hand, no sane Sim player decides that his character is going to attack the Dark Lord barehanded, unless the dice or some other definite factor indicates that he has to go berserk.  On the other hand, although the player thinks it would be cool for Thod to die this way, he recognizes that it will piss off his friends the other players, so he has Thod give a lot more warning than is usual.

I don't know, does this help, or make sense in any way?

[soundwave]

The player thinks it would be awesome for Thod to get smeared into jelly by the Dark Lord right now.  He goes into a berserk frenzy, foam-at-mouth in appropriate style, and charges in axe swinging.  Since he does this because it's cool, that's in a sense a Narrativist approach.

But suppose the other players are thinking, "What, is he stupid?  I mean, we had a whole plan here, why is he messing everything up just to have a cool death scene?"  Okay, then his choice is still Nar, but not a great choice.

This just sounds to me like a classic example of dysfunctional play caused by differing priorities.

You've got Thod's player operating on Nar/Theme priorities, but the others operating with mixed Sim/Character and Gam/Tactical priorities. The two groups want different things out of the game, so one or the other group is likely to end up somewhat dissatisfied with any outcome here.

[clehrich]

This just sounds to me like a classic example of dysfunctional play caused by differing priorities. ... You've got Thod's player operating on Nar/Theme priorities, but the others operating with mixed Sim/Character and Gam/Tactical priorities. The two groups want different things out of the game, so one or the other group is likely to end up somewhat dissatisfied with any outcome here.

Sorry, I'm not being clear about why the rest of the gang are annoyed.  It's not because they want to win, it's because they all agree that the story will be more satisfying, aesthetically and morally, if Thod masters his impetuous nature for a minute and the whole group manages to hang on to the plan.  Suppose, for example, that a big focus of play has been the difficulty of keeping this party together to Do Good, when actually none of them like each other much because of deep-rooted racial prejudices.  For them all to pull together for a while, in the name of a higher purpose, is something they've been working at.  For Thod suddenly to say, "Oh well, my guy goes berserk, cuz I think that makes a good story, and the hell with what you guys think makes a satisfying way for the whole group to deal with our longstanding Premise," is self-centered and annoying.  Narrativist, though.

Let's not push any one choice or example too hard, okay?  GNS can't be judged at that level anyway, and this isn't the GNS forum.  So long as you see more or less what I mean, let's not sweat the details.

[jdagna]

I think that's all making sense - thanks to everyone.  Ron, your clarification of Clinton's answer was particularly helpful.

My question over better/worse wasn't particularly about trying to score or rank players, but to define what elements made a Narrativist player good.  I'm sure we've all been in a situation where we thought "Damn, I want to play with him again!" about someone.

I think my hangup in understanding Narrativist play is that so many answers seem similar to what I've seen in Sim/Gam games - especially the classic "cool death scene" example since everyone wants a cool death scene in any style.  And everyone winds up with a story, even if Sim or Gam players have an almost coincidental story.

So, if I were going to say what made a good Narrativist player, it seems like it would be the same things that make a good author - the ability to craft a story and give it meaning.

[soundwave]

Sorry, I'm not being clear about why the rest of the gang are annoyed.  It's not because they want to win, it's because they all agree that the story will be more satisfying, aesthetically and morally, if Thod masters his impetuous nature for a minute and the whole group manages to hang on to the plan.

Ah. Okay. I mis-understood the example.

Certainly, Narrativism requires a lot of co-operation between players, usually with a common basis to operate on, and similar, identical or complimentary priorities.

I guess that was the point I was making about your example: that it wasn't a great example of (other than the disagreement about the satisfaction to be gained from Thod's behaviour) functional Narrativst play, because the different groups of players had different and conflicting priorities. Of course, now that you've clarified your example, it no longer serves for this point.

As for this not being the GNS forum... well, this thread is about Narrativism, and explaining what that is exactly. Maybe this thread really belongs over there anyway.

[clehrich]

Hmm.  Let me drop our pal Thod, since I really wasn't talking about either the cool death scene per se, nor the "making a story" part in the abstract.  I'm talking about constructing story in a social contract, so that it shifts everyone toward the desired Premise or story structure or whatever.

As an Actual Play example, back when I ran a T'ang Dynasty China campaign called Manifest Dynasty, I had two players  -- I'll call them John and Mark for shorthand -- whose characters were wandering around the festival together, and did the following.  Pay attention to Mark here.  Note that this was a Ninja Hero campaign, i.e. a game whose entire focus and center was "get from point A to point B and have as many really complicated fights as possible."

John is a very elderly (but spry) super-powerful kung fu master, as in flying and having superpowers kind of master.  He's also about 112, and looks it.  You know, a classic.
Mark is a sort of likeable rogue, a bit of a thief, a bit of a fighter, a bit of a screwup, who's in it for the money.  But he can be very charming.  He's also a woman in drag, but that's irrelevant at the moment.
Scene:  PCs are in a wild night market in Ch'ang'an, the capitol city, during a huge annual festival (the Ghost Festival).  Thick bustling crowds everywhere, hawkers hawking roasted unidentifiable munchies, gamblers, craziness, fireworks, a generally grand time for all.

A very large Drunk, with rippling muscles and obvious knives, bumps into John very hard, and knocks him down.  The Drunk guffaws.

John (getting up): Excuse me, sir, but I believe you ought to apologize to me.
Drunk: Apologize?  Haw haw!  To a dried-up old turd like you?
John: Confucius teaches that you should respect your elders.
Drunk: Yeah?  I respect you so much, I'm gonna help you sit down comfortably, grampa!  (pushes John hard; John sits down, although he's not actually knocked down at all)
Mark (noticing all this, speaking to several bystanders): I'll give you 20:1 the old guy hands him his baboon prick on a pole!  

(lots of people jump in and start laying down odds)

John (noticing all this with his acute senses): Really, youngster, you should apologize, or I shall have to make you pay the consequences of your rash actions.
Drunk: Yeah?  (smacks John, who falls as though poleaxed to the ground and lies still)

[Crowd now moves on, bored.  Mark pays what he owes, then heads over to John.]

Mark: You stink, you know that?  That was almost all I had!
John (who isn't unconscious, of course): Gambling is immoral.
Mark: So's lying.
John: I have taught you an important lesson.  Now learn from it.
Mark: I'll learn you, you stinker.  That was your own money.
John: What?
Mark: I swiped it, and was trying to make enough for the rest of the trip.  [Note that this was in fact news to the GM, but wasn't in any way a major plot element]
John: Still....
Mark: So what have you learned, old man?

The crowd, noticing what's going on here, starts moving back to the scene.  There is an ugly word in the air: "fix."  Soon the fight begins again, this time in earnest, and the old man is desperately trying not to kill anybody.

Mark (to anyone nearby): Hey, whaddya say?  30:1?  I mean, now he's outnumbered, right?  Money money money!

---------------------
So what's the point of all this?

1. Mark was a bystander to a great combat scene, with really way-out martial arts and whatnot.  He could have joined in -- it was in-character and so on, but he chose to make a better story out of it.

2. Mark noticed that this argument was initially quite pointless, and made it into a story element, simply by doing the gambling thing.

3. Despite the fact that Mark didn't do anything but have a conversation and lay down some bets -- and this was a Ninja Hero campaign, where whacking people is pretty much de rigeur, in fact arguably the premise of the game -- this was one of the funniest, most memorable scenes of the whole game.

4. Mark's entire object, as a player (he says), was to wind up the situation to make it more fun.  He didn't give a damn about his own character, just whether it would be fun, and he thought it would be the most fun if the central attraction were John.  So he made it happen, entirely in-character.

To me, this is great Narrativist play.

Sorry to run on so long, but I thought a real play example would help, and I wanted to point out that good Narrativist play doesn't necessarily have anything to do with your own character in any sense.

[Bankuei]

Hi Justin,

Sorry if my example confused you more, but the basic point of it is that player and/or group focuses on dramatic satisfaction over all else.  That means they're either choosing systems that facilitate that idea or else drifting(fudging) the rules of a game to make it work.

The key difference isn't just that someone wants a cool death, but that they want to die.  Do you see the difference?  Both the Sim and Gamist player will accept a cool death if they have to, but only the Narrativist will say, "No, I want my character to die!", "I want my character to fail!", and not because it "makes sense" but because it is dramatically satisfying.

Does that clarify things for you?

Chris

[Eric J-D]

Justin,

I'm new here, so bear with me if I get some things wrong, but it seems to me that Ron, Mike and Chris have covered this well.   Chris's statement

The key difference isn't just that someone wants a cool death, but that they want to die . Do you see the difference? Both the Sim and Gamist player will accept a cool death if they have to, but only the Narrativist will say, "No, I want my character to die!", "I want my character to fail!", and not because it "makes sense" but because it is dramatically satisfying.

gets at the heart of the thing that both Ron and Mike mentioned, namely that narrativist play involves player prioritization of theme/premise (in Ron's words "The Narrativist role-player['s]...determin[ation] to establish, over all else, that his or her character's actions are about something") as opposed to either of the following:

1.  character determination that his or her actions be about something, which smells of Sim and, if this is to be a truly faithful Sim prioritization of exploration of character, is unlikely since the character, unless suicidal, presumably does not want to die.

2.  player acceptance of the cool or dramatic death, since this relegates the player to a passive position with respect to play and to decisions about the character, the meaning of the death, its role in the narrative, etc.

If I am wrong on any of this, please let me know.

As an aside, I should say that I wish all of this game theory had been available to me 20 years ago.  It would have greatly aided my ability to diagnose what was going wrong in the group that I gamed with.

Cheers,

zhlubb

[Mike Holmes]

I think that you've got it about right. I especially like how you note the acceptance thing.

Note that the death example is used primarily because in most games it represents the biggest chunk of game currency. When you die, you're cashing in the entire character's value in most games. What do you get in return for a "good" death?

Well, for the Gamist it's the sense that the challenge was fair, and that there was a chance of loss. This will really pay off on the next play as the player will feel the heat.

For the Sim player, it's the sense that the world is arbitrary. That it works "like it's supposed to".

For the Nar player, it's the story outcome. If the death made a good ending, then it's all worthwhile.

BTW, back to what makes a "good" Narrativist. I think that someone (Chris) had a good point when they said that the really good Narrativist makes the story not only entertaining for themselves, but for the other participants as well.

I'm a greedy Narrativist, and therefore not always all that good. :-)

Mike